Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Experiment #2

Tomorrow we go to the Lou!

Yippie. Ready for a vacation. Hope we get to see all the folks we want to see.

Last night I screwed around some more with the recorder. Until Jeannie told me to shut up and go to bed. She said it in a nice way, though.

Saturday, June 27, 2009

Bell, Blevins, and Devoe

The Jeanners and I did not take our possible trip to the beach. Didn't feel like making the drive, didn't feel like spending the money for a hotel. So instead we spent the day up around Rocks State Park (the place where I lost my wedding ring about 4 years ago), and then decided just to drive around and see what we came across. Well, we ended up at York, Pennsylvania. Lots of pretty farm country around there, and we stopped and had dinner at a funny little family restaurant called the Taylor Haus, where I had the option of getting gravy atop every item included in my dinner. I opted for gravy atop 2 of the 3 things, but left my fries dry, as god intended them. Anyway, we had a fun time, enjoyed trying to find good songs on the radio, and enjoyed the numerous Michael Jackson songs we came across.

I have spent the past few days getting to know the new 8 track. Really liking it. It's easy to work with, does everything I would want it to do, and is totally portable. I smell possible car-recorded vocals in my future. While I was getting to know it the other day, I was screwing around and recording stuff and making up the track as I went along, and this is how it sounds:



If only the damn thing would come up with a melody line and write some lyrics for me, I'd be freakin' set. Still, though, I'm really happy with it.

Friday, June 26, 2009

Things that happened:

1. Michael Jackson died yesterday. I have no thoughts on the matter except surprise. And I feel sorry for his kids and sorry for people who got a lot of emotional satisfaction from his music and will miss him. RIP, Michael Jackson.

2. I had a DR. PEPPER today for the first time in like 10 years, and boy did it taste like SHIT. I don't know if I got a defective DR. PEPPER or if they've always tasted like that and I'm just now noticing.

3. The Jeanners and I hung out with the A-Train and her boyfriend last night, and we had a good time playing games and shooting the shit and going to dinner and having delicious ice-cream. Neither Aimee nor Jeannie wanted to play SORRY!, which made me sorry, indeed.

4. The Jeanners and I are considering doing something adventurous and fun tonight and tomorrow. Perhaps an impromptu overnight trip to the beach? Traffic will suck, but the question is, will it suck bad enough to prevent us from going? Also, weather concerns?

5. My new digital recorder arrived a few days ago, and I've been playing around with it and getting it all set up. I think it's gonna be awesome.

St. Louis next week!

Sunday, June 21, 2009

The Boss



On a whim the other day, I decided to bid on a used digital 8-track recorder on e-bay. I was a little bit surprised last night when I won, but pleasantly surprised because I got it for a really good price.

Some of the things I'm excited about:

1. It records in 24-bit resolution, as opposed to 16-bit resolution, so shit will sound just generally better and clearer.

2. On-board rhythm generator, on-board effects, and on-board phantom power for the mics, which means I won't need the computer, keyboard, or pre-amps when I want to record. Just the 8-track and a microphone. Between the POD and the 8-track, I'll have a nice little studio in 2 highly portable boxes. However, if I want to record something that's more involved, I can totally use The Boss in conjunction with my computer.

3. It'll be much easier working in real-time with knobs and faders than it has been working on my stupid, slow, crash-prone, mysterious-issue-having computer.


Looking forward to the arrival of this thing. Should be interesting to work with.


Also in the news:

Went to see Cyrano the other night with the Jeanners. I thought it was a bit too long but pretty damn good. Not really a weak link in the major players. Also, got to hang with PKP, T, and young FKP, which was definitely the highlight of the evening. PKP's been working tons, so it was nice that he was able to get an evening free and that we got to see him on it. Hopefully if my work schedule works out right, we'll be able to hang again next weekend.

Also: The other day I had two bananas in my lunch, and they were so big I felt a little embarrassed when I ate them.

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Beware India

Again, not too much going on. I just had a little burst of energy and did a dance routine for Jeannie in the kitchen. She's on the phone, but she would give me little nonverbal signals to cheer me on. A thumbs up, a nod of the head, little suggestions about possible moves.

Jeannie went to a public-speaking group meeting tonight, so I had the evening to myself. I decided to waste it by playing Civilization III. I was doing OK, but I knew that if India decided to attack me they would wipe me off the map. They played nice for awhile and then perpetrated a vicious sneak attack. I then quit the game.

Pretty quiet week for houses. Nothing new caught our eye. Yawn.

The J-Dog and I have decided to take a trip to St. Louis in a few weeks, because she was able to get the time off, and I was able to get the time off, and we didn't know if there would be any other time this summer when we could do it. So from July 1st to the 6th, look the fuck out, St. Louis!

I think that when we go to St. Louis, I'm going to eat nothing but Imo's Pizza. Except on the 4th of July, when I'm going to eat 400 lbs. of pork steak and drink home-made beer until I go into diabetic shock. While wearing cutoffs and a half shirt. Fuckin' A! Imo's is awesome.

I'm off tomorrow. I'm gonna do laundry, dishes, cleaning, maybe start running again, probably do a lot of sweating.

Thursday, June 11, 2009

Early Summer

Not too much going on, other than that the spacebar doesn't seem to want to work right.

Work has been entirely uneventful. It's been so uneventful it's starting to get spooky. I think that I could literally do my job in my sleep.

I've been enjoying getting home in the evening, watching the storms blow through, listening to lots of music, reading a lot, taking a walk with the Jeanners after dinner, enjoying a G&T, then hitting the hay. Strumming the guitar a lot. Thinking of trying to put three songs together to maybe play at an open mic night. Haven't decided yet.

I finished my Willie Nelson book. I'm glad to be done with it. It was just too much information about Willie Nelson. Then I finished Johnny Cash's autobiography, which I liked a lot better (and was a lot shorter) and which Jeannie is reading now and also (so far) enjoying. Now I'm reading Bob Dylan's Chronicles, which is, so far, pretty awesome. Really well written. Surprise, surprise.

When we move I think the thing I will miss the most is the way our stereo sounds in our living room. It sounds pretty perfect. I love sitting on the couch, looking out the windows and listening to music.



Our neighbors in the apartment below us have moved out, and the new people won't be moving in until September (after we've already moved, most likely), and it's pretty nice not having anybody living below us. They were nice and all, but I don't miss them.

Monday, June 08, 2009

Pig N' Stink

Last Friday we looked at 4 more houses. They only seemed to make us regret losing the other house even more. (sigh) Keep lookin'.

Friday night we went to one of Jeannie's Americorps recruit's house for a shabbat dinner, which I had never been to before and which was pretty interesting. I think that having to learn the Jewish blessing for bread and wine in high school when I was in Godspell, as well as a working knowledge of Fiddler on the Roof prepared me well for shabbat. I like the idea of a mandatory family meal once a week, but I don't think I would do well with all the rules.

Yesterday the J-Dog and I both had the day off, and it was a beautiful day, so we headed down to Virginia to visit Thomas Jefferson's home, Monticello. I had been there with my parents when I was a little kid, but I had been wanting to visit again after reading John Adams last year. It was a good day. A nice drive there, a walk around the gardens, a tour of the house, lunch, a nice little walk to the family cemetary, and then home. He's a pretty inspiring dude, but also seems like he'd be a little too anal for me, what with the meticulous record-keeping and notes and turd counting. Plus the whole slave-owning hypocrisy is a bit of a turn-off.

For awhile now, there have been a few made up Facebook status updates floating in my head that I've really wanted to use, but they're a bit inappropriate for completely public dissemination, so I shall use them here:

1. DOB fu**** a horse!

2. DOB pooped it out!



Also, here's a snippet from a weird transaction I had with a customer the other day:


Dan (behind register): That'll be $20.07.

Customer (getting money out of wallet): Ok.
Have you ever had a colonoscopy?

Dan: No.

Customer: Boy, are you in for a surprise!


I've taken care of lots of chores today (two days off in a row! First time that's happened in awhile), and I've got numerous vegetables chopped up on our kitchen counter, waiting to stir-fry them when the J-Dog gets home for dinner. Yum!

Contemplating experimenting with an old-time air conditioner (blocks of ice sitting in front of a fan) this summer at night instead of a window unit. I wonder how much ice would melt over the course of a night?

Monday, June 01, 2009

A Kick to the Nuts

All week long I've been thinking that we were still going to end up with the house that we lost last week, because the house had still been showing up on all the listing web sites and stuff, and I figured that the listing agent told us that they had accepted another offer just to try and eventually drive up our bid. Well, last night, it finally went off the listing sites and showed up as under contract. So, barring any out-of-the-ordinary acts of god, we really have lost the place. It sucks. I'm pretty bummed. I totally thought this was the place for us, and it had been nice living in denial for a week, thinking we were still going to get it. Bummed, bummed, bummed.

Last night Jeannie and I went on a date, and it was pretty fucking awesome. We went down to Fells Point for dinner, walked a little bit and headed to Duclaw for some outdoor dining by the water. It was perfect outside weather-wise, and the food was good and the conversation was good and it was an all around perfect evening. After dinner we walked around down by the harbor and the water smelled like super diarrhea. Seriously. Imagine a toilet full of poop and how that smells, and then make the toilet and poop about as big as chesapeake bay, and that's what it smelled like. But even with the poop stench, a perfect evening.

Been listening to a lot of Bob Dylan lately. I'm just gonna go ahead and add him to my shortlist of musical geniuses. So far on the list is: Bill Evans and Jimi Hendrix. And now Bob Dylan. They all changed the game. I'm especially liking the 1966 concert from england. Anyhoo, all the listening is getting me super pumped for the Willie and Bob (and Cougar) show that I will be attending in July. I'm gonna try to get super close.

Also, hope to be done with my Willie biography soon. Next on the reading list: finish Johnny Cash's autobiography, then read A Brief History of Time, then Bob Dylan's Chronicles.

Bummed.

Bummed.