One year ago today: July 24, 2024, the same 25
Five years ago today: July 24, 2020, borrow a real saw.
Nine years ago today: July 24, 2016, a proper amount of credit.
Random years ago today: July 24, 2017, fixing the batbike.
For me, something unusual to start the day. My first real back therapy. Last day was them testing what works, today was action.. What a workout. The routine targets mostly support muscles that they must know get avoided It’s a rough but not too strenuous 45 minutes during which I discover it is more my left side that was affected. The homework exercises do not help as much as the clinic sessions. Once again, the lasting side effect is a general deep lingering weariness. Here, watch this video on AMO.
This therapy did not slow me down, just had me take it easy, I was over to the Treasure Barn to pick up the boxes which were taking space in her inventory. There is something out if sync at the whole establishment because they have continued to fill the spaces, yet there are not enough customers, ever. There is an air of fatalism kind of depressing, but then again, I felt that when I first was in ther month’s ago. It was a good idea for the twenty-teens. Now they are competing with Etsy.
Hulk Hogan is gone at 73. I thought he was at least twenty years younger than that. A reminder for me to set my own house in order. I’ve now been retired 29 years and I’m still planning on conquering the world. I can’t even clear the brush in my back yard and my kitchen floor is till in pieces. Then again, I was never happier when I worked for a living. I now have some boxes to keep everything in. And a laser to put labels on them.
The laser is being put through the paces, finding its limitations. They are few for the intended purpose of one-at-a-time logos. I tried scribing some wooden pencils, finding the positioning too finicky even with a small jig I made up. The surface color of the material makes a big difference, something you tackle by trial and error. Anything white or yellow resists the beam.
Food. I made up a batch of my combination fried rice. There are no secret ingredients, just lots of them. Onion, celery, mushrooms, red peppers, and in this batch, cubed pork. Y’know, I can’t but wonder whatever happened to the hillbilly, since that dish was a real favorite. Not that he ate that well, he was not supposed to live here three months, it was supposed to be crash only until he got his first paycheck at the new job. All else was to be at his mother’s who lives 40 yards away and would not let him stay there or he’d never move out.
There’s a bit of a rule in the band that the person who sings a song has final say as key and version as long as the tune is up-tempo and appeals to a country audience. What could go wrong. Well, plenty, actually. That rule was established long ago when the other guy was usually a guitarist who sang a bit. This time we have a vocalist who plays guitar a bit. It isn’t all talk, the person who wants to sing a song is also responsible to get everybody a copy of the lyrics and chord chart in the correct key, plus a studio MP3 of the exact version in the original key plus another copy of the transposed key.
The new guy sent me a link to a live version in Db. Live versions rarely work. His chord chart was in D and the original tune, when I found it, was in E. This creates a ton of extra effort but we do want the new guy to succeed and be happy. The tune is “Sweet Blossom”, about as garden variety as so-so country ballads get. I don’t much identify with songs about tearing off dresses and medical help. I’m reminded of what I first said in 1970, that I’ve never met a guitar player so stupid he could not write a slow, dragging ballad about his crappy love life, and Cravin Melon is that in spades.
It took an hour to sort this thing out over a song I wouldn’t listen to if you paid me. Oh well, you know my technique for discouraging the other guy from this behavior. (You can thank the Space Hippie for the concept.) You see, guitarists who get into these “personal” tunes rarely consider for a microsecond what the rest of the band has to play. Rarely in this case means I have yet to see it. But what makes them listen is when somebody plays the song better on bass than they do on guitar. And that tune is full of hammer-ons which I can expertly carry off.
But, stick with the plan and I played the tune 8 or 9 of the 15 times required by tradition. I’m up to speed though by now I should be putting on the finishing touches. I’ll have to hear his guitar rendition but this lends itself to my famous thirds and even has a small walkdown, my specialty playing the scale tones of the upcoming chord.
Rental car damage scanner.
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By early afternoon, I felt a long-forgotten spring in my step. This didn’t cancel my siesta, as I watched another half-hour of “I, Robot”. Thank goodness all embassies, prisons, and secret headquarters have human-sized unguarded ventilation shafts. Before that, I went over the finances and decided to up the joint account by a preciously-needed $500 from here. The Reb is at a similar crossroads to my situation when I was struck down. It’s not that nobody would help out, it’s that nobody was in a position to. The more credit-based a society, the less anybody can spare a thing—they’re still making payments on it, you might say. She has one vehicle and I learned not to take such chances. Others tend to gamble on such odds.
The speaker system from Agt. M doesn’t have the bass end I need. You know, I find that Bluetooth gear can have a slight hissing or hum at high volumes, anyone else too? I know it’s the wireless link because it disappears when I plug in a jack. I also tested and retested my little pink amp and it fails the bass notes, anything below the open A begins to buzz at any decent volume. I swapped it for the Bluetooth, which is overkill for a computer speaker, but a grand sound for a non-stereo setup.
Next, I sat down the bass and read through the headlines in several non-MSM news sites. Is Trump taking my advice? Instead of attacking the Deep State head on like his first term, he has clearly figured out the enemy is the civil service. Now he knows better. First, he replaces the head honchos to panic the ranks. Then he hits their distribution system, USAID. Now their procurement system as he cans 25% of the IRS. That leaves their enforcement team, the Obama/Biden appointees. Yep, that’s what I said I would have done. Starve them out.
Ha, the J6 committee people who got fired are tying to sue. That horrid Behar woman predicts Trump’s downfall for the umpteenth time. Trump has warned MicroSoft and Google to quit replacing Americans with Jeet hirees. And finally, a pic of the boxes stored outdoors to test their tolerance for the elements. These are about to get joined by another fourteen units returned from the Treasure Barn. Sigh, but everybody can use good boxes, so on to another plan.
ADDENDUM
You don’t have to tell anybody I said this, but this “new country” truly sucks. Not so much because it’s bad, but because it is unoriginal. I’ve been a musician my whole life (well, since I was ten) and I’m aware when something is copycat. I am not blaming Steve because he is a generation younger than me so there is a related factor that often they do not know the songs that are being copied. So Steve sends me this lyric chord chart and I ask him for a link to give it a listen.
There I am, twenty minutes later trying to get this thing to work. I got it close but it was out of whack. Then I spotted it. Laugh if you want. He had sent me the wrong link for the chart. The chords, lyrics, and melody were so damned generic I did not detect for nearly a half hour they were not the same tune. Yep, it’s bad when even I can’t tell them apart.
