The weekend Thread

[bigoldron]

Hmmm... weekend thread. I spent much of a CRAPPY Saturday wrasslin with a toilet that had previously swallowed a deodorant stick and didn't want to give it up without an extreme fight!

Aw now, you're just pulling our chains...

[deeaa*]

I was going thru what vids I have on the HD as I'm upgrading my computer...also checked what I have online...found this clip I guess a year back fore xmas of our trip to Lapland.

http://deeaa.pp.fi/clips/lapland_30min.wmv

It's kinda long and might be boring, but made me laugh, I didn't remember doing that clip. In case you're interested how it looks here early winter.

[Spudman***]

Played my first gig with the new band and then Sunday went for a long bicycle ride on the road. I had to clear my lungs out. I'll sure be glad when Idaho goes smoke free in bars. I also consumed my yearly allotment in refined sugar.

[bigoldron]

Friday night, the wife, baby girl and I went to Dothan shopping. Saturday morning, I put another coat of poly on the guitar I'm refinishing. That afternoon, we went to the church and set up our sound system outside for the "Fall Festival" we were having. Both the Adult Praise Band and the Youth Praise Band played for the kiddies and parents/grandparents/etc. to enjoy. That went well, except it turned cold about time the youth got started, so we were kinda glad to get through.

Sunday morning, instead of the adult praise band playing and singing, we played and sang with the adult choir. Ate lunch with in-laws and wife's grandmother as it was her 87th birthday yesterday. Touched up the poly this afternoon, went to church for youth praise band practice and came home.

Made home-made pizzas with my girls and started to wind down and get ready for the week.

[Brian Krashpad]

Came home a bit early Friday to help clean Casa Krashpad for weekend guests.

Had an early Saturday praise band practice, then came home and cleaned up a bunch of fallen limbs on the property, and dragged them out to the street for pickup. Also, got out the leaf-blower and cleaned the porch, driveway, and sidewalk of leaves, which was long overdue. Trimmed some of the holly bushes in front of the house and cleared the leaves from the gutter on the street.

Got cleaned up, did some laundry folding, and watched the Gator football game. Around 5:30 or so a bunch (7) of Hannah Beth's high school friends came over for a sleep-over. Went and got pizzas for all of us. Then all her friends went trick or treating for awhile. When they got back they watched scary movies all night, including one I have on DVD called "Suspiria," which is supposed to be one of the scariest movies ever made.



So needless to say we didn't get much sleep that night.

Sunday the praise band played 3 songs, and since they were all relatively easy, I played them all on mandolin, which meant I didn't have to set up my guitar amp. However, we also had problems with my big rig (which I usually line-out my guitar amp into, and use for both bass and mandolin) in run-throughs. I eventually could only find one channel that would work, so I let the bassist use it, and played the mandolin purely acoustically. Brought the amp head home and will try to figure out what is wrong with it. Mentioned to the praise band leader that I also have a banjo, which he seemed to have forgotten (I'd not brought it in before, but thought sure I'd mentioned it), so we may work that into the service at some point too.

Stayed at my office after church, rather than go all the way home, while the kids practiced for the Boar's Head Christmas pageant, then went to pick them up. Did some reading with Jack (he reads 15 pages a night for school) and helped him with his science homework, watched some TV, did some writing for work, and went to bed.

[bigoldron]

Pretty good weekend this was. Friday night we won the first round of our region playoffs 56-19. But, it was the deadest, most boring game and crowd I've ever seen. Made me wonder why anybody bothered to show up... Anyway, we're playing away next week.

Saturday, I spent half the day putting my Yamaha back together. She turned out pretty good I think. Spent the rest of the day raking pine straw in my yard and putting in the flower beds.

Sunday, the Adult Praise Band met earlier to run over the song we were going to do in the morning service. Got almost nauseated when my Yamaha started cracking and popping and dropping out. Fortunately, it was a bad patch cord, so that turned out OK. That afternoon, we had youth AND adult band practice, because the adult band is playing at a revival on Tuesday and the kids are playing at a youth rally this Saturday. The adult band played a song in the evening service and we had choir practice after the service to work on the Christmas cantata.

Busy weekend, but good!

[sunvalleylaw]

It was nice, crisp, fall weather this weekend. I worked outside on the deck I am rebuilding and garden trellis, and took some black and white pics of the kids in the leaves with my ancient SLR, and took the dog on a run Saturday.

Sunday, more work on the house, really started to make some quicker progress and close in on completion. Had a nice brisk MTB ride at the end of the day as the sun was heading behind the hills, had dinner, and went off to my new acoustic jam for the second time. That was really fun! See "New Playing Opps" thread for more details on that if you care too. I hope everyone else had a nice one!

[Spudman***]

I played rock star and watched silly large breasted women jiggling in front of me. Nothing much else happened all weekend but the weather was divine.

[Brian Krashpad]

I played rock star and watched silly large breasted women jiggling in front of me. Nothing much else happened all weekend but the weather was divine.

We'll need pics!

[Spudman***]

We'll need pics!

I would love to but my hands are usually quite full with all my stage duties and I have no time to fire up a camera. I'll see if I can find someone who will take some crowd shots in the future.

[Brian Krashpad]

Saturday:
Spent the morning working on Jack's science experiment on the adhesiveness of tape. After lunch, took the kids over to the church for Gator football game parking about 3. Almost got rear-ended on the way into town due to the pre-game traffic congestion (came over the crest of a hill to find traffic stopped dead, for a red light a quarter-mile away). Go there later than planned because Jack's friend Ryan got the departure time mixed up and was MIA when we went to pick him up. We finally left without him, and his dad brought him over to the church.

Spent the first hour or so practicing with the praise band, with my daughter subbing on bass this week. Did 3 songs. No side church-band practice afterward this time. After practice, just sat at the lot entrance waving cars in. Had some pizza and left at half-time. Went home and watched the end of the Gator game, and then some other game I forget.

Sunday:
Went in early for pre-service run-through. Praise band leader was out so his mom subbed on piano-vocals. She has a great voice but she can't let go of her training when singing contemporary songs and over-enunciates everything. Sounds like an opera singer trying to sing the blues, if you know what I mean. Stilted instead of natural.

Played the first 2 songs on the WildKat:


First song with overdrive (Super Champ XD Vox channel), second song clean. Third song I played on my banjo, as seen on the right in pic below:



It went pretty well I thought. I fingerpicked, nice easy chords, C, F, G, G7.

Left the kids at church for lunch and the Boar's Head Pageant practices. Replaced the headlamps in Mrs. K's car back at the house. When she brought the kids back, we did more work on the tape experiment, which included 20 pounds worth of barbells coming undone from the tape and smashing my left-hand pinky finger pretty nicely (still numb today).

At about 5:15 I went over to my office for the first Crash Pad practice in more than a month, first since our bassist quit. I talked our former drummer, who dropped out after adopting a baby a few years ago, into coming back and playing bass. He did great (he's played bass before) and knew almost all the songs. Our other guitarist brought his new SG, which he bought brand new from Best Buy for $1200 (ouch). In honor of his real SG, I played my hundred-dollar knockoff:



I can honestly say his did not sound twelve times better than mine.

Went home and worked with El Krashpadito studying for a quiz about Mexico, while Mrs. Krashpad typed up his experiment results.

And you?

[Monkus]

Moving house .... *ugh*

[Brian Krashpad]

Moving house .... *ugh*

Whoa, my condolences. It's been over 15 years since my last move. I shudder to consider what the next will be.

Were you staying in the area, or was it more long-distance?

[Eric***]

I think I'll join in...

Saturday:

Went with my girlfriend to drop off a couple of guitars for setups; I will see what they become after Pete the Luthier works his magic. Since we were in NJ, decided to do some early Christmas shopping. No luck there, so came back to the city and got cupcakes. Asked my girlfriend to marry me, got an affirmative. Called some people, then played Settlers of Catan after getting Indian take-out.

Sunday:

Got up at the butt crack of dawn and went to church for morning practice and the two services. Futzed with settings and hookups until everyone else arrived. Had an instrumental passage in 'Hosanna' where I could whip out a solo, but couldn't come up with much of interest to my ears, so I ended up playing the melody with some fills and embellishments. Ended up very pleased with my OD tone and became a new fan of the ME-50 'natural' OD setting, which I think markb has recommended.

Took a nap, then went to church #2 in the evening. Cooked and ate dinner afterward, then the weekend was over. What's up with that??

[Brian Krashpad]

I think I'll join in...

Saturday:

Went with my girlfriend to drop off a couple of guitars for setups; I will see what they become after Pete the Luthier works his magic. Since we were in NJ, decided to do some early Christmas shopping. No luck there, so came back to the city and got cupcakes. Asked my girlfriend to marry me, got an affirmative. Called some people, then played Settlers of Catan after getting Indian take-out.

Sunday:

Got up at the butt crack of dawn and went to church for morning practice and the two services. Futzed with settings and hookups until everyone else arrived. Had an instrumental passage in 'Hosanna' where I could whip out a solo, but couldn't come up with much of interest to my ears, so I ended up playing the melody with some fills and embellishments. Ended up very pleased with my OD tone and became a new fan of the ME-50 'natural' OD setting, which I think markb has recommended.

Took a nap, then went to church #2 in the evening. Cooked and ate dinner afterward, then the weekend was over. What's up with that??

Congrats on your impending doom! I mean marriage.

Thanks for joining in this thread.

Tell me more about this ME-50 of which thou hast spoken. I don't know what that is.

I think our church is tending to go towards pre-service practices, which makes way more sense to me than coming in the day before and then doing a second practice pre-service. Although during Gator football season, 90% of the band is there at some point (usually for several hours) the day before for football parking anyhow (our church is 5 or 6 blocks away from Florida Field, a/k/a the Swamp, and we sell parking in the church lot).

Will try to post my weekend tonight.

[Eric***]

Tell me more about this ME-50 of which thou hast spoken. I don't know what that is.

It's a multi-effects board and the only effects unit that I use. It has most of the big items on it like delay, OD/distortion, noise gate, simple comp, reverb, modulation effects like chorus, and a limited EQ.

The reason I love it is because it has zero amp modeling and the whole thing is knob-based. You select your effect and then work with a knob to adjust it instead of surfing through menus to change parameter values. It's similar to the Line 6 M13, but considerably less ritzy and less versatile. It covers what I need out of a pedal, but without a lot of the junk you get in some ME pedals.

I think our church is tending to go towards pre-service practices, which makes way more sense to me than coming in the day before and then doing a second practice pre-service.

We usually have an Thursday evening (~7) practice, and we always have a Sunday-morning practice an hour before the first service. I tend to use the Thursday one to mess around with new ideas.

[Eric***]

Congrats on your impending doom! I mean marriage.

Thanks. I'm still just kind of in a daze, but excited nonetheless.

[Brian Krashpad]

Thanks. I'm still just kind of in a daze, but excited nonetheless.

As a long-married man myself, let me be clear. Marriage is the BEST!

I am married to a woman who puts up with me, and much more besides. I am truly blessed.

My hope is for you to have that joy.

[deeaa*]

This weekend's been kinda a haze, as I've slept real little. Friday/sat I slept maybe five hours, but since then I haven't had a wink, now running on 40th hour awake shortly. Gotta start hitting the sack soon, I'd like at least an eight-hour night before morning to get back some shuteye time.

Interesting sleep deprivation experiment, though...funny how clumsy and slow you get, almost like drunk in a way. Tried to play some online fps games, no way man, reflexes slow like a turtle's.

Had to stay awake to take an EEG test...luckily just 24 hours. I did try to get some sleep during the day after the test, but no way...tired as I am, better wait till ten at night before trying. Otherwise I'll spoil my sleep rhythms.

On a brighter side, finally got to talking w/doctors some about my mom, and they seem to generally agree it's about time to lock her up in some hospital & keep her under control so she'll eat her meds etc. They already admitted her to check for her to eat antibiotics she needs just now, but there was another doctor at the other place they tok her, and they weren't sure what to do, and couldn't act against her will, so they dismissed her back home once again. Well anyway the wheel is now rolling and one of these days she's not going to be let out any more.