How's that bikey, Sploggy stuff workin' out for ya?

Aright, Didn't really feel like it but did it anyway.
11.14 miles.
9.7 mph average.
36.1 max speed.
1:08:54 hours.
189.4 + 1307 = 1496.4. total since I started counting coupla' years a go.

Jissasec gotta go back and check the earlier splogs. Make sure that's right

Seems to be in line with the rest of the spec's.

No monkey butt.

Akchully today has been a full one.
Up early to get the basscon score to Kinko's.
Laundry.
Bike ride.
Clarinet practice...'nother hunnert years, I'll be ready for twinkle little star.

More laundry.
And now this.

Didn't go anywhere scrambled eggs just to class and back.

O.K. I had a cuppa 'n' donut or something at Peet's
Forgot to go to the bank.
Forgot to go to the store for bread.

Hey! that's two places to go for bread.

Bread...Money...Bread...Get it?

Ha Ha

The Chilly Hilly 33 mile bike ride around Bainbridge Island is Sunday.
Season opener, so to speak when yer spoken to.

Not gonna do it.

News from the liberal neo-monarchist press

This just in;
President Obama has just made the Republican party illegal.
Arrests start in 5 minutes.

Nice ferry ride Sunday.
Anacortes to San Juan Island
Four whole minutes to see the sights in Friday Harbor, then on to Orcas, Shaw, and Fidalgo then slowly back to Anacortes and Seattle.
Made it back in time to once again get cheated out of SNL by NBC's crappy coverage of the O'limpics.

Waved to Alex on the way by, but doubt she noticed.

Special note to Blue Bunny; He said it in French.

Then What?

Usual stuff, scores,, Cds, trying to engineer a steaming thingy for the sides of the Ukuleles. The violin bender is not very efficient as it only heats up a small area of the wood.
Perhaps if I can steam the whole piece it will bend more smoothly.

I know I bend more smoothly when I'm steamed.

Once again, I have run out of ideas, if any of the foregoing can be considered ideas.

Ophelia, Ophelia
What's the deal ya
Left me all alone
Beside the telephone
Waitin' for your call
Don'cha know your all
I long for in a world
Won'cha be my girl

Ophelia, Ophelia,

WHAT MAKES YOUR BIG HEAD SO HARD?

Wait a minnit, that's Caledonia
Me and Cal are soooo over an' she knows why.

I gotta go now, the SWAT team has the house surrounded.

More stealing; this is from the London Evening Standard.

Dear lord, surely I am still too young to be listening to Poulenc's Stabat Mater at the Royal Festival Hall? Whatever happened to clubbing? And what's next: backgammon and scones at the Women's Institute?

If you have never been to a classical music concert, and ever find yourself, like me, married to someone who seems to have become prematurely middle-aged overnight, then here's a tip: don't go if you have a cough. So uptight is the classical music crowd that one is only permitted to cough between movements, or whatever the hell they're called.

Who knew? The consequence of all this repression is that, as soon as the last violin string fades, the entire audience breaks out in a loud, bronchial hack. It's very disconcerting but also really funny. In the sober world of classical music, you get your laughs where you can.

Pooh

Nice day for a ride but I, who am apparently not made for such amusements chose to get an infection or some damn thing in my throat and prefer to stay inside.

I am in a bad mood so watch it!

Exit coughing

Red eye

Orrapin, that's the name of the Thai restaurant I was talking about last week, the one across the street from the Bostonian and Ototo the sushi place.
I know you've been worrying about these two meaningless items since I last mentioned them in my weekly peregrinations.
You may now rest your concerns and sleep the sleep of the satisfied curiosity.

Theyre both on Boston street just east of Queen Anne ave.

Had phad tai with chicken and tofu.

Headed downtown with a briefcase full of personal information to get my drivers license renewed only to find the renewal place was gone.
The personal information was for the purpose of getting the enhancement so if I ever get kidnapped and carried off to Canada I will be able to come home again without a side trip to Guantanamo.

Went to my favorite Cafe Ladro and had my usual waiting for me because my favorite barista remembers that I always have the same thing.

I would appreciate it if you would not mention this barista thing to Emily or Ophelia
I won't mention her name here because...well, I don't know her name.
Which is probably for the best.

Having the time not spent waiting in license renewal, I walked slooowly back up the hill, read the Weekly, walked around, went to the bank, headed down the stairs to class........
Only to find a note on David's door;
Out sick.
Phooey!
Went home.
Went to Taco Time for dinner.
Fell asleep.
Woke up in the middle of the night.

Read the rest of a truly silly book about elves and spirits and stuff, a children's book I think.
Only to find it not boring enough to lull my caffeinated central nervous system.

I already finished Franny and Zooey.

Which I had never read before and probably wouldn't have if J.D. hadn't died.

So here I am.

Splog

You don't need to read this.
This is just a record of my rides.
Splog is a made up word that I use to tag all these records.
It sorta means specifications log.

11.9 miles
1:07:56 hours
9.9 mph average
31.1 max speed
1485 miles on the odometer

Didn't see Ophelia anywhere on the trip.

No comment

Busted

Late last night while I was trying to sleep the 14 foot curtain rod that I had made from two 7 foot rods fell to the floor and broke in half.
You know your life is getting soft when a thing like that can seem important.
Sun seems to be coming out.
Maybe a ride.
Ukulele backs and fronts are cut and glued. Next to figure out what to use for the sides.
Got lots neck wood.
And even lots fancy wood for fingerboards, nuts and trim.
After that, a lapstrake rebec.

The best laid paints.

Didn't get around to actually painting the curtain rods y'day, one look at the join between the sections of the long one was enough to re engineer that cleft.
Had to find a way to center the things for a locating pin.
Then carve slots for some reinforcing bars.
Took 2 hours and overnight for the glue to dry.
Seems solid and strong enough today.
Got to get it primed and filled.
Then I can paint them all and M can hang the curtains which will then not match the wall colors after which the new furniture will be wrong after which and after which tomorrow and tomorrow and all down in newchristy minstrelsey for cran and for dorsen.

Sliced up some apple wood from our tree on the band saw and planed down some wood for ukulele backs.
And some laurel from the same tree trimming exercise.
Also have some madrona I got from a brother in law.
I am running low on spruce from my old piano soundboard, so I may have to find some other source for belly wood.
My most successful violin had a belly made of some scrap fir or hemlock I had laying around.
Gave it to a Soundbridge friend who preferred it and started to use it professionally
Ugly little bugger it was cruder looking than a Del Gesu with a fist rather than a scroll out at the end of the neck.

(Strange place to have a fist)

The back was some seriously spalted oak from the firewood pile.

She said it had a good sound.

Had a dream last night; Qphelia came back to visit.
Sitting talking to some other folks at our house, I said nothing to her until she left, when I said good bye.
I think it was not the socially proper thing to do.
But I'm only me, knowhutI'msayin'?
It's like I owe her something but don't know what it is or how to say it.

But she's like a comet that whose closest pass is a thousand miles every eighty eight years.
I just can't seem to be prepared to reach that distance.

I just don't seem to realize the gravity of the situation.

Or the calculus of the orbit.

So she's outward bound at the moment.

As am I.

Last week

I have been sort of ignoring my musical responsibilities.
Spent the week building a couple new Duke Nukem levels.
Whiling away the hours living in alternate worlds of my own creation.

And fooling around with wood, making plans for a ukulele or two.

And making some rods to hang the new curtains that M is sewing up.
Not that that is a tremendously difficult task.
Except that it was necessary to join two seven foot pieces of 1 1/2 inch doweling together in order to make a rod longer than is commercially available at the hardware store.
This turned out to be a bigger trick than I had anticipated.

So.....today I will get the bass concerto scores smacked into shape.
It's a whole 'nother language, this scoring bizz.

But preparatory to anything else I shall put some paint on those poles I told you about.

Procrastination, that's the name of the game.....

I have been surfing Glenns's site for the "poetry" of mine that he has posted (and created out of the dross of my pen [keyboard]) hoping to write it down in my little black book and create a tome that will be a useful adjunct to M's collection of fire starting flammables.

So... that's that for the day.

It's Ophelia's turn to miss me, so there.

'nother new link

LuLu Poetry.
I submitted one -
about a canoe trip.
Yesterday was typical although I dint walk downtown but had coff and muffin at Peet's
After pad thai at the Thai restaurant across from the Boston st barber shop.
The Barber shop does have a fancier name but I don't remmerrit.

Browsed around Twice Sold Tales
Didn't buy nothin'

Wednesday blog #27?

Bought stamps at the stamp store
Now they are coming in a 50-stamp roll.
Hadda buy two of 'em.

I'm all tired out after the bike ride.

Baby baby maybe nex' week cantchoo see I'm on a loosin' streek.

I ate a apple an' I liked it.

Gotta go edit score for the bass concerto.

Oh Yeah Moptop Pitstop too.....

Splog

Bike ride! After 3 0r 4 months of not riding, I got out yesterday.
Hadn't really wanted to but I rode the bike 30 feet in the basement just to move it from one room to another and it seemed like fun so I decided to take a short one.
Maybe five miles or so just so I could say I did it.
Turned out to be a 25 miler around half the lake.

The boring details;

Distance, 24.61 miles.
Time on the road, 2:35:28 hours
Average speed, 9.5 miles per hour.
Maximum speed, 32.2 miles per hour.
Odometer reading, 166.6 miles. (I'll have to add that to the reading from the old counter one of these days)

How 'bout today? 166.6 + 1307 = 1473.6
I did a lot of walking toward the end.

Concert today; Philharmonia Northwest.

Goodbye.

This week

has seen the arrival of a special special guest in the house adding to the special guest already here.
I have been moved to a place in the basem...my recording studio, in a little nook next to my stash of fine exotic musical instrument woods...O.K. firewood.
But it's going to be my studio soon. I am planning (most all basement recording studios are in the planning stage) to use the space to try to get some use out of the fancy digital recorder (Fostex MR-8) that only works at home.
Never in it's life has it consented to record any of my performances.
Which of course is the reason I bought it.
For some reason pushing record and play outside the house is different than doing so at home.
Very disheartening.
The friend of mine who played my "Sad Song for piano"* at his recital recorded his performance on the exact same type of machine and that worked.
I have that converted to mp3 and posted to Myspace.
I never expected to make hit records with it.
I only asked it to record the little shows for my personal records.
Bur every time, when I get the thing home and go to upload to the computer...there is nothing at all on the card!
Never once!
But all the little bits I've recorded here at home are there.
Were there, I've got them on the computer now for some reason, probably because it's the only thing I've managed to get out of it.

Anyhow, many thanks to Wally and David and Kieth for the few records I do have.

Computers!!

I spend so many years in my auto repair activities accumulating a respect for Toyota but as soon as I get to a position in life to buy my first new car, I end up with this tin can full of computers that somehow seems to think it knows more about driving than I do.
Even though it has no eyes nor does has it ears.
It does have useless stuff like cruise control air conditioning and a radio without a mute button.
Which seems to me to be about the most important and easiest thing to add to a car that thinks it's so damn smart.
A friggin mute button f'crissake!
Let's face it a computer is just an idiot savant that can access more of it's pathetically limited store of little digitized facts faster than I can
Dumber than most animals.
Not really capable of making the real time survival decisions that I'm expected to take responsibility for.

So....anyway who gives a rip, nowhutI'msayin'?

It's like having a trained seal at the wheel.

So there's that......and.....?

I guess I'll just have to get back to playing with computers that don't burst into flames when they crash.





*Full title; "Yet another sad song littering the highway of life"

Feb 3

Going to school.