Author: Jay

I learned late Friday afternoon that I was going to have to work on Saturday, so my plans for a calm mellow weekend were scuttled.

Not to be denied relaxation, the Mrs. and I took a trip to Watercourse Way for a nice hot tub soak after my shift Saturday evening. A very nice way to wind down after a long week!

Sunday morning I slept in late (almost ’til 7am!) and we had a slow morning, generally taking things easy. Our daughter came by around noon for a visit. She and the Mrs. had appointments later that night for massages, and we just hung about, had a nice lunch (BBQ Brisket for the win!) and a quiet, pleasant afternoon.

Later Sunday afternoon I had a couple hours booked at one of the local rehearsal studios and went down to get some time behind the ol’ drum kit.

It’s always a crapshoot going to these places, as you never know what kit you’ll be playing, but nonetheless it was great to sit down and play again. I hadn’t played “real” drums since the first week of December ’21, so it was long overdue. I’ve got all kinds of electronic drums that I can play at at home (drummer + apartment = trouble) but they simply aren’t the same. So I try to get out a few times a month to play the real deal.

I was a little worried that I wouldn’t be able to play for any kind of duration, as my breathing is still crappy post-Plague. Drumming (if you’re doing it right, IMHO) is very demanding physically. You’ve got all four limbs working in coordination, often at 100+ beats per minute, it’s not all that different from a heavy cardio workout. But I was able to run two 50-minute back-to-back “sets” without gasping for air or passing out, so I suppose I am in fact getting better still.

I had a great time, played a little classic rock, a little 80’s new wave, some old hip-hop and a few newish tunes. Nothing earth-shattering, but it was refreshing to get out and blow the cobwebs off, so to speak. And I finally got to test drive my latest acquisition, a vintage Paiste Sound Formula 18″ crash cymbal. It’s a thing of beauty and I’m thrilled to add it to the quiver. I’ve got a serious cymbal addiction and always seem to find new pieces that I just have to have. (the few visible in the pic above are barely a drop in the bucket that is my “precious metals” collection.) I’ve got my eye on a couple others, but I seriously love this latest crash!

After drumming, things got really exciting…filling the gas tank and grocery shopping, getting ready for the new week. I threw together a flower arrangement waiting for the Mrs. to get home, and then it was time for some Zzzz’s.

While I, in my default setting, wanted to be irritated at my weekend being shortened down to a single day, I resigned myself to making the best of it, and in the end it was a pretty nice weekend, all things considered. Sometimes your attitude CAN make all the difference! Who knew?!?

Thanks for reading!

Here I am on the last day of my first week back in the office, post-Plague.  It is staggering how quickly the week passed!  I wish I could say I was all caught up from my 2 week absence, but not even close.  At this rate it will take the month to get back to zero, so to speak.

My plans for the weekend are mild, a couple hours of playing music and a couple hours of pre-Spring Cleaning.  Otherwise, I’m all about lying low keeping up the recovery. 

It’s now been nearly a MONTH, give or take a day, since I last went to the gym and I’m starting to miss it, which is crazy.  I actually am not a fan of working out, but since I started taking my health and excersize more seriously, about a year and a half back now, I haven’t felt as good physically since about 1997… That’s all that has kept me motivated to drag my ass out the door at 5:15am to go!

I don’t want to lose any more momentum, but at the moment climbing A flight of stairs still takes it out of me.  I’m giving myself one more week of recovery and then I’m going back,  for better or worse.  One or two sessions a week is better than none, right? And surfing season is right around the corner, so I gotta get back at it! Already missed most of the winter sessions, won’t be able to stand missing the Spring sessions too!!

Enjoy the weekend everyone! Take care of yourselves and try to enjoy yourself some!

Thanks for reading!

Well, it’s been a grueling few weeks, but I am *starting to feel like myself again after my bout with the Plague.

Three people in my department got it, with an additional 16 throughout my facility. It appears out of the 19, I’m taking the longest to bounce back. No idea why. We had a large swing in age, so its not because I’m older than everybody else. Just my luck, I suppose.

Anyhow, this was a heavy blow to me, in regards to getting this blog started. I had planned to post up a couple reviews from shows we were attending, but sadly missed them both when we got sick.

We’ve got tix to a couple shows this month, so fingers crossed, no more illness and I’ll have some reviews coming in the near future. We’ve got tickets for various shows in February, March, April and July, so hopefully I’ll have lots to write about over the next few months.

In the meantime, I’ll start on a book review I was planning for when I finished the series. The one silver lining of that horrible illness is that I finally finished! More to come soon!

Thanks for reading!

So much for my plans for the new blog… After 2+ years working in a health care setting, I finally caught “the Plague”. This is day 10 since getting the test results and still not “back to normal”, though much better now.

I’m not going to wade into the whole Vax thing, I don’t care what you do and wouldn’t try to convince anyone either way on the issue, but I will say this- this bug is real. Really real. I’m a generally healthy guy, haven’t been truly sick in a decade or more. NEVER had a flu shot, maybe miss A day of work every other year, I just don’t get sick. Haven’t been to a doctor in 5 years (at least). But this? Kicked my ass, seriously.

Anyhow, not gonna ramble on about it. Just posting to try and keep up what little momentum I have in writing. Hoping to get back on track this week, consider this a placeholder…

Take care of yourself, wash your hands and avoid crowds!

If your week started out anything like mine, I figure you could use a little upliftin’ too. Keep reaching for that higher ground folks!

Welcome one and all to my latest outpost. I secured this domain 18 months ago with the intention to start anew back then, then the world went kind of crazy. I wanted this blog to be a positive outlet and frankly there wasn’t too much of a positive nature going on, so I kept putting it off. But now here we are, one full week into another New Year, and I’m of a mind that whatever is going on in the world is going to keep on happening, so I might as well get on with my life as well. And here we are…

I’ve had a couple other blogs under different names and hope to avoid the same pitfalls this time around. There is no essential theme to this blog. I have a great many different interests and will write about whatever strikes me at the time. I won’t spend a lot of time or effort on politics, religion or current events. There are many others in this space doing that, so unless I have something that I feel is of the utmost importance or I have a decidely different take than the mainsteam, I’m likely going to pass on the topic.

A little about me… I’m an unconventional middle aged guy, married 30+ years to a wonderful and eccentric woman, with a grown child and a “professional” carreer. I’m passionate about music, the outdoors and self-reliance. An avid DIY’er and a floundering, amateur surfer. Above all, I try to be a kind, good natured person and sometimes even succeed in that effort!

I don’t know what kind of schedule I’ll be keeping with this, but I’ll try to make it regular, even if brief. Thanks for reading and I hope to see you return for more!