Thanksgiving

What a busy month it has been.

The Rattlers played their first dance and it went swimmingly. I think we have really come along since we first started playing together...the one or two hours that Dawn and I are playing a day probably had something to do with that fact. It still sort of stuns me that it came together as well as it has. We picked as a group three nights in a row this week and had a fine time. HERE is a sample, a great tune called "Red Apple Rag"...less our banjo player Dan. I record everything we play together just because I like to watch it and listen as I work. Seems like you can learn a lot about what you need to work on that way. Our tune list is up somewhere around fifty and rapidly growing...which still sort of stuns me.

Thanksgiving was fantastic--great food and very relaxing. My family isn't perfect...but we have perfected the art of having a good time regardless.

I also picked up yet another mandolin...a Redline Traveler. It's a pancake, based off the Gibson Alrites from way back when. An excellent sound to it, although I will admit to being a little put off when I first got it. The previous owner had seriously dropped the action and it seemed thin. Once I got it back to an acceptable level with some new strings it sounds great. Seriously, I am going to stop anytime. Maybe. I need to change the tailpiece and add a clear pickguard.

Also...as it turns out, Dawn can REALLY sing. As soon as I get a video of it I will be back. I have known her for sixteen years and I had no idea. I don't think she did either. Bizarre.

A New One for me

Coming to my house by Tuesday--very exciting. Early 20's Gibson mandolin-banjo. Ah, the noise I will make.

A Good Start

We had our first practice as a band last night and I am pleased with the result. It will take time to tighten up...but I am confident that it will. Our domain and email has been set up, so now all that remains is to finish the site design and get to playing. The splash page is above...and the inset pics will be links once it is rolling.

Very exciting.

One for the "Win" column

I played in the Hagood Mill Annual Fiddle Convention this weekend, and lo and behold my band took 3rd place in the Old Time Band contest. We were sort of a scratch band, put together a few nights before from my regular picking buddies, and I didn't think we had too much of a chance...a lot of seasoned players there. I was immensely pleased. Made my week. I took a few pics while I was there but was busy picking for the most part.

Our band name..."Ruby Dawn and the Red Hill Rattlers". Hearing the announcer say it was priceless.

A Fine Weekend

It was an excellent weekend, so much so that I hated for it to end. Sometimes you feel ready to land back at the desk on Monday, but this was certainly not one of those times.

I actually set out to attend a family reunion for the Fisher family in Lake Toxaway, NC, but set out late and really directionless and wound up wandering around some old graveyards in the area looking at headstones of long-gone relatives. It was fascinating. One of these men, James Fisher Jr., was the subject of a popular novel of the time and was known in the area as "Long Hunter". His own father explored the territory with Davy Crockett. No kidding.

Most of these men wound up fighting for the Confederacy during the Civil War, and some of them died as POWs. My Dad's genealogical work really came in handy. Endlessly fascinating to see where you came from. It was pouring outside, so I was only able to get a couple of good pictures. Posted the snail here, which I thought was decent from a compositional perspective.

The other picture here is my great-great-Grandfather, the son of Thomas Cantrell and Polly Fisher. His name was Francis Marion Cantrell.

The rest of the weekend was spent learning some fiddle tunes. I wondered as I looked around at these graveyards if there were any fiddlers buried there. My personal guess is that there was...but I probably just like the thought of it.

Here's one from the weekend. Hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed playing it.

Picking and sort of grinning

Had a rough weekend around our house with the teenage girl drama, but I think it has settled down now. It is what it is. I usually find that a banal expression but it seems to fit here. Not much I can do about it, so I might as well feign indifference. Makes me feel better.

The other thing that makes me feel better is the mandolin. I played really well last night with no explanation. I don't know what it is about playing an instrument, but sometimes you just have a stroke of inspiration and coordination...and then it dissolves. There's no accounting for it, but it is the sort of thing that happens from time to time in a jam or small setting. If I could figure THAT formula out I don't think I would ever leave the house. The music is just on fire.

I am thinking that I will purchase a Moleskine notebook to carry along with me. Something appealing about those for reasons I can't understand...and speaking of bags, I want this badly and am maneuvering to get it. It's just cool and there's really no other reason I can offer.

Your stuff

For whatever reason, I have come to LOVE Flickr photostreams, and two of a particular variety: the contents of people's bags (purses, backpacks, wallets, etc.) and what a person has on their desk. I think I could sit and look at these all day. I have no idea why that is, but it just fascinates me to see what people take along with them. Here's a link to the Flickr stream for bags...thousands of pictures.

As for what's in mine...it has already been added to the stream, but I will submit it here for your viewing displeasure (as it turns out, it doesn't fascinate everyone)

Winning

So I won a photo contest with my picture of Josh fiddling. Josh is a great friend--he stood still for the picture and didn't seem to mind that I used him for a print and for a contest entry. I won an eNook from Barnes and Noble and a Gift Certificate, which I will gladly take.

Very nice to win something for a change.

We went to Laurel Bloomery this past weekend and had a fine time picking. It was Dawn's first festival, which was a noteworthy event for my money. David played with Josh's daughter Molly and was suitably entertained, which was great. It meant it freed us up to have a good time ourselves. Now, about the tent...thinking a camper might be in order for next year.

Will post some pics from Laurel Bloomery when I get home. Almost Friday....

Being Reasonable PEOPLE

Politics is just straight wearing me out. Too many fearful people just being exhausting.

They Got Me

Although I had wanted one, and had even told myself I would get one, I thought I would talk myself out of an iPad. I have a desktop, notebook and even a media server at home...but I wasn't able to do it. So I have a new iPad. I went and picked it up on lunch but haven't been able to really play with it yet. I figured I would treat myself since I worked about fifty hours of overtime last week.

I'll post my impressions on it. I have been something of an anti-Apple guy with the exception of my iPod, so this will be a new adventure for me.

It has been a terrible week, and stressful. Looking forward to camping on the couch tonight and playing with my new toy. I think David and I will have a ton of fun with it--lots of apps designed around kids.

Being a Reasonable Parent

I really don't know if I can be.

When I dropped David off for his first day he saw another little boy he knew and I think he was extremely relieved to see a familiar face. I know I would have been were I him. He put his hand on the boy's shoulder as a gesture of familiarity. It wasn't over the top by any means, or a grab or squeeze. The other little boy pulled his arm away and looked irritated.

It made me almost spill over with anger.

David has always tried his best to play with this boy, who will sometimes do it and sometimes not...and David is just not sophisticated enough to know when he is being jerked around at this age. When I picked him up in the afternoon he said that the other little boy wouldn't play with him again. It troubles him. I hesitated to say anything...but I really couldn't stand it anymore. I told David that if the other little boy didn't want to play with him, then don't bother trying. Find another friend that would, that clearly he was just too good a friend to play with the other boy.

I guess I am feeling situations like this out and there is no guidebook that fits every situation (if anyone tries to sell you one tell them it's too coarse to make good toilet paper). I don't know if this is the best advice I could have given him, but I **think** it was.

I know this--I will protect my little boy like an angry grizzly bear.

David at school

My little boy David went to Kindergarten today. It was a little upsetting, probably more so for me than him. When I look at him now I don't see a baby anymore, I see a boy. Not sure what to think about that. I bought him some new clothes yesterday and took him to get his school supplies, including a new backpack--this was very exciting, of course. There was a torrential rain and when we got out of the car we both got absolutely soaked, which I think doubled the excitement.

He is going to the same elementary school that I went to. I walked down to the lunch room to put money into his lunch account and it was surreal. I can't even imagine the amount of meals I ate there in the seven years I went to school there. I felt ridiculously large.

I appeal to whatever lesser angels watch over the doings of little boys to remember him and make him happy.

Imagination, for a change (or at least something good on TV)

There's really nothing good on TV, or at least good to me. Most of it makes me feel like I've been covered with a thin layer of slime (see Celebrity Rehab and Jersey Shore). I've almost quit watching altogether with the exception of a few things on Discovery Channel and the occasional one-off on the History Channel. You almost HAVE to count on alternate sources of entertainment. I occasionally stumble on to something utterly random on the web, which is still where you can get a few digital cameras and torrented web software and be George Lucas. When I do find them, I'll post them here if I think to. Here's one--give it a shot. Low budget and you can tell, but...not bad.

http://www.pioneerone.net/#2f7/vimeo

Or..you can find something entertaining to do in the analog world. I highly recommend it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z07jUswW4a0

Sorry for the non-links, but Blogger doesn't want to insert them right now. Copy-paste.

Photography

I'm not very good at it yet, but would like to be. Surely the motivation counts for something...

I don't think you can beat film, but on the whole I would say that photography has benefited hugely during the digital age. That being said, when I try to take a picture I try to put the whole "I can take a million of these with this 16gb SD card and pick a good one" notion out of my mind and pretend that I have sixteen exposures and not a single one to waste.

I got a GREAT Fuji camera from NewEgg that had a bad pixel on the screen, so I was able to upgrade my camera significantly without spending much money. The bad pixel is invisible to the naked eye and can't be seen without a magnifying glass, so I will call that a great deal. I'm just not good enough at it yet to justify putting some money into it...but I have confidence that I will learn.

One thing I have decided not to do is read on the subject. I will just feel my way out. Maybe at some point I will read about the principles of it, but I hate to get bogged down in the methodology--it is the same approach I have taken to mandolin and that seems to have worked out just fine. I have gotten some pretty favorable results so far which I will post for my amusement (and yours).

One more thing--the first picture (of me) was taken with am app that I downloaded to my Droid which is meant to mimic some of the classic cameras. In this case, it's a Leica. There are a number of different cameras in the app and they do a pretty amazing job of duplicating the low-tech. Duplicating the low-tech...that's a whole other post in itself. The other photo is a raptor-dog (my Dingo) trying to eat my hand.

NOT Working All Weekend

On call again.

I really like the money--that is certainly not the problem. It's the constant text messages. Our system at work generates an error when there's a problem, and sends me a text message.

God, I have come to loathe that sound.

Then there's the techs I have to deal in when I call in to work, explain the problem and get assistance with fixing it. The tech this morning says, "I don't really have time for that." Huh? If I had hair, I suppose I would commence to tearing it. I have just never been the type that is able to say that. I would have helped even if it made me mad enough to spit nails. It makes me doubly angry because of that.

I didn't get to go to Oolenoy last night, which is a shame. I knew there was no point since I was on call. I would just wind up coming home, likely in a foul mood. Oolenoy is the former one-room school house where the local jam takes place. Some of the people there favor the "combat jam" approach where you wind up having to elbow your way in, but I think there are just as many good people there.

Just picking the rest of the evening, and trying to enjoy it. I will have a good time...even if I have to force the issue.

Jamming

Went very well, it did. I am still a little tentative for Old Time, since I don't want to be the guy lousing up the jam with too many bluegrass-isms, but on the whole that's nearly as much of a problem as it would be in Asheville, for instance. They like some solid division between their Old Time and Bluegrass. Priscilla went with me, and she's getting to be a solid rhythm guitar player. Playing together every evening certainly helps.

I discovered I need more depths to my tune list, but I'd say I'm doing fairly well for being a bluegrass convert. There aren't generally tunes played by 'grassers, just songs...and you can improvise anyway you'd like during a song. Tunes must be learned...and that means time.

It has been a stressful week at work and I am looking forward to listening to some music and doing some hours-long couch-sitting tonight.

A guy I worked with joylessly pointed out that while it was Friday, that meant only two days to Monday. The thought dawned on me that I should punch him (I kid, of course..maybe), since I just can't have that sort of nonsense laid on the joy of Friday.

Absolutely no plans for tomorrow other than sitting around.

My music for today has been suddenly interrupted. My third generation iPod 30gb has finally decided to give up the ghost and won't maintain a charge. Sort of sad...I can't even speculate on the amount of music I've listened to on it. Would probably be shocking. Next week I am picking up the iPad...so maybe there's a package deal? hmmmm...

Mandolin playing like a crazy man later.

A Blog

I’ve come to the conclusion that blogging fascinates me. I’m not talking about those blogs that are out there with a specific goal—political blogs, tech blogs, talking-head blogs, blogs written for people by staff writers just to say there is a blog—but blogs that are put out there by people who are just taking down the details of their lives. Something feels sneaky about reading it…like maybe you were house-sitting and discovered someone’s journal under a couch cushion. Those are the ones I like, a true look into someone else’s life. Seems like I know immediately if one is contrived, right from the first entry…and not some kind of performance and that just irks me. There are enough places to be “on” without having to do it in this format, too. Maybe that makes me some kind of voyeur, I don’t know. Is this the digital equivalent of peeking in someone’s window?

So I’m going to give it a try and see what happens. Maybe I will do this and quit. Maybe I will find out that this is just the sort of thing I needed and it will become a constant, but only time will tell on that point. I will do my very best to say it how it is, and not how I think anyone would like to hear it.

Picking tonight at Clinton’s violin shop in Taylors. It’s an old-time jam, so the fiddle tunes will be out in full force. I really don’t know how I am taken since I probably reek of bluegrass but no one has been overtly hostlile, so maybe I will take that as a good sign. OT fans and bluegrassers seem to be at odds with each other most of the time, but here in the Piedmont there is very little distinction made. It’s just “picking”. I will take some pictures should circumstances allow. I sometimes feel like the camera might be a little jarring for people who devote so much of their time to something so…low-tech…but it could be that I am just bashful about taking pictures, too. I know it doesn’t bother me, but there are plenty of things that don’t bother me that make others wildly angry (see smoking, politics, religion). The only downside to the jam is the temperature in the shop—the last couple of times I have been it has seemed like roughly a thousand degrees in there, and when you’re doing that sort of physical activity the heat doesn’t help. I foresee drinking a good deal of water tonight. It remains a mystery how the collection of fiddles don’t just fall into half-melted pieces.

More later.