September 20th, 2009



This was created the same day as the LGW Blues recording. A lot of what comes out of my amp is just off the cuff - kind of let it fly attitude. And this is what flew. You will also hear one of my Flangers at work here also. It is the Electro Harmonix one, Something I have had with me since about the 4th year of Playing Guitar.

September 19th. 2009



This has been something that I have been after for a very long time. For one reason or another, it never took place. That now thankfully is in the past.

I recorded this on the 18th of September. This was on the second day of jamming after about a 3 year hiatus from the Guitar, It wasn't that I didn't want to play, it just kept getting placed on the back burner. The Guitar that I am using is an Ibanez, which is about 5 years old. It hasn't been played nearly enough, but hopefully that will change.

The other Electric guitar I have is A Royal Artist. This Ibanez weighs easily twice as much as the Royal artist, but the royal artist is a semi hollow body, where the Ibanez is a solid body Guitar. The Solid body is like a totally different beast in so many ways, but mainly the rigidity of the guitar is what I find is the biggest difference, The hollow body flexes some what in the relationship with the neck of the guitar as your playing and adds a whole different element to the guitar and what you can do with it as you play. I haven't ever tried to manipulate the neck on this one. I don't think it would do me much good.

I hijack this blog for my own self serving interest, ok, ... maybe I haven't done it in a while But this is something I need to work out - Tripods.




As you may or may not know I have a photoblog. And as such, I take a lot of Images. Some good, some great, but some are an amazing disappointment. I shall show some examples and try to figure out why what happened happened.


These first four images are taken at night or late dusk. I used a tripod on them as I did the last image that went wrong. I was careful with all the shots, took my time, double and triple checked my settings, carefully pushed the shutter, and with some very little cropping - success:










This is not the result I was hoping for - Blurry, almost out of focus. Something was moving when this photo was shot - But what? I set the tripod on top of my car, parked. The tripod appeared to be still. I took my time, set up the shot very carefully slowly pushed the shutter button - But this was the end result:



What was the difference?

The tripod. I used the round black tripod on the first four shots. A small, but extremely stable tripod that allowed for some freedom as far as moving the camera into the angle I wanted. It was really the first time I had used it. It used to belong to my mother. In fact all 3 of these I inherited from her. The problem with the last shot I do believe is I used the black very adjustable 3 legged tripod. It is basically a flexible wire setup and very easy to get the camera to the angle I need for the shot, but I believe the end result screams at me - lose the tripod. I'll hang onto it for day shots, maybe, but no more night shots with that puppy. (by the way, there were 4 other shots taken with that same flexible tripod I had to literally throw away. They were much worse than what I displayed here.)

August 8th, 2008

This was a interesting start to another grave yard shift at this crazy AM-PM Store I worked at a while back. As I walked in the store, there were 3 sheriff's that were very excited and a Cashier that was besides herself with excitement. I clocked in and started asking questions.

The cashier started to fill me in. She had been robbed, probably 45 minutes before I got there. There were 3 guys and each of them had ran out with two "suitcases" of beer under each arm. I think it contained 24 cans of beer in each "suitcase".





Needless to say, it was a lot of beer going out the front door with out being paid for. The Store manager showed up about then. Luckily, the store didn't have any customers right then.

One of the guys had jumped over the retaining wall to the parking lot next door.





About then the Store Manager and one of the cops needed to talk to the cashier. I had a few brief customers and then had a chance to talk to the Cashier's Husband, who was waiting to give his wife a ride home.

Hopefully, the images show how on one side of the wall, facing the AM - PM is about two feet high. At the Time, the other side of the wall was about 6 feet high. The parking lot on the opposite side has been regraded and is only about four feet tall now. But then it was quite a difference in height.

So this one thief decided to take a short cut jumping over the wall with about 20 extra lbs of liquid in two large, hard to handle, cases of beer. He then apparently landed entirely wrong on the other side of the wall with the 6 foot drop and broke the thigh bone in one of his legs. The other two guys jumped in their get away car and sped off, leaving their partner in crime writhing in pain, of course after picking up his stolen beer as well.

The husband had jumped over the wall in chase and saw the whole thing go down. He said he had never seen such happy cops as they loaded the guy in an ambulance and hauled him off. The thief had asked the husband to help him get away before the cops showed up. He had to inform the thief that he had just robbed his wife and that He wasn't going to do anything till the cops showed up. The husband was also able to give the license plate of the getaway car.