STAT!

So, it’s January 31st, 2009 and the blog is still going strong. My New Year’s Resolution is working out very well. You can see that there has been at least one post per day, the one of me playing guitar was used for something in another dimension of the Internet and I didn’t want to load it up on YouTube, even though no one would probably view it.

What do you think of the content? Good? Bad? A pleasant time killer? Waste of time?

I genuinely have no idea what anyone’s take is on this blog because I do not receive any comments or emails and this is NOT to say that you HAVE to write in, but I was just curious.

Anyway, I’m always up for sharing how the blog is going with you the reader in case you’re interested.

I am still writing. I have a book of blog ideas that can stretch out for a few months so hopefully there will be something new for you to read every day regardless of what I’m doing (which is good because I have a lot of business plans and hey, I’m going to be a dad again this year so there’s always that too). It is a tough resolution, don’t get me wrong though. My business plans involve me being away from computers so I would need to blog enough to cover my absences, then come back with hopefully enough cushion time to write some more blogs and get the ground back under my feet. Add to that a crying infant and a probably-jealous older sister and an understandably tired wife and you can see how I’m going to be busy busy busy. Maybe some family will come to visit and take some of the load off of me.

As far as READERS go, like I said before, numbers are going down. There are spikes here and there, usually when I post links to the blog with videos for the guitar communities but usually it’s around 5-12 people per day. That’s unique, by the way, not one person coming back 12 times.

The monthly view of numbers looks pretty interesting and it was steadily climbing all the way to December when it took a dive by about 100 unique visitors. November had about 745 unique people coming to it, December had 640 something and January isn’t looking like it’s picking up very much. I think, if it’s going to happen in the first place, that it’ll be a while before numbers get back up to those levels again.

I’m not complaining, just stating the facts. I’m happy that there’s anyone reading this, so it doesn’t matter if the blog is diving and soaring to me so long as it hasn’t flat-lined. It isn’t like I’m TRYING to gain popularity with this blog. Why would I? It’s one thing for people to stumble on it from forum signature and keep reading it because they have a basic idea of who I am and maybe they find it interesting. I can see that happening. But for me to log out and TRY to gain readers, that seems a little… I don’t know. I just don’t want banner ads with my face on it saying stuff like “Come get to know me!” I definitely don’t want that.

It’s like meeting an interesting person and checking out their MySpace. Except I don’t update MySpace. My New Year’s resolution does not involve regularly updating my MySpace page. It DOES involve a new blog here every day. So save the link as a favorite and check back daily. There’s a ton of good stuff coming your way.

My OTHER blog (http://www.5th-fret.blogspot.com) is doing well. Unlike this one where there was a dip last month and this month’s not looking too impressive, I passed last month’s then-highest number by two as of early this morning. That blog I AM trying to get out there and maybe even become a “legitimate” blog. I don’t know exactly what constitutes a legitimate blog – I have no clue so just like whenever this happens, I’ll just make stuff up.

Russ’ requirements to be a legitimate blog:

Over 1,000 unique people per month coming in.

More than FIVE interviews with people in the ‘biz.

NAMM Press Passes.

No lower in rank in the top 100 than number 60.

Those are my requirements to be legitimate.

But to be considered successful in my own eyes?

Over 2,000 unique people per month coming in.

More than 10 interviews with people in the ‘biz.

Going to NAMM and covering it.

No lower in rank than number 20.

At least one gear review where a company sends me something to review.

Invitations to Guitar factories to check it out and write about it.

Now THOSE are some lofty goals, but I figure I have all the time in the world right? We’ll see what happens.

I know I say it frequently but I really appreciate you coming to read this blog. I hope you find some level of enjoyment from it and want to keep coming back. If you weren’t around, I wouldn’t feel nearly as good about putting all this out there.

Thanks, folks. I appreciate it in the truest definition of the word.

Let Slip The Days Of Youth

Lately I've been missing being a teen. Well, more precisely I've been missing my old routine. I would come home, go to my room, drop the backpack and pick up the guitar. I'd find a pick (they were never where you left them) and then turn on some music and crank it up. Then I would play with the CDs for hours. Usually I'd play through all of the Misfits Famous Monsters, Metallica's Ride the Lightning, and half of Garage Inc. Disc 2. By the middle of that I was tired from jumping around and trying to keep the downpicking steady.

I wasn't playing the actual notes or chords or anything like that, I was just getting the tempo down. I wasn't really interested in playing those particular songs, but I wanted to play as fast as those particular songs and use that tool later on in my own writing.

I'd come out of the room soaked in sweat and open up a soda and sit down and tell my dad something like "I finally got the galloping method down" or "I was able to downpick through all of X" or "I was picking so fast my hand was a BLUR!"

I miss being loud sometimes.

Ah, but you grow up. You move into an apartment and your downstairs neighbors drop little hints about your guitar playing that makes you (if you're considerate) stop plugging in when you want to, stop turning up to where you want to, even stop playing acoustically as loud as you want to (and not on an acoustic guitar but an electric one). And I know there are those people out there that say so what? Let them be annoyed for a little while but I don't want to be that guy. It's bad enough I have to listen to loud car stereos bump by night after night as I'm putting my daughter to bed. I don't want to be the guy that everyone's thinking "well, he's only got ten more songs and then he usually quits."

Life has all sorts of different things in store for you when you grow up that I think it's more painful to look back and see the things you loved to do (nothing relieved stress more than a two hour downpicking marathon) and know that you can't do them anymore. Not for a while anyway. It isn't like you CAN and you choose not to, you just plain can't. It's a tough pill to swallow and I think that this is one of the toughest experiences of growing up (the bitter pills, not the whole can't play a lot of guitar thing). I mean, you come home from work and it's past five, you only have a few hours to spend with your child and once she's put to bed you want to spend time with your wife and then pretty soon you're getting tired because the day was long and soon you're in the sack asleep.

I just want to make this perfectly clear: I do not regret getting married or having kids or anything like that. I love my wife, I love my kids. But sometimes you miss the days you can't have back anymore. I think it's natural.

The Office: The Angela Saga

SPOILER ALERT! IF YOU DO NOT WANT TO KNOW ABOUT THE CLEVER WRITING DISPLAYED IN THIS WEEK'S EPISODE OF THE OFFICE YOU NEED TO STOP READING RIGHT NOW AND INSTEAD PERUSE MY PREVIOUS BLOGS AND SUBSCRIBE SO YOU CAN BE ASSURED OF GETTING ANY NEW BLOGS THAT ARE SCHEDULED TO COME OUT!

Angela has been sleeping with Dwight while being engaged to Andy. Andy is oblivious. Everyone else in the office knows though.

Including Michael which is a dangerous thing.

It's dangerous because Michael, wanting to be way more of a presence in your life than you would like your boss to be, will tell secrets to become that presence he wants to be so badly.

And he did. He told Andy that Dwight and Angela were having an affair and that it's been going on for a while. And then he drove off to New York leaving Jim to manage this time bomb.

See, Andy has anger issues. Dwight is willing to fight for Angela and Angela is so... messed up, that she's willing to let someone else decide for her who she should be with. Apparently she's having a tough time with it.

So! Andy confronts Dwight and Dwight proposes a duel during their break so it wouldn't be breaking company policy where they would fight for Angela's hand. Angela says she'll respect the result of the duel.

How about that?

Well, the duel happens. Andy, through his superior intellect manages to distract Dwight long enough to get his Prius and pin Dwight to a fence with the full potential of breaking his legs or just plain running him over.

OK. That's enough for now.

In the real world if this were to happen someone would have to leave. The potential groom would want to leave if his fiance was banging someone else in the office and chose to be with him. That's just plain embarrassing for the would-be groom.

The potential bride would want to leave because she might as well have a scarlet "A" on her chest. There's no way anyone would respect her and as a result, no one would treat her the same in a professional manner and she would turn into a horrible employee because her peers wouldn't let her shine.

The stud the would-be bride is banging would want to leave because he'd be known as a dog and end up much the same as the would-be bride work-wise.

So you see? Everyone has a reason to leave, and if one person leaves, life could PROBABLY get on without too much trouble.

But all three are fairly strong staples in the Office world. So what would the writers do?

They made both Andy and Dwight feel slighted by Angela. Apparently she had been telling Dwight that she wasn't sleeping with Andy.

Dwight and Andy come back upstairs and Angela is anxiously awaiting the result of the duel. Andy calls the baker and cancels his order for the wedding cake and Dwight picks up a bobble head that Angela had given him for Valentine's Day so long ago when they were dating and throws it away.

How clever is that? Everyone can stay if they want to and justice is served to an acceptable level. Really, that's all you can ask for.

So kudos writers. You bundled up this saga in a great little ribbon and it worked out pretty well.

Good job.

Nothing Beats A Good Haircut

While being in the military means I HAVE to have a haircut that meets Air Force standards, it doesn't mean I have to mind. I will say, that sometimes I really wish I could grow my hair out. The threat of baldness in the future instills a very strong "use it or lose it" mentality but because I'm so awesome, I keep my hair within standards while trying to still let my personality through via my hair.

This sounds weird.

Anyway, getting a haircut feels great. It's basically like a head massage and you walk out with your head all tingly, really it's one of the cheapest feel-good methods out there.

When I was a civilian I was usually too broke to get haircuts (but had enough for comic books most of the time) but I was always torn between growing my hair out and getting it cut. Short hair requires less effort and upkeep, something I really like, but longer hair looks better.

Meh, I really like walking out of the barber's with a good haircut. It's a pleasant experience that I've never grown tired of.

Just thought I'd share that with you, the reader.

I bet you're thinking I just wasted your time, huh?

Apple Genius

Apple has this application in iTunes and on their iPods where you can select a song, any song you like and click the genius button and it will generate a playlist that is the length you choose that is filled with songs of a similar vein. It is not like "shuffle" or random or anything like that.

The problem with Genius is it can only pull from the available source. That would be either your iTunes collection or the music on your iPod. So if you have 120GB of music of various genres and artists then yes, it would probably work very well. Same goes if you have a large collection on your computer.

But if you have a smaller music collection on your computer or you have an iPod that is limited in space, like say, a Nano, then your genius playlist probably won't be that great.

I am a guy who is quick to point out flaws, especially when it has to deal with something that is changeable like software and I am ALWAYS willing to share my opinions on how to make it better.

The Microsoft Zune, useful in the way that Burger King is useful to McDonalds (not even comparable in taste but good for competition's sake), has an FM transmitter and while that's good in cities with good music on the radio, it is NOT good in a town like this one. The iPod Touch can access the Internet from hot spots. So, if Apple could put out iPods with something similar like Pandora and solve the whole "if you go outside the area you'll lose your radio" thing, it would work. Say, you could pay a monthly subscription fee to Pandora and in return they will give you 100 songs (or so) that you don't have either from artists you do know or artists you do NOT know. If someone said for five bucks a month you can listen to music that is PROBABLY what you'd like in addition to music you KNOW you like, I'm just about sold.

The thing that would push me over the edge of consumerism here is the option to buy any of the songs directly from my iPod. Say I'm listening to Me First & The Gimme Gimmes, a punk cover band and on the Pandora list is a song from the Lost Fingers, a gypsy jazz cover band and I love it (I like the Lost Fingers quite a bit) I would also love the option to buy the song for the normal .99 or the album for 9.99 or everything from the artist for whatever it would cost.

That would be great. I could imagine going broke very easily if iPods had this feature.

Are you listening replacement for Steve Jobs?

Death Magnetic Going Strong!

I listen to my music at work. It’s nice to shift focus every now and then to listen to whatever song is on (because it’s always on shuffle) as a way to take some of the stress away, but it’s also nice as background noise. I’m not interested in what my coworkers are saying and prefer to stay in my own little world and do my work.

As far as what’s on my iPod, most of it consists of this or that song from a particular artist’s album, just the best so I’m not constantly clicking to a different song. When I get a new album, I throw the whole album on it and listen to it once or twice all the way through and then keep it on for a little while and if one of the songs jumps out as not that great, or I’m reaching to click forward, I’ll write the name of the song down and remove it from the playlist when I get home. So far I’ve lost one of the songs that I thought was good when I made the playlist in the first place.

Some albums are just plain good enough to keep the whole thing on all the time, though the list of no-kidding, front to back and everything between included on the iPod is few.

The one album that I keep THINKING I’m going to remove songs from is Metallica’s Death Magnetic. I love Metallica, they’ve been a favorite of mine for a very long time and I’ve been liking them for just about as long as I’ve been playing guitar (going on twelve years). By no means am I a hardcore fan to the extent where I would lie and say stuff like “St. Anger was a good album” or anything like that. I’m still realistic. Not one of their albums made it onto my iPod in its entirety, except Death Magnetic because I know I haven’t given it a fair shake.

But I could have sworn that after giving it a fair shake I would remove the songs I didn’t like and move on like with every other album on my iPod.

This just doesn’t happen though. Every time a song from it comes on I turn my head a little to the speaker saying “what’s this?” and waiting for the vocals to come on and when they do, it’s unmistakably James Hetfield and I say “Ah.”

And they’re good. I haven’t run across one of the songs that I wanted to move away from or remove from the playlist.

I’m pretty happy about this. I wasn’t filled with too much faith after St. Anger and the idea of backtracking to sometime between the Justice album and the Black album didn’t really appeal to me either. One was so complex that much of it was boring (and in dire need of being stripped down) and one was leaning too heavily toward popular metal at the time. I find the album refreshing both in its aggression and rattiness. It’s like a garage metal band, not this big huge machine known as Metallica. It’s like they’re human again and the fact that it’s not polished and super clean and there’s some audible degradation from the excessive volume, it makes it feel… I don’t know… more REAL.

Kudos, Metallica.

Attrition And Determination

I posted a while back the statistics about blogs and I thought I'd say a little bit about my plan.

While some people start a blog and then for whatever reason decide to drop it, I can't think of a reason to drop this blog. I won't lie, there have been some times when I thought of dropping my other blog, because the articles just aren't coming to me as fast as I would like them to, and the traffic is kind of slow, and there seems to be little or no interest or support from folks that I thought would be interested, but I'm soldiering on, because I think it's worth it. I think that blog is worth really digging for topics and I've got an article I'm writing right now that's still in the draft stage.

That's a big difference between there and here: there's no draft stage here. This is just me, writing my head down, so to speak. This is where I can let anything fly and the rules are far fewer. I've still implemented some rules here lie no cursing. Or at least, I try not to curse anymore. I'm sure it's bound to happen - even more bound to happen now that I've said that - but I really don't want to be labeled as "explicit" as a blog.

So the idea of a specific blog with a specific purpose failing, that's easy to grasp. You write a blog about pocket watches, but everything goes to digital watches and you're left thinking you might as well close up the blog. I get that.

But this kind of stuff, where it's just your thoughts? I don't know, I don't really get that. I do understand not writing stuff every day, but giving up all together? It sounds a little to me like giving up on yourself.

Ah, but some people are in it for the money and while I do have ads I am not sitting here typing, thinking that every little word I write is just a passport to more money. It's occurred to me that I'm not making very much at all and it doesn't really bug me. I put them up as an experiment and that's it. I'm not shy about it either. The whole time I've had them up I've had the ads clicked about 70 something times leaving me with about 37.00. I don't consider it real money because I have not gotten a check. When I have it in my hands I will then consider it real money.

So I can also understand if you have a blog that you think is going to make you big bucks only to find out you're like me (or worse) and I can see how, if that was your goal, you'd be a bit disappointed.

Or maybe people are writing blogs thinking they will become internet celebrities? Their blog will be an instant smash hit and they'll be invited on Opera?

A vast majority of blogs written (so say the statistics) are never even seen by the general public. Honestly, I think this has to do with content and perseverance. If there's something new to come to every day, then people will come and if it is indeed NEW than maybe someone that reads it, a friend from work maybe, will tell a friend of theirs to read it and word will spread. But it's not rational to think this will happen quickly. As a matter of fact, I'd say it's probably much safer to think this will not happen at all and spare yourself the sadness of failure.

An unexpected win is always sweeter.

So if you plan on being huge, or you plan on getting rich, or you write for a niche crowd, yes, I can see you stopping because of disappointment. But what about me?

I write for none of those reasons. I write because its so much quicker to type than actually WRITE in a journal, I like the feeling of typing out little blogs about specific things, almost never just going in with the need to type without a topic anymore, and I think it's cool that the number of people that read this blog do. Yesterday 21 different people viewed my blog. I'd say that number is padded because the recent came from list said they did an image search for guitar givaways and mortal DC, the two blogs that sill probably outlive me, and walked away disappointed. I'd say maybe eight of the people that came were genuinely interested in the blog.

That's fine with me. And maybe they'll tell their friends and maybe the ads will pop up with something that interests them and they'll click on it. Maybe I'll become super rich and an internet celebrity!

But I doubt it, and it isn't bringing me down. I like writing blogs, I like writing with you in mind, and I love the fact that someone reads it.

Thanks.

The Joys Of A Bigger City

Driving through Tucson, we got onto Speedway, the street we used to live on way back when and started driving toward our old apartment. We were on it for a while passing shop after shop and resaturant after restaurant and in the process saw a renaissance store. An entire store, dedicated to swords and bows and arrows, costumes, armor, etc etc and I thought Man, it must be great to live in a city.

Because only in a city would a store like that survive.

I know that strikes as a bit odd considering there's no proactical use for something like that in the city whereas in the country there's lots of room to get dressed up and go outside and play with your friends. It's not like you're going to be wearing this stuff you your office or anything.

But in a city you have a vast increase in the number of potential customers, simply because there's more people there. It's kind of like the old saying "location, location, location." Put a Renaissance store here, it'll fail in a week. For one thing, maybe ten people will visit but they're probably young and not carrying enough money to buy anything, they're just kids who want to play with swords for a while and push your ideas of insurance for the shop. Perhaps you should bump it up just in case little Leonardo there (Ninja Turtle not famous artist) cuts his friend's hand off.

But in a city, not only is there a greater potential for more people to be genuinely interested in this kind of thing (whereas in the country people are only interested in going to Wal Mart and the Mellow Mushroom) but there's even a strong possibility of conventions going on, highland games, and reanactments and just plain people getting dressed up for fun with their friends and playing Braveheart in their back yard.

I said to my wife, jeez I want to live in a bigger town. Or even a smaller town.

I have a strong belief that small towns are not bad towns. Usually the people are very friendly and there's a good sense of community. There are less shops but the internet is a wonderful invention and if you can still get what you want via the internet and still have that small town charm, well, that's not bad at all.

Warner Robins, however, is NOT a small town with charming people and a good sense of community. Warner Robins thinks it's a full blown city (and with the tallest building being the hospital, I fail to see how they think that, but then again, I fail to see much of what they thing). Not only do they consider themselves a city, but they consider Warner Robins, GA with a population of a little over 60,000, but they believe they are Georgia's International City.

Maybe this is because the Air Force is here and the Air Force brings in people from all over, including a ton of military brats like myself who were raised overseas. Maybe they didn't know Atlanta has an international airport and therefore brings in more international people in a day than Warner Robins does in a year. Maybe they didn't know Helen, GA ranks in the top five for Oktoberfest celebrations this side of the Atlantic. Maybe they just didn't realize that this is not a city at all, let alone an international city.

But they think they're a city.

And because this is a "city" there are people with city attitudes and a strict "I don't care" personality. There are some really nice people here, but they are few and far between. This town (town) does have some good things about it, but come on, a city it is not. Even Tucson, which is a fairly small city is tipping toward the 500,000 people mark. Warner Robins has a lot of growing to do to get anywhere near that.

Mellow Mushroom

In Warner Robins there is oh so very little to do. I like to think of this town as a socail experiment conducted by aliens Twilight Zone style. If you had an entire town with nothing to do, what would get them excited? A car crash? Roadwork? A new restaurant?

What about a new restaurant that doesn't fit the town at all? Because here in middle Georgia (a military town) the idea of a vegetarian restaurant is laughable at best. To name it Edenz seems like a great idea for suicide. Here, meat is considered a vegetable.

There are new restaurants that pop up all the time and then crash and burn. It's weird. A tiny korean restaurant is holding up very well and the delicious Italian Pie failed. Even restaurants with moderate publicity via the local newspaper most often fail.

But a building started going up recently and it was unveiled tha it was going to be a Mellow Mushroom.

For those not in the know, the Mellow Mushroom is NOT a paraphanlia store but a pizza place that emphasizes nutrition and natural ingredients.

The line is out the door - has been out the door ever since it opened. Business is BOOMING and the parking lot is constantly filled. So filled in fact that the streets behind it (small streets that no one really uses) are lined on BOTH sides with cars.

Apparently the town - the entire town - goes there. Every day.

Well, tomorrow's grocery day so we decided to partake and I called in my order (because when the line is always out the door it is just plain silly to go without calling first. Tsk tsk general population). My order consisted of a plain cheese pizza for my wife who hates toppings of all varieties, and a pizza for me called "Caesar! Caesar!" It is described very well on their on-line menu, but suffice it to say it is not your normal marinara sauce pizza. We also ordered garlic bread.

I went to the restarant, parked a long ways away and got out of the car thinking "Jeez, I'm far away. I'm going to count the number of steps I have to take to get to the front door," just in case anyone's interested. 274 steps from my car door to the front door.

I pushed past the wicked thick crowd waiting to be seated to place their order, wait for their pizza, eat it and leave just in time to turn 90 (seriously people! Why dont' you just call it in and sit outside and eat it in the awesome cafe are and watch the TV being projected above the STAGE) and went up to the counter and there were a ton of people just standing there not doing anything. Customers, I mean, the employees were super busy. Apparently no one in Warner Robins knows how to order a pizza. If you go to the counter and order your pizza and are told "That'll be about forty minutes," do NOT take one step backward and patiently wait. Leave the area! Grab a drink and sit down somewhere. Jeez, people!

So all of these people are just standing around, eyes glazed over like "what do I do, what do I do?"

I push past THEM and say my name, and coincidentally my pizzas were just finished. It still took a while to get the pizza to me. The employee opened them up to show them to me - to see if they meet my high standards - and they did so they bagged everything up for me and rung me up asking if I'd like to buy a calender too.

Sure I do. When I think pizza, I think calender. However, I declined (this time). Then I left and braved the walk back to the car and drove home.

Sitting down with the pizza, I took a slice of Kim's and tried it out.

Delicious. The marinara sauce was delicious and tangy. The crust was edible on its own (unlike most crusts that I call "pizza bones") and the slices are very filling. Then I started to assemble mine because all the vegetables that you shouldn't cook, ie: lettuce and fresh tomatoes mixed with caesar dressing, gets put on by you. It was fun (but messy) and the finished product tasted pretty great. I think Kim's was better and she thought mine was better. I think she just really likes caesar salad.

The garlic bread was pretty great too.

I was so full when I finished and I only ate three pieces! Of a SMALL pizza!

Man, what a tasty dinner.

If you have one in town and haven't gone, you should go. Try it out. It's freaking amazing.

Number of Readers Going Down, Down, Down

You heard it right folks, the level of readers coming in per day is dropping steadily to the point where I am in the single digits right now.

That’s nine or less different computers viewing my blog per day.

You’d think this would hurt my feelings, like maybe my blog isn’t worth reading. I don’t though. I think it’s a good thing.

Let me clarify: I like the fact that people come and read my blog. It makes me feel good, like I’m standing on my soapbox and the immediate area is not completely deserted. Imagine that sad mental image, a guy standing all alone in a city square, a town crier if you will, and the streets are still. No life moving. Maybe some leaves blowing through. That’s sad.

But I am NOT sad. Not at all actually. I wrote two blogs a long time ago, one talking about guitar giveaways and one talking about the Mortal Kombat VS DC Comics game and they seemed to be immensely popular, but whether it was because of content or because they came in from a Google image search, I’ll never know. It’s not like they left comments.

Day after day I’d see people coming in from Google searches for those two specific things and while it felt pretty good that I wrote something that maybe these people were enjoying reading, I’ve written a lot more than just that and not to sound like a douche, but what about everything else? It made me feel worse knowing that people were Googling “guitar giveaways” and looking at my blog maybe because they thought they could enter for a free guitar than it does to have my reader number drop below the TEN mark.

Now I get the feeling that people coming to the blog are actually reading my blog posts and are maybe enjoying it.

And this makes me feel pretty good.

Double Standard

I’ll let you (girls) in on a secret: A ton of guys want to have sons.

As far back as I can remember, the guys I knew would always say they would rather have sons than daughters and this makes sense in some ways. It’s not like a guy knows a girl intimately (not sexually but deeply, know what I mean?) or at least not intimately like a guy knows guys. I mean, I know that most boys love to climb trees and get dirty. Most like playing with toy guns and enjoy seeing destruction occur and bad guys get what’s coming to them in cartoons and whatnot.

Girls may SAY they enjoy the same thing, but we never know for sure. Girls are so… alien.

And then there’s sex. Every guy I’ve ever talked to about the subject all say the same thing, that they would much rather have a son because it is much easier to guide a son toward sexual conquests (not necessarily pushing him to have sex or to have sex with a ton of people, but to give them handy advice like how girls can change their mind and you need to accept it and not show frustration, or how you should stand up for your date) and at the very least prevent them from getting punched in the face by their date or have their date file charges of sexual assault or worse. How bad would you feel as a parent if you just assumed that they would come by these lessons naturally and they didn’t?

Anyway, it’s much easier to give your son handy advice like that than it is to undoubtedly stay up all night worrying about whether your daughter’s date’s father taught HIM those much-needed lessons. Because if he didn’t and his boy hurts your little girl the gloves are off and you’re being carted off to jail.

That sounds like a ton of stress.

Honestly though, I’m not worried. I’m sure my daughter will grow up and be a beautiful young lady and the boys will probably be calling but I hope to be a good enough father that I can instill some guidelines and who is good and not good to date.

For instance: “Never date a boy who spits. If his slobber isn’t good enough to be in his mouth it’s not good enough to be in yours.”

That’s a pearl of wisdom I will definitely pass along.

I’m being completely honest here, I’m not worried about raising a quality human being that happens to be a girl.

I am kind of worried about raising a boy though. As far as traditional “man stuff” goes, I’m not keen. I don’t like to hunt, don’t really like to play sports, I’m not really into guns and the idea of watching football all day isn’t appetizing at all. I know nothing about cars, I don’t body-build, and I’ve never been the kind of guy to go out and actively pursue girls in clubs or bars or get togethers. Basically your stereotypical guy, I am not.

And I’m not saying I want to raise that guy either, but if he happens to be interested in that kind of stuff I’m going to be there to at least try to help him out with it and I don’t know. I don’t know what I’m trying to say. I think I’m trying to say that regardless of the kind of son my song will naturally be, I’ll try to be the best dad I can be regardless of interest. I’m still tasked to raise a decent human being, not a pro quarterback.

Ah, I’ll probably stop worrying about it once the baby’s born. I know I was pretty worried about raising a little girl (because they’re aliens, you know?) but I think I’m doing a fairly good job. Most of the credit goes to my wife though.

I’m sure it’ll be the same way with the next one, regardless of the sex. I'm sure in the end I'll be the best dad I can and I'm pretty comfortable with that. I don't think it'll be TOO hard to adjust my ideas once the baby's here, but for right now I'm a little nervous.

The Dark Knight

I know it has been a while since this movie has been released both in the theaters and on DVD, but I’d like to write about it.

And tell you I told you so! Not you in particular, but anyone that I saw after I saw the first shot of Heath Ledger as the Joker was pulled to my desk and shown the picture. “That is Heath Ledger and he IS the Joker.”

When you get down to it, the Joker’s nuts, completely gone in the head and even with as much credit is given to Jack Nicholson, the Joker was not presented as this in the Burton rendition of Batman. Instead he was more of a mob boss who was willing to kill people in odd ways to establish a grip on Gotham City. He had a purpose.

Heath Ledger’s Joker did not. As he said in the movie “I’m just a dog chasing cars. I don’t know what I’d do with one if I ever caught it.”

That sums up the Joker so well, a completely maniacal, but not megalomaniacal, individual who will do whatever he wants to do at that moment regardless of what that is. In a way, I envy him. The romance of being able to say “I’m done with this,” and go on to whatever you want to do next. Of course in real life you can do that, but it would probably be decision after decision that descends to the murky depths of bad results. I don’t imagine someone with this philosophy in life, of truly doing whatever they want when they want, would last a week before being carted off to jail for various offences on the public.

But I digress.

I wish Mr. Ledger was alive right now. It would have been cool for him to receive his Golden Globe for best supporting actor. It would have been cool if I could have written a letter, even if never would have been received by him personally, saying that as far as THIS guy (I point to myself) goes, he is the Joker and anyone else stepping up to fill his shoes later on will have a big problem.

The Joker is my favorite villain. Ever. If there was ever a villain I wanted to be, it would be him. I know that sounds a little off, wanting to be a villain, but I believe that everyone has a dark side, and in this dark side lies the potential of crime, murder, and general all around bad stuff. It’s OK to want to kill your boss. Doing it might hurt your retirement, but we all have bad thoughts and urges and while the Joker has them as well, he follows through. Like I said, there’s something to that.

Unfortunately, Mr. Ledger felt like HE had big shoes to fill that had belonged to Nicholson.

I wish that I had a job in Hollywood as a counselor for situations like this. I wasn’t very impressed with Nicholson’s Joker and would have told Mr. Ledger that most of the respect given to Nicholson, I strongly believe, has less to do with Nicholson himself and more to do with the fact that Tim Burton made an amazing movie and Nicholson happened to be in it. Don’t get me wrong, he wasn’t detrimental to the movie or anything, but I wasn’t particularly impressed, or at least not nearly as impressed as I was with Ledger’s performance.

So I wish I had been able to tell Ledger that these shoes he has to fill are overflowing right now because he’s head and shoulders above Nicholson’s Joker.

Also, I’m getting tired of people saying he’s getting awards because he died. His Joker was awesome and he’s been one of my favorite actors for a while now, ever since Brokeback Mountain (great movie, by the way) and any awards is completely deserved.

However, I strongly think that as much as he deserves the awards, he would not have gotten them had he survived to see the success of the Dark Knight (the first Batman movie not to use the word Batman in the title). I think this falls more on the award people than the general population who saw TDK and said “MAN! I want more of that! Shame he died!” I think this is the award people hearing that and saying “why not?”

Because honestly, how many comic book movies have gotten awards regardless of how great the movie was?

Besides, awards shows are awful anyway. They should have a red carpet even for an award ceremony that the general population chose the winners of, instead. The whole committee thing is stupid.

This isn’t just with movies, either, but every award ceremony where the choices are not put in the people’s hands is flawed in my eyes and limited in scope.

But how would you do this? VH1 did it a long time ago with all sorts of categories even “most overplayed band.” You just logged in on-line and voted. The people spoke, VH1 listened and the award show worked out. It was particularly great because the bands actually showed up to the event. If you had a people’s choice show for movies, would Tom Hanks attend? That would be the limiting thing with the PC award. It hasn’t been around for ages and has not built up any sort of legitimacy. It’s not like a trophy could be glanced at and someone say “Ah. A Peep.”

OK, I slid off track again.

More about the Dark Knight. It can’t be mentioned without comparing it to the previous Batman movies and I am so pleased to say that this is a RADICAL departure from the previous Two Face. It 1) looked good and 2) was played just as it would have been in the desert. Two Face, as much as he is two separate people, isn’t so much split in personality, he’s just had his vision of justice shifted a bit to the flip of a coin “The only true justice” quote Tommy Lee Jones. He might get off on having rooms or suits with two different colors but honestly, this takes a radical back seat to the mental aspect he has.

This is the strength of Batman villains. Whereas with heroes like Spider-Man or Superman, you have villains with strange looks and little substance, but with Batman, villains like the Joker, Two Face, Scarecrow, even villains like Clayface, they all have something deep underneath the surface. Something you can really look at and maybe even identify with.

So seeing Harvey Dent walk around without having an altered suit, or two women, one for each side of his personality, it’s refreshing. And he was so willing to be hardcore based on the flip of his coin.

To say I was impressed with the movie is an understatement. As far as Batman movies go, this one is the best.

I will say that I want the same crew to make the Dark Knight returns though I wouldn’t know how they would handle the Joker’s part in the story. I guess since it takes place so far (not ridiculously far, this isn’t Batman 2099 or anything crazy like that) in the future it might make sense to get a different actor, but they would certainly have some big shoes to fill.

And his part wasn’t THAT big, all things considered.

The Dark Knight was incredibly impressive. I was impressed with Batman Begins, but this one takes the cake. It truly is a shame that Heath Ledger died not only because he made an AMAZING Joker, but because he was a great actor and seemed to be a quality human being. It makes me wonder when you see good actors like this die and other actors who shall not be named carry on living.

Only up for a little bit

Only up for a limited time so if you want to view it, it's best to do it soon before it goes away.

I Heart Air Force

I’ll be honest, as a fairly low ranking enlisted member of the Air Force, I’m usually not too happy about my job. But the future is bright as bright can be when it’s wearing a uniform!

I walked into work today and was climbing the steps to fill up my water bottle and looked down to my feet (H. G. Wells says in the Invisible Man that looking at your feet while climbing or descending steps is the hardest habit to break and the most frustrating thing about being invisible) and looked at my wicked shiny black shoes at the end of my dark blue pants and I thought:

“I love my job.”

This thought made me stop cold. Wait. “I love my job?” Really? What is causing this?

To be fair, I’m not talking about just the AF, but the whole work thing in general. I don’t think many people like working and those that do, well, there’s an unbelievable amount of envy in me toward them.

But really, what IS causing this feeling? The analytical mind that is mine (though I certainly know more analytical people) started thinking that maybe it’s the uniform. I do look awfully professional in my blues, as do most of the AF, so maybe that’s it. Maybe it’s because I’m so refreshed from my vacation. Maybe it’s because here is a place where “Sirs” and “Ma’ams” are not unbelievably polite, but what should be standard. Maybe it’s the potential.

Ah, that’s probably it. The potential.

See, I’ve been doing this job for a while now and I am in the mood to try something else, to have a different job. Without going into it too much, I’m far more limited in my choices for stations with this job and that is not why I joined the AF. I want to travel, I want to show my family the world as it was shown to me as a kid and I am determined to do this. So the time of me turning in my cross training paperwork is quickly approaching and life is looking good.

Everything is looking really good right now, actually. It won’t be long before I’m in line for a different job, my beautiful wife is pregnant, my daughter is turning into an AMAZING person, beautiful and all smiles most of the time, and I’m feeling good.

Yeah.

I’m feeling good.

Goodbye Testicles

My wife loves the Gilmore Girls. It’s been a topic in our relationship of constant ridicule on my part. They speak fast, everything seems so contrived and it’s very, VERY feminine. But because she likes it when I’m in the same room with her, even if we aren’t talking, I have been in the room as she watched her GG DVDs, trying to read or when we had a laptop, surfing the web.

I had no interest at all in the show.

But after a while of it being on and me being in the same room… I started watching it.

Oh god, I started WATCHING IT!

It was all over after that. I watched from whatever disc number it was until the end of the first season and then I took the other DVDs and started watching it from the beginning.

WHY?!

Because I needed to! I needed to watch the whole story.

Oh man, I’m a goner.

But as if this wasn’t bad enough, last night I was eating chips and salsa in bed watching an episode and the image of me in bed, tucked in under the covers, eating salty snacks and watching the Gilmore Girls made the chip stop mid-way to mouth.

Oh god.

I’m a woman.

I asked my wife about it and she said I definitely wasn’t striking a manly pose.

This does absolutely nothing to calm my doubts about being able to raise a son to be a man in this world (Kim thinks Peanut is a boy). But I guess that’s a blog for another day.

The New iPod

During my vacation the scroll wheel on my iPod stopped working and wasn’t that a bad thing? I was stuck listening to a podcast (a podcast I enjoy, but one I wasn’t in the mood to listen to at that particular point in time) at fairly low volumes because it had been night time when I was listening to it last. The world is a lot more noisy in the daytime.

I was bummed.

But then Christmas came and I got a Target gift card that had enough on it for me to purchase a new iPod. I was thinking of saving up for an iPod touch so I could keep in touch with my family while deployed but eventually I started thinking that I’d much rather just get a computer and not have to worry about battery life or a small screen or all that.

So with the Touch out of consideration, I started thinking about the iPod Classic. 120GB is a lot to fill and I have about 40GB in music right now. But I wasn’t really in the mood for another big iPod. My old one was big enough and it was always a hassle to run with so as good as it would be to have a bigger screen and more storage space, I moved down to the Nanos.

Ah, the Nanos. The colorful and very cool iPod lite. I’ve blogged about them in the past, about how shaking a piece of electronic equipment doesn’t seem like a smart idea, about how the accelerometer is a very cool thing and all that. I like them.

So I immediately wanted to get the 16GB model. I think this is just part of being an American, wanting the biggest and therefore “best” of everything. But it was about 50.00 too much for my gift card so I moved down to the 8GB model which was cool because it had the color I wanted in stock.

About the selection: I wasn’t so much “settling” for an iPod with less storage space. I had an epiphany while out in Tucson that, while I have all of my music on my iPod, I am constantly clicking next track. And then there are the books, the comedy routines, and the otherwise not-always-desirable stuff on it. They come in handy, sure, but in specific instances. Instances that can be PLANNED for. Going on a road trip? NOW is the time to sync up the comedy or books on tape. But in my normal day to day office work, I was clicking more than listening. So while out there I made an on the go playlist with all of my favorite songs and while I reached maximum capacity for the playlist, I was sure it was under 8gb.

And it was really fun to do that. I also thought that it would be fun to get into a routine of making specific playlists for the day, or downtime on flights, and overall it’s an enjoyable experience, this constant mucking around with iTunes instead of plugging in every three months to get the latest podcasts, though it is really cool to see just what is in the “top 25 most played” section after such a long departure from the computer.

So. With me comfortable through rationalization (give it a shot sometime) I was now able to move onto the next decision: color.

You can ask anyone that knows me, I always pick a color I later regret. When I bought my Game Boy Advance they were available in purple and silver and because I was a little worried about maintaining a manly appearance, I chose the silver. Purple’s one of my favorite colors and I picked silver. Silver’s cool and all, but I chose poorly in that case, I think, and it happened again and again as my life went on.

My wife is very aware of this problem of mine. I told her that she always picks cool colors, colors I don’t mind constantly seeing and therefore, I want HER to pick out the color of MY (keep in mind though that it’s MINE, so no pink) iPod. I had it limited to a few colors: orange, green, purple, blue or gray. She chose green saying that, while I may or may not know it, my favorite stuff is green and it’s the color I’m always gravitating toward. While I may THINK other colors are my favorites, I always naturally and without even thinking about it, go to the green. It hit me that she’s right (she’s always right) and I picked the green. Target did not have the green in the 16gb model so it was an added bonus for buying the smaller model.

So, my impressions: I like it. It’s thin and light. It will be incredibly easy to run with and I’m excited about getting the Nike+ thingy to keep track of my workouts. My iPod did not have videos, photos, a particularly sharp screen or even color so everything about the display impresses me and I feel it would be very skewed if I were to offer anything resembling a review of it because of this. I really like it, I really like the sharpness and brightness of it and pictures look pretty great on it. I have just recently downloaded a couple of video podcasts to look at, but as of right now, they haven’t been watched so I can’t offer any sort of opinion.

I like cover flow view on iTunes and the iPod touch. Looking at album art as big as possible is always cool to me. I’m a huge fan of album art and even think that CDs should move away from jewel cases to slip covers inside LP covers. Remember records? That’s the kind of size I like and I think artists should start doing this. I think the art would be worth the decrease in storage capacity (because while an LP cover may be one half or even one third of the thickness of a jewel case they are at least twice as tall). I’m a firm believer in this, ESPECIALLY in this day and age when people are oft to buy a CD, rip it to their computer and shelve the CD for the rest of eternity. Some sell the CD on eBay once they rip it and that’s fine, but I like to keep them around in case I need to import them again for some reason.

Anyway, regarding the cover flow, I think it’s a little small for the Nano and I’m using the usual scroll method more though it’s still cool to have it there and having the covers grace the bottom of the screen on the music menu is pretty cool. While it is cool to have them scrolling along the bottom, the slightly older Nanos had a cooler cover flow to the side with moving, focusing, blending covers in a montage as if saying that your music will do something similar moving from one genre to another.

But am I complaining? Absolutely not.

Now, the shaking. I shake. I think it’s got a fun novelty to it and I was thinking that 1) while pricey, it wasn’t like I gave up a kidney for this and 2) it’s a flash drive not run of the mill spinning hard drive so there are less moving parts and I’m a lot more comfortable with it. Sometimes the shake is acknowledged, sometimes not. When it isn’t, I just click forward.

And just how often do I click? Not often. Not often at all.

There are a couple of other great things, little things, that really help out. For one thing: when I pause in a podcast it remembers where I was for when I go back to it. I like to listen to them in the car where I can concentrate on it (and driving) and not have a ton of interruptions like you do in any office. It’s nice to know that I won’t have to remember time stamps and episode numbers like I used to. It’s like a little bit of hassle of operation has left and I feel better for it.

In summary, I truly feel like this was an upgrade even if it was not an upgrade in size. I’m sure this may sound weird, or maybe it sounds like I’m just trying to justify the purchase of the lowest priced iPod that has a screen (I don’t think I am though) but I’m incredibly satisfied with the purchase. I DO want to purchase a skin from invisishield.com to protect it. It looks great right now all brand new, but with my old iPod, it didn’t take long at all before it was getting all sorts of scratches and unlike guitars, iPods do NOT look good with road wear. I think this is the case with most electronics. And I don’t’ want to baby the thing forever. I like how it feels tough with it’s all aluminum body and it feels like, provided it had the protective skin offered by invisishield, it would be more than capable of handling anything my pockets could dish out at it. Indeed, I wouldn’t worry about keeping it in the same pocket as my keys so long as it had that skin. Without the skin though, I’m very careful.

A Musical Epiphany

Being a guitarist, I can justify buying all SORTS of guitars. It’s true. Running through my entire collection there was a Stratocaster copy, a single coil guitar and then I got a Gibson Les Paul, a guitar with humbuckers. Then I bought myself an Ibanez Seven String because (oviously) it had seven strings. After that I bought guitar because it was discontinued and incredibly hard to find (an older style LTD Explorer), and then I bought a PRS Santana SE because, while cheap, it’s a quality guitar and I was really jonesing for a PRS. I scratched my itch with a budget guitar and in the end sold it. Sometime I wonder if I would have still sold it had it been what I really wanted, a CE-22. I bet not, but that’s just a hypothetical anyway. I also got an acoustic guitar for graduation. Now I have a Telecaster and a Gretsch 6118T.

Every single guitar was different from the others in some way that was substantial enough. For me, anyway. It never made any sense to me to have multiple guitars that were the exact same guitar or that served the exact same purpose.

Today, most of my guitars have been sold and I currently have the acoustic, the Les Paul, the Telecaster and the Gretsch. All have sentimental value and won’t be sold. But there’s still that itch to own many guitars because guitars are tools and the more tools you have in your toolbox the easier it will be to get your project done, whatever it may be.

But I recently shifted my view and started thinking that now that I have one on the way, I don’t think I’m going to be buying guitar after guitar for the rest of my life until I have enough to make some kid on the internet drool in envy. I’m a little too practical, even though my tastes run on the fairly expensive side. I can’t handle that many guitars and besides, I like to play my guitars and having that many, I’d have a tough time keeping each guitar in use. Eventually they would be put in cases and then in the closet and then probably forgotten about.

While this may be good way down the road in the vintage market, I don’t think that’s fair to the guitar. Guitars are meant to be played and I am all about fulfilling your purpose in life and sitting in a case for fifty years does not seem natural or desirable at all. It seems flat out wrong, actually. Especially with modern guitars. I understand protecting vintage guitars, they’re vintage after all from a time that will never be back again and some of them are indeed very special, but modern guitars are said to be close but not quite there and buying just because you THINK it’ll skyrocket in value in thirty to forty years, that just seems so wrong.

Armed with the knowledge that there will not be an ever-flowing fountain of guitar funds I shifted my ideas. I still want a ton of potential and possibilities, the proverbial tools in the toolbox but I’ve shifted the ideas on how to achieve this.

I’ve gone from wanting a set of many knives to wanting a few Swiss Army knives. Of course, you can’t find EVERYTHING in a swiss army knife, no matter how thick it is, so I’ve accommodated that too.

Instead of buying different guitars with different pickups, I’m going to buy no more than five more guitars.

For the rest of my life.

Yeah, a lot of guitarists think their latest guitar is the last guitar they’ll ever need, but I’ve thought long and hard about this and this is what I’ve come up with.

The Gretsch Black Phoenix will scratch and 17” hollowbody with trestle bracing, more of a tight sound, more akin to semi-hollows instead of full blown hollows. Inside, it would be wired with RCA jacks so I can swap out pickups at will. We’re talking all of TV Jones’ pickups and a few various pickups as well.

This would be the same case in my 6118T. However, there needs to be something really cool in there so a Dyna loaded Country Club joins the list. 17” and no trestle bracing. Very big, very open sound and even though it can (and will) be played electrically, I’m actually looking to use it more as an acoustic guitar as I think the tone of it is very even, very mellow without being dark, and the fact it’s an electric makes it incredibly easy to play action-wise. It’s a very cool instrument and I think the way I’m going to tackle it is more than a little unique in this modern world of accepted roles and rules.

So that’s three guitars. Two more to go.

The Gretsch Patrick Stump Corvette. This is for a couple reasons: the tone of the (three) pickups would be out of this world and the body being made of mahogany will lend a completely different tone with Filtertron-sized pickups. Lightweight and considerably smaller than any of the hollowbodies, it also looks amazing.

The next guitar is my project guitar. This is the guitar I can tinker with forever. It’ll be an Epiphone Emperor-Regent which is basically an acoustic archtop, but it happens to very closely match one of my favorite guitars that are not being made (and they go for about 10 grand as of right now). I plan on making it an electric. It’s already KIND of an electric. It has a floating humbucker hanging off the neck so no output jack is required to wire. That’s a big load off of my mind. I think it would be fun though to buy part after part at varying points in time, whenever I can swing it, say, a new set of tuners here, a bridge pickup there, a different bridge here, knobs there, that kind of stuff. This will scratch the modding itch and in the end, leave me with something that would be how I would interpret a Gibson ES 350 (which isn’t so close to how Gibson did it).

The very last guitar is actually still on my “maybe” list meaning that while it will add to the toolbox, I don’t REALLY need it. I can get close enough through other guitars. It’s a Gretsch 5120. The 5120 has regular humbuckers in it which are bigger than Filtertron humbuckers and I think it would lend itself well to something like rock or in places that you would want a more conventional, immediately recognizable rock tone. It would be more like a Gibson hollowbody, only a Gretsch. So while it would be cool, I’m not entirely sure I’ll be getting it.

But those other four… That sounds like a great idea. I mean, even if two of them cost, say, 3K, and the Patrick Stump cost 1K (these prices are all generally higher than the real price), and the Epiphone ended up costing 1,500, that’s 8,500.00 which is a lot (don’t try to tell me I don’t think it’s a lot. It IS a lot of money), when you string it out over my life, saying I live until the ripe old age of 75, that’s a MERE 170.00 a year. Basically a new Squier Strat or Tele every year for the “rest” of my life. Isn’t that price so much more reasonable?

I think of all the things a guitarist can do and still maintain his gear happiness this is the best and most practical.

Text Messaging

I love text messaging. It just plain makes sense to me.

Providing that I am not around a computer, texting is the most efficient way to carry on multiple conversations at once and if I start getting bored, I want to reach out to someone with a random question or comment and texting is my method of choice.

If I'm in the living room watching TV with my wife and a text comes in, I reply and I still know what's going on and there's little to no interruption in the real life part of things. My wife knows if she speaks, I'll stop typing and reply. That's the real bonus here: being able to stop and start whenever I want to.

Some think it's a rude thing to do. I agree. In certain places and times it is rude to do, but when you don't want to call someone and talk for who knows how long, a text works wonders.

It's also handy when you want to leave a message, just a quick message, that is not urgent and doesn't need to be acknowledged anytime soon. Someone will be coming by sometime this week to feed your cats while you're out of town, say. You can text him "the key is inside a fake rock under the bushes on the right side of the front path to the door." He doesn't need to respond to that and you're gone. Do you really want to go through the time and energy needed to call him, let the phone ring and then he'll pick it up and say hello? You'll say hello, exchange pleasantries, ask how the family is and oh, by the way, this is where the key to my house is located.

That's not practical and time is short in this life.

So yay to texting! The wave of the future!

New Year's Resolutions

I used to say that I don't make New Year's Resolutions because they are doomed to failure. Well, for the most part they are. It seems like it's become a bit of a joke to those out there who make them too. They stand up, announce to their friends that they are making a New Year's Resolution and it is to, say, swim the Pacific.

That's a long swim.

But everyone knows you're not going to do it. How many NYR's actually get carried through?

I have a bunch of thoughts on this (handily written down):

1) If you don't want everyone to know you failed at keeping your resolution (this of course implies that you're serious about the resolution), wait until the END of the year to announce that you did it successfully (prividing you did). If you failed, there's no need to say anything and you save all the face in the world.

2) If you need a little bit of a push from others on a serious NYR, then find like-minded people with the same resoultion and make a little group to inspire and keep each other on track. Say you want to lose 30 pounds before the end of the year or maybe you want to fit into a particular pair of pants or a dress or something like that. Speak it to your friends, grab those pants/dress/article of clothing and take a picture of it and then give copies to your friends. You can all have little bulletin boards with the pictures on it and the names attached. Monica wants to fit into this dress and Melanie wants to fit into these pants.

You can then compete (with health in mind and keeping the ability to fit in that article of clothing forever, NOT just once) and hopefully by the end of the year, you'll be able to do it.

Careful not to make a ridiculous goal. Keep your goals attainable so you can (wait for it) attain them.

Also, when your friend falls off the wagon and doesn't want to do it anymore, that's when you need to reach out and lift them up. You guys are in this together and if it comes to it, you need to ride them all the way to Dec 31st because they'll feel better with the results than they will if they give up and just accept being a failure.

Failures after all, just stopped trying.

And of course I'm not talking just about losing weight here. I have a NYR to practice for at least a half hour EVERY day except for days where it obviously isn't in the cards. It's not like I'm going to go home just to play guitar when my wife is in the hospital having a baby.

A half hour may not seem like that much, but time is short in this life, like I said before, and it adds up.

I have NYR's this year. Usually I don't make them, but this year I made a FEW of them.

1) Practice for a half hour every day unless obviously not possible.

2) Write a blog for EVERY day of the year. The ability to throw blogs into the can with a scheduled release date and time will help me out even if I have deployments, or my wife's going to be giving birth, or I'm out of town, or something like that. It's an attainable goal and I plan to make it. Obviously this started the other day, not on the first, but hopefully this won't stop on Dec 31st so I'm sure you'll forgive me.

3) Lose weight. I have a shirt I want to wear and right now it's too small. I'm going to photograph myself squeezing into it for my own records and then take a picture in it every week after starting Weight Watchers to see the progress.

4) Keep the kitchen clean for the whole year. When I go to bed at night I want it to be clean and the coffee ready to go the next morning.

5) I don't want to throw away any food items because we did not cook them in time. It happens sometimes, you take chicken out to thaw for dinner but you're tired and you order out and put the chicken in the fridge. Then a few days go by and the chicken's no longer good. This isn't going to happen anymore. If I'm going to waste money it's going to be on stuff I want like guitars and pedals!

Those are my NYR's and I'm excited to see if they stick.

The Biography Genre

I read a few biographies every now and then and recently I've been getting more and more into them. I like reading about other people's lives. Perhaps it's the voyeur in me.

Perhaps it's something else entirely though.

This is what I thought last night: when reading fiction, you almost always make yourself the main character, right? You can see yourself going through the adventure, be it on a quest for a magical sword/ring, helping the humpback whales, on a trans dimensional journey with an ancient gunslinger, whatever the case may be. You're right there and you're experiencing it.

But somewhere in the back of your head you know it's fake. This is fiction after all.

But biographies, those are real, this stuff really happened to someone and while you're reading it, are you sure you aren't imagining it happening to you?

And then BAM, that's when it hit me that I was imagining myself to be Charles Schulz, the guy who made the Peanuts strip. It didn't exactly hurt when I identified with a ton of his growing up and feelings toward the world and whatnot (at least up to now, a lot of things we would have agreed on but the things we wouldn't have agreed on we REALLY wouldn't have agreed on). I remember when I first started reading it, I got to the first chunk of pictures in the book and said to myself that he looks nothing like I was seeing in my head and what was in my head was not known to be me but now I think it was.

"This guy doesn't look like me at ALL!"

Now that the realization has hit, I love biographies even more. I'm not turned off at ALL to know that this life is someone else's and these experiences were theirs, not mine because when I'm reading it, they might as well be mine.

This sounds horribly creepy, but I swear it's not. I'm merely saying that while we have a tough time pushing ourselves further into fiction for it's obvious falsehood we can truly let ourselves go in biographies knowing that the events really took place in this world, in this dimension to a real person so since it's based in reality, let yourself go and fully embrace it.

I'm not saying you need to pretend you're the person when you aren't reading the book, but right now, I'm having more fun reading than I have for a long time. I love to read and fiction is my favorite genre, but I never ever experienced the whole diving into a book and really getting a ton out of it. Little snippets here and there really connected with me, but nothing, NOTHING, like what I'm experiencing reading biographies. I can be a strung out blues man (SRV or Clapton), a founding father (Ben Franklin) or even a cartoonist (Charles Schulz).

I get the feeling I'll be reading a LOT more biographies in the future and I have a sneaking suspicion that readers of biographies may be doing the exact same thing, even if it's never occurred to them that they are. I hope if you are and you read this it hits home because I'm sure you'll have a ton more fun reading the stories.

"Hey Kids Smoke Weed"

In my in-laws' neighborhood there is a park that has equipment that is kind of suited toward my daughter's age and size. Everything's covered in plastic and the steps are not that steep and so long as I'm right there with her, I'm not worried about her safety. She discovered that she can climb the steps herself, make a quick turn at a pole and slide down a slide headfirst. She would never go sailing off the slide but most times even if she did my wife and I were right there to catch her just in case. Once she discovered this, she was more than content to climb the steps go down the slide, get taken off the slide by me, then go back up the steps and do it all over again.

She really enjoys the park.

There was a also a tube that she climbed through to get to the other half of the little playground where there was a steeper slider and a little catwalk she liked to go on because I would be under it making faces at her through the grate.

Inside the tube was written "HEY KIDS SMOKE WEED."

I brought my notebook out and copied it down, careful to copy it exactly as it's been written because this is important.

Grammar.

I know my posts are probably riddled with grammatical errors, but I like to think that I write like I speak. I think if I were to transcribe what I actually say there would be lots of hyphens, lots of parenthesis, and a WHOLE lot of tangents (and words in all caps). I also like to think that once a reader gets used to this style (and I think it's a fairly unique style) reading FEELS more like a conversation, albeit one that you the reader can't get a word in edgewise until the very end.

But sometimes grammar is important and in this statement a comma is missing and it could change everything in the world.

Imagine:

"Hey kids, smoke weed."

This is what my mind went to immediately as a guess as to what the author was trying to say. I ave to say right now I've never done drugs but I do think that as far as pot goes, the government sure spends a lot of money trying to stop it when they could just as easily sell it through pharmacies and package stores much like alcohol and pocket the profits (it would probably help with the deficit too).

But I digress (and don't want to get into it). Telling kids to smoke weed is obviously wrong, but it's also obviously stupid. Who reads some crap written on a crawling tube and goes out to do it? What kind of trust does tube writing inspire? What idiot is smoking weed now because they read those words?

But imagine if it said this:

"Hey, kids smoke weed."

This is more of a statement of the times, maybe from a frustrated youth because his stash was found by Mom and Pops and it was confiscated and thrown away/destroyed/hidden for the parents own enjoyment.

Maybe the kid (because who else would write this?) doesn't do drugs at all but meant to throw this out there more as a philosophical comment about how kids are not the angels we think they are and yes, they do indeed smoke weed. Maybe that's his experience and he wants parents and adults in general to realize that their kids are human beings and MAYBE you (the parent) should spend more time talking with your youth.

Of course, if you are at the park with your kid you're already better than most of neglectful parents out there.

By the way, I'm not saying you have to go with your kid to the park, but if you do then you're obviously paying a little more attention to their lives than those who don't. And of course it comes down to age as well. It's once thing to take your eight year old to the park, and something completely different to take your sixteen year old to the park.

Anyway, whoever wrote this inspired this blog and my cry to everyone not to give up on public education. It needs to be reformed somehow because if the kid who wrote this is going to eventually go to college, he's going to have a TOUGH time getting through his/her Composition and English classes.

And if we can take a turn here for a second, what's with the need to graffiti parks in the first place? Is this where you want to be heard through your writing? The Internet is RIGHT there, accessible from just about anywhere. The local library is not a five minute walk from this park and the computers (Internet ready) are accessible for free at half hour blocks. You can sit down, write a blog just like this one, publish it and be done. You'd probably get more readers too, those who google crap like "weed kids smoke" etc. Or how about interstate overpasses? Under bridges? I think if you're badass enough to go writing stuff on public property (something I deeply dislike because it really throws off the beauty of a city or town) you should write it somewhere where there's a little bit of danger involved. Have a buddy hang you upside down at the overpass. Brave the bridge's innards at night when the homeless or gangs are occupying it. If you're man enough to belittle a town and community like that, be man enough to do it somewhere that involves a little risk.

My response to the writing at the park is simple, to the point and I didn't write it there (though sometimes I think I should have but honestly it would have just inspired more writing and you know that's what the kid wanted anyway was a reaction):

"Hey kids, don't smoke weed."
"Hey, kids smoke weed but they don't have to."

And of course, I have to say that I am not a drug advocate, I just have one dog in this fight and she's almost 17 months old. I don't really want her growing up in a world where this is written on every playground she goes to but if it is, I'll be there to talk to her about it.

Annie On The Flight

My daughter Annie has been on a few flights already in her short life. I think she had been on four flights before this trip and the first two she was knocked out on Tylenol.

Don't look at me like that. She was sore from shots and still very young so even the smallest dose to help with the pain in her legs was enough to knock her out for the whole day. To say traveling with her that day was easy would be a huge understatement. It was more than ease, it was practically a joy. Here I was with this tiny infant, everyone oohing and ahhing over her as I held her asleep and cherubic in my arms.

What an angel.

On the flights back it was a different story. I think she just got bored and wanted to be moved around. Still too young to be down by herself, I got up with her and walked to the front of the plane, back to the back of the plane. To the front of the plane and back to the back of the plane. The plane was practically empty and no one really seemed to mind the crying baby, but it was nice that mine was not the only one that was crying as there was another parent - a mom - who was walking her baby as well.

Back and forth.

Back and forth.

This was what I was prepared to do for these next two flights too. We got on the plane and it was a lot smaller and I thought that I didn't have very much walking room. Someone's foot would undoubtedly be sticking out into the isle and I may trip on it and jeez, I don't even want to THINK about what would happen next.

But Annie handled it like a champ. We got on the plane and she looked out the window to the other planes and signed "train" maybe because plane sounds so much like train, but maybe because train is her universal term for transportation devices be it plane, train or car. Everything is choo choo and a pull of the arm like she's tugging the horn of a steam locomotive. It's pretty cute.

We took off and she was great. I got up with her a few times to change her diapers and just walk around a bit but for the most part she was content to bounce between Mommy and me, looking out the window, trying to touch the man sitting next to me, sharing my iPod and digging Fall Out Boy.

On the next flight she was asleep. I'm not kidding when I say it was a short one. We took off, got to cruising altitude and immediately went into descent. It was easy and everyone commented on how well behaved my sleeping child was.

Not to take anything away from her or anything, but she was sleeping. How much trouble can a sleeping baby get into?

I was pretty proud nonetheless at how well Annie handled her flights. The flights back was more of the same, though the second and longest flight Annie was not happy with anything and was pretty loud. I'd say this was the most difficult flight to date with her. I felt bad for the guy sitting next to me (there seems to always be a guy sitting next to me and Kim's always closest to the window!). Annie kicked him once, touched the tattoo creeping out from beneath his shirt sleeve, spilled water on him, kicked the tray and spilled ICE on the poor guy and he handled it like it was nothing, which I greatly appreciated. I know I felt like a crummy parent, but here he was, being quiet for most of the flight but always quick to say "it's OK" when I apologized for my daughter's behavior and my sub-par parenting skills.

It's pretty hard to think you're a stellar parent when you can't keep control of your daughter in a space that can't be more than 2'X5'X2'.

But I survived. And now with another on the way I'll admit, I shudder a bit at the idea of plane rides, but you do what you have to do and it is quicker to fly than it is to drive, especially to someplace like beautiful Tucson, AZ!

Fruit In The Airport

I went into the Atlanta International Airport to go on vacation and saw a vending machine. These aren't too rare in airports (or anywhere for that matter though I will say in Japan they are MUCH more prevalent and offer a wider selection of drinks and snacks. They have the vending machine world cornered) but this one, ah, this one was very different indeed.

It had iPods in it.

This goes along with the Sky Mall ridiculously priced impulse buy stuff BUT this is a bit smarter in that you get it right away. Given the same scenario, you're on your way to a family get-together but oh shucks! No present. $150.00 in a machine and you have a desirable present and you'll be thanked a ton (probably). Makes sense though I still want to know how often this happens.

At first I thought oh wow, how cool. It's kind of like those fruit vending machines you see in cafeterias only this one dispenses a different kind of apple.

But then I thought of the problems.

Let me give you the run down here about a new iPod and let's say you just bought one out of the vending machine for yourself, not as a present:

It's not like there's music on it waiting for you to plug in the headphones and listen to. You need to put your own music on it. Before you do that though, you need to install iTunes into your computer.

What, you didn't bring your computer with you? Sorry buddy, your ride ends here.

But let's say you DID bring your computer with you and the airport you are located in has free internet access. You pop online and download iTunes and then take your MP3 collection, which hopefully you have already saved on your computer and you don't have to worry about importing CD after CD. You import all your songs and then plug your iPod in to sync it up.

Ah, but what about the BATTERY? As far as I know, iPods come next to dead and in need of a charge. A quick charge takes approximately 45 minutes and charges something like 75% of the battery (I'm pretty sure).

Maybe as you're downloading and importing iTunes and your music you iPod can be charging.

And then maybe the importing process will take a while and you'll need to do it on the next flight.

The whole thing is riddled with obstacles, obstacles you just wouldn't have at home. So hopefully if you are in an airport buying an iPod it's as a present OR you come prepared with iTunes already installed along with your music (I know I ran iTunes well before I got my first iPod) ready to go and the only thing stopping you is a battery charge.

If that's the case I hope you have a lengthy layover.

SkyMall

Sky Mall magazine is one of my favorite magazines in the whole wide world. I love random stuff. Love it. The only problem with loving random stuff is you have to go to so many places to get it. Electronics, pet supplies, home improvement, luxury items etc. etc.

But Sky Mall has it all.

I'm inclined to ask for copies to be sent to my house because I love them so very much.

What I'm saying is that they are good for a laugh. Don't get me wrong, there's stuff I want out of the catalog but most of the things inspire "Ah HA! Look at that! Boy, I think I'd like to own that. I better write down the item so I can find it cheaper on line."

But some of the stuff in there is ridiculously priced and it makes me think.

When I was a kid my parents told me that Sky Mall was in the plane with me except it wasn't like a real mall where you can walk around but more like a warehouse where the flight attendant would take the cash/check/credit card number, go to a hidden chamber (they liked it say it was between the ceiling and the actual roof of the plane) and get the bought item and bring it to you.

Obviously they never bought from the catalog and was just jerking me around. But every flight I was on I would find the water guns and beg my parents for one promising not to shoot anybody with water, I won't even fill it up, the Super Soaker 100 was tough to find in stores and here it is in the catalog WHICH MEANS IT'S ON THE PLANE!

I remember reading in Sky Mall an advertisement for your very own personal submarine called the Dolphin or something like that. that costs so much money it would make your eyes bleed to read it and thinking to myself "No way is something this expensive on this jet."

And who is falling for this impulse buy? How much money does Sky Mall generate? I can actually see it working out better for the organization if they DID store stuff on the plane. I see a lot more people saying "crap! I didn't get little Julie a present! *Bing Bong* Yes Sir, I'd like to purchase this. Please run along and get it for me. Is there any chance you gift wrap?"

Oh yes. They would. For a fee.

But how many people are sitting on the plane bored out of their minds flipping through the catalog and saying "holy crap! A personal submarine! I've always wanted one of those. Oh man, and it only costs XXX,XXX.99. I've got to get this and then wait for however long it will take to get to my house!"

That's really pushing the whole impulse buy thing don't you think? It's one thing to say "want to buy a candy bar you didn't even want?" and have someone buy it on impulse more because they're bored than hungry. It's something completely different to say "Want to buy an iPod clock (not a bad thing to have)? You'll have to order it on the ground where you can just go out and buy it and then you'll have to wait for it to come in, but you can pick it out right here 35,000 feet above sea level!"

Airline Food! Can You Believe It?

Growing up, I've flown a lot. A WHOLE lot. I was raised a Navy brat who flew probably eight to ten flights per year every year until I moved to the States at age... Let's say fifteen. My parents were divorced by then and my mom worked for United Airlines. I used the space available program, always donning a dark green suit in an effort to get bumped up to a better class, to get from Dad's where I lived to Mom's where I liked to visit. I probably went twice a year which would be something like four flights per year. This went on until I was done with college and then I joined the AF and flying is my job.

So I fly quite a bit. I've flown all around this crazy world going to multiple continents, countries, and states. I'd say even now with years of experience under my belt flying for the AF I still have more hours and more experience with civilian airlines so it's with a bit of credentials that I write this blog.

The food is NOT that bad.

It is especially not that bad when you think that it's free and that on particularly long flights it would be a WHOLE lot worse if they gave you nothing and let you eat that. Nothing. Think about it. Oh sure, you might say the bagel is very cardboard-like but you'd be begging for cardboard after ten hours of breathing your own air and being hungry.

Of course, now things have changed, haven't they? It's tough to get food through security and who wants to pay the ridiculous prices for food on the safe side of the metal detector? Not many people.

Other things have changed too. Depending on your airline you will pay money for your FIRST checked bag. No one wants to pay money for something they've been getting for free forever, right? So what do people do? They find bags that are suitcases (don't even TRY to deny it) and stuff them full of their crap and call it a carry on. It's NOT a carry on, it's your freaking suitcase and it is NOT a good idea to bring that on the plane. I do not want to be lifted from my seat because your bag is too big to fit under it in front of you, nor do I want you to test out the maximum weight capacity sign on the overhead storage bins. They're meant for small carry on bags, not a steamer trunk.

And then there's the food! I flew with US Airways on the way to Tucson and we took off and then we were let in on the knowledge that in order to get a soda - a SODA - we would need to shell out 2.00.

2.00?!

You're out of your freaking mind if you think I'm paying 2.00 for a SODA, people. That's somewhere between 16 and 17 cents per FLUID OUNCE!

That is ridiculous.

Look, I understand the whole checked luggage thing. Fuel isn't cheap and the more weight people bring, the harder it is to fly. That's fine with me to check per weight or something like that, but seriously, SODA?! And at such a ridiculous price too!

My god, it makes no sense and every single person I saw buying and slurping them down I just wanted to slap and say "You know you're just encouraging them, right? Like a kid throwing a tantrum you gave in to the demands! It's a two hour flight! There will be water in the airport when we land AND IT WILL BE FREE!"

Oh MAN, if I could have only talked in all capitals!

Open Up And Say AHHHH: The First Of Many

I think it was the night before I went on vacation that I had to run to the corner CVS to pick up milk, some Gatorade for a nervous wife and some prescriptions for my daughter. While waiting for the prescriptions I picked up a notebook and pen to take with me to Tucson. This notebook was to catch the many blog ideas I have that for some reason or another drop out of my head between conception and birth (thinking and typing).

It was a good idea because I flew away from Tucson with MANY good blog ideas and bullets for them so I know just what I was talking about when I wrote the idea down.

It's a rough looking notebook with arrows, scribbles, cursive, capitals, chicken scratch, little doodles, and just messy messy messy stuff. But amongst all this crap are my ideas and I figured I would go through them one by one giving you a new blog each day.

So now that we have where these ideas came from and how it's going to play out, let's get this ball rolling, eh?

And I'm Back!

This is not the first blog in the long series though. Well, I guess technically it is. I don't exactly plan on stopping tomorrow or anything like that but this is not the first PLANNED blog in the series nor is it anything too spectacular. You can sip it if you like.

...

Still there? Whew. Good.

So this blog, nothing more than me saying I'm back home from a very needed vacation, I had a lot of fun and got to do a lot of stuff that you just can't do here in Warner Robins (like walk on sidewalks or use crosswalks). The wife and daughter are fine though it will take a little bit of time to get Annie used to the time difference. I am not used to her staying up until 10:00 but she just wouldn't go down tonight until then.

I also wanted to talk briefly about the ads. I don't want to push you to click or anything like that (disregard the "CLICK!" title to the left) and actually wanted to tell you to STOP clicking unless you're genuinely interested in whatever they have to offer.

Don't get me wrong, I'd still like checks from Google, but I don't want to commit fraud to do it. I'll try doing some stuff in the near future to make the ads make more sense (which will be good since it's called AdSense), and make them more relevant to the blog instead of taking the most commonly used term on the whole page and making ads out of them. We'll see what I can come up with and maybe that thing will be THE thing that makes you see ads that you WANT to click. Stranger things have happened.

That's basically it for the day. The travel went well, don't try to pull a fast one on Google.

See you tomorrow.

Um... Hello? Is Anyone Here?

You bet someone's here, come on in and settle down. Kick your feet up, take a load off. Let the stress of the day melt away through your eyes as you read my blog and think to yourself "what an interesting fellow."

While you're here, be sure to show support by clicking the ads in the upper left.

I know some of you out there are anxious for me to get back into the adventures I've been getting myself into BUT you'll have to wait just a bit longer. I just wanted to come on here and say that I hope you had a very happy holiday season and I hope you received everything you wanted. I also hope you gave if you were able. We're not exactly swimming in cash (hence the AdSense ads in the upper left but when we're able we give our change to Salvation Army and donate Annie's hand me downs to other families.

Ah, but I digress. My point here is that I hope you had a great time and don't worry, more blogs will come. I made a New Year's Resolution and that will be the very first blog to go up and it'll explain everything. Rest assured, I aim to keep you the reader consistently entertained regardless of what I may be up to.

Anyhoo, be sure to check back. Once the blogs start coming, I don't see much of a stop in sight.

Have a great day, everyone.