To my four readers, happy Thanksgiving. I hope you are having a great day.
On Weaving Expertly, Instead of Randomly, as Previous
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Last week I took my motorcycle riding skills test at the drivers license bureau, to get my "permanent" motorcycle endorsement added to my license. I damn near flunked it, but it was on a points scale, so I eeked by. I was surprised at the very tight zig-zags I was supposed to execute in the deceptively simple matrix of small traffic cones, made all the more difficult because it had to be done at such slow speed. None of the dynamics and physics of normal motorcycle riding are in play at such slow speeds, so it's more like trying to weave around on a 470 LB bicycle.
The written test was similar. I read the handbook, but when I took the test it seemed as though a good third of the questions had been created using some other handbook. A lot of guessing was involved, and with the questions being so ambiguous, the guessing had more to do with the test creator's intention rather than the nuances of motorcycle riding and laws. (The lady did say I only missed one question and said I did really, really good. This inexplicable facility for passing tests is how I got through high school.) I now suspect the state of Kansas is for some reason hostile toward motorcycle riders.
Anyway, it's over now, and I actually took the best drivers license picture I've ever had, in my life. I don't look half asleep, or mad, or drunk, or psychotic, with one eye half closed, or anything.
November
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Has it really been a whole month since my last blog entry? Is blogging finally dead at last? Did I finally get a life? Do I really have to figure out the answers to these questions?
The online world is so weird. The reason it's addictive is that after a time, you begin to feel like, if you're not there, you're going to miss something. It's really exactly like junior high. Excuse me--"middle school." Time begins to compress because the consciousness if filled with "important" minutia. A day and a half seems like a week. A month--well it started out feeling like a year, then it finally felt like just an old month.
Anyway, everyone went off twittering and facebooking, which really is like Middle School, and I will be the first to admit I "flunked" middle school. I got OK grades in the classes, but I flunked the school.
But enough about me . . . wait, this is a blog.
After the death of my father and my last trip out to Las Vegas, I got . . . I don't know. All that "life is short" and other bullshit. I don't know. I don't even know if I'm supposed to figure it out. It's enough that I waded through it--do I need to go back and drink it? In the little sticks and strings erector set that is my unconscious, it doesn't feel like there is a structure or complex of any kind left behind. Safely moving on, then.
November, and NaNoWriMo. Very tempting, as I actually do have the free time to participate. And I would like to. Last time I tried (was it really two years ago?) I didn't do it right. And at this time, I feel like it would be interesting, and probably even productive, to just open up the language spigot, so to speak, and let'er rip.
I am excited about another thing: my new (old) Mickey Baker Complete Course in Jazz Guitar that somebody loaned me. Mickey Baker, it seems, invented all those thick, rich sounding jazz chords for guitar way back when. They are built in the same way (musically) "big band" chords were formed in those old arrangements. (In other words, not like "folk music" guitar chords with which all guitar players are familiar and any three of which can most likely be successfully used to play just about anything you heard on the radio since 1966.) These Mickey Baker jazz chords are not easy. They have names like Abmaj7 and D#m7b5, and it appears that at least one of them cannot be formed on the guitar fingerboard unless you are a Vulcan.
Pretty cool.
So, what to do this month while the Earth slowly and ponderously grinds to a halt where it will hang in mid-winter and die for an instant like a hung sneeze before deciding, all over again, to try another year?
8 x 10
Saturday, October 3, 2009
I am ready for the next Mafia movie that they film in Kansas City. I think I can land a part.
Octoberpost
Oh yeah, I'm back from Las Vegas for the second time. I'll probably stick close to home for awhile. Above is a picture of Nebraska taken through my car windshield one morning as I prudently looked out upon east-bound I-80 when it was too foggy to go over 60 MPH. For the record, I decided to stay in Ogallala again, but at a different motel. This was my first taste of Midwest autumn this year, having left the desert and the high plains, etc. where it was still hot a couple weeks ago.
Actually, I have nothing to say. Maybe later.
A Few Feverish Thoughts
Sunday, September 13, 2009
I hope this is the middle of the night, and not the morning, because it's way too early. However, sometimes laying in bed feels so bad, getting up is an option.
Last night we went to our favorite Mexican restaurant. I could describe the food, but the reason I bring it up is that there was a fly at our table. Every second or third bite, you had to swipe at the air to make sure he didn't land on your plate. I was thinking, why is this fly here? Why doesn't he go to some other table? Then as I looked around I realized that there was a fly at every table. This was just the fly that had been assigned to our table. Somehow that made the situation more palatable, so to speak. Eventually, he moved on, I think because there was a large group in the center of the room sitting at several tables pushed together, and their fly needed help.
The other thing I want to touch on is the Internet ad that says "Find your graduating class." Then there are three yearbook pictures of girls with big, weird hair and fake, disingenuous smiles who I'm sure grew up and went into Human Resources, or real estate, and there is a fake drop down window with graduation years on it. I just wanted to say I'm really tired of looking at those pictures, but, apparently, that ad will never go away. Ever. I have never, ever clicked on it, but if you did, and you're reading this, please don't do that. It just encourages them.
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