The Sunday Thread for June 11, 2023

Good morning/evening/afternoon. The worst of the air quality alerts seems to have passed us now. We had a "purple" alert on Thursday, and I'd never even heard of that before! I still got in my 30 minutes walk around the neighborhood, and told everybody the remained of the day that I had tasted "purple haze."

While it's early and I haven't checked the news and weather, I think my little computer widget indicates we're down to yellow, with a rating of 62. That's pretty normal for a suburban area like mine.

Yesterday afternoon, my neighbors and I had a semi-impromptu "block party" ostensibly to welcome two new residents to the community. Alas, only one showed up, but we sat on lawn chairs, ate pizza and snacks and spent nearly four hours just chatting and socializing. I like getting to know my neighbors! I brought my new little Spark GO and used it as a Bluetooth speaker, and it worked like a champ! (My Champ would have been overkill).

Today is going to be a laid-back Sunday. I had a full work week, my granddaughter's dance recital, and a church dinner I help put together, so after services today, I'll pretty much just do my normal routine: walk, eat, read, perhaps watch some baseball, and take the day of rest for what it's meant to be.

I hope everyone has a similarly sublime Sunday!

I never thought I’d say this, but it’s finally raining here; not a huge downpour, but I can hear my thirsty lawn sayin “thank you, thank you, thank you”. The grass is so dried out you can’t walk on it barefoot, it will hurt your feet.

Not much going on here but this past Wednesday we were out at Road America for a Corvette club photo session and the Indy cars were running practice sessions most of the time we were there. The Corvette Corral is located at turn three, a sweeping curve to the right after slight downhill run, and it allows cars to take it at a good speed which spun one of the cars into the safety gravel before hitting the guard fence in front of us. The 4.2 miles of RA seems to be so much more challenging than driving around in the oval of Indy.

Hope all have a good Sunday and a great week!

It looks like it's going to be a nice day here, though we get short unexpected, not in the forecast storms here this time of year (heavy rain, thunder, and hail on Friday and torrential rain, thunder and lightning with minor flooding on Saturday). I have all of my important obligations done and am going to the Northeast Guitar Expo (usually more of a small flea market) in Natick, MA later this morning. I might leave my Dr. Z Monza in the trunk in case I see anything interesting to trade it for.

Busy weekend going on. Spent yesterday working on a song with the help of TeleBob himself. It's always great to hang with Mr. Feather. He's a font of knowledge and shares it willingly (also a blast to just hang out with)! Today I'm bringing my grandson and his friend to a Juneteenth celebration at Mystic Seaport, sponsored by Discovering Amistad. The Amistad will be the backdrop of an afternoon of celebration and learning. My grandson is really into the story of the ship and it's impact on American History and they are going to volunteer to help out. Serving on the board of directors that is steward for this ship is a privilege I don't take lightly.

Had a great time yesterday Nick. Good progress. Looking forward to hearing it finished. If you want any help with the guitar parts in the studio, I live right down the street!

Late start today.

Heading out to help a friend with her deck. Need to replace a few boards and then fix the and replace the screens around the gazebo.

After that, its MOTO GP! Love me some MotoGP. The F1 of Motorcycle road racing.

Then it's time to hunker down and do some woodshedding. Got a couple gigs coming up and need to be ready!

Don, I hear you about the unexpected storms that were not part of the forecast. Just as frustrating is being told it's going to rain and it doesn't happen. I walked more in Jan and February than I have in the last 3 1/2 months. Friday it 52 degrees, today is supposed to be 82.

Had a slight injury thing with my left index finger Tuesday. Moved some heavy things around in the basement, but I might have opened the bulkhead rusty tetanus trap doors without wearing gloves. That night I was playing through my '69 Princeton non reverb, really getting into it and my finger kept getting sorer. It felt like a splinter or some sort of paper cut but I couldn't find anything even with a lighted magnifying loupe. I think something got into a pore and was irritating it. 24 hours later it was essentially gone. Annoying to have to stop enjoying an amp that I barely played in 4 years (since I got the Princeton Reverb that I sold to Tele-Bob)

Had dinner with friends last week. They're in the process of painting their house' interior. But their handy man took ill and had to have heart surgery. At 80 years of age, he's going to be out of commission for the foreseeable future. Tomorrow I'm going to go over and start taking over where he left off. The stair well is going to be fun. What I can't believe is how much they were paying him, and it is the going rate for the area these days. More than 3 times as much as I've ever charged for handy man work. It really couldn't have come at a better time. I may discount the rate due to having to go slower because of my eyesight. This will be a test of my abilities and it will get me out of the house and away from the computer for a change.

We played another out-of-towner last night. Normally I stay between the lines and make sure not to overplay but last night we were all in a good mood and I ripped quite a bit. Quite fun. Didn't get home too awfully late and watched some of the night racing in LeMans through sunrise. Hit the hay, woke up, spent some quality time with the dog, cut the lawn and now I think I'll do some fishing.

Have another out-of-town gig next week. We've got quite the summer tour going this year. Sound guy we have has worked with a lot of big acts and he's really good. Sure makes life a lot easier with a good sound person. Took him about three shows to figure out exactly how I want my guitar sound to be out front and he's nailing it. That leaves me free to do nothing but play.

Chuck

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Originally Posted by OldStrummer

Good morning/evening/afternoon. The worst of the air quality alerts seems to have passed us now. We had a "purple" alert on Thursday, and I'd never even heard of that before! I still got in my 30 minutes walk around the neighborhood, and told everybody the remained of the day that I had tasted "purple haze."

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I have some of the real deal Purple Haze if you ever want a taste.

A day past the Sunday but I can still add in there.
I had to work Saturday, though a short day - 9 - 3, then we went to the NE Revolution Soccer game. MY kiddo's friend was able to get tickets through the local soccer league, plus her mom had additional passes from her work.
If we do this again, we'll go for the full tailgate rather than the company food.
|But it was a good time, Revs won, and the the kiddo besides being overtired, over-sugared and over stimulated had fun.
Sunday |I went for a run with my running club - we had the last training run for the couch to 5k program - the target race is next week.
After that I went to the Guitar Expo that Don went to. Didn't bother bringing any gear with, but I ended up coming home with a new (to me) pedal. Saw some nice stuff, though I didn't bother looking up to see if the pricing was any good. Then a couple interesting builders, one guy with basses, another guitars.
I still like going, no matter how small they are; maybe eventually there will be a bigger show coming up - I'd think that the area could support a much bigger show than this.