Tuesday workday

I somehow managed to quickly shift to the daylight savings time change this past Sunday, because 3 o’clock feels like it should, which is still early but the normal wake up time for a workday. The gradual health effects of laying off alcohol are still being felt. Not quite the same as detox, but a gradual improvement in relative energy and sleep.

The coronavirus is still dominating the news as I expect it will continue to do so. Work is still a going thing and as long as they’re open for business I plan on going unless I personally was feeling sick. I imagine we still haven’t seen the full-blown epidemic version of it in the states just yet. I’m curious how accurate a picture we’ll really get because the Trump administration has already proven they will lie, obfuscate, and cloud the picture for political and economic advantage. It hasn’t helped and has only likely made the situation exponentially worse.

Everything from national to local to private organizations has shut down or restricted operations in wake of the virus, in an effort to contain the outbreak. We haven’t seen anything large scale here yet, but it’s only a matter of time. If they cut back at work and I’m unable to get patients, we’ll just dial back financially and hunker down until this thing passes. We’ve been on the accelerated house payoff schedule, but that can be delayed for a few months (or longer if needed) if my schedule falls off at work.

This situation is just another reason why paying off the house has been the best plan. We could essentially live at home and almost never need to leave the house for anything other than groceries and gas for the car. We could even have groceries delivered if need be, although I think the relative risk of exposure compared to our brief trips to the store is about the same. Even though Sams and Walmart stay busy, it’s not like they’re packed to the gills and if you get stuff delivered there are still multiple hands touching it regardless. Hopefully, none of this will be necessary but we’re already in a long term habit of only shopping weekly or less often and we can shift that even further if need be.

I took Sunday off from most DTD tasks, although I did eventually exercise. Yesterday was a bit more productive, completing everything except vocal drills. I’m leaning towards are more guitar and drum focused schedule where I may just steal time from bass, vocals and even keys for awhile. If I had to pick two instruments to be more adept at, it would be drums and guitar. This has changed because I would have always said keys and guitar in the past, but I think drums are the area that will benefit me most compositionally. I’m not giving up on keys, bass, and vocals, it’s just that I really want to get to a higher level on guitar and drums that can be utilized in my songwriting.

I don’t think I’ll ever be happy with my playing, but there are so many inspirational players out there who constantly remind me that there’s so much room for improvement. I was already noticing a small benefit from the fretboard memorization drills, something I had kind of noticed in the past but never really committed to memory. There are only a finite number of notes and positions on the fretboard, so it only makes sense to get them memorized where you can immediately identify the note you are playing. This is really remedial considering how much I’ve learned in the past, but I just want to reinforce those fundamentals and then take what I’ve learned much further this time. The perpetual student - in large part this is where I find happiness and fulfillment.

I finished Dracula yesterday. The Coppola film did end up being fairly true to the original although some things changed in the adaptation as they always do. Dracula’s fascination with Mina and her similarity to his former wife are never a part of the book. In fact, the character of Dracula is fairly flat, more of an opposing avatar or symbolic force of evil for the main cast. We typically only see the outcome of his actions and his actual scenes are fairly brief with only the smallest amount of dialogue. His biggest or at least longest scenes all occur in the interactions with Harker at Castle Dracula, at the beginning of the novel. Still, it’s very effective storytelling and like I had mentioned before, reminded me of the Lovecraftian approach to tangential storytelling. I plan to read the rest of the novellas and short stories in this Stoker collection, but I think I may move onto something else for now.

I’m nearly finished with the Flander’s Victorian House book, so I’ll have to peruse my shelves and see what’s next. Maybe another writing craft book. I’m thinking for fiction I might pick one of the Brontes or maybe I’ll finally try and tackle The Silmarillion.

It's March and time for this year's credit card fraud

It appears our Visa (my number specifically, we have a joint acct with different numbers) has been compromised again. I can’t remember if it has been one or two years since last time. It seems like this is just part of the process now, at least if you use a c-card online with as many different merchants as we do. I’m not entirely sure, but there were a few charges for $25ish from a character called GOOGLE*Ivan on my account, and I didn’t recognize them so I asked USAA to cancel the number and issue a new one. The last time this happened there were a few smaller charges and then a charge for several hundred dollars appeared. I didn’t let it get that far this time. I will say that the process is pretty fast and you can immediately block the card if you’re worried about fraud. I’m not sure how many times we’ve had sketchy c-card activity now.

Our first experience was with BOA when someone tried to take all of our bonus points, which at that time were worth a couple grand. We got it fixed and then it happened again about a year later. I’m still thinking that had to be an inside job. We gave up on BOA after that and have been using USAA for everything since, although I do have a few other c-cards that I got purely for concert tickets. Those are coming in handy now while I have to wait for the new card. We’ve had a few other fraudulent transactions since then and we’ve always been able to cancel the cards and have the fraudulent charges refused. Luckily, there are so many c-card combinations that I don’t think we’re at the risk of running out of numbers anytime soon.

I’ve been feeling dissatisfied with my guitar playing recently (we call that Sunday), having been watching a few gear videos and just hearing other players’ ability to improvise chord changes and solos with such melodicism and fluidity. I allow myself to get into ruts, practicing riffs in support of wanting to eventually play a cover of something, but this isn’t really getting me anywhere as a player. Ironically, I was watching a Drumeo video that posed the question “Are you an intermediate drummer"?”, which I thought I must be at the beginning of the video, but by the end, I realized their metric for advanced is so high that I’m more aptly described as a beginner considering how many techniques they mentioned, many of which I’m not capable of performing. It’s much the same on the guitar. I have studied a lot of the fundamental vocabulary on guitar, including several courses at Berklee, but I’ve let those muscles atrophy and haven’t taken things any further.

I tend to get focused on simple techniques like speed (alternate picking, etc.) and I really should be focusing more on my ability to play in multiple keys, over chord changes, etc. I’ve decided to sort of reassess my practice regimen and I’m going to dip into the considerable volume of lesson material I already own. I’m starting with “The Path to Fretboard Mastery” which will help reinforce my knowledge and take it further. I can find all the notes on the fretboard, but I tend to use reference points and jump, as opposed to being able to quickly name a note in any position. This is just one of those fundamental skills you must have locked down. It ties into knowing some of the more common modular chord shapes, which I have somewhat retained from my Berklee class.

Knowing movable chord shapes, at least for triads and seventh chords can really open up the entire length of the fretboard and has definitely helped with compositions. I’ll go through this course and see where that leads me next. I know I have a few chord courses, including the Ted Green stuff that I’ve never fully studied.

Lastly, here in the US and around the world, the Coronavirus epidemic (pandemic forthcoming?) has been another reminder of the incompetence and negligence of this administration and many around the world. Trump is still trying to play for political points and his on air comments continue to baffle all within earshot. There’s the cruise ship that was quarantined and apparently he wanted to know if they kept it quarantined and didn’t allow the passengers to disembark if it would count against the disease totals. It’s a good question, we wouldn’t want to damage the re-election campaign for a few thousand lives. It’s not helping that the media is hyping everything as they always do, it’s all good for ad revenue, regardless if factual or helpful. We’re somewhat lucky in that we can handle sequestering ourselves at home for longer than most people since I don’t work full time and we have a bit of a reserve to tide us over if things shut down.

So far I haven’t heard anything at work about them closing or restricting the clinic hours/services, but I feel like it’s almost inevitable at this point. Luckily for me, I’m not ostensibly treating “sick” people. If my patients are ill, it’s a coincidence and not tied to the context of their visits most of the time. It’s also fortunate that I typically only see one patient per day so my relative exposure is probably not as bad as just running into Wal-Mart to grab a few things. I just hope all the dire projections are just that, projections that won’t play out as severe as some are suggesting. Some of these estimates would very quickly completely overwhelm our healthcare system.

Friday Fishday

At least I remember that being a thing in my early elementary school years. Probably not today, though. Yesterday was a relatively successful day. DTD (did the disciplines) - drums, vocals, guitar, Korean study, drawing, but unintentionally skipped anything writing related to include this journal, classes, or developmental reading. I did read another chapter in Dracula and I’m enjoying the elliptical or tangential narrative, even though the final outcome was spoiled long ago.

I’m curious as to how many of the original readers would have picked up on Dracula’s nature and how many would still be naive up to my current progress through chapter eight, after Dracula had already arrived in England and was just about to occupy his new estate. It all seems obvious to me now, but I imagine back then when vampire stories were still relatively obscure that many readers wouldn’t have deduced his nature yet. I think Stoker’s technique and prose are compelling and effective here, definitely something from which to draw inspiration.

I got the Nintendo Switch installed in the home theater and made some changes to my setup, moving the turntable to outside the rack and on top, what for the easier access. So far, so good. I’ve got the ring fit ready to roll out later this morning when I exercise, although I probably will have some calibration to perform at the beginning. I don’t think this will replace or supercede my elliptical machine and treadmill, but it will be good to try and work some long neglected upper body and core muscles.

I’m still on my gradual and very incremental progress in the various disciplines. I can slowly notice small things becoming slightly easier. My goal of a complete band cover is still a high priority. This is probably counter-intuitive and not necessarily what I really need on these various instruments, but my favorite bands are a large part in why I play an instrument and even if these projects don’t make me a more well rounded player, they are satisfying a long held desire as a musician and fan. As before, my first planned song is “Anthem”, mostly based on the idea that the drums will be an “easier” entry point into the world of Neil Peart. I can already say that there are techniques in that song that are new to me and it’s going to be raising my drum game to a level higher than most typical rock players.

I think I’m not far on the bass and guitar parts, although I need to groove those and get them completely under my fingers and I’ve yet to look at the guitar solo. I haven’t even toyed with the idea of the vocal and I may just record this as an instrumental although I have given thought to how I might adapt Geddy’s part down a few octaves to fit my voice. We’ll see. I need to nail the instruments first before I turn my thoughts that direction.

It's Saturday, do you know where your journal entry is?

I’m still endeavoring to make this a daily habit, despite a few hiccups along the way. I have a tendency to get a little task or project stuck in my head that I’m compelled to finish and it ends up commandeering my time to the exclusion of a few normal daily tasks. Yesterday it started with importing the new Metheny album and Rush’s “All the World’s a Stage”, which I finally got on CD after all these years. My sister Dianna had bought the vinyl for me years ago and I still have that, but I didn’t have a version in my digital library. Well, as often happens I noticed a few omissions in the library, which is a “feature” of iTunes I’ve come to notice in the past few years.

Random albums and songs will just disappear from your library for no apparent reason. When you have a library as big as mine, it’s easy to miss for a long time. When I do notice it, and I’m at my computer, I try to rectify the problem right then. I think I’m going to just keep a running log when I notice discrepancies and then fix the omissions when I get time. All that to say, I spent a bit of time yesterday re-importing some albums I’ve had for thirty years, e.g. most of my R.E.M. albums were just missing, no idea why. I’ve also had an issue with my external CD drive where it has an audio drop out on the first imported track of any given album and you get the pleasant digital click, the musical version of nails on chalkboard. I fixed a few of those errors too, but there are still some lingering that I’ll have to deal with as I notice them again. I think I figured out the solution, which is just to skip the auto import function and manually hit the import button on iTunes. I don’t understand why that would make a difference, but it seems to be working.

These sorts of issues can tend to distract, but there are just certain areas of my life that I don’t like to tolerate errors or disorder. It’s funny in that some of my favorite stories involve chaos and disorder, such as Roger Zelazny’s “Amber” and “The Courts of Chaos” or Michael Moorcock’s “Multiverse”, which I’ve been re-visiting via Elric here lately. Some of the best story fodder is just the sort of thing that I can’t stand in my personal life. I don’t consider myself a control freak when it comes to others, I’d just as soon not get involved, but when it comes to my own life I don’t abide others who try to manipulate or control.

That aside, yesterday was a decent day overall. I ticked most of the boxes - exercised, walked the dogs, practiced drums, vocals, guitar, studied Korean and did some drawing in the Ink course. I attempted to make Pizza from scratch (mainly the dough, I didn’t make the other ingredients) and it was marginally successful. The dough rose as expected and the texture was okay, a bit chewy since I used regular flour. I’ve learned that bread flour is necessary for the more crunchy type crust. The other demerit would be for flavor. I think it needed more salt and sugar, it just tasted a bit bland to me. I’m going to experiment with various sauces and toppings in the future. The basic approach to making the dough is straightforward enough and it reminded me of my Mr Jim’s days.

The only negative from yesterday is I didn’t devote much time to writing (again). I’m not deliberately avoiding it, I think I’m still trying to find the ideal daily rhythm that capitalizes on the best time for a certain type of headspace. There’s a general level of mental energy and creative motivation that crosses all those different disciplines, but each has its own unique set of mental, physical, and spiritual (no, I’m not waxing religious here) demands. I find it easy enough to journal this early in the morning because I don’t need to have a particular analytical or methodical mindset, it’s more stream of consciousness than anything. I understand that first story drafts are often written this way as well, and it may eventually become my habit to write earlier in the day. I’ve also got to consider as the warm weather returns to Texas, one big portion of my day (at least an hour-ish) for exercising and walking the dogs must take place in the earlier morning hours. It becomes prohibitively hot after 9 am for a large swathe of the year, generally May to October.

I feel like I’m sort of languishing on guitar here of late. I subscribed to the “Cracking the Code” website, run by Troy Grady who I interviewed a few years ago for a class. Like many of my other classes, I just need to devote the time.

On drums I’ve been starting my practice sessions with the heel-toe kick pedal technique that many metal drummers use, and it’s slowly coming along. Getting the pedals setup just right is an important first step, and I think I’ve got them setup fairly well. At present I’ve just been practicing one foot at a time, and unsurprisingly, the right foot has come along quicker than the left, no doubt due to the left foot being mostly ignored in the time I’ve been playing drums.

I had a brief go at playing both feet together, and there for just a bit I was able to get it running smoothly and suddenly I was starting to sound like a speed metal drummer. It was fun to reach that plateau and realize that progress is being made. I’ve still got a long way to go before this is really under my feet so to speak. I need to be able to quickly transition between this double stroke and the single stroke and to incorporate it into songs as opposed to just isolated practice drills which is where I spend most of my time.

I’ve also slowly been practicing parts of “Anthem” by Rush, and it’s also gradually coming along. Although these milestones are often far away, I look forward to being able to master the entire tune on all three instruments and record a video of my performance. This is what it’s all about, even if purely for my own entertainment. I also hope to incorporate these learned techniques into my own songs. Anywho, enough of my yapping.

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.

Dateline, 17 February 2020

I’m probably not going to continue with that title, but maybe just this once. Yesterday was a decent day. I exercised, walked the dogs, did some laundry, made burritos for lunch, practiced drums, vocals, and guitar. I also studied some Korean (TTMIK lesson 7) and spent some time drawing a lesson from a Udemy course I’ve been slowly working through. What’s missing is any substantial writing study or practice. I tried to resume the James Hynes course but was getting distracted with other thoughts (nothing important, probably my plan to move my RAID drive a bit lower to reduce the noise) so I abandoned that plan and went ahead and exercised.

In the afternoon after I had finished everything, I sat down to read, resuming “Inside the Victorian Home”, by Judith Flanders. This was one of my books purchased in service of research for “Luma” (working title), my planned epic fantasy trilogy. To paraphrase Professor Tolkien, “the research grew in the reading”, and I’ve given myself months if not years of future study. Not a bad problem to have, since I love the subjects and the learning, regardless if I plan to put them to good use in the future. Anywho, I didn’t get very far before I started drowsing off, so I abandoned that plan and resumed watching “The Expanse”, a great Science Fiction series based on James S. A. Corey’s novels. This had started on the SyFy channel but was picked up by Amazon after three seasons when SyFy canceled it. It worked out well in the end because the video quality is better and there are no commercials.

All that to say I’ve been setting myself up for failure slightly by waiting to read until late afternoon. I either need to change my time to maybe late morning (pre-lunch) or at least have myself a cup of coffee before setting down to read. I want to devote some time every day for “productive” reading (research, etc.) as well as my more light reading. I’ve got a huge TBR (to be read) collection of books and I’m not making much progress at this rate.

Overall, yesterday was a successful day. I’m gradually making progress at my musical disciplines. The passing of Neil Peart got me reoriented into studying his style and I’ve decided to try and approach it from the beginning of his Rush discography (Fly By Night), assuming the difficulty level will be marginally lower than the later albums. Yesterday, I spent quite a bit of time futzing with the drum pedals, I still haven’t quite got the configuration the way I want. I’ve been starting to learn the heel-toe technique in service of faster bass drum playing (more for metal than Neil) and while I think the right foot is coming along okay, I’ve been having more difficulty with the left foot. This may be largely due to the left foot being mostly neglected in comparison to the right since I started playing about five years ago. I think part of it is due to the particular pedal setup I’m currently using. I bought this DW combo double bass drum and hi-hat pedal setup that’s all connected and I think for most applications it works well, but not heel-toe. I’m looking at eventually buying these pedals by a company called “Trick Drums”, as they have a very clever design that’s much easier to adjust and they look rock-solid in construction.

On guitar, I spent most of my practice time continuing to work on getting that intro riff to “The Spirit of Radio” correct after many years of playing it wrong. This is in service of gradually learning the song on drums and bass as well for the full song cover as discussed in the regular blog. I should be devoting more practice time to the other components of musicianship (ear training, theory, technique, etc.) and I need to start setting aside that time during each practice session. One of the great challenges of managing so many disciplines is not lapsing into auto-pilot when the overall weight of time required each day can start to overwhelm your more organized/planning mind.