The birds were singing in every tree

I bought a Playstation3 a little while back. It came with Uncharted: Drake's Fortune. I have already completed the game and found it to be decent, but not nearly as great as everyone says. I would give it about a 6.5 to a 7....whereas it is usually rated at 9+. The "plot twist" toward the end of the game just felt totally unnecessary and silly. The controls were sluggish and enemies would shoot at you from SO far away when you can just barely see them. Oh well. I might play the second one, but I will want to play a demo first to see if they fixed the controls issue.

I already have a decent list of ps3 games I want to play. skate, Assassin's Creed, Demon's Souls, Borderlands, and inFamous are on that list right now. Erin and I borrowed Little Big Planet from my brother, so we will be playing that a bit right now. It seems a little simplistic right now, but at the same time, seems like it could really widen up.

I finished the guitar neck I had been working on with tru-oil. I really like the feel of it and the satin finish I got by rubbing it down with #0000 steel wool after rubbing on several coats of the oil. I also got a pair of guitar bridges (one of them will go on the body I have been working on) and drilled the installation holes in the body for them. I started to put a coat of clear poly over the painted body, but it wasn't taking it too well. While removing (again with #0000 steel wool) the poly, I wound up sanding through the paint that I wanted to keep...so I think that body is as finished as it will be. I'll have to scuff the whole thing down and repaint it -- at least this way I can smooth a bunch of smaller things out and hide my repairs better...I will string the body up and play it acoustically for a little before I commit to making a pickguard and figuring out pickups/electronics for it.

Christmas wasn't bad. Erin surprised me by buying me a new skateboard. It is this one. We went to her grandparents' ranch on Christmas day, spent the night there, then drove to Katy for the day after and then back to Austin that evening. Then we woke up early to go to San Antonio to go to the zoo/visit my brother. Erin had her other 2 wisdom teeth out Monday and I had to go back to work on Tuesday. My new skateboard is pretty nice, though. I REALLY needed new trucks, and I really noticed the difference while I was riding a bit at my parents' house.

CUSTOM CARS AND CYCLES!

I hate those cd commercials where that guy yells at you about some "HOT NEW ALBUM". If I wanted to be shouted at, I would buy everything from street vendors or some shit like that.

I really want a bulldog. I want to try to teach it to skate. I wish I had thought about that before Erin donated that skateboard to goodwill... I want to name it Schrodinger...or maybe Oppenheimer. If we get a second, it will take the other name.

I've been steadily working on a guitar neck. It's getting closer to being done. I basically need to try to see how much it really needs a level and crown (I did the fretwork this past weekend) then I need to carve the back. That has me a little nervous, because I am so close to being done. I'm also working on shaping a nut out of a bone I bought at the pet store. I paid $5 for a huge bone I can cut probably 20 nuts out of, or I could have paid $5 per nut blank from a guitar parts supplier...dumb question.

I'm currently reading The Terror by Dan Simmons. I think I'm about 1/3 of the way through it and like it so far. It's not really scary...but it is odd in a mildly unsettling way. I might read The Raw Shark Texts next (Erin's dad gave it to me) or I might go on to Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. I've been kind of "saving" that one, but I'm worried I might have drawn it out too far and hyped it too high...

I can tell you how it feels to be a gypsy...

Erin and I have our 7th anniversary today. 7 years seems like such a long time, but I think we're just as happy as ever. We're going to Z Tejas for dinner tonight to celebrate. This has been a busy semester for her, and I've had some pretty late nights recently, but we've still found a decent amount of time to spend together.

I'm of mixed feelings about the change in the weather. I used to love the cold weather times. I like wearing sweaters and stuff, but I never really got TOO cold, so it was pretty much ideal...however, the cold has been affecting me more and more over the last few years. This winter, in particular, has been very cold for me...I think some of it may be due to the fact that I've lose about 40 pounds...so my bodyfat content is probably significantly lower than it was before. I still like wearing sweaters and stuff, though.

I finished that neck prototype and have begun building my "final copy". It is kind of nerve-wracking due to the fact that it is pretty nice looking lumber. I managed to center one nice ambrosia streak down the center of the fretboard for effect. I hope I don't make any mistakes that won't be fixable. My router table sucks, so some of the shaping was a bit rough. I didn't have any major tearout, though, and have sanded most of what came up. So far, I've just routed the outline shape as well as the truss rod cavity. I might post some pictures of that process, the jigs I use, and the such, for documentation purposes.

I am expecting a delivery for many of the remaining parts that will make up the guitar, but I still have no idea what pickups I plan to use. I will probably just wind something myself at first and decide later if I want to change them. Additionally, I'm unsure about pickguard material...I bought some vinyl tile that I will use temporarily...can't beat 88 cents. I might go with some plain black garolite, but I feel this guitar might call for something a little flashier -- perhaps black pearl pickguard, or even brown tortoise, but that gets pretty pricey...which is silly because it's just a sheet of plastic.

Dear sir, I write this note to you to tell you of me plight

I've done a bit more work on that guitar body. I routed out the neck pocket and the swimming pool pickup route. I may need to deepen the swimming pool route, but I can do that later. As far as the body is concerned, I just need to drill holes for the bridge mounting cups and finish the finishing process. I will probably try to go for a nice shiny surface.

I built started on a prototype of the neck, as well. It is really really wide, but I think I'll like it. So far, I shaped the neck, thicknessed the headstock, drilled holes for the tuners, routed for the truss-rod, and drilled access holes for the truss rod. Still to do would be to fit the truss rod, plug the headstock hole, sand the transition, shape and install the skunk stripe, cut fret slots, shape the back of the neck, radius the front, then install frets and finish. For the prototype, because it is made of pine (not good for stability/sturdiness) I won't do everything. I won't install all of the frets, I won't install a truss rod, but I should do everything else, just to make sure that the new shape doesn't throw any new challenges.

I have some progress pictures of the body.

This one shows the back of the body with the tremolo route filled with a bit of mahogany.

From Strat/Mustang

This one shows the front of the body with the front bit of the trem route filled with mahogany. I've also cut the swimming pool route and the neck pocket.

From Strat/Mustang

This one shows the front of the body with the mustang-style tremolo plate installed, the yellow is a posterboard template for the pickguard I want to use, and the neck is actually only the neck template, as I hadn't started the prototype neck yet.

From Strat/Mustang

I ran 3 miles the day before yesterday. I really got into a good pace and probably could have run 2 more, but I was bored. I know I finished them somewhere between 20 and 26 minutes, but that's just because I know it was 6:02 before I changed into my shorts and it was 6:28 when I got back...also, I can't imagine that I ran my third mile faster than 6:30, as that's how fast I usually run my first mile...

She dances in a photograph...but that was yesterday

I've been working a bit more this past couple of weeks, which has made running a bit more difficult. I've tried to keep it to at least 3 days a week, but I would prefer to get it back up to 4 or 5 days a week. My hasn't been improving like it had been; I think I've hit a wall in that regard. Speed was never really my goal, anyhow, so I'm not really frustrated or anything.

I made a template for my guitar's neck pocket, made a heel to match it, designed the neck from there and drew out a headstock. From there, I made a template for the headstock. Now I just need to make the neck template, route the body, make the neck, then proceed. I may toss up some pictures at some point, but I'm just so bad at photographing my projects....

Erin and I have seen a few movies lately... Inglourious Basterds was really really good, District 9 was also very good. 9, however, was disappointing (for me, at least). I felt that the story and animation were lacking. The concepts, however, were great...

There are a bunch of other movies I want to see, but a lot of them are too "scary" for Erin to watch...so I may have to wait until they're out on video or something, I guess.

As I was going over the far-famed Kerry mountains

Another long time between posts...

I've been running at about the same pace (down as low as 13:20 for 1.96 miles...but usually around 13:30-13:50). Trying to run and ensure I do it at least 3-4 times a week. I've slipped a few times because work has been hectic and we've been swimming a lot on the weekends (because I like to swim at the bottom, my ears hurt and a few days later, I get sinus headaches...ear infection?). I'm happy with my weight and my exercise, though, so I'm just trying to keep it from feeling like a chore.

I've been reading quite a lot lately. Mostly Stephen King (I found that the Dark Tower series ended [well, it ended in 2004, but the last time I checked was way before then] and had always wanted to read it...so I've started that), but I also picked up one other book: Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke. I was immediately drawn to the fact that the book appeared old. It was a hardback edition, and the dustjacket is a thin paper over plastic; the paper bends and gets distressed easily while the plastic gives it structure. The pages are also rough-cut. I knew immediately that it wasn't new because Half Price Books had 4 copies that appeared to be in nearly the same condition, but with different distressing on the sleeves (same type, but different locations). I opened the book to find that it was printed in 2004. I probably would have bought it anyway based solely on the cover (I have judged books by their covers since I began reading and it has almost never done me wrong), as it was a fantasy book (which is probably my favorite genre) but the little blurb on the inside cover sounded good, so I definitely had to pick it up. I'll try to remember to review it once I've read it (which might be after The Dark Tower...I'm a little more than halfway through book 2 of 7).

I've had some luck with guitar neck building. I think my processes and techniques are all in a row, except for fret slotting. I have an idea, but have been consumed with another project. Artie gave me a strat body a long time back (along with the neck I put on my thinline I built) but it was in pretty poor shape. The neck pocket is uneven and poorly cut, the trem route was NOWHERE NEAR being square with the centerline, but I painted it a really nice color... I've opted to patch the trem route with a bit of mahogany I picked up at WoodCraft. I will be installing a trem spring cover on the back like a strat (but it will have to be oversized to cover the patch, which I didn't paint) and I will install a Fender Mustang bridge/trem unit (primarily because it covers the patch on the front of the body. I'll probably wind up routing this one with a swimming pool route (so I can swap pups as I see fit) but I'm not getting too ahead of myself. The trem unit still needs to be routed. Once that's in place, I'll draw off a center line and figure out the neck pocket. Assuming I can make something work, I'll build a neck from my piece of ambrosia maple (probably 24" scale length or something a little smaller, just for fun and because I don't want to BUY a shortscale, but I've always wanted to at least try one out). I plan to install a black pickguard, maybe black pup covers and black knobs, but that might be too much black. We'll see.

I've been really tired the last few mornings, despite getting a decent number of hours of sleep. It's quite unfortunate.

If I could open my mouth...

I haven't updated in over a month. Oh well.

Haven't really been up to that much. I've still been running. I've gotten my time down to below 14 minutes. I've also measured the distance and it is about 1.96 miles...not terrible.

Guitar building has been going slowly, and I still haven't done a "real" neck yet. I'm too worried of screwing up, I guess. I've got a stack of pine necks that I'm working on right now. So far, they're roughly cut to shape. I need to cut fret slots, drill some holes, plug the skunk stripe and sand a transition, also shape the fretboard. Then it's the part I really like: spokeshave! The fret slots are the only part I'm still worried about. I really need to figure that one out well...otherwise the whole thing is just pointless. I have a few ideas, but I might wind up spending some money to buy a fret miter box.

Work is fine. Our office moved to a mostly-cubicle environment from a mostly-office environment. In a way, it's nicer, because I have my own "space"...I used to share an office with another guy on the team; in another way, though, that space is less private (you can hear conversations from a few rows over with relative ease). However, the thing I really like is that our teams feel (to me, at least) a bit more cohesive. Not only do we sit in little cube areas, but the teams we interact with most tend to be in the areas bordering ours...so things feel a bit more effective, in that way. Plus, the new building is a lot nicer than the old one.

I think I had a sinus infection earlier this week, but I'm not sure. My sinuses just felt like hell and my nose was running clear junk for a few days. Then the sinus pressure eased and giant chunks of green stuff came out when I blew my nose. Now I'm better. Erin got sick right after I got better, though...but we're pretty sure hers was just allergies...her symptoms weren't the same or as severe as mine.

I'm getting my computer set up again. Fedora 11 is pretty sweet.

That's fine I'm barely alive

I got more jigs built. I just need to make my miter box for cutting fret slots...getting it absolutely square is proving to be some difficulty.

I'm running 2 miles in 14:30 or so...my best time is somewhere around 14:15...I think that is finally bottoming out. I've dropped down to around 170, so I guess that wasn't stopping like I thought.

I thought I was getting something right

I got my phone last Thursday. Overall, I'm very pleased with the phone. The build quality is excellent, the hardware design is great, and the android OS is, given its relatively young age, very well developed. The only thing that I really wish that it had is a pdf viewer...but that will probably come in time. Having my email with me, as well as google maps (complete with gps support) are both very reassuring.

My running has bbeen going fairly steadily. I have been running 2 miles consistently under 15 minutes for a couple weeks now, I suppose. I'm not losing weight as fast as I had been; it is almost like I have levelled out...but that's not too bad. I'm just a bit shy of the initial goal of 175 that I had set, and it might still happen. I have definitely lost a pretty noticable amount of fat so far, so that is both good and encouraging.

Guitar stuff is progressing...albeit incredibly slowly...necks don't require a lot of jigs, but the ones that are required can be really unforgiving...

You can't find nothing at all if there was nothing there all along

This title would have been more applicable to the previous post... oh well.

I made a better neck template for my next neck attempts. The first turned out okay, but was only meant to be a rough draft and ensure I have the steps in the most logical order. The next couple tries will be to fine-tune the individual steps and, ideally, I'll have a decent pine neck out of it all. I've also decided to go with the Stratocaster style curved neck pocket as opposed to the telecaster flat neck pocket. This is more difficult/ambitious, but I think I should be able to manage. One thing I'm a bit worried about is getting the neck to be perfectly symmetrical. My neck template isn't 100% symmetrical, but it's damn close. I've cut a pretty snug fitting neck pocket template, so I think I'm happy (for now).

I got my tax refund, and I'm going to use part of it to pay for the G1 phone. There is supposed to be a refresh of the phone in about 6 months, but I think the new design looks kind of dumb. Plus, I'm not certain about the availability of a developer version (read: totally unlocked, hardware and software). There is another phone coming to t-mobile that doesn't have a physical keyboard, but that's a lot of the reason I would never get an iPhone.

I'm also considering a oscillating spindle/edge sander. I'd need a shopvac for all the dust, though, because collecting it as it is generated is much easier than after.

I am nothing of a builder

This entry is comprised of lots of complaining. Sorry.

Trip to Katy was balls. We drove to San Antonio to pick up a bunch of my brother's stuff first. That wasn't so bad. The drive there was about 1.5 hours, and it went by pretty quickly. We helped my brother get all his stuff into the back of my truck and left. That took about an hour or so. Then, we left for Katy. This drive is boring. I-10 is boring and there isn't shit to look at. We had a decent time, though, listening to music/talking/singing/whatever.

When we got to my parents' house, though, the crazy started. First, the driveway was full of all sorts of shit. We unloaded my truck and put it next to all of the shit. Then we looked through the three boxes of my stuff that was apparently not put into the trailer that got stolen. The boxes were: 1 box of socks, one box with a bunch of trophies I won when I was a kid, and a puppet, along with some assorted things. Of all the stuff I left behind when I moved out of my parents' house, the only things I wound up keeping were a set of french curves, some plastic triangles, a men's restroom sign I apparently stole at some point. There were also two 15W guitar amplifiers that seem to have magically appeared at the house; I didn't even own a guitar before I moved out...I had a bass and a bass amp, but those aren't in Katy.

The cards Erin and I hoped would be there are, apparently, yet another thing that were lost when the trailer got stolen. This is frustrating mostly due to the fact that 1) the cards and the books were probably my most prized possessions, but they were put into a trailer for storage 2) the trailer is NOT any sort of good storage location for any kind of paper products 3) my mom told me about a week ago that my closet was still largely as I left it when, in fact, it was 100% NOT the way I left it 4) my mom had LOADS of other crap she could have put into the trailer that wouldn't be susceptible to the elements (I found a box full of glass sculptures of weird shit like reclining cartoon frogs, for instance) 5) my mom had NO idea where anything of mine was placed. In addition to those three boxes, I had to look through a bunch of crap in the attic, my brother's closet, under my brother's bed, in the laundry room, in my parents' closet, and the garage. She's STILL not even sure if I looked through everything...there could still be other boxes...which, I guess, leaves me without closure.

Probably the only nice part about going to Katy was that we went to Raising Canes for lunch. I like that place.

Sunday, we walked to a store about 2 miles away and bought some cards. We should be able to start playing more interesting games fairly soon.

I wasn't feeling well yesterday (the worst headache of my life) and went home early. I slept for a while and felt better.

Untitled?

I labored over a title for this quote for a while, but couldn't come up with anything.

I haven't updated in a little while, but this might be brief anyway.

Running is still progressing. I ran 2 miles in less than 16 minutes both Monday and Tuesday this week. Not terribly fast, but it seems a good pace for me. I'd like to get that down a bit more, but don't know how/whether I'll really do it.

I finished a bunch of stuff for guitar building and began the process of building a neck. I have a few other things I need to work out, but I've already messed something up. While routing the truss rod cavity (for a one-piece neck, this goes through the back of the neck) I got my template reversed and now I'll be making a left handed neck. Because this neck isn't really intended to take any sort of load (pine isn't hard enough) it's fine. I need some double-stick tape (the thick foam-padded kind, not the two-sided scotch-tape kind) before I can continue.

Back in junior high (ten years ago...that's kind of odd) I used to play Magic: The Gathering a bit. I mostly played with my brother, my friends and his friends, but I tended to play much better than any of them did, so they quit playing with me... I saw that Wizards of the Coast (the company who prints the Magic cards) was giving decks away...so I ordered one. It turned out to be split into two mini-decks...so I taught Erin to play. She seems to like it, so I think we'll try to get into it. Hopefully all of my cards are still at my parents house; when my grandmother moved in with them, a lot of my stuff got moved into a trailer that was at a storage facility...the trailer got stolen, so loads of my stuff (including my really old copies of Lord of the Rings among other books) got stolen along with it. The cards were, I believe, in my closet, which was largely untouched, as far as I can remember, so I have reason to hope. Erin and I are planning to go back to Katy the weekend after next (May 9, probably) and hopefully we'll pick them up then.

I like this song: Ievan Polkka and might make a ringtone from it sometime. In other phone news, I'm 99.999% sure I'm going to buy the Google Developer version of the G1 phone. The OS looks really good and the hardware seems tough enough and well built. I'm pretty excited.

When you get home, I'm skipping town

I had a couple of holidays off from work this past weekend, but the weekend wasn't that great. I started doing some minor work on guitar neck building (building a jig to cut the truss rod mounting cavity and a 3/4" thick neck routing template). Neither one came out perfect, and the jig was actually unusable. I was pretty down because I'd already put a lot of effort into these builds and didn't have a lot to show for it. Saturday, my mom called me to borrow a bunch of money. Against my better judgment, I agreed. Hopefully she'll pay me back on the schedule we agreed on. 5k is kind of a lot of money and I really don't want to have to seriously hound her about it. Sunday wasn't a lot better because Erin wanted to go shopping or something, but everything was closed for Easter (why is Easter bigger than Christmas? Shit stays open on Christmas...and schools cancel for Christmas, whereas they don't for Easter.....) We wound up just sitting around the house most of the day.

I started to feel better on Monday because I bought some more MDF and built that jig with much better rate of success. I'm still a little down (not terribly sure why...just have been feeling like I'm not good at anything lately...hopefully it will pass).

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I've been exercising pretty regularly since my last post. Mon., Tues., Thurs. and Fri. I run 2 miles then walk another 2. I've got my first mile down to about 7 minutes and my 2nd is around 9.5. Those numbers are a bit skewed because the first mile is downhill for the most part, while the second is up. I've also been doing some jacknifes and pushups 2 nights a week each. Basically, I'm just pushing to the point of exhaustion. I push the pushups a bit harder than the jacknifes and am at around a nightly total of 130-150 or so right now (number of reps per set being as many as I can do, starting at around 40-50 and descending from there). I'm trying to do jacknifes Mon. and Thurs., pushups Tues. and Fri. 2 days rest between each and taking weekends off. Erin and I have been walking a bit (usually walking somewhere to go eat) on the weekends, so that's some additional exercise. I've lost somewhere between 15 and 18 lbs now since I started a little more than a month ago. It's a bit fast, but my start weight was really exaggerated (I ate a HUGE dinner, then a giant breakfast and a pretty large lunch, then weighed myself). It's really probably closer to 10-15 lbs. I've been pretty happy with the food changes; because I'm eating a bit less, food seems to just taste better; I'm drinking a lot more water. Plus, groceries have gotten a bit cheaper, too.

all i want is a good look at your underside

Exercise has been going pretty well. I know it's not what you're supposed to do, but I like weighing myself everyday. Because I tend to have a pretty regular routine (during the week, I eat the same cereal for breakfast, the same sandwich+applesauce+cereal bar lunch and only really deviate for dinner. The only other real possible unknown is whether I drink a Monster Lo-Carb at work. Because of this, I can treat my dinner as a science experiment. For instance, I ate at Fuddruckers and gained 2 lbs (expected, because that's about what I ate) but it stuck, despite exercise and took a couple days to get rid of. I ate at Souper Salad and ate a lot of food (again, nearly 2 lbs) but it was gone that night.

I've been running, in addition to Wii Fit. I'm going to try to keep to a 3-4 times a week schedule. I think that if I run less, I just fall out of the routine, but if I run more, my shins hurt. I'm not focusing so much on speed this time around, as opposed to just distance. Yesterday I did somewhere around 2.5 miles in about 20 minutes and walked approximately one more mile for cool down.

All told, I've lost about 10 lbs in the past two weeks. Given that I've increased my activity level pretty significantly while also cutting silly foods (sometimes I would eat breakfast tacos on Monday at work despite the fact that I had a bunch of cereal in the morning -- also, I'm not eating as much cheese) and making some cuts in portions (no more eating til I feel stuffed).

I've started some work on future guitar work. So far, I made a 7.25" radius sanding block (always wanted to try a true vintage Fender neck radius), I've made a neck template (a telecaster neck with a different headstock shape...kind of like this:


I'm going to work on a truss rod routing jig today, and then I might start on a pine prototype neck sometime later this week/this weekend. Maybe I'll try to take pictures of the process.

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Back when they were new (early Junior High) I read about half of the Animorphs book series, but they became kind of hard to locate, so I stopped reading them. I really liked the series back then and would think about them every once in a while...a month or two ago, I got really curious about them and decided to check if the series actually ever "ended" or if they just stopped coming out. After I found that there was a real end, I decided to try to read them all. I downloaded all the PDFs (omitted the "choose your own ending" stuff) and started reading them.

I really expected to start reading them, decide they were too cheesy and just quit reading them... They were really cheesy, but I really liked one of the side-series of books (There were 54 regular series books where typically one character tells the whole story, 4 "Megamorphs" books where they alternate by chapter and the "Chronicles" books where characters other than the main 6 tell the story). The Chronicles series was really good. The regular series and Megamorphs ranged from absurdly childish/cheesy to really good. All in all, I think if the story were condensed to about 10-15 longer but more detailed books, it might have been better.

I started reading the books because I wanted something kind of light hearted (and also, I suppose, to reminisce about things I did as a kid). In the beginning, they were almost too light hearted, but the final 10 books or so were pretty dark. I was actually genuinely shocked at some of the things that happened. I know lots of people considered some of the stuff in Harry Potter to be dark, but compared to this, Harry Potter was really childish. The plot is a fairly typical, "a group of # ordinary kids have to save the entire planet!" kind of story, but the way war is portrayed is very different. In the typical stories, bad things happen, but they're often balanced by this or that; in the Animorphs books, things don't always balance out so well.

Strange. I was looking for something light hearted, but wound up with something so dark...

Bleh

Erin and I got Wii Fit...so now my video games tell me I'm fat =\ I have been gaining some weight since winter started and I wasn't running. Too damn cold. I didn't realize I'd gotten to just over 200 lbs, though. Given that the game measures BMI based solely on weight and height (muscle/bone structure totally ignored) I'm not 100% confident in it. Especially given that I have all but mastered all of the strength exercises on my first try... I know I'm overweight, but not certain I should rely on the game to tell me how far to go. For me, though, I'd like to head down to something like 185...maybe 175-ish...

I just really don't want to totally stop eating or anything like that, like I did in high school. Body image has never been one of my strong points...I'm better about it now than I used to be, but we'll see if I go crazy or not. Really, I just want to lose some weight so my pants fit well again and I won't have to go buy new ones...although, I'm a little worried my thighs have gotten a bit too big for some of my pants (stupid running). I'm going to start running again (I went on Tuesday, was hoping to go tonight, but it's supposed to rain/be cold); I've also been skating with Kerstan about every other week.

Amazon had my bandsaw in stock (still free shipping, but $25 more than Woodcraft had it). The increase in price is worth it to get the thing more than 2 months earlier, though, in my opinion. Given the way Amazon's free shipping works, though, it won't ship out til Monday (and I ordered it this past Monday). Oh well.

For once in this life, I better do something right

I ordered my bandsaw this past weekend. It was on sale. However, I just got an email saying it's on backorder until the end of May. Stupid. I need to decide if I want to wait, or if I want to get a refund and try to find it somewhere else; I'm inclined to just wait...I got 10% off and free shipping.

I was really looking forward to it coming in sometime relatively soon so I could get started on making my jigs and things for more guitar stuff...I can probably do a lot of it with hand tools and my router, but I was holding out until I could cut things a bit more precisely.

I went to Katy this past Saturday, which was fine...but the drive back was a shit city bird bath. It usually takes 2-2.5 hours. This time, it took almost 4. First, they were doing road work near exit 695 on I-10. This is the exit to get onto 71. When I drove past, there wasn't anything indicating the way to go (they took the signs down, I guess), except for a break in those bright orange barrels with the road coming out. The shitty part is that, if you miss the exit, there are about 10 miles before the next one. So I back tracked and missed the exit on my way back East (same roadwork bullshit). I u-turned and was going West again. The construction crews were putting up one of those light-up temporary signs telling me where the exit was. Fuckers. That wasted about a half hour. THEN, on 71, the police had the highway blocked off...and I wound up having to drive North to 290. I called Omar to verify that the FM road I was on went to 290 and had him look up what was going on...apparently there was zero visibility due to smoke. Some sort of fire. The best part was that there were no signs specifying anything.

My parents made a huge deal about me telling them what to buy me for my birthday this year...so I struggled with it and gave them a list of stuff...then I was too busy with work to go back until this past weekend (almost 2 months after my birthday) and they STILL hadn't picked the things up...and just gave me cash (my ORIGINAL request). Frustrating.

I almost got a Facebook the other day, but Erin showed it to me and it just doesn't interest me. I don't know...posting pictures and looking at pictures seems to be a major emphasis...I don't care about that kind of thing at all. Plus, I'd kind of want to have my name be Deuce McGravy...Amber, I know you want me to have a facebook...can you try to persuade me? The only reason I can really think of is to know when and if people I know have died...which is kind of depressing.

I was getting my muskets cleaned when came this rumbling from the deep

What have I been up to lately?

- Working a lot (typically 10-12 hours on weekdays, 2-6 on weekends)
- Playing Super Smash Brothers Brawl (I'm trying to finish it up 100%. I have almost everything except one sticker (and as a result, one trophy) just stupid little things that randomly appear and I have to find because I'm such a completion whore)
- Skating (I've skated twice for 2.5 and 4 hours...VERY sore afterward)
- Considering buying a bandsaw (will make cutting things much easier. Considering a 10inch benchtop Jet)
- Spending time with Erin where I can (most weekends, we just lounge around. It's nice to just relax)
- Thinking a lot about building a guitar neck. I'm trying to plan everything out as far as I can, so there won't be many surprises. The first attempt will be just a one piece neck from a 2x4. If I can make something that looks decent out of that, I'll move onto something functional. I'll route it for a truss rod, but probably won't spend the $10 on that, unless the neck just looks really good.

I've been listening to lots of different music right now. Going back to late high-school and listening to some punk. Flogging Molly, Gogol Bordello, The Dropkick Murphys and Rancid (and whatever Pandora decides sounds like them). I've been listening to some rap that Pandora Radio defines as having "boastful lyrics" and "dancable beats" Rick Ross, Young Jeezy, and a bunch of stuff like that. Then I've also been listening to the Pandora Radio stations I've seeded with Neutral Milk Hotel, Daniel Johnston, The Mountain Goats, Two Gallants and a few others.

Two posts in one day...

Also, that woman who had 8 kids recently. She's a total idiot. Not just because I don't personally want kids -- she already had 6, no job or reasonable way to pay for the kids she already had. Selfish bitch.

The most appalling thing I've seen, though, is when she was asked how she planned to provide for the kids and she said, "I'm providing myself to my children. I'm loving them unconditionally, accepting them unconditionally, everything I do. I'll stop my life for them and be present with them and hold them and be with them. And how many parents do that?"

Maybe money can't buy you love, but love can't replace money when it comes to putting food in your stomach.

If she had them through IVF as she claims, the doctor who implanted them is a douchebag too. Absolutely NO reason for more than one or two to be implanted.

Why are people so fucking stupid?

Holy shit!

A rat just came up through the upstairs toilet.

I went upstairs to eat my breakfast (my usual morning routine) and it smelled like rat piss. I was worried that there was a rat hiding somewhere pissing up the place, so I followed my nose, so to speak. I found my way to the little half bathroom we have up here...lifted the toilet lid to find that it was empty. This toilet slowly drains and we don't really use it (sometimes I do if I don't feel like going downstairs to piss, but it's just a small toilet and it's awkward to sit on, so deuce is out of the question. There was no water in it and the smell seemed to be coming from there so I thought maybe it was just the post-toilet pipes stinking up the place...so I flushed the toilet. As it was filling up, a rat came right up through the drain.

I closed the lid and tried to find something to pick it up with and at least get it out of the house (I didn't want to smash it in the toilet or anything dramatic like that). I got a box and some packing material my monitor came in to wrap around my hand to try to usher it into the box...however, when I opened the lid, it fucking dove down the hole. I waited for a bit and just decided to flush it. I flushed twice...closed the lid. It's been about 15 minutes...I don't think they can hold their breath for that long.

What the fuck.

I hope it didn't die. I feel bad killing stuff like that. I feel more like, "You don't have to die, you just can't live here." However, I didn't have the time to sit around waiting for it to come back up (if it would....) Not only that, but I don't wan to potentially get sick if it bit me.

Has your hair always been that pointy?

We bought a hedgehog over the weekend. He's still just a baby, so his spines are really sharp, especially when he's grumpy (always). We named the little guy Walter...figured it is fitting for such a grumpy thing. We've been holding him and trying to socialize him, but it takes time. He still gets pretty freaked out when he sees things move. He lives in a big 105qt. Sterilite storage box on our dresser. Oh, he also uses a litter box (most of the time).

I haven't started on my next guitar projects -- mostly because I need access to a bandsaw to rough cut some stuff for my templates. I could also use my dad's edge sander while I'm there, which would help a lot. It's too cold to work outside and too messy to work inside...so I'm going to have to figure that out. I may just cordon off a section of the upstairs and try to contain all the dust in there. We'll see how well that works out. Hopefully I'll be able to build templates to make a couple fretboard radiusing blocks, along with a neck fretboard radiusing jig for my router.. With that, I should be fine to build necks.

Erin's started school again, work is kind of crazy, so I didn't update. Sue me.