Sharon, my best friend of about 30 years, came over my mom's house for Christmas Eve with her boyfriend Michael. It was nice to spend some time with them though, she had a pretty severe allergic reaction to shrimp while she was there. I guess Michael was having shrimp or seafood in general and was drinking from her water cup. The sharing of that water caused her throat to close and hives to break out on her face. After a nice dose of Benedryl, she seemed to be fine, just a little shaken I think.
My head is absolutely buzzing with ideas and planning, goals, projects and lists. I should be a professional project creator. I have come to the conclusion that there are simply not enough hours in the day. What should one do? Sleep less? Hardly! But managing my time more effectively would probably go a long way towards helping me accomplish every harebrained scheme I think up.
What a delightful weekend we just spent. Sherlock Holmes was interestingly done and well worth a watch. I remember my mum reading Sherlock Holmes to me and my sisters at bedtime. The story of the speckled band scared the proverbial crap out of me. I remember reading the story to Jesse and Libby when they were still quite young (we were living in Hawaii at the time) and they were completely unruffled by it.
I wanted to go to the zoo today (yes, in December) but the snow was coming down thick and fast.
Todd didn't fancy negociating icy roads all the way to Indianapolis so we stayed close to home.
Ice skating wasn't the same without our English cousins but we're planning to get them stateside next winter.
Well, with the demise of the mores code requirement for radio operators of large ships and the removal of morse code testing for amateur radio operators, one would think that public use of telegraphs was long gone. After all Western Union sent its last telegraph on Friday, 27 January 2006. However the telegraph and Morse Code is apparently alive and well in the Philippines. In the Cordillera, telegraphy is still used to send messages to the remote mountainous regions.
Full article is here. One of the offices is still using a military surplus J-38 straight key. It did not say the methodology, that is if it is telegraph lines or radio. But still it is neat. I could not find any pictures of any of the stations.
Woke to 99.8 fever. Not much for most, but I typically run 97.6.
Still "off" but I just COULD NOT stay away from the Macy's after christmas sale.
Oh, and I had a gift certificate (like I kept to THAT amount). :-)
Once back I found "just enough" energy to sort my clothes and reorganize my side of the closet and my dresser.
TA DA. Summer stuff stored away. Things that don't fit, or I don't wear - in a bag for goodwill. Now If I can just get BEN to sort through his stuff! Seems "his" cat peed on this clothes on the floor of the closet. Um. Ben. PICK UP YOUR CLOTHES. :-)
Also got shoot some birds (with a great camera). Ben got a new fancy pants camera with HD video capacity and I inherited his prior fancy pants Canon! He's letting me borrow all his amazing lens (until I prove unworthy). He even taught me a bit about HOW to use the camera. I have not downloaded anything - but I did catch at least one cardinal!
We are waiting for snow. It was SUPPOSED to come today, but no snow. Maybe tomorrow. Should be A LOT of snow.
:- ) I have a new friend with a pair of barely used cross country skis I am likely to buy from her. There should be snow to ski on in the parks and in my yard soon.
Can you tell? I am very very happy here. Even if I AM a tad sick.
The topic today is guitar – specifically the kind that plug in. Why? Because it's my birthday and that's what I want to blab about.
So anyway, here’s an easy lick that enables even intermediate level guitar players to readily throw some ripping scale runs into their improv playing. It goes through 24 notes just to ascend a single octave, so it’s a great way to add a bar of shred while relocating to a new position on the fretboard for the next part of your solo.
It also sounds pretty damn slick.
But what’s really nice about this riff is that it only uses the first and second strings and the exact same frets are used on both strings. That makes it easy to remember and easy to execute.
We’re in everyone’s favorite shredding key, E minor, which is spelled E, F#, G, A, B, C, D. Begin on the E note located at the fifth fret of the B string and then ascend the scale in six-note stairs.
I’ve tabbed it out in the example above as a legato riff, which really makes this lick haul ass. To play it this way, pick only the first note in each triplet, then hammer-on the next two notes. The result is a fast, fluid run of notes that also looks cool as you play it.
This pattern also makes a terrific alternate picking lick. Start with a down stroke and use an “outside” picking style by alternating up-down-up-down all the way through.
Once you’re comfortable with all four positions, start adding some spice by mixing them up all over the place. The results can be pretty cool. I uploaded a full sheet of tablature examples with this post to help get you started. Yay! FREE TABS!
Well, it has been an interesting two weeks around this place, that's for sure. I seem to have gotten into the habit of the bulleted post again. Maybe this would be a good point to stop that and just use the standard paragraph. I think I could make that work. First, I'd like to say I hope you all had a wonderful and Merry Christmas. I know there were a few neighbors who experienced some really tragic things and to them, I would like to send out an especially warm (((HUG))) and hope that they can find peace.
Christmas time is also the time that my employer is doing it's maintenance shutdown work. Which means that I ended up working a whole lot just before and right after Christmas. Before Christmas I was setting up projects, making sure that everything was lined up for all the projects we have scheduled to complete. Someone has to help allocate money, people and line up parts for the work. Not to mention all the risk assessment stuff we've been doing lately. After Christmas is the one week period where we have to get all of the actual work completed. So this weekend has been one of hustle and bustle. Tracking project timelines, adjusting schedules and prioritizing work. There is always more work to be done than we can do, so it's a matter of starting with the high priority stuff and working down.
Good news to all the working is that every day worked is paid as triple time, plant holiday pay plus double time. In my case, I have the option to defer the holiday pay and take it as another paid day off later in the year. That means by working this week, I will add another week to my vacation and still make double time doing so. Awesome end to the year. Woohoo. But, in the middle of all that, I needed to shop for Christmas, pay all the year end bills, clean the house, do the baking and cooking adn everythign else. Whew. I made probably upwards of a gross of cookies and still haven't gotten the sugar cookies, the macaroons and the gingerbread stuff out of the fridge. I made the doughs up Christmas Eve, so tonight, the cookies get baked. I'll have pictures to share hopefully soon.
Got the new freezer, but still haven't gotten its new home set yet. The laundry room needs a thorough cleaning before it goes in there. until then, it's still in the corner of the Lego room. And no, I didn't buy that semi truck load of bricks. It's amazing what temptations having money sitting in the bank will bring. Even though I know it's supposed to go for paying bills, I still wanted to buy that stuff. Shame on me. Instead, bills will be paid and paid off. The New year will come in with much less debt than this year had. Almost every credit card will be paid in full too. Now that's a great accomplishment. Of course, knowing the credit card companies, they will lower my limits and/or cancel the accounts which, instead of helping my credit with no balances, will screw it up with closed accounts. Did I mention that I hate credit card companies? Yeah. I do. Like a dog hates a vaccuum cleaner.
Besides all that running around and going crazy, it's been pretty quiet actually, except for the huge piles of snow everywhere. Like Springtime in Chicago, only here in Kansas City. People here have a hard time driving in snow too. Maybe it's just me, but there are a lot of people in the ditch lately. Slow down and increase your distance between you. Seriously folks. Just do it. Or better yet, stay home. There, I feel better now. Alrighty, clock says it's time to go, there's an oven with my name on it, just waiting to bake some more cookies. In case I get tied up before the end of the year, I wanted to wish for every one of you to have a wonderful and happy New Year. Keep your underwear on and remain in the (semi?) upright position, at least if you are going to be out in public. Peace, Joy and Hope for the new year.
Something new to say about Christmas-New Year as we reach the end of the first, and very warm, decade of the 21st century? Don't want much do you? Thousands of writers, tens of thousands, have laboured every year for the thousands of years we have marked the celebration of mid-winter (and hope for Spring - in the northern hemisphere of course, but that's another story down under) and the artificial end of one journey around the Sun by the Earth and the start of another one.
Did you see the story about the young fellow in a four wheel drive whose vehicle had somehow stuck in cruise control and careered down the road, pushing brakes, banging gear stick, until, oops, here comes the end of the Freeway? Always been suspicious of cruise control, if cars were meant to have cruise control we wouldn't have right feet, would we? Anyway, reminded me of those two pilots, plane on auto-pilot, who overshot their destination the other day by a few hundred kilometres, and had to turn around and come back. With red faces, one imagines.
Can be a bit like that as we cruise along on auto pilot through the year, doing things we used to do, drifting along, September, November, and then oops, here comes Christmas, where did the year go? Always reminded, at this time of the year, of the old photos you see of long ago Christmas and New Year's Eve celebrations. There they are, the young folks of 31 December, 1913, silly hats on heads, champagne glasses in hand, wishing each other a happy 1914.
Never know what a new year is going to bring, so best to try not to run through the old one on cruise control. Stop occasionally, not so much to smell the roses (though that's not a bad start), as to bang on the gear stick, stamp on the brake, try to shake yourself up, dust yourself down, start all over again. Pay attention to the passing parade, do things that are new, different, learn new skills, read new authors, make new friends, try a new job, a new house, a new town, perhaps.
We only had one go at 2009, and now, whammo, flash of an eye, into the pages of history, the party snaps stuck in the pages of the photo album. Remember when, you might say, when you look back at them in 2020 or 2030, red-faced at having not done what you meant to do since.
So get ready for 2010 without an auto-pilot. Cruise control off. Eyes on the road ahead, Route 66 perhaps. Choose a destination. And maybe a couple of detours.
There, how did I do?
All David Horton's writing is on The Watermelon Blog.
Take a look at this photo of a present I received on Christmas.
Anything strike you as remarkable? Other than that it's Godiva, a classy and pricey chocolate you'd never find in my home unless it were gifted, as this was.
Look closely. Notice the vacant squares. Notice that exactly 41.6% of the contents ... gone! Missing! Vanished!
By me. And me alone. In one day, Christmas.
Now, that figure of 41.6% is misleading. It under-reports actual quantity consumed by me and me alone in one day.
Yes, it's accurate to say I ate 10 of the 24 total pieces, equaling 41.6%.
However, the astute observer will notice that not all the pieces are of identical size. Two of the remaining are humongous. There used to be of those, four giant blobs of glorious chocolate covering crunchy pecan bits and golden gooey caramel.
One of those gargantuan pieces is the equivalent of four small ones.
So, painfully forced to recalculate actual quantity, I, and I alone, consumed 44.44% of the box on Christmas Day. Up from 41.6%.
In one day, I morphed from the girl on the left into the one on the right:
Of course you know that's not me. I wouldn't be caught dead carrying a clutch, never mind one matching the dress.
But it does get the point across. Two days past Christmas and Godiva hasn't crossed these lips. I'm still burning off the sugar.
So if you need your snowy walkways shoveled, the shower regrouted, linoleum laid and walls repainted, all in a day, I'm your girl. The number's (555) SUGAR-HI (784-2744).
Disclaimer: None of my own piggery in any way alters the beauty and value of the gift and the thoughtfulness of the giver.
YaY! The Avatar edition of Cinefex is out. Usually they have 5-10 copies on average. Brian got their last 2. I might send mine to my mom and get another later. Mom missed Brian's name in the credits while looking for them and this is cooler -- a full page ad taken out to thank his team and another -- with his name in it. Can't miss it.
So, as we near the end of the year I though I would put together my best / worst lists. I'm too lazy. Sleep is a mess. Not getting anything done. Didn't get to go see Avatar again yet. Didn't get to mail stuff yet as I've not been awake at hours I could use sewing machine, so stuff to mail to mom isn't done. Etc. So, I'm just going to do.. hmph. My best person and worst person of the year, how's that? Good, good. Here we go then:
Best person of the year -- The Iranian people. I realize they're not one person. Shush. They realized they got screwed. They knew they'd face death if they stood up and said so. They stood up and said so anyway. They're still saying so. They're still dying. In fact today, it's being reported that Mir Hossein Mousavi's nephew was killed. It seems to be confirmed on Mir Hossein Mousavi's FB. Other reports say it wasn't him. Whoever it was that died -- it's a YouTube video. I'd not post the link, except they want to be seen it seems. Because that's what they're fighting for. Their country doesn't want them to be seen or heard. So, whether protesting or dying they want it seen. Sad.
Runner up for person of the year -- Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger. I know, I know. He says he's no hero, that he was just doing his job when he landed that plane in the water. But you know what? We also had some pilots who should have been doing their jobs while they missed their runway by what 70 minutes? So while airlines charge customers more and more for every little thing and pay pilots less and less? And those other pilots sleep through their duties? Good job to Sully for being awake and alert and doing his job pretty damn well!
Worst person of the year -- Politicians. Most of them collectively. Again not one person, I realize this. But there were only a few who seemed to stand true to what they believed without wavering back and forth about opinions, without caving, without being bought and sold. And while I'm okay with a little silliness? Most of them seemed to encourage flat out stupidity, rudeness, ignorance, just -- wow. Between the two major parties -- I can probably use the fingers on ONE hand to count the ones who stayed totally true to their political views all year and weren't douchebags in the process and didn't encourage really bad behaviour. A little showmanship I expect -- the rest, shame on them all.
Runner up for worst person of the year -- rude people. From Kanye West deciding to ruin Taylor's moment, to Joe Wilson yelling You Lie, to people deciding that "I have Freedom of Speech, God Dammit" means being the biggest jackass man has ever seen. Your neighbor too has Freedom of Speech and frankly I'd rather listen to the one who was speaking calmly and respectfully -- not the one yelling over everyone, insulting everyone, ranting, waving their arms like a madman, etc. Act respectable or I'm gonna suggest that people take headphones with them everywhere they go -- and when you exercise your freedom of acting like a fool they should blast those headphones as loud as they go until it's someone else's turn to speak, oh wait it wasn't your turn -- that's why you're rude.
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