David Wilcox - Airstream

I discovered this fellow on PRI this week while listening to the Bob Edwards Show. His name is David Wilcox. (This is not the David Wilcox of Canadian Blues fame). I was listening to the radio and this guy was singing, and I almost stopped the truck. I was memorized by his playing style and his ability to capture my attention. I listened to him talk about music, about writing, about travel, and about the world, and his place in it as he intermixed his music with his thoughts, and I told myself I had another CD to buy as soon as I got home.

I went online - and he is going to be in my area in May, so I decided to also buy tickets and now I am looking forward to going to the show with my family and listening to him play live. I also went online and downloaded the entire interview that he had with Bob Edwards and saved it on my computer in case I needed to play it for someone later. I was fascinated with the way that he spoke about his music. Here is an example:



There are very few new musicians today that are thoughtful and talented enough for me to delve straight into everything they have ever done looking for more. His voice is clear and pure, with the honestly of emotion that comes from someone who writes from the heart. His guitar playing is crisp, with the creativity that comes from someone who started playing guitar later in life and is self taught. His brilliance with the guitar is surpassed only by his songwriting ability. Pulling emotions straight out of your heart that you never even knew were there, this album is a testament to his 2 years on the American road.

*ahem* turns off review voice.

So I spent the day with my friend Dave yesterday, taking him up to the guitar store and getting him a new Johnson bass, and an amp. He is going to start learning bass. I brought him back to the house and got him started. He is excited about the whole thing. Its a nice setup too, good for a beginner so he should be all set.

Today my wife is at work for a few hours, so we are hanging out here, and then it is off to the guitar store again, to get my daughters guitar adjusted. The action on the neck is a bit high, and the strings are a bit thick for her fingers. So we work on it as best we can and get it all nice. I may also go shopping a bit later and get some things for the truck.

Hope everyone is well. Be safe out there!

What a ride!!

Listen to this while you read. I am currently learning this tune, this cat can play:



Been a bit since I updated, I know. I was going to blog last weekend about what has been going on and I just got so busy and so damn tired that I didn't get around to it. I am not a slave to the blog but there comes a point when you just have to post right? So here we go....

Last week was a long one, and I did not end up getting home until late Friday evening. Saturday I was up and out the door, visited friend and ran errands all day, got home late. Sunday I worked around the house and never got the real chance to do much of anything, and I was gone first thing Monday again for a week out on the road. I swear, you know it is bad when you go to work to relax.

This week was a lot better. I made 2500 miles in 3.5 days, got home early, and have a nice weekend to enjoy with the family. Looks like things are shaping up here. The weather is getting warmer and the snow is starting to melt some. The raccoons are out devastating my yard again, because you know, they are in love right now.

I did some tech work on a couple of guitars over the last week. One was my friend John's little brothers Les Paul. It is a mess and needs some more work, but at least today it is playable. The other is the guitar that my daughter got for her birthday. That one is going to go back to the shop to get some adjustments.

We are working in the house over this weekend here as well. The upper hallway needed to be refurbished, so the paper is off the walls, they are patched, newly painted a deep red, and there is new darkly stained wainscoting on the lower half of the walls. There is a new light fixture as well. It should be done tomorrow, if all goes according to plan.

Well that is all I have for right now, I will post more when I am less distracted and a bit more focused on everything that is going on.

What a week it has been~!

Wow, I am behind on my posting! I have so much to say, but I am dogass tired. I have been up since Thursday night at 9:00pm and it is now Friday at 5:00pm. So I will put this here and work on my post in a bit...

I'm ok everyone.. just beat.

Great Music Day

What a great day for music~! I awoke this morning, ready and willing to go work on my mother's computer, the last one in the house that needed to be backed up, repaired, and maintained. I took my laptop up there and asked her what she wanted to listen to. She gave me some titles and I punched them into YouTube as we worked. I was happily going along listening to all things that she has asked me time and again to learn. I made a file, saved the videos and the music that she wanted to hear us play. It was nice. The song Mom wants me to learn the most is John Prine's "Paradise".

Dad was in his room, just down the hall, tuning and playing his brand new violin that I bought for him. The look on his face was priceless when we surprised him with it. So he is in his room, tuning it up nicely and working on scales and what not. He is all happy and it sounds so nice hearing that just in the distance while Mom and I finish up.

Dad takes off to go show his friend down the street his new violin, and he grabs my grandfathers guitar as well. He gets down there and is not there more than 15 minutes when he calls me and asks me to come down and take a look at his friends guitar. I head over there, and it is out of tune but it is a beautiful Alvarez 6 string. I tune it, and everything else he has there, play for a few minutes, and excuse myself to let them have their time together.

Back to the house, another 15 minutes go by and Ron calls me from Stone Creek Music and invites me up to an impromptu bluegrass jam. I am in the car and there in under 20 min. There are a bunch of folks there, and I sit down to play. Want to guess what the first song we all played was?

Here it is:



I could not believe that the Universe was pushing me that bad to learn this style of music so..I decided to just fall in line and do it! It was a hoot. We had a great time playing and learning new things. I really enjoyed it. I will be going back to do more and to record some of these jam sessions as well. I think some folks might get a kick out of it.

I talked to my brother. We are going to buy another digital recording board so that we can start working on our studio type work a bit more. With each of us having a board, we can cut tracks and email them to each other for mastering and practice. With us living 90 miles apart round trip, and gas being as pricey as it is, we will save the $500 plus bucks for the board in gas costs within 6 months. So it makes for a smart investment.

Today is a down day. I am going to fool around with some more bluegrass stuff, and hang out with the family. The snow is coming down here pretty hard right now and will be for most of the afternoon. I may go outside and mess about with the snowblower some too, get the drive cleared out and such.

I also posted on Shadowes Pics again. And I will be adding some more guitar links too.

Later~!!

Trucking

Quick Update

This story is too long to tell in detail this moment, given my state of exhaustion, but in a nutshell here it is: I got diverted yesterday and had to take a side trip into New Jersey to make an extra pick up, but still had to be back in NY by 4am. Of course I have my physical today, so I have to get a nap before I go so I can actually pass it, and not show up looking like a zombie. I went from a 6 hour drive and a full nights sleep to a 10 hour drive and a short nap before I "start" my Friday. Did I mention the boss and his stooges called me every hour and a half while I was trying to sleep to remind me of what I had to do? So to add to the extra miles - I had to do them with little or no rest. How nice...

I am going to bed. I will update more after I become human again. Oh by the way - that is my cat Ash, he loves snuggling plushies. What a cutie eh?

Time To Rest

Here I am! I am down in Dalton GA again, and I am once again waiting on a load home. I should have my load later tonight and then I can start the journey home again.

This is what I will be looking at, although a little more clearly. I took this last night on the way into Atlanta GA, in traffic. I got the effect that I was looking for, which is pretty great for a one handed, digital shot, while piloting a loaded semi down the road. Not a bad shot, if I say so myself.

The week has been mostly uneventful thus far. I delivered this morning and got my self back to wait on the load home in good time. I should be home before my appointment on Friday for my physical. At least that will be finally finished and out of the way for another two years. This weekend is shaping up to be a good one too. I will be back in time to get the violin that I have been wanting to get for my father. I am excited to see what he thinks about that. I will be able to get some play time in on the guitars, and the rest of the weekend looks like some quiet family time.

I have been fooling around with the camera again, taking more pictures of life on the road and such. I have a project in the back of my head, about writing a book about life on the road, the changes you go through as you start this job, what the life is really like, and how the day to day goes as a trucker. I want to take photos for the project as I go, so I have been just fooling about with it. Someday, when I hang this up, and take that last trip, I will have enough material to work with if I continue documenting what I see and do. Here are some of my recent pics:

Go-Go Juice

My co-workers Co-Pilot Skie

Floor Mat

Decent attmepts at photography I suppose. I will get better with the whole digital medium as time goes on. Well... time for rest. I will have to be up most of the night again to get up the road and make it home on time. I will update from there. Be well everyone!

I Hate My ISP Today

Dishnet decided in their infinite wisdom on Friday to convert their existing email system to Google's Gmail system. This in itself would not have been a bad idea if they had planned the rollover in a systematic way. That did not happen. We received a letter on Friday that stated that conversion to Gmail would be seamless, that a password change might be necessary, and that the system would be more stable and powerful than what we had in the past. Again, this did not happen at all.

Here is what DID happen:

1. Friday email failed to work in the early evening. No one in the house noticed.

2. Saturday my elderly parents DID notice that the mail was not showing up at the house, and asked for help. I was asked to help, because nothing was working. I spent a good part of the morning on the phone with tech support, attempting to find out what settings I needed to change here at the house, so that they could get email. The lady on the phone was really great, gave me all my information, actually spoke English, and we got through it in little time. I made the changes and we had email back for a while.

3. Sunday came, and the email was back to messed up again. No one had an explanation as to why that was. My Dad's laptop, which is set up identical to mine, was not getting email. He made no changes, but yet the server at Dishmail was not accepting his password. I made many attempts to fix it, to no avail. I talked to my brother, who was a super trooper, and drove 60 miles to deliver a brand new portable 160 gig hard drive so that I could back up Dads machine and reload it from scratch. He spent the money, showed up, hung out, and I did the backup and reinstall on that machine. Everything worked great, except the email. Again, it was not accepting the passwords.

I called Dishnet again, waited forever on the phone, and talked to a guy who sounded so frustrated with the problems. He acknowledged the problems, and we walked through the settings yet again, with no change. He admitted that there are serious problems with the rollover to Gmail, and it was their fault. They were working on the issues and doing their best.

You would think for 150 plus dollars a month for high speed internet, that at least the email system would work~!! I was kind to both reps on the phone. I have been there. I spent many years doing that kind of work, as well as the back end kind of work. I have had literally thousands of angry customers in my day, and they are all the same. I can honestly say that one kind customer can wipe the problems away. So I tried to be that customer. Maybe it helped, maybe not.

Was there a resolution? Nope. We *may* get our service stable by Friday of this upcoming week. They are working on it. That might mean that I *may* get the check out to them when the service gets working again.

Note to Dishmail:

Listen. Tell your Admin's that they need to have a much better disaster plan the next time a system change is made. Talk to your customers before you make changes, ask them what they think about the service, what their needs are, and what they want from you. Make plans, COMMUNICATE those plans to the customers, and get feedback as you go. If things are going badly, stop painting the rails on a sinking ship, and go back to what you had. Analyze the situation, and have the manpower to repair any damage that occurs when mistakes happen! Most of all, keep everyone informed on what is going on. Truthful information goes a long way when customers aren't happy.

In other news:

I made a nice sized list of great guitar websites and put them up here to share with everyone. Some of these sites are just manufacturers sites, and others are really interesting blog type sites. Even if you aren't a total guitar geek like me, you may find some of these sites interesting.

Tomorrow I go back to work, after a week off. I am looking forward to it. A little alone time, just me and the road, might be just what I need. Talk to you all later!!