8.8.8

It’s just fun to type 8.8.8.

I am alive.  I spent a few days in Tennessee visiting with my family and some of my wife’s family who invaded from the Lone Star State. 

I drove home this morning, and I was going to mow the yard, but it was too wet.  I drove to the office and finished my grades.  Before I submitted Fs for students who deserved them, I wanted to make certain that none had dropped the course, and I did not have my folders with me.  I got my grades in and had to submit a silly report that my college requires about three times every semester. 

I came home and worked in the yard.  I mowed, edged and blew.  Gosh, it was wonderfully delightful outside.  It was in the high 80s, and there was the nicest breeze blowing.  It almost reminded me of California weather. 

Tonight, I am eating brown rice and some pinto beans and watching the Olympics.

It appears that John Edwards is, in fact, the weasel I always suspected he was.  It’s so nice to be proven right.

Been Busy

It’s been a while since my last post.  What a busy summer.  There is this mythical concept of summer, a vestige of childhood, that it is a time that is slower, easier.  How misleading.  I always end up working twice as hard in the summer;  of course, teaching four composition sections is not helping. 

 

Tired

What a week . . . it was a long week for me here.  I spent Monday – Thursday grading papers.  I also had to review the manuscript of our department’s customized composition text and get that back to the publisher.  I spent today working on the dissertation, and I actually had a pretty good day with that.  I think I have twenty-five pages done on this chapter;  I should squeeze out another fifteen or so before this chapter is done.  Then I can turn it over to my colleague for his comments;  he is a crack editor.  Then, I will submit it to my director, hopefully toward the end of August.  I swear I’ll be glad when that is done. 

I did manage to work out this week.  I lifted three days and did some cardio on Monday and today.  The weights, surprisingly, felt good.  I am no where near where I used to be, but it feels good to be pushing my body again.  My diet has been really bad;  I guess I have not gotten serious enough/disgusted enough yet.  The way for me to lose weight is steady exercise and weight watchers;  I am about the same weight I was when I began weight watchers several years ago and was successful.  To be honest, I have not gotten on the scale for more than a week.  I have not been brave enough.

In the morning, I will get up early and treadmill.  Then I will drive to Tennessee and join everyone at my mom’s house.  Two of the kids are doing a swim meet in Chattanooga, and my nephew Benjamin is being Christened Sunday. 

I posted an announcement to my online students stating that I would not be online until Monday.  Imagine that!   

One Week: Two Pounds

I’m at 221.5.  I lost two pounds this week.   

I am surprised at this weight, considering the way I gorged myself last night on low-grade Hamburger Helper Cheeseburger mix.  Crap if I did not eat the whole thing.  The reason, though, is that I had not eaten all day song sans two pieces of dry toast in the morning.   I exercised a few times this week, too, but I can do better, and after yesterday’s lapse, I feel better today and have my focus back.

Today I have had the following:

2 pieces of dry wheat toast and coffee for breaksfast
1 cheese sandwich, red grapes, and raisens for lunch

I am going to work out in the morning real hard — some cardio and strength training.  I am going to need to do better and stay with it to get to 219.5 next week. 

On a different front, it appears I have a fungus attacking my “lawn” in the front yard.  Large dry brown spots surrounded by green spots.  At first, I unabashedly turned my wrath on the often misunderstood and maligned grub.  But I swung by the Co-Op today on the way to the office and got steered toward some product that should help combat the plague.  I will take pictures before and after.  I am not holding my breath; it always seems that a “bag of this” is always twenty dollars and “guaranteed” to be what you nedd to get the job done. 

I worked a little on my next chapter of my dissertation today, and I think I am going to be off to a good start.  I sent my director an e-mail last night announcing that the focus of this chapter was going to shift a little.  I have not heard anything back from him yet, but he should be okay with it. 

Pretty Good Day

Breakfast:

115 calories: 3 cups of coffee w/creamer
120 calories: 2 pieces dry wheat toast

Lunch:

45: 1 small orange
350 : 1 chicken sandwhich:

Snack:

Salad w/ tomatos and bell pepper.  Light dressing.

Dinner:

1 small bowl of pasta/red sauce
1 piece of bread

Had a good workout on the Orbitrek — a good sweat for thirty minutes, and then I did some light weights, taking it easy to avoid further back strain.

Later:  The stratocaster arrived tonight while the kids were swimming.  I unpacked it and surveyed it.  It appears to be in terrific physical shape.  I immediately re-strung it with a set of .09s I had.  The set up on this guitar was simply awful.  I couldn’t put my finger on what was going on.   I could not play it and thought, “Well, I’ve been playing bluegrass for two-three solid years now.”  The strat felt heavy, and I could not strum the thing.  Aha, the pickups were ridiculously high — hitting the strings! 

I did a little research online and found a nice site explaining pickup height adjustment.  I did that and it is already light years better.  I will still take it to the local guitar tech and have him do a set-up on it.  I think there is too much relief in the neck, too, and the intonation needs setting.  I will put a set of .10s on it, which will make it not so twangy and buzzy.   I bought the set last night on E-bay.  I thought I’d try a set of Elixir light nanowebs.  I like Elixirs on my acoustic, and I have never tried their electric strings. 

I stayed up too late — to 11:15 playing it through the pod.  It was great fun. 

Down in the Back

Every now and again it happens:  I do something to my lower back.  Normally it’s my lower left back.  I guess it started yesterday morning, and it stayed with me the bulk of yesterday, last night, and today.  I am hopeful that it will be gone in the morning.  It’s just a dull ache akin to someone stabbing me there with a dull butterknife.  Nice.

In the past, I have thought it may be stress related.  My body does not process stress well.  It’s not uncommon for me to pop a stress blister or some other ailment — pains in arms and back, etc.  This time, the onset may be traced to either a moment of overzealous exercising:  “Can this treadmill really do a ten percent incline?”  Or, it may have been the workout with weights yesterday, although I really did not push myself for fear of injury.  Maybe in the fear of injury I became stressed and that caused my back to flare up. 

We had a pretty quiet Memorial Day all in all.  Late in the day we trekked across town to a friend’s and hung out, barbecued some burgers and hotdogs, chips, beans, ice cream, and a couple of beers. Heck, if you can’t indulge a little on a national holiday, then there is something drastically wrong.  I brought my Martin D-18 and the Gibson A9 mandolin.  I find that having an instrument or two with me helps me cope extended social visits;  yes, i realize that these may be thought of a wooden pacifiers.

I did not have a good weigh in today:  223.5

I need to get my focus back.  Tomorrow, our summer session begins, and I am teaching the ten-week session.  Here is what I am proposing to myself:  lose two pounds a week for ten weeks.  No beer or ice cream (with the exception of the 4th of July; it’s a national holiday).  This would put me close to 200 by the end of the summer,  I can do this if I put my mind to it.  I have done it before.  I am tired of carrying this extra weight around.  I really do not feel well at all. 

 

Good Day

I’ve had a good day today, just relaxing and taking it easy with youngest son, while the others were out to an all-day swim meet. 

Ran by wal-mart and bought a USB cable to connect the newer Dell monitor to the tower.  This way we can access four USB ports off the monitor and not have to crawl down and try to access the two that hard to reach on the lower front panel of the tower.  That was a pretty poor design, actually. 

Worked out for an hour on the treadmill;  I managed to burn 650 calories walking four miles.  It felt great!  I’ve had a pretty good day calorie/point wise, too.  I’ve just eaten a bowl of grapenuts and some coffee today — and lots of water.

Instruments

I have been meaning to post some pics of instruments I have been fortunate enough to be steward of.  Yesterday, I took some pics for my Facebook page, and I thought I’d add them here, too, for the masses to view.  Actually, I do not believe any person has ever viewed my blog, which is understandable, considering I have never told anyone about it. 

I will dig around and find pictures of some of the other instruments soon.  I am still researching strings for the upright bass.  There are a few good forums out there devoted to basses.  The Bluegrass Bass Place looks good, but they have yet to activate my account, so I cannot post to it yet. 

Yesterday, my longer (25′) microphone cable arrived.  I bought it to reach the music room, specifically so that I could record the piano.  My oldest two are quite accomplished players, and I wanted to make sure to get some recordings of them playing.  I’ve never recorded a piano, and, having only one microphone, I knew it would be challenging.  I use a Studio Projects B1 large diaphram condenser microphone on almost everything because . . . well . . . it’s all I have.  I was actually pleasantly suprised at the fidelity.  My son was tired, though, and quickly became frustrated at the numerous takes, so we sacked it and will try again later.  I think, although I’m not sure, that a lot of the sound of a console piano resonates off its back, which means I might be better off pulling it from the wall a little.  I don’t know.  Do you? 

I placed the mic on a boom about six feet up over his right shoulder, angled downward at the piano at about forty-five degrees.  I cloned the track (since it is recorded in mono) and it did not sound too bad.  I look forward to doing more recording.  I really want to get the boys excited about it;  I want them to be as creative as possible when it comes to their music.  They are both so gifted. 

I spent a little bit of time yesterday cleaning/clearing off the tower computer and workstation  This is all part of an agreement between my wife and me.  She really wanted a new laptop for scooting around to various swim meets and the like, so we bought her a new Dell laptop, and her concession was that I could use the main home computer for recording.  I am going to work today on configuring the work area so that it is more usable.  The main problem is that the area becomes a dumping ground for various tidbits of paper, mail, trash, etc.

 

A Few Days of Relaxing

I have been off for a few days, and I have been trying to relax a little.  Graduation was last Friday night, and summer session starts the 28th.

Travelled to my mother’s house Sunday night to pick up our latest addition — the 1962 Kay upright bass.  It worked out beautifully.  My mom was on the way home from Myrtle Beach, where she was vacationing, and she was driving right by where the bass seller was located.  The transaction went smoothly, and she carted it from East Tennessee to Middle Tennesee.  Spent Sunday night noodling with the bass and got up and made the trek home Monday morning.

When I got home, the kids were all outside eager to see the bass.  When we got in the house, I was pleasantly surprised to see the living room had been rearranged to accommodate the bass.   All the kids tried it out, and I was shocked to see how into it they were.  They each got the hang of it quickly, and so did my wife.  Our youngest told her, “Welcome to the band, Mom.”  Tears were in her eyes.  We ran through a bunch of songs together, and it was great to have that bottom end rounded out for us. 

Yesterday afternoon, the kids’ swim clinic kicked off, so we hung out at the pool registering new swimmers and getting caught up with old friends. 

Today, I had intended on going to the office and working on the dissertation — revising my first chapter — but it was so nice just relaxing that I just hung around the house, played music, and did some odd chores, ones that I have been putting off.   I uploaded some pics from the clinic to the website, too.  I had a good workout on the treadmill and second son worked out on the Orbitrek to keep me company.

I ran the two little ones to swim this afternoon and will run by the city pool this afternoon to check on the swim clinic there.

Other big news is that I pulled the trigger on a stratocastertoday, too.  I found a 1996 American Standard in Sonic Blue with a rosewood fretboard, OHSC, and some case candy.   It’s located in the southern part of the state, so hopefully it will not take too long to get here.  It’s an original axe, although the seller e-mailed today to tell me that the saddles had been upgraded, but he is sendiningthe originals along, too.  I am not sure why anyone would upgrade the saddles on an electric guitar.  I may have them switched back and sell the “upgrades.”  Tell me this is not the coolest of colors Fender ever came up with: 

 I will do a whole review of this stratocaster as soon as I get it and put it through the paces.   I am looking forward to getting back to adding some strat tones to my recording.  I’ll dig out the amp, pedals, and Line 6 pod, too.  The 13 and 12 year old boys are pretty stoked about this, too.  I may upgrade cases in a bit.  I really like the vintage tweed HSC that Fender puts out.  Nothing sweeter than seeing a clean strat lying in a tweed case.   I seriously considered a Gibson Les Paul Studio in the faded cherry/mahogany finish, but when it came down to it, I could not see myself living without that signature scooped out strat tone!

That’s all for now;  I am going to weigh in this afternoon.  Hopefully, it will be a good one, despite the ice cream sundae I ate last night . . .

Bad weight in — 224.5 . . . no more ice cream.

 

 

Wil Maring

I have been on a Wil Maring kick tonight.  She and Robert Bowlin have such a wonderful, refreshing sound; they are the real deal.  Check out this video of them singing “Sunny Side of the Mountain:”

The way Bowlin’s fiddle comes in at about 0:54:00 just slays me ever time. 

I figured her part out tonight.  She is in open G tuning, capoed on the fourth fret, which really gives the D-18 (hers and mine) just a great voicing — big, dry, and woody. 

EDIT:  Wil Maring replied to my comment on this video on Youtube. She confirmed what I had thought about the tuning, although she is actually playing a D-21, which are great Brazilian Rosewood Martins.  They are simply appointed like the D-18, but rosewood back and sides.  Than you to Wil for responding.  How cool is that!