One year ago today: July 14, 2018, hmmm, worked first time . . .
Five years ago today: July 14, 2014, bad boy bassist.
Nine years ago today: July 14, 2010, gold was $1,230/oz.
Random years ago today: July 14, 2011, knee-deep in the Atlantic.
So much for my plans to get in another full day. In Florida, don’t go making any plans that involve idiot strangers keeping out of your way. I didn’t tell a soul I had to get to Winter Haven, yet they managed to block both my driveways. They’ll move, but only upon being asked, and by then they’ve scored. They’ve inconvenienced a busy person and you have no idea how that delights the ignorant until you see it. Finally, I got there by late morning. To discover that everybody is sold out of cut-off blades, except for the 10-packs. They got shelves full of those, but they won’t break bulk.
It was after noon before I had time for coffee, only to realize I’d forgotten the blog drive. Good, I needed time to work the crossword. Without that cutoff disk, I’ll have to hacksaw the pipe working with my bad shoulder. I had to purchase a pipe wrench, but I got a fancy one. Says self-adjusting and works with a ratchet action. I hope it works because I don’t like the design of the cleanout plug. Normally, there is a smaller square on the lid that can be removed almost by hand. The only plug they had needs a wrench fitted from the side at bigger than the full pipe diameter. You don’t always have room for that. The modern American world has no shortage of mouth-breathing idiots.
They no longer sell a 5-watt incandescent bulb, or at least don’t stock them. I finally said to hell with this, grabbed another coffee, and called the Reb. We are going over the game plan to buy a small house, and there is no hope this can be done through regular channels. I went over the plan that got this place, which I’ll summarize how it tallies with the circumstance. The problem is the system and the bad reaction is the banks. They are still refusing to lend small amounts on property and doubly refusing most applications that don’t show a rise in general real estate values.
But wait. I think I know somebody who just might have the cash. That’s how I got this place, that, and being it was the neighbor selling and he was particular who he wanted next door. Pulling up in the sidecar, I’m given to understand, was influential It was maybe four hours between offer and acceptance. I haven’t the foggiest about Tennessee real estate. Money, well, that’s pretty universal. Where I came close before was with people from elsewhere who inherited an estate. They find the property too expensive to maintain and impossible to sell. Another factor, regardless of what you read in the papers, is that nice people don’t sell their house to bad people and ruin a neighborhood. This isn’t Canada, where sometimes you have to. And did you see that clip in the news that half the world considers Canada to be the worst led of the West because of their wishy-washy Prime Minister? Justin Bieber?
Picture of the day.
Dugout canoe, WIP
Remember to use BACK ARROW to return to blog.
My aching shoulders. That drainpipe is finally cut, and it’s in reasonable shape. There should be a close-up of the bare pipe metal exposed by the cut. Ah, there it is. Ignore the deposits and scale, you are looking at the thickness of the metal to which the new PVC will be attached. This was a bitch to cut under the toilet floor, but I had to get back along the length enough to find pipe in this good a shape. This could wind up feeding as many as six drains, so I must learn the method of cleaning out this buildup.
I found a source for the iron pipe. It comes in pre-threaded standard lengths. Please, please be as simple as it looks. I’m getting tired of shaving in the kitchen. I timed it fine so I got the sweaty work done while the storm was passing. It’s back up to the high 90°s tomorrow but I should be surrounded by fans and A/C. The supply lines were different sizes, but the feeds were 1/2” and I’ve successfully used shark clips on that before. Once I’m working with plastic, we’ll see some momentum. Tell you what, I’ve had a break, so let me go back down the hall and get you a picture of the workspace. It should show the pipe cut under the toilet, and the two supply lines under the sink that get moved tomorrow.
That sink is coming out tomorrow. This is the way the bathroom was laid out when I bought the place. The sink jutted out from the wall and you had to walk around it to use anything else. The new fixtures are moved to the left 22”, a normal counter width. The former stringer has been cut away and those two pipes have enough leeway for elbows to run back that distance. It means the hot water line is only 1/2”, but there is a 3/4” run in parallel. I’ll decide when I craw under there.
ADDENDUM
Before I talk music, I saw some interesting gear over in Winter Haven. One was a square hot water heater. Another was a water heater with a built in circulator circulator, with timer and all. I’m pricing that out, since I have a budget for the circulator. The tank I saw was too large for this place. And how about this evaporative air conditioner. My master plan is to pre-warm as much of the hot water as is economical. This unit had no literature, but that looks like an ordinary water tap on the side. If the byproduct is warm water, I’ve got room in the laundry area. Or the sheds. The price tag of $179 means I’ll at least take an extended look.
[Author’s note: a circulator on the hot water line is a small pump that returns a trickle of hot water to the main tank. This makes the hot water faucet instant on. The timer turns it off an night, since the pump is electric.]
My music completion index today is 22.604 %
I’ve tabbed or written out all the old Eagles bass lines, which are really guitar licks. Tabs. That’s how you take it easy, that’s a pun, guys. One tune that I have to learn a new style entirely is the Doobie’s “Long Train Running”, and I will remain shaky on many of the moaners. At this time there are 8 such tunes, including that pathetic “Last Dance With Mary Jane” and “Shallow”, etc, making up 12% of the song list. If I go over 20 songs per day, a considerable challenge, I’ll need another 100 days. That means October 1. So that is not an answer. More likely I will focus on what I can in the short run.
Another dynamic is that, as a bassist, I don’t suffer from maniacal attachments to any given guitar music. I don’t feel any compulsion to play or even listen to any particular artist. As I go over the list, it is normal to bump into stuff I’ve played before but long forgotten. This speeds things along. Funny, I noticed how guitar players got fanatical about the time album sales began to replace 45s as the media of choice. Now it makes sense. If you shell out $20 in real money for an album, damn, get your money’s worth by learning even the weak numbers and insisting the band play ‘em.
There are a further ten or so fringe pieces for me. Think “Jolene” and “Summer of 69”. I’ve played them and just as quickly dropped them. I will relearn these in minutes. These open another door, since the band expects repetitive bass lines to be matched by one’s performance. I have methods for those times, and I’ll tell you one.
The bass notes sound marginally deeper when plucked near the center. “Jolene” has only six notes. I fake it by pretending to be deeply concentrating. I hook my pinky on the octave mark [of the instrument neck] and stare at my left hand, taking care to mark perfect timing. The simple pattern allows for making the chord changes wide apart and lighting fast. This causes a visual disjoint, since people expect notes to sound when they are fretted. I make it look like I can’t possibly hit the note. The trick? I practiced it in front of my camcorder until I got faster than can be recorded in a single frame. (That’s around a 30th of a second.)
It usually doesn’t take long for an audience member to spot this and elbow his neighbor. I’ve had whole rooms turn to watch. That includes band members. Yet nobody can complain because I’m only playing the six cover notes. The end result is an overall improvement in band sound. Why? Because it telegraphs to the rest of the band that it has become unwise to pick tunes without regarding the bass parts. Choosing material with bass line that are too bland is now taking a big risk. And from a direction formerly relegated to drab dullness.
