I got the urge to play again but found my old Ibanez RG220 was pretty badly damaged. I guess moisture got to it and rusted out a lot of the bridge hardware and apparently destroyed one of the pickups. It wasn’t worth the cost to repair it since I’m pretty sure I only paid $250-300 for it 10 years ago. Instead I went and found my sound. I thought that to get the early/mid-90s fuzz/crunch I needed an alder bodied, rosewood necked, Made In the USA Strat. Turns out that’s not the case, rather, it mostly isn’t. The one I found, and then a week later went back and got after trying out a handful of much more expensive alder/rosewood USA and Mexican made Strats turned out to be a basswood bodied, maple necked, made in Japan Strat. I didn’t like the way the rosewood fretboards felt and to be honest I really kind of did want a brighter sound from the guitar. It can easily be warmed up with an amp or other means. I’ve found the syllabus from a guitar class I took in college and I’m going back through it to get back in the swing of things. I have to say I missed it.

i found this site called Valet Mag from a Metafilter. it’s a site about men’s fashion and grooming, pretty standard stuff. they had a feature on shaving and i’d been thinking of switching to a safety razor for a while now. seems like a good a time as any to start.

ok, i know it’s been a while. lots of things going on i can’t get in to right now. i haven’t been shooting, i haven’t really been doing much interesting, so i haven’t been posting. but there will be stuff happening soon. and i’m going to make an effort to shoot more. so stick with me. follow me on facebook or something to keep current.

a couple weeks ago i took the MSF Safety Course and got my motorcycle license. i figured the only logical thing to do would be to get a motorcycle. so i got myself a ninja 250r. still getting used to it, since it’s a bit different than the bike i had in the class, but it’s loads of fun. a friend of mine at work that had a bike for a while and then sold it decided to get a ninjette too, in addition to another friend who has had one for a while now. we’re a biker gang! hopefully his gets fixed though, so we can go on some longer rides. commuting is 10x more fun now, but it’s still kind of boring.

yesterday was the Fremont Solstice Parade. it was special this year because Tessa was dancing in it! more here.

i’m moving hosts, it’s not going smoothly and i don’t have time to deal with it properly. here’s a picture of a sleepy shiba to tide you over.

yeah yeah you should be used to this by now. it’s getting nicer out so i’ll probably be lugging the camera around some more. i don’t like carrying it when it’s wet. it’s weather sealed but i don’t like to take chances. and as this winter was exceptionally cold i didn’t want to risk that either. so there you go. summer is coming, and with it better light. get ready.

everyone loves lists.

• got in a car wreck xmas morning. 360′D on the freeway because someone changed lanes into me. no injuries, car is just banged up.
• after driving to tessa’s parent’s after the wreck i got the car stuck in the snow in their driveway. the first hour of christmas was spent with tessa’s dad digging it out.
• day after christmas hung out with my fam. it was cool.
• went to neumo’s on NYE. saw some really decent acts. had a really good time for not much cash. the hangover wasn’t epic, which was good

all in all not bad, except for the car wreck, which is being taken care of. look for more photos this year. it’s not a resolution, it’s just something i should do more of.

it’s snowing drifts right now and i had to go out and find a big parking lot to do something stupid in. it was a valuable learning experience as i learned where the limits of my car’s cornering as well as how to correct being sideways. i also had a lot of fun just being sideways and trying to keep it that way. by the end of my hour or so i was getting pretty good and doing a controlled figure 8. i learned that a tiny bit of gas is all you need to break the wheels loose, so keeping it under 3000rpm is how you keep from spinning out. i also learned that to go from completely sideways to straight requires a quarter turn in the other direction and a reasonable goose on the throttle. i’m just amazed at how well the car handles in the snow. between the awd and the tires i put on i feel pretty safe in driving in the snow.

this is my balcony. there’s a quarter inch of snow on it. this is my parking lot and the street outside. there’s about 3″ of snow on it. and it’s still falling. welcome to snowpocalypse 2008.