Always look 2 steps ahead

Posted by on October 14th, 2021  •  0 Comments  •  Full Article

I’m not much of a planner.  I often plan about 30 minutes ahead, or less. Like right now for example. 9 minutes ago I was practicing some songs on my guitar. Fletch and I plan to climb this weekend. So I knew I had to keep  my skills fresh. (I plan farther ahead for climbing trips because it involves other people.) As I was playing, I thought, I should write about what I learned, here.

9 minutes ago I was working on “When I was your man” and “Sweet baby James” plus “Shallow”. Those hurt my fingertips. I’ve been spending an hour a day practicing Blackbird. But it only uses 2 fingers, so the other ones got soft. I hate soft fingers! Those steel guitar strings can feel like razor blades. I know, first world problems and all.

So like anyone faced with pain, I switched to Blackbird…using my harder finger pads. As I came into the complexity of the song, which is all played from memory (no sheet music), a little voice in my head said “try looking two chords ahead”. In other words, as you play the current picking pattern on a chord, visualize the next two  chord positions on the neck of the guitar.

So I start planning 4 seconds ahead, all while picking an incredible complex chord pattern. I’m seeing the next two finger positions as I’m playing the current one.

There must be a way to put the pattern on paper. I learned it on youtube, and he’s all visual. He says things like fret 5 on the B string, fret 3 on the A string.

But in addition to that, he’ll spec out the picking pattern for that position, which also plays an open G string several times, depending on how long that position (chord) is played. As you can probably tell, I’m having a lot of fun with this.

I’d thought about taking guitar lessons when I retired…but youtube is getting so good….seems like close enough. See my previous post for the youtube link.

Lawn sod and a Black Bird

Posted by on October 12th, 2021  •  0 Comments  •  Full Article

Got up at 6AM to drive to Yelm for a pickup bed full of lawn sod. The fork lift driver was very, very precise as he loaded a  2000 pound pallet of lawn sod into my Tundra. I needn’t have worried. He missed my canopy lift struts by a millimeter…no harm done.

Clint showed up at 10 AM and we-he put the lawn down where there used to be a rotten deck. 18 x18 plus a 12 x 12 foot square area of dirt was well and fully sodded. Is that a verb?

I’m over halfway through a youtube tutorial on Blackbird.

Both Fletch, Carl and Chad can all  play Blackbird. It’s kind of a signature song for serious guitarists. Right up there with Stairway to Heaven. If someone can play Blackbird, you know they are good.

I nailed it in a few hours. I mean I’m literally playing it from memory. It was so satisfying to learn a new and difficult song so quickly. You get to be 67, and you start to wonder if you’re loosing your edge. I mean, it happens. Old people get old. But there I was playing quickly and cleanly with passion, no sheet music. Super happy about that.

Chris and I led Morning (Glory?) over at the tunnel at Index. It was 3 pitches. Then we did GM. Chris led the first pitch. It’s free soloing above a ledge but only about 5.7 friction. I probly could have led it? But I was so glad she was willing. I had to hang twice on the second pitch. It’s got some 5.9 undercling layback moves. There is a really cool no hands knee bar there. Once I hung on the two blues I felt more relaxed. I placed a 4 from the hang, got some slack, clipped it and hung again. I was about to say ‘take’, but Chris already had me. She was like: “We’ve been climbing together a long time. I got this.”

After that, I began under clinging the red crack. It’s just a few moves then you throw for the hand jam above the undercling and you are golden. The rope got stuck in a cam as I was pulling up her line. I had to rap down to clean it. That was scary. She had me on a fireman, and I had a prusik, but I was out of my comfort zone. I had to climb up by french freeing and walking a couple cams while reverse rappelling on a single line. Not fun at all.

She led Heart of the Country in the last light. I bailed on the follow due to the late hour. I let a rap line fall out of reach. I had to short line over to it. These kinds of things never happen to us. So weird to have two bad things happen on one climb. She was like: “We are better than this, what’s going on?”

The grass looks really good. I hope it lives.

free talking books for iphone without the overdrive app

Posted by on October 10th, 2021  •  0 Comments  •  Full Article

Bypassing Overdrive and Audible

Getting free audiobooks has always been a brain squeezer. Back in the day I used to listen to library books on cassette tapes, which evolved into CD’s and finally the Overdrive system…which now tries to only work via an app with 3 week expiration dates.

Audible is expensive, and the library Overdrive app is annoying. Depending on how many trips I take I might not read the books for a year or two.

Now, I have no desire to rip off authors. This technique is basically bypassing the DRM system. Artists and authors deserve protection and respect. I would never post or share these books online. I’m an author myself.

But, that being said, road trips are boring, and it’s great to have a longer lasting  selection of books on the phone to keep me awake. Only one in 10 books is worth reading…so I need a lot to pick from.

If you are on a 2015 macbook running Big Sur, like me, with an Iphone XS, this still works as of October 10, 2021.

 

A. If iPhone is full, remove books via settings > general > storage > books app > audio book
B. Watch video above and install his thingy (from github?).
C. Log into your library Overdrive account  (with safari presenting as chrome windows) and download mp3 books. This actually only gets you *.odm files, which are little 6k files containing your ‘key’ to trigger the download of the actual mp3 audio files. On a computer, you used to be able to import these *.odm files into the desktop Overdrive app…which no longer exists for newer Macbooks.
D. Use terminal to download from library  by dragging odm file from ‘Macbook > downloads’ into terminal (see video above)
E. open “books app > Audiobooks” on MacBook and add (audio) books to collection by selecting multiple folders from where terminal downloaded them to.
F. connect iPhone, may have wait for it to stop blinking weirdly in finder
G. Marks iPhone > Audiobooks > sync audio books > selected audiobooks
H. select books (which should be in list of audiobooks imported to Books app on MacBook)
I. click apply.

Mt Shasta wedding

Posted by on October 5th, 2021  •  0 Comments  •  Full Article

Pam got married last weekend, which was a year after starting her practice. He seems like a great guy, we are very happy for her.

We climbed a lot during her breaks from college and training. For a few months she lived in Tacoma, which made for a bunch of gym and Index trips.

She is the only one of my nieces and nephews with whom I ever spent any serious time. Though I’ve also been on a few 3 day trips with her brother, who is a great climber as well.

David and Beth moved too far away for me to really get to know. We used to see all 7 of the cousins every Thanksgiving back when Grandma was alive. But then we all got older and people spread across the country. I feel lucky to have climbed with Lisa, Clint, Pam and John as much as we could given our busy lives.

Pam asked me to play guitar as she walked down the aisle. I was supposed to start singing when her grandma walked. Because I had to keep looking up at the walkers, I lost my place for a few agonizing seconds, and had one of those awful stage fright moments where nothing made sense. My harp and guitar which had been  flowing so well fell into a discordant mess of broken sounds.  I saw the two people in the front row looking at me in surprise. I panicked and made a snap decision to switch from instrumental to voice, regardless of who was walking.

I was fine after that, and none of my relatives noticed…or said they didn’t…but it made me frustrated. I’d practiced so hard to nail it down. And to make a major flub like that was…well, at the end of the day…I’m just an average Joe, not a professional wedding performer. I have to cut myself some slack.

We left after the ‘ball and chain’ event and drove out to the Oregon coast where I did too bad paintings. My pen and ink is not practical for fast plein air. I mean, duh. Everyone knows pen is super slow. I need to practice loosening up and drawing more frequently in a sketchy style. Or just go back to pastel. Pastel is so quick on color paper. It’s pretty as soon as you put in the high lights. How did I get sucked down this urban sketcher dead end?

Facebook and Instagram had a 6 hour outage yesterday. I was painting all day and didn’t even notice. That’s how it should be. I have no need to ‘build my brand’ anymore. I’m retired. I should close all my accounts. My new friends from Idaho aren’t on social media at all. Many people aren’t anymore…like Sue, Clint, Pam, Paul and Chad. The entire concept of Social Media is flawed from the get go. I would be wise to let it all go.