Tag: shelter in place

June Music

I figured I’d give a quick update on the June Music project even though no one else on Earth gives a shit. I give a shit, so here we go.

There are seven songs in the works. All have the MIDI tracks, drums and bass, complete. One has a piano as a placeholder for the melody. Three, as of this afternoon, have rhythm guitars.

Two songs used the KTR and the D&M Drive pedals. It was my first crack at substituting the D&M for the OCD. It didn’t work well. I had the output on the KTR maxed and the drive off. The D&M didn’t seem capable of handling that signal and it got really mushy. I used the ES 335 on the first song I did and wasn’t happy with the sound. The string buzz may have been making it worse so I switched to the Les Paul. It was a little better, but not much. So two songs have less than good guitar sound. It’s good enough to roll with for now. I don’t think I’ll change it. The third song used the Les Paul but just the KTR. I wanted a cleanish sound, so I shut off the D&M. That sounded pretty good.

After I was done I set to some major tweaking and found something that was much better. I lowered the output on the KTR, lowered the output and the gain on the D&M, an added a little treble on the KTR. That was better. I will try recording with that setup. I was hoping to just use the RYRA The Klone pedal this month but the whole racist pedal builder shit made me want to experiment with the gig setup more. I also pulled a couple of other overdrive and fuzz pedals out of storage. I might try pairing different things with the RYRA. We can sort of consider June as Lab time. Let the tinkering continue.

One thing I do know… it’d been over a week since I had played at all. With all of this quarantine, social distance shit going on… playing is good for my mindset. If I don’t play for a longish period of time I start getting under people’s skin. The more I play the easier I am to be around. It’s definitely a good way to work out my quarantinie frustration. I knew it would be, but I think I have some evidence to support that original theory now.

Playing helps me not be an asshole… therefore I should play more.

QED.

The Stir Crazy Files – Episode 44

I think I did the math right (the math involved counting) which means 12 weeks ago today was the last day I spent in the office. More math: (12/52)*100 = the percentage of the year that has been spent in quarantinish. What’s the value? Why, 23%. We’ve been in social distance lock down for almost a quarter of the year. Yippee!

Patches, my cat, is standing firm on her belief that my desk is her desk. I have two desks right now and she has made this declaration about both of them. She’s sitting on my desk as I type this, and if I stop typing for a second she’ll sit on the keyboard. She’s staring at my hands, willing them to get the hell out of the way so she can sit down.

Correction, she just moved from my left side to my right side and sat on my track pad. Cat!

Over the last few days I have found very few moments where something goofy happened that could be blamed on the lock down. It’s basically normal life now. Our society is dissolving all around us, but being locked in the house is no longer a symptom, it’s just the way things are. That’s kinda sad.

It’s Friday though. I’m about nine hours shy of the weekend. I can make it… I think. It’s been almost a month since my beloved bride cut my hair. She told me she wants to give it another shot this weekend. I’m game. Let’s do it.

I think I am going to go punch into work now. I have to move to the other desk so I don’t drive my love nuts as she works. I’m guessing the cat will invade my space (her space) soon after I get there.

23% of the year down… still going. Have a good one, everyone. There will likely be cat pics later.

Good day.

Unlucky 4th of July Test

The City of Methuen is trying to salvage their 4th of July celebration while still maintaining social distance and fighting the spread of COVID-19.

Obviously the standard celebration is kaput this year. No way we can flood one small section of the city with people without causing a major spike in infections. City Hall… or the Mayor’s Office… or someone in city government, I don’t know who, came up with the idea of launching fireworks from the highest elevation in town.

But would it work? Would people all around town be able to see anything? A test was in order.

Tonight at 8:45pm the city lit off fireworks for about a minute from Pie Hill in the Eastern part of town. Residents were asked to go outside at that time and see if they could see anything. A Facebook thread was setup where folks could share the results with everyone else.

Jen, Harry, and I went outside a minute or so early. It’s beautiful out, but we live in the woods and the bugs were out in force. We waited a few minutes but didn’t see or hear anything.

Bummer.

Maybe there’s a higher elevation they could try? Probably not.

The Stir Crazy Files – Episode 43

See look, he’s posting as normal. There’s nothing wrong. Society didn’t end last night when the so called president ordered troops onto the streets of Washington in order to put down constitutionally protected rights. No, there’s nothing wrong.

I just changed the cat’s litter box. I dumped it all into a garbage bag and took it out to the trash. I enjoy one aspect of this process. Since the squirrels in our yard gnaw holes in the barrel covers so that they can climb inside and eat our trash, when I put the contents of the litter box into the barrel I am literally telling the squirrels to eat shit.

See? Nothing wrong. Life just going on as it was before the fascists ordered armed troops onto the streets of the nation’s capital. No problem.

COVID-19 Numbers

Here’s what I have for today:

  • Methuen, MA
    • Total Cases: 894 (up 13 from yesterday)
    • Deaths: 49
    • Death Rate: 5.48%
  • Massachusetts
    • Total Cases: 94,220 (up 527 from yesterday)
    • Deaths: 6,547
    • Death Rate: 6.95%
  • United States
    • Total Cases: 1,695,776 (up 20,244 from yesterday)
    • Deaths: 100,047
    • Death Rate: 5.90%

Congratulations, USA. We’ve hit 100,000 deaths today. Look at all the happy MAGAs. Look at that president glowing about how awesome our response to this has been. One Hundred Thousand dead Americans. It’s all on you, Trump. You evil nazi piece of shit.

Stranger Danger

Wanna talk about COVID-19 stress? Well… COVID-19 stress that doesn’t actually involve any COVID-19?

Two. Not one, two. Two plumbers in the house. Not even at the same time.

We knew our plumbing needed looking to. It rained in the cellar on Saturday and that’s… what’s the word… bad. So an appointment was made for today to have the kitchen sink and the dishwasher looked at, as well as to see if there was any damage to the floor that we would need to take care of.

Our appointment window was between 8:00 am and noon. The first guy showed up reasonably early but he wasn’t The Plumber, he was the manager. His deal was sewer issues so he was just checking in. Personally, given the global pandemic and the 98,000 deaths in the US alone, I would have done this over the phone. Whatever. He offered to take a look at the floor from the cellar perspective and said he thought it was okay. No structural issues, no health issues. He gave his card in case we want to fix the tiled floor down stairs, and said he’d check on the actual plumber to get an estimate of his arrival.

The actual plumber arrived a little before noon. He thought he knew what our problem was as soon as I started describing it to him. He also looked around down cellar and the more we talked the more he was sure we just had a clog in the pipe somewhere. Okay. Our sink didn’t give easy access to allow him to run a snake so he had to make some adjustments. Once that was all set he was able to snake out the drain and by 1:30 or so it was all over. At least I hope it was. We have a six month guarantee, but I hope we never have to use it.

And all was right with the kitchen again. Except…

Except that I spent some time with two strangers today. We were all wearing masks, and they were wearing gloves. Jen never came near either of them but she was wearing a mask too. They put the paperwork down on the counter, walked away, then I signed with my own pen, walked away, and they picked it up. All sorts of safe stuff like that. My gut instinct was to shake people’s hands, but I absolutely did not. I was able to suppress my lifelong learned behavior. Good boy.

So nothing bad happened, everyone followed the rules, and still I am super nervous. We made sure to do this on a day when Harry and his autoimmune diseases wasn’t in the house. I will continue the paranoia by quarantining myself for two weeks. No hugs for the kids for this guy. Ugh.

Two weeks from today means my self imposed sort of exile ends on June 9th… just in time to start again when the new dishwasher is delivered on June 16th.

Yippee. Can this be over now? Vaccine, please?

The Stir Crazy Files – Episode 41

There’s a work crew next door running two leaf blowers, a weed whacker, and a huge riding mower, all at the same time. They are louder than a Lizardfish concert. It’s insane.

It’s also making me want to play a Lizardfish concert.

Stupid quarantine.

The Stir Crazy Files – Episode 40

The kids just went for a drive. They are going to be gone all afternoon.

They are responsible, they are mature, they are ridiculously smart. I have no doubt that they will be safe and not do anything that will expose them to the ‘rona.

Still.

Color me scared shitless. Can things go back to normal now? Pretty please?