Not Yet!

Has it been that long?

2011-02-24T15:24:00.000-08:00

two plus years. yes, i'm still alive. barely. headaches-still got them. and now we add kidney stones to the mix. i've already passed a bunch of them. maybe the rest will come out on their own.

scooter club basically fizzled. Last spring i bought a bigger motorcycle, 1981 Yamaha Maxim 550. it was built by one of the guys that we ride with. he rebuilt it for his girlfriend. they split up and she kept the bike. rented a garage to store it in and never rode it again. Deb and i bought it, cleaned the carbs, eventually a new battery. i've put almost 4k miles on it in less than a year. it's a lot of fun and it makes the range alot bigger than we had on the scoots. i rode to Chelan/Manson several times. Lake Wenatchee once. Leavenworth, Cashmere, Monitor many times. we do a ride to Malaga, then over the mountain by Clear/Lily lakes and come down the Squilchuk canyon. nice ride. all paved. lots of twisties. this winter i've been building a 360 enduro. it was given to me by my neighbor. we had seen it in his back yard. you could just barely see the headlight from the street. it was the same color as my '73 Yamaha 175 enduro. Jerry and i were helping a neighbor clean up some storm debris and i asked him about the bike. he said it belonged to his son and he would talk to him about it. later that afternoon, i had taken a nap and when i woke up, Jerry had rolled it over and left it in the carport. the color of the headlight bucket was rust orange. rust being the word. it wasn't the same as mine, but a 72 360 with a rusty headlight.

it wasn't much to look at, you get what you pay for. and free isn't much. i played with it, and got it running. but it needed a seat and other parts. turned out, the seat is about the hardest used part to find for these bikes. i ended up buying a parts bike that has a rebuildable seat. i've stripped it down to the bare frame and have started the re-assembly. tires are on order, and a few parts from Yamaha. once done, i will sell the parts bike, hopefully for about what i have into it. anyone need a 1973 Yamaha RT3 360cc enduro? for parts?

guitar playing has been very limited. my son Rob and his family rented a cabin up Blewett Pass over the holidays and we drove up there everyday. it was very cold that week, near zero degrees F. so we spent most of the time in the cabin playing. that was a lot of fun. the kids got a guitar hero or whatever the version of that type of game for the Wii. it had the Beatles edition. of course, Big Lew knew all the words, all the songs. it was a lot of fun. sure impressed the grandkids.

i'll try to update this thing a little more often. oh, yeah. Rob and i took the sailboat up to Chelan for a few days just after Memorial Day weekend. we had the lake mostly to our selves. it rained and stormed something terrible. we went to Mitchell Creek and spent a couple days there. Rob caught one big squaw fish on the dock. only time we had the boat out last year. maybe this year will be conducive to sailing.

Fall '08

2008-10-17T19:46:00.000-07:00

Summer seemed like it was here and all of a sudden it's gone. Way too short. I've been working part time at Auto Electric Rebuilders. The old manager was let go, and the outside salesman that worked out of the local store was recruited to be the new manager. He still wanted to be able to make a sales call or two, and the owner agrees, so he asked me to come in and work a couple afternoons a week to help out. It doesn't pay alot, but anything is better than nothing.

The scooter club is in high gear, or at least was until the weather turned to cool and then cooler. We've been everywhere from Leavenworth to Waterville to Malaga. Sometimes its been just one other guy and myself and as many as five. We've actually had a total of eleven different people go on at least one ride. Some never heard of again. LOL.Most of the scoots are Hondas, a Spree, a couple of Metropolitans, a Rucus, and an MB5. the MB5 is not technically a scooter, but it is 50cc and he runs the same speed as everyone else. I have a Yamaha Vino, there's a Yamaha Zuma, and a couple Chinese made scooters. Nice looking the chinese scoots, but time will tell how well they hold up. they feel very cheaply made. You can get a new Chinese scoot 50cc for less than $1000 and a new Yamaha Vino 50cc was on sale today for about $2200.

Tomorrow we plan on riding the Stemilt Loop and out to the Clockum/Tarpiscan area. Once you get past Alcoa's plant, it's not much more than rocks and sagebrush. It should be a good ride. Oh, my little trip to the hospital ended up costing about $1300 per hour. Pretty good wages if you can get it.

Summer '08

2008-09-07T17:40:00.000-07:00

I turned 55 on Tuesday and was awoken by a phone call that my next older brother was in the hospital. nice birthday present, Allen (my brother). they kept him a couple days, did a colonoscopy, showed where the problem was. then sent him home. Deb was having a problem with a tooth, and she went to the dentist, he looked at it, said it was some infection. he cleaned it up and sent her home with some anti-biotics and pain medication. she was in so much pain, she took the pills every 2 hours instead of the recommended 4-6 hours. by Friday, she was one hurting girl. so i took her to the dentist again, and they shot her up getting her numb and said that should be good for a 4 hours. in two, she was in severe pain. i had fallen asleep on the couch, so she drove herself to the dentist. they did some more poking and prodding, and found the tooth had already had a root canal. he discovered that the root had broken off, and the infection was inside the root and the tooth. So they ended up pulling the tooth. Deb couldn't drive home, so Sue one of the office crew, drove her home.

if that wasn't enough, our son that lives in Baltimore area, and more directly involved, his wife, was induced to have our next grandchild. She got the labor inducing drug, but apparently, the baby likes it in there and doesn't want to come out. so they sent them home.

then last night, i went to bed about 9, (yeah, i know, it's a getting old kinda thing). by 10, i was in the most extreme pain I've ever had to endure.(almost worse than deb bring home another skein of yarn). i thought maybe it was something i ate, and kept getting out of bed, moving around, anything to re-leave the pain. at 11, i woke Deb up and said you have to take me to the hospital. it took about an hour before the drugs started to subdue the pain. they took my down for an MRI, and decided i have a kidney stone. after more pain reliever, and drugs to keep me from puking, they had me pee in a cup, and then sent us home. this morning I'm rummy from the drugs, and i passed a stone on my first trip to the bathroom. I'm still kind of woozy, but I'm okay.

i don't know if we could take another week like this one. I've gone sailing twice this summer. i went with Tim on Memorial day back in May. I took our boat out once, overnight to Lake Entiat. We'll probably have to sell the Catalina to pay for the expenses at the hospital last night. we just have to wait that one out and see what happens. With my headaches, i just don't feel good enough to go through the setup and tear down of the sailboat every time i want to go sailing. We haven't been able to find suitable moorage for a few years. so we'll sell it, and work on one of the other boats in the backyard, at least enough to go fishing.

2008-07-28T22:02:00.000-07:00

It's been a couple months since I've posted any thing. Alan is having such wonderful adventures, got the crabs, and caught some really nasty (but probably tasty) looking sea creatures. I've finally started back to work part time at Auto Electric Rebuilders. I worked there for about 3-4 years and quit due to my headaches. they had another change in management, and they made the outside salesman the store manager. He called me and asked if I'd be interested in working part time. That way they didn't have to train someone. The previous owner used to say he had to retrain the whole crew every Monday morning. go figure.

We had our grandson over for a couple weeks in July. He lives in Gig Harbor and i don't think they've seen the sun in years. the two weeks he was here, we barely had a cloud. and it was hot. above 90 degrees every day. He and i took Mems (our 22 Catalina sailboat-Memories) up to Lake Entiat for an evening sail. We got there, and Deb brought our dinner and we sailed out in front of Entiat Park using just the jib. We still got up to 4 mph. (The boat will only do about 5-6 mph). Deb went home, she had to work the next morning, so we spent the night on the boat. We stayed up till the wee hours giving each other math problems. He just got out of the 2nd grade, so we could only do addition and subtraction. we were having a good time and laughing. i came up with a question like: my boat is 22 feet. Tim's boat is 26 feet. how many rabbits in the hutch?

i laughed so hard. he tried 48. i laughed harder. when i finally got my wits about me, i told him that he couldn't answer the question because there wasn't enough information. then he tried to pull the same type of question on me. we had a great time.

Next morning, i woke up about 5:30 and went ashore to use the facilities. as i was walking up the ramp, some guys drove in and launched their boat. turned out they were from the Department of Agriculture. there job was to go out and fish for pike minnows (formerly known as squaw fish). we stood on the dock and talked for 15 minutes and Adam still had not woke up. they fired up the outboard and still he slept. they left and i decided i wanted to get Mem's back on the trailer and ready to head home, as i had to be at work by 1:00. So i cranked up the swing keel, took down the boom. still he slept. i backed the pickup down the ramp and loaded the boat on the trailer and still he slept. once on the level, i disconnected the trailer and shortened the tongue back to it's highway position. still asleep. pulled the rudder and got everything ready to drop the mast and finally he woke up. another ten minutes and the mast would have been down.

wish i could sleep through things like that.

the first part of July, we started a scooter club here in Wenatchee. if you're interested, go to the group website, http://www.wv49s.com/ the first paragraph was written by our fearless leader, Jerry, then he stuck on what i wrote after that. yesterday, it was just Jerry, Jeremy, and my own self on the ride. we rode up to Fancher Heights. we weren't sure Jerry's Honda Spree would make it up the hill, but he kept a steady 20 mph all the way to the top. on the website are pictures of our stop at tom, dick and harry's, a burger joint in Monitor. the thing to see is Jeremy's old Cushman scooter. it was built in 1960. long before the current owner was born. other than burning more oil than either of the two stroke engines, it runs great. we've had a total of six people show up for our rides, but we're hoping for more warm bodies to join us. by today's standard's it really isn't a scooter. we define a scoot as having a step through frame and totally automatic shifting, twist-n-go. The Cushman reminds me of the tote goats that were popular in the sixties. but the tote goat was never street legal. the cushman is. i asked Jeremy why Cushmman got into the scooter business and the story is that they needed to sell their engines and this was a good way to do it. Cushman made several different models, including the three wheeled vehicle that was commonly used by Rita, meter maid.

boy, i wish i could have seen Ringo.....

Where or where, are you tonight?

2008-05-22T22:29:00.000-07:00

Alan said...
Out of blog ideas already?

Alan said...
Did your computer breakdown?

A couple of common tater thoughts from my friend Alan. and of course as soon as i do get around to posting something, where is he? he knows me well enough to know that, yes, my head is probably empty of ideas, but no, my computer is not broke down. We have plenty of other computers if this one did go on the fritz. He'll catch up with my posts and give me a hard time, i can hear it already. He's probably out cat fishing, or traveling round the world, or maybe actually working for a living...i think there's a song in there that i used to play.

Memorial Day weekend is upon us. We're planning on taking the sailboat up to Lake Chelan on Monday, the Lake Chelan Sailing Association is having an impromptu club sail. My buddy TC finally got his boat to float again. They draw the lake down in the winter time, and usually start bringing it up about the middle of April. last winter they drew the lake down farther than normal, and we didn't get the boat out of the marina. So it sat in the mud since the middle of January. the water has come up over four feet in the last week, and he was finally able to get the boat to deeper water. he called to tell me he was out on the lake, with the wind at 20-25 miles per hour, and loving it. Can't wait to get Mem's (short for Memories) back in the water. think about how much water that is. four feet for fifty five miles by two miles wide! now that's a cool drink of water.

you met another and phht you was gone....

It runs downhill...

2008-05-15T21:51:00.000-07:00

I was just reading in Alan's common tater section (talking about his post of coming to the apple blossom parade) about someone that had been in a marching band and that usually they got stuck behind a horse unit in whatever parade. One year they got lucky and were in front of the horses. Except in the staging area, they were downhill from the horses. It runs downhill...

So here goes my story---in 1994, i was blessed to have a part in the musical production, The Music Man. I played Jacey Squires, who owned the livery stable, and was a member of the school board. In the play, the four members of the school board are formed into a barbershop quartet. Alan won't believe this but i sang the tenor part. High tenor that is. had a wonderful time.

Of course whenever people that have done The Music Man, and there have been thousands, the story was told about a production that had a live horse pulling the Wells Fargo Wagon delivering the band instruments. The horse would pull the wagon across the stage with the wagon still on stage so Professor Harold Hill can pass out the new instruments. On this particular night, the gelding did his duty. and it ran downhill. which meant right into the orchestra pit. and there was nothing the musicians could do. the show must go on. that would be a tough act to follow.

chinese Labor camp

2008-05-15T16:33:00.000-07:00

I've wanted to see this cache since the first time it came up on the website. it is just too cool. i hiked in about the hardest way you can think of, but it was worth it. here's the link to the geocache:

http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?guid=a1973700-3ba0-4499-a057-b0fdd0d3082e

Coming back, we followed the jeep trail back to the railroad tracks, and met a rattlesnake. He didn't really take to us very well, and vice versa. We steered clear of each other and all is well. My dad and i used to fish in the little lake below the tracks. . This picture shows the rock cut where we met the snake, and i was very nervous about meeting a train in there. We met one just after we got out of the rock cut, and it was really interesting that you could here the rails buzzing quite some time before the train arrived. if i had done a little more exploring with the truck on the jeep trails, i could have driven within a 100 yards or so of the shelters. Actually i was already within a 100yards, but also at least that much vertically. oh well, i need the exercise.

Apparently, the Chinese were working for the railroad digging the rock cut, and the tunnel. they built several of these shelters, although only the one still exists. More information about the historical side, along with more pictures can be found on the above website. You can visualize the size of the igloo by the picture of Mate, the wonder Beagle standing inside.

Excuses, excuses...

2008-02-23T17:45:00.000-08:00

I've started three or four posts, but never liked the way they turned out. So, I’ll start another one and see where it goes. One of my main hobbies in my life has been boats, I’ll start there. we'll see if I can get in a picture or two onto the page. my sailing experience started with Tom Feil, son of Bob Feil that owns Bob Feil Boats & Motors, http://www.bobfeil.com/, which is where I worked. Tom took me out on a Hobie 14. there wasn't much wind, but enough to move the boat. I was thrilled. a few years later, I and another employee went in as partners and bought a busted up Buccaneer 18. We fixed the boat, trailer and bought a new mast . We borrowed a small kicker motor, and I took my family out on the mighty Columbia. I got the motor running and the Mrs. was minding the tiller and our four kids. I wasn't paying attention and one of the halyards fell into the water and eventually fouled the prop. that's when the motor quit. I tried to get the line out of the prop, but the breeze blew us over to shore. Deb, being the able first mate, jumped into the waist deep water to hold the boat off the rocks. I eventually got the line out, and the motor restarted. We got the sails up, ventured out across the deep waters a few times, and then headed home. My partner never did take the boat out, although I encouraged him to do so. We put the boat up for sale, and no takers. Not even a nibble. we advertised most of that summer. We eventually had one guy call but he never showed. We finally decided to advertise in the big city, Seattle. The morning the ad came out, we got a call and the guy said he'd take it if it was as good as we said. He drove over the mountains the next morning and paid cash. We were out of the sail boat business for good. Or so I thought...(the pic is of a similar boat).

the next boat, was a Hobie 10 Monocat. It was a plastic, not fiberglass hull and not a catamaran. The boat was given to me by a guy that lives in Los Angeles. He grew up in our town, and their family had a cabin at Lake Chelan. He would call me and I’d get the boat out of storage, clean it up, and take it up to the lake, tie it off at his dock, he'd call when he was leaving, and we'd go pick up the boat---about an 18' Fiberform. We did this for about five years and I never met the man face to face. The last time he had called, I told him that the lake was closed to boating. How do they close a lake that's 55 miles long. Forest fires, that's how. There was a major fire at this end of the lake, and the Forest Service was using a plane that scoops water and then dumps it on the fire. I guess the Forest Service didn't want to scoop up a Bayliner and drop that on the fire. I had his boat here at the house all ready to go. when he called, he didn't believe me about the closure. I told him to call the FS or the Chamber of Commerce in Chelan, and then call me when/if he was coming up. He called and said they would take their vacation elsewheres that year. We got to talking, and he said there was a small sailboat that nobody uses anymore and would I be interested. he said that someone had turned the boat over in the lake and had lost a few parts. Would I be interested? I said I’d be interested if the price wasn't too high, and if I could still get the needed parts. We talked for a while, and he decided just take it. So now I owned another sailboat. (Can't find a pic, sorry.) We sailed that little boat all over the place. Probably the funest little boat I’ve owned. We had it out on Lake Entiat, my son David was on the boat. We launched on the west shore without too much wind. But when he got over to the Douglas County side, it was blowing a gale. The boat kept capsizing on him. He'd right the boat, and sail a little ways, then blow over again. On his last attempt to right the craft, the center board snapped in half, bloodied up his nose, and now he can't sail it anymore. Luckily a powerboater, aka, stinkpot, gas guzzling wake maker; towed him back to shore. And that was the last sail for the 10'.

Next came a Capri 14.2. The Capri line is built by Catalina, a well known builder. We picked this one up used. My youngest daughter, her best friend and I took the boat out from Lincoln Rock State Park. We tacked back and forth upriver for a couple hours. Then the wind died. We ended up paddling back to the dock. It was the only trip the best friend ever had with us. I learned that even small boats should have some kind of kicker motor. The wind dies with a severe degree of regularity here in central Washington. Here is a pic of the 14.2 at Antilon Lake, a little man-made irrigation reservoir above Lake Chelan.
We used the boat for sailing, but more for fishing. My wife, loves to fish. I’d rather sail. But it’s an old saying in the boat business, that the wife buys the boat she likes. The guy is just glad to get any boat, and so it was with us. We’d trailer our boat up here, and do a lot of fishing, and I’d get to sail if I was lucky. All that changed. I met a guy that had a small Chrysler Mutineer, about 16’. We decided to go sailing the next Saturday if the conditions weren’t too bad. So we met at Lake Chelan the next Saturday and sailed on the first weekend in November. The temp was in the low 60’s. My wife fell in love with sailing. Very little wind, just enough to ghost us along. That’s exactly what I wanted. We kept that boat for a couple years and sold it to a nice couple that lives on Twin Lakes in northern Idaho.
The next boat we still have. It is a Catalina 22. Not too big, but small enough I can tow it with the Toyota pickup, 4 cylinder engine that we have. It is big enough to sleep on and has a table, and porta pottie. We’ve had many a fun time on this craft. The first few years, we moored at one of the marina on Lake Chelan, Ship and Shore. (As a side note, the building that houses the burger stand on the property was the original building at Stevens Pass ski area.) Next door, in the Chelan Marina, was an old coot, named Tim. He bought a Catalina 25 that has been in the lake since the day it was new. Somehow I invited myself along on his first voyage and we’ve been friends ever since. To wrap this up, I bought a 18 O’Day Daysailor for a song, and sailed it a little bit and sold it to a couple college kids in Tacoma. Tim owned the 25’ Catalina for a few years, bought and sold a couple smaller boats, and then bought a 26’ Capri. The 26 is a wonderful boat. It has a beam of about 10’. And it has a head, as opposed to a pottie. The sad part of the story is that the 26’ sank in the middle of January last year, 2007. He forgot to drain the engine and close the sea cocks. We’d had some cold temperatures around new years, but it took a couple weeks to get above freezing. Once it did, the sea strainer had froze and broke sending the boat to the “bottom” of Lake Chelan. In some places, this is one of the deepest lakes in our country, but it was only about 15’ at that time in the marina. Plenty of water to sink it. We went up and with the help of the Chelan barge and it’s crane, we got the boat floating again. We spent the next week cleaning up the engine and every thing else. Zip ahead one year. Tim left the 26’ in the marina again, except this time the water has been drawn down to a point where it is sitting in the mud. He and I went up last week to see if we could get it out to deeper water. His theory was that if we could tip the boat over a ways, that would raise the keel, and we could float it out on it’s side. We got her over as far as the gunnel, and the keel was still in the mud. Hopeless. I knew that as soon as I saw the boat, I was pretty sure it wasn’t going anywhere. To make matter worse, there is a pipe laying on the bottom just behind the slip that carries gas to the gas pump out on the outermost dock. The lake level won’t be up until about the first of May, at least up enough to float the boat over that gas line.

Well, here we are at the 15th of May and the water is still not up. The weather is finally warming up, and that should help get the lake level up. currently, it is still lower than when we tried to tip it on to its side. Pray for the runoff to start.

What I Have Done, Instead of what have i done

2008-01-06T15:51:00.000-08:00

I'll pick up on Alan's post, who had picked up on Dave's post who had picked up on Lisa's post. those in bold are the things i have done.

What I have done?
01. Bought everyone in the bar a drink
02. Swam with wild dolphins
03. Climbed a mountain
04. Taken a Ferrari for a test drive (Ferrari tractor!)
05. Been inside the Great Pyramid
06. Held a tarantula
07. Taken a candlelit bath with someone
08. Said “I love you” and meant it
09. Hugged a tree
10. Bungee jumped
11. Visited Paris
12. Watched a lightning storm at sea
13. Stayed up all night long and saw the sun rise
14. Seen the Northern Lights
15. Gone to a huge sports game (Mariners, Seahawks, & Baltimore O's)
16. Walked the stairs to the top of the leaning Tower of Pisa
17. Grown and eaten your own vegetables
18. Touched an iceberg
19. Slept under the stars
20. Changed a baby’s diaper
21. Taken a trip in a hot air balloon
22. Watched a meteor shower
23. Gotten drunk on champagne
24. Given more than you can afford to charity
25. Looked up at the night sky through a telescope
26. Had an uncontrollable giggling fit at the worst possible moment (a friend was telling the story of his cat that was killed, named Lucky, I lost it)
27. Had a food fight
28. Bet on a winning horse
29. Asked out a stranger
30. Had a snowball fight
31. Screamed as loudly as you possibly can
32. Held a lamb
33. Seen a total eclipse
34. Ridden a roller coaster
35. Hit a home run
36. Danced like a fool and didn’t care who was looking
37. Adopted an accent for an entire day
38. Actually felt happy about your life, even for just a moment
39. Had two hard drives for your computer
40. Visited all 50 states
41. Taken care of someone who was drunk
42. Had amazing friends (and you know who you are)
43. Danced with a stranger in a foreign country
44. Watched whales
45. Stolen a sign
46. Backpacked in Europe
47. Taken a road-trip
48. Gone rock climbing
49. Midnight walk on the beach
50. Gone sky diving
51. Visited Ireland
52. Been heartbroken longer than you were actually in love
53. In a restaurant, sat at a stranger’s table and had a meal with them
54. Visited Japan
55. Milked a cow
56. Alphabetized your CDs
57. Pretended to be a superhero
58. Sung karaoke
59. Lounged around in bed all day
60. Played touch football
61. Gone scuba diving
62. Kissed in the rain
63. Played in the mud (yeah, I live in the Pacific Northwest)
64. Played in the rain
65. Gone to a drive-in theater
66. Visited the Great Wall of China
67. Started a business
68. Fallen in love and not had your heart broken
69. Toured ancient sites
70. Taken a martial arts class
71. Played D&D for more than 6 hours straight
72. Gotten married
73. Been in a movie
74. Crashed a party
75. Gotten divorced
76. Gone without food for 5 days
77. Made cookies from scratch
78. Won first prize in a costume contest
79. Ridden a gondola in Venice
80. Gotten a tattoo
81. Rafted the Snake River
82. Been on television news programs as an “expert”
83. Gotten flowers for no reason
84. Performed on stage
85. Been to Las Vegas
86. Recorded music
87. Eaten shark
88. Kissed on the first date
89. Gone to Thailand
90. Bought a house
91. Been in a combat zone
92. Buried one/both of your parents (sadly, both…)
93. Been on a cruise ship
94. Spoken more than one language fluently
95. Performed in Rocky Horror
96. Raised children
97. Followed your favorite band/singer on tour
98. Passed out cold
99. Taken an exotic bicycle tour in a foreign country
100. Picked up and moved to another city to just start over
101. Walked the Golden Gate Bridge
102. Sang loudly in the car, and didn’t stop when you knew someone was looking
103. Had plastic surgery
104. Survived an accident that you shouldn’t have survived (water skiing)
105. Wrote articles for a large publication
106. Lost over 100 pounds
107. Held someone while they were having a flashback
108. Piloted an airplane
109. Touched a stingray
110. Broken someone’s heart
111. Helped an animal give birth
112. Won money on a T.V. game show
113. Broken a bone
114. Gone on an African photo safari
115. Had a facial part pierced other than your ears
116. Fired a rifle, shotgun, or pistol
117. Eaten mushrooms that were gathered in the wild
118. Ridden a horse
119. Had major surgery, twice
120. Had a snake as a pet
121. Hiked to the bottom of the Grand Canyon
122. Slept for more than 30 hours over the course of 48 hours
123. Visited more foreign countries than U.S. states
124. Visited all 7 continents
125. Taken a canoe trip that lasted more than 2 days
126. Eaten kangaroo meat
127. Eaten sushi
128. Had your picture in the newspaper
129. Changed someone’s mind about something you care deeply about
130. Gone back to school
131. Parasailed
132. Touched a cockroach
133. Eaten fried green tomatoes
134. Read The Iliad - and the Odyssey
135. Selected one “important” author who you missed in school, and read
136. Killed and prepared an animal for eating (do fish count?)
137. Skipped all your school reunions
138. Communicated with someone without sharing a common spoken language
139. Been elected to public office
140. Written your own computer language
141. Thought to yourself that you’re living your dream
142. Had to put someone you love into hospice care
143. Built your own PC from parts
144. Sold your own artwork to someone who didn’t know you
145. Had a booth at a street fair
146. Dyed your hair
147. Been a DJ
148. Shaved your head
149. Caused a car accident (do fender benders count?)
150. Saved someone’s life
151. Delivered a baby (our youngest daughter)

So that's it. the biggest things have been getting married and raising four wonderful kids, getting to know their spouses, and grandkids. we just found out we have number nine (number nine, number nine, number nine, number nine...) on the way, we just found out yesterday. Playing in the best rock band in town (big fish in a small pond), performed in the musical Music Man. Sang in a barbershop quartet. Rebuilt many outboard engines. So, what's left to do?

Learn to play guitar-Alan & Lewy version

2008-01-02T12:26:00.000-08:00

Alan & I met in kindergarten. I don't remember too much about that. I can't remember what I had for dinner last night, so not remembering kindergarten almost fifty years ago is not a huge surprise. My next older brother, Allen, bought an electric guitar, a GE, for about $35 as i remember. I had goofed around on it slightly, but couldn't do much. When the Beatles came along, Allen, my brother bought one of their first albums and I was hooked. Alan, not my brother, had bought a different Beatles album and eventually we found we both liked the Beatles. We somehow communicated that we both had access to electric guitars. We had to get together. I played my brother's GE and I don't remember what I had for an amp. We may have shared the amp that Alan, not my brother, had. I don't remember what he had for a guitar, but I kind of remember a blond colored Alamo amp.

Soon, I learned to pick the melody in first position to the song, Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite. Alan, not my brother, was blown away. The next time we got together, he had learned some melody or new chord. It went back and forth. Also, Alan, not my brother, had bought Beadle song books. These books show the melody with a piano accompaniment, and to our benefit, the guitar chord symbols. We would play the chords we knew and when we came to a "new" chord, we'd stop and learn to bend our fingers around to match the black dots on the symbol. It took some time to get your fingers just right but soon we'd learned a new chord.

We'd play the songs that had the chords we could play. A lot of the early Beatle songs were just three chord rock & roll. We got proficient in the keys of G, D, and A. And I mean we could play the major chords in those keys.

G-G, C, D

D-D, G, A

A-A, D, E

We would start at the beginning of the song book, and play the songs that had these chords. But much to our dismay, many songs have other chords. But a lot of R&R are just three chords, that's why they are known as three chord rock and roll. Twist and Shout would be an example of three chord R&R. Except it is written in the key of C, which uses the chord F, which we couldn't play. We would pass on Twist and Shout in the key of C and find a song we could play and which I could sing. We were soon having a lot of fun playing the 3-4 songs in the book that could be played with the easy chords. Before long, we wanted to try something a little more complicated, so we would try a song, say Tell Me Why, which is in the key of G. It goes, G, Em, C, D. To play the Em we would stop and we'd both struggle to find the fingering of the chord. And we'd play it over and over, usually stopping at the new chord, till one of us had it "fingered" out. Eventually, we learned every song in the sharp keys. Luckily, most guitar players write their songs in the sharp keys.

Because the song books are written for piano pickers, most of the songs are written in flat keys. B flat, E flat, A flat, and so forth. But we realized that if we took E flat, for example, if we dropped done 1/2 step, the song would be in the key of D. And we could play in D. So back through the book we went, finding all the songs in E flat. We taught ourselves to transpose. We also learned a lot of music theory. If C is called the 1 chord, then F would be the 4 chord and G would be the 5 chord. Now if we decided to play the song in G, then G becomes the 1 chord, C becomes the 4 chord and D becomes the 5 chord. Later, we learned that this is referred to as Nashville notation. If you write a song in one key, and the singer can't sing it in that key, it's very easy to adjust the key.
Now, I have to explain how we learned rhythm. Actually I can't tell you how we learned to strum the strings. It just came natural to both of us and I don't remember having to discuss how to strum, so you're on your own in that department.
I've mentioned that F was a difficult chord to learn. In the root position (next to the nut) it takes four fingers to play it. So we pretty much stayed away from anything with F in it. Somewhere Alan came up the idea of bar chords. Bar chords. This is where you lay you first finger all the way across the fret board and play the form of an E chord (or A) with your remaining three fingers. Depending on which fret your first finger is on, determines the chord. first fret=F. Third fret=G. now we could play any major chord. and most minor chords are just changing one note. Knowing all major and minor chords, you can pretty much play any rock and roll song ever written.
So, there you have it. How to play guitar, the Alan & Lewy version. Did I mention that there were literally years between our first guitar playing session and the point where we were playing bar chords. I've showed guys that were just learning to play, and would usually start them off learning E, Em, A and Am. But only using that last three fingers. Much easier and quicker. Oh, and playing guitar hurts. At least at first it does. The more you play, the calluses build up on your finger tips and then it doesn't hurt. Also, my first guitar, the GE, the strings were about a mile off the fretboard. Later I got a used Fender Musicmaster and the strings were about 1/16 off the frets. I had a lot of bad habits to un-learn.

If I've left anything out, Alan will let us know and correct us.

Not Yet

2007-12-31T21:09:00.001-08:00

If you've found my new blog---wonderful. If you haven't---sucks to be you. I guess for the first post, I should explain Not Yet. In a previous life I drove transit bus for a living. One of the conversation starters that I used with my "guests”, was to ask them what brought them to our wonderful corner of the planet. I'd always use the example that my dad was heading west after his duty in WW2, that's world war two for you generation Xer's. He and his brother ran out of money, and had to go to work, and both of them spent the remainder of their days in beautiful central Washington State. So the inevitable question always came back to me---and here it comes---well, have you lived here all your life? And my answer is always---not yet.

For those of you that actually read my first post, I decided that it was too long and kind of rambled here and there. So I'm cutting it down, and will use the rest in additional posts.