A Newborn Foal on the Dance Floor

Let the record show that, when I got vaccinated and the world finally opened up and I could start getting out of the house again, I had no idea what I was doing.

Driving feels weird. Isn't that absurd? It only took one year to go from 2 hour daily round trip commute to a drive into town feeling novel. Like I'm getting used to it all over again. I drove on occasion, of course, but weeks would go by last year without me getting into my car. I think I only burned 3-4 tanks of gas all year. Nuts.

Steakster was a blast and I spent three days digesting. My metabolism is nowhere near what it was and it showed, most of the food and drink went untouched, but we did the best we could and it was awesome just hanging out in person again. Started off with some tennis. Maybe sixnis or sevennis tops. But we were out for a couple hours and that was awesome. Then brunch on the patio at the Inn where I finally got my favorite breakfast pizza. Then back to recliner and game and hang outside on the patio and… it went until about 130am and it's by far the most time I've spent around another person in a long long time. I was so unused to it that my voice was hoarse the next day just from talking all day. Silly. But great. A really awesome way to cut the red tape on having some form of a life again.

Apart from that… not a lot different honestly. Made a couple other trips out to the tennis courts and the inn since then. I'm swapping that in for running on days when schedules and weather align. Nice to get out before the cicadas come ruin it for several weeks. I actually walked into best buy the other day to get a hard drive, that felt pretty momentous. Grocery store trip. Uhhhhhh… yeah. Life, I guess.

Oh! So I finally took my guitars in for setup. I had found a local shop all the way back in 2017 and brought an electric in with a buzz in the pickup. Research showed a lot of support for the owner, high praise all around, but he had apparently gotten sick and was unable to work. So when I brought my guitars in, the place was manned by a couple friendly volunteers who were donating their time to keep the shop open. A nice gesture, and I figured it spoke volumes about the actual owner.

Fast forward to recently, I was looking into a new acoustic guitar and decided to hold off and get the 8 I already have set up and playing well again. I showed up at the shop's new location, 30 minutes away, with 4 acoustic guitars, an electric, and a bass. It was a little add on to the side of a house, concrete floors, unfinished roof, a dozen or so unfinished guitars on the walls. The owner was an older guy, gaunt, who rarely came up for air between sentences. He took a look at the first two acoustics with a fine measuring tool, tested the action, and immediately found every little thing wrong with them. He proceeded to explain each thing in excruciating detail. A good lesson for me in acoustic guitar setup. Or it would have been, had I been able to retain it as fast as he was blurting it out.

At some point in explaining what type of oil to use on the fretboards he managed to slip in that it was leukemia that he's been sick with. Diagnosed back when I first brought the electric into the old shop, still doing chemo twice a week. Ouch. That sucks.

He spent a solid hour just talking about the first four instruments. I did all the listening because I couldn't get a word in edgewise. Then, somehow and someway, things took a turn. His rambling went to the government. Then to Obama. Then to those idiots who want to make college free. Suddenly he was more animated, gesturing wildly and getting a crazed look in his eye each time he would hastily switch topics. I was stuck. I still couldn't get a word in edgewise, and I had just handed this person four instruments that I was gonna trust him with. I didn't want to piss him off, so I politely volunteered that I am a liberal minded individual but that I agreed with a few of his points and didn't begrudge him the rest.

I don't even know if he heard me.

I stood there for an eternity while he went through every angry far right talking point that popped into his mind. And the CONSPIRACY THEORIES. LORD the conspiracy theories. Vietnam? False flag. 911? False flag. Kennedy assassination? CIA plot perpetrated by someone with close ties to George HW Bush. Soros owns everything and knows everything. There's a military installation hidden under the Kennedy Center. Hormones in the food chain were put there intentionally to cause children to hit puberty sooner so the elites can have their pedophile orgies. It's NOT a democracy is’s a rePUBLIC you don't WANT a true democracy. Well why do YOU think the capitol police were told not to guard that entrance the day of the march? On and on and on.

My occasionally trying to add some semblance of logic to the proceedings went about as well as you can imagine. He has proof. He saved it from the internet before “they” took it down.

4pm. It was 4pm before I managed to get back to my car and get out of there. 5 hours to drop off guitars at a repair shop. Heaven fucking help me when I head back to pick them up again.

And I wound up buying that new guitar anyway. So there ya go. Yamaha Transacoustic. Those clever bastards managed to build two reverbs and a chorus effects into an acoustic guitar, no amp required. As someone who almost never plugs in to an amp, the ability to have reverb while playing on the couch seems too good. Must try. Hope I love it.

My big obsession this last week or three has been the editing for the potential YouTube channel. This new program I bought, DaVinci Resolve, comes with the full special effects suite, color grading tools, and a full audio mixer. It also came with a physical editing station with shortcut keys and a scroll wheel. All the new tools and convenience really got me going on it again.

And ya know what? It's fantastic. I've started up with the Minecraft VR series we've been playing through and some of it is genuinely pretty funny. I also finally put in the time to get the intro/outro going. I had started working on a theme song last year and then fell off again. I had a vague idea for an intro animation but never knew how to do it. In the last two weeks I've recorded and produced both the intro and outro versions of the tune AND cut both of the animations. I'm sure pros would find plenty of flaws, but it looks really damn good so far and I'm proud of myself.

I even went all out and ordered a giant green screen. Trying to stay somewhat anonymous online while still putting myself out there on a personal level is tricky, and I landed on this idea to have a silhouette for each of us on the intro. The silhouettes can dance, gesture, or pull little sight gags from time to time, different jokes for each episode, similar to the chalkboard at the start of each Simpsons. I had the songs and the animations with just a blank space for what I imagined would be silhouettes. And then…

it came.

Amazon dropped off my 10x12 green screen with stand today while I was finishing up my workout. I unloaded it and set it up immediately. It's… large. Very large. Quick shower, a beer to loosen me up, and I got after it. Some backlighting for the screen, a gopro in front, and the theme on loop. I stood on front of that screen, camera rolling, for 20 minutes and FUUUUUUCK am I awkward. Physically I mean. It's like watching a foal discover his legs for the first time, all stiff until I get it in my head that I'm being too stiff and then everything flails around randomly in a mess of uncoordinated overcompensation. But ya know what? I stuck with it, and I saw it through, and when I sat down to edit I was pleasantly surprised.

It's actually pretty good.

And the effect is AWESOME.

I just did one little cut as a proof of concept and I'll be damned if it doesn't look good. Even pulled one where I'm doing a little dance, figured I'd go big to start, and it looks good.

I'm so damn proud of myself for all this silliness. I fully recognize that there's a 99% chance nobody will ever see any of it. The heyday of YouTube gaming has come and gone. There are thousands of these playthrough that sit there with 0 views forever, and odds are that's where this will land. And even if someone does see it, they're likely to tune it out again pretty quickly as they get nauseous from the first person VR view. And while that's not really ideal, I'd still be ok with it. I'm making something and putting it out there and it's been a long time since I've done anything like that. That exercise alone feels worth it. It'd be more fun to feel like someone was getting some laughs out of it, but not necessary.

I just need to get C to record some silhouette footage and I'll have everything I need to get some finished episodes uploaded. ExxxxxxxcitiOH SHIT I NEED TO COME UP WITH THUMBNAILS.

Bah. Whatever. How hard can one still image be. I just finished about an hour of video with several effects. I'll have it live soon.

Found a nice little bench down by the creek in town. It's sort of across the creek from the main part of the park, with bushes behind it to block view of me from the road. A perfect little mix of being in the park with people and also not putting myself front and center. I've had a guitar down there twice in the last week as a retreat away from work insanity and I imagine there will be plenty more trips. At least until the cicadas show up. Hopefully my neighbors appreciate the reprieve from hearing my practicing Neon for the billionth time.

I think I've landed on my forearm for Vally paw print tattoo. For awhile I was thinking chest and shoulder where she would place them to climb up and lick my face, but I'm worried that my body might implode again and I'll put on a bunch of weight and not want to see them on my chest. Forearm is something i’ll be able to see each day regardless. I think that's better. Just need to sort out how to arrange them. Side by side? Stepping up towards the wrist? Maybe one on the bicep? How about her left paw on my left forearm and her right on my right? I kind of like that last one symbolically. Truly like she's walking with me. But it seems a little too symmetrical aesthetically. Oh well. I'll sort it out in the next few months and schedule my appointment.

Workouts are happening. I'm back on my three a week starter plan that always gets me going when I'm having a hard time finding the groove. I'm definitely still fighting my lower back and hip, and it feels like it could go any day now, but it's been 3 months and I'm not gonna sit around anymore. If I hurt myself, then I'll get it fixed. At least that'll be some sort of change as opposed to sitting stagnant. I'd have been just about at my goal had I been able to keep going these last few months, but oh well. Back in the saddle. 3-4 months and I'll be right back to where I was. With the way time is flying that'll be nothing. Hopefully I can do it in a way that allows for continued progress this time.

Guess I need to wrap it up for the evening. No deep insightful rants tonight. No broad lessons learned. Just plugging away at things here. Appreciating the time where I feel ok physically, be it the start of a better era or just a temporary reprieve. Enjoying the weather before those noisy jerks come take us right into summer heat. Excited to be putting myself out there a little again, even if nobody is on the other end to see it.

I'm doing it, little wolf. It's been so hard without ya, but I'm figuring it out and I'm doing it. Still miss you though. Hope you're resting easy, pretty girl.

-M