Last night we went to a combined birthday party for several of us who have birthdays in November and early December. It was fun, and we got to play one of our board games for the first time since we got it about six months ago. We had played this game called Encore Deluxe at the girlfriend's brother's place about a year ago, and we really liked it and thought some of our friends would, too. Of course, since then it seems most of our friends have vanished into thin air, but we finally played with the old book club group yesterday. It was quite a bit of fun, although I wound up seriously overindulging on the rum that was available. Still not feeling all that great most of the day today. Hopefully I didn't piss anyone off and drive off the rest of the friends we have...

This morning, or early afternoon, her friend Will came over to go to the dog park with us. He's been missing some of the dogs they've fostered over the years, so we figured getting him out there with all the puppies and stuff would be a happy time for him. And, of course, having someone else to keep our little man entertained is certainly a bonus. Unfortunately, not many of Ernie's usual friends were down at the park. Not really much of a surprise, with it being the weekend right after a major holiday. I'm sure a lot of people were off with families and such. In any case, there were a few familiar faces and enough new dogs to keep the little man somewhat entertained for an hour or so.

On the way back home, we stopped at Mr. Chopsticks here in Denton and picked up some lunch. It's kind of nice to actually eat at the dining room table once in a while, even if the food is kind of mediocre. The girlfriend says it used to be pretty good but has gone downhill in the last few years. She says that about a lot of places, though. Seems I missed the high point of Denton's cuisine. Oh well.

Since we had lunch, I've mostly just been sitting here watching football, napping, and doing a little work on my music. I have been working on what I'm calling the Seven Songs of the Apocalypse. Really, they have almost nothing apocalyptic about them. It's just a coincidence that there are seven of them, so I thought the name kind of fit. Mostly they're just old snippets of music I already had lying around, but I've put some additional little sections to them to make them into complete songs. We'll see if the band likes them or if they'll be solo efforts. But they won't be anything if I don't work on them some more, so I'm off...

It turns out that walking down to the recycling dumpsters and around the block with the little man in tow is about 1500 steps. So, if I do that every day after I get home from work, I can be sure to add plenty to my count. Not that I'll be really likely to do that every day after I get home from work. But at least I can think about doing it...

Yesterday wound up not being too bad at work. I only had a couple of drives to do, they were both pretty short, and the traffic wasn't bad at all. Fortunately, I wasn't going anywhere near any of the major shopping areas in town. In the end, I wound up getting a lot more filing done than I thought I would. That's a good thing, because I'm still quite a way behind in that department.

I ended up with a total of 8511 steps on my pedometer yesterday, which is the best I've had since I bought the thing. I'm thinking I might take little man out for a walk down to the recycle bins down the street today. Kill a couple or few birds with one little exercise. Get some steps in, get him out of the house so maybe he'll quit barking his head off, and get some of that recycling out of the house. We'll see how that goes.

I'm home for lunch early today. I had a greatly shortened time down in the file room, because one of the other drivers took a vacation day today. So instead of being able to use a slow paperwork day to get caught up, I'm probably going to spend it out on the road. I guess it all pays the same, though, so it really doesn't matter all that much. I'm going to make sure I stop at a store and get the newspapers this Sunday, because I'm starting to get even more tired than usual of the job there...

Counting the steps...

About a week ago, the day after the girlfriend and I got our new phones, I also got a new pedometer while I was waiting around Best Buy. For the past week, I've just pretty much done what I would normally do, sort of to set a baseline step count. And, for that week, my average number of steps per day was about 5427. So beginning today, I'm going to try to make sure I beat that count every day, and hopefully I'll get myself up to the 10,000-step plateau. No, it's not really a weight-loss thing; it's more about just trying to get myself back into some kind of cardiovascular shape. It's pretty sad when I walk briskly around the room after the corgi for about five minutes and I have to sit for ten because I'm gasping for breath. So, another year, another goal...

We went to the dog park early this afternoon. It was very warm, but also cloudy and windy. It looks like it's going to be warm for the next couple of days, but then it should cool back down into wintry sort of temperatures. There weren't a whole lot of people at the dog park, but it seems that might have been because of the clouds and the football games on the tube. We were happy to meet up with Conchita and her parents, though. There were a few other little dogs around, too, so it was worth the trip there.

After the dog park, we went to Petsmart to get Ernie some more food. We met several of his favorite people there. He's always pretty happy to see everyone there.

Over the course of the day, I exported several of the tracks we recorded yesterday to MP3 and sent them off to the band members. They didn't come out exceptionally well, but I guess they're all right as scratch tracks. We'll get them done better before too terribly long, I hope, and then maybe we'll be able to send out some demo CDs and see if we can get a few gigs. I guess we'll see how that goes...

Ernie at leisure...

It's been kind of a long day today. I was up late last night getting together all of the equipment, cables and such that I thought we might need for our recording this morning. I was rather surprised that I did indeed manage to find everything, because I was looking for stuff that has been stuck in the back of the closet for months, if not years.

This morning, it took me a little longer than it should have for me to get everything packed into the car, so I wound up being a bit late getting down there. It also took me a lot longer to get everything set up than it used to, back when I did that kind of stuff nearly every gig for the old band. I also found out that my direct box, which I'd planned to use to record Brian's lead guitar, wasn't working properly. So I had to run that through a microphone, which isn't optimal. Also, Scott's amp only has one output aside from the internal speaker. That's an effect send jack, and the level is extremely low. So running that output via a 1/4" cable across the room led to some extreme noise. Not good.

Despite the problems, I did the recordings as planned, trying to get as good a mix as I could under the circumstances. I listened to some of them this afternoon and evening, and the drums and bass don't sound god-awful, but the rest of the mix is almost nonexistent. I guess it's at least something to work from. Now I just need to try to put together tempo maps and such for each of the songs. That's going to be quite a bit of work. Guess I'd better get to it...

Testing the new phone...

So the new phone is working and all of that, but I haven't sent anything to my blog by e-mail for ages. I'm assuming it should still work, but I guess I'll see when I get home...

Today was a pretty nice day in general. I've spent most of the day tinkering around with the new phone. The girlfriend was having some problems getting hers activated, and now it seems to think she has two separate accounts. We tried doing the phone activation and the online activation, and neither one seems to have been successful, but both of them seem to have set up a sort of partial account.

So we drove down to Best Buy. She was just going to return her phone if they couldn't get it to work properly. Fortunately, the lady we talked to this time around seemed a lot more competent than the guy who helped us yesterday. She called the MetroPCS "special number" and managed to get everything set. We're going to keep an eye on the billing and make sure she only gets dinged for one account, though.

While we were there at Best Buy, I bought myself a new pedometer. It's a little better than the old one I had, and it seems like it's a little more durable. Now I just need to get out there and start taking those steps...

So, after long discussion, the girlfriend and I stopped at Best Buy and picked up a couple of MetroPCS Samsung FreeForm phones. After about 45 minutes talking to a couple of people who obviously don't speak English as their native language, I got my phone set up and started playing with the unlimited web access and the e-mail synchronization with Gmail. Now, it's several hours later. I can tell what's going to be the latest thing that takes up all my time. But, I really need to make sure that I still spend plenty of time on my music. And now, I need to go spend some time getting some sleep...

Gmail Issues

I don't know if everyone's Gmail is screwed up right now, or if it's just mine, but it has me in HTML mode (for slow connections) despite the fact that I have the latest version of Firefox, no conflicting applications or plug-ins, and I'm on Charter's high speed internet. I don't know if they have a server issue or what, but it's annoying the heck out of me. Oh well. You get what you pay for, I suppose.

In the course of my filing job, from time to time I see Better Business Bureau complaints that have been filed against the company I'm working for. I think it's just sort of part of the nature of doing the amount of business we do. In any case, one of them came through this morning, and I read through it.

The complaint was what they describe as "Info Only." Basically, it just means that the person wanted to file a grievance, but didn't really expect any kind of resolution to their complaint. It's pretty much a way to bitch out the company in question without the company really having any kind of recourse.

This particular complaint was from a man complaining about a repair done to his parents' car. According to him, his "nearly senile" parents had come into our service center to have a no-cost repair done on their 2006 Cadillac DTS. But in addition to the warranty repair, they had another repair done which cost $1200. According to the complaint, the man had spoken with other mechanics who said this other repair shouldn't usually need to be done until 90,000 miles, and our service department had recommended it to this man's elderly parents after only about 45,000 miles. So, he complained that our service advisors should have contacted him before going ahead with the repairs. We had obviously taken advantage of his helpless parents to make a quick buck.

Now, the real question I have is this: If this man's parents were so old, helpless, and "nearly senile" that they should not even have been making a decision about a repair without the approval of their son, then what in the hell are they doing driving around on public roads in a fucking Cadillac?

Smoked Turkey

The turkey came out pretty well. Smoked it for about two and a half hours and then put it in the oven for a couple more. We sampled a couple of little pieces of it, and it tastes pretty good. Definitely worth the 39 cents a pound I paid for it at Kroger the other week, and worth the probably hour of actual work that I had to put into it...

The girlfriend and I went down to the dog park earlier this afternoon. When we got there, we were hoping to meet Chris, Linda, and Conchita, but their car was not in the lot. We assumed that we just missed them, because we were a bit later than we wanted. They're usually there by noon, and we didn't get down there until about 12:30 or so. There were a couple of dogs in the little dog section, though, so we stuck around to let Ernie run around a bit. A number of other dogs came in while we were there, and several of them were really good matches for Ernie in temperament and activity level. It's good to see him running around a lot more when we're down there than he did the first couple of months that we took him to the park. Then after we were there about an hour or so, Conchita and her parents showed up at last. Conchita is quite the sweet little puppy, probably only half of Ernie's size at most. Ernie played with her for a bit, as well as continuing to play with several of the other dogs. Despite the fact that they got there so much later than us, they wound up leaving earlier, although we left shortly after them.

We were going to go to Target after we went to the dog park, but I started smoking the turkey and watching a football game, and the girlfriend took a nap for about an hour. There's nothing that we desperately need, so I guess it'll wait until tomorrow. In the meantime, I'm going to finish watching this game and keep an eye on the smoke pouring from the barbecue. Hopefully the bird will be done in time to eat it tonight, but I'm not really counting on it...

I got up this morning and realized that I wasn't going to be able to smoke the turkey today like I had planned. While the turkey itself was partially defrosted, it was probably more than half frozen still. In any case, it is now sitting in a stock pot on the counter, soaking in a savory sort of brine. With any luck, I'll be able to get the little fellow smoking tomorrow after we go to the dog park. Smoked turkey and football. What a way to spend a Sunday...

After putting the turkey in the brine, I headed down to Roanoke to play with the guys. It was a fairly productive practice, and we all came to the decision that we need to record some decent scratch tracks, so we can all practice our parts when we're not actually there together. So next week, I get to be the sound engineer and bring all my recording gear down there. I have limited inputs on my system, so we're not going to get anything studio quality, but at least we'll be able to have the structures down on tape, so to speak. And listening to those songs the same way and playing along with them the same way every day will eliminate a lot of the wasted time that we have now, where we're just trying to figure out how many times we went through the solo or what intro we were going to use for that song, before we even start really practicing it. And after we get those scratch tracks down, at least three of us can each lay down our own tracks on top to eventually make what can be a nearly studio quality mix. The only person who will need some extra help on that count is Joey, the drummer. He doesn't have Sonar on his computer, so I'll need to record his drum kit into my computer at some point in time for each of the songs that we do. Anyway, at least we're all on the same wavelength as far as the goal here, and I think this is a great step in the right direction.

After band practice, I headed off to meet Ernie and the girlfriend at the dog park. Ernie found a lot of little friends there, and he ran around a lot more than he usually does. We would probably have stayed a little longer than we did, but the sun was going down and it was starting to get pretty cold. As it is, I think we were there for a good hour and a half. We're probably going back down there tomorrow to meet Conchita and her parents, Chris and Linda.

After the dog park, we came home and puttered around for a little bit before heading off to Ikea. The girlfriend wanted to look for a few little things like Christmas fabric and such. We found a couple of things that she wanted, but most of the fabric was already gone. I guess we'll have to get down there about the middle of September to get a decent selection of Christmas stuff next year. We stopped at the grocery store on the way home and got a few essentials and a couple of things that we don't really need, but which I wanted. I've got a bit of cooking to do tomorrow, in addition to the turkey. And that means that I should probably be heading off to bed soon. Or now...

Long day today. The girlfriend had to open, and we've decided that when one of us leaves early, it's usually best for the other to get up and let Ernie see that we're leaving. He kind of freaks out if one of us leaves while he's in his cage. It's like he doesn't understand where we've gone and spends the whole morning searching for the missing person.

So, rather than have him freak out, I got up at about 6:45 so he could watch her leave for work. I could have gone back to bed, but I was already awake. So I just made a pot of coffee and played with the little man for a couple of hours before heading off to work. I did also work a little on some of the music I've been trying to write these past few days, but I didn't really accomplish too much with that. Got to work on it more consistently. Get a pattern going...

Work was pretty uneventful. It was drizzling a little when I got to work, and then I heard it pretty much pouring down rain while I was in the file room. Fortunately, it stopped before I headed off to lunch. It was fortunate because I didn't bring my rain coat with me. I would have been soaked like a wet dog if I'd had to walk out to my car in that mess.

I had a very short lunch today because I had to stop at the storage unit and pay the rent for the month. It'll be nice when we actually have a house with some kind of garage or something, so I can get rid of that little bill every month. I was going to get a few things out of my music racks while I was there, but I decided that I didn't have the time. Maybe that'll be something to do this weekend.

After work, I came home and watched the Boise State Broncos beat up on the Idaho Vandals. It was a pretty brutal first quarter for the Vandals, with BSU being up 28-0 and Idaho having only 11 yards of offense after the quarter. The Vandals did quite a bit better the rest of the game, but still wound up losing 52-14. Definitely not a pretty game for them, but their fans pretty much stuck around and supported the team right to the end of the game.

Anyway, I have band practice tomorrow, so I should probably be heading off to bed now. Don't want to be half asleep while I'm trying to remember how to play songs...

After work today, I took Ernie for a long walk down to the Square. We heard some music playing from quite a distance, so we knew that something was going on down there. I figured it was more of the Veteran's Day sort of activities. It turns out that it was a peace rally sort of thing. We saw quite a few people there, but Ernie was a little nervous about the men who we met. I still don't know what his deal is with being so fearful of men. Anyway, we met a musician named Jason who was getting ready to play at the rally. He was the one who told me what it was going on there. He thought Ernie was just the cutest thing. We talked for a few minutes, and then headed back toward home. We met a few other folks on the way back home who thought Ernie was just the cutest thing.

The girlfriend has to open at work tomorrow morning. Hopefully the rain will hold off so she can take him down to the dog park after she gets off. He's still getting a little of his cabin fever, even though we've been out on walks the past few days. Not sure what we can really do to alleviate it, but I guess eventually he'll grow out of it or just get used to the situation. Hopefully we'll have a house within the next few months, and then we can put in a doggy door and let him come and go into the yard at will. I guess we'll see how the financial situation is in a few months.

Since I'll be dealing with the little man all morning on my own, I guess I'd better get ready to go to bed to make sure I'm not a zombie...

After I got home from work today, I took Ernie for a walk. We took a little of the recycling up to the corner and got that cleared out, then walked down the back street back home. We met one of the other little dogs that the girlfriend sees every once in a while when she's out walking. The dog's name is Rose, and her owner is Leo. He's a nice older gentleman. He told me that Rose has never missed a day of walking in her 12 years. That's serious dedication.

A while after I got home from the walk, the girlfriend asked if I'd make some cookies. Unfortunately, we didn't have any butter, but I figured there would be some kind of butter-free recipe in my 1001 cookie recipes cookbook. The one I found was for almond bar cookies. They turned out tasting all right, but they were kind of a dry biscuit-style bar cookie, not a moist, chewy sort of cookie which the girlfriend would probably have preferred. I guess I'll take them to work or something and let the vultures out back take care of them...

Almond Bars II

2 large eggs
1 cup packed light brown sugar
1 ounce bittersweet chocolate, grated
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
1/4 cup almonds, ground
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 cups all-purpose flour

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease a 9-inch square baking pan.

2. In a large bowl, beat the eggs until thick and light-colored. Beat in the brown sugar. Beat in the chocolate and almond extract. Beat in the almonds, baking powder and cinnamon. Gradually blend in the flour.

3. Spread the dough evenly into the prepared pan.

4. Bake for 28 to 30 minutes, or until the top is golden brown. Cool in he pan on a rack before cutting into large or small bars.

Baking notes: For variation, spread half the dough in the bottom of a 8- or 9-inch square baking pan and bake for 8 to 10 minutes. While still warm, spread with 2 to 3 tablespoons of your favorite jam or preserves. Spread the remaining dough over the jam and bake for 12 to 15 minutes longer, or until the top is golden brown. Or prepare and bake the bars as directed. Meanwhile, beat 2 large egg whites with 1/4 teaspoon salt until stiff but not dry. Fold in 1/4 cup granulated sugar. While the cookies are still warm, spread the egg whites over the top. Sprinkle with 1/4 cup ground almonds and bake for 8 to 10 minutes longer.

Yield: 1 to 2 dozen.
Total Time: 45 minutes.

I'm letting the girlfriend sleep in a bit today. She's been feeling a bit under the weather recently, and she did not want to move when the alarm went off. So I've been out here in the living room playing with Ernie and trying to give him something of a brushing. It seems like you can take half a gerbil's worth of fur off of him nearly every time you brush him. And I'd rather have it stuck to the brush than stuck to the furniture and my clothes.

I have an idea for revamping "Cloudcover," making it a bit more band friendly. I've had this bass melody wandering around in various forms practically since I started understanding chords on the bass, and I've never seriously moved it beyond taking the same little part and maybe putting some other instrument over it as a melody. I really need to work on recording that idea this evening when I get home. I also really need to get upstairs and buckle down on getting the room cleared out so I can make it into a music room. I probably should also take little man out for a walk, so hopefully I can get that taken care of and not lose my motivation to do some music and cleaning, too. Better start getting ready for work now, though...

Today was a fairly typical, boring, mundane kind of day at work. The girlfriend called in sick, so I had to drive myself to work today, though. Aside from that, it was just a march down to the file room with my stack of papers, and stick them all in the manila folders. Boring, tedious, and barely pays enough to get the bills paid.

After I got off work, I really didn't accomplish many of the other things I would have liked to do. Instead, I was lured in yet again by the shiny box in the corner, and I sat and killed several hours watching a hockey game. I really need to do better trying to accomplish the things I need to do, just for the sake of my own sanity and well-being. Not to mention in the name of finding myself a better home in which to live...

This morning I was down in the file room, doing my usual thing, when Kendall, the warranty administrator, came in needing a couple of repair orders pulled. As she was leaving, she told me that she appreciated the help, and that I was a master at my craft. I kind of chuckled at that. I've never really thought of what I do as a "craft." In fact, the main skills required seem to me to be just one small step removed from being able to say my ABCs and count to 100. Oh well...

I got an e-mail this morning that band practice wasn't going to be held today. So I did to a little bit of work on a new little tune that I came up with. The girlfriend said it sounded like "Daytripper" to her, although I wasn't deliberately trying to make it sound like that. I just thought it had kind of a funky little blue note thing in the middle of it, which I liked. So I recorded the bass part and plinked out the melody on keyboard, so I can figure it out again if I forget it later. I also finally sat down and figured out how to use the Session Drummer module that I downloaded for my copy of Sonar a couple of months ago. I still need to figure out some things with the patterns and such. I still wish they had the old drum module that came with my old copy of Home Studio, but they don't seem to have anything quite like that available any more. So, I guess I have to use what they've got available...

Work was pretty much the usual sort of crap today. Got to play porter and go on a couple of drives. I suppose it makes me a little bit of extra money, but I think I'd still just rather have the day off. After I got off work, we took Ernie down to the dog park, so he could frolic with his furry little friends. He always has a good time down there, and it got him a little tired out. Which was a good thing, because we had to leave him home for a fair chunk of the afternoon.

The girlfriend's brother John was having his birthday celebration today. We drove down to Lewisville to her mom and stepfather's place. It was a catfish fry for dinner. The food was all right. I suppose it was about what I would have expected for a catfish fry, with breaded fish and French fries deep fried in a turkey fryer out on the driveway. Nothing spectacular, but good down-home cooking.

We got home relatively early this evening and did a little cleaning around the place. I'm still not sure if I'll have band practice tomorrow. We had to postpone from today, both because of my work and because Brian, the guitarist, had to go to Shreveport today. I'm still waiting to hear if we're going to be on tomorrow...

Well, I did get Kala's litter box cleaned yesterday, and I did record a version of the little tune on bass at least, but I still haven't vacuumed upstairs yet. I did also load the dishwasher and do a little of the hand washing. So even though I didn't manage to get everything done yesterday evening that I wanted, I'll pretty much still call it a break-even.

Work was all right yesterday. I finished yesterday's filing and one of the stacks from my cart, which was my goal. And the driving was pretty decent, too. I had about five pickups, but they were all right within a few miles, and most of them I was able to do in a couple of loops, so that was nice. At the end of the day, we had one of the pains in the ass come in and expect to get a ride back to his house at a bit after 6:00. And he already lives well outside of our coverage area. I wouldn't have been able to make it back to the dealership until close to 8:00 if I'd have gone. Fortunately, the evening manager didn't want to stay late, either, so he got the customer put into a rental car. That's a good thing, because I was supposed to meet the girlfriend and Ernie at the dog park after work. I only got to spend a few minutes at the park before it was dark, but at least it got the little man out of the house and active for a while.

And now, I need to get ready for work, again...

I'm tired, I'm depressed, and I'm broke. Aside from that, things are going all right. I didn't accomplish very much of anything that I wanted to do last night, although I did take the little man out on a walk, which is good. He always has way more energy than the girlfriend and I, so it's good to get him out there and let him burn some of that off.

The girlfriend had to open today, so I have a pouty, bored little man sitting around the house this morning, too. He sees that I'm putting on the work clothes, and he knows what's about to happen, so he's not being quite as hyper as he has been for most of the morning. Just about all I've done today is make my coffee and throw my jeans in the dryer, then play tug and such with the little guy and try to read my e-mail. I should have used the time for doing some music stuff, but of course I didn't. Tonight when I get home, I need to go upstairs and vacuum, clean Kala's litter box, and then try to record the new little piece of music that I've been thinking about for a few days, before I forget what I had in mind...

Of course, when I don't quite have the money in the checking account yet, that's the time that the landlords go ahead and deposit the rent check the day I give it to them. Usually they wait nearly a week. Plus the accounting department still hasn't applied my vacation day. Stupid, lazy fuckers...

Today was a pretty mediocre sort of day at work. I got there a bit late, because I had to make my loan payment before work. That was all right, and I have plenty in the checking account to pay the insurance and stuff that come out automatically at the beginning of the month, but it's going to be something of a strain getting the rent paid. Guess I need to start budgeting a bit better. Not to mention the fact that I need to get a better job.

To add insult to the deal, I found out when we got the mail at lunch today that I not only got to pay the late charge because of being two days late on my Capital One payment, but I also got bumped to the penalty interest rate, which is almost 30%. Guess I'd better get that paid off quickly to make sure I'm not paying even more.

In any case, when I got to work, I had two large stacks of filing to be done. It was all the end of month crap. So now I'm a little further behind than I was before. And then I spent almost all of the late part of the shift out driving, so I couldn't even get a little bit caught up then. Guess I'll just have to get used to constantly being a bit behind in there. Really, I should be out looking for a better job, not just trudging away at this dead-end crap. Maybe sometime soon...

At lunch today, we decided we were going to make chili for dinner. So when I got home, I started browning the meat and such. The girlfriend got home just a little bit after me, though, and she finished the meal up. It probably wasn't the best chili either of us have ever had, but it was pretty good. I think tomorrow I might throw some dogs on the grill and have hot dogs and corn. Or something like that.

During and after cooking, we watched the Rangers get absolutely dominated by San Francisco's pitching. The high-scoring, hot-hitting Rangers managed to score a total of 5 runs in the last four games, and got only three hits each of the last two nights. Kind of sucks, but at least it wasn't the Yankees or the Braves who won.

And now, I think it's just about time to start getting ready for bed...