The weekend Thread

[sunvalleylaw]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNPDCBk0rlE

Here is a quick edit I put together of the kids on the ski team I coach over last weekend and a few clips from earlier. I am the one holding the camera. These kids are coming along fast, and it is fun to see them progress. My oldest son now jumps bigger than I do.

[syo***]

Here is a quick edit I put together of the kids on the ski team I coach over last weekend and a few clips from earlier. I am the one holding the camera. These kids are coming along fast, and it is fun to see them progress. My oldest son now jumps bigger than I do.

That is just beautiful. Must be wonderful to have a winter paradise in your backyard. Really makes me want to get out there too!

[kidsmoke*]

NICE Steve, just full screened it, turned up the volume, and proceeded to turn varying shades of green while my smile continued to grow. These are great great days for you. What a blessing to be able to do this kind of "work", and include your kids! Nice job on the editing as well.

[sunvalleylaw]

Thanks guys. The first shots were on Baldy, on Mayday ridge dropping into the valleys known as "The Bowls". Those jumps were really quite big, bigger than they appear from that perspective. The other stuff was on Dollar, the smaller mountain also included in the resort. There, Sun Valley has constructed a world class terrain park, including the skier and boarder cross course you see the kids racing on. The jumps and rails, boxes, etc. progress from a very beginner level to quite expert. (read way bigger than I am going to jump.)

Both my sons (my daughter was with a group over on Baldy) are seen racing in the skier cross course, and one has a great wipe out! He was fine, and had fun. He (in brown) also is pictured jumping the "medium" step down (starting high off a ramp and landing on the down side of a step below) jump just before a kid in orange.

I did this as an effort to give a video update to parents and kids of some of the fun that was going on. The mountain is a big place, and kids don't always tell their folks what they did on Freeride day. So I thought a picture could be worth a few words in terms of communication.

We will continue to compile film over the rest of the year and have a bigger edited film to cap it off at the season ending party. BTW, the second song is by the father of one of the kids on team, who is in that band I am going to try and jam with. The melody of that song has been stuck in my head as I practice it, so it ended up on this.

TK, indeed, it is a blessing to be able to spend part of my weekend this way. This program was a dream of mine and it is nice to see it flourish, and even nicer seeing all the kids (my own included) enjoy it.

[kidsmoke*]

off the hook about this one. Saturday night. John Scofield. 400 seats, all within 50 ft of the drum kit.

http://www.oldtownschool.org/concert..._scofield.html

[Brian Krashpad]

Start to my weekend: celebrating the LAST RADIATION TREATMENT, with some balloons and my radiation mask, outside Casa Krashpad:



Here's the actual machine I've been under for the last 7 weeks, M-F, and one of the techs:

[kidsmoke*]

Here's to you Brian! That's quite regimen you've gone through, gotta feel good to come to the end of it. Your attitude will do as much for you as the radiation will, I'll bet. Thanks for letting us follow along.

[Brian Krashpad]

Thanks Tio! I couldn't believe my sweet Mrs. K bought balloons. I'm a bit out of it from all the opiates and it took me a few seconds to figure out that the balloons were for me, haha.

I needs me a nap!

Btw, the zap lab gave me a "Certificate of Merit." I think that means the check did not bounce.

[Duffy]

Krash,

Just kick those rattlesnakes and other poisonous snakes out the way on your way back to the house from the mailbox. D#$$ nuisances!

Looks like you are giving it your best buddy.

I just had a set of Fender Locking Tuners put on my Lake Placid Blue CV 50's strat with aged white pearl pickguard loaded with Custom Shop Texas Special pickups. I like the upgrade from the vintage style tuners to these solid Fender locking type in brushed chrome.

Something tells me this Classic Vibe Fifties isn't a Classic Vibe anymore - I guess it still technically is though, going by the serial number. This is a great sounding looking and playing guitar. I also have a sunburst one that I'm going to put locking tuners on and also do some other things to like possibly noiseless pickups with a boost circuit and possible kill switch - not sure yet. I was going to leave it stock but lately I'm thinking that these two guitars are so nice to begin with that they make great platforms to upgrade into even more awesome fun guitars for me to play.

I'm also playing my Squier Standard tele in cool walnut stain with black pickguard and rosewood fretboard that I just personally installed a set of new Fender Vintage Noiseless tele pickups into. I've been playing that this weekend too and have the pickups adjusted so that the initial boominess of the bass that I at first experienced is gone and I get a nice full smooth tone - nothing like a tele I must say, but a really nice sound none the less, making this inexpensive tele very cool and fun to play. I have a traditional noisy MIM tele that I can play anytime I want to revel in its exquisite noisyness and super great tele tone. You just have to love that noise to love that beautiful tone from a completely non noise cancelling telecaster.

[Brian Krashpad]

Wow, Duffy, sounds like a lot of little mods you've been up to! Have fun!

Me, I've been zoinked on transdermal fentanyl pain patches (a 3-day time release synthetic opiate) and Hillbilly Heroin (oxycontin, another opioid) all weekend. I'ma try to go in to work just for the morning tomorrow (one of my coworkers lives in my neighborhood and can take me in and back), because there's no way I can drive at this point.

Apparently irradiated skin turns a dark charcoal grey.

[Katastrophe]

Wow, Brian, I'm glad you've had the last dose of the radiation. Here's some mojo your way, hoping for continued recovery and the pain to go away.

[syo***]

Best to you Brian. Glad you're through with this treatment. Here's to your good health from here on!

[Brian Krashpad]

Well, did the last chemo infusion Tuesday, plus got another saline I.V. rehydration, which I began doing daily last week.

Biggest news for me was doc said "At this point, I'm sure you will not have to have a feeding tube, because things will begin to get better slowly, and although you've lost 20 pounds [if you go back to my surgery I've actually lost 25, but there was a few weeks after the surgery before I started chemo/radiation], you're still ok." I still have to be careful to stay hydrated, because I haven't been able to eat solids, and liquids even are still quite painful despite drugs, so I am going to keep going in for hydration (saline I.V.'s) daily for another week.

Get this, at the end of the consult, we're walking down the hall to the infusion room, and the chemo doc asks me, "So, are you going to start bringing in your guitar when you come in?" I told him I actually had considered doing that on days that I didn't have any work to do, like just bring an electric unplugged so it wouldn't make noise and I could get some practice in. He says "I think you should! But don't you have an acoustic?" I said yes, but if brought an electric it wouldn't intrude on anyone else, and then if anyone there said I should bring an acoustic instead, I could do that later.

So I think today I might do some noodling at the chemo lab. Maybe I'll bring the thinline Choirboy so I can hear myself play above the medicine pump machines' background noise.

Should be interesting!

[bcdon***]

Brian, you have one hell of a great attitude! Stay strong and know that you're in a lot of people's thoughts!

[piebaldpython***]

Hey Krashpad......glad to hear that you're doing better. Cool mask.....just not as cool as my C-PAP mask that I wear to bed. Yeah, those opiates and oxycontin can throw you for a loop. Prior to our trip to Germany in 03/2008, my daughter was on 240mg of Oxy a day......and it barely took the edge off her pain. lol

Prayers and mojo comin' your way.

[Brian Krashpad]

@ Don: Thanks Man!

@ piebaldpython: Holy crap, 240 mg!? Dang, I'm only on (does math in head, 10 mg every 4 hours times 6 = 24 hour day) SIXTY! Although, I'm also on a pain patch of fentanyl of 50mcg/hr, and I have no idea what sort of strength that is (low-middling I think).

[Duffy]

Concerning playing guitar in the hospital or clinic: I was in the hospital for nine days with my last surgery and I bought my Gibson SG and had it in my hospital bed the whole time. I had picked up a Vox AmpPlug Lead version and used a set of earphones and plugged in my CD player and jammed along to CDs. It worked great and didn't bother anyone but gave me a lot of relief. When the pain got too intense I didn't play much, but when I was feeling half way decent I played a lot.

I was in a lot of pain with a fourteen inch lateral incision in my left side and had deep surgery, involving a lot of internal manipulation of some of my organs, bleeding, cutting thru thick scar tissue, etc. After going to the step down unit they had to take me off of the morphine pump because my blood pressure was droping really low. This was a bummer because they put me on two percocets every four hours, which meant I was in heavy pain after the first two hours. I was counting the minutes until the next percocet dose after that. That was some serious pain to endure, and I walked many miles around those corridors while enduring that heavy pain. Very slowly the pain eased up. That was about two years ago now.

I hope you start to feel less pain and can get back more towards normal soon. I'll be praying for you man. You seem to have an unsupressably positive attitude.

[deeaa*]

Man, I hate this cold spell. It should really give up by now. -37 last night; -26 in the morning. I'm starting to feel bad about driving the car, would rather cycle in this coldness but someone has to take the kids to kindergartens anyway :-(

Nice webcam[/IMG]

[deeaa*]

Oh just noticed the school has a wecam as well, overlooking the town 'side'
http://weather.savonia-amk.fi/?sivu=webcam