I just plugged in a new keyboard at my desk in the office. Just test driving it. It is not as nice as the one it replaces, but it has a number pad and I had reached the point where I couldn’t live without one anymore.
Long live the new not-quite-as-clicky, clicky keyboard.
When I work at home I have a work desk in the cellar, and a work desk in my step son’s room. I also have a personal computer desk that doubles as my music nook in the cellar.
That’s a lot of desks.
Last year I had to give up my desk in the office. They told us that if we wanted to keep our permanently assigned desks we had to commit to working three days in the office. Nope. I was committed to one, but that was all I wanted to do. A couple of months from now that one day requirement is being bumped up to two days. Along with the two day rule is the option to have a desk assignment. I signed up for a desk with the caveat that if they go back to requiring three days I will un-sign up. My boss agreed.
While my new office desk won’t go into effect until next week sometime, I am actually sitting at “my” desk today. We are living in a screwy world, I tells ya.
The commute in this morning was a bit rough. Lots and lots of accidents and break downs, and one cop who was pulling people over in the middle of a traffic jam. Not sure what he was doing, other than purposefully making the gridlock worse? Who knows.
It is supposed to rain all day today, but the blue sky broke through a few times during the drive.
Okay, back to work with you, Mr. Robert.
I told my beloved wife Jen that I was going to take a page out of the Brian Adams playbook today and play it ’till my fingers bled. I didn’t go quite that far, but I am in so much finger tip pain that I had to stop a little early. I put lead guitar parts onto five of the remaining seven songs. My playing on the fifth song was atrocious, not because I suck (though, naturally) but because my finger tips hurt so much I couldn’t make them do anything. Ouch town, population me.
I will finish the last two songs, but it won’t be for a while. I might try again after dinner. I might wait until tomorrow. I can’t say yet. What I do know is that I have finished tracking a total of 12 songs so I am at the point where I could stop, apart from mixing, and call this year a win. I am pleased.
As always, I went into this year’s RPM Challenge with a specific gear setup in mind. Pedal-wise I was going to use my Klon KTR to push my Keeley Super Phat Mod. I never got on with that Keeley pedal and I was going to force it this month. Then the Marshall Bluesbreaker hype hit. Marshall released a pedal called the Bluesbreaker, which was supposed to make your amp sound like the amp Clapton used on the Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton record from 1966 but doesn’t, in the early 90’s and discontinued it after a couple of years. Fast forward to the 21st century and John Mayer uses the pedal on one of his records and suddenly the used market prices are through the roof and every boutique pedal manufacturer on Earth is either making a direct copy of it, or cloning it and modding it. I own a direct copy.
There was a rumor a year ago that Marshall was going to reissue the pedal. That rumor appeared to come true last week though it wasn’t until a day or so ago that Marshall actually verified the rumor was true. All the talk made me want to use my copy. I put it on the board and used the shit out of it. Today I was using it like crazy. Sometimes with the Klon KTR pushing it and sometimes just by itself. It’s not the kind of sound I usually get up for, but I have been seriously digging it the last few days, and for some reason using it with the neck pickup on my Les Paul today was a little slice of bliss.
What does that mean? Nothing. I just thought I’d share, that’s all.
I used my Les Paul on four of today’s five songs, and my SG on one. I was planning on using the SG for the two I didn’t get to as well, but now that I need some time to heal I have no idea what I’ll actually use on the last two. Probably the Les Paul. Either way, I took some obligatory pics.
Also… selfies… because I suck at being cool.
Also, I am rearranging how I keep my work and personal laptops on my desk. My desk suddenly feels very small.
Okay, now I can break for lunch. Maybe watch a TV show for 45 minutes or so and then start mixing again.
Progress, babie. Progress.
Oh yeah, here’s a video on the Marshall pedal. Just so you know what I am talking about.
I started my lunch break a little late today. It’s now almost over. I need to dump the brain droppings so that I can get through the afternoon.
Eternals is out on Disney+. Hopefully we’ll get to watch it with Harry before he goes back to school. Did I mention that Harry’s going back to school? With all the drama over Bellana going to The Netherlands, I feel like we’ve been giving Harry the short end of the stick. We are driving him back to school on Sunday. Another drive to Vermont and back. I really enjoy that drive. I just wish he was coming with us for the return drive.
He did well in his first semester, obviously. He’s spent the last few weeks working for an internet based delivery company who shall remain nameless as he tries to build up his bank account while he still can. I remember those days. There was never enough money. I also remember trying to stretch $5.00 worth of gas across a full week so that I could stay on my budget. Ah, college life.
I am going to miss him, of course, but unlike his sister he is still close enough to us that if we need to get to him for whatever reason we can. It’ll take 3-4 hours, but we’ll get there. The Atlantic Ocean and the circumference of the Earth make that really tough in Bellana’s case.
What else is going on? I mentioned Jen going crazy in her office and in the living room by re-doing all of the plugs and extension chords and stuff. Basically she rewired half the house. It was amazing. This weekend… maybe… I will do the same to my office nook in the bed room. I have a big power strip that will replace all of the little once I have daisy chained in here. I’m going to have to take down the whole desk and start from scratch. Unlike Jen, I don’t mind working at a cluttered desk, but even I have my limits. I won’t say it will be neat when I am done, but maybe it will be a little more logical, and electrically safer. All of that because the love of my life inspired me.
What else? Car music tomorrow? Maybe. Depends on the weather. I would take a minute to check the forecast, but I have to get back to work instead.
May your afternoon be happy and productive and free of fascism and shit like that.
Testing, 1… 2… 3…
Yup, the new USB hub I just plugged into my Mac works, and by extension the keyboard I just pulled from the office desk to the bedroom desk works too.
Thanks, you may carry on with your bad selves now.
Another tweak to my working from home workspace. I now have both my personal laptop and my new work laptop plugged into Jen’s gigantic, mammoth monitor. I still need to move my USB hub between the two lappy’s when I want to switch, as well as change the input setting on the monitor itself, but now I can use this desk for personal stuff, like posting to the blog or binge watching The Flash on Netflix, without having to use my work machine. I’ve got an HDMI input for one machine and a display port for the other. I still have a mini display port input available. If I can get my mitts on an adapter to convert to USB-C I can have a dedicated input for my MacBook too. Oh what a technological marvel our world is.
I had to go in to the office and swap my little desktop computer for a shiny new laptop. The guy in charge of the process was kind enough to bring the new box out to me so I didn’t have to go into the building. I did, however, have to drive an hour each way. Yikes!
I straightened out my desk a little. It definitely doesn’t meet my wife’s very high workspace standards, but it’s okay for me. The headset, mouse, keyboard, and GIGANTIC monitor are all Jen’s and I’m just using them during the lock down work from home zaniness. The closed laptop underneath the laptop stand is actually my pre-Covid work-from-home box. These days it’s my watching Netflix while doing my 30 minutes of exercise box. The iPad is not for work use. It’s for listening to music or podcasts (not books) and sometimes youtube streams (like when trump’s terrorist mob attacked the US Capital two days ago) while I work.
How long until I go back to the office? Who knows. Do I want to go back to the office? Nope.
Inside the Red Head's Head 