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Post by PaulKay on Mar 22, 2024 11:29:39 GMT -5
Rocky is recovering from his cataract surgery yesterday. It was a LONG day yesterday and last night, but mostly from dealing with him on the drugs he was given during and post surgery. It took a full 12 hours for all that stuff to wear off. Just got back from his followup appointment. His eye pressure was normal and he was tracking with both eyes. They said everything looks good. We go back on a week. It is clear that he is already seeing better than with the cataract. He does not like the cone, but we take it off so he can eat, drink, and relieve himself. So he’s resigned to it.
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Post by PaulKay on Mar 21, 2024 11:51:39 GMT -5
Bensusan was a major inspiration for ambitious fingerstyle players in the 1970 and 80s--one of the reasons a lot of players took up DADGAD, Celtic style/repertory, and Lowdens. Maybe a bit less influential than John Renbourn in the States, but still a force. One of my earliest workshop memories is of a Bensusan session--at the start, he had everyone come up front and play a tune. I attempted "Anji," probably the most challenging piece I knew at the time, and I pretty much mimicked the Jansch version. Pierre said, "Why do you not play eet like zeese"? and proceeded to play it at a slower and very slinky tempo. My answer would have been, "Because I only know one way to play it." And 30-plus years on, I can almost manage the kind of transformation he wrought on the tune. Almost. (And as much as I love the music, I never did manage to learn the material from his early albums, published in his first book. DADGAD just makes my head hurt.) Bensusan has been quite influential in the fingerstyle community for decades. I remember first seeing him at fingerstyle festival at the University of Milwaukee in the early 80's. That event also had Leo Kottke performing. I attended one of his master class workshops in Wisconsin a couple decades back. He has us all sitting around in a circle and I had my guitar on my stomach and was leaning back in the chair. He apparently took exception to my crappy posture with the guitar and called me out on it. Made me sit up and get the guitar where it should be. I still find it humorous today. I have many of his CDs and also the book mentioned. I could never get into anything he published in that book. I didn't even like DADGAD all that much and that was exclusively what he played in. I found his compositions to sound more New Age. Some of his earliest stuff I really liked. Kind of an "open tuning classical guitarist".
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Post by PaulKay on Mar 20, 2024 9:00:14 GMT -5
We drop off Rocky tomorrow morning for his cataract surgery. We'll pick him up late afternoon and then bring him back Friday for a followup. We've been doing his drops protocol since Sunday. He's such a good boy, he doesn't mind the drops at all. That's a good sign, since he'll need to get the anti-inflammatory drops daily for the rest of his life. Rocky's pics
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Post by PaulKay on Mar 18, 2024 18:50:18 GMT -5
We just flat out don’t answer the phone if caller ID doesn’t identify them. We figured if it’s important they’d leave a message. That filters 99% of the spam calls.
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Post by PaulKay on Mar 17, 2024 10:05:47 GMT -5
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Post by PaulKay on Mar 15, 2024 10:49:38 GMT -5
That's absolutely true in our experience. We have always had two dogs and were always one male, one female.
Eva is the boss, Rocky yields to her. She drinks first after a walk and he waits patiently until she's done. But he is also deaf (and at the moment also pretty blind), so he uses her to figure out what's going on. So he has no problem with her being the leader. Rocky is the more affectionate one. For Eva it is on her terms.
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Post by PaulKay on Mar 15, 2024 10:34:10 GMT -5
My blues partner Eric Brown informed me they took their house off the market today. They are staying, so our little blues duo will be able to continue.
Hoping things go well for LJ today.
Rocky gets his cataract surgery next Thursday. Really looking forward to getting his eyes fixed.
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Post by PaulKay on Mar 13, 2024 9:10:13 GMT -5
Going to watch the Cubbies play the Guardians today. Should be a nice day for a ballgame.
Wordle 998 3/6
🟨⬛⬛🟨⬛ ⬛🟨🟨🟩⬛ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
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Post by PaulKay on Mar 12, 2024 9:30:49 GMT -5
Got the pictures today from last Thursday's performance at the Sun City Festival Wine Social. A great crowd. It was fun to go back to play there again. Eric is talking about maybe staying in Arizona after all. So we may still be a duo going forward. We'll see.
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Post by PaulKay on Mar 6, 2024 9:53:37 GMT -5
My first gig in a year comes tomorrow. So I will run through all 3 hours of music again today to get ready. I did finally spring for a wireless system for my Fender Ear Buds. I had to buy a stupid RCA to 1/4" adaptor to connect it to my PA's monitor. But it will work well in helping to hear myself when everybody in the place is chatting away. Also, since by voice started giving out by the 3rd hour of singing, I purchased a bottle of this stuff - CLYOR Voice37, all natural voice remedy for singers.
It is suppose to last for 12-24 hours and improve vocal range and lubricate the throat. So you take the stuff a few hours before the performance. I'll let you know how it works.
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Post by PaulKay on Mar 5, 2024 15:02:06 GMT -5
Speaking of nice little guitars, I decided to donate a couple to Guitars for Vets. That Eastman OM I waxed on about a month or so wasn’t working for me. It wasn’t going to break into the front line, so I decided to donate it. I payed only $265 so I get a tax credit receipt. And a year ago I bought a Yammy as an inclement weather beater. You’ll remember it has a bridge doctor in it. I did install a Fishman Powertap Earth in it. It plays quite well And the pickup works very well. But it too was never going to break into the front line. So I decided to donate it. It only cost me $225 plus the pickup. I also thought of selling my GS-mini, but decided it worked better than the Y and the E, as a travel or bad weather instrument. Plus there’s more sentimental attachment to it because of the homemade sunburst. So there. Good for you Marshall. Guitars for Vets originated in Milwaukee and I was involved quite a bit in those early years, when it was ONLY in Milwaukee. I taught vets at the VA center for around 3 years or so and was the secretary for the organization for a while as well. The program from what I remember was very popular among the veterans.
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Post by PaulKay on Mar 5, 2024 10:13:16 GMT -5
Busy day yesterday, today, and for several tomorrows. Big storms rolled through overnight with rain, hail, and wind. It seems calm now. I can’t recall if I have had scrapple or not. Seems to me it is possible. Follow up news!! I contacted Sweetwater about the defective reverb pedal. They said they would send another. It is to arrive today. I asked about returning the defective pedal and they said they didn’t want it back and that I should keep it or toss it. That seems to be the trend when you get something defective. They give you another but don’t want to have to bother with the bad one. A couple neighbors have had the same experience with electronic items in the $120-200 range. The defective item is usually fixable, too. Of course, I understand that by the time Sweetwater pays the postage to get it back and has one of their gear guys spend an hour fixing it, they will have more money into it than it is worth to them and what do they do with it? They will get their credit from the manufacturer without having to deal with the item and they couldn’t sell it as new at that point. So they write it off and make the customer happy. And I get an extra bag of candy! That happened to us with end tables that we bought from Wayfair. The first table was defective and couldn't be assembled, so they said keep it and sent me another one (which also couldn't be assembled as delivered). But I could fix them both, so I ended up with a matching pair of end tables. I had to drill some new holes in one, and buy some new screws for the other.
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Post by PaulKay on Mar 4, 2024 11:28:15 GMT -5
Eric and I practiced yesterday, but I couldn't even use my resonator. It had some rattles and buzzes prior, but when I plugged it in, it snap crackled and popped. It didn't seem like the pots were noisy and cable connector contact seems fine. Couldn't figure it out, so I ended up using my older national. Today I removed the strings and tailpiece and put some black tape under the edged the tailpiece meets the cover. Added a little torque to all the screws on the cover plate, and tightened the knob screws on vol. and tone controls. All back together and now I have no issues plugged in or otherwise. But I didn't really do anything electrical so I am still worried this will crop up again but at the gig where I won't have a backup instrument. I still don't know where that noise was coming from. I may throw my other national into the car for the gig just in case.
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Post by PaulKay on Mar 3, 2024 9:22:28 GMT -5
Eric and I will run through as much of our setlist as we can get through for Thursday's gig. This will be the one and only day we'll practice, so we need to get through as much as we can.
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Post by PaulKay on Mar 2, 2024 9:32:35 GMT -5
We decided to rip out and replace all the carpeting in our house (which is just the bedrooms). So today they come by to measure the rooms so we can figure out what it'll cost us to do it. But, we need the installers to agree to move the big pieces of furniture. Since we can't do it, if they won't, we'll have to search for installers who'll do it.
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Post by PaulKay on Mar 1, 2024 10:06:19 GMT -5
The Mar. 7th gig is fast approaching and we haven't played a gig since last year. So today I need to start playing through all 38 songs on our current setlist (3 sets of around 12 songs per set). Eric and I will do it again through the sound system on Sunday. And then I'll do it again at least one more time next week. It is this part of my preparation process which leads me to do only paying gigs.
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Post by PaulKay on Feb 29, 2024 8:39:57 GMT -5
Great day for a spring training game yesterday. Nothing going today. I need to run through my setlist in preparation for next Thursday's gig. The first one in a year.
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Post by PaulKay on Feb 28, 2024 10:18:55 GMT -5
Linda and I have tickets to a AZ Diamondbacks spring training game. The Goodyear ballpark is 15 mins from the house, so it's quite convenient.
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Post by PaulKay on Feb 27, 2024 9:29:24 GMT -5
Say what you will about reading using electronic devices. But technology has its advantages. When I discovered that I could highlight a word, right-click to pull up its definition or search the web about it, it was like this amazing new avenue to expand vocabulary. I can't think of a better way to learn new words than while reading it in context. And in some cases, the dictionary can even pronounce the word for you.
So, plain ol' books are great, but technology isn't without its advantages for learning. Children today that do their reading electronically have tremendous tools for self-learning.
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Post by PaulKay on Feb 25, 2024 10:13:20 GMT -5
"No, it's about what has never been given to them, which is adult-level reading skills." It seems like it's been a runaway train for my entire lifetime. My 62 year-old younger brother's elementary school experience was my first exposure to that train. It was all the way back in the 60s when I was first witness to the way changing education departments were affecting lower education. Specifically, it was decided/discovered back then that some people don't seem to be capable of decoding the written word in the way that written word was coded in the first place. That is: it was decided/discovered that some people couldn't learn to read phonetically. So, rather than adding to phonetically taught reading, it was decided that since some children couldn't seem to learn phonics, then all children would be taught to sight read. I was taught phonics, but 5 short years later my younger brother was being taught sight reading only ('til mom and dad realized what was happening and had him repeat first grade in a different/private school). And the compassion-based motive for teaching sight reading and not phonics seemed to be that if all children couldn't do it then no children would be doing it. It was a fairness issue, though it was never/rarely explicitly declared as the motive for the change. Further, it was justified (and continues to be justified) by the fact that English is a language derived from so many other languages that it is rife with exceptions to the phonetic rules. There are so many examples of this -- many of them quite humorous (The Foxen in the Henhice comes to mind) -- and they are still brought up today from people our age as examples of something wrong with the English language. As if English was poorly conceived and should have been corrected some time in history so that it was like all the other (perfect) languages on the planet. So, rather than teach the exceptions to the phonetic rules as most of us were (because most of us are my age or older), sight reading was seen as the solution to our exceptional language. As if every reader before the 60s had proven incapable of deciphering the exceptions -- even though we were all readers. It seems to be a compassion-borne flaw that if there is an exception we have to bring the whole down to the level of the exception or else the system is unfair. The phonics thing is just one example. Behavioral issues vs discipline is yet another. Mainstreaming, yet another. It's because we're generally good people who love the underdog ... and maybe suppose along with that compassion, that those who can excel will manage to do so in spite of our efforts to help those who probably will not. I suspect that the move away from phonics years ago could very well be a primary cause. If they struggle to read (comprehend what they read), it could well be because they struggle to learn new words. Mississippi changed to phonics based reading
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