It turns out it’s alot easier to listen to all the Van Halen albums than all the Rush albums. There were only six of ’em back in the day with Diamond Dave, and many of them are barely over a half hour long. I guess I’ll try some of the Van Hagar stuff to, since I stopped following them after 5150 and only came back for A Different Kind of Truth. In other listening, I’ve been getting into Mingus, Gershwin, Ravel and Franz Liszt lately.
The patio project is on! Two weeks ago Friday I went down to the stoneyard and met with the guy and placed an order. A couple days later he called me saying he didn’t have all of the big 2’x’3′ stones in inventory (yeesh!), so I had to adjust my plan. A week ago Friday the stuff was delivered.
Last Saturday I started digging out the area, down 8″ or so. Shoveling is probably the hardest single job because dirt is pretty heavy and after hundreds of reps the stress accumulates on lower back. So I decided from the beginning to mainly work in sessions of a couple hours every day.
Since the project involves alot of heavy lifting, I’ve temporarily modified my workout to reduce the number of reps and amount of weights I’m doing. Unfortunately I haven’t been doing much biking recently cuz the time I would spend doing that is going toward the patio instead. Ah well.
Sunday I started laying in the stones to form the edge. I’m using 16″ x 8″ concrete pavers for this, and need 21 of them for my perimeter of 28 feet. The work involved more digging out, and lots of measuring, as well as actually seating the stones and packing them in with dirt and fill. So the first session I only got three done. Next day my pace improved and I got five in. The day after there was less measuring, just filling across in a straight line, so I got six done, and the last seven on Wednesday.
Thursday I took a day off. Friday I pulled out the old stones on the edge of the patio where I’m extending it, leveled out the bottom, and started filling in the fill. This was an extra long session, three or four hours. I got 10 wheelbarrow’s worth of fill in, probably half the total if you include what I brought in to seat the edging stones. Sunday I was hoping to finish the fill, but it got harder to shovel as the pile got lower, so I stopped after another nine wheelbarrows. I have about that amount remaining.
Today it rained all day, and it’s supposed to rain tomorrow too, so I’ll get back to it in a few days. After putting in the fill I have to tamp it all down, then start in with the sand and the actual stones. Finally there’s some landscaping, moving a shrub, grading the edges, filling in low spots in my yard with leftover dirt, putting down grass seed. I’m hoping to be all done by the end of October. Jeannie is already shopping for a fire pit to put on the new patio.
The weather had been super nice the last few weeks up to today. September just kinda slid into October without us even noticing. It’s been sunny, in the low 70’s and dry; we haven’t had rain in weeks. Last night was the first night it got cool and today I even ran the heat for a little bit. I’ll probably take out the air conditioners this week.
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My recording project is proceeding apace. I tracked the bass parts for Why Not Zed? and Heavy Water. Once the bass part is down, the song feels reel because it’s the first audio (as opposed to MIDI) instrument. No more going back to change the tempo or key or structure or feel. I’ll usually practice and do a few takes over a few days, to really get a feel for the song. While I’m at I’ll tweak the drum part if necessary to make it groove better here and there.
This evening I also laid down the guitar part for Why Not Zed? Y!Z is a heavy rock song, while the others are jazz ballad and a sorta funky fusion number. A few months ago I did the guitar for The Story Lies. It felt so laborious and involved alot of experimentation before I got the setup right. This time it couldn’t have been easier. I split the output of the guitar and recorded one channel clean and the other thru my stomp box. I used preset #60, a basic heavy distortion, very meaty. The part went down just like that, in one take. I discovered a great voicing for a 7#9 chord to end the song on. I recorded a second take, even though I probably didn’t need to, just cuz I was having fun. I almost feel like the guitar is secretly easier than any other instrument, at least at a certain level. Maybe that’s why there are so many mediocre guitarists out there.
Anyway, next up is vocals for Y!Z, then it’s on to saxes on all three songs, and then whatever synths and keyboards I need to round things our.
Meanwhile, my drumming is continuing to improve. I’m up to 5- and 9-stroke rolls in my rudiments, and that’s also really improving my long roll. I can jam thru all kinds of basic rock grooves with different patterns on the kick drum, with more endurance, precision, dynamics and phrasing, and I can sustain faster tempos. Also learning my first Latin patterns, and some grooves in 5/8 and 7/4.
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I’ve been learning Drupal for the OUSA web project. Recently it’s been alot of reading documentation cuz there’s alot of baked-in concepts, and bit of poking around and experimenting. Then the other day my friend Mark up in the Adirondacks called me up (yes they’ve already had snow) and asked if I wanted to help him with a freelance project. It’s in Drupal too, so this gives me a chance to sink my teeth into something way less complex, leveraging what I already know. The timing couldn’t’ve been better.
Lastly, Jeannie and actually left the house to do something social. We didn’t feel like going to a restaurant or anything for our anniversary. But then my friend Nick out on Long Island had an Oktoberfest party. He usually has a few parties a year, but not so much this year. This one was greatly scaled back, just a dozen or so people, and was all outside. We ended up staying late and talking half the night. Good to catch up with friends, but these are strange days and lots of people are going thru different things.