CABINETS, PART ONE

Today, two fellas from Golden State Woodworking arrived with goodies and began assembling cabinets for my home studio's control room.   This is what the room looked like "before".    Notice that the floor is not completely level along the facing wall (this is, after all, a converted garage):

The cabinet pieces were custom-built, mostly made of  laminate, but with a finish that is a very good match the existing wood in the space:

There is a cabinet for the studio computer, with a slide-out drawer, behind smoked glass which also blocks most of the fan noise in the room and vents much of the excess heat:

Next up:   adding a (computer) keyboard drawer next to the computer cabinet, mounting the oversize monitor on a swiveling wall stand, reinforcing a (music) keyboard drawer under the main desk, and adding a quadrilateral angled "U-shaped" piece of wood to mount the digital recorder that will butt right up to the lower window frame.   I also have to repaint some scuffed wallboard in spots, and I'm off to Home Depot now to figure out the desired shade.

EXCITING!!!!

EVENTFUL HORIZON

So, the Hatfields have discovered the joys (and perils) of EBay.

We've been buying, mostly....but also selling.   And, given the expenses of my biggest project (my home studio), I'm now looking for things to sell, frankly.

My wife has been doing a little of both.   She's decided to make herself an expert on designer gear, particularly Louis Vuitton handbags.   They are celebrating their centennial this year.  

 Just typing that sentence makes my inner plebe wince.   How can I possibly think of myself as being of the common cloth, a natural savage, when merely through osmosis I've already learned where to find the "date code", and the difference between a "clutch" and a "coach", or whatever?   In a sense, I'm getting a taste of my own medicine, discovering that one person's obsession is another person's unappreciated expertise.


Seriously, I'm afraid that I'll be talking in my sleep about Marc Jacobs next.   Incredibly, people pay hundreds or even thousands of dollars for these things, and they're not even made of anything terribly precious.   Design-wise, many of them announce their designer origins as garishly as a "Coke.  The Real Thing." T-shirt.

Still, check out the goodies.....

Well, enough of that folderol.   On tap for me:  a gig on Saturday the 28th to benefit homeless folk at Roeding Park, and on Sunday the 29th,  in my first-ever LA gig, Blake Jones and the Trike Shop will be playing the  International Pop Overthrow.   Blake and the gang have played several IPO shows before, including two in Liverpool, but this is my first IPO experience.  It all goes down at Club Fais Do Do at 1:45 on Sunday afternoon.   Pay eight bucks, see five bands that afternoon, including a certain quarter from Fresno County:

 Also, I'm trying to build up some gigs working with a fine local musician, Janette Erickson (principal flautist, Fresno Philharmonic) and some of her colleagues.  It is truly a treat to work with an excellent classical musician, and to help boost this opportunity, I've spent about a week working on editing video and audio segments to go on the web.   Here's a sample video from my YouTube channel to give the flavor, an extract from a piece by Debussy.   Janette has a gorgeous quality in her lower register that is admirably exploited in this piece:




So, busy, busy, busy.

But having said all that, none of these items (exciting as they are ) is the chief thing on my mind, because, you know, tomorrow......my studio......let's just say it's a big day.

Again, the take-home message as I reactivate my blog in earnest, is....music.   It's time to return to my first love, and tune up my hobbyist-level skills, and see what I can achieve.

TINKERING WITH A MANIFESTO

So, I'm getting ready to reactivate this blog in earnest, but I have to say that a lot of what previous animated me on this blog (evolution and science education) has moved to the back burner.   I'm still passionate about having good science in the public schools, I'm still genuinely interested in a lot of philosophical issues about things like the interplay between religion and science, belief vs. non-belief, and so forth.

But, I'm coming up on the one-year anniversary of the car accident that led to a spinal injury that eventually required surgery, and which greatly diminished the quality of my life.   It was easily my worst year as a teacher, and my church commitments suffered as well.   About the only good thing to come out of it was a settlement from the insurance company that paid for the surgery and allowed me to also move forward with life goals.    Physically, I'm healed.   Psychologically, I'm altered in various ways, not all of them bad.

Sadly, I also lost my mother-in-law this May, a woman who lived with me off-and-on for most of the last ten years, and she won't be able to share in those goals.   This loss makes me think about how much longer I want to work, whether I want to continue at a paid musician at my church, whether or not I see myself getting more education, and in what field.   So many unfinished projects, so many things left to accomplish.   So I've made a few decisions of late, and as part of that, I will be reactivating my blog.   The picture below gives a hint as to where my future interests lie: