Sat, 30 Dec 2006
Merja and I decided to get away for a quick overnight “mid-week weekend” trip. With all the activity and stress of the holidays we needed a break. So she found a room in the Riverside hotel in the little gold town of Downiville.Downiville is about an hour and a half drive from us. The road follows the Yuba River which is one of the best fishing rivers in the area. I can’t wait for fly fishing season !
Downiville is another one of the tiny gold towns that’s survived to the present day. The population on the highway sign says 335 and that feels about right.
Here’s about half of Downiville.
And here’s the other half
The next 2 pictures are the view from our hotel room.
Those of you who are anglers will want to know if there are fish in that river ;) Yep, we got a few.
Yesterday morning we had breakfast with Mike, the owner of the hotel, and decided to do a loop through the Sierras that would take us up to Truckee and then through Donner pass back to our house.
We only had to gain about 1000 feet in elevation to hit the snow.
So of course we had to pull over to get up close and personal with the snow. This is my sweetie.
I just love the look of the woods in winter.
The Yuba River was looking pretty darn cold.
It looks like I’m having a happy day.
As we came over Yuba Pass at 6500 feet we could see this beautiful flat valley below us.
I thought it was odd to find such a large flat valley in the middle of the Sierra mountains.
When we were driving through the valley it felt more like the plains of Montana.
Truckee and Donner pass were just a city and a highway compared to the trip we just
did so I ended up not taking any photos of that part.
But my gosh we had a great time. It was good to spend some time together and just be a couple again.
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Fri, 10 Nov 2006
OK, This time I’m giving everyone plenty of warning :-)Slow Jam is next Tuesday, November 14th at Music & More at 7:30 pm and it will go until at least 9:00.
All levels of musicians are welcome from beginners to “pro”. We’re here to have fun.
So come on over this Tuesday. This is the first slow jam since the Auburn Bluegrass Festival and I’d really like to see some new folks there. I’m trying to get ALL of my students to show up (All 25 of them! That would be cool)
I hope to see you there.
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[/music/jams] department
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Thu, 09 Nov 2006
We’ve had several days of rain and the leaves are turning yellow and covering the ground.
Parts of the hills are still green
But some of the oaks are changing colors. This is on the road to the Bear RIver
Yep, we’re starting to get some color.
The river is down to about ankle deep. Just 2 months ago we were tubeing in that river.
Now you can walk across it and not get your knees wet.
Here’s a couple of shots around our property
They have seasons here. And weather too! What a difference from San Diego.
I still love it here.
What I’m listening to today Issa Babayogo
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Tue, 31 Oct 2006
I think this is so cool. Kevin’s been through a lot in his life and he decided that he needed to give himself a break and have an adventure. So he decided that he’d take a solo trip to Japan. His wonderful wife fully supported this idea. Kevin started researching his trip months ago so he wouldn’t waste any of his experience.He’s documenting his trip with photos every day And I have to say, he’s becoming quite a photographer. There are a few shots that look like typical tourist photos, but there are an aweful lot of photos that make you go “Wow!”.
Since we’re both computer geeks (I’m a former programmer and Kevin is a networking/hardware/operating system guru) we both appreciate the fact that he’s updating his flickr photo blog daily. So every morning I can see what my brother saw yesterday in Japan.
This is so cool. Kevin, You rock!
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Mon, 30 Oct 2006
I just put the first coat of shellac on the new Cocobolo dulcimer and the colors are insane! This is the best looking dulcimer I’ve ever made.
That’s so cool!
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Sun, 29 Oct 2006
I’m almost done with the dulcimer that I need to finish this week. Then it’s full time onto my OM cutaway guitar.
The bocote binding came out really nice.
The cocobolo back looks amazing
The fretboard went on last night
And it’s looking great
The flash kind of washed out the colors in this photo. But the inlays look really good. The fretboard is really black
The next step is to attach the headstock. Then it’s time to start the finishing process.
The next photos you see will be of the completed instrument with the finish on it. It should look amazing.
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Fri, 20 Oct 2006
Wow, What a couple of weeks! We were getting ready for the bluegrass festival, we added an extra rehearsal last friday (was it only a week ago today?) and then did the festival on Saturday. On Sunday Merja and I went downtown to the Auburn Antique Street Fair on Sunday and just walking around wore me out. I guess the last couple of weeks are really starting to catch up with me.Then it’s back to teaching. I’m starting to pick up some more students, in fact, I had 2 new students just on Tuesday. I just got a call a few minutes ago from Michael at Lake of the Pines Music with another potential student. This will make 3 at LOTP (4 starting in November) and 20 at Music And More.
It’s starting to feel like a real business and that feels great!
Dulcimer Build
Now that the Bluegrass Festival is done I need to get back to work on the dulcimer I’m building.
I finished the fabrication on the fretboard today. The fret slots are all cut.
And the underside of the fretboard is hollowed out to make it more resonate:
although with the grain of the bocote it’s hard to see that the fretboard is hollow.
AND SPEAKING OF GRAIN!
I wiped some alcohol on the wood to show what it will look like with some finish on it.
Check out the grain on this fretboard:
And here’s the view of the side of the fretboard:
Then I routed out all the binding channels and installed the first binding edge
This is the first instrument I’ve made where I bent the binding at the same time as the sides. The fit of the binding is so perfect. It really makes binding the edge much easier.
OK, enough of this computer stuff. Time to get back to work.
See ya!
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Tue, 17 Oct 2006
I started the day with my guitar clinic. We went over ways of expanding our “bluegrass vocabulary” of guitar riffs.
Then came the kids band. I cannot tell you how proud I am of the job those kids did. Several people came up to me afterwards to tell me how good they were. They were expecting a “kids band” to be pretty sloppy. But these kids were TIGHT. I think we stood up to any of the professional bands that played that day.
Here’s a great shot of our “Special Guest Rhythm Guitar Player: Josh Matthews” playing his heart out.
Sean and I did a barn burning version of Red Haired Boy in the middle of the set.
After the show I had just enough time to eat something and then get set up for the slow jam I was leading. This photo doesn’t show the dozen or so people who were just listening to the music. But we got them to sing anyway.
It was a blast! I’ve said this a hundred times already but I’ll say it again:
I’m so proud of those kids.
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Mon, 16 Oct 2006
The Bluegrass Festival Was Awesome
1:00 I had my guitar clinic which I called “Increase your bluegrass vocabulary”. It’s a clinic on how to build bluegrass guitar solos by thinking of each riff as a vocabulary word. Eventually, the goal is to play solos as easily as you can construct a sentence. While I was pretty proud of the analogy of riffs to words I think it just confused a lot of people. I also think that I was a bit nervous and I let my thoughts wander more than I’d have liked.
But overall it went well. I had handouts and we eventually had about 8 people show up to the clinic and several of them asked about guitar lessons. I think it was a success.
Then we had the final rehearsal for the kids group “The Placer County Porch Pickers”. We had a bit of drama that had us a bit frightened. Our lead guitar player and a friend were wrestling around at school and Ben fell to the ground and slammed the back of his head against the concrete. He was out like a light.
His dad came to our Sunday rehearsal to let us know that Ben was in the hospital with a concussion. So we decided that I’d take all his solos and "The Show Must Go On" Well, the next day I talked to Ben and his mom on the phone and Ben wanted to try to do it. So they showed up just before our rehearsal, played the gig, and then went home to rest. Ben, the whole band hopes you’re feeling better and that you heal up soon.
So the band did their set and I have to say that we rocked the house! I don’t think that the audience was expecting a band of kids to sound so good. We were easily as professional sounding as the paid performers. Lexy’s voice was in top form, Meghan brought tears to the audience’s eyes with the song "Traveling Soldier", Sean played some serious mandolin solos, Josh lead us into “In The Pines” perfectly and hit his solo riff right on time and Ben held it together with a rock solid bluegrass rhythm.
A lot of people came up to me afterwards to let me know how much they enjoyed the performance. I lost count of how many times I was able to say “I’m so proud of my kids”.
I have to brag a bit. 3 of the 5 of the kids in that band hadn’t played bluegrass at all just 2 months ago. I’m really proud of the work they all put into the band.
Then I had a bit of a break so I had a moment to get some food. But the next act was some clog dancers so I really didn’t get a chance to hear any of the bands. From 5:00 to 6:00 I lead a Slow Jam at the upper stage. We had a great time, we got a lot of folks to sing along and I met a few more potential students.
Hey Barry The Bass Player! If you read this then give me a call or email me at greg@gbguitars.com We need to play together some more.
By this time it was getting late and the rest of the gang wanted to go out for dinner so we packed it up and headed over to The Club Car for dinner. I was tempted to head back to the festival to hear some of the bands but it had been a long day and we were all pretty tired so we headed on home.
Jam Sessions
Several of the folks I met at the festival asked me about jam sessions. The two that I know of are:
My Slow Jam: I run a slow jam at Music & More on the 2nd Tuesday of each month at 7:30 pm. The next one will be November 7th.
My friends Betty and Terry host a jam session every Tuesday night at “The Wild Chicken” in Loomis. The Wild Chicken is a coffee shop at the end of Horseshoe Bar road in Loomis. Park in the same parking lot as the railroad station. Their jam goes from 7:00 until 9:00. It’s a good jam and if I wasn’t teaching on Tuesday evenings I’d be there every week.
So the festival was a success and everyone seemed to be having a great time. I met a lot of potential students and I’m looking forward to hearing from them, setting up lesson times and working together. I saw a lot of passion for music in general and I always enjoy teaching passionate people.
What I’m listening to today:The Bill Monroe CD Box Set
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Mon, 09 Oct 2006
I’ll be participating at the Auburn Bluegrass Festival on October 14th. First, I’m the musical director for the kids bluegrass band which we’re calling the "Placer County Porch Pickers" The PCPP consist of :
- Sean Robinson, Mandolin (Age 15)
- Alexus Lyons, Vocals (Age 16)
- Ben Anderson, Guitar (Age 16)
- Mehgan Lange, Vocals and Fiddle (Age 10)
- Josh Matthews, Guitar (Age 8)
I’m also going to be doing a guitar clinic at 1:00. The clinic is called "How to increase your bluegrass vocabulary" The title comes from something that John Moore said in a clinic I went to. He said "When I’m playing I’m not thinking of every single note that I’m playing just as when I’m talking I don’t have to think of every word in the sentence. I just have a concept of what I want to say and then I say it. When I’m soloing it’s sort of the same thing. I know where I want the solo to go and I play it but I’m not planning out every single note."
So I thought "Well that’s great John, we would all like to solo as easily as we speak. But how do you get to that point?"
Well I ended up developing a practice technique where I think of individual licks and phrases as my vocabulary words. I then specifially practice moving from one riff to another in a completly composed fashion (Not at all improvised) and from that I end up increasing my vocabulary enough that when I’m actually soloing I have this vast selection of "words" of riffs to pull from.
In my clinic I’ll be providing handouts with examples of riffs and how to build solos from them. I hope to see you there.
AND THEN, as if I’m not busy enough, I’ll be leading a slow jam at 5:00 at the bluegrass festival.
And speaking of slow jam. We’ll be having a slow jam at Music & More at 7:30pm this Tuesday. It should be fun.
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[/music/playing] department
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Wed, 04 Oct 2006
It just gets better and better
This is NOT a bad beat story. In fact, it’s quite the opposite.
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to DruLeeParsec [Tc Qh]
DruLeeParsec: calls 150
jpin109: folds
Lensova: folds
Chashang1: raises 150 to 300
DruLeeParsec: calls 150
OK, not so bad, let’s see what I get
*** FLOP *** [Kc Qc Qd]
Oh Baby! I flopped a set of Queens
Chashang1: bets 300
Thank you
DruLeeParsec: raises 750 to 1050
Chashang1: raises 750 to 1800
DruLeeParsec: raises 750 to 2550
Chashang1: raises 750 to 3300
DruLeeParsec: calls 78 and is all-in
Ok, My set of queens better be good.
*** TURN *** [Kc Qc Qd] [Td]
Even Better, Now my set is a full house
*** RIVER *** [Kc Qc Qd Td] [Qs]
Holy Cow! It’s 4 of a kind!
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Chashang1: shows [Ks Ad] (a full house, Queens full of Kings)
DruLeeParsec: shows [Tc Qh] (four of a kind, Queens)
DruLeeParsec collected 5931 from pot
DruLeeParsec said, “Wow!”
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 5931 | Rake 0
Board [Kc Qc Qd Td Qs]
Seat 3: Chashang1 (big blind) showed [Ks Ad] and lost with a full house, Queens full of Kings
Seat 4: DruLeeParsec showed [Tc Qh] and won (5931) with four of a kind, Queens
Times like this make almost make it worth 2 weeks of hands like 4 6 offsuit.
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[/poker] department
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Sat, 30 Sep 2006
A Cool New Dulcimer and what’s wrong with EBay?
Here I’ve wiped some alcohol on the wood to show roughly what it will look like with some finish
on it.
And another glamour shot of this beautiful wood.
And here’s a top down shot that will show how the grain will lay out on the back.
The fretboard is laid up. It’s a bocote base with an ebony fingerboard divided by a veneer of maple.
Why the veneer of maple? Because it gives a fine white line between the two different colors of wood.
Here’s an example of what a dulcimer looks like with a bocote base for the fretboard, the maple veneer,
and then a purple heart fingerboard . . .
. . . and yet another view that shows off the bocote.
But what’s wrong with EBay?
I put 2 Tenessee music boxes up on EBay for only $150 and neither of them sold! Only $150 for an instrument!?
Is that too expensive??? I re-listed one at $130 and it finaly sold.
So then I put a BEAUTIFUL walnut dulcimer up for $325 and after listing it twice it still didn’t sell.
Now it’s back up there again
at only $300 and I don’t have a single bid. I really hope that SOMEBODY buys this instrument. It’s really quite nice.
So I had hoped to expand my reputation by selling on Ebay. I had visions of placing a beautiful hand made instrument
on EBay, people would swoon, hearts would break, Dulcimer players worldwide would rush to their computers to
bid on this piece of beauty . . .
. . . and nothing happened.
<sigh>
So we’ll see if it sells this week. I just can’t believe that only $300 is too much for a hand made dulcimer.
Stay tuned.
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[/music/lutherie] department
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Mon, 18 Sep 2006
I’ve been talking about the brilliance of Evan Marshall for a while. He’s not just an amazing mandolin player, but he was also (in my opinion) the best teacher at the Mandolin Symposium. Well, thanks to YouTube I can now share with you an example of Evan’s playing. EnjoyThis story is from the
[/music] department
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Thu, 14 Sep 2006
It seems that everyone is playing one.
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[/music] department
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Thu, 07 Sep 2006
I havn’t bloged in a while (or is it "blogged"?) so here’s a bit of what’s been happening. A) Some friends of our came down from Vancover to stay with us for a bit over a week. So we did a lot of hiking, tubeing, gold panning, eating pizza, swimming in the pool (and the Bear River) and generally being happy but unproductive people. B) I drove down to San Diego with my wife last Friday so I could spend some time with her and also see some friends from the old neighborhood. I flew back on Tuesday just in time to drive home, get my guitar and mandolin and then get to work to teach my students. C) We’re dealing with a bit of a forrest fire problem right now. (Perhaps this should have been point A) There’s a huge fire about 30 miles away from us and I noticed it when I was teaching on Tuesday. I could see it from the theater where I work. At that time it was all the way across town and on the other side of the American River. Now, a few years ago we went through the San Diego Cedar Fire. That fire started about 40 miles away and it ended up burning down the fence in our back yard and nearly getting my workshop. So the 30 mile gap doesn’t sound quite so big any more. So far the only effect on us is that it really smells like smoke everywhere we go and it’s a bit hazy here. In fact, yesterday morning my cat was whining loudly trying to get my attention. Now normally, she would be meowing for me to get up and give her a drink of water from the faucet HOWEVER we have a problem with that (See point D) ). In any case, when she woke me up I realized that there was an overwhelming smell of smoke. THAT woke me up. I got dressed and went outside and there was quite a bit of smoke. In fact, there was a noticable haze between the house and the garage. I drove up to the top of the hill and looked around and the whole of the Bear River valley was full of brown smoke. Realize that the Bear river is on one side of our house but the fire was on the other. That is NOT good. I checked the TV and it turns out that it’s still all the Forrest Hill fire. On the TV they showed a helecopter shot of the Auburn valley and it was completly covered by smoke. Today it’s still hazy and smelly. Here’s a few photos of the area.
The fire started 3 days ago. It’s still a bit smokey in our backyard.
Looking towards the fire. Usually you can see all the way to the mountains around Lake Tahoe.
Looking north it’s slightly smokey but not nearly as bad as yesterday.
The view from the top of the hill above our house looking towards the Bear River. It’s pretty brown out there. D) Let’s talk about the water We got a notice stuck to our fence last week telling us to Start Boiling All Water Immediately! Apparently the testing of our water system showed the presence of e. coli. Now it’s not as bad or as gross as it sounds. We’re on a small water system with about 70 customers. Normally we have incredibly good tasting and very clean water. A system of wells get our water and then it goes to a water tank at the top of the hill. That insures that we have good water pressure. It turns out that 3 test about a quarter mile downstream from us came up positive for e. coli. Our water never tested bad. However, everyone had to be notified and we all have to drink bottled water until we get the new notification. It seems that somebody has a back flow valve that wasn’t functional and most likely their house water (specifically, from their toilet) flowed back into the system. There’s a back flow valve at the toilet and another one at the water meter. The one in the house has probably been bad for a long time. The one at the meter just went bad and that’s how it got into the water supply. Now they just have to to to every one of the 70 houses and test the backflow valves and find the culprit. Meanshile they’re putting larger doses of chlorine into the water supply to clean it up and we’re all doing the bottled water thing until we get the "all clear" notice. E) My internet connection and cable TV keep going out today. It makes me wonder if it’s related to the fire at all. Yesterday when the smoke was really bad the TV kept stuttering like a dirty DVD was playing. But it was happening on all channels, even the news. The smoke was probably messing up the signal to the cable company’s sattilite dish. But since it’s going on and off completly today it makes me wonder if the cable company office is anywhere near the fire. F) Guitar stuff. This is for all my students. It shows how important "those little dots" are.
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Sun, 06 Aug 2006
As you know if you’ve been reading this blog (And why wouldn’t you be reading such an interesting and wildly popular blog such as this one?) I’ve been having some, shall we say, motivation problems when it comes to working in the shop. Well I’ve really been trying to spend more time in the shop and getting my lutherie skill set back up to par. And today was a really good day. First of all, the big project that needs to get done A.S.A.P. is a purpleheart dulcimer that will most likely be going to Acoustic Expressions in San Diego. I’m going to be in San Diego for a couple of days at the end of the month so I want to get this done so I can bring it down to Carol and Mark at the store.
I also put the back and top on the walnut dulcimer that I’m building to put on Ebay. I want to try
Ebay as a sales outlet for my instruments to see what the response is. I built the fretboard today as well.
So I have two dulcimers in progress, The OM style guitar I’m building for myself, and my mandolin all in
various stages of fabrication.
That’s too much stuff! AND I also have those Tennessee Music Boxes to ship out. I’ve got the first coat of shellac on them as a color coat. I’ll put one more coat of shellac on them and then I’ll start laying on coats of lacquer. So those will appear on Ebay pretty soon as well.
The Tennessee Music Boxes are looking pretty good. I can’t wait to hear how they sound.
Then I want to make one more dulcimer out of some wood from a Liquid Amber tree. The wood is just amazing
looking. 
The photo doesn’t do justice to the colors in the wood. It will be an incredible looking instrument. So yeah, It’s been a busy day in the shop. It feels great to get so much work done and to feel comfortable doing it. I find that I have a real high level of comfort in the shop when I’m building dulcimers because I’ve built so many of them. That comfort level just isn’t there with guitars yet. But once this batch of instruments is out the door and I’ve got an influx of cash from selling them I’m going to dive into another guitar (perhaps even two more). Of course, I have to finish my guitar first. I’ve got the neck to body joint done and I just finished building a jig to taper a fingerboard to the proper width. So it looks like I’m done building jigs for the moment and can focus on building instruments. But I still have to finish the projects that will produce cash before I can go back to working on my guitar. Yeah, that’s some good inspiration to get some work done. I have to help pay the bills AND THEN I can work on my personal instrument. Hmm, maybe I’ll go back out there after dinner.
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Fri, 04 Aug 2006
Because Life Isn’t Surreal Enough.
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Thu, 03 Aug 2006
I really need to post these earlier. But I’m going to be playing at the Grass Valley Center for the Arts tonight at 7:00. This is a continuation of the “Cherish a Child” concerts for Joel Teixeira and I’m proud to be part of it. Sean and I will be helping out in a bluegrass band (Me on guitar and Sean on mandolin) and then Sean and I will be doing a mandolin duet. Hope to see you there. This time it won’t be 114 in the theater? ;-)This story is from the
[/music/mygigs] department
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Fri, 28 Jul 2006
I said in today’s blog that I was sanding the back to fit a 20 foot radius, but in the photo I’m using a 28 foot radius dish. I did catch my mistake and re-sanded to the correct radius. Boy, there are an aweful lot of ways to mess up. You really have to keep on your toes.This story is from the
[/music/lutherie] department
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I’m finding that it’s really hard to get myself to work a full 8 hour day in the shop. For too many years I’ve sat at a computer at a job where I’m alledgedly a “computer programmer”, but they didn’t use my skills. I use to be a darn good programmer, but my last job basically killed off my skill set, my motivation, and my work ethic. Once that’s gone, it’s really hard to get back. So tonight’s task is to write up a list of things that need to get done in the shop and spend a good solid weekend of work. Of course, the fact that I really need to start making some money is a bit of inspiration as well. The guitar is coming along nicely. I’ve missed posting some more photos lately because, well, I’ve been trying to get some work done. First of all, I sanded the body to fit the 20 foot radius dish.
2 dulcimers in progress (3 if I include the one that Sean was building)
A neck routing jig to build.
A fingerboard to slot
I have to build a fingerboard tapering jig.
I then have to bind the fingerboard.
Let’s not forget the 4 Tennesee music boxes that need to have a finish put on them.
And let’s also not forget the mandolin I’m building.
I still need to call a potential client that wants me to build her a cocobolo dulcimer with an ebony fingerboard.
Oh, I got my latest order from Stewart MacDonald today and I realized that I forgot to order the 12” radius sanding block that I need to sand the fretboard radius. I have a 14” block but that’s too much of a radius for a guitar. So I have a lot of work ahead of me. In my spare time I have 2 nice boards of black walnut that I want to resaw into set of guitar backs and sides. And I wouldn’t mind going out to buy a bunch of lacewood to resaw for guitar #3. Busy, Busy, Busy. Oh well, it keeps me out of trouble. (As if I was prone to get into trouble in the first place).
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Mon, 24 Jul 2006
We’ve had some discussion on this topic over at the Everything dulcimer forums about how to join two thin pieces of wood. I wanted to post a quick pictorial on how I do it so I could share it with the luthier community. This is a method I learned from Bob Mattingly many years ago and I use this technique on dulcimer tops and backs as well as guitar tops and backs. First, set up a shooting board by clamping both sides of the top to a long board. The two sides that are to be joined are on the right.
Then get a good, sharp joining plane and plane the edges straight.
Plane until you get curls from both pieces of wood
Hold the pieces together to see if there is ANY light between them. If the seam isn’t
perfect then work on it until it is. I use a long level with sandpaper glued to one side to
clean up the edges until they are perfectly flat.
Now get your workboard out and cover it with plastic or wax paper so the glue
won’t stick the top to your workboard.
Set the top on the workboard …
and then tap in some finishing nails such that they are flush against one of the outside edges of the top
Now find yourself a piece of scrap wood to use as a temporary spacer. This piece is actually a bit too big
for what we’ll use it for.
That spacer is used to make a “tent” of the two pieces of wood.
Keeping the center seam tight in the “tent” tap in some finish nails flush against the other outside edge.
Notice that the nails are NOT going through the top. They are flush against the top.
Remove the spacer block. Put glue on the edges to be joined and then press the two pieces flat against your workboard.
The tension created by the “tent” is the clamping force that keeps the center seam tight.
When I did a “dry fit” I found that this size tent created too much clamping pressure so I went ahead and
found a smaller piece of scrap, I pulled out the nails and reset them without quite so much pressure.
Wipe off the excess glue with a wet paper towel and then lay down some plastic or wax paper on top
of the boards and wieght them down with something heavy enough to keep the tent from popping up.
I use a couple of hand planes.
That’s it. It works great and when your done you have a very tight seam and your two pieces of wood will be
absolutly flat to each other. I’ve never had a center seam open up.
Here’s the proof of the technique. This is the back of a purpleheart dulcimer. There’s a center seam in this
photo that was done using this exact method. Can you see the seam?
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Sat, 22 Jul 2006
A Worth While Benefit and more guitar stuff.
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Thu, 20 Jul 2006
New camera and continuing guitar work.
That particular photo is a bit fuzzy, but I swear it’s the lighting, not my new camera. :D
The sides are two beautiful pieces of Indian rosewood.
I bent the sides using my new silicon heat blanket bending system and they’re coming out incredibly smooth.
The cutaway came out great. I’ve got to go take a few more pictures as I build the body.
I think I’ll have the body glued up by tomorrow evening.
The shop is starting to get crowded. I also have 2 dulcimers in progress.
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Wed, 12 Jul 2006
Oh my gosh, I’m a jazz musician (again)
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[/music/playing] department
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Mon, 03 Jul 2006
Well, I spent the past week at UC Santa Cruz at The Mandolin Symposium. I wish I could say that it was a fantastic experience. Instead, I’d have to describe it as a cluster f&*k of disorganization. Perhaps my expectations were raised too high by last year’s symposium. But this year really was a mess. Let’s take it from the top: When you arrive at UCSC you pick up the keys to your dorm room. Luckily, I knew from last year that we were then suppose to go to the symposium office and pick up our name tags and symposium notebooks. I say “luckily” because just like last year nobody told us that we needed to do that. Our meal cards were set up to pay for the dinner the night that we arrived. But when was dinner? Where was dinner? When is the orientation meeting? We don’t know because nobody told us. I found out by asking other symposium students. So far we have the possibility of missing your name tag (which is your ticket to get into the concerts), your symposium notebook, your first meal and the orientation meeting. So we found the cafeteria (which was not the same place as last year so it really would have been a good idea to tell people ahead of time) and get to the orientation meeting. Now, last year at the orientation meeting as each teacher was introduced they played the song that their ensembles would be learning. But not this year. Nope, we had no idea what the ensembles would be playing. In fact, David Grisman had no idea what his own ensemble would be playing. He said “We’ll probably do a medley of some of my tunes”. This seems to be the start of a pattern of “winging it” that continued throughout the week. The other problem with not having the teachers play their ensemble piece is that we don’t get a chance to hear the teachers play. One of the cool things about the symposium is to be inspired by the playing of these amazing musicians. If you’re not getting a chance to hear them play then you’re missing out on a huge part of the symposium. We had teachers like Tim O’Brian, Mike Compton and Don Stiernberg there and we didn’t hear them play. “OK”, I thought to myself. “I’m sure they’ll play during the evening concerts throughout the week”. That turned out to be wishful thinking. Good News Sam Bush is in the house! Sam gave an awesome workshop/concert. At the end of the concert all the teachers sat in on a jam for one song and each took a solo or two. That was the first time we were able to hear some of the teachers play and it was great. I just wish we could have heard each teacher do something of their own a some point during the week. But that’s just the nightly concerts. Before those happen we have the music appreciation class and then two of the elective classes. How were they? Music Appreciation : The first day’s music appreciation class was on the topic of bluegrass since that’s how most of us came to play the mandolin. The Dawg and Mike Marshall ran most of the music appreciation class and it was reasonably well done. Oddly enough, sitting right next to them on stage was one of the best and most knowledgeable players of the Bill Monroe style in the world: Mike Compton. Mike barely said anything during the class. And did they have Mike play anything in the Monroe style? Nope. Did they have him demonstrate any of the type of techniques or licks that made Bill Monroe’s music unique? Nope. They had the greatest source of Bill Monroe knowledge in the world sitting on the stage right next to them and they didn’t use him. WTF? Maybe that was a freak happening. Perhaps the music appreciation classes for the rest of the week will be better. Not likely. At one of the classes the teachers were talking about how they were up until 3:00am working on the lecture for this morning. I guess we were suppose to be impressed by their dedication. But as a teacher I kind of felt like a student came to me and said “I worked really hard on this report. I stayed up all night finishing it.”. My response would be “You had all semester to write it. Why were you up last night doing it at the last minute?” That doesn’t show commitment, it reflects a lack of planning. And it showed in the presentations. I have to say that there was one noticeably different music appreciation class. That was Evan Marshall’s class. Evan is an amazing classical mandolin player who is also a great teacher (In my opinion, the best teacher at the symposium). He comes into the music appreciation class the way he comes into all his other classes. He knows that he needs to get from point A to point B and he has a plan on how to get there. His presentation was organized and it flowed. There was only one problem with Evan’s presentation: The other teachers. They kept interrupting him. By the end of the class it felt like they were trying to do his presentation for him. It seemed that the attitude during the music appreciation classes boiled down to “We’ve been doing this for 3 years now. We can just play it by ear and it will be fine.” Well, knowing about a topic and being able to teach a topic are very different things. Daily Classes The class schedule had descriptions that appeared to be very useful. We made our class selections based on those descriptions. But once you arrived at a class on, for example, “Improvisation” the classes usually consisted of the teachers asking “What kinds of questions do you have about improvisation?” We don’t know? We came here to learn about improvisation. Yes, I realize that the topic is huge. But it’s the teacher’s responsibility to narrow it down and create a lesson plan that teaches a particular aspect of the topic. For the first two days I didn’t have a single class which I could describe using the words “good” or “useful”. Here’s a specific example. I went to a Tim O’Brian class on using arpeggios during your solos. When we got to the class Tim didn’t even know what the title of his class was. Instead of showing us how to use arpeggios to build solos he just showed us a basic major arpeggio and all it’s inversions. As I said, “not useful”. The thing that turned it around for me was sitting in on two of Evan’s classes. Evan teaches the way I like to learn. He has a lesson plan and he has steps to get the students where he wants to get them. When the class is over you know what it was you were suppose to learn and you know what you need to work on when you get home. Evan’s classes were the exceptions. I walked out of almost every other class wondering “What was it that I was suppose to learn from that?” The other exception was Don Stiernberg’s later classes. I went to his “Chord melody Jethro Style” and his “All Blues” classes and he also had a plan on how to get from point A to point B as well as handouts that showed how to get there. The chord melody class in particular was very well organized. In the All Blues class I picked up some good tips and also learned why the chord progression in “Bird Blues” works. It really was an eye opener for me. But overall I found that it was incredibly easy to choose poorly. Far too often you’d walk into a class expecting to get a lesson on the topic in the class description and you’d walk out not knowing any more that you did walking in. About that class schedule I should add the actual schedule that showed us where the classes would be held wasn’t available until late the night of orientation. Once again, it seems like that’s something that could have been done ahead of time. It’s just one more example of the general disorganization of the whole symposium. The Ensembles I ended up so stressed out over my ensemble part that I elected not to play in the Saturday evening concert. This is my own fault. I was so tired from jamming late at night that on Wednesday I just had to get some sleep. So I decided to sleep through the ensemble class. Well, once I missed a single day of practice there was just no way I was going to get up to speed in time for the concert. I think I was the only person who just didn’t play. But several other students did tell me that they were just going to sit on stage and play the few notes that they could handle. One student told me she was just going to brush the strings with her knuckles. “There’s no way I’m going to be able to play that stuff!” she said. Perhaps they should have chosen Dawg’s ensemble. All they did was to play chop chords and tremolo notes while Dawg, Josh Pinkum and Alex (a great young fiddle player) soloed. So the Dawg group went into the ensemble thinking they were going to learn a David Grisman tune and they ended up playing backup chords to somebody else’s jam session. During the intermission I mentioned to some of the other students “Wow, did Dawg’s ensemble group get ripped off or what?” I got a resounding “YES” from half a dozen students in unison. So here is it, the last night of the ensemble and we still haven’t heard half of the teachers play anything other than their jam with Sam Bush. Finally we get to hear them play. Don came on and did a cool swing version of “Pennies from Heaven”. Tim came out and did an amazing version of “On the trail of the buffalo”. I sure wish they had played more during the evening concerts because it was great to hear them. Mike Compton came out on stage with a young girl fiddle player who was in his fiddle tune class that afternoon. He basically featured her during his one song. All he did was play rhythm backup for her. I have to say, she was great, but I still haven’t heard Mike really play. Hamilton de Holanda If there was a single person who turned this symposium around I’d have to say it was Hamilton de Holanda. He’s an amazing Brazillian chorro musician who was the high point of the whole week. I took the “Introduction to Chorro” class and I have to say that even working through an interpreter Hamilton does a better job teaching than most of the other instructors do in their native language. Final Thoughts So overall I’d give the symposium a C+. There were some high spots to the week, but the total lack of organization and the “we’ll just play it by ear and let it happen” attitude was really disappointing. Halfway through the week I was truly considering checking out and going home. My thought process was “I can’t believe I spent $1100 for this. I could go home and work and make some of that money back.” I’m glad I didn’t leave because I would have missed Hamilton. But overall it was nowhere near the pleasant experience that I had last year. I mean, when I’m considering going home because I just don’t want to deal with the disappointment of yet another poorly planned class that is not a good sign. My final thought: I think it’s worth going once just to experience it. But once you get over the “Oh My Gosh” factor of sitting in the same room with Mike Marshall and David Grisman and you start really looking at how good the classes are you’ll find it lacking. Evan’s classes are great. Many of Don’t classes are great. Some of Mike Marshall’s classes were great. But it’s really hit and miss. I won’t be going next year. I don’t need the frustration.This story is from the
[/music] department
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Tue, 20 Jun 2006
I’m Building Guitars In The New Shop
The top of the guitar is now braced up and the braces are scalloped and sanded.
This guitar will be an OM style with a cutaway. I just havn’t cut away the “cutaway” part of the top yet.
The rosette is kind of different. I went through my wood stash and found a really curly chunk of maple.
I cut the piece into sheets and then I cut a disk from one of the sheets of maple. The extra sheet of maple will be the headstock faceplate.
I inlayed a very thin ring at the edge of the sound hole so the soundhole is “bound” by a solid ring of maple. Then I left a small ring of the original spruce top, then I inlayed a black-white-black perfling, another maple ring, and one more black-white-black perfling.
The backs and sides of this guitar are Indian rosewood. The back is joined and it looks great.
I’m going to inlay a strip of flamed maple down the center of the back and line it with the same purfling I’m using on the soundhole and the binding. Here’s the center strip taped into place to see how the colors will look. It’s wiped with some mineral spirits to help show the color.
It’s good to be building instruments again.
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[/music/lutherie] department
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Sun, 11 Jun 2006
Two Events You Need To Know About.
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[/music/jams] department
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The new shop is done. Well, pretty much. At least it’s done enough to allow me to start building guitars. One of the things I really miss about the old house is my shop. I use to have a seperate 400 square foot building just for my shop. Now I’m converting our garage to a shop. Here’s how it’s going so far: The garage use to have 2 roll up doors:
I’ve framed in the left door and added a new door and window.
What a difference from winter to spring!
Inside the shop, I installed six more light fixtures
Inside the shop I have a pretty good work triangle.
From the main workbench I can see out the window to the treetops. It’s kind of like working in a tree house. That window was spray painted black when we bought the house. It took quite a bit of scraping with single edge razor blades to clean that off. The outside of the window hadn’t been cleaned since the Nixon administration so that took some scrubbing as well.
As I stand at the main bench by toolbox is on my right. Behind me I have my joiner, table saw, router table and Performax drum sander.
To my left I have the drill press, sander and bandsaw.
And of course, to the immediate left of the workbench is the shop fridge. That’s for glue storage and the occasional beer.
Although it’s still pretty messy in this picture I should have the bench tops cleaned of and ready to work in a day or so.
I got rid of my old clamp rack and built a new wall rack. That empty corner is where the dust collector will go.
Behind the tablesaw is my “Ultimate Workbench” (which is currently set up in chop saw mode) and plenty of shelves for wood storage.
Also, right through that door will be a separate 8x8 finishing room. Right now it’s the back of the storage area of the garage. But it WILL have another bench for putting the finish on an instrument and my buffing wheels will go in there.
So that’s the shop. It’s been less than 2 and a half months since we “officially” moved in and I’ve already got a shop built. That feels pretty darn good.What I’m listening to today: DI.FM Vocal Trance
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[/music/lutherie] department
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Mon, 15 May 2006
It’s been a busy couple of weeks. My wife is down in San Diego (inSane Diego? It feels like it sometimes) and has been since mid April. I flew down 2 Thursdays ago to see her and flew back on Sunday. Then I taught guitar and mandolin Monday through Wednesday and flew back down this past Thursday. We were suppose to drive back up yesterday but she had 2 business meetings that got moved from Friday to Monday so I flew back up yesterday and she’ll drive up tomorrow. I got into Sacramento airport and as soon as I stepped outside I knew that Summer had arrived. It was just over a month ago that I was running the wood stove day and night to keep the house warm. Yesterday it was in the 90’s. Yep, summer is here. I should say that in addition to wanting to see my lovely wife I also flew down to San Diego to go to my nephew’s wedding. Chris is the guitarist in the band Hollowshell and he also works for Boss (The guitar pedal branch of Roland). Rachael has been his girlfriend since they were both 15 years old and as of yesterday they’re husband and wife. Here’s a picture of the lovely couple:
The Shop
Today I should be installing the insulation in the new shop and then buying and hanging the drywall. That should get me to the point where I can unpack all the boxes and start building instruments again. I can’t wait!
Lessons
I’ll be at the mandolin symposium the last week of June. So I’ll be setting up alternative lesson dates for all my students.
Also, I’ve been talking to Mike at Music and More about framing in two additional teaching studios. If we do so then I’m claiming one of those as my own. Right now we’re running out of teaching space and I’ve had to teach my Wednesday night lessons on the picnic benches outside of the theater. It’s a nice atmosphere, but I’d love to have my own music room with my books, CD player, amp, and so on. Having just 2 more studios will really help the situation.
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[/ramblings] department
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Tue, 09 May 2006
The workshop is coming right along.
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[/music/lutherie] department
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I almost forgot. The Slow Jam is tonight at 7:00pm at Music And More I hope to see you there.
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[/music/jams] department
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Tue, 02 May 2006
The Friday recital was serious fun. The main purpose of the recital was for the beginning voice students to give a recital and for their parents to see the results. But Kay thought it would be nice if I played a song as a way to introduce myself as their new guitar teacher. I played Al Pettiway’s “Sligo Creek”. After that tune there were a few more students and then Sean and I closed the show with a mandolin duet. As planned, we played “Minor Swing” and it rocked the house. Kay asked for an encore so we started to improvise in A. We threw in “Red Haired Boy”, “Room 222” (a song Sean and I wrote), “Bile them Cabbage Down”, and then basically just jammed in A for a while. Two amazing things happened. First, we were playing really fast! (It ended up being too fast for our own good). But we also were listening to each other like never before. I started playing an ascending chord line and Sean picked it up immediately. Sean started playing Room 222 and I picked up on it immediately. We were “in sync” for sure. After quite a bit of applause and a few words about the Slow Jam (which is next Tuesday evening on May 9th) we said good-bye and left the stage. The student who was doing the emcee work for the recital (also named Sean) came back stage and his first words were “Oh My Gosh!” Everyone was really impressed and I have to admit, our egos were very flattered. It looks like I may even have a new student because of that recital. New Shop News We’ve framed in the new wall with a door and window so we’re well on our way to converting the garage to my new shop. I’ll be on the road for the next 2 weekends so I’ll have to try to get as much work done as I can in the next couple of days. I’ve already installed 6 new florescent light fixtures so I have pretty good light in the shop already. Today I primed the outside of the new wall and insulated and drywalled the inside. I’m going to start framing the new interior wall tomorrow. My goal is to finish a mandolin before The Mandolin Symposium which is the last week of June. I also have a client who wants a dulcimer and I really want to get a guitar or 2 built in the next few months. So I have a lot of incentive to finish up the shop and start that part of my new life as well. Speak of “my new life”: I was writing a letter to my friend Terry the other day (yep, not an email, but an actual letter. Remember those?) I use to work with Terry over at UBOC. I was telling him how much I was enjoying living here. I mentioned that I missed the people I worked with, but I realized that I don’t miss a single aspect of that job. That actually surprised me a bit. I worked so long putting myself through school to get my degrees and then spent 12 years in the software business. A month ago today I walked away from it have haven’t looked back. This life seems so much more real. I can’t believe I spent so long in a career that gave me no satisfaction other than the paycheck. Sure, the money was good (real good) but I was forcing myself to go into the office every morning and every evening I felt like I’ve just wasted another day of my life. As a friend of mine once told me: “That’s no way to go through life”. Poker News I just had to brag that I played a 45 seat tournament on Poker Stars and was in first place when I lost almost everything to a higher flush. I was down to $190. The next lowest stack was about $2000. I fought back and had the greatest comeback of my life. I eventually won the tournament. Yeah, I’m bragging a bit. But Geez-Oh-Petes, from $190 to first place? I think that deserves a bit of bragging. OK, keep playing and we’ll see you Tuesday at the Slow Jam. What I’m listening to today The Ditty BopsThis story is from the
[/music] department
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Wed, 26 Apr 2006
It looks like Music & More is having a student recital this Friday, April 28th. Sean and I have been asked to to play a tune during the recital. I think we’ll do Dawg’s version of Django Reinhart’s “Minor Swing”. I may have time to do a single tune on guitar as well. We’ll have to wait and see. So we’re going to do our best impression of Mike Marshall and Chris Thile as a mandolin duo. I hope to see you there.This story is from the
[/music/mygigs] department
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Last night’s Slow Jam was great. We had 8 people show up including 2 mandolin players and an electric guitar player. At first everyone was pretty tentative and very few people wanted to take solos. So I showed everyone the G pentatonic scale and pretty soon we had EVERYONE taking solos. It was great. And most importantly, that’s what Slow Jam is all about. It’s a positive environment that allowed everyone to explore their instrument in a friendly atmosphere. Slow Jam will be happening on the 2nd Tuesday of each month from now on so the next one is on May 9th. I hope to see you there.
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[/music/jams] department
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Sun, 23 Apr 2006
Many months ago I started this blog with the idea of having a central location where I could post information on lessons, jams, open mic nights, etc. At last I have something to talk about that aligns with the original reason for starting this blog. This Tuesday evening we will be having our first Slow Jam at Music & More from 7:00pm to 9:00pm All string instruments are welcome: guitar, banjo, mandolin, autoharp, fiddle, whatever. The Slow Jam is free and everyone is welcome. One of the things that I love most about music is the social aspect of playing with other people. But if you’re either beginning on an instrument or perhaps you’re just not as accomplished as you’d like, then most of the jams may be too fast or too intimidating for you. Slow Jam is here to solve that. On Tuesday I’ll be teaching some basic old time and bluegrass songs. We’ll start with simple two chord songs and move on to three chord songs. If you want to try taking a solo then you’re welcome to give it a try. If not, that’s perfectly alright. The point is to have fun and meet other people who also enjoy music. Starting in May the slow jam will occur on the 2nd Tuesday of each month. So mark it on your calenders. Once the Slow Jam becomes more popular we’ll move to the format that my friend and mentor Walt Richards invented when he started the original SloJam over 20 years ago. The standard format of a Slow Jam is to have 2 or more song leaders. After a brief introduction by the slow jam facilitator we split up into as many groups as we have leaders and each group goes off into their own practice room. Each song leader has chosen a song to teach the group. Traditionally, the song leader has photocopied the words and chords of the song and blown it up to poster size so everyone can see it. You have an hour to learn the song. After that we all gather in the main room and perform our new song for the rest of the group. After each performance the audience is urged to comment on the performance. There is only one rule: All Comments Must Be Positive. And that’s the purpose of Slow Jam: To get together to learn and play new music in a positive atmosphere among friends. What could be better than that? Come on by and bring your instrument. We’re going to have a lot of fun.This story is from the
[/music/jams] department
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Thu, 13 Apr 2006
I’ve been MIA for a while due to the move. But we’re here in Northern California for good! At last I’m living in my little home in the mountains. I taught music for a week, but now we’re on spring break. So far I have 7 students, 5 guitars and 2 mandolins. I have to say that I’m happy and impressed with every one of these students. We’re having a lot of fun and I’m even making a little bit of money. I found a set of trails that starts about 1 mile from our house so I’ve been hiking a bit already. In fact, I’ve been a lot more active since we’ve moved here than I normally have. I hope this will help me drop some of the 50 to 60 pounds that I’ve packed on in the past 5 years or so. It has been raining almost non-stop since we’ve been here. On the news they said that we’ve had about 480% of the normal rain for this month. But today it’s warm and sunny so we’ll probably be out hiking again. My teaching studio at the house is nearly finished. In fact, I really just have to pick up various tools and empty boxes and I’m done. I have all my books there as well as my computer, my instruments and amps. I mounted 4 instrument hangers on the wall to keep a couple guitars a banjo and a mandolin handy. All in all it’s a pretty comfortable space. Thank goodness we have a wood stove in the front room. It’s been a bit colder than Southern California up here and the stove keeps us nice and toasty. So things are going well. I find myself spontainiously smiling for no reason at all. Every night before bedtime I go out on the porch and look at the night sky and listen to the frogs in the distance and realize how lucky and happy I am. It’s a good life.This story is from the
[/ramblings] department
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Thu, 06 Apr 2006
We made it! After 9 months of waiting we were finally able to move up north for good. I can’t believe it. It’s taken so long that we can hardly believe that we actually live here now. I started working at Music & More this week. I have to say that I’m very happy with every single student that I have. I even have two mandolin students! So it looks like we’re going to have our second “Slow Jam” on the last Tuesday of April (April 25) at 7:00. I’ll be leading a slow speed jam session and all stringed instruments are welcome. It seems like after 9 months of planning and waiting I should have more to say now that I’m here. But it’s been raining for the past 6 days or so and today we have our first sunny day. So I’m going to go hike in the woods and enjoy my new life. Take care and keep strumming.This story is from the
[/ramblings] department
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Mon, 27 Mar 2006
This is it, the last week of work at Union Bank. We’re driving up to the northern California house this Saturday and I can’t wait. And what a busy week it will be (well, other than work). Tonight we’re having a “see our friends before we leave” jam session at our house. The rest of the week is taken up with meetings and packing and general preparation. Then comes the big 9 hour drive. We’re really interested to see how our cat Tequiza will handle the drive. The last move has given her OCKD (Obsessive Compulsive Kitty Disorder). It will be interesting to see how being caged in a noisey car for 9 hours will effect her. Our vet gave us some hints on how to keep her calm so Tequiza will be having 1/4 of a Benedril for breakfast that day. Yep, drug the kitty, move the kitty, and change the kitty’s environment. How bad could it be? I’ll try to have photos of the final jam up by Wednesday. It should be fun. Five More Days!This story is from the
[/ramblings] department
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Sat, 25 Mar 2006
My new favorite Go server is the KGS Server It’s a very friendly place. Once you get use to the interface it’s actually quite easy to use. Also, there seems to be more users on KGS than on IGS lately. My user name there is also DruLeePars so look for me and maybe we can play a game of Go.This story is from the
[/geek] department
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Sat, 18 Mar 2006
Many years ago when I was just a lad, my Uncle Rex was stationed in Japan with the Navy. During Christmas he and his family came back to the states to be with the rest of the family. My gift that year was a Go set he brought back from Japan.
Go is a very old Chinese game and it’s extremely popular in China and Korea. In Japan the Manga and Cartoon series “Hikaru No Go” has caused a resurgence of the game among Japanese kids. I tried to learn the game back then but it was difficult because I didn’t know anybody else who played. So after a half hearted attempt to teach my friends how to play the Go board went into the closet and stayed there.
Actually, there’s a bit of a funny story about that Go board. My Uncle bought it in Japan, where Go is much more popular, and brought it back to America. On the box the set came in was the name of the company that made the set. “Hollywood Game Company”. So that board and those game pieces were made in the US and sent to Japan only to be brought from Japan back to Southern California about 20 miles away from where the game was manufactured.
In any case, I was in the book store a couple weeks ago looking at the poker books when I noticed some books for Go. I bought the first two books in the “Learn To Play Go” series by Janice Kim: A Master’s Guide To The Ultimate Game and The Way Of The Moving Horse These books are quite good at explaining this amazing game and I found myself wanting to learn to play this game once again. But that old Go board of mine is packed away at the house up in Northern California and we’re still down here for a couple more weeks. So I went to Janice Kim’s website www.samarkand.net and bought their Club Set. When it arrived I was really pleased at how nice the set looked. It’s much nicer than my first Go board and, like chess, it’s just nicer to be able to play with a decent set.
When I was playing tournament chess I was playing at a low average strength. I was rated about 1200-1300. In chess a rating of 2000 gives you the title of “Expert”. At 2200 you become a Master.
In Go there are Japanese and Korean ratings. In the Japanese rating style you start at 30 kyu and move up to 1 kyu. Then you become first dan or “shodan”. The dan levels go up to 6th dan for amature players. Then, if you’re really good, you can take the test to become a “professional” player. The professional players go from 1st dan to 9th dan.
Since I work with a bunch of Chinese programmers I thought I’d ask them if they played Go. My friend Chaoming looked at my books and said “Oh, that’s ‘Weichi’ in Chinese”. I play a little bit, but Henry plays a lot.” I asked Henry (which is the Americanized version of his Chinese name) if he plays. It turns out that Henry is a 5th dan player. So he’s really good. In fact, when I play computer Go against the GnuGo program I set it at the easiest setting and take the biggest handicap and I can still only win about half the time. I watched Henry play against the computer at the maximum strength with no handicap and he absolutely crushed it!
So now I’m studying Go and playing on the Panda Go IGS Internet Go server I use my standard on line identity of “Dru Lee Parsec” but my name got shortened to “DruLeePar” on the server. So if you’d like to play a game of Go against a total newbie player then look for me on IGS.
After all, it’s my latest addiction.
What we’re listening to today : The Album Leaf
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[/geek] department
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Sat, 11 Mar 2006
Our pet bunny Mr. Boddington, who was indeed named after the beer, has a growth a bit larger than a golf ball in his gut. It’s pressed up against his intestines and that’s blocking anything from coming out. It’s incurable without surgery and bunnies are so sensitive that they usually don’t survive surgery. He was obviously in quite a bit of pain. He would just barely move around his pen and when he did his legs would shake. He’d just lie on our lap and not move a muscle. Just two days ago he was running around the house and hiding behind the curtains. This afternoon we had to let him go. I held him as they gave him the anesthesia (gas) to put him to sleep. I talked to him and petted his head as he went to sleep. I’d like to think that my voice and my touch comforted him. Then the Dr. gave him the injection. He didn’t kick or wince or anything. He felt no pain at all. I held him for about 2 more minutes while his breathing slowed to a stop and then he was gone. I already miss the little guy. My wife is really torn apart about it. He was her buddy for the past 4 years. Every morning she’d pet him for 10 or 15 minutes before she made his breakfast of fresh greens and hay. Every night he’d run around the house and play before he’d settled down and snuggle up at her feet. Mr. B is no longer in pain and I’m glad I was there for his last moments. I don’t know if there’s a bunny heaven but if there is he’s there in a garden of dandilions and kale.
Mr. Boddington.
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Thu, 02 Mar 2006
It’s Music TimeLucky for us, we planned the move over President’s day weekend. That gave everyone an extra day to relax and enjoy the new house, the snow, the fresh air, and generally relax.
On Tuesday I worked for the first time at Music And More in Auburn. I only had 3 students that day but it was nice to get a feel for the studio and the students. I had one brand new student who’s never played before, an 8 year old who wants to learn to play and is so shy that he barely said a word the whole lesson, and a young man who just “gets it”. Evan is the dream student. He picks things up really fast and he obviously practices. It’s really going to be fun teaching him. It also turns out that he goes to high school with my buddy Sean so I may have to get those 2 to play music together.
In the evening we did a little slow jam. Since it was a pretty impromptu situation we only had 4 people show up. But it was still a lot of fun. It was an interesting combination of instruments though. We had on girl on steel string guitar, Mike, one of the owners of Music and More, on classical guitar, Sean on mandolin and me on guitar, mandolin and banjo.
The Slow Jam is going to become a regular monthly jam at Music and More starting in April. Everyone who plays a string instrument is welcome regardless of proficiency. Although you should probably be able to at least play a G, C and D chord.
Watch this blog for the schedule.
Well that brings us to the long drive back. We didn’t get on the road until 12:30 so I was expecting to get home quite late. But somehow we made it in just about 8 ½ hours. We were even able to stop off at our favorite restaurant “Marrietta’s” in Santee. Every time we show up that late the waiters know that we just drove the 580 drive from the northern California house so they always greet us with “Welcome Home!”
Welcome home indeed. It feels strange to call the mobile home our “home” when we only started living there this week. The Weimar house feels like home but we’re not there. I’ve visited the new owners of our old house to drop off some more keys and a list of phone numbers for the utilities and that house sure doesn’t feel like home any more. So where exactly is “home”?
I think “home” is wherever I am when I’m sitting next to my wife, reading a book, and petting Tequiza the cat who’s curled up between us. Yeah, that feels like home.
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[/ramblings] department
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Tue, 28 Feb 2006
Here’s part one.So we’re done moving in the snow. Somehow we finish just in time to have a quick lunch, hop back in our car and drive back down to Sacramento to pick up my mom at the airport. In fact, as we’re heading down the 80 we pass Mark and Dan in the Allied truck. They’re already headed back to San Diego. They should get there by midnight.
Meanwhile, we pick up my mom and my buddy Sean and head over to “The Pizza Place” in Auburn for lunch. You see, I’m trying to soften the blow of seeing the mess in our house (and the amount of work it will take to clean it up) with pizza. Clever eh?
It turns out that the 80 is backed up for about 10 miles below the off ramp to our house. The CHP is squeezing it down to one lane to space out the cars as they go over Donner Pass. So we decide to do a “lateral arabesque” around the traffic and come in the back way. It was quite an introduction to the mountains for my mom who’s never been up here before. I’m not sure what made her more nervous, the one lane road or the one lane bridge. But it was a beautiful drive.
I’ll spare you from trying to make a couple of days unpacking boxes sound exciting. But I will tell you about the evenings. I’m a big fan of cheap ass games. One of the boxes I made sure I found and unpacked was the game box. So we all sat around the table, drinking hot chocolate and warmed by the wood stove, while playing Kill Dr. Lucky!. Now, if you’re not familiar with the cheap ass concept here it is: They feel that there are certain game parts like dice, tokens, pawns, play money, stones, etc are common to a lot of games. They’re also the most expensive part of the game. So why not just take all those bits from your other games and reuse then? So they make just the game board, rules, and any special cards that are needed for a new game. That way, they can produce really cool board games for less than $10 each. Of course, you could always do what I did and buy their “Ultimate Bits Pack” so you’ll have all that stuff handy.
In “Kill Dr. Lucky” you try to (guess what?) kill Dr. Lucky. The problem is that you have to do it while none of the other players can see you do it. After every turn Dr. Lucky moves around the board to a different room in a particular path. You have to time his arrival with the other player’s positions so you can be alone the same room as him when you try to off the old guy. But even if you do try to kill him the other players can play “Failure” cards to thwart your attack. After all, They want to kill him off themselves.
A fun time was had by all. I really enjoy game night. There’s just something more satisfying about playing board games as a family rather than planting yourself on the couch to watch TV all night.
The next night my mom wants to learn how to play Texas Hold-Em. No Problem! I’d be glad to teach her. So we get out the cards and chips and go through the rules. Let me tell you something, That Woman Is Unbeatable! I mean, I had A K and the flop came A K 6. I raise and she calls. The turn is an 8 and she bets, I raise, and she re-raises. Ho Boy! I’m about to make some money! The river is another 6 and we cap the betting.
I smile and turn over my two pairs, Kings and Aces. She turns over the 8 6 offsuit that gave her a Full House. Arrrgghh!
OK, so anyway, it’s the next night and my mom comes in from the guest room and ask “Is there no hot water when the dish washer is running?”
“Of course there’s hot water. The dish washer has a heater in it” I say. But as I check the shower there’s no hot water.
OK, no problem, it’s probably just the pilot light on the water heater. I go out to check it and sure enough, it’s out. But that sucker won’t relight. So I put on my boots and trek out into the woods where the propane tank is and sure enough, the gauge is on zero. We’re out of propane which means not only do we have no hot water, but we have no heat in the house. A quick check of the thermometer shows that it’s already down to 36 outside. So I get a wheelbarrow full of wood and bring it up to the porch and start to stoke the wood stove. We get the room up to almost 80 degrees before it’s time for bed. I set my alarm for 3:00 am so I could get up and toss a couple more logs in the fire. By morning the house had only cooled off to about 60 degrees so we did ok.
Welcome to the mountains!
Stay tuned for chapter 3 … .
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[/ramblings] department
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OK, so it’s been a while since I’ve written anything on my blog. But hey, we’ve been busy!
Where do I start? How about the weekend before moving day. My mom came down from Laguna Nigel to help us pack boxes as did our friend Susan from Santa Monica. We had ordered a 4 bedroom house moving set of boxes. It came on an 8 foot pallet. “OK”, we’re thinking “There’s no way we’re going to use all those boxes.” We were wrong.
So after 3, no 4, no wait, 5 trips back to Home Depot to buy more boxes we’re almost packed. In fact, we have so many boxes that there’s no room to put any more on the floor. So we just waited for the big truck to arrive.
On Tuesday the BIG Allied moving van arrives. As they packed the truck we used the recently cleared floor space to pack up still more boxes right behind them. Holy Cow we have a lot of crap! I foresee a profitable EBay business just clearing out my garage! Loading the truck took all day long. We finally finished about 8:00pm. Since we have a mobile home here in Santee we spent the night there. On Wednesday, the next day, I spend a completely useless day at work. I was so exhausted that I could barely think.
Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep … What the hell is that? It’s the alarm going off at 5:00 am Thursday morning. OK Greg, Up and At ‘Em. We’ve got a 580 mile drive to do today. For the most part we miss the traffic around Los Angeles. We did hit some on the 210 westbound as we circled around the worst of it and took our “secret back way” to the grapevine. Actually, it was a pretty easy drive for me since my wife drove the 1st half and I slept though the first 3 hours of the drive.
So now we’re in the vast flat nothingness of the California Central Valley. My wife has always wanted to stop at this little Swedish town just off the 99 freeway (Kingsport? Kingsman?, Something like that). So we stop to stretch our legs, do some shopping and have some lunch. The very first thing we notice as we step out of the car is that it’s freaking cold. But overall it was a nice break from the drive.
I need to stop here and rant about a totally geek thing. On the 99 freeway there’s a spot where your exactly halfway between the California-Mexico border and the California-Oregon border. At that spot the 99 freeway has 2 trees planted in the center divide between the north and southbound lanes; a palm tree and a pine tree. The palm tree represents southern California and the pine tree represents northern California.
Somebody chopped down the friggin Pine Tree!!
OK, I admit, that’s a total geek landmark. But every time we drove past it we knew that A) we were half way up California, and B) we were just 200 miles from the new house.
Anyway, I took over the driving and continued all the way to the new house. Other than stops to gas up and get groceries we drove the rest of the way non-stop. As we arrive at the house it’s cold and clear. But we’re happy because we’re home. As Merja puts away the groceries I lit a fire in the cast iron stove in our front room and heated up the house. It wasn’t long before we were passed out in bed. (Sleep, sweet sleep)
Knock Knock Knock Knock! … What the hell is that? I live in the middle of the mountains. Who could be banging on my door at 7:00 am? Oh yeah, the moving truck arrives today.
But it turns out that because of the one lane road and the tight turns the big truck can’t make it to our house. Luckily, we planned for this and the driver parked his Ford F150 truck in the back of the van. And so started about 40 shuttle loads of boxes and furniture between the truck and the house. It’s right about this time that I’m realizing how smart I was to pay somebody else to do the heavy lifting.
Being a bit of a cook I decided to make bratwurst and sauerkraut sandwiches for all of us for lunch. As we’re sitting inside the warm house (Thank goodness for that stove) it starts to rain a bit. No biggie, it’s just a few light drizzles. Then it starts to snow. No biggie, it’s melts before it even hits the ground. Nothing to worry about here. So we just keep unloading the truck and unpacking until it’s too dark to work. The truck isn’t quite empty so the movers stay in a motel down the hill in Auburn. They’ll come back tomorrow to finish unpacking. And besides, we have to be done by 11:00 am so I can drive back down the hill to Sacramento to pick up my mom who’s flying up to help us unpack all the boxes she helped pack last weekend. So we have to get that truck unloaded early. But before we worry about that we have a quick spaghetti dinner, do a bit of reading, and pass out on our own bed in our new home. Ah! My own bed, my own blankets, my own pillows. I can’t wait to get some undisturbed sleep.
Nudge Nudge Nudge Nudge! … What the hell is that? It’s my wife glaring at me. How can I be in trouble when I’ve been asleep for the last 9 hours? “It’s snowing” she says. Now we need to understand that even though (or perhaps ‘because’) Merja was born in Finland and grew up in Toronto, she hates snow. The town of Colfax is suppose to be “Above the fog and below the snow”. But occasionally the “tule fog” came up the hill past 2200 feet where we live and today, the snow came all the way down to 1000 feet. It hasn’t snowed in Auburn (the next town down the hill) since January 2002.
Welcome to the mountains.
Now, that’s pretty and everything, but it really wasn’t too bad. The movers scrapped the ice off of the driveway so they could keep shuttling the load up to the house and we all just started offloading more boxes and furniture. As the sun came up the slush was more of a problem than the snow.
But it does make for a nice story. “Yeah, we got the heaviest snow in over 5 years on our moving day.”
Stay tuned for chapter 2 … . What we’re listening to today: DJ DoBoy rocks
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[/ramblings] department
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Mon, 23 Jan 2006
Just a quick note to say that the new www.gbguitars.com website is up and running on it’s very own server. I’ll be moving almost all of the music content away from the www.brouelette.com site and onto this new site. So go check it out.This story is from the
[/geek] department
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Amid all the other things that are going on right now with the job, packing up to move, getting the mobile home ready as our temporary San Diego home, getting quotes from movers, termite inspections, and on and on and on … I’m building a dulcimer. I have some photos of the build process here I hope you enjoy seeing a “behind the scenes” view of an instrument build.
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[/music/lutherie] department
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