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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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Post by PaulKay on Feb 25, 2024 9:58:51 GMT -5
PS: We're having our presidential preference primary. My wife and son and I have all voted. It took about two minutes because we got our ballots by mail and returned them by mail. Given that it's a perfunctory election with an outcome that's not in doubt, I'm glad it was easy. We received a primary ballot in the mail the other day that was intended for our neighbor across the street. So I stopped over to give it to him thinking he'd be happy to get it. He called it junk mail.
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Post by PaulKay on Feb 23, 2024 9:51:48 GMT -5
Linda and I are set to play 9 holes at Tres Rio Golf course this afternoon. Followed by early dinner at Saddle Mountain microbrew restaurant.
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Post by PaulKay on Feb 23, 2024 8:27:58 GMT -5
What’s a flatpick?
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Post by PaulKay on Feb 22, 2024 18:39:26 GMT -5
Me too
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So Long Harry Truman.
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Post by PaulKay on Feb 22, 2024 18:38:03 GMT -5
At the risk of revealing my scant knowledge regarding modalities, isn't that kind of what those two are talking about? I think so. They had a scales with different starting notes, but the same 1/2 flats. Basically modes as guitar players think of them
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Post by PaulKay on Feb 22, 2024 9:30:52 GMT -5
I won a Glissantar quite a few years ago, along with two other Godin guitars, from AG. It was an 11 string fretless guitar-ish version of an Oud. I sold it to a professional Oud player in Boston that the poster Cranky Yankee put me in touch with. I could not make heads nor tails of it. I didn’t know you had won one of those. They are an interesting Godin design. I wouldn’t want one, but for those who play them, they are really nice.
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Post by PaulKay on Feb 22, 2024 9:28:32 GMT -5
Getting 2 new tires installed on the Traverse this morning. Pretty exciting stuff. Especially after I see what they cost.
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Post by PaulKay on Feb 21, 2024 17:17:09 GMT -5
But it does make Oud-dles of good sounds.
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Post by PaulKay on Feb 21, 2024 10:09:32 GMT -5
What is cool about this instrument is the scales they make with 1/2 flats. The benefits of being a fretless instrument. I like the all 4ths tuning. While you can do that tuning on a guitar, you still can't make those scales without a bended note being a scale tone.
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Post by PaulKay on Feb 21, 2024 8:19:17 GMT -5
We got tickets for the Diamondbacks vs Cleveland Guardians for next week at the Goodyear ballpark (10 min from the house). It’s always fun to watch them play. I have no idea who any of the players are.
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Post by PaulKay on Feb 17, 2024 9:46:04 GMT -5
Interesting.
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Post by PaulKay on Feb 15, 2024 8:57:51 GMT -5
Quiet day today. Has anybody ever tried selling guitars on Facebook marketplace? How did it go?
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Post by PaulKay on Feb 13, 2024 8:59:08 GMT -5
Mardi Gras/Fat Tuesday. Have a couple paczki with your morning coffee. Or one paczek, if you are watching your diet. Tomorrow begins the 40 day fast, so eat up. I ate all the rest of the paczki’s last night. Oh well. Wordle 969 3/6 🟨⬛🟩⬛🟨 🟩⬛🟩🟩⬛ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
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Post by PaulKay on Feb 10, 2024 10:58:51 GMT -5
As you all probably know is our lab Rocky has cataracts in both eyes and we had been pursuing getting those fixed since he has also been deaf since he was a puppy. But since his eye exam a couple weeks ago, he has developed an ulcer from a deep scratch (probably caused by the eye exam). So yesterday they had to fix that by essentially abrading his cornea (making the eye a complete mess) then put a contact lens over it to heal for 2 weeks. So the surgery has been cancelled for now and he's on pain pills and wearing a cone for 2 weeks and antibiotic drops 3 times a day. So he's deaf, blind in one eye and can't see out the other. Life sucks.
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Post by PaulKay on Feb 7, 2024 19:27:33 GMT -5
There are so many examples of private equity making leveraged buys of firms then saddling them with the debt until they collapse from it. They may not have intended to do it, but they did none-the-less and that makes them despicable scavengers.
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Post by PaulKay on Feb 6, 2024 10:18:19 GMT -5
My sisters arrived yesterday. Today will be rain most of the day. So a good day for visiting.
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