Tag: guitar

Cool, Daily Life, Health

That’s Going To Need A Patch
  • The weather in my part of the world was perfect this last weekend. Mid 70’s and no wind. The ideal conditions for a motorcycle ride. As I may have said previously, I’m generally a rule-follower. So for motorcycles that means ATGATT (all the gear, all the time). So getting ready for a ride is like those movie scenes where the astronauts are being dressed in their spacesuits by a team of helpers. My gear includes big heavy boots and an armored riding suit that weighs approximately 45 pounds and is made of some sort of magical Kevlar (affectionately referred to as the Fat Elvis suit). Once dressed, I clomp out to the garage and perform my pre-ride inspection as I was instructed 30 some-odd years ago in my first riding class. I checked the rear tire pressure with my cheap tire pressure tool and got nothing. I checked it again. Still nothing. I cursed myself for buying cheap tools and went and found another pressure gage. Still nothing. I’ve ridden for so many years, yet I’ve never had a flat. It never even dawned on me that the tire could be flat. Sure enough, there was a huge screw embedded in the tire. Sigh. There went the days ride.

    After stripping off all the gear, I now was faced with figuring out how to plug and repair the tire. I’ve carried the tools all these years, but never actually used them. Several YouTube videos later, one ruined tube of glue, some four-letter expletives, and the tire was patched and actually holding air. In the big picture, this was actually a good thing to have happened. I now know I can fix a tire in the field if needed. I learned a few things about some of the tools I’ve been carrying around. And I’d wanted new tires anyway, but had been dragging my feet on figuring out which ones. Even though this event ruined my weekend ride plans, I’ll view it as a net positive. What else are you going to do?

  • Speaking of YouTube, like many of my hobbies I had a burst of creativity last summer, swore I’d crank out a bunch of videos, then promptly forgot I had a channel. Then this week for some reason I got a massive influx of new subscribers and some comments (massive means six). It’s funny, it doesn’t take much to get me excited about things. I’m re-re-re-vowing to make videos again this spring and summer.

  • The internet is a blessing and curse. Pre-internet, to figure out something like what tires to buy for your motorcycle, you’d go down to the shop and ask them. If you were really into research you might go buy some magazines and read a few reviews. That was it. Now you have an unlimited amount of resources – blogs, YouTube, forums, etc… A billion different opinions on what is the best tire. If you’re not familiar with motorcycle tires, there’s a massive array of choices. Tires are rated on street vs dirt ability, longevity, mud vs dry dirt, sound level, and on and on. It can easily become a black hole of analysis paralysis. I bravely sorted through all of this, watched 127 hours of YouTube reviews and settled on the Motoz Tractionator GPS for those of you keeping score at home. Now I just have to wait for the supply chain shipping gods to deliver the new shoes.

  • It cost me $100 to fill up my truck yesterday. Let’s Go Brandon!

  • The trainer at the gym yesterday had me do these weird plank circle things on top of an exercise ball. Today my abdominals hurt so bad it’s hard to get off the couch. I’m making progress and it’s good to see, but this is why getting started with a workout routine is so hard. Pretty much any new movement causes DOMS and makes it hard to be motivated to do it again. It will be nice to get back to the point where I can blast through a workout and not be destroyed the next day.

  • This weekend we went to a music festival my city puts on every year. Five days and hundreds of bands of every possible genre, scattered through the city. It’s a fantastic event for the city and I love seeing that there are still places where this sort of thing can take place without riots, protests, and other general idiotry taking place. Of all the bands we saw, my favorite was some young kids (doubtful they were even 21) playing hard-core hair metal. Not generally my go-to music, but the lead guitarist was a young gal who was awesome and crazy energetic. It’s unusual to see a women as the lead guitarist, let alone in a metal band. Makes you wonder how she got interested in that sort of music at such a young age?

Song of the day: Veruca Salt – Seether (Glastonbury ’95)

Cool, Daily Life, Government, Politics

Dude, Do You Even Contrarian?
  • C.S. Lewis said, “When the whole world is running towards a cliff, he who is running in the opposite direction appears to have lost his mind”. I love that quote. As a country we’ve gone from Timothy Leary’s “Question Authority” in the 60’s, to blindly worshiping the high priest of Covid, Dr. Fauci. As a contrarian, the goal isn’t to blindly reject everything you see, or to embrace every crackpot claim you read on the internet. The point is merely to question. Read other news sources. Actively read opinions you don’t (think) you agree with. The media, big tech, government, all have an agenda. That’s ok as long as you recognize the agenda and take what’s presented with a grain of salt. One of the most discouraging developments in the last few weeks was the plummeting of Fox News ratings. Their viewership were unhappy with election and post election coverage by Chris Wallace, et al., and loudly proclaimed on Twitter they were done. Never watching Fox again. Sadly, that makes them no better than the average CNN viewer. These folks are saying that if they don’t hear what they want to hear, they’ll go find someone else to tell them what they want to hear. Come on man! That’s wrong. Be a contrarian. There are tiny elements of truth in everything. You just have to think critically and find them. It’s ok to think for yourself. Really. Try it.
  • The single biggest story of the entire election should be the Hunter Biden laptop/emails. The allegations may or may not be true… I don’t really care. What’s important, and what should make you angry (if you’re being intellectually honest) is that the media, big tech, and possibly the FBI, actively suppressed a potential bombshell story at a critical time. A story that could very well have swung the election. The same media and tech giants that ran 24/7 for two years with vague Russian influence claims. We’re supposed to live in a society that values truth. We’re not supposed to be an authoritarian country that has state run media. I don’t care what side of the aisle you’re on, this should piss you off.
  • I’m not sure what to make of it, but Pat Sajak is getting angry. “Don’t!”, on a recent show Sajak yelled, “You won! Don’t argue, Darin!…You got the puzzle. Ungrateful players! I’ve had it!”
  • I give up. Obama won a Nobel prize for, I have no idea. May as well give Biden and Harris Time Person of the Year. For what? The man is a confused 80 year old who can’t get a coherent sentence out. He literally did not campaign, rarely leaving his basement. When he did appear in public it was in front of six people in weird crop circle things. His running mate, Harris, did not take a single question from the press during the campaign. I couldn’t find a single sentence in the very long Time piece describing why they picked these two for the cover. We get it, you didn’t like Trump.
  • Melinda Gates is “incredibly disappointed” that President Trump has put Americans first in line to receive the Wuhan coronavirus vaccine. A globalist who married her money, money earned from an American company (that I used to work for), lecturing the very country who drove development of the vaccine. The ego and lack of self-awareness of the these people amazes me sometimes.
  • If you like black and white portrait photography like I do, this is very cool. For eight years, photographer Lee Nye tended bar at Eddie’s Club and took 125 portraits of regulars. They’ve been put into a book with biographies of each patron.

Song of the day: Jeff Healey – “See The Light – Night Music 1988”