So, Yesterday was a bit of a wash...
Yesterday was my second of two workdays in a row (how can I bear the grind?) and due to overindulging on Tuesday night (three beers within 1-2 hours of bedtime counts for me), I didn’t exercise before work, so I needed to take care of that after getting home. Yesterday was fairly productive work-wise, two cases for a total of 22 DBQs and $1980 dollarinos. The second case was a BVA Remand so that took considerable time what with record review and assorted tasks. Still, a long day as a fee basis examiner tends to result in a larger paycheck for the effort, so it’s generally not a negative thing even if you’re more tired.
All that aside, I wasn’t quite ready to swear off beer for one of my programmed breaks just yet, deciding to make March the next beer free month. This is a habit I’ve adopted in recent years, and it honestly should apply to anything I start to find as negative habit forming. My biggest problem with beer isn’t full blown alcohol abuse or worse, it just becomes habitual every evening after I’ve finished all my productive tasks for the day, and when I start looking forward to it, it’s time to take a mandatory break. I’ve never felt dependent on alcohol or anything else, but it can become a habit if you let it.
All that to say, yesterday I was getting some beer delivered and there were problems with the order that resulted in a trip back for the delivery driver and further delay in getting on with my day, so by the time all was said and done it was nearly 5:30pm and I wasn’t feeling the energy to practice or study. Tuesday was also a less than fully productive day in that although I practiced drums, vocals, and guitar, I didn’t study further afterwards. On Tuesday I finally received my King of Tone pedal from AnalogMan after being on the waiting list for nearly three years. This resulted in extended noodleage that sucked up my remaining motivation for further study.
I’ve got to sort out my analog signal chain and setup, as modest as it still is at present. Right now I’ve just got the H&K Grandmeister, King of Tone, and a Strymon Big Sky Reverb pedal. The H&K has some decent built in effects (Reverb, Delay, Modulation) but they don’t trump the AxeFx or the aforementioned pedals. I typically have been using the AxeFx and will continue to do so, but I want to setup the H&K and pedals in such a way that I can quickly fire them up and make tweaks in real time. I’ve ordered a riser for my NYC pedalboard, and I’m thinking there’s not a good way to use the FC-12 controller for the AxeFx with this setup because it hogs up too much space. I may make the NYC pedalboard purely for my analog signal chain, I’ll have to see what seems feasible after I get the riser.
In the past I would get frustrated when I wasn’t able to finish my daily practice/study goals, and if that became a habit I would still get angsty, but I’ve learned to accept that some days for various reasons you shouldn’t reasonably expect to tick every box. Somedays you’re too tired, lacking in motivation, whatevs. As long as I don’t let several days in a row pass, I’m usually okay with it, especially if there pressing matters elsewhere.