Weekend wrapup

Mark Wein

Grand Poobah
Staff member
It's been mostly studying and practicing for finals and juries with an ushering service and a private party gig thrown in. Plus some housework.

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Friday night did a full fret level and polish on @Guitar Heel 's Strat neck...dropped my 3mm Allen key and couldn't find it...

Worked Saturday, drove home through the first snow of the year...snowed all day...while it snowed I did laundry and gave the apartment a clean sweep down fore and aft, which also served as a futile opportunity to search for the lost 3mm Allen key...watched Heat and went to bed...

Got up Sunday to 5" of snow on the ground and decided to have a snow day...did laundry, washed dishes, made pizza sauce...took one last shot at searching for the lost 3mm Allen key and found it in a sleeve of 1500 grit sandpaper...watched Pete Thorn's YouTube live stream...watched the Jets lose while I rebuilt my pedal board...spent the balance of the evening watching The Grand Tour and YouTube videos and generally devolving into a vegetable...

As an aside...I emailed Pete Thorn a couple weeks ago seeking advice on how to break in as a touring guitar tech...I never really expected a response, but I received a very nice email from him with advice and suggestions on how to connect with some industry insiders and build a network that may provide me with an in...in addition to being a ridiculously talented individual he is also a genuinely good and decent person...
 
Saturday, we got the last of my mother’s posessions and furniture from her flooded, soon-to-be-sold house and put them in a storage unit. Hard labor. I got to drive a monster u-haul truck, but I found the handling and performance to be lacking. Not nimble at all!

Today right before golf, my hand started bleeding for no reason. Refused to stop, and it was in an awkward place on my palm, no way to put on a bandage to apply the needed pressure. So I missed golf. I was about to break down and go to the emergency room when it finally stopped bleeding.

So not the greatest weekend, but at least Mom’s house is ready for the ‘dozers. And I got to listen to lots of music while applying pressure to my stupid hand. :tongue:
 
Friday - Chilled at home, practiced some guitar.

Saturday - Walked the dog, haircut, and then went to an afternoon blues jam.

Sunday - Walked the dog, morning Taichi, some errands. After the errands performed some minor yard work and some chores. Enjoying the Lennon special now.
 
Mostly cleaned the house in preparation for a visit today from some friends of our neighbors who may be interested in buying it. Was barely able to avoid printing out divorce documents in the process.
 
Friday, cold! Took a quick ride in the snow.
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Saturday, still too cold to road ride. Went to Mrs. T's company party and enjoyed tasty food.

Sunday, rode 43 miles.
 
Thursday night - went to the Gowan concert in Niagara Falls. Lots of fun.
Friday - team lunch at a shmancey Chinese cuisine restaurant. It was great.
Saturday - a bit of shopping and then out to see our friends play a new venue for them. Slow start, but it really picked up later on. Apparently, that’s the norm for this place but the first set was a bit of slog for them with not much of a crowd.
Sunday - did some more tidying in the basement. You still can’t tell I’ve done anything there. It’s a lost cause.
 
Friday - took the youngest to dance. Got home to my oldest's birthday party.

Saturday - ran errands in the snow. Luckily, nothing stuck to the road.

Sunday -
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Mogwai at the 9:30 Club with @Guitar Heel
Great show, they had some technical difficulties, which was pretty funny because it was the last show of the tour, but they still kicked all kinds of ass.
 
Friday - I had appointments at the office, then chilled.

Saturday - I had some morning appointments, then went home to watch the snow.

Sunday - Got up and started shoveling snow. Then I filled the bird feeder. Setting down the empty bag, I suddenly got a horrible pain in my back. I had an obligation to sing a half-hour of Christmas songs; I was in rather intense pain, but made it through. I did sit and play for a change. Back is still painful today, though a bit better.
 
Soccer tournament this weekend (Mountain View/Los Altos Winter Cup) - so on Saturday and Sunday I pedaled my bike along the bay to Twin Creeks sports complex and reffed four games each day. The rest of my time was spent chilling, napping, and watching the Sharks play. Only got about an hour of practice in.

I really need to work on putting together music for lyrics I've written for three songs, but for some reason I find that instead I've been dredging up old half-remembered songs to see how much of them I could play without looking up the chords or lyrics. Since we get two weeks off during the holidays, I intend to do two several music-related things: clean up and arrange my music room, finish those three songs, and start writing down all of the songs I currently know by heart so that I have an accurate list to work from in case the occasion comes up again to start actually performing.

I also heard back from the music director at my local high school (where my kids both went) who indicated they would be very happy to accept a donation of my Tacoma DR-12, my 2TEK partscaster, my Tech 21 Trademark 10 amp, my Crate Taxi amp and my Yamaha keyboard. Getting those things out of the house is going to help open up a lot of space in my music room.
 
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Spent the entirety of the weekend in the dark, with no power because SDG&E purposely cut the power to areas at greatest risk for a wind-driven power line failure that would spark an ungodly wildfire (just last week the regulatory commission denied their request to pass on the $400,000,000 price tag from the 2007 wildfire caused by their equipment to their customers with a rate increase).

Chasing down and retrieving items carried away by the insane winds that I thought for sure were way too heavy to get blown away... I was wrong. At one point, our 31' fifth wheel had both left axles off the ground... Crazy.

Trying to keep the kids calm while freaking out on the inside. Packing the family truckster with the important stuff.

Blah blah blah blah fire...


The winds have calmed considerably, and the danger seems to have passed for now. SDG&E has restored powered to all but TWO customers... Guess who's one of them...

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Never been - kept away by the apparent requirement to move in synch and an aversion to horsemeat...


It's a bunch of cheap furniture - that's ok. They have some really cool stuff. But you get there and you have to a follow a maze to walk through their showroom. Want anything? Write down the model number, the aisle and bin location so you can pick it up later towards the end of the maze.

You finally get out of the maze of kitchen, bedroom, workspace, living room, bathroom and displays and you're like "FINALLY" only to be shuffled into the market place section - another maze of utensils, and toilet paper holders and kitchen gadgets and lights. Damn - so close to getting away from all the other knucklenecks like me in there only to go through the gauntlet again of screaming kids, people who can't walk fast and stand in the walkway looking at FRETSHNOP which may be the name of scissors or a plant bin or a bunkbed as if they were admiring an Andy Warhol painting.

You finally get through that and off to grab a cart to head to aisle 39, bin 49 to haul away 2 boxes that probably way 150 lbs. Wheel that over to the long lines and finally with your cart, your boxes and $250 in debt you are on your way to load the car..... but you can't. You exit the store only to be in a cage where you can't leave the area with you're new over priced loot because it's all blocked off - you have to go get the car, park and load from the cattle bin area. But THAT PROBLEM IS out of the 50 parking spaces - 45 of them are just cars parked there - no one loading - just parked their as they get caught up in the maze of high gloss Scandinavian products. So you're stuck wondering how the freak you're getting your car - leaving your shit there and "hoping" that a space will magically appear when you drive to load...

It's bullshit - I'd rather lick the carpet at a Chucky Cheese then ever go back to an Ikea.
 
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