The weekend Thread

[deeaa*]

Getting close to finishing it.

[Brian Krashpad]

Getting close to finishing it.

Looks great Dee!

Drove down to Orlando and back today to take a car to daughter for the summer, in case she needs one for a job. Doesn't have one yet though.

Missed church band practice as a result.

Will play the service tomorrow morning for the first time in weeks as a result of going on the cruise, with weekend band shows on either side of that.

[Katastrophe]

Geez, Dee, you stay busy!

Spent today lounging in the pool with Baby Kat and Mrs. Kat. It was great to have some family time and share a few laughs. Mrs. Kat is cooking dinner (chicken n' rice, yum!), Baby Kat is playing, and I'm just enjoying hanging out with the family.

[Tig***]

Nice work, Dee!

Dad came back in town from Mexico. Took him and my family to Froberg's Farm to pick a few buckets of strawberries and shop their produce market. Nothing beats fresh from the farm, pesticide free fruits and veggies. Mrs' T cooked up some fresh corn and sweet potatoes (used local honey instead of brown sugar, and yum!) to go with some chicken.

Sunday, the lack of sleep caught up with me and I became a useless blob of jelly all day. I can't remember feeling this tired and without energy in my life. Watched the Astros and the Phillies lose.

[deeaa*]

Thanks Tig!

I had a nice weekend w/o the family who went to see some relatives. Finally had ample time to do some music work! Friday and Saturday I worked for like, I dunno, 16 hours altogether recording vocals. Nine songs for this band in a session first, almost 30 tracks counting all backings etc. and then came home and re-recorded Heaven & Hell for P-43 and two new songs for the same. Even played some guitar in the evening while drinking beer. Also watched a few films, played Mafia II on Xbox and drank plenty of beer. Then today I drove to the cottage and worked for 5 hours on the terrace - pretty much finished now. Then I ran out of screws and wood and drove back to town but since I was in good working mood I drove to a buddy's house I knew he'd be working on with renovating it and we built stairs for his basement together and ran some electric lines for a well. And then back home via some pizza and watched some horror. Some quality alone time long overdue.

It's crazy how summer came all of the sudden - just last week you wanted gloves when working outside, now it's 75F outside and for me that's almost too much. Need to drink all the time when working and clothes are wet with sweat. Everything is in bloom and crazy green. I need to find my shorts, likely won't be needing long trousers for the next couple of months at least. I have a feeling it'll be a hot summer and by the end of it I'll be anxious for the winter to come already. But for now, it sure feels nice to have the sun up.

And it IS up...now it's eight in the evening and it's still way high in the sky scorching away. In a few weeks it'll be hard to sleep without proper curtains as it'll be light as day all thru the nights. Now at least it still gets a little dim around midnight for a short while. Not dark but at least a little less light than on a rainy day.

Nice and even necessary for the psyche as it is to spend a few times all alone now and then I'm glad the family is coming back tomorrow. They're after all the only thing that really matters, and you only really remember it 100% when they go away for a while. But tonight I'll still enjoy some nice SciFi flick with volume on LOUD, not the kids-are-asleep-mode and drink more beer and smoke a few ciggies while I can ;-)

[Tig***]

Friday evening, dinner with Dad, who is in town. Watched the NJ Devils take the NY Rangers.

Saturday was lazy and relaxed. Watched a few MLB games

Sunday at the greyhound races. Down about $45-$50. Just couldn't get a good line on the dogs. We usually do much better. Fun all the same.

Memorial Day was lazy part 2, but with some house work thrown in. Watched the first 6 Band of Brothers episodes, which I've always somehow missed in the past.

[Katastrophe]

On Sunday I dragged out the Strat, and Older Kid Kat and I did some work on a song she's writing... and I had a blast. We got the guitar and piano parts worked out, and a rough drum sequence started.

On Memorial Day we went to visit my in-laws (I hadn't been to their home in about two years, with my schedule being so wacky), and I stuffed myself silly on some great food. Had a rousing discussion of politics with my wife's stepdad, and watched Baby Kat run around like crazy.

Tig, Band of Brothers is an awesome series! It's appropriate to watch, too, on Memorial Day. Great acting, and the stories from the real people that were there are incredibly moving.

[Commodore 64***]

Memorial Day, we hit the waters of Lake Erie for some walleye fishing.


We had to get off the water early for a Memorial Day cookout, but we had a pretty decent cooler of fish.

[deeaa*]

Walleye, yeah...we know 'em by name of Zander over in Europe, or in many countries better still as pike-perch.

They say there's a lot of 'em in our lake but I've never caught any. Don't really know zilch about catching them though, all I ever tried was drive around the lake drinking beer and dragging a couple of lines with what locals said would be suitable lures. Came to a conclusion that by this method them fish will cost like $100 a pop if I ever catch any to start with :-)

It'd be nice to learn how to do it properly, I have a very suitable boat & lake and all, but, I dunno, never have the time and I really don't know if I have the patience. I can spend a few hours fishing if there's plenty of beer, but I dunno in a longer run. I rather just drive around the lakes for fun & buy the fish off some local fishermen I guess.

[Commodore 64***]

I think zander over there get bigger than walleye over here. We troll for them, but you can also get them drifting,

[deeaa*]

I dunno...those look pretty big to me :-)

[deeaa*]

Yippee! Last working day for a while. Be back 11th August, when the summer is nigh over! Just have to endure some year end speeches and diploma giving etc. crap but by noon this should be a wrap and I'll head off to the cottage without having to worry when I'll be back in the city. Likely just a few days before I'll pop in the city again, but it's great to know I could just stay there for a few months straight if I really wanted to.

[Tig***]

NASA's Johnson Space Center was somehow snubbed and did not receive one of the retired space shuttle orbiters, but managed to at least get a full scale mockup. It will be delivered via barge Friday, off loaded Saturday, and rolled to it's new home. My Dad lives down the street from the old loading dock that hasn't been used since the 70's, so we'll get a great view. There is actually a "Shuttlebration" to make the best of the occasion.
http://www.chron.com/news/houston-te...on-3600924.php

Photos to follow, but here it is in route from KSC:

It is actually welded to the barge for the voyage.

[deeaa*]

He, that looks cool :-) you don't see a space shuttle sailing past every day :-)

It'd be funny to see someone who didn't know it was coming to watch it pass by.

I remember back in the 90's in this rock festival here, a big one with tens of thousands of people, Nirvana was playing while a ship passed. And the festival is right by this very narrow passage that ferries to Sweden take, and the stage is right by the passage. And these ships, they're not small but some of the biggest passenger ships ever, like 15 decks and a towering impossibly huge when they're right at a very low lying shore, feels like you could touch them and they absolutely look like they're plowing through grass because they fill the channel so neatly, towering next to the stage five times taller than the stage. Cobain and guys saw it suddenly come to their view and one by one they stopped playing, because they were so amazed at the sight. It was damn funny.

[Tig***]

The Shuttle mockup arrived Friday. My Dad got a room at the nearby Hilton to watch from and hang out in.
It was a big celebration with education boothes, the all astronaut band, "Max Q" played (don't quit your space jobs, folks!), a fireworks display and other festivities.






They had to trim and bend trees to get it to fit while making the 1 mile road journey.

[Brian Krashpad]

The Shuttle mockup arrived Friday.

My son and I have been in the mockup. We went to KSC back when he was in Cub Scouts. We still have a signed photo of astronaut Tom Jones (not THAT Tom Jones) on our fridge.

Yesterday was really busy. First thing I bought an electric lawn mower off craigslist. Then practice at church. On the way home I bought a 1970 Aria bass, Matsumoku-made, for next to nothing, also from a craigslist ad:



Then I mowed our front lawn, for the first time in forever.

After finishing that, I went and made a third cl purchase, at yet another location. Seller turned out to be a scene acquaintance of mine for many years. Bought a Crate B60 1x15 bass amp for $50!

This morning (Sunday) we gave the bass amp to our bassist from church. She's been playing for years and has never had her own amp.
Songs went well, today was the first day on summer schedule, where we only have one service per Sunday (summer is slow in Gainesville since it's a college town and students and many others leave). So it was fairly packed, plus we were playing to the "early service people" unused to modern music. Surprisingly, we had a total of 4 songs, including the postlude. Fun day.

Came home and watched Mexico beat Brasil in football, then fell asleep and took a long nap. Now I've got "work" work to do!

[Tig***]

Bought a Crate B60 1x15 bass amp for $50!
This morning (Sunday) we gave the bass amp to our bassist from church. She's been playing for years and has never had her own amp.

Cool mojo points for doing this. It keeps music alive and well, too.

[Brian Krashpad]

Cool mojo points for doing this. It keeps music alive and well, too.

Thanks, it was a "pay it forward" thing for me, since these same kids gave me my Casino a month ago.

[deeaa*]

Spent the day by taking the boat to the shore and drove all around the city, maybe something like 60 miles altogether.

The islands have places with lean-to's and fireplaces with sausage sticks, frying pans and firewood plus toilets maintained by the city, nice places to spend some time. Some also have cottages with stoves and beds etc. which can be freely used to spend a few nights if one wants to go for some pioneer-spirit kinda trekking or whatever. I think later in the summer I'll take the boys out camping there; spend one night at an open lean-to by the shore and one in a small cabin. Some sense of adventure, because there might be more people coming and going too, although this time we saw nobody out there. Probably because it was a damned cold day.






(that's the view to the city from the northern side; can't see much but the observation tower & the skiing slope)