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  • “How many people make themselves abstract to appear profound. The most useful part of abstract terms are the shadows they create to hide a vacuum.” Joseph Joubert

    Posted on by The Thousand Yard Stare Comment

    I wish I had something interesting to report.

    Things are kind of slow when my daughter isn’t around, and my green hair only entertains me so much. I hear from my lawyer that I will need to go back to blonde before the probate hearing. Yay me. Then it’s back to green.

    Being unemployed is a little surreal. It will be good to go back to school, giving me a daily goal (wake up, go to school, repeat).

    I’m using a book that teaches fretboard logic – and it’s working very well for me. I’m really happy with it.

    Picked up a ton of $2 bills at the bank today. I wiped them out. Why? Why not? It’s legal US currency – it’s time to reintroduce it into circulation. C’mon people! Do your part!

    Going to have a parent/teacher conference tamale. Little one made “student of the hour” last week – of which I am extremely proud. The things you do for your kids…..

    She’s enjoying the whole process which is awesome. This is exactly what she needed. I can enthusiastically endorse Sylvan Learning Center.

    Am considering doing the P90X program – my insurance agent/guitar teacher does it and he loves it.

    I’m trying to use every Category that I have…..here we go – I’m close.

    Installed a new toilet the other day – life is so much better with a new toilet. Don’t underestimate the power of a new toilet.

    Speaking of humor….just kidding. I honestly have had more conversations with this hair than I can count. People say the oddest things. Which is great, because it’s sharpening my response skills.

    “Which came first, the chicken? Or the egg?”


    📂This entry was posted in Guitar School 📎and tagged

  • “I shot the sheriff” Bob Marley

    Posted on by The Thousand Yard Stare Comment

    Not sure why Sunday has turned into such a peaceful day….

    It used to be because most of our customers were least busy, so I would get the least amount of phone calls. I was jolted earlier today when I thought, “Where is my work phone?”. In some ways, I’m still getting out of “work mode” – in other ways, I’m way, way gone.

    Right now it’s quiet, the TV is off, my daughter is still asleep – I’m thinking about pattern one scales in the way that this one book is telling me…..and wanting to write a song.

    There was a police officer across the street – and knowing my neighbors are out of town, I went to see if everything was ok. Everything was fine – including the officer. *wink-wink-nudge-nudge*. I could have easily crossed over in our tiny insignificant conversation and asked for her number, but I passed that tipping point where it felt natural, and just let it go.

    Also, I never feel comfortable doing that kind of thing when my daughter is within say, 500 feet?

    Sunday is supposed to be a religious day. I was definitely thinking about the big “R” the other day when someone asked me if I used to be a priest.

    These days, I consider myself a non-theist. I’m a practicing non-theist. LOL.

    Atheism, to me, prescribes a kind of knee-jerk reaction to whatever religion is being presented.

    The only god I pray to is the porcelain kind – and speaking of which: I was replacing the wax seal (again) because I undertightened the bolts on the toilet, and ended up breaking it (the toilet). Bummer. My new one is in route to get here in the next hour or so – then I can install it. I’ll be kind of glad since I’ve been meaning to replace the disgusting seat that’s been on there since we moved in.

    I gave my first guitar lesson on Friday – and I think it went well. I don’t know how the student thought it went, but overall we covered some things, and started down the path.


    📂This entry was posted in Guitar 📎and tagged

  • “The world, dear Agnes, is a strange affair.” Moliere

    Posted on by The Thousand Yard Stare Comment

    Wow.

    Today was my last day of work. They held a great little luncheon for me, and I cracked jokes pretty much the entire time, probably to try and convince myself that I’m not nervous about the leap I’m taking. Oddly enough, we had some conversations about my age. Apparently pretty much everyone there thought I was in my mid-forties – and were very surprised that I’m not. LOL.

    After it was all over, I came home and passed out for four hours. It honestly was pretty emotionally draining. After spending five long harrowing years pouring blood and sweat into this job – I walked away.

    Some people kept saying, “It’s going to be impossible to fill your shoes”. I don’t truly believe that’s the case, I think there will be a relatively natural evolution that will occur. It will just be different (for them). I didn’t expect the place to go up in flames without me at all. It remained standing as I slowly pulled myself away over this last few….uh…er…..weeks. Ha!

    In other news:

    * I went to a golf driving range last night. The twist? All the balls were RFID’d and you had a monitor next to you that would track how far and how accurately you hit the ball. Since I haven’t golfed in 25 years (pretty close to not ever golfing) it was pretty rough for the first 60 balls. I finally got my swing in a little bit and managed to hit 4 out of 5 balls (in a row) pretty much where I wanted them to go. It was a lot of fun and there were lots of cute girls there too. Apparently driving ranges are the new meat market! Beer helps too…..except when my brother is bellowing “You suck BALLS???”. It was funny though.

    * I’m having my Ibanez custom painted to look like a White Zombie model that’s no longer in production. I’ve owned a guitar with a floyd rose, and I’ve never been truly excited about getting another one with a Floyd, so I might as well get my cheap stop tail painted custom and save myself $3000.

    The guy that is doing it is pretty excited about it – so am I. I’ve been posting on every guitar forum that I’m looking for one – no go. They’re HARD to find. I even e-mailed Jay Yuenger – since it’s his signature model – to see if he had one, but he didn’t have one to sell! I’m mailing the body off next week – crossing my fingers that all goes well.

    * Green Day is tomorrow. I begin the trek down to Houston tomorrow morning some time. The way that I feel RIGHT NOW is that I’m so worn from this last two weeks, I almost want to crawl into bed for a week or two and not get out. I’m sure I’ll feel differently tomorrow morning, but I’m still mentally a blob right now. We’re going to go to Mai’s for some spring rolls (yay for Mai’s!!) and then hit the show. Heading for Galveston on Sunday, and will be spending the night. Mini-vacation if you will. Coming back Monday to see if anyone tried to test out my Brinks alarm system.

    * One of my former employees is interested in learning guitar (zero experience) so I’m going to use this as an opportunity to try my skills at teaching guitar, which is one thing I’m pretty interested in doing. Being interested in it and doing it are two separate things, so we’ll see how this works out. Should be pretty fun.


    📂This entry was posted in Guitar 📎and tagged

  • “What this country needs is more unemployed politicians.” Angela Davis

    Posted on by The Thousand Yard Stare Comment

    This pretending to be un-employed in preparation for the real thing is kind of cool.

    Nobody calling me, getting things done, hanging out with my daughter.

    I’m going to head over to the school to re-register and see how many of my class hours evaporated. *Poof*

    I used to be a sophomore….somehow after 20 or so years, this time I’ll probably have to start from scratch.

    What to do, what to do…….

    Awaiting the Brinks alarm installation folks – finally getting around to that.


    📂This entry was posted in Guitar 📎and tagged

  • “We herd sheep, we drive cattle, we lead people. Lead me, follow me, or get out of my way.” George S Patton

    Posted on by The Thousand Yard Stare Comment

    Damn you AT&T!

    My ex-wife turned on her internet at her apartment and having never switched to a new account, it disabled my internet access at my house.

    D’OH!!

    U-Verse – here I come…..on the 10th. *sigh*

    I had a guy tail me the majority of the way back from Houston this weekend – my daughter and I went to a wedding – and I had my cruise control set at 83 the entire time. He tried to pass me then sped past me, and I caught up to him four separate times. Doing the same 83 mph…..

    What an idiot.


    📂This entry was posted in Main 📎and tagged

  • “Looks like you’ve lost the keys to the clue-mobile” Martin Poulter

    Posted on by The Thousand Yard Stare Comment

    Right now it’s a quiet time.

    Coffee maker is warming up……waking up from a three hour nap. I had to work today – and yesterday – so I’m pretty out of it. Is it Tuesday?? I have to quit taking that Xanax – it keeps knocking me out.

    Memorial Day.

    Traded in the Hondas on Saturday….and got another Honda.  I’ve been asked what I’ve named it, but nothing has sprung forth as fitting. I’m tending to call it my “mid-life-crisis-mobile”. But that’s a little wordy. Actually, I only half heartedly call it that. I went through a lot of different choices before I picked it and several of those cars were definitely mid-life-crisis worthy. The last one I weeded out before the Honda was the Mazda RX8. Unfortunately, the RX8 Renesis engine has a rather disturbing trend of burning up engines when using manufacturers recommended oil weight.  While the rotary engine is simple, I don’t think that rebuilding it every 30,000 miles is something I wanted to do.

    Plus, I know Honda cars pretty well – starting with my blue Acura back in the mid-nineties.  I know what goes wrong with them, they’re reliable, good with gas, not going bankrupt…..

    mlcm

    It’s a 2006 Civic SI……It’s really fast. And black.

    I didn’t realize that it’s faster than my brother’s mini Cooper until I looked it up.

    While I did have a Cobra alarm on the Acura (as anyone who was concious in the 90’s remembers the destinctive 6 alarm wail of), this will be the first car that I’ve installed Lo-Jack on.

    Needless to say, car thieves like fast cars with fast engines.


    📂This entry was posted in Main 📎and tagged

  • “A speaker who does not strike oil in ten minutes should stop boring” Random

    Posted on by The Thousand Yard Stare Comment

    Ahh yes. The great American pasttime – changing one’s oil. I feel mighty manly when I do it.

    When you’re changing oil on a car that you’ve newly acquired – make sure you have a strap wrench. Using a pipe wrench impresses no one. Those guys at the dealership don’t want anyone taking the old filters off but themselves – the thing was practically welded on.

    1

    Success!!

    25

    That’s the stuff baby! (That’s A/C condensation – I didn’t spill any oil)

    2

    New filter, and easy release valve (for future self-oil changes).

    3

    Hell, I might as well do both.

    4

    Nothing more American than pulling your two gasoline burning cars out of the garage, unloading a bunch of used petroleum by-product, then reloading them with new petroleum by-product. I’m so proud.

    And…

    While I was changing/fighting the air filter on the 2004 – I glance over and saw a neighbor girl checking me out. Either she was busting me looking at her, or I was busting her looking at me.

    Of course, she might have been looking over because I was grumbling – and the whole neighborhood probably heard it. I should probably check “Missed Connections” on Craigslist tonight….

    ” I looked over and you were cursing Honda Engineers’ lineage – it was soooo cute. Tell me exactly what you said and we’ll meet up!! XOXOXO”

    Who freaking designed the oil dipstick on a 2004 Accord anyway??? They need to be shot! How hard can it be to make a straight dipstick? It’s got so many kinks (whoo-hoo!) that it’s a bitch to get back in. Maybe I just need practice…..

    Well. This is certainly going in a direction I didn’t expect.

    I think they tried to make the air filter cover as much like a rubik’s cube as possible as to prevent people from changing it themselves. I ran out of oil, so I need to run back over to AutoZone and get some. I think I’ve got another post in me for tonight…… I need more milk too, so I’ll try a little later.


    📂This entry was posted in Main 📎and tagged

  • “Who always only dreams of luck shouldn’t be surprised if he oversleeps it.” Ernst Deutsch

    Posted on by The Thousand Yard Stare Comment

    Wow – I just woke up about thirty minutes ago.

    I went to bed at one last night, so if I do the math……

    *pulls out scientific calculator*

    Eleven hours!

    Wow. And I was sober even!

    All that guitar playing must have worn me out.

    ….

    Random:

    I used to be in the chorus at Parker Elementary. We were all singing one day and the teacher said, “Who is harmonizing? Cut it out!”. It was probably me. I didn’t even know what “harmonizing” was!


    📂This entry was posted in Main 📎and tagged

  • “The more we do, the more we can do; the more busy we are the more leisure we have” William Hazlitt

    Posted on by The Thousand Yard Stare Comment

    You know, I’m feeling pretty good today.

    I’ve managed to clean up a bunch of the house (and almost destroy the vacuum cleaner with a wet filter) – so I’m stalling right now while the filters dry on top of the dryer.

    Got the other Imelda May disc, so I’m cranking that and Green Day, and prepping to start practicing some guitar.

    Did a good deed and helped out my ex-wife’s uncle with a computer problem, and I’m pretty busy uploading old videos up to YouTube.

    Granted, right now I’m leaving off my dorkiest moments, but they will come. Oh yes, they will come.

    The Super Automatic is a screamer. Still tinkering with the settings, but it’s really nice not getting coffee grounds every where EVERY time I make espresso. My goal was to stay home all weekend, and aside from going to work last night (in Cleburne of all places) and dropping a server on my foot (ouch), and doing the (good) deed, I’ve pretty much stayed on plan.


    📂This entry was posted in Guitar 📎and tagged

  • “Supermarket automatic doors open for me; therefore, I am.” Craig Bruce

    Posted on by The Thousand Yard Stare Comment

    I got a super automatic. Spoiled little boy.

    In an effort to seriously stop my drinking, I invested in a super automatic espresso machine. It does it all for you.

    Still in the testing phases……but I might not have to leave the house. Ever.

    Just kidding.

    Having not imbibed an alcoholic beverage in well over a week or so, I can definitely say that my thought process is about the same….only more sober.

    SO, am I drinking to escape? Or because I have nothing better to do?

    Also currently in the planning stages for going down for Texas Rockabilly Revival.


    📂This entry was posted in Main 📎and tagged