The frustration is ever present...

After a few back and forths with VES, they requested a collaborative agreement memo signed by a physician, including their license number. This differs slightly from what I used in 2016, which was just a memo signed by a physician with their name/title printed on it. As that memo was signed by the as of then not psychotic former coworker, I knew I needed an updated memo. Thankfully, my present supervisor in my dormant fee-basis job was not only willing, but very prompt in filling out said document and returning it posthaste. Cry fury, and loose the snares of obtuse administrators improvising further obstacles over which to jump.

Now, they needed a physician licensed in Texas for the collaborative agreement. A fact they failed to mention when specifying the requirements of the memo. As luck would have it, many physicians in federal service take jobs in states different from where they are licensed. It was fairly typical in the military and I’ve noticed the same trend in federal service. To compound that problem, I’m not especially social at work, and there are only a few doctors I would even consider asking. Right now I’m still waiting on a response from the only other physician in that clinic I would feel comfortable asking. The lack of response is starting to feel like a refusal, but I’m going to give it a bit more time.

I think the requirement is nonsense because my colleague who is now working overseas, got a memo from the same doctor and apparently it was good enough for that scenario. What makes overseas and stateside different for an informal relationship where the physician just states they “are available to answer questions” is lost on me. I don’t think it matters, I think it’s just another clerk throwing up unnecessary requirements so they feel better and can shift blame if something comes back on them. This happens time and time again with credentials and other HR people. There are many benefits to being a part of a big organization like the federal government, but this is probably the biggest downside. You’re often at the mercy of an entry level admin type who is some combination of incompetent and ambivalent.

To add insult to injury (that’s overstating it a bit, but I’m going for dramatic effect), I’ve been trying for over three years to get my TSP account (401Kish) changed to reflect that I was separated from regular federal employment in 2017. Without this status change, I have no control over the account and can’t contribute funds, rollover the account, or make withdrawals. In effect, my account is frozen and out of my control. It’s not a huge acute issue at this precise moment, but if we had a financial emergency (especially considering our current situation), we’d be unable to use these funds. I’m hoping to leave it untouched until I’m 59 1/2 and can withdraw without penalty. But, if we really needed to, we could withdraw everything and payoff the house with some money left over. We’d take the tax hit and an additional 10% early withdrawal fee (which would suck), but we’d be able to shift our monthly budget by $1500 in the black since we wouldn’t be paying a mortgage any longer. I’m currently experiencing a similar scenario with the VA where my inquiries are either ignored or get to participate in the admin hot potato email game.

On hopefully more positive news, I’m strongly considering resuming my studies at Berklee. Depending on any developments with the job front, I can go back to full time studies and derive a $900 monthly housing allowance, not to mention the yearly stipend for books. I have 14 months of GI Bill remaining, so this should get us through another year of employment uncertainty. Hopefully by then, some trickle of work would have returned for fee basis examiners. It’s what I’ve been needing to do anyway, and the more I’ve thought about it, I really need to get my ass in gear and submit my application for the guitar dual major and get as much done while I have GI Bill benefits remaining. I may not be able to complete all requirements, but I should be able to close the gap significantly. I think the private lessons requirement of 9 semesters is the one I’ll most likely be lacking when my benefits are used up.

I’ll cross that bridge when I find it. I like this plan because it at least puts on more stable ground financially and I’ll be more or less in the driver’s seat again in regards to my work status.

A little bit of movement on the workfront...

I had reached out to a coworker from the VA who had switched to fee basis a few years back and had been languishing in the furlough twilight along with me. She had contacted me back in Juneish or so and asked if I had heard anything about return to work at the VA. She had originally put me in touch with VES back in 2016 and helped facilitate my working there at the time. Once I made the switch to fee basis, I didn’t see a good reason to keep a schedule at VES because I had all the work and income that I desired.

After we texted in June I asked her to let me know when she went back to work for VES since she had several exams already on deck. I hadn’t heard from her and I knew the VA was supposed to be back at 100% capacity as of October 6th, so I sent her a text saying “Que Paso?” I had also reached out to a recruiter that emailed me in April but never responded to my follow up. This time around, after three days, he replied, saying there was no work in my area. She had also responded and said they were hurting for examiners right now and were paying bonuses. I told her what the recruiter said and she didn’t think it sounded right.

She went through her recruiter (she’s working overseas) and he forwarded my info to the supervisor of domestic recruiting. Lo and behold, the recruiter who told me there was nothing now needed my information. It was a generic email that didn’t acknowledge our exchange from one week prior. I’ve found these recruiters (at least some of them) are similar to some of the folks in HR and credentials. They appear to perform the minimum requirements, but don’t expect much and you won’t be disappointed.

I decided not to mention the now ancient history email and just responded as if it was the first I had received. A few hours later I heard from someone in their admin section, requesting training certification before they could schedule me. That was Friday morning and I responded within two hours. I’m now waiting to hear back, but at least this is finally progress. I haven’t heard anything about details - where they need exams, how many, how often, etc. I’m hoping I can get something similar to what I did in 2016 - about four hours on Saturday and Sunday mornings. The weekend is irrelevant to us since we don’t work or do anything else specific on any given day, and traffic is generally much more bearable.

I’m not holding my breath, though. I won’t be shocked if it’s something like - we have Austin and Houston, but nothing in Dallas right now. Which doesn’t seem likely given that C&P face-to-face exams were shutdown nationally for several months, but I’m trying to keep my expectations low. If I can get that two days a week schedule, I think it’s reasonable to assume I could earn around $2K per weekend, which is about what I would expect on a single workday as fee basis. That would be roughly $8K a month, $5500 after taxes. Not as good as I made with fee basis, but more than enough to keep us comfortable. That said, just 20-30 DBQs a month ($2-3K) should be enough to keep us comfortably in the black for the monthly ledger. We’re trying to maintain that positive cashflow, but there are always unplanned expenditures that just marginally dip the budget into the red.

The hope is that I can get this part time work from VES to hold us over until operations resume for fee basis with the VA. I have to acknowledge that day may never come again, or at least not in the way it used to be. I’ve decided this time around to maintain at least a minimal working schedule with VES so that I always have options in case something like this happens again. Hopefully things are slowly looking up. The pandemic hasn’t gone anywhere and there are still significant numbers of uninfected. At least now procedures have been updated in most healthcare and other public facilities so we can return to some semblance of normal operation.

RIP Eddie Van Halen, 1955-2020

This year has just kept us reeling. It’s still too early to process and the pervasive undercurrent of numbness leaves me feeling disconnected like all the other endless bad news. It can’t be overstated how important Eddie was to rock music and the guitar. Often held up there with Jimi Hendrix as the biggest milestone players in the history of guitar, I’ve always felt Eddie’s influence was more pervasive. There were definitely more Eddie clones in the years following his debut album when he single-handedly turned rock music upside down. Most rock fans, especially guitarists, can still remember the first time they heard Van Halen I and Eddie’s rock guitar manifesto, Eruption. I was around 11 years old, and my sister was blasting that first album in her room. I remember just thinking that this was something otherworldly, I couldn’t conceive these sounds as emanating from one player and one guitar. It still blows my mind a bit, even forty plus years later.

Eddie has always been one of my Mt. Rushmore guitarists, going back all those years, even before I decided to pick up the instrument. He was the total package - rhythm, groove, touch, tone, melody, harmony, riffs, composition. Eddie never seemed to approach the instrument casually, he was always driven by a greater need than most of us ever possess or can understand. The stories of Eddie sitting in his room, playing the guitar for twelve hours straight, may strike some as apocryphal, but I’ve never doubted them. One only need listen to that first album and understand he had been playing less than ten years to appreciate his dedication to the instrument.

The guitar and music have gone in myriad directions since those early days, and in many ways popular music has left those 70’s and 80’s icons behind, but Eddie’s influence remains today and will persist into the future. Music lost a champion and icon and it will never see his like again. RIP Eddie, your spirit will always remain.

Ten Years Gone

As of today, I have been officially retired from the Army for ten years. It’s been a fairly busy period of time and given a fair accounting, overwhelmingly positive on a personal level, if not in the national and international scope of things. I spent the first six and a half years or so continuing to work full time, and then switched to fee basis/part-time work about three and a half years ago. Despite the pandemic and forced layoff, I still think that decision was the right one to make. The three years of earning double for half the time made significant progress towards paying off our home and reaching our long term financial goals.

We haven’t neared the finish line as closely as planned for this point in time, but we still hold out hope that this temporary setback will eventually just be a historical footnote. I can say that there have been positive discoveries made in the context of the layoff. It’s not a big change to our philosophy, but we’ve learned to further appreciate the value of financial stability. Also, dialing back the continuous consumption has had little negative affect and it’s made me realize just how much fulfillment is available in what we already have. In a peripherally related issue, getting away from essentially all social media (FB, twitter, instagram) has had little downside in my estimation. Those mediums could offer occasional (and very temporary) entertainment, but they never offered anything of lasting value. And here lately, the constant daily onslaught of misery and controversy (especially twitter) just began to wear me down. I don’t miss it a bit.

We’ve learned how adequate (or not) our pure retirement income is against the cost of living. At present it’s a bit short, although as said before, some real belt-tightening might allow us to correct the course. The additional money from paying off the mortgage will make staying in the black a bit easier. Even at present, just a couple full days of clinic would be enough to keep that monthly ledger positive, so hopefully, in the not too distant future, I might get a little trickle of work to set the ship level.

On the creative side of things, in some areas, it’s felt like very incremental progress, but progress nonetheless. I should mention the considerable time I’ve spent at Berklee which has been a great boon to my artistic development, although I’m on an extended break at present. I still plan to return, but I want to shift my focus to guitar and I’m still slowly working towards what I consider a satisfactory audition. I have until 2025 to use my GI Bill benefits, and since I’ve already used around 75% of them, I should still be on track.

I’m not sure I’m where I would have wished to be on guitar and piano especially, but I can say that I didn’t necessarily expect I would have started on drums, bass, vocals, and songwriting as well. I also wouldn’t have thought my pursuits would turn towards writing and drawing, much less resuming my long procrastinated study of Korean. Things continue to inch forward a day at a time, but that they inch forward is the point. I’m happy with where I’m going (and maybe not totally unhappy with where I’m at creatively, either) and I still wake up every day looking forward to the work ahead.

The family is doing okay, as well as could be expected I suppose. We’re not any younger, but we’re holding in there I think. Ironically, our lifestyle was already suited to the pandemic since we’re homebodies with no social circles to speak of. The only inconvenience for us was delaying some routine medical care, concerts, and being more judicious about trips to the store. Otherwise, it’s situation normal here in the Hightower holdfast. We said goodbye to our sweet girls Lucy and Bridget, and still miss them all the time. We already had Arya by the time I retired and not long after we said goodbye to Bridget five years ago we added Skittles to our pack. A chihuahua mix, she’s the princess in the house and gets the lion’s share of the attention, although we don’t fail to shower our other two girls with affection.

My hopes for the future are largely unchanged. I want to continue working on my creative pursuits every day. I still hope that at some point I’ll spend more time in a purely creative headspace instead of practicing and developing my technique, but I expect that will always be part of the daily rituals. I hope to at least reach a level of competency (on the drums especially) where I can perform and record the sort of music I hear in my head. I’m closer to that on guitar, but there’s still a ways to go. Eventually, my goal is to combine the various disciplines of music, words, and art into cohesive works that tell compelling stories. I’ll get there, even if it takes a long time. I feel like this period of my life is when I can really create the works I have always needed to make. I don’t regret any part of my life, but it would be untrue to characterize my military service or medicine as my calling. These have been challenging and at times rewarding endeavors, but my creative efforts are where my true self lives.

As long as it’s available and I’m able, I’ll probably continue to earn an income to keep us afloat first and foremost, but also to have a comfortable discretionary budget for the quality of life expenses. As probably stated before, I hope we can get back on track and build our cash reserves back up and then pay the rest of the mortgage off. At that point, one decent shift a week would keep us pretty comfortable, methinks.

Looking ahead, it’s hard to surmise where we might be in ten years. I’ll be sixty-three, just having become eligible for my VA retirement (paltry as that may be) and about four years away from social security (if that hasn’t been stolen by then). I assume we’ll have the house fully paid off, and I’d say the odds are we’ll still be right here although might change as well. My main goal with writing is to continue to improve and just create some compelling stories. It would be the proverbial icing on the cake if that would ever reach a level of quality that someone would be willing to publish it. It would be a second cake with sprinkles on the icing to ever derive any sort of income from it. Still, I have to acknowledge that it is actually a goal. Musically, maybe I’ll actually be able to play those milestone songs (you know who you are) by then. A man can dream…

Progress at work?

In an unexpected development this morning, when I went to check my work email I had a request for a medical opinion with two, count ‘em, two DBQs. We’ve already begun the planning process for retiring to the French Riviera, hold my calls.

Ahem, I’ll dial back the enthusiasm a tad and just say that it’s nice to get any work at this point. It was also a decent function check to make sure all my work programs are still accessible and functional. A few of the steps were a bit of a pain and there have been some updates to the forms and programs since I last used them in April. All that said, it was still much quicker than driving across town for about five minutes of actual work. Ok, maybe ten.

I’ve been receiving regular VA emails (directed to Veterans) stating that all C&P locations are open for face-to-face exams nationwide, although it makes it sound like exams are predominately being performed by contractors. I haven’t received any sort of requests or notification from the FWOPC or any contractors (mainly VES if it were going to happen) at this point, but that may be a reflection of the slow gears of gummit work. Today’s medical opinion was from a January exam, so obviously, the pandemic hasn’t caused VBA to speed up by any means. Still, it’s nice to have anything happen. I had checked the clinic schedules earlier this week and it seems that at least for most of the FTEs, their schedules are filling up. Hopefully, this will gradually trickle down to the fee basis providers.

It's been a bit...

…since the last update and a few things have changed. I’ve resumed pursuit of my seven (eight?) disciplines, including a resumption of writing and drawing. I’ve started to settle into a six day workweek so to speak. I practice drums, vocals, acoustic guitar, drawing and writing on M-W-F, and on T-Th-Sa I practice drums, keys, elec guitar, bass, drawing, and writing. I also started studying Korean again but decided to go back to the very beginning of the Pimsleur lessons. I do this in conjunction with my elliptical workouts, which are every day at present. (goldarned knee doncha know) I consider Sunday my day off, although I tend to get in some more writing and drawing that day as well. It’s open for me to completely fuck off if I want to.

Getting back into writing has been good so far, although I’ve yet to really engage in any “proper” writing. It’s been comprised of administrative and transcription tasks. I finally got all the bookmarked (booktaped?) notes from Judith Flander’s Victorian Home book, including several additional pages of notes that seemed useful as I went through it. I need to do that for Life in a Medieval Town as well. In the process, it became more apparent that my Scrivener organization system was lacking. I started the process today of trying to categorize research and story components into a more understandable and efficient system.

Ideas keep coming for the story and I continue to follow the practice of just dictating these into my notes app on the phone, but now I need to start filing these ideas in the appropriate areas and then doing the actual follow up work, whether it’s crafting a scene, conducting more research, etc. I feel like I already have the bones of a compelling story, but the real work still lies ahead. I plan to approach this methodically with concurrent study in my various writing courses as well as reading both nonfiction and fiction that will support the work. I’m planning on trying Brian Lee Durfee’s approach of choosing several books by authors whose style I want to at least partially draw from in the work. His systematic analysis of their techniques is an interesting approach, and although I’m not sure how well it will work for me, my analytical brain finds favor with it. I’ll be taking a look at their typical chapter layouts, dialogue length and positioning within a page/chapter, character introductions, exposition, etc.

I haven’t decided on the authors yet, although I’m likely to pick two of his - Robert Jordan and George R.R. Martin. I want to pick at least one Victorian-era novel, whether Brontë, Dickens, Doyle, etc. I also want to pick at least one of the authors whose humor I’ve enjoyed - Harry Harrison’s Stainless Steel Rat, Douglas Adams, Scott Lynch, Terry Pratchett, etc. I wouldn’t want humor to overpower the tone, but I definitely love the stories that include at least a dash of levity.

And in today’s “critical for world peace” update, I managed to snag a pre-order for the new Xbox Series X console. Akin to the oh so pleasurable concert ticket buying experience, I bounced around multiple websites across multiple devices and had a false start on my phone where I got to address confirmation only to be told they couldn’t ship to my country (US). Thankfully, that incomplete order remained in my shopping cart on the MS store, and I was able to complete the transaction on my desktop about thirty minutes into the pre-sale. Based on early comments online, there are a lot of dissatisfied customers unable to get through, although as per usual, this doesn’t necessarily reflect a representative sample of customers.

After MS announced their purchase of ZeniMax Media (including Bethesda, id, and several others) I was planning on trying to buy MS’s subscription plan where you get the console and the game pass for $35 a month over two years. With the addition of Bethesda (Elder Scrolls, Fallout), id (Doom), and the others, that means several more of my favorite games would be available. As it is, I’ll probably wait until I’ve finally cleared out that games backlog before I consider subscribing. My two most anticipated games for the near future (Baldur’s Gate 3, Cyberpunk 2077) won’t be available on all access anytime soon regardless. I assume BG is PC exclusive at least at first and that would be my preferred version, CP might actually be more enjoyable in the home theater. I definitely enjoyed Witcher 3 in that manner.

Figuring out the new norm

I’m not sure there’s ever going to be a “norm” that will last for a significant amount of time, probably moreso from external factors than internal. I finally started to dabble back in writing again starting yesterday. It took me a bit to remember where I was at in the process. One issue is that I was a bit more active in the Joyce Carol Oates’ master class on short stories through MasterClass.com and because I didn’t renew my membership, that class is temporarily unavailable. I think I’ve decided to go back to the beginning of the James Hynes course on Audible and see where it goes from there. I have several writing courses that I’ve acquired and yet to complete. The past two days I’ve spent most of my time slowly transcribing the notes I had made in the Judith Flanders book on the Victorian Home. I still have a ways to go on that task.

I’ve approached drawing sort of the same way, although I haven’t gone back to the beginning. I think I need to pick one course of instruction and follow it through until the end. My plan is to do that with writing as well, although I tend to sprinkle in some work on my novel in progress. The writing courses involve a lot of practical exercises, so when it makes sense I try to write something that may be of use in the novel.

I still haven’t resumed playing bass, and I suppose that’s the final piece of the puzzle. Initially, there was probably some of that COVID funk that was reducing my motivation to practice, but it’s persisted at least partially from a desire to avoid further repetitive strain injuries. One nice recent change is that I’ve had less of the nagging elbow issues as in the past, but I’m still practicing guitar and drums as much as I ever have. I don’t know if it’s just that these issues have needed this much time to mostly heal, or maybe a combination of other factors that I wasn’t considering, namely how I typed at work. I never thought it was much of an issue, but I was noticing some of the symptoms with prolonged reports when I was standing with my elbows bent at 90 degrees. Not sure, I suppose I’ll see when I get back to work.

All that to say I need to get back to practicing some bass. I’m not sure which day is best, maybe the electric guitar day. The only issue there is that I also practice piano that day, so maybe I need to practice bass on my acoustic guitar day when I also practice vocals and drums. I may give it a run today and see how I feel.

Back to the Infrequent...

…updates I suppose. Nothing monumental has happened in the past month. There has been slow progress on the work front. I’m not sure if it was within the last month that the director sent an email stating that VANTHCS would return to full operations with incremental steps for routine face to face encounters with a planned 100% restoration of services by October 6th. I’m not tracking the play by play, but it seems they’re on schedule at this point.

All that said, that doesn’t mean fee-basis will be needed in C&P in that same timeframe. Our department chief and program analyst had sent emails to the FTEs notifying them that face to face examinations would resume so they would be back in the clinic full time in the upcoming weeks. I responded to this email saying I knew that didn’t mean fee basis would be needed for quite a long time and they essentially confirmed this and expressed appreciation for my patience.

The unknown factors here are whether they will be able to stick to the plan and how quickly there will be a resumption of the normal flow of exam requests from VBA. Until they start getting a normal flow that exceeds the FTEs capability, it’s not likely we’ll see any request for fee-basis exams. My feeling for a long time (and probably expressed here previously) was the end of the year at best, and Dr. Potu (Chief of Ambulatory Care) had already expressed this timeframe as well. If anything, I could see them asking us to help out during the holidays as there’s always a shortage of providers since everyone wants to go on vacation, although it’s hard to say how that will be affected by COVID. If travel remains sketchy, those leave requests may drop off quite a bit.

I still think it will be well into next year before we can expect a resumption of full activities and fee basis numbers reaching anything near where they were at their peak. I hope I’m wrong, and I don’t necessarily need the desired workload to make a difference in our budget. One good day a month would be enough to put our monthly ledger in the black, and two days would make things comfortable. This wouldn’t facilitate the faster mortgage payoff schedule, but at least it would allow us to slowly accrue some cash reserves and give us some breathing room. My hope is we can get back at least to my normal salary limit, which would allow faster mortgage payoff, although it might take 2-3 years instead of the planned 12 months we were previously on track to achieve.

In other developments, I’ve started studying Korean and drawing again in the past week. I decided to go back to the beginning in Korean, and I’m still trying to figure out my battle rhythm with drawing. I had been bouncing around several different instruction programs and I’m starting to think I need to pick one and just stick with it through completion before moving on to the next thing. I have multiple training programs I plan to complete as I go along. Notice I didn’t mention writing. I still plan to start writing again, I’m just looking for the right window and motivation.

Although it’s incremental and often hard to quantify, I feel there has been progress in my musicianship, mainly drums, guitar, and keys. The downpicking drill based on Tommy Emmanuel’s fast run from Endless Road is definitely paying off, albeit slowly. Drumming has felt slower, but my added focus on kick pedal is slowly reaping rewards. I started alternating drill days with song days where I just play songs so I can apply some of these techniques, and I think that’s helping. Many of the drills I practice are isolated and don’t prepare you for the application within a song where all the other limbs are involved.

I need to start practicing bass again and my vocal drills have been functional but not really stretching my capabilities and I need to start singing some actual songs again. I’m not necessarily happy there was a drop off in some disciplines in light of the mild COVID funk, but I can understand it, and at least I kept applying my most primary disciplines. Not to mention, that game backlog has continued to shrink, so there’s that.

I just finished Divinity Original Sin 2 yesterday, and I’ll probably finish off Horizon Zero Dawn next and then I’ve got to decide what to tackle after that. I’m thinking Demon Souls although I realized today I might not be able to play that or Fallout 3 on my PS4, at least using the disc-based versions I own. I think there are versions if you have a subscription to Playstation Now, so I might look into that option.

Life is pretty good, all things considered. I’m not happy losing a significant chunk of earning potential, but we’ve managed to stay afloat for several months and with a few more adjustments to the discretionary expenses we could probably do it indefinitely. I’ve gotten into more cooking with the time off but the downside is that my waistline has grown with my cooking skills. It doesn’t help that I’m having a flare-up with my right knee again and I’m unable to run.

To add insult to injury, I had been trying to reintroduce push-ups and situps to my regimen so I could recover some muscle mass and stave off another ravage of aging. As luck would have it, I strained something in my lower abdomen and I’m hoping it’s just a delicate atrophied muscle and not a hernia waiting to happen. Location wise it could totally be an inguinal hernia. I’m not sure but I think it’s the same side in which I had hernia surgery as an infant and I doubt they used mesh back then. I’m hoping it’s just a muscle strain and I can resume activity in the coming weeks. One of the greatest frustrations of aging (besides becoming progressively more gray and squishy) is that your body starts to betray you and things that you are mentally and psychologically ready to do become difficult to impossible due to injury and declining function. Still, it could be a lot worse.

Speaking of, I’m essentially done with social media. After shutting down FB completely (two times now, most recently in June) I went ahead and pulled the trigger on twitter and Instagram as well. This was another decision based on the sum total effect of interaction and they both are responsible for bringing a lot of negativity that I can’t control. My political leanings are progressive and liberal and I’ll continue to support those candidates and causes, but I just can’t tolerate the day to day social media drama any longer. Every day is a new deplorable act, quite often by the nominal leader of the country and it’s easy to despair. I’m not sure the US as a country can recover from the damage it has sustained (and not just in the past four years), and although I make my best efforts to contribute, there seems to be no shortage of people who are willfully ignorant, obtuse, and have no regard or empathy for their fellow human beings. I hope we can overcome the hatred, greed, and racism running rife at present, but I have my doubts. I don’t endorse much that the catholic church says, but they got the seven deadly sins right.

A Decent Week

Among the “highlights” - had my VA PIV card renewed for the fourth time, so I’m good for another three years, and this marks my nine-year anniversary (albeit a month early) with VANTHCS. Ironic that I mark the occasion while being laid off at present. I’m remaining optimistic that I’ll eventually be able to return to work and continue pushing forward to our midterm financial goals and then settle into what will hopefully be the indefinite future work schedule of one to two days a week for a total of four to eight days a month. After the mortgage is paid off, this should keep us comfortably in the black with a generous discretionary income.

Yesterday marked my fifty-third trip around the sun, shared with a few musical heroes including Kate Bush and Geddy Lee the day before. I cooked some enchiladas that turned out better than the first attempt last week. I decided to forego homemade tortillas and enchilada sauce this time, and used steak meat instead of pork. I was much more satisfied with the result. Some sprinkled avocado and lettuce on top helped complete the effect. The tortillas and enchilada sauce are easy to make, but they add extra time and I honestly didn’t think the recipe suffered using the premade. Later today I’m going to make a belated birthday cake, trying my hand at red velvet this time.

My birthday was one of those mornings where I had gone to bed early and then awoke around 2 am, unable to get back to sleep, and ultimately surrendered and got up. I decided to make some effective use of my time by attempting the texturing step of my very drawn out drywall repair project. Not a resounding success because I don’t think the pattern I laid down was exactly right for the existing knockdown texture from the home builder. It looks better than smooth drywall mud, although there were a few spots where I did get some flat effects that I didn’t want. Being that the repairs are on the garage wall and the back corner/closet of my drum room, I’m probably going to accept them as is and paint over them.

The result will not be professional to the extent that you can’t tell there was every a patch there, but I think they’ll fly for now. We’re not planning on ever selling the house now, so the only people it would bother would be me and Aeyong. She hasn’t uttered a word so far, so I’m thinking she won’t really care. I’ll get her feedback once it’s done. If she absolutely hates it I might try a bottle of the spray-on texture, which I think might make the process a bit easier.

I have several more DIY projects in mind, including a few more steps in the whole house network project, and then I’ve got some ideas to improve our storage and tool organization in the garage. This will be time and bank balance dependent. Much later on and contingent on a return to work I have plans for expanding the home theater to Dolby Atmos (arguably overkill, but still), making some further upgrades to the home network including a proper server, power over ethernet, and upgrading to a 10gigabit switcher. None of this is essential, and definitely in the discretionary category.

I should probably also mention that during this increased period of DIY activity, I’ve taken an unplanned break from practicing. It started based on although the clutter and mess in the drum room but continued based on the shift of my daily energies to multiple tasks that ultimately sapped the energy I desire to effectively practice. It’s only temporary, and after having taken breaks in the past (mostly to heal from repetitive strain issues), I know that there’s a value in stepping away for a bit. Once I get this current DIY project behind me, I’ll get back into my normal schedule. I’m close at present, but there’s still some painting, finishing touches, and decluttering ahead.

Another post in the recent "flurry"...

I’m not sure what’s motivating me to post more after months of silence, maybe it’s just taking time for things to sort of settle with the big shift in lifestyle. As mentioned before, there have been more cooking and DIY activities as of late. Although these aren’t completely new, I’ve definitely had more time to engage in these activities. Many things have been put off for years when I was working because I used my free time for music practice primarily, and never felt motivated to get the gears turning on larger tasks.

With this latest round of projects, I’ve been approaching them incrementally. With rare exception, I have certain daily activities I will always engage in - walking the dogs, exercise, basic maintenance like showering and washing clothes, and usually practicing a few instruments. My more recent DIY projects have included whole house ethernet including moving the modem and router to upstairs locations as well as upgrades to my switching system. I’ve also made some minor changes/upgrades to the home theater with the addition of a speaker wall plate and ensuring all the devices have wired ethernet courtesy of the new router location. In the process, there’s been a fair amount of running cables through the attic and down through walls, resulting in a fair amount of damage to the drywall in the garage and drum room especially.

This has necessitated the purchase of some new tools and supplies so I can hopefully by the time I’m finished have a decent result that at least looks passable if not like new. I know that’s achievable, but my recent experience hasn’t elevated my skills to the level of a professional. All this rehashing to say that it’s satisfying to pick a goal for any given day and accomplish it without any great snags. Yesterday was a decent day in that regard. One of the casualties of my recent cable relocations in the home theater was the original HDMI cable for the projector that had been there since we moved in seven years ago. Too many twists and kinks corrupted the signal, so it was time to replace it. Our attic compares favorably to a suburban squeeze sauna Mirkwood forest, and the area over the home theater is bramble central. Thankfully the total distance of the cable run from equipment rack to projector is relatively short (less than ten feet in the actual room), but getting there and getting the cable through the particular openings in the wall/ceiling is akin to being hogtied while trying to play twister on a tightrope over a bed of liquid hot magma.

I did discover an easier way to get the cables through the projector mast (read - I had routed the original cable through a narrow opening that wasn’t the intended and much easier route) and so after wrestling with the cables a bit I managed to get them where they needed to go with an adequate amount of slack. I also ran some CAT 6 cable along with the new 4K HDMI for a few reasons. One, the projector has an ethernet jack that I originally thought was for connectivity and firmware updates, but now I’m thinking it’s more for control devices. The other advantage to having ethernet there is that if I eventually get an HDMI balun, it will allow me to send the video signal as well as IR and a few other control schemes via just the ethernet cable which is easier to run and more resistant to damage than the HDMI cable.

All that rambling to say that I managed to pull it off and the home theater is back to full functioning. I still have some house cleaning to do on the wall (missing a plate for a new hole) and I’ve got future upgrade plans that I’ll address in the years to come. I had thought of hiring an audio/video installer to handle an upgrade to ATMOS ceiling speakers, but after all this crawling around I think I might be able to handle it myself. But that’s a project for a way down the road and not until I return to some sort of employment.

I’m going to piecemeal the remaining tasks which are initially finishing the drywall repair and then I start focusing on clean up/organization of the video room and server closet.

The Retirement Mindset

This will be a brief discussion as I’m not sure what that means, and I’m not currently planning on shifting to the retirement mindset anytime soon. My long term plan has always been to pay off the mortgage and remain debt-free before we think about a self-sustaining income/lifestyle. Due to the COVID-19 layoff, we’ve been granted the opportunity to explore those realities sooner than planned.

Thus far, it seems that if we decided to really buckle down and eliminate most if not all discretionary spending, then we’re already capable of living on my pensions alone. Notice the plural. The pension I draw due to my service-connected disabilities has been a key source of income now that I’m not earning any sort of a normal salary. We, fortunately, had a bit of an emergency fund, just because our checking balance had built up to a decent level by the time of the layoff. That balance has been slowly dropping, but there’s also been a great deal of arguably discretionary spending as mentioned in the last post.

We’re going to try and cut way down on that for the next few months and see if we can get that balance crawling back upwards. At our present payoff level (essentially the minimum), our mortgage should be paid off in about five and a half years. We had been paying it off at about three and a half times the required amount for the three years since I switched to fee basis, so we made quite a dent in the principal. We’ve been paying the mortgage off since late 2013, so we’ve managed about twenty-five year’s worth of payments in under seven years so far. Once the mortgage is paid off, that should free up about 1.5K in monthly expenses. We’ll still have the rather high property taxes and insurance that are just part of living where we do. I sometimes wish they had a state income tax and would pass on some relief to property tax rates, but I doubt that will happen anytime soon. Our property taxes and insurance are the equivalent of many people’s rent.

The biggest concern with the reduced income is if we get hit by a large financial requirement like home/car repairs, major dental/medical expenses, etc. If we had a few of those in succession, we could quickly drain the remaining cash balance we have at present. If I’m able to return to work in the next year or so (hope), then the goal is to build the cash reserves up a bit more and then work on paying off the mortgage. If I’m able to sustain the work level I had previously, this should be manageable in about two years. Having the mortgage paid off will give us quite a bit more breathing room. At that point, any work that I did would be mostly for discretionary income purposes. I can see working one day a week indefinitely at that point.

So, I don’t know if I’ve adopted the retirement mindset just yet because I’m hoping to be able to return to work and if I’m being honest, I don’t want to completely cut out the ability to earn discretionary funds by virtue of the odd shift here and there.

The COVID-19 Languish and Other Updates (including DIY tedium, consider yourself warned)

This may be the biggest gap between posts in several years. As of my last updates, I was laid off at the end of March, and here we are four months later with no end in sight. This pandemic has shifted mindsets and people’s general philosophies of life and work, and I’ve been no exception. I’ve not been depressed or succumbed to a long term funk, but there has been a shift in purpose and a slowing of pace. I was already ambivalent about many things that other people obsess over, but these tendencies have coalesced further.

To the surprise of no one, the current administration has not only grievously mishandled the pandemic, but they’ve also arguably taken actions to make it worse for most Americans. The US has suffered the worst outcomes from this plague, currently with over 140,000 deaths and nearing four million confirmed cases. Multiple republican lead states tried to rush back into normal operations way too soon and are now seeing spikes in their numbers, notably my home of residence, Texas. Thankfully, the rich have continued to get richer in no small part at the hands of the republican senate and white house. I very naively thought that even they would still possess a shred of ethics and human sympathy given the international disaster, but their greed knows no bounds.

At work, they have nationally adopted a three-phase return to normal operations plan that is mostly based on delaying routine and non-life saving care until the numbers plateau and begin to decrease. It appeared our first efforts to lock down and distance were having a beneficial effect on the trends, but the rush back to “normal” has dealt some severe setbacks so the VA needle has gone back to zero at present. In a recent presentation, the director in Dallas predicted that we were only 1/8th of the way through the pandemic, meaning it would take two years to run its course. There has been some promising news about successful vaccine trials in the UK and elsewhere, so it remains to be seen if we may see a viable and available vaccine by year’s end. That being said, I can only expect our current executive branch will find a way to screw that up as well.

Right now I’d be happy to return to work in 2020, but it’s feeling more and more like it will be 2021 or even later. We’ve been trying to keep our heads above water financially, and so far we’re still holding on. Our cash reserves have dipped from their pre-layoff levels, but we’ve also had several unplanned (and not necessarily essential) expenditures. Among these were a new lawnmower, several new tools (cordless drill, oscillator, etc.), new bulb for the projector, new battery for the Highlander, and the single biggest expenditure - the Gandalf/Frodo masters collection statue I had put a big down payment on last year. I would never have made this purchase in our current situation, but it’s a very limited edition and I would have forfeited the down payment if I canceled. It’s rare enough that I know I can sell it for a tidy sum in the future, although I have no plans to do so.

The tool (and supplies) purchases were part of a DIY project to finally run ethernet to all the rooms upstairs as well as make a modest upgrade to my switching setup. The layoff has shifted a lot of my priorities and I’ve been spending more time on cooking and DIY projects. I’m still practicing guitar, drums, keys, and vocals although bass has been neglected for several months. I also lost the spark for writing, drawing, and Korean language study but I have plans to resume. My typical day has been wake-up/coffee/casual internet, walk the dogs, exercise, and then some combination of practice with maybe some cooking depending on the amount of leftovers available. This is generally followed by maybe some reading, video games, and then television/movies/youtube.

With every day being a blank canvas, I don’t typically push things too hard to completion knowing I’ll have plenty of time to finish them in the future. This has resulted in the ethernet project being strung out over several weeks, although this has partly been predicated by incremental purchases as I’ve realized I need additional items. Ultimately, I’d like to have all my various rooms wired for ethernet and able to access the home network for file sharing at the best possible speeds and security. I’m essentially already there for the critical rooms and I only need to install one more drop in the “Forge” as I’m now calling it. This is the combination drawing/craft table and guest bedroom. The ethernet drop will go in the wall behind the tv and is not a high priority at present. It’s more likely to become useful if I ever place an actual PC or Mac in that room.

I’ve set up a “server” (sans server at present) closet in the video room, along with all the camera supplies. Eventual plans include custom-built shelving along the walls and probably a server rack (and server). These are long-range and likely more dependent on whether I return to work, especially the server. In the immediate future I need to organize the clutter and implement some cable management. I’ve got the ONT cable run from the garage up through the drum room closet and into the attic, then across the attic to my server closet.

A single ethernet cable runs from there to the wireless router in the home theater. This serves the entire house for wireless internet. It feeds a cable that runs back to the old location in the master bedroom closet where a switch feeds drops to several downstairs locations. These came with the house and are unused at present because Aeyong only uses wireless (phone, iPad, MacBook), but I’m leaving them connected in case. Two cables come out of the switcher back up into the attic and feed drops in my control room and drum room, respectively. These were run after we moved in by milestone electric and my recent DIY forays revealed the piecemeal nature of their work.

The installer essentially just found the path of least resistance so he ran the ethernet drop for the drum room down the same hole as the electric wiring and I haven’t looked up close, but I’m guessing it’s the same for the control room. Thankfully this doesn’t seem to have negatively affected the performance, although I may move those drops slightly in the future, time and motivation allowing. I’ve done enough rerouting of cables in the attic that I now have a good idea of where everything enters and exits, so it’s a bit more straightforward, but still a huge pain in the ass. The basic message from my attic is stay out and don’t waste your golden years.

In the process of rerouting cables, I needed to drill down from the attic into walls in several locations including the garage, drum room/closet, and video room. It took a bit of rooting around to find the desired locations, so there was a fair amount of drywall sawing and top plate drilling. I learned in the process that the upstairs wall of the drum room is offset from downstairs by about 6-12 inches. This was discovered by drilling up through the wall of the garage into the floor of the drum room, which, as you may have guessed, was unintentional and highly undesirable. After more measuring and brainstorming, I ultimately decided the best route would be through the drum room closet, as it appeared to be directly above the garage wall where I wanted to come in, largely because that’s where ATT has their breakout box to convert the fiber to ethernet.

Because of these multiple attempts, drywall repair was needed in several places in the garage, drum room, and one small spot in the video room. I also needed to put some spray foam installation to seal those unintended holes in the drum room floor. The initial repairs have now been completed, and just yesterday I sanded the first coat of drywall mud that had been applied. I also decided to try and fix up the rat’s nest of cabling behind my home theater rack. This consists of a new wall plate for the speaker wire, coaxial (direct), HDMI for the projector as well as a small control module for the universal remote/projector. I started that process yesterday and I’m thinking I’m about halfway done. In a recurring theme, the installers of the speaker and ethernet cables went with the easiest possible solution, so I’ve got a metric crap-ton of cabling that was just haphazardly passed through a big opening in the wall.

I was able to install a four-port ethernet jack for the feed from the ATT modem as well as the feedback from the router that runs back to the old master closet switch. The other two ports are active but aren’t needed at present. The router has eight ports, so these have been enough to accommodate all the needs in the home theater proper. I was able to separate the speaker cabling so I will now have the lines from the speakers terminate behind the wall into the plate and then have a separate cable that runs from the plate to the receiver. It’s all connected by banana plugs on both sides. I hope my audio signals (not to mention all the other connections) don’t suffer any degradation due to these attempted upgrades. Worst case scenario, I can always re-run the cabling if necessary, but I really hope I don’t need to do that.

I’ve still got several steps left in this current project including a (hopefully) finish coat on the drywall, texture, and paint. I’ve still got a few small holes in the garage to patch, although they should be a breeze compared to what’s preceded them. I’m also considering adding an electrical outlet to the server closet, but I’m going to save that until all the low-voltage stuff is done and dusted.

Thirty Years Today

On this day thirty years ago, we were rushing around Seoul by cab getting papers stamped and swearing oaths, and at the end of it we were married. It was a strange experience, but part of the normal process when a Korean national and American got married while still in Seoul. We had an agent to assist with the paperwork and she escorted us around to all the various stops. I can’t remember where, maybe it was the Seoul version of the justice of the peace, but we finished a set of paperwork and had to ask “Are we married now?”, and she excitedly responded “Yes!” and we kissed and hugged in front of a lot of confused onlookers.

Not the most momentous of ceremonies, but I can say the success of our marriage is more important than any pomp or circumstance. We were told that 80% of all Korean-American marriages fail within two years and that the number just increases with time. I think the person quoting that statistic (my commander at the time if I recall correctly) was pulling it out of his ass, but it’s probably true that more than half fail over time, as that’s true of all marriages if I have my numbers (sourced from a similar entity) correct.

Our marriage has lasted because we complement each other perfectly. We talk about the most important things and we’re always there for each other. We’ve been through some rough times and we’re going through some again, but we always have each other’s backs and know we can depend on one another. All the hollywood and romance novel drivel is meaningless over time. We truly love each other and that’s shown in our day to day actions, not a bunch of ephemeral gestures. I mean, I have bought gifts, flowers, cards, etc. but all that stuff fades with time. Always being there for each other is what has held us together.

Fully in the COVID funk

Which is not as bad as actually having Coronavirus, I’ll readily admit. The combination of being laid off, existential angst, and uncertainty have cast a pall over the proceedings in the past few weeks. I haven’t been motivated to do any of my usual practicing, studying, or creative endeavors. It’s mostly been the basic daily tasks (exercising, household chores, walking/feeding the dogs) and then maybe a bit of cooking and otherwise passive activity like reading, watching television, or playing video games.

The reduction in work schedule hasn’t been the biggest adjustment because I was already only working part-time. It has been a challenge to accept being laid off indefinitely, however. Watching our money, it appears we’ll be able to do okay for a long time if not indefinitely, but this is assuming no large scale financial or other disasters are added to COVID-19 and being laid off. We’ve already experienced a few unplanned expenses, which is honestly fairly typical in the grand scheme. I had already decided to start mowing the lawn again after our service had jacked up the price for the third year in a row. This on top of the fact that I’m pretty sure they stiffed us for two weeks worth of service at the end of last year.

With my reduced schedule at work, it only made sense to start cutting the lawn again. It’s only about a 90-minute job and the additional sunlight and physical labor won’t hurt. As luck would have it, storing a lawnmower for over three years plays a bit of havoc on the engine and fuel system. The carburetor was stuck open, so the fuel immediately began to leak out after the fill-up. I replaced the carburetor and did a bit of cleaning up and managed to get it started. It was chugging a bit so I cleaned up the now very old spark plug and can’t say whether that helped or not. All that to say at best it sounded like an asthmatic hay fever victim with Coronavirus after attempting a marathon. It was huffing and puffing with even the sparsest grass and the plugging of the carburetor leak revealed a few additional leaks on the backside of the engine.

Assuming it was going to be a cascade of equipment failures leading to parts replacements yet never achieving a satisfactory end result, I made the command decision just to replace it with a new mower. I attempted to buy one at Home Depot but found they were social distancing customers and the queue looked like it might take 30-60 minutes just to get into the store, with no guarantee they’d have what I needed. Being that the lawn wasn’t yet at the critical stage of shagginess, I decided to look on Amazon and found an electric model by the same company as the chain saw I had purchased last year. I’ve been pretty impressed with the power the chain saw motor generates, so I was more willing to go against the lifelong convention of small gas engines on mowers. So, new lawnmower is inbound for Wednesdayish.

Present circumstances have conspired to diminish the significance of this week, which is our thirtieth wedding anniversary. I think I had mentioned a few posts back (in the journal maybe) that we had canceled our travel plans several weeks ago, just assuming that we’d either be on lockdown or that it would be the prudent decision to get out when refunds were still available. So, that out of the way I still wanted to mark the occasion, so I’m thinking I’ll bake a carrot cake. Aeyong always loves them and it’ll be something different to try out in the kitchen. I need to gather a few ingredients depending on which recipe I plan to follow.

Laid off

I got the news via email (at 3 AM, which is nice) that Fee-Basis are being laid off by Ambulatory Care/C&P for the next 2-3 months or until C&P resumes normal operations. They are suspending any in-person exam requests and our outgoing program analyst (Curray) said he wasn’t sure they would have enough work for the FTEs (full-time equivalent) as well. While I can’t disagree with the logic, it came a bit faster and harsher than expected.

We’d already been game-planning the possibility, so it doesn’t come as a complete shock, but again, it was a bit sudden. Right now I’m trying to decide how I’m going to approach this. I sent out a feeler to Holly Gallegos (fellow Fee Basis and VES examiner) to see if she had an updated point of contact with VES. I have a feeling they are going to be scaling back if not suspending operations as well because I assume conducting exams would open them up to some liability issues. I’m curious if VBA is triggering the change to what they call ACE (acceptable clinical evidence), meaning exams and opinions that can be conducted remotely. That may be the case. This means that there’s probably going to be a huge backlog again in the future when the VA resumes normal operations.

I’m not sure, but it’s possible we can survive on my pension income alone, so we’ll just ride the storm out for as long as needed. We’ll have a better idea in the next couple of months about what’s happening with our cash flow. I’m debating about resuming a full-time schedule with Berklee, but I honestly would rather change my major to dual Guitar/Music Production before taking any more classes. I’ve got to decide on an audition and just submit it. Ironically, I’ve been laying off the guitar for several days with the COVID doldrums, so this may be the spark I need to get my playing back into shape. I hope my elbows are on board for this as well.

This was always the big risk/worst-case scenario when I decided to switch to Fee-Basis three years ago. I can’t really complain because I’ve been able to earn an additional three year’s salary above what I would have earned as an FTE, not to mention I’ve been working three days a week at most. It’s a strange feeling to think I’m not going to be scheduled to work anywhere for the indefinite future. COVID-19 is proving to be this generation’s single greatest cultural, economic, historical, etc. event. The world is already significantly different and I don’t see things ever going back to where they were before.

I’m glad we had paid so much down on the house, although the argument could be made that a bigger emergency fund would have served us better in the short term. We crossed under $100K a few payments ago, so switching to the minimum payment will stretch out our payoff date to six years, down from our plan of one year. We have a decent checking balance at present, so I’ll just watch what happens to our balance over the next few months. Given our normal monthly necessary (emphasis on necessary) expenditures, we may break even or even accrue income.

I’ve started canceling all the non-essential subscriptions, mainly to some music programs like Steven Slate and East-West Composer Cloud. I may leave others as-is for now, just to see what happens with our bank balances. We shouldn’t need to cut off any vital services like phone, internet, television. We should have enough money to cover those as well as groceries. We do have to think about those big financial outlays like the various insurance bills - medical, home/auto. We should be able to cover those, but they are big single time expenditures different than monthly maintenance.

I think there may be some silver linings to these clouds, although difficult to see at present.

In Today's Episode of "Morbid Meanderings"...

This persistent period of mourning that began with Neil Peart’s passing and continued with Lyle Mays has left me waxing philosophical in a morbid vein. I’m not sure if I saw someone post a list of songs to play at their funeral or not, but the thought has occurred to me in the past. My problem is choosing a workable list, there are just so many songs that represent who I am, as music has been one of the great defining qualities of my life. But, I never let an insurmountable task discourage me. Plus, I won’t really have to worry about it because I won’t be here when it gets played (assuming anyone will give enough of a shit to notice).

Below are screenshots of the original list, which spiraled out of control. I made the decision to create a shorter list (YT and Spotify links below) that represents the more important songs in a sort of existential vein (whether they made me sad, happy, or led me to ponder the meaning of it all).

Again, I know it’s morbid and I have no plans on going anywhere for several decades, but no one knows the hour of their death.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7CHkcAZAvbcmjFdg4QCN302455Zac76s

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1FRwzMvlqS97eJ12IIIJTM

RIP Lyle Mays

Indeed the soundtrack of my late teens and all the years after, Lyle Mays and his work with Pat Metheny left an indelible mark. Sadly, his candle burned out much earlier than any of us could have expected. Just about a month after Neil Peart’s passing, we got the news; it’s been a rough year for my musical heroes. It’s hard to quantify just how important he was to the band and how important his music has been in my life. Lyle was the heart of the Pat Metheny Group, an anchor in the sound and often giving a backdrop from which Pat could roam freely. But, he was also a fantastic soloist and improviser in his own right and would always find the perfect counterpoint and contrast to Pat’s melodic wanderings.

The music of the PMG was something that captured my heart in a time of my life when everything was possible, and I still had this naive and boundless optimism about the future, both for myself and humanity. I’m still a dreamer at heart, and although time has tempered my faith in others, it hasn’t diminished my love for Lyle’s music, and it’s a devastating loss to see him go so young. Even more bittersweet to learn from Pat that they were planning on collaborating again, and maybe revisiting or adding on to As Falls Wichita. I can only find comfort in the vast body of work he was able to create and know that it will always be there for the millions of others touched by his music. RIP brother, I’ll miss you dearly.

Crystallizing Goals

In a presumably recurring theme (I didn’t bother to check the archives), I’ve been taking stock of my long term goals. Neil Peart’s passing brought the importance of a few key figures into stark relief and made me reassess where I was on the path. I’ve said it many times, as far as music is concerned, I’ve always held certain artists and typically key songs of theirs as benchmarks or milestones that I wanted to master before I felt “satisfied” as a musician, at least in a technical, facilitative sort of context. In music, it’s a fairly short list of the usual suspects comprised of individuals and/or bands. 

Mastering all (musical) parts of a band’s songs can be a heady achievement, at least in the genres I prefer. I don’t delude myself into believing this will be easy or is foreordained. It’s the process of pursuit as much as the achievement that I find valuable. All that preamble aside, the point of this post was just to update my list and perhaps use that as a new metric or at least a means of quantifying where I’m at and where I’m going. So, without further delay, here ‘tis.

Songs

Band                                    Song                                 Parts

Rush                                    Tom Sawyer                    Guitar, Bass, Drums, Keys
The Spirit of Radio
Xanadu
La Villa Strangiato
Subdivisions
YYZ
Limelight
Natural Science
Digital Man
Freewill

Yes Heart of the Sunrise Guitar, Bass, Drums, Keys
And You And I
South Side of the Sky

Honestly, as far as band covers go, this list will keep me busy for years. I’m relatively close and capable of the guitars on all of these, but I’ve got a long way to go on drums, bass (especially Rush) and keys. I put this list as just a reminder to myself and a sort of update to similar lists I’ve created in the past. My philosophy towards musicianship is to always have a song that is several levels above your current ability that you are pursuing, even if very incrementally. 

My “secondary” list here is for songs that are primarily focused on one part, as opposed to entire band covers. 

Band/Artist Song Parts

Eric Johnson Cliffs of Dover Guitar
Van Halen Eruption Guitar
I’m The One
Hot For Teacher

Tommy Emmanuel Endless Road Guitar

There are many other songs I would like to add to my repertoire and that’s still the ongoing plan. This list is just sort of a condensed focus on the songs I not only love and want to play, but also the songs that will hopefully help me inculcate the components of these various musician’s styles that I admire. 

Like the tale, the list grows in the telling (or passage of time) so this will likely change going forward, but it’s actually still fairly close to the first lists of this nature I made several years ago. 

Still Mourning

It’s several days after the news broke about Neil’s passing and I’m still having a hard time processing the loss. Tributes continue and sparse details have trickled out from friends and musicians who were aware of Neil’s diagnosis. I’m experiencing this grief in waves, similar to the loss of my parents, close family and our pets. You’ll see an image, read a passage of lyrics or prose, or hear a song and it will all come back suddenly. I’ve been reading through Ghost Rider, watched a bit of Rush In Rio, and I’ve listened to several interviews or retrospectives that have been posted online.

We will pay the price,
But we will not count the cost

I think many Rush fans are coming to terms with just how significant the band and Neil have been in their lives. This pain goes deeper than almost any I’ve ever felt. There’s just such a weight to the loss, decades of music and words. I’ve seen a few people say it was like losing their father or uncle. I think most of us felt this way. The paradox with Neil was that he was private to a fault and very uncomfortable with adulation from strangers. We all know the famous line from Limelight - “I can’t pretend a stranger is a long awaited friend”. Despite this, in his lyrics and prose, Neil was very open and descriptive about his thoughts and feelings on so many subjects. I think we all found ourselves connecting with him on each album Rush released and each book he wrote.

Neil lived a life of passion and curiosity, something for which we all should strive. He read, traveled, and just experienced more than many lifetimes worth compared to most of us. The great irony and tragedy in Neil’s life were that those who he held most dear were torn away from him suddenly and it was several years before we knew that he would make it back among us, although forever scarred by the loss. Fast forward to their last tour and Neil’s retirement, not just from Rush, but from drumming. We all lamented the end of our favorite band, but we understood and celebrated Neil’s chance to live out his autumn years and watch his daughter grow one day at a time. Sadly, it seems like it may have only been months after the final show that he was given the terminal diagnosis. It all seems so unfair, and as Neil described in “Ghost Rider”, the idea of karma tends to fall apart. What did he do to deserve this fate? Nothing, not a damn thing. The universe doesn’t care about you, it never did. Draw some joy and fulfillment from every waking moment if you can, because one day it will be over, maybe much sooner than you expect.

A caller into Eddie Trunk last night was saying he had a friend in the Rush camp and apparently Neil was in hospice as of November, although he claims he was held to complete secrecy. There’s no way to verify this, but it has the ring of truth at least. I’m not sure why, but that little bit of additional information at least gave some closure, even if it’s reliability is in question. He also said that as of Monday last week, Neil had become unresponsive and it was on Tuesday that he passed.

Eddie Trunk had briefly touched on the idea of what the future might hold. Until Neil’s death, I think most of us thought there still might be a little gas in the tank, whether a one-off performance, a new song, a book, whatever. Now we know that Rush is truly over and we have their body of work to comfort us in the years to come. Eddie talked about the possibility of a memorial show, and although I think it’s way too early, the idea does have some appeal. Something along the lines of Freddie Mercury’s Tribute Concert would be a beautiful way to celebrate Neil’s life. They could bring on any number of the scores of great musicians who cite Rush and Neil as big influences. I think we’d all love to see the likes of Mike Portnoy, Gavin Harrison, Marco Minneman, etc. get behind the kit and play one with Geddy and Alex or at least their respective bands performing a Rush tune. Dedicate the proceeds to cancer research. I also would love if Neil had written anything in those final years that we might eventually see its release, although I would totally understand if he didn’t have the will to write something or if it was kept private for those he loved dearest.

Even if nothing new comes from Rush and/or Neil in the future, I’ll forever cherish the great memories, music, and words that have brought great wisdom and provided such fulfillment all these long years. RIP Neil, I love you and I’ll miss you so much.

There have been a few pictures that made their way into social media, including these two below. The first appears to have been a get together with bandmates Geddy & Alex and producer Kevin Shirley, who brought the heavy Rush back on Counterparts. Below that is Neil with his long time drum tech, Lorne (Gump) Wheaton. It’s clear Neil had lost a lot of weight and his health was fading, but nice to see him smiling with those he loved the most. I only hope his dearest friends and family had time to say goodbye, I’m assuming the knew and did.

Farewell, Professor

It was via a text from my old friend, Matt, that I first learned of Neil Peart’s passing. It was a gut punch out of nowhere as most of us had no idea Neil’s situation was dire, just assuming he was enjoying his life after retiring from music back in 2015 at the end of Rush’s final tour. Soon, the tributes came pouring in from far and wide, posts from professional musicians and his legions of fans worldwide. Most of us knew we had said goodbye to the band as an active entity, but I think we also expected we had many years before we would have to say a final goodbye to our heroes.

I held hope that we might get some more books and maybe even some music, even if they never toured again. Alex and Geddy’s answers to questions about the band’s future had been a bit more final sounding in recent years, but I don’t think anyone thought it meant someone had a terminal illness.

It’s still hard to process how big this loss is to me. Rush has always been my favorite band for so much more than the music. Neil, Alex, and Geddy have always represented everything I’ve held dear in life. They’re all incredible musicians, fathers, husbands, family members, friends, and citizens of the world. My world view is very close to theirs, whether we’re talking religion, politics, philosophy, work ethic, etc. I’d easily be friends with any of them if they were just regular guys from work or the neighborhood. I think most Rush fans have seen them more as family than as these lofty rock icons, which they all are.

Neil was the voice of Rush. His lyrics changed with the times and as the band grew older they morphed from the concerns of youth to those of adulthood and spanned the micro to the macrocosmic. Early forays into fantasy, science fiction and the philosophy of Ayn Rand moved on to real science, religion, history, current events, etc. and captured everything from the wide-angle lens down to the intimate and personal. If there was an issue I cared about during the last forty years, there’s a good chance that Neil and Rush wrote a song about it that evoked the essence beautifully and distilled it down to a level that portrayed the significance perfectly.

There are so many songs and verses that have stuck with me over the years. I’ve said many times that “Subdivisions” was the most specific song that directly reflected exactly what my life was about at a moment in time. None before or since have nailed it so perfectly. I’m the geeky kid walking alone on the sidewalk in the video, then and today. Neil and Rush told me it was okay to be that kid, that it was a story just as important as those popular kids riding in their open convertible laughing at us loners on the fringes.

Any escape might help to smooth
The unattractive truth
But the suburbs have no charms to soothe
The restless dreams of youth

Too many hands on my time
Too many feelings
Too many things on my mind
When I leave, I don't know
What I'm hoping to find
When I leave, I don't know
What I'm leaving behind

You know how that rabbit feels
Going under your speeding wheels
Bright images flashing by
Like windshields towards a fly
Frozen in the fatal climb
But the wheels of time
Just pass you by
Wheels can take you around
Wheels can cut you down

If we burn our wings
Flying too close to the sun
If the moment of glory
Is over before it's begun
If the dream is won
Though everything is lost
We will pay the price
But we will not count the cost

When the dust has cleared
And victory denied
A summit too lofty
River a little too wide
If we keep our pride
Though paradise is lost
We will pay the price
But we will not count the cost

And if the music stops
There's only the sound of the rain
All the hope and glory
All the sacrifice in vain
(And) If love remains
Though everything is lost
We will pay the price
But we will not count the cost

There are so many more moments of perfection in Neil, Alex and Geddy’s body of work, it’s impossible to capture succinctly. I’ll be grieving Neil’s passing for a long time coming, and I’ll be revisiting the music, videos, books, and the mountain of Rush memorabilia I have scattered around my house. I’ve lost one of my greatest heroes and there’s no replacing him.