It’s 10:00pm and I am going to bed.
Tomorrow is a vacation day and I am planning to spend as much time as I can working on the RPM Challenge. Call it a music day. There will be singing, there will be guitar playing, there will be music and lyric writing, and there may even be some saxophone playing. A crazy day is in store.
For now though… I’m dead on my feet. It’s time for bed.
The first day of vacation is the last day before we fly to Florida. Lots of stuff going on. My suitcase is packed by my carry on bag and my back pack are not.
We have to run out to do a bunch of errands, then go to pick up my mother in law, then come back and meet up with my step daughter and get something to eat, then finish the packing, then hopefully go to bed early because the plane leaves Logan Airport at about four days before dawn, or something like that.
We also have to plan our Disney World park visits and what our ride preferences are.
Busy day!
The car has new breaks and new tires.
A couch has been purchased and a delivery has been scheduled.
My step son is home safe and sound even though I’d much rather he were still here with us. The nest is empty once again. Boo.
All that remains is to go grocery shopping and to cook dinner. I think I’ll get started on that now.
My step son is going to be leaving us pretty soon. I’m sad. The potential for a bummer mix of a day is pretty high. I’ll try to make the most of it. We’ll see.
We had plans for today but I think we’re going to scrap them, or completely alter them, or flat our replace them. I don’t know. Maybe I should just go back to sleep. That would be fun, eh? It’s almost 8:00am. Time for a nap! WOOHOO!
I’m down to the final minutes of my lunch break on this fine Friday afternoon. I am pretty exhausted from a lack of sleep over the past… month(s) but I’m hanging in there. I had some Purdue Popcorn chicken and some peanuts and some sugar free Hershey bites for lunch. I really want a drink of water but I still have to wait the better part of an hour before I am clear to drink anything. That’s a gastric bypass patient thing. If you know, you know.
Fed Ex delivered a package today. I am not home to get it, but it contains a new guitar pedal. If I read the amazon shipping notes correctly, it’s a compressor pedal. The first I’ve ever purchased. I have this weird idea of using cleaner guitar sounds for this year’s RPM Challenge in February and a compressor will be a part of that. I bought an MXR Dyna Comp because it’s super simple and it will let me squash my clean signal down to a delightfully mushy… mush. There are two more pedals coming over the weekend. One is a Flanger, the other is an Amp Sim. I don’t have room on my pedal board for any of these kiddos and I don’t have open slots on my power brick… so I am going to need to get creative, I think. It should be fun. I don’t think I bought a single guitar pedal during all of 2024. I know I bought a couple of microphones for band practices that haven’t actually happened yet, but no pedals.
There are a lot of tentative plans for the weekend. We may be messing with our living room and we may be going to some stores for research purposes. I hope to spend some time wandering around town taking pictures with my new/possibly antique (though probably not) camera. I got a gift card for the sugar free bakery in Salem, NH for xmas. I haven’t bought anything from them in about a month, but now I am definitely going back and getting some cookies. Good stuff.
What else… I thought there was something else… One of our cars is going to get a break job. That wasn’t the thing that I am forgetting though… am I going to go shopping for a new iPhone? That’s definitely on the to-do list before we go to Florida at the end of the month, but is it this weekend? I don’t know.
I have to start practicing the guitar. The band is hoping to reconvene (hopefully for real this time) at some point after this weekend. I need to get ready for that. Which guitar should I bring to the first practice? Probably the Les Paul Standard that my wife got me for my 50th birthday in 2021. I really dig that guitar.
I know I had something else I wanted to write about but it has slipped my brain entirely. Don’t get old, kids. This is what happens to you when you get old. Stay young for as long as you can. Unless you’re already old like me in which case… sorry, folks. We had a good run, I’m sure.
I was awake at about 4:30am today. I thought to myself, I can’t sleep anymore so I’ll just get up even though my alarm won’t be going off for another 30 minutes.
Then I blinked once.
Then my alarm went off. Huh. I guess I wasn’t having that much trouble sleeping after all.
I got up a few minutes later and got a slightly earlier than usual start to an in-the-office day. I was able to do my regular morning exercise. I usually lower my goal a bit for in the office days, but today I left it at the usual amount and hit it with enough time to spare to take a couple of pictures for today’s photo a day thing. Really I just wanted to switch from my 28mm to my 85mm lens and used photo a day as an excuse to make sure I didn’t somehow break something when I switched.
Ain’t those pics purdy? Pointless, but purdy? No. Whatever.
I’m hoping to take the new Lomo camera out for it’s first official test drive this weekend. The forecast is calling for some sun, but it’s also calling for some cold. We’ll see. I need to go revisit some YouTube how-to videos first because I think I’ve forgotten how to use the camera already. Again, we’ll see.
Are we all ready? Tomorrow is xmas. It is xmas eve. It’s time to get the last minute details wrapped up. Dot those holiday i’s and cross those holiday t’s.
I need to hit a couple of stores. One being a gas station and another being a grocery store. Good times. I don’t expect humongous, insane crowds or anything*.
My step son has been here for days. My step daughter will be here tonight, but not until super late. Maybe even after midnight. She has a gig in Vermont and can’t come home until after. Both kids will be here for xmas morning though and that’s what counts.
Now that the holiday is actually here, can I start feeling a little xmas spirit? I mean before it’s too late? I don’t know… tomorrow will suffice if that’s all I get. HoHoHo and shit.
*Yeah, that’s sarcasm. You could tell that by the context, right?
One day in Manhattan. Maybe better described as most of one day in Manhattan.
That’s the plan. Drive to someplace in Connecticut that has rail access to NYC. Stay overnight. Take a train into the city tomorrow morning, early. Stay for most of the day. Sometime in the late afternoon or early evening, take a train back to where we started and then drive home.
That leaves two questions. First, what do we do while we’re there. Second, which cameras do I bring?
To answer the first question, we’ll probably just go where the xmas decorations take us. This trip is an attempt at forcing some holiday spirit onto our grinchy, scroogy selves. To answer the second question… I am not sold on anything yet except that I will not be bringing my new medium format camera. I need to run a roll through it to make sure it works before I bring it anywhere of consequence. I just have to get off my ass and do it. So it’s down to the digital Nikon Z5, and the 35mm Pentax K1000, and Nikon FG-20. Both of the film cameras have partially shot rolls. The K1000 is down to the last handful of shits on a roll of Kentmere 400, which is Black and White, and the FG-20 has most of a roll of Kodak ColorPlus 200.
I think I want to bring the K1000 (my father’s camera) and a couple of rolls of color film. I have a handful of ColorPlus that I could bring. I would only bring one or two. I don’t want to spend all of my time fudging with film. At least… assuming I bring the digital camera too. My thought though… do I want to even bring the digital camera? I mean, I do. I want to bring it literally everywhere I go. On this occasion though? There’s a little part of me that is considering going film-only this time.
I don’t know… I am thinking about it.
I had my whole weekend planned out but now that it is here I just feel lost. I need to vote, I need to go grocery shopping, I need to carve the pumpkin I bought last week, I need to see if I can fix the fret buzz on one of my guitars (though the more I read up on possible causes and solutions the more terrified I am to start tweaking a 35 year old instrument).
I mean, my to do list is nice and full… why do I feel lost today? I was hoping a good nights sleep would straighten out my brain but that didn’t help at all. I’m sure it’s nothing and once I get the ball rolling today I will be out of this fog.
I don’t know. We’ll see. Happy Saturday to all of you, and may your personal to do list be full of things that make you happy while being easily achievable. Let’s all have a day full of completed goals, what do you say!
It has been one of those days. Everything that has happened today has rubbed me the wrong way. Well… maybe not everything, but most things. Why? Is it because the Bruins were shut out last night? It could be. Is it because the fucking Yankees are in the World Series? It might be.
Here’s hoping the drive home will be a turning point. Granted I will have to stop for gas before I get home, but I am finally going to finish my JRR Tolkien deep dive/audio book re-read. Well… I listened to the Silmarilian (boy, was that rough) and about 15 minutes into tonight’s commute I will complete The Lord of the rings (much better, except for all the singing… ouch). Up next in my Audible queue is Stephen King’s new short story collection. That should be a nice palette cleanser after all the Middle Earth fantasy. I guess I should read The Hobbit too, for completeness, and anything else that Tolkien may have published that I have never read. Naw, let’s get into some King for a while.
Once I get home the plan is to make a quick dinner for me and the love of my life. Burgers (fried on the stove) and fries (fried in the air fryer). Then we’ll sit down in the living room and enjoy a quiet night together making fun of our clinically insane cats. As per usual.
Here’s hoping for a fun, quiet night tonight and a less stressful work day tomorrow.
Inside the Red Head's Head 