One year ago today: June 1, 2025, boxes on sale.
Five years ago today: June 1, 25, 2021, Austria leads.
Nine years ago today: June 1, 25, 2017, remember the jamboree?
Random years ago today: June 1, 2007, never Morse “bad”.
I’ve streamlined the budget and bank systems, realizing that the claimed “8%” inflation has tripled prices. The guitarist responded to an early morning text saying he cannot be here until after his girlfriend gets home from work with the car. And it has an unreliable dead battery. I listened to his description, if it is not a dead battery, the first thing you check, then it is that solenoid. And where is that on today’s cars? It is a Chrysler. I talked to the guy and he’s got a bad case of guitar-think but is flexible on what to play. How sad so many of them don’t know Waylon’s version of “Long Time Leavin;” is such a droll version of a fun song. Good morning.
Over to Winter Haven, I picked up some materials, shopped the Thrift, shipped the LifeVest back to Chicago, and paid $4.17 for a shake. High times. That new intersection northeast of Bartow is going to cause some real pattern changes. That new subdivision immediately south of Kooters is now complete and full. Across the lane is another new gas station with convenience store that were not prime locations a year ago.
Building something most days is important to me at this phase. Nor did I get any good time lapse clouds for you, that experiment failed because the camera will not focus through glass. In fact, here is a sample of the video so that, unlike other blogs, you can share in the disappointment. Ah, but it is only a fail if you learn nothing. See the clock in the background? It is visible in the original, and we learned we have just under two hours charge time on those old Vivitar batteries.
The guy even peeled the wrapping off the batteries and used slow turning rotors, powered by the new nickel-manganese-cobalt batteries that you never heard of before. They have double the power density but act funny after fewer recharges, ask any salary sacrifice driver who bought a used Tesla. But what would old guys like me know about such things?
Chernobyl Ferris wheel.
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Well, what can I say? Rick showed up and it is an instant band. But, we’ve been here before, lots of times. He’s great on acoustic but he’s an electric man from the word go. We easily played 35 tunes, a real mix of blues and country. He has the right idea of resurrecting older tunes and today I finally played a version of “Hey Joe” that I’m happy with. The music was a major mix of blues, country, and older pop hits. I mean, everybody can play “Bad Moon” and I was watching for the presentation.
We quickly decided to split the songs, at 16 each, agreeing that his best blues is to be included. Not that many players can get me to like blues so fast. As for the music, it was top quality, he knows when to under- or over-play passages to keep the sound and rhythm consistent. And he is at least aware of the of CAGED system. I was amused a bit by his reaction to “rhythm bass”. While it is nothing new, not many guitarists have heard it applied quite as I do, which is just heavy enough to obviate a drummer and rhythmist. That could go either way, depending on the guitarist. I have twelve tunes ready, he has around eight.
Nor has he met anyone who fills in the notes he can’t play and I only had to demo once how I play ahead scale tones. I know guitar players who never get it, he glommed onto it just like that. We jammed some old rock, including “Love Me Two Time”, “Venus”, and he particularly liked “Oh Lonesome Me” and “These Boots”, tunes I was about to chuck. He dislikes new country, understandable.
He likes my oldest tunes, which hints to me he may have shaved more than a few years off his age. Because my oldest material is older than me and I did not discover much of it until this century. It’s nothing in the music trade, but he does look ten years older than me. At this point, the only thing stopping us from stage work is a few weeks to polish up the material. He sings Merle, maybe we should call this band “1965” The plan is to choose 8 tunes each that we can play immediately. I cautioned him that I do not know anyone reliable to form a larger group, that we should play only what will fly for now. He was quickly at ease upon hearing the bass lines, like he was amused I played question-answer fills that supply a framework he could work with.
ADDENDUM
Here’s something, the corn starch people are putting about that talcum powder is “mined near asbestos”. The connection is that talcum powder is not banned, but hard to find because of women filing lawsuits that it gave them ovarian cancer. The container says “for external use only” and in any case, talcum is magnesium silicate, one of the most common substances on Earth. The real connection is that the mesothelioma well is running dry and a new generation of lawyers are hungry to get talcum banned by linking it to asbestos.
My own health has entered a new phase. Starting a couple days ago, my whole chest area and matching area on back is flexing by itself. It isn’t painful and the rib cage itself likes to get in on the action. It like a series of stressed areas that give and take as each reaches a stage of healing. Every old injury acts up if this “knitting” feeling gets close. I still have a tightness across the frontal area where the incision was closed and all of the healing is soft tissue. So they really must have done a number on me.
The whole outside rib tissue is subject to light spasms and sensations of pulling and pushing around by itself, but invisibly in the muscle, not the skin. I find myself sitting still for up to two hours, which was uncommon before. Also a minor feeling of fatigue, like my upper shoulders are tired from heavy lifting. The scar was healing well for a week after the stitches were removed, but how stay visibly the same, no change in two weeks. And where those three bigger stitches came out, I can tell they were much deeper than the rest.
Pain 1 out of 10 once in a while, always in the front chest area and nothing likes being touched or stretched the slightest, most present when dressing. Normally the pain is less than1, and better described as a constant discomfort. Worst pain is gout attacks, though now rare, can hit 5 ouf of 10 for a few seconds. Most comfortable position is lying down on either side.and staying put for three hours, then might as well get up just to keep moving around. I would place overall recovery still around 30 or 35 percent.
Last, I’ve noticed the past few days my skin is feeling colder to the touch near the incision site. I don’t have any way to measure this, hold on, remember that laser gizmo to check the burn barrel? Did I not notice it goes down to 60°F? If so, and it works, I will record the surface skin temp of my left chest for 14 days.
Later, it works. Skin temp: 96.7° and I will take the first five readings to be normal without regard to my actual “thermometer” temp. Again, it is a feeling, not a fact, and just my chest.
