Whew, five hours later and what a workout! It is sure nice to have a wagon when you need one. The Hippie called to remind me of Donovan’s tonight. He sprung for a new PA (Fender, his favorite brand, and I think the Passport 500 model is close to a thousand bucks). In return, he does the Jimbo’s set this Friday. We easily have three hours of material which is striking distance of booking as a duo. It points out the diversity of the music field that we can now play more suitable material independently than when we used to rehearse.It got too hot outside, so I started framing the rough opening for the new door. The heat made that into a three hour job. I encountered more lumber rot, which I hacked out and replaced with painted lumber. Hey, that’s only gonna last maybe twenty years. Yes, I know, and you can check back to see, if you would. Brainiac over here decided to save a trip to the lumber yard and reuse the wall studs. It is so brittle it is like driving a nail into concrete. Examination of the water damage shows there was no vapor barrier. I’ve noticed several construction sites that don’t apply any. It is always a good idea to at least run some tarpaper around. (The way this works is an interesting study in applied Physics, it does not have to be watertight to prevent water seepage.)
Eric was over to visit, I invited him to Donovan’s to go chase women, but he says he’s staying home with a bottle of Scotch. The triumph of experience over hope. Another two hours on that door and let me tell you, that is the best damn door opening in this town. I expect it to be standing if the hurricane takes the rest away. The way it worked out, by nailing in double trimmers and a double head jam, the size was exact without disturbing the existing wall. But I ran out of spikes so it is screwed and bolted into place. Better than Buckingham Palace now.
Anna called, with the wireless network we reconfigured last week. She was concerned about the occurrence of certain words in the registry. I will say it again, if you go on the Internet, there will be gambling and porno file fragments in your computer registry. This is not cause for concern, there are scripting programs that do little but put those bytes into your registry and the only way to prevent it is to never connect the computer to the Internet, simple as that. However, the registry is not a usage log and the presence of these addresses (as far as I know) is not an indicator of anything wrong. It would not be a bad idea to delete them all and see which ones reappear in a week or two. Every seventh click on the Internet links you in some form to a vice page.
All this made it a thirteen hour day before I got to Donovan’s. The usual mix of talent showed up, including a guitar repairman we all know from somewhere but can’t place. Nick, the New York guitarist was also in. The new Fender PA is a six-channel, a feature I’m personally wary of. The Hippie needs to play there long enough to pay it off. He isn’t considering the total cost, just the purchase price. It costs me a chunk of all I make just to get to my gigs and back, and to replace worn out gear.
You like band statistics? Okay. Note that I do not keep a separate gasoline account, rather allow that it costs me $0.25 cents per mile to drive. The following numbers are in relation to my total expenses, not my total income which is none of your business. Travel to and from the gigs: 50.5%. Batteries and fuses: 3.4%. Small hardware: 3.9%. And the one we all love, Breakage & Shrinkage: 15.4%. I know to the penny what things in a band cost. Shrinkage is when something disappears, like my extension cords and octopuses.
