The bed is in the same place. Pretty much everything else is different.
The cushions on the new chairs will need a couple of days to finish expanding, but they’ve come a long way in about two hours since I sliced open the vacuum sealed package they shipped in.
One cat shows tentative approval. The other is hiding in terror, though she was all over the new chairs as I was putting them together. The rug was just too much for her tender little soul though.
The mirror is kinda my crowning achievement. The two paintings behind the bed were a nightmare to hang and will forever feel like the bane of my existence.
Robert wrote this post while whistling past american’s graveyard.
Yeah, my last post said it feels like a normal Monday. That feeling went right down the crapper about 20 minutes after I published the post. Fun.
I did get a nice cat pic for today’s photo a day thing. Number 184/365. We’re over half way through the project… again. I mean, this is the sixth year in a row I’ve done this thing. I shouldn’t call it a photo a day for a year thing anymore, I should call it a photo a day for a decade thing. Anyway, here’s Robin Sparkles the photogenic feline.
Tracking is finished. I added lead guitars to the last three songs and then started mixing. I’ve plowed through three mixes already but there are still five left to do. The phrase that pays as far as mixing goes is “quick and dirty.” I just want something to upload, it is not going to be anything particularly good but it will exist and that’s good enough for me today.
This was the last song I started working on, and the last song to get vocals, and the last song to get lead guitars, and the 11th song to be mixed.
Also, I played my Les Paul Custom today and it came through for me on this song. I actually enjoy the leads here. That’s not normal for me on this year’s project.
This morning I snuck in a few pics to cover today’s photo a day challenge picture. I had just finished adding the final tracks to a song and I picked up the camera while listening to the playback. Here is today’s entry, 180/365:
Two days in a row now I have skipped my daily exercise. Uh oh, bad habits forming over here!
Why? So I could record guitar tracks for RPM Challenge songs. That seems like a good reason. It will probably happen again tomorrow but instead of guitar it will be recording vocals in the car… assuming I can write the vocal parts for the last two songs before I fall asleep tonight. That’s a pretty big if.
Should I manage to get up early enough tomorrow I might be able to sneak some guitar playing in before work too. What about saxophone? I’m not sure if any of the remaining songs have plans for sax or not. I think one or two might. I also think I might just make a game time decision and change those planned sax parts to guitar parts. We’ll see. I put sax on four songs so far. That’s 20% of the entire project. That seems like an acceptable amount… though 25 or 30% seems more acceptable. We’ll have to see.
Once all of the songs are mixed (and hopefully that means all 20 songs and not some smaller number because I just declared mixing done while there were still songs outstanding) I have to pick an album running order. I might actually do three playlists. One with the 10 electric songs, another with the 10 acoustic songs, and then one with just the best 10 overall. That would be the one that I declare the Official 2025 RPM Challenge Album Submission, whatever that means. I thought about using AI to generate an image for the album cover but AI is fucking evil so I will just “borrow” something off of wikipedia. The working title of the final album is still Groundhogs Wear Top Hats but I might change that to Groundhogs and Top Hats to make the image search a little less ridiculous. We’ll see.
For now though, here are this morning’s stupid pics. I switched from the 85mm f1.8 lens to the 40mm f2.0 lens to give myself a little bit of a new option for the same old pics. The first one is today’s photo a day picture (179/365).
Since today is an office day for me and I am in a state of near panic over the current status of my RPM Challenge project, I decided to screw up my daily routine. Instead of getting up early and getting my daily exercise in, I got up early and recorded some guitar parts. I didn’t get up as early as I had planned, so I didn’t get through as much tracking as I had planned, but I did add rhythm (acoustic 12-string) guitars to one song and lead (electric 6-string) guitars to two. Actually, one song got both.
Acoustic guitar…
Electric guitar (which also serves as today’s photo a day challenge picture, 178/365)…
There is a very good chance I am going to make the same change tomorrow as it too is an in the office day. I am out of control and it’s all RPM’s fault!
I was sneaky this morning and I did something that if I were smart and responsible I probably would not have done. I did not oversleep at all, which is kind of miraculous. That means I was able to get my morning exercise in nice and early. It’s an in-the-office work day today and usually on those days I start packing up and getting ready to go as soon as the exercise is over.
Because I finished early I decided to sneak in a little guitar playing. I put two tracks of acoustic guitar onto one RPM Challenge song. It was the one that I started working on last night. Now it’s on the list of songs that are ready for tomorrow’s expected singing in the car session. Nice. If I had more time I would have tried to sneak in a second song, but that would have been pressing my luck. I smartly didn’t even try.
I did take today’s photo a day picture. Day 172/365, to be exact. It’s a guitar pic, of course.
This wasn’t the pic I had planned though. The pic I had planned ended up being awful, as you can see here:
Oh well. Here’s hoping I can write some lyrics and some melodies so that I can have a lot of stuff ready for singing in the car on my vacation day tomorrow. Fingers crossed I can make the time for it tonight.
Today’s Photo a Day pic is a guitar, again. I recorded rhythm tracks for two songs before work this morning. I wanted more, but I struggled quite a bit and it slowed me down.
I put guitars onto a couple of RPM Challenge songs this morning, but I am trying to focus on writing lyrics and melodies now. I’m having a tough time. I’ll stick with it though, I want to record some vocals tomorrow and I need a bunch of songs prepped before then.
After all of the shoveling today I am beat, but at least up until now (4:30pm) my stomach has been behaving pretty well… so that’s good.
Inside the Red Head's Head 