Gkikas

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. Continue reading →

And you can pick your nose, but you can’t pick your friend’s nose.
.

Rig and settings:

60th Anniv American Fat Strat Deluxe
Fender Hotrod Deluxe - clean channel
Volume 2/12
Treble 9
Bass 5
Mid 8
Reverb 3
Presence 9
BBE Green Screamer
Boss DD6 echo

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

I’m in Little Rock for a week on business. Being the disc golf nut that I am, one of the top things on my list of things to find here is a disc golf course, and lo and behold, there is Burns Park.

A mere 10 minutes away from my hotel on Markham, just by the Arkansas River, this ENORMOUS city park is home to two rather exceptional disc golf courses. The blue course, which is longer and more open, is the one I’ve played twice already (in two days). The red course, which is shorter and on the side of a (to me) mountain, is more technical and wooded.

Yesterday was my first round. I got out of work and high-tailed it back to the hotel, eager to get out there and throw some discs. I had no trouble finding the place, and was thrilled to tee off on a course with elevation. For a Florida flatlander, this was like an excursion to disc golf nirvana.

After the first hole, I knew I’d get lost, so I mustered my social skills and jogged up to a couple that were playing two holes ahead of me. As politely as I could present myself as a regular guy that wouldn’t rob or beat them, I introduced myself and asked it they minded if I join them, since I was new to the course and liable to get lost. They were Nate and Amy, a couple that proved to be perfectly in line with all the people I’d met in Little Rock so far — super friendly and terrifically hospitable. I was not disappointed in my decision to approach them.

On the 11th hole, after finding a huge pine tree had crushed the 10th basket to smithereens (see photo), I threw my Champion Beast forehand right into a tree about 75 feet in front of the tee. It looked like it dropped straight down, but upon reaching its alleged landing place, it was nowhere to be found. Nate and Amy searched for this disc for almost thirty minutes…. and five minutes after I’d given it up for lost, not wanting to cut short their round on my account. Then, Amy FINDS my disc!! This, ladies and gentlemen, is what Little Rock people are capable of… going way beyond the basics of friendliness!

Today I played again, this time by myself, thinking that I’d learned enough of where the tees and baskets were. I was mostly right. I ran into a group of guys playing made-up holes, just screwing around, and they pointed me towards the 13th tee, which I couldn’t find. I was proud, incidentally, that my only birdie of the day happened right near them. I outdrove the basket with a nice forehand flick, and sunk the twenty foot birdie putt. Aw yeah!

I finished at 12 over par, which included no less than three dinked-out putts from near range. Not the best scoring round for me lately, but given the circumstances, I’m pretty happy with the score.

As I sat in one of numerous pavilions by the parking lot before motoring back to the hotel, a group of five guys wander off the red course and have a seat next to me. Again, they’re very friendly and approachable, and we made great conversation for half an hour or so. One of them, “Corndog” (I’m not making this up) offered me a beer along with the rest of his buddies, and we shot the shit for a while, talking about disc golf, how they’d played 72 holes that day (!!??) and how disc golf’s got to be one of the greatest pastimes on Earth. We shook hands and promised that if I’m ever in Little Rock again, I’d look them up with the business card Corndog handed me.

Seriously, when a friendly guy who plays disc golf, who goes by “Corndog” says to look him up next time you’re in town, you DO so.

Happy Mother’s Day :-)

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.