But today, thankfullly, has been quiet. Which is great, considering that the last two weeks have been plain nuts. Not all of it has been bad, though. Just very, very busy.
Not a lot, in retrospect, seems worth reporting though. I went to see Queensryche (and no, I can't figure out how to put an umlaut over the y - the existance of which makes about as much sense as Motley Crue's umlauts) in concert at a local dive. Great show, and I did take some pictures with the camera in my cell phone, and I'll show them in a bit. However, I realized just how old I have become.
For one, I was only three or four rows back from the stage, which was awesome, however it didn't do much for my desire to keep the three foot personal space boundary line intact! Yeah, I'm a "keep your distance" kinda person. But I put that aside for the show. I last saw them around '92 or '93, and they were just as good then as now. But after standing around for an hour to get in to the club, then another hour to wait for the show, then three hours of music, my feet and legs were killing me! And when you've reached the point that pain outweighs the desire to see a favorite band play, it's time to call admit that your wild party days are behind you!
The other thing that got on my nerves was the amount of drunk people crammed into a really small place. Guess I have a low tolerance, being that I work with them and used to be one on many an occasion myself.
But again, great show and I did have a great time. Here are the pics:
First blurry photo of lead singer Geoff Tate. It's amazing how little his voice has changed over the years. Great stage presence. He also did an awesome job explaining the story behind their latest album, American Soldier, which sampled portions of interviews conducted with hundreds of servicemen and women who are serving or have served in every war from WWII to the current Iraq and Afghan conflicts.
This is a shot of rhythm guitarist Parker Lundgren, who is married to Tate's daughter. Guess making him part of the band is either a perk of marrying into the family or a way of keeping an eye on him!
And finally, this is a shot of Tate and a little girl who was rumored to be one of his daughters (he has 3), during a duet from the American Soldier album. It was cute, and although she looked like she didn't want to be there for most of the song, she got a lot of cheers and applause when she was done her solo.
So that was on the 11th. I had to be at work the next day, so I hurt like all get out. It was worth it, though. One week later, on the 19th, I taught a class at Vanderbilt Divinity School on the relationship between spirituality and addiction. Basically I lifted up a theory I have that spirituality is the first casuality of addiction, and that pastoral care providers need to be both vigilant and prepare to help addicts with their spirituality during recovery. I thought it went very well, and One Ring and her professor (who asked me to come and speak) echoed that sentiment. I enjoyed it alot, perhaps too much, because now it's hard to come back here, where by and large any contribution I make is ignored unless I'm bailing someone out of trouble. Yeah, that's cynical but I'm a government employee. Deal with it.
I talked with One Ring about it, and she stated that if I enjoyed teaching and wanted to go in that direction, we could work on me getting the additional degrees and training necessary. I told her that I'd look into it when she finished her dissertation. For the time being, though, that's taking top priority.
In the meantime, I'm keeping up with guitar lessons and other creative outlets that help me keep my sanity. Yes, I'm still working on "Comfortably Numb," but I'm on the second solo now, having proven that I can keep up with the CD during the first solo and chord progressions. This one, however, is a whole different creature and a monster. I'm also looking at getting a second guitar, this one with single coil pickups (like a Fender Stratocaster, for example), so I can get a more bluesy, clean sound than my humbucker equipped Epiphone SG-310. In the store the lowest price I've seen for a cheaper guitar that meets this requirement is around $200, but I've seen used guitars for about half that. So we'll see. One Ring isn't too keen on my spending more money right now, but I may be able to win her over. : )
This is one of the candidates that I was looking at here. It's a Yamaha Pac112J. My guitar teacher recommended it. Despite the low price, the quality is amazingly high, and with the humbucker in the bridge position you are able to play just about every style of music out there. The used music store just emailed me some pictures of it. I'm concerned about some scraping around the jack, but if it turns out that there's no wiring damage, this one is a front runner.
Okay, the day's just about over. More later.
Not a lot, in retrospect, seems worth reporting though. I went to see Queensryche (and no, I can't figure out how to put an umlaut over the y - the existance of which makes about as much sense as Motley Crue's umlauts) in concert at a local dive. Great show, and I did take some pictures with the camera in my cell phone, and I'll show them in a bit. However, I realized just how old I have become.
For one, I was only three or four rows back from the stage, which was awesome, however it didn't do much for my desire to keep the three foot personal space boundary line intact! Yeah, I'm a "keep your distance" kinda person. But I put that aside for the show. I last saw them around '92 or '93, and they were just as good then as now. But after standing around for an hour to get in to the club, then another hour to wait for the show, then three hours of music, my feet and legs were killing me! And when you've reached the point that pain outweighs the desire to see a favorite band play, it's time to call admit that your wild party days are behind you!
The other thing that got on my nerves was the amount of drunk people crammed into a really small place. Guess I have a low tolerance, being that I work with them and used to be one on many an occasion myself.
But again, great show and I did have a great time. Here are the pics:
First blurry photo of lead singer Geoff Tate. It's amazing how little his voice has changed over the years. Great stage presence. He also did an awesome job explaining the story behind their latest album, American Soldier, which sampled portions of interviews conducted with hundreds of servicemen and women who are serving or have served in every war from WWII to the current Iraq and Afghan conflicts.
This is a shot of rhythm guitarist Parker Lundgren, who is married to Tate's daughter. Guess making him part of the band is either a perk of marrying into the family or a way of keeping an eye on him!
And finally, this is a shot of Tate and a little girl who was rumored to be one of his daughters (he has 3), during a duet from the American Soldier album. It was cute, and although she looked like she didn't want to be there for most of the song, she got a lot of cheers and applause when she was done her solo.So that was on the 11th. I had to be at work the next day, so I hurt like all get out. It was worth it, though. One week later, on the 19th, I taught a class at Vanderbilt Divinity School on the relationship between spirituality and addiction. Basically I lifted up a theory I have that spirituality is the first casuality of addiction, and that pastoral care providers need to be both vigilant and prepare to help addicts with their spirituality during recovery. I thought it went very well, and One Ring and her professor (who asked me to come and speak) echoed that sentiment. I enjoyed it alot, perhaps too much, because now it's hard to come back here, where by and large any contribution I make is ignored unless I'm bailing someone out of trouble. Yeah, that's cynical but I'm a government employee. Deal with it.
I talked with One Ring about it, and she stated that if I enjoyed teaching and wanted to go in that direction, we could work on me getting the additional degrees and training necessary. I told her that I'd look into it when she finished her dissertation. For the time being, though, that's taking top priority.
In the meantime, I'm keeping up with guitar lessons and other creative outlets that help me keep my sanity. Yes, I'm still working on "Comfortably Numb," but I'm on the second solo now, having proven that I can keep up with the CD during the first solo and chord progressions. This one, however, is a whole different creature and a monster. I'm also looking at getting a second guitar, this one with single coil pickups (like a Fender Stratocaster, for example), so I can get a more bluesy, clean sound than my humbucker equipped Epiphone SG-310. In the store the lowest price I've seen for a cheaper guitar that meets this requirement is around $200, but I've seen used guitars for about half that. So we'll see. One Ring isn't too keen on my spending more money right now, but I may be able to win her over. : )
This is one of the candidates that I was looking at here. It's a Yamaha Pac112J. My guitar teacher recommended it. Despite the low price, the quality is amazingly high, and with the humbucker in the bridge position you are able to play just about every style of music out there. The used music store just emailed me some pictures of it. I'm concerned about some scraping around the jack, but if it turns out that there's no wiring damage, this one is a front runner.Okay, the day's just about over. More later.
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