It's been a bit...

…since the last update and a few things have changed. I’ve resumed pursuit of my seven (eight?) disciplines, including a resumption of writing and drawing. I’ve started to settle into a six day workweek so to speak. I practice drums, vocals, acoustic guitar, drawing and writing on M-W-F, and on T-Th-Sa I practice drums, keys, elec guitar, bass, drawing, and writing. I also started studying Korean again but decided to go back to the very beginning of the Pimsleur lessons. I do this in conjunction with my elliptical workouts, which are every day at present. (goldarned knee doncha know) I consider Sunday my day off, although I tend to get in some more writing and drawing that day as well. It’s open for me to completely fuck off if I want to.

Getting back into writing has been good so far, although I’ve yet to really engage in any “proper” writing. It’s been comprised of administrative and transcription tasks. I finally got all the bookmarked (booktaped?) notes from Judith Flander’s Victorian Home book, including several additional pages of notes that seemed useful as I went through it. I need to do that for Life in a Medieval Town as well. In the process, it became more apparent that my Scrivener organization system was lacking. I started the process today of trying to categorize research and story components into a more understandable and efficient system.

Ideas keep coming for the story and I continue to follow the practice of just dictating these into my notes app on the phone, but now I need to start filing these ideas in the appropriate areas and then doing the actual follow up work, whether it’s crafting a scene, conducting more research, etc. I feel like I already have the bones of a compelling story, but the real work still lies ahead. I plan to approach this methodically with concurrent study in my various writing courses as well as reading both nonfiction and fiction that will support the work. I’m planning on trying Brian Lee Durfee’s approach of choosing several books by authors whose style I want to at least partially draw from in the work. His systematic analysis of their techniques is an interesting approach, and although I’m not sure how well it will work for me, my analytical brain finds favor with it. I’ll be taking a look at their typical chapter layouts, dialogue length and positioning within a page/chapter, character introductions, exposition, etc.

I haven’t decided on the authors yet, although I’m likely to pick two of his - Robert Jordan and George R.R. Martin. I want to pick at least one Victorian-era novel, whether Brontë, Dickens, Doyle, etc. I also want to pick at least one of the authors whose humor I’ve enjoyed - Harry Harrison’s Stainless Steel Rat, Douglas Adams, Scott Lynch, Terry Pratchett, etc. I wouldn’t want humor to overpower the tone, but I definitely love the stories that include at least a dash of levity.

And in today’s “critical for world peace” update, I managed to snag a pre-order for the new Xbox Series X console. Akin to the oh so pleasurable concert ticket buying experience, I bounced around multiple websites across multiple devices and had a false start on my phone where I got to address confirmation only to be told they couldn’t ship to my country (US). Thankfully, that incomplete order remained in my shopping cart on the MS store, and I was able to complete the transaction on my desktop about thirty minutes into the pre-sale. Based on early comments online, there are a lot of dissatisfied customers unable to get through, although as per usual, this doesn’t necessarily reflect a representative sample of customers.

After MS announced their purchase of ZeniMax Media (including Bethesda, id, and several others) I was planning on trying to buy MS’s subscription plan where you get the console and the game pass for $35 a month over two years. With the addition of Bethesda (Elder Scrolls, Fallout), id (Doom), and the others, that means several more of my favorite games would be available. As it is, I’ll probably wait until I’ve finally cleared out that games backlog before I consider subscribing. My two most anticipated games for the near future (Baldur’s Gate 3, Cyberpunk 2077) won’t be available on all access anytime soon regardless. I assume BG is PC exclusive at least at first and that would be my preferred version, CP might actually be more enjoyable in the home theater. I definitely enjoyed Witcher 3 in that manner.

Back to the Infrequent...

…updates I suppose. Nothing monumental has happened in the past month. There has been slow progress on the work front. I’m not sure if it was within the last month that the director sent an email stating that VANTHCS would return to full operations with incremental steps for routine face to face encounters with a planned 100% restoration of services by October 6th. I’m not tracking the play by play, but it seems they’re on schedule at this point.

All that said, that doesn’t mean fee-basis will be needed in C&P in that same timeframe. Our department chief and program analyst had sent emails to the FTEs notifying them that face to face examinations would resume so they would be back in the clinic full time in the upcoming weeks. I responded to this email saying I knew that didn’t mean fee basis would be needed for quite a long time and they essentially confirmed this and expressed appreciation for my patience.

The unknown factors here are whether they will be able to stick to the plan and how quickly there will be a resumption of the normal flow of exam requests from VBA. Until they start getting a normal flow that exceeds the FTEs capability, it’s not likely we’ll see any request for fee-basis exams. My feeling for a long time (and probably expressed here previously) was the end of the year at best, and Dr. Potu (Chief of Ambulatory Care) had already expressed this timeframe as well. If anything, I could see them asking us to help out during the holidays as there’s always a shortage of providers since everyone wants to go on vacation, although it’s hard to say how that will be affected by COVID. If travel remains sketchy, those leave requests may drop off quite a bit.

I still think it will be well into next year before we can expect a resumption of full activities and fee basis numbers reaching anything near where they were at their peak. I hope I’m wrong, and I don’t necessarily need the desired workload to make a difference in our budget. One good day a month would be enough to put our monthly ledger in the black, and two days would make things comfortable. This wouldn’t facilitate the faster mortgage payoff schedule, but at least it would allow us to slowly accrue some cash reserves and give us some breathing room. My hope is we can get back at least to my normal salary limit, which would allow faster mortgage payoff, although it might take 2-3 years instead of the planned 12 months we were previously on track to achieve.

In other developments, I’ve started studying Korean and drawing again in the past week. I decided to go back to the beginning in Korean, and I’m still trying to figure out my battle rhythm with drawing. I had been bouncing around several different instruction programs and I’m starting to think I need to pick one and just stick with it through completion before moving on to the next thing. I have multiple training programs I plan to complete as I go along. Notice I didn’t mention writing. I still plan to start writing again, I’m just looking for the right window and motivation.

Although it’s incremental and often hard to quantify, I feel there has been progress in my musicianship, mainly drums, guitar, and keys. The downpicking drill based on Tommy Emmanuel’s fast run from Endless Road is definitely paying off, albeit slowly. Drumming has felt slower, but my added focus on kick pedal is slowly reaping rewards. I started alternating drill days with song days where I just play songs so I can apply some of these techniques, and I think that’s helping. Many of the drills I practice are isolated and don’t prepare you for the application within a song where all the other limbs are involved.

I need to start practicing bass again and my vocal drills have been functional but not really stretching my capabilities and I need to start singing some actual songs again. I’m not necessarily happy there was a drop off in some disciplines in light of the mild COVID funk, but I can understand it, and at least I kept applying my most primary disciplines. Not to mention, that game backlog has continued to shrink, so there’s that.

I just finished Divinity Original Sin 2 yesterday, and I’ll probably finish off Horizon Zero Dawn next and then I’ve got to decide what to tackle after that. I’m thinking Demon Souls although I realized today I might not be able to play that or Fallout 3 on my PS4, at least using the disc-based versions I own. I think there are versions if you have a subscription to Playstation Now, so I might look into that option.

Life is pretty good, all things considered. I’m not happy losing a significant chunk of earning potential, but we’ve managed to stay afloat for several months and with a few more adjustments to the discretionary expenses we could probably do it indefinitely. I’ve gotten into more cooking with the time off but the downside is that my waistline has grown with my cooking skills. It doesn’t help that I’m having a flare-up with my right knee again and I’m unable to run.

To add insult to injury, I had been trying to reintroduce push-ups and situps to my regimen so I could recover some muscle mass and stave off another ravage of aging. As luck would have it, I strained something in my lower abdomen and I’m hoping it’s just a delicate atrophied muscle and not a hernia waiting to happen. Location wise it could totally be an inguinal hernia. I’m not sure but I think it’s the same side in which I had hernia surgery as an infant and I doubt they used mesh back then. I’m hoping it’s just a muscle strain and I can resume activity in the coming weeks. One of the greatest frustrations of aging (besides becoming progressively more gray and squishy) is that your body starts to betray you and things that you are mentally and psychologically ready to do become difficult to impossible due to injury and declining function. Still, it could be a lot worse.

Speaking of, I’m essentially done with social media. After shutting down FB completely (two times now, most recently in June) I went ahead and pulled the trigger on twitter and Instagram as well. This was another decision based on the sum total effect of interaction and they both are responsible for bringing a lot of negativity that I can’t control. My political leanings are progressive and liberal and I’ll continue to support those candidates and causes, but I just can’t tolerate the day to day social media drama any longer. Every day is a new deplorable act, quite often by the nominal leader of the country and it’s easy to despair. I’m not sure the US as a country can recover from the damage it has sustained (and not just in the past four years), and although I make my best efforts to contribute, there seems to be no shortage of people who are willfully ignorant, obtuse, and have no regard or empathy for their fellow human beings. I hope we can overcome the hatred, greed, and racism running rife at present, but I have my doubts. I don’t endorse much that the catholic church says, but they got the seven deadly sins right.

Bringing back the sexy...

once I find it, at least. Here's the pseudo proud visage of a finisher, ladies and gentlemen. Nice that they don't have the finishing time posted in the picture (mopey face). Surprising that I managed a smile before I had my first post race beer. Or maybe I was just frozen in a rictus of pain. Six of one, half dozen...

BL Item 7

Actually, I don't have a specific bucket list, but there are things I want to do before the inevitable return to stardust. Although saying I ran a marathon is a bit generous, I did finish my first marathon yesterday, and I ran most of the way (about 22 of the 26 miles were at faster than a walking pace). Because of the way the course is mapped out and because I took a wrong turn at the detour for the half marathoners, I ended up running about 27.5 according to my phone. Either my phone is generous, the Cowtown Marathon mappers are a bit stingy, or it's a combination of both. I know I definitely ran further than 26.2, but I'm not sure it was 27.5.

As far as my pace and finish time, my primary goal of finishing was met, although I was way too optimistic in my prediction. I ran my first (and only) sponsored half marathon (I've run that distance multiple times, just not in official events) in 1:43, so I mistakenly thought I could run under 4 hours with no problem. Maybe I should have planned for 5 hours, although I ended up missing that with a total of 5:10. Even counting my temporary detour, I don't think it added 10 minutes. My biggest time suck were the walking miles, which numbered around 4 total. There's just a point where you run out of gas, and it's a struggle to just keep moving forward. I was so close in the 19-22 mile range of quitting and calling Aeyong to come pick me up. This is the point that's often referred to as "The Wall". Somehow I just kept telling myself to make it to the next mile marker and surprisingly at around the 23 mile mark I started jogging again and got a slight burst of energy and was able to "run" most of the way in.

I think I can improve that time and I'm tentatively looking towards the Dallas Marathon in December. I know during the race yesterday I was telling myself this was the only marathon I would ever run, but 20+ hours of rest and refueling is giving me some renewed optimism that I can do better. Since I didn't set the bar too high, that goal should be attainable.

2012

Before welcoming in the new year (albeit 2 days late), I wanted to give a nod to 2011. 2011 was a good year. Not necessarily a GREAT year, but essentially good on most days, which earns an overall good rating.

The year started with us in Killeen and no immediate or even medium term plans to move or change anything that substantial in our lives. I had just started working for MEB at Ft Hood and by the end of January I knew I couldn't last long term in that position. The highlights of the year were my subsequent decision to seek new employment, and I began looking primarily in the D/FW area with the intent to relocate. Ultimately this culminated in my finding, applying, and getting hired for a Comp & Pen position with the VA at their new FW outpatient clinic.

We put our house on the market and Aeyoung was very fortuitous in finding a home to rent that was not only convenient to work, but very suitable from a layout standpoint and pet friendly. Besides the upheaval of the move and a couple of months of not collecting a regular paycheck in the summer (and the resulting red on the bank ledger), the year otherwise proceeded as normal.

On the family front, Aeyoung and I celebrated our 21st anniversary in April and just continued to happily share each other's lives with our 3 furry children. Our most recent addition continues to attempt to exert her dominance as the favorite. It's funny how smaller dogs seem to have Napoleon complexes.  I incrementally improved at playing guitar and keyboards, continued to run, and near the end of the year I began studying Korean again, although a little more in earnest this time. Hey, better late than never, you know the old saying. 

Onward to 2012. Aeyoung asked me the other day what my new year's resolutions were going to be. I usually have a significant reassessing of my physical fitness at this time of year, so she's used to me swearing off alcohol and fast food and committing myself to exercise. The good news is that I have been a consistent runner for the past two years and this really hasn't changed. The only ironic event is that I did a number on my right calf in mid december when I was out for one of my pre-marathon long runs. This resulted in my not being able to run for the last two weeks of the year, and now I almost feel as if I am starting a new year's resolution by returning to running. I managed to run 1195 miles last year which is okay.

I had 3 significant down periods due to illness and injury, but this last one has been the longest. I'm hoping I can get my weekly average up to a consistent 30 miles or so, although this means I'll have to run 15 miles on the weekend unless I add an extra weekday. My long term goal is still to run a marathon, but this is the second train up in which I've suffered a significant injury setback that essentially has derailed my plan near the end. I think I will need to reassess my general approach to running/fitness and include some muscular strength and flexibility traning to supplement my running/cardio. I also think about 10-20% weight loss may do alot to minimize the injuries. 

Along those lines I'm going to have to commit to less junk food and alcohol (this is really only a weekend phenomena), and start to really manage how I fuel my body for general health and for running. I think my plan for now will be only social drinking (in our case that means concerts), and limit the junk food to only one or two meals a week. Aeyoung will cook this kind of food more often just from a convenience standpoint, so that means I will probably have to step in a help with some of the food preparation. 

Our financial goals for 2012 are fairly simple. Keep doing what we're doing, but do it better. Get the red off the ledger book that was necessitated by the relocation (and is harder to overcome currently because we're paying rent and a mortgage at the same time). The most important objective for the year would be to sell our house in Killeen, although it's hard to gauge how reasonable a goal that is. We will pay a tax penalty of 8K if we sell before August, so right now we're not being aggressive in our pricing.

That will most likely change if we haven't sold by then. Once we can sell that house, our financial goals will be centered on our eventual home purchase in the D/FW area. That's a 2013 and beyond goal. The eventual home purchase will hopefully be our last. We're hoping to get at least a one acre homesite in a planned development that will protect us from urban sprawl in the long term and allow us to stay in that one home indefinitely. We're looking to settle in the Mansfield/Arlington/Grand Prairie area. This will get us a little closer to the middle of D/FW while keeping my work commute to a manageable timeframe. 

My other 2012 goals center on continued learning and development. I want to continue studying Korean, at least every weekday like I have been striving to do. I'll probably start trying to either read some comic books or watch the occasional television program with Aeyoung. I haven't developed my comprehension and vocabulary enough yet for those to be possible. 

In music, I'm going to commit to two initial goals. Learn at least one complete song by ear per month, and compose at least one complete song per month. To learn a complete song by ear, I'm going to start with something a little more simple and approachable like Led Zeppelin or equivalent. I know bits and pieces of many tunes, but I've been dependent on tablature for the bulk of all songs I've ever learned. I've figured out countless riffs and chunks of tunes, but I haven't forced myself to sit down and learn a complete song from start to finish. It's definitely an easier task now than it was when I first learned guitar. The software tools available make it about as easy as possible. I just need to do the work. I'll build up to harder material once I have several complete songs under my belt. 

On the compositional front, my goal is to have a completed song with all instruments, arrangement, orchestration, production, etc. completed every month. I haven't decided yet if I'll make completely new songs from scratch, although that is the way I'm leaning. I have ordered a small two octave keyboard controller to keep at my main desk to help with the songwriting. As a guitarist I find it easy enough to write riffs while I'm playing my guitar, but I think the keyboard will handle the bulk of the overall compositional duties since I can not only write/play melody and chords, but it's also my only interface for drums, bass and synths. 

'Tis been awhile

It's nearly November and I've been firmly ensconced in my new job for the past few months. Life has settled into a fairly predictable pattern. We're still trying to sell the Killeen house, fortunately we have a new realtor that actually has been trying to justify their 3% although the house probably isn't much more likely to sell in the near future. The Killeen market, while being healthier for sellers than DFW is still very much a buyer's market and very much down.

On the homefront the most significant developments (in my narrow minded view of the world) have been a substantial upgrade to the home theater and this year's most significant musical gear upgrade, the Axe FX II. On the home theater front, we now have a system that truly discourages going to the movie theater anymore. The only reason to go to the theater now is for those movies we're really dying to see or just an excuse to do something. The specific equipment upgrades include a new Epson 9700UB HD LCD projector, Golden Ear Triton 5.1 surround system, a Yamaha Aventage RX-A3000 receiver/amp, apple tv 2.0, and a Carada 117in viewable screen. We now have a home theater experience that I can be happy with indefinitely. I don't foresee making any changes unless something breaks beyond repair or until 4K becomes the new standard. Watching movies on that size screen with the new speakers is actually better than most theater experiences we have and I'm not talking about the ability to pause, go to the bathroom, lack of screaming kids, etc.

I just got the AxeFX II last week and haven't really had time to reveal how significant an upgrade it represents. I love everything I have discovered so far, and one nice new feature is the ease of achieving quality tones with minimal effort. Great tones were in the Ultra, but it took a little more work and tweaking. It seems with the Axe II that great tones are just a few clicks away. There definitely is a higher level of clarity and responsiveness. It's somewhat equivalent to the difference in sound between my old home theater system (klipsch center and bookshelf front l/r with unmatched kenwood surrounds and sub) and the new matched Golden Ear 5.1 system. You just hear so much more detail and the quality of the different timbres is so much higher. I don't think I'll ever be an audiophile or tone chaser to the level of an Eric Johnson, but I have a new appreciation for what higher quality equipment can do to the listening/playing experience. With the guitar, it still holds true that the most important aspect of sound comes from the player's hands/brain, but having powerful sound processing that is so user friendly and streamlined really helps the process. I'm going to start alternating my electric playing with my acoustic so I can continue to progress on both fronts. I've been in a fairly strictly acoustic phase for several months and while I've made some decent progress, it's been to the detriment of my electric playing. Part of the appeal of the acoustic is analogous to piano in that it's easier to play fully formed songs as a solo artist, where with the electric I'm mostly working on guitar parts that are part of an ensemble/band.

The amount of divergent interests and goals I have in my life makes it difficult to pursue them all with any regularity. I'm trying to get back into studying Korean while I'm also trying to write, compose new music, continue improving on three different instrument disciplines, working on my ear and theory, fitness, etc. Not to mention I have a full time job and like to chill out with a good movie or book on a regular basis as well. I guess it's still a good thing when you so many different interests that there isn't enough time in the day to pursue them all.

The official get your shit together campaign starts today

Despite a regular running schedule for the last few years, I have been incrementally adding the lbs to the point where I've gained back about 15 lbs since I got back from Afghanistan nearly two years ago. I plan to reverse that direction, hopefully over the next few months so I can be back to my post deployment weight by the end of the Summer. I need to lose 1-2 lbs a week, so I'm just mainly going to need to watch what I eat more and continue my current 25-30 mpw running schedule.

100 miles in 4 weeks

I managed to cram 30 miles into the last 4 days. I'll try and stay on schedule for the next month so I won't fall so far behind my pace this time. I haven't calculated my marathon training plan cumulative totals for the next month, but with ever increasing long run day distances, I might meet the goal a bit earlier than 4 weeks.

Tropes...

I'm not talking about the overused TV themes kind of tropes. No, this is merely a salutation using my best commanding officer pronunciation of "Troops".  I think they send field grade officers to a special class on how to speak majestically when addressing your Tropes. Words like Godspeed and Fourscore are also highly encouraged.

Anywho,  it's been awhile.  Life has been tumultous, but overall predictable since last I posted. Back in August I was preparing for retirement and was going to start working as a contractor at a Ft Hood clinic. Since that time I declined that job and ended up taking a federal job for a new off post clinic that the Army was building in Killeen.  Now it's going on mid-November and things are probably going to come full circle. I'm currently in the process of taking a different contracting job on Ft Hood, maily because it's about a 35% pay hike. Without going into detail, I'm thinking about going back to school in a few years and short term earning potential is paramount since I won't be able to work much after starting school.

On the fitness front I have been training to run the Austin 2011 Marathon next February.  This will be my first marathon so I started training several months in advance. I just completed a half marathon last weekend, which was actually a few weeks ahead of my training schedule but it was a memorial run for the November 5th shooting victims and it seemed like a good coincidence and a worthy reason to run.  I ran in 1:44 which I was pretty happy with since my marathon goal is to break 4 hours. I had a short term goal of running 100 miles in 30 days (at the insistence of the Nike+app, actually) and I need to run 8.5 miles today to meet that goal. I have been keeping a pretty steady running schedule, but the occasional Saturday over-indulgence in sudsy beverages has caused me to skip an occasional long run which is usually scheduled for Sunday.

On the musical front not much is different. I had been in an acoustic phase for the last several months but began playing electric a few weeks back.  I'm getting gradually closer to "Endless Road" which has lived up to its name.  I started playing electric again out of natural jonesin and also looking forward to getting my Suhr Modern a la Frankenstrat here in the near future.  On the piano front, I had actually signed up for piano lessons at a little studio here in Harker Heights and took four lessons over the course of a month. The teacher was nice enough but it was very regimented and strictly by this beginner's lesson book.  It would have been good for me to learn sight reading, but I'm more interested in learning songs and don't really see that it's worth the effort to get fast at sight reading.  So, I quit taking lessons and I'm back to just playing my selection of songs. I've added "Linus & Lucy" which is challenging but alot of fun.