Gkikas, as in Chris Gkikas.
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As you can tell, there’s been some changes. Big ones, small ones. Huge ones.
Firstly, you’ll notice that the layout of this site’s changed. Seeing as I have doubts that anyone actually reads this stuff, you’ll probably wonder what it used to look like. It was messy. It was cramped. It had too many rounded corners. Basically, it sucked. I’m turning over a new leaf. Starting over, because now I really have something to talk about.
Fatherhood’s a lot of fun, so far. I spend equal amounts of time changing diapers, coaxing gas bubbles to either end, swaddling, swaying, shooshing (?), playing referee between family members, playing psychiatrist to my wife, managing to keep the bills paid, and trying to get some sleep, here and there. I think I’m doing an okay job, so far.
But I’m tired. Really tired. The kind of exhaustion that feels like energy, sometimes, it’s so convoluted. I forget what day it is. I’m working and getting things done, but it all runs together. Morning, evening, 4am, catnaps, struggling to stay awake at the wheel when I’m out on the road. I figure this must be typical, especially of twins parents.
As you also can tell, I’m not doing much editing. This will be stream of consciousness from now on, or cream of unconsciousness. Something like that. There will be pictures. I will serve corn.
The wife’s pregnant, and she needs milk for breakfast in the morning. We’re out of milk. It’s 9:30, Sweetbay’s not closed yet. I’m off.
The first thing I head for’s the milk, because I know where it is. I rarely shop in this grocery store. I’m usually at the dirt Publix three blocks from the house because it’s closer. But, they’re closed by 9 and Sweetbay’s open, so I’m in a strange grocery store with a mission to find some nonstandard items.
On my way to the milk, I see Edy’s Grand ice cream is on crazy sale, two for seven bucks. Lunatic flavors, too… Coconut Pineapple? Cherry Chocolate Chip, red velvet style? Shit. (more…)
This is a cut/paste from a Gchat conversation I had with my Dad yesterday, when I related the story of my weekend.
Terry B had a party out in Micanopy where they live. Same people I got Oyster from – known them as long as I’ve known Mike, roughly 12 years.
She’s always said, years ago when I was threatening to play guitar (this is lonnng ago), “Man, Chris, when we gonna get together and jam??”
Well, my attendance at this party she was throwing for Mike (same Mike I was visiting) was a (pleasant) surprise
Maybe 30 people at its most crowded
I had my big amp and my strat. After shying back for a while, I caved into people asking me when the hell I was gonna plug in and contribute, I set up with an extension chord and just sat on my amp, on the outskirts of the circle of lawn chairs, with the group of musicians at the other side.
My volume low, just feeling around for some practice.
After one jam, someone came over to me and said, “Dude, that was really thick. Great playin, that was awesome.”
and he shook my hand.
inside, I about shit myself, it was such a great compliment.
so then they demanded I move my gear “into the circle,” and that’s where I stayed, on and off, for the next 4 hours.
must’ve gone through 20 songs, and hardly hit a wrong note.
I was playing lead the whole time, because the rest of the “band” consisted of 5 acoustics, 1 acoustic bass running through a little solid state Fender amp, a xylophone, a fiddle, a banjo, two or three singers rotating through songs, and 6 people playing drums.
I was in heaven.
Flashbulbs kept going off because people were taking pictures of us playing.
Now, one lady I was introduced to was in town for Bo Diddley’s funeral. I struck up conversation and learned that she’s been recording with Bo Diddley as a backup singer for 25 years.
I told her I had my rig with me, and that I’d be playing that night, and ironically enough just learned to play the song ‘Bo Diddley’ a week before the man died.
So, after 4 songs of getting comfy, I started strumming on muted strings, the ‘Bo Diddley beat.’
you know the one.
and everybody sorta stopped what they were doing…
and I began, and she stood up and sang the whole thing, with me playing riffs on the breaks
with all these people around
and come to find out, one person in the crowd had a handheld DAT recorder. she recorded it in stereo, pretty high quality.
she’ll be sending me an MP3 (hopefully)
she even said, the chick that recorded all this, that “it sounded so good even afterwards when you were just noodling around before the next song that I kept on recording, so I have that little part as well.”
I got so many firm handshakes and hugs and compliments and requests for when I’ll be back, please come back soon.
I’m not making this up, or overstating it…. I felt like a rockstar.
and I insisted all the other players take a few riffs on my strat. they LOVED it, and some of them were exceptional players.
so that’s the story of how I played a 4hr set of lead guitar in Micanopy this past Saturday.
I’m hoping the MP3 shows up soon so i can post it up to my channel as an audio/video
Photo used without permission from Birder’s World Magazine – hope they’re cool with it
It’s dusk in my backyard and I’m meandering around with my dog Oyster. Hotdog, our old-man Maine Coone cat, lounges in the neighbor’s yard, twitching and flipping his tail contentedly. It’s a lovely Spring evening.
Out of nowhere, a smallish, feathery silhouette flutters near my cat’s head and zooms back to the telephone wire hanging above. At first, I think it’s a bat, but realize it’s too big for a bat. It is the bat time of evening, and I look skywards and see a few actual bats careening around the evening sky and realize that whatever is swooping down near Hotdog is too big to be a bat.
It’s a Burrowing Owl (Athene cunicularia), a tiny little raptor that lives in mazes of underground tunnels, usually in open fields. In Southwest Florida they’re very common, though I’d never seen them before.
This little owl is attempting to snatch, and presumably haul away for a tasty snack, my 16 pound male cat, Hotdog. He’s unfazed, and appears to not even notice the terrifying brushes with death he keeps enduring. The owl swoops near him again and again, returning to his perch on the wire, sometimes on the shed, where I get a halfway-decent look at him. They’re very pretty.
Then…. THREE MORE of them show up, all on the wire overhead. By now, my wife’s outside with me, marvelling and laughing at the fact that these tiny little birds are attempting to murder our cat, when all of a sudden, they start divebombing us! Coming within inches of our heads, we duck and cover as they assail us from above. Hands-down this is one of the funniest and most amusing thing I’ve seen in ages. We’re okay, and nobody’s injured. In fact, Hotdog’s back inside now and probably doesn’t even know how close he came to being carried away and pecked to death.
After my disc golf passion was resurrected last week at Wanee, I did what I should’ve done years ago – google around to find out if there’s a course in my area. After a swift smack to the forehead, seeing the results indicating not one, not two, but THREE courses in my area, I make plans to get out there. I left my discs with John in Gainesville. Damn.
An enthusiastic phone call to a friend later, I’m in Play it Again, buying “factory second” discs at $10 apiece. Then, I’m driving through parts of Sarasota I didn’ t know existed, winding through a residential neighborhood until coming upon Lakeview Park, with its 18 hole disc golf course.
I am intimately familiar with the Gainesville course on 34th Street but few others (I’d played Lake Wauburg in Gainesville, and of course Spirit of Suwanee’s Grateful Dead course last weekend). The excitement of a new course, this close to home, was almost unbearable.
Unfortunately there wasn’t a map of the holes, and we ended up meandering like tourists through 18 holes of challenging, at-times-heavily wooded, swampy dream for any disc golfer. We never found holes 11 or 12.
The course is fun, with creative pin placement and lots of water. The park had restrooms, water fountains, a fenced-in dog park, and picnic tables. Nice.
This whole thing’s got momentum. I’ll be playing the North Watertower Park course tomorrow morning, which is apparently either on-par with (no pun intended) or even better than the Lakeview course. I’m learning all of this from the Sarasota Sky Pilots web page. Yep, a full fledged disc golf community, which I’ll duly be looking into. Tuesday and Thursday night handicaps? Count me in!
This is some sample text. You are using FCKeditor. In addition, I’d like to postulate that James Wetzel, this dude I met on the Internet, is one sly fellow.
