Loaded and ready for action...

To quote Stewart Copeland from the heretofore best documentarish video concerning the Police (The Police Around the World).  

In this case, I think he was making a joke about his clothing choices, but in my case I'm actually referring to a firearm. After 46 years (including 23 in the Army), I finally purchased a handgun. It was disturbingly easy to do so. Since moving to Grand Prairie, we hear about more recurring criminal events that are closer to home (luckily our subdivision is actually pretty quiet and calm) and we were faced with the reality that despite a monitored security system, dogs, and door/window locks, we still weren't prepared if anyone ever broke in and was armed.  

I'm very familiar with both rifles and handguns, having carried and qualified on a regular basis during my 23 years in the Army. Despite this, I've always been philosophically against firearms in the hands of private citizens, since I can't see any justification for their possession other than to kill or harm. I'm a realist in that there's no benefit from outlawing guns at this point, because then it would just be the criminals with easy access to firearms. It is surprising that you can just walk into dealer, fill out a two page form, and within about 5 minutes you're the legal owner of a firearm. 

I'm hoping we only ever get to shoot it at the range, but despite being philosophically opposed to gun ownership, I'm even more opposed of the idea of my wife or myself facing down an armed intruder with a steak knife or a golf club. We got a Glock 19, which is a very reliable handgun and is widely used by military and law enforcement. It's not particularly pretty, but it gets the job down and it will deliver enough rounds to stop someone who decides to ignore the security alarm sign, the locked doors/windows, the security alarm itself,  and my dogs. 

I'll be taking Aeyong to the range and getting her comfortable with it. I'll most likely eventually buy a second gun for her and we'll probably get certified for the concealed handgun license. I don't see myself ever embracing the gun advocate/NRA lifestyle, but it's just the reality of our society that handguns are so prevalent, and if you're facing down a gunman, you don't want to be wishing you had a gun, because by then it's too late. 

Oh kids...

Another infrequent update. Spring is here, mostly. The official yard cutting season began last Friday and continues today. Relevant events since last: Queen is touring this summer and they'll be making a stop in Dallas. Other than a few opportunities back in the early 1980s, this will be the first time Queen has come anywhere close to where I live. Obviously the original lineup would be the dream gig, but they'll be touring with Brian May & Roger Taylor and they're two of my all time favorite musicians. Brian has always been a favorite of mine on so many levels: tone, songwriting, and just a general approach to life in his intellectual curiosity. He's an astrophysicist in his spare time, how many musicians (especially such influential musicians) can say that?  Well, one, actually. They have Adam Lambert of american idol fame, and he's done several gigs with them in the past. Based on what I've seen, he's a perfect replacement for Freddy, even if he doesn't sound precisely like him.  This is one of the all time most anticipated shows I'll ever see. Only Zeppelin or Floyd would rival seeing Queen.  

Another "first time" concert next week will be Alter Bridge at the HOB in Dallas. I've seen Myles Kennedy two times with Slash, and he's just as amazing live as he is on record. I'm looking forward to a band I've been listening to for four years now. I got into Creed primarily because I like Mark Tremonti's tone, even if I don't consider him a primary influence. I never liked Scott Stapp, he's the definition of a douchey lead singer, but I can generally ignore the singer if I like the musicians. It's really fortunate they had a falling out, because Alter Bridge is a superior band on so many levels. 

I also got tickets for Yes, who'll be stopping by at the Verizon GP in August. They're going to perform Fragile and CTTE in their entirety along with tracks from their upcoming album "Heaven & Earth" and some other hits. They performed CTTE on the last tour, but as far as I'm concerned they could do that every tour and I wouldn't get tired of it. The most unique aspect of them performing Fragile will be all the solo tunes. I'm pretty sure I've seen them perform all the group tunes on the album, but besides MFAD, I don't think I've heard the other tunes live. I'm looking forward to this new album. Apparently the newest singer (that position in the group has had more turnover in the past 5 years than almost any other spot) Jon Davison contributed to some of the songwriting. Steve Howe also contributed and I'm not sure about the other members yet. The went with a different producer from Trevor Horn this time with Roy Thomas Baker, who they were apparently supposed to collaborate with a long time ago but it fell apart for some reason. I think they wanted to try something where the band were the sole songwriters since on the last album the title track "Fly from Here" was largely an old Trevor Horn song from the Drama days. 

I also picked up the CD for another "new" band, The Winery Dogs. The band is composed of Ritchie Kotzen (of Mr Big, Poison, solo, etc. fame), Billy Sheehan (in my opinion, the equivalent of EVH on Bass, literally), and Mike Portnoy (previously of Dream Theater, Avenged Sevenfold, Flying Colors).  It's a unique blend of over the top musicianship (they are not afraid to engage in the fiddly bits) with a sort of hard rock/pop song structure. Tone wise they're somewhere between 70's hard rock and 80's pop metal. The songs are fairly pop in the construction, but they benefit from how amazing all three players sound individually and combined. Not to mention that Ritchie Kotzen is not only a monster guitarist, but he's an amazing vocalist as well. I knew he was a great player, but I had no idea he was such a powerful vocalist. Billy and Mike are great backing vocalists and there are some really interesting harmonies in these tunes. They're going to play the Granada in May, and I actually bought the concert tickets before I had heard the album, because I knew I wanted to see Billy Sheehan live and that if nothing else they would all impress as musicians. Now that I've heard the album a few times, I'm really looking forward to this one. 

I was set to get tickets for Fleetwood Mac who are touring with the complete Rumors era lineup since Christine McVie has rejoined the group. Unfortunately, they followed the whole corporate greed ticketmaster process and so the first presale was AMEX which means all the online scalpers got the tickets before anyone else. When I last checked individual tickets within the first 20 rows were running $450 plus. It's sad since were able to see them in 2004 with fan club tickets for $200 a ticket and we were 4th row center. We'll probably just look for a video after the tour.  I really prefer the approach that bands like Rush and Iron Maiden have adopted which requires the ticket purchaser to be at the venue when the tickets are scanned in. This essentially eliminates any online scalping. The couple of times I've had the chance to get tickets this way, I've alway gotten great seats. We had 3rd row center for Rush. 

On the musical gear front, I got the Roland V-Drums about a month ago and I'm slowly learning to play them. They're awesome to have and I'm trying to train my four limbs to keep time independently. As with any instrument, you don't become aware of the nuances until you play it. Keeping a basic 4/4 beat that will cover a huge amount of pop/rock music is easy enough, but real mastery is going to take years. Right now I've really got to focus on my right foot in it's role to keep the main pulse of the song going. It really has to have a mind of it's own so I can be free to play fills and move around the drum set without losing the beat. It's hard to quantify but I've been feeling that there has been a collective musical benefit from playing these various instruments. I know for certain that the physicality of playing bass has strengthened my fingers beyond where they were despite playing guitar for over 10 years now. I see it in my guitar and keyboard playing in that certain movements or chord shapes that were previously very difficult, have become easier over time. I also believe my ears have improved, ironically in that I've been just randomly picking tunes to play bass (heavy emphasis on the Police since the physical effort is generally easy enough, although the timekeeping is challenging since they play odd time signatures and really focus on the upbeat) lines with, and I've found that the more often I just randomly pull up tunes and play along, the quicker I'm able to latch on to the chord progressions. 

Aeyong and I celebrated our 24th Anniversary a week ago. She didn't really want anything specific, but we had a small financial windfall since we overestimated (on purpose) our escrow payments and I got a performance bonus at work. I used this to get her a nice 60in LED TV for the master bedroom. We had moved rooms around after I got the drums, because I was trying very had to minimize the sound transmission of the kit. Even though it's digital and relatively quieter than acoustic drums, there are still physical contacts being made and some of the low end sound really cuts through walls and floors. I built (with an assist from Aeyong) a drum platform based on designs seen online. It's two 3/4 in MDF boards with tennis balls in between and wrapped in low indoor/outdoor carpet. The whole platform sits on a 4 or 5 piece thick foam exercise mat system. It doesn't eliminate the sound transmission, but it does reduce it, and that combined with her being able to retreat to the master bedroom and watch TV has helped make my nightly noisemaking a bit more tolerable. 

Updates, mostly gearish...

The holidays have come and gone. Things at work have been fairly steady, although a certain unnamed individual's attempt to portray himself as a visionary may have backfired on him. Time will tell. Not a lot new to report on the home front. Aeyong and I struck a deal that means she will go to Korea next year with a bigger expense account as well as helping pay for knee surgery for her mother. We would have done that anyway, but she usually tries to only spend money on the traveling costs and tries to just spend time with family. That is probably what she'll end up doing anyway, but I told her to shop if she wants to. Knowing her, she'll spend money on her family if she spends any. 

I, on the other hand, have chosen a decidedly less altruistic path. I'm going to finally get the biggest (in sheer size and cost) item that I've had on my gear wish list for the past five years or so. Drum roll, please. No pun intended. Still scratching the noggin?

It's drums, I'm getting drums. My ultimate musical goal is writing and recording music for myself. If others ever get any enjoyment from it, great. But ultimately, I undertake this process for my own personal fulfillment alone.  I've always aspired to write the music that has most inspired me, and that generally has been heavily weighted towards bands with guitar, bass, drums, and keyboards.  Of those, keys probably open up the sonic landscape the most by virtue of synths and samplers, and If I want to go orchestral or soundtrackish, that's where the keys and synths come in.  That being said, I've always wanted to have a good handle on what I consider the four dominant instruments in popular music. 

I've wanted to learn drums so I could facilitate writing (regardless of the fact you can program drums to sound real or not), so I could improve my sense of rhythm, and just because I love the instrument and I've truly always loved the drummers in my favorite bands. If I were to make a top ten list (the creation of which I generally try to avoid) for guitarists, bassists, keyboardists, and drummers, a healthy chunk of the roster would come from Yes, Led Zeppelin, Rush, Pink Floyd, The Police, and a few others. Of those just mentioned, Bonzo, Bruford, the Professor, and Stewart Copeland are held in my highest regard. Sorry Nick, I love you and wouldn't exchange you for another, but you're not in the same category as those mentioned.  

There are many others, especially in Jazz - the various PMG alumni (Antonio Sanchez, Paul Wertico, Danny Gottlieb), Jack Dejohnette, Steve Gadd, Billy Higgins, Peter Erskine, etc.  There are too many to count actually. Despite the august nature of those mentioned, I'm sure to avail myself of some less steep summits before commencing skyward.  Zeppelin will probably be a starting point, although it will take years to get to a level at which I won't be embarrassed, much less master the beats o' Bonzo. As with bass, guitar, and keys, I'll definitely put a few "unattainable in the near future" tunes in my practice list. One of my long term goals is to be able to perform and record all parts to certain tunes. While they're not as common, there are a few videos of people performing all the parts to songs out there on YouTube and the like (YYZ comes to mind).  

After negotiating with Aeyong, I talked her into letting me get what I consider the best electronic drums on the market, Roland's TD-30KV-Pro series.

http://www.roland.com/products/en/TD-30KV/

 I'm getting electronic drums for multiple reasons. One, they're relatively quiet compared to acoustic drums, and two, they're very powerful and flexible when it comes to sounds and recording. Not to mention all the percussion and drum samples I have on my computers that I can now trigger with these drums. And I anticipate being able to use these indefinitely without feeling the need to upgrade.  I didn't want to wait any longer since I'm not getting any younger, and I will need several years to really start honing my ability to a level I can use in recording.  

Cards & letters...

from people I don't even know. You know the words. Not literally per se, but I've gotten several offers on bandmix to join various bands, usually of the cover variety. Looking at the details of these offers has made me realize a few things. First, I needed to emphasize that I'm a guitar player with minimal keyboard and bass skills. It shouldn't surprise me, but stating you can play keys and bass in your profile means you'll get a lot more offers for those roles than guitar. Guitar players grown on trees, apparently. The other realization is that I still haven't worked at learning a set of cover tunes likely to be in any cover bands set list. I get involved in trying to learn songs by guitarists I like (Eric J, Tommy E, etc.) which are not normally on the cover band set list. I think I would enjoy a stint in a cover band, if only to play with other musicians and in front of people, if only for a brief period of time. But until I have a fairly robust personal song list, I don't feel ready to accept an offer since I don't know how many songs and in what time period I might have to learn them to get ready for a band gig. So I'm going to shift my practicing around a bit and work on a few of the typically most requested tunes. I'll probably start with "Don't Stop Believin", "Sweet Home Alabama" and "Sweet Child o' Mine".  I already know parts of those tunes, but I've never committed to learning the whole thing. Once I have them under my fingers, I'll make a vid for youtube & bandmix to post. I still want to have about 10-15 songs on my youtube channel to show the variety of things I can play as well as covering a variety of styles. Those three should be a good start. 

Troops...

I suppose it's been a bit. We're fast approaching holiday season here with Veteran's Day weekend starting tomorrow evening followed by Thanksgiving in a few weeks. Significant events since the last post?  Mostly purchases of stuff. Dining room table, what for the holiday eatage. The prematurely necessary upgrade (replacement) of the iMac and Aeyoung's further cracked iPad.  I was wanting to wait and buy a new Mac Pro when they went on sale in December, but I decided to try the mobile hotspot option with my iPad and Aeyoung's laptop and discovered I could have essentially full laptop functionality with the interwebs at work. Which is nice (without going into detail about said use of interwebs). Did I mention I started playing WOW again? No? Never mind.

Apple's most recent reveal included new macbooks and ipads. I bought the high end version of the macbook pro (from which I'm typing this) and the high end lte version of the ipad. I am fairly confident I would have waited another year or two for any of these upgrades if the imac's graphic card hadn't bought it and aeyoung hadn't delivered the killing blow to her ipad (I drew first blood with the thing a few weeks after we bought it). We've been trying to conserve the fundage a bit until we get the 401K replenished in another two years, but some of these things have a mind of their own. I've essentially stopped looking for concerts to attend, which is sometimes a significant part of the budget. There are a few artists that I will go see no matter what, but last I heard Zep and Floyd aren't due to tour anytime soon.

 Things at work are okay. We have actually had quite a light schedule thanks to our leaders in Washington and the furlough. The number of claim requests getting processed drop to nil since the regional office was affected by the furlough, but I expect the numbers will start climbing back up before too long. My last post discussed the unfinished game conundrum. So, with that in mind, I decided to jump back into playing WOW which won't help me complete any of those unfinished games and is just adding more time/money into a game that I've played around 40 days worth of. Yes, that was days.   WOW just has a special quality that always draws me back in. I'm leveling another mage this time, although I'm specced as a frost mage as opposed to my previous fire mage. And I can say frost is much more effective when soloing. I've been playing for a month and I'm just about level 73. I'm probably going to keep going and then upgrade to Pandaria once my character is ready for those zones. 

Most likely the new PS4 and Xbox will be released while I'm doing this. It's a veritable surfeit of gamage, my friends. I'm starting to think I'll never finish the PS3 and 360 games that are gathering dust currently. I've got a few steam games I'll play when I get around to them. I'm actually more interested in the new technology in these systems as opposed to any specific launch titles. The new kinect's higher resolution and ability to track not only individual limb movement but also the force of the movement means that the interactivity for the fitness programs is at a much higher level now.

 I watched a demo of a chubby game journalist (redundant?) trying to follow the Insanity workout and it looks very promising. It constantly tracks body movements and gives you instant feedback with various scoring metrics. At one point it was comparing his score to females aged 30-45 and he was falling short so he put a bit more effort into it to reach the goal. I gather there are all sorts of data to use like your former best, your xbox friends/family, all time records, etc. That's just the kind of geeky oneupmanship I like. Basically it's saying, "We know you know you're a fatass. But do you realize how much of a fatass you are? Didn't think so. Try harder, fatass"  It looks like most of the P90X workouts are on there as well and it also appears that all the kinect fitness programs (and there's a metric ton) will be free to play (at least for the first year) for xbox live gold subscribers. I think I may be moving my workouts up to the home theater in the near future. 

First World Problems: Unfinished Video Games

This doesn't quite rank up there with food, water, affordable healthcare, anything a respectably productive person would complaint about, etc. I have a bad and quite long lived habit of not finishing video games. This dates back at least to circa 2000, and probably even before then. It became a significant issue when I was stationed in Korea between 1998-2000 and pc games were available at well below the retail cost, and that's all I will say. I had a habit of visiting one of the game "retailers" about once per month and stocking up on several titles. The results was that I had a significant library of games nearly overnight, most of which I never finished (if there was a campaign or progression to the game at least) and some I never even played. Seeing as how cheap they were, and the fact that many of them weren't exactly marquee games with high ratings, it didn't bother me so much. 

Fast forward to my resumption of guitardom, I have even less budgeted time for video games, at least compared to the past. I go through video game phases now, where I will really be into games in general, or I'll have a specific game that I want to play and then I'll be playing more than usual. That being said, I never completely neglect music, so I don't ever have those long gaming sessions I would have in the past. I'll go sometimes months or longer without playing at all, and then I'll have brief periods of regular play. 

I have had a few periods of a massive increase, most notably since 2004 was WOW in 2005. I played WOW essentially every day for a few hours if not more until I hit level 59 a few months later. I then put it down for I think over a year until the next expansion came out. I would repeat this cycle with new expansions, although I have never bought Mists of Pandaria, and won't. Ironically, although I have played WOW probably more than any other game in history (I think my total time played count is up around 25 days or so, yes, that's 25 days as in 24 hour days, as in 600 hours), I never really got into being a guild member and doing raids. 

The aspect of WOW that sucked me in was the enormity and variety of the world, regions, dungeons, cultures, etc. There was always another area of the map or dungeon, etc. that you either hadn't checked out yet, or your character wasn't strong enough to go into that region yet. 

In reality, you don't "finish" WOW so much, but after playing 600 hours or so, I've had my fill. Where I've had the most unfinished games is probalby within the past few years, mainly since I started playing guitar again. If memory serves, I at least have the following games with campaigns or main story lines that haven't been completed:

Red Dead Redemption, Bioshock, Mass Effect 3, Fable II, Assassin's Creed I/II, Crysis II, Sim City 5, Demon's Souls, Deus Ex (recent one), Alan Wake 2, Arkham City. I'm forgetting several I'm sure. You could add several games I've played briefly, mainly in the MMO category (The Old Republic, Guild Wars 2).  I will say that I have finished several games that I had either already owned or otherwise intended to play and never got around to it. This is an example of how long I wait: I didn't play COD4 Modern Warfare and MW2 until 2012/2013, essentially 4+ years after the second one came out. The graphics were definitely dated by that point, but it was nice to pay $10 for games that still stood up (at least in campaign mode for me, I have no interest in multiplayer with the legions of trolls and nerdragers that frequent those games).  I also finally got around to finishing portal 1 and 2 which were brilliant games (especially 2), and Arkham Asylum which was a good game for what it did, although some of the boss fights were extremely frustrating.

Now it's fall 2013 and with the impending release of two new consoles, I'm really at a point that I feel I need to finish at least my console games so I can start the new generation with a clean slate. Some of those games listed are PC games, so I don't prioritize them as highly, although I'd like to finish all these games. I guess it's a good problem to have, my problem is that I don't want to just give up a game that I paid money for. I guess I'm just going to budget some weekend time and finish Red Dead, Assassin's Creed I, and Fable II. Demon's Souls is such an enormous pain in the ass that I'm not sure about that one. 

Everything breaks

at least in the realm of computers and electronics it seems. I have been a pretty stalwart advocate for Apple products, but in reality nearly all of my Apple computers have eventually suffered a major mechanical breakdown to render them unusable. The latest casualty is my 2009 iMac, for which I already had to replace the hard drive last summer (only to find out 2 months later Apple was recalling them). Now it's starting to flake out with graphic "anomalies" which render windows and icons completely black or scrambled and effectively unusable. A bit of online research revealed that other users with the same problem needed to have their logic boards replaced. In the Apple realm, I've learned that logic board replacement is usually about as cost effective as buying a new computer. I already suffered a logic board failure with my Mac Pro after its warranty ran out and that's what prompted the iMac purchase back in 2009. In fairness, the Mac Pro failure was because I tried to upgrade the RAM and accidentally didn't completely seat the ram in its socket before powering up the computer, and apparently this caused it to short circuit and fry the logic board. So that's two unusable Macs to add to my first mac laptop that I purchased in 2008 for my Afghanistan deployment that essentially died (would no longer power up) in 2011ish.  At that point I had bought a newer macbook pro, so the loss wasn't as significant. Still, in retrospect, we've had some pretty crappy luck with our Apple computers. But for some reason, I'm still motivated to buy a new one. I bought my first new Windows pc in many years (I think at least 5) back in 2012 because I was getting back into pc gaming. I learned that despite all the improvements over the years (Windows 7 was a definite leap ahead of Vista, which was the last OS I had been using), the windows experience still fell short of the simplicity and power of OSX.  I have been staying abreast of the Mac Pro update news, and they finally announced a completely new model this past June. I wasn't going to be as quick to upgrade until the iMac died, but not it seems I won't have a choice. I'll definitely pay extra for the applecare protection which is kind of a shitty requirement since these computers are not priced competitively to start with.  

Why I love my job(ish)...

Love is probably a bit strong, but there are several things about my job that make me not hate it. To wit:  1.  Regular hours with no nights, weekends, or call (unless I want to work overtime on Saturday to make extra money. Which I don't.)  2.  I'm mostly in control of my day and destiny. In other words, I can work as fast or as slow (usually the former) as I want and I'm not affected by the productivity of others (or the lack thereof). 3.  I have my own office, which is my private sanctuary where I can listen to music, use my iPad, etc. without interference/noise from outside. I sound like I hate people which is not the case, but it's nice to have your own personal space when you have noisy/smelly/etc. co-workers. 4. Kind of related to number one - the work is predictable and manageable. Some days I'm busy all day, but most days there are cushion times built into the schedule so I never feel overwhelmed. 5. Pay, benefits - while federal salaries are normally 10-30% below their civilian equivalents in gross salary, when you consider the benefits (pension, paid leave, health insurance, 401K), then my job is very competitive. Never underestimate the value of a pension. Even if I had been a smart investor and had been saving/investing towards my future since a young age, I most likely would have lost a huge chunk of that in 2008-2009. Because I retired from the Army I will have a very sizable monthly check for the rest of my life, regardless if I work or not. While the federal employee pension isn't as sizable as the military pension, it's essentially the same benefit. Although I do have a 401K that I've been investing in, the federal pension I'll be eligible to receive when I retire will combine with my Army pension and VA disability to essentially ensure that I won't need to work past my mid 60's unless I really want to. Also, the benefit of paid leave is considerable in this job. I worked as a DA civilian and then contractor after I first retired and my annual leave was somewhere around 10 days total. I think I had 10 sick leave days as well. In this job I am authorized 26 days of regular leave and 13 days of sick leave for a combined total of 39 days paid leave per year. And  I've been accruing that amount since I was hired. Most jobs require you to build up tenure to accrue the higher amounts, but not this one. Authorized/paid leave is a huge deal for me. I grew accustomed to 30 days of paid leave per year in my 23 year Army career, and that first year as a civilian with only 10 days of paid leave was a stark contrast to what I was accustomed to. This total doesn't include federal holidays.

Hey there sports fans...

A bit of a gap since the last update, as it happens. I've been back to work for the past 5 weeks, after a 3 week "vacation" in which we moved into our new home. Everything went relatively smoothly with the move with no significant problems. Along the way we cleared our rental and managed to get our security deposit back. I also managed to get in a fender bender on the day before we cleared the house. Luckily there were no injuries and my truck only sustained minor damage (I had to replace the passenger side mirror). My only official wreck in 30 years of driving (I may have been pulled into the magnetic field of a parking lot light pole many, many years ago. But that wasn't officially recognized by any municipal authorities) (probably because they weren't aware).  

We spent most of the 3 weeks trying to get the house in running order. We made some furniture and other household upgrades to include a new living room sectional sofa (aka Aeyong's new bed), nice tool bench/cabinet for the garage, 3 new ceiling fans, a metric crapton of additional network and speaker wiring, and multiple landscaping upgrades (flowers, shrubs, trees).  We also bought a new refrigerator and washer/dryer. It's a good thing we got our earnest money back from the Royal Crest Conundrum (that's the official historical title, mind) because we burned through that and more. 

We still have many upgrades planned for the future, but it will be a process over many years. We'll eventually add a patio, pergola, and outdoor kitchen to the backyard, but that's probably several years down the road. In the near term, we have two years to pay ourselves back for the 401K loan we had to take out to sell the Killeen house. We also plan on getting a new car (the first in 8 years) for Aeyong and I'll take the Pathfinder for the work commute. We don't want to add the car payment on until we clear the 401K loan. We could afford the new car now, but we adopted a pay as you go (not counting the house sale) policy many years ago, and we try not to carry any more debt than is necessary. A mortgage and a car loan are about our comfortable limit, for anything else we pay in cash. Since we have the outstanding 401K loan, we'll wait on the car. This policy allows us to live comfortably and still maintain the lifestyle we are accustomed to living. 

Music wise I went to see Slash at the Gigantour in Dallas. Great show as usual, if a bit shorter than normal since it was a festivalish show. I also saw Device which is the singer from Disturbed and I think a dude from Evanescence. They were pretty good. I also saw Hellyeah ? which is Vinnie Paul's band. I regret wearing sandals and being against the front of the stage. Total rookie move, by the way, but most bands I go see don't motivate the mosh as much. Black Label Society seemed good, although I'll be damned if I understood a word he sang or could really hear what he was playing. I skipped out on the headliner, Megadeth. I have Peace Sells, but I have never really gotten into Mustaine's singing or the music for that matter. 

We also saw Rodrigo & Gabriel at the newish? ATT Performing Arts Center in Dallas. They put on a good show like the last time we saw them in Austin, although they had a bit more set dressing. The audience seemed primarily composed of the hoity toity who have the disposable income to see and be seen in the arts district. My concert t-shirt was decidedly below the expected (not enforced) dress code of the cognoscenti.  It is a nice theater to see a show, though. We're going back in November to see Harry Connick for the first time in ten years. He's touring his latest album, and we're hoping he'll actually throw in some old hits. We previously saw him on a Christmas tour, and that was all that he played. No hits or non Christmas tunes (not counting about 30 seconds of Sweet Georgia Brown on the piano). 

Speaking of artists we haven't seen in a long while, we're going to see Steely Dan for the first time in, wait for it, ten years tomorrow night. They're not touring an album, but seeing how seldom they tour, we wanted to make sure we caught them. We have total nosebleeds since I wasn't sure prior to the move if we would be going and waited until several weeks after they went on sale to buy them. We'll be taking advantage of the video screens I'm sure. 

There's more to update, but I'm already running out of electrons at this point. 

Updates

We're on closing eve, and if all goes well we will find ourselves sleeping in our new digs tomorrow night. Not a lot has happened since the last update other than the incremental process of buying the house. We've already purchased our appliances and scheduled all the utility/etc. transfers as well as house/carpet cleaning for the rental we're departing. Every move seems a bit more tedious since we have been mostly moving to bigger places with each move which means we have more room for stuff. On that note, I did buy the Port City OS 2x12 cab I had been discussing. Daniel Klein from Port City had traded a few emails with me when I had asked a question on their website so he contacted me when he had a show demo cab that he couldn't sell as new and offered me a decent ($125) discount. I knew I was most likely going to get one of these cabs this year, so it seemed worth it although I really wanted to wait until after we moved. I like the cab, but I've been having mixed results with the AxeFx. I think there are probably a finite number of amp heads that are ideally suited for the cab, and the patches probably need to be created from the ground up. I'll be working on that in the new house. 

After we close tomorrow the plan is to pick up a uhaul truck and self move the essentials as well as the fragile/expensive stuff we don't want to put in the hands of the movers. The real move will be a week from tomorrow, but we plan on living in the new home starting tomorrow night. We will load up the king size bed, as well as most of our clothing and kitchen items. I'm also going to be taken all the home theater gear as I need to re-wire the theater and it will give me something to do this weekend after we've moved our essentials. We've done some of the minor needed repairs to the rental (patching & painting drywall). We're hiring a house cleaning company as well as a carpet cleaning company to come through once we've had time to get all of our stuff out. I'll need to give the lawn a final mow/trim/edge probably the day before the movers come. 

Gear Planning

I'm making some more gear changes, the most recent and significant were the bequeathing of my Mesa Stiletto 4x12 and my Radial Tonebone Classic distortion pedal as well as my TC Electronic VPD1 Pre-drive pedal to my nephew Chris.  He's been making good progress and his band has played a few gigs and seen some early success. Since I think he'll get some use out of it, I feel it's a worthwhile investment in his musical future, regardless of where he goes with it.  While all three are good kit, they had been lying unused since I got my Fractal AxeFx in 2010. I felt it was more valuable, albeit altruistically, to give them to him versus selling them on Ebay.  

With that in mind, the removal of the 4x12 has made way for my eventual purchase of a Port City OS 2x12 cab that I've been considering for a few years.  While it's ostensibly smaller than the 4x12 it's replacing, the great advantage to these cabs is their innovative design that aims the speakers differently and includes a port that results in a much fuller and more three dimensional sound. Most people who play them say they sound bigger than 4x12s by virtue of this design.  This will still be bypassing all the available cab sims on the Axe, so in that consideration, I will most likely replace my current Atomic wedge with their new CLR technology.  I haven't decided on a wedge versus cab yet.  The only other near term plan is to replace the pickups in my Suhr. I just can't get the EMG-Xs to sound the way I want. All of my other guitars are so much more dynamic and responsive to touch, but the EMGs seem permanently stuck at 11.

Deposited

the earnest money is. Now we can put that chapter behind us and move forward with the Grand Prairie house. We're supposed to meet with the mortgage banker this week and hopefully we can close by the end of June and move in early July. I'm already approved for 3 weeks of leave in July so hopefully we can get everything moved and resolved by the time I need to return to work. ​

Earnest money

We picked up a check for the full earnest money yesterday. It won't fully sink in until we deposit the check and see our balance increase accordingly. It was an "interesting" but brief exhange with Dean Smith, the "co-owner".  After we signed the release statement and he handed us the check, I just briefly expressed our thanks for them returning the full amount. His response was not so much a response but a mild apoplectic pause in which he grimaced, nodded downward several times and made some guttural noises that may have been an attempt at a retort that his good conscience immediately shut down in the interest of self preservation.

Aeyong hit the nail on the head when she later said she thought he was upset by the cancellation because it would make him lose face at the company. While we were never given specific details, we did deduce that the company was primarily owned by an apparently very wealthy man/family. We know that the sales rep we dealt with is the granddaughter of said owner, and it was discussed during some of the meetings that the owner retained mineral rights for all the subdivision and other parcels of land he owns, which are apparently considerable. ​

​We believe Mr Smith runs the day to day operations and is considered as the "co-owner" but it appears he's a minority owner and that final decisions rest in the hands of the real owner. Case in point is our earnest money. Based on his response yesterday, and every other time we've dealt with him, he's never inclined to refund or discount money. We strongly believe that the owner must have read our response and made the decision to fully refund our earnest money because of all the errors that were made by the granddaughter and Mr Smith. 

​I have a feeling that Mr Smith isn't accustomed to customers cancelling contracts when he screws up, and this situation has probably brought down his stock a few notches. Maybe we're reading too much into it, but I can safely say that he wasn't happy with us getting the money back, on that I have no doubt. 

Don't count your chickens...

but we're getting the preliminary offer from Royal Crest to refund us ​our earnest money. I say preliminary until I see the balance in our checking account go up by $11K. We're pleased by the offer, and surprised. The pessimist in me thinks they must have some offers on the property and know they won't be losing any money. In fact, they may be able to make more money with the changes in the market. In the meantime we've essentially decided on a different new home in Grand Prairie built by First Texas Homes, which is a builder we've been looking at for a long time. We were very close to buying from them when we decided to go with Royal Crest. We're meeting with their sales rep and our realtor tomorrow to most likely sign a contract. 

Awaiting feedback

​We have been funneling all of our issues through our realtor including our intention to cancel. Yesterday we got a request from Royal Crest to summarize all of our problems with the home build. Reviewing old emails I typed up a 6 page narrative of what led us to request a cancellation of the contract. We sent it back through the realtor last night and we're waiting to hear their response. I don't have high expectations.

​The bottom line is the contract states they can keep most of the earnest money with the exception of $1000 if we cancel and I honestly will be surprised if they agree to do anything that isn't legally required. I re-read my narrative this morning and while I'm biased and I may not see it from their point of view, after reading the summary I can't imagine anyone not agreeing to compensate us in some way.

​We will accept either a full refund of the earnest money or to have them finish the home to our desire without charging anything additional. This would have to include fencing the backyard, and the standard landscape package. 

Based on their previous actions, I will be really surprised if they try to accommodate us in any fashion. I fully expect to look elsewhere for our future home and I'll also be surprised if we recover any money. ​

Calling it off

We're waiting to hear back from the builder, but we're essentially going to cancel the contract on the house. We have had a succession of problems with the house, mostly in that the house we requested in the beginning has slowly veered down a path of the builder's choosing and away from what we wanted. ​

​The biggest problem (as I think I previously posted) was the kitchen layout being designed inadequately to accommodate what we wanted. We ultimately had to give up an additional countertop/cabinet extension we requested because they simply failed to design the room to fit our request. The frustration is compounded by the the amount of time I spent researching kitchen layouts until I found a picture that not only explicitly showed what I wanted, but also would have fit their pre-existing design without too much adjustment. 

​Essentially we've learned that when building a custom home, you better make sure that all (and I mean ALL) of your preferences are very precisely described and documented in your contract or you will not get them. We had the same issue with the type of flooring (we wanted 5in hand scraped and they only included 3in, so we had to pay more), the outdoor kitchen (we requested a kitchen and showed them a picture of what we wanted, but we didn't get them to print "barbecue grill" specifically, so we had to pay for that ourselves), the size of the back patio (we originally had the home theater pointing towards the back of the property but we changed the alignment by 90 degrees and in the process lost a big chunk of porch space that the builder failed to correct and we ended up having to pay for additional concrete). They were also going to charge us more for lower height carpet in the home theater and bonus rooms although this was in our initial request (but not on the magical contract). 

​There have been other issues as well and the consistent stance of the builder is that if it's not described specifically in the contract, it wasn't agreed upon and the buyer pays. This despite their promises that we could have all we were requesting in the initial meeting. We learned that those promises are empty if they're not on the contract. 

​We haven't gotten their response yet, but I'm expecting they're going to withhold any of the upgrades after the contract (home theater bar, concrete, hardwood floors, stone) so we'll probably end up getting only $3-4K of our $11K earnest money.

Guitar Naming Conventions

I got this idea from someone on the AxeFx forum, but like all good ideas it's worth stealing. He named his guitars after his influences. I don't know why it never occurred to me before. Many guitarists name their guitars with female names which is cool in one way, but becomes a problem if you have more than one and it's not named after your significant other. So with that in mind, my guitars are going to be called:

(by the way, there will be no explanation. you either understand, or you don't)

Jimmy - Les Paul Custom
Eric - Strat (do not ask which Eric, sheesh)
Eddie - Suhr Modern. (If I ever get around to buying an EVH model guitar, then this will be renamed Brian based on the color)
Tommy - PRS Acoustic
Geddy - Jazz Bass

Swiss - JT Variax

Photo Galleries

I'm going to post any Mustang Creek related images to the  photo galleries which can be reached on the link at the top right.

HODOR...

if you don't watch Game of Thrones (or better yet, if you haven't read the books by George R.R. Martin) that will make absolutely no sense. Translate: more photos. Back to the subject of GOT, holy sheepshank, Batman!! They did it, they actually didn't change Jaime Lannister's unfortunate outcome from ASOS. I would have been somewhat surprised and very disappointed if they had, but that is such a critical plot point in the overall arch of the series that I was actually worried they might change it. For the Stephen King fans, just think Misery (book version) in the upper extremity.

Anywhens, here's a few more photos. We ran cat6 & coaxial to 4 additional locations on Saturday. The standard package includes 3 locations and we had chosen the theatre, living room and master bedroom. The A/V guy (who I lovingly refer to as Goober the fat ass from the 19th century), wanted an additional $40 per line and he wasn't going to consider Cat6 or anything else foreign sounding to his delicate southern ears. It was a little more pain in the assy than desired, but the process was significantly easier than it would have been after drywall is installed. And we saved a donation of $320 bucks for Goober's beer/bbq fund. We ran drops to both guest bedrooms, the office, and the bonus room. We skipped the library(dining room), garage, and patio. We considered those, but the only place I'm likely to install anything later will be the patio and they already installed sideboarding since the patio is an exterior.

I don't actually anticipate needing a TV out there, but I can see listening to music, so I may eventually install a couple of in ceiling speakers, but that area is fairly easy to access from the attic, so when the time comes it should be relatively painless. Also, while we were running our wires, the gas line contractor installed the lines for the cooktop, indoor fireplace, and outdoor grill.

More photosessss.....