1. Everyone just wants to get there safely, except for the people in huge pickup trucks, who just want to get there as fast as possible and give you the finger if you drop below 50mph, even in a blizzard.

2. When in doubt, chain up.

3. Make sure the first time you put the chains on isn’t also the first time you need them. In other words, practice.

4. white smoke out the exhaust is bad. Stop immediately and find a shop.

5. Traffic on the way? Bad. Traffic on the way back? Unbearable.

6. Tahoe is tough on cars. If you love your car and can’t bear a scratch on it, rent one you care less about.

7. If your car gets stuck in the snow, put it in a low gear, get outside, and gently rock it back and forth, only pushing the gas when the car is going forward. This is easier with more people.

8. Which reminds me, don’t drive alone in bad weather on mountains.

9. If you get a chance in a snow filled empty parking lot, practice quick turns and stops. Useful AND fun.

Also fantasy baseball, even if I don’t play anymore

My obsession in life is to have a midi guitar. There, I said it. I have always been obsessed with using my chosen musical platform (guitar) to make sounds commonly not found with guitars (pads, horns, violins). Waaay back in 2001 I owned a roland divided pickup for my fender strat, along with the accoutrements needed to play. It wasn’t a bad tool but it had a few annoying habits, most commonly triggering notes that i didn’t play. I will admit to being a “loose” guitar player (sloppy) so it’s not uncommon for me to hit strings i don’t mean. on the guitar this isn’t a huge deal since i can instantly mute them, but the roland would still trigger those notes, often quite loudly. This was not ideal

In a case of really terrible timing, i sold this guitar right before I started graduate school, where i spent my first year learning… wait for it… all about midi software! brilliant. My first semester of my second year i actually went so far as to BUILD a midi guitar. It was called “midi guitar”. it had about 20 buttons, a few knobs, and it caught on fire one time during the ITP show. Also, Vernon Davis from Living Colour played it! But i don’t think he liked it very much.

About a year ago i bought a yamaha ez-eg “teaching” guitar which also happens to function as a midi guitar. on the plus side, it was very affordable ($300). On the minus side, the damn thing just loves to play notes. All the time! Right notes, wrong notes, any notes it can think of. It can’t get enough of triggering notes. So i started using it less and less, since i found that even my stupid fingers could play a keyboard with more reliability than this thing.

But now, now we have something. This guy in sydney has apparently built a touch screen midi guitar that’s also a linux computer. I don’t know how much it’s going to cost, but my price willingness for such a thing is embarrassingly high.

And yes, i realize that if i had just spent the last 7 years learning keyboards I wouldn’t be having this problem.

and other times it’s remarkably frustrating, like when i’m trying to get from SOMA to the Marina and there are no buses that get me there before a half hour, even though the walking time is probably less than that.

I’ve been using zipcar, and i get a lot of people asking me: “how is that”. this is what i think:

Pros:

1. sometimes cars are right near you! for example, i have a lot across the street, and 4 more lots within 2-3 blocks. this is awesome.

2. gas and insurance and parking included in the price, which is sweet

3. you can park anywhere else that zipcars live! actually that’s a lie, you can’t do that, and i would never do such a thing. ever.

4. the cars are generally in pretty good shape, except for the mazda on lombard and polk with the battery that died on me.

5. i can’t speak more about not having to deal with street parking when i’m done with driving. just a relief.

Cons:

1. if you need to use the car more than one full day a week, it’s VERY expensive. like, easily $500 – $600 a month assuming 2 full days a week of use. eek.

2. if you don’t plan well or live in a place that isn’t near a lot of cars, it’s a pain. i had to walk a half mile to get to a car one time, carrying like 4 bags. not ideal.

3. more often than i’d like, the cars are either not where they’re supposed to be, or the gas has been left too close to empty

4. it is hard to learn how to drive a new car every few days. i find that i’m a less confident driver if every time i get behind the wheel, it’s a different car.

all things considered, if i didn’t have access to my girlfriends car most of the time (moochy moochy). i would probably not still be doing zipcar, unless i lived and worked in the city.

i keep thinking about doing a much smaller “car share”. like, get 4-5 people, split the cost of a used car and parking, and then find a way to insure it and share the time usage. i’m not sure how much this would cost but it may be cheaper than the monthly zipcar cost. everyone would need to live pretty close together, which makes it a little bit trickier.

one other good thing i will say is that for trips to tahoe, the larger zipcars are competitive price wise to renting an awd car from the normal rental channels, when you consider that insurance and gas are included with the zipcar. for tahoe trips that’s a lifesaver, especially if you can split the cost with someone else.

also, i am thinking of selling my big amp and my pod in exchange for the guitar rig controller. yay music!

and happy holidays

мебели варна

1. I think that I am approaching the line where having a lot of people meet me at a bar is less enjoyable than a nice dinner with some friends. which isn’t to say that i didn’t have fun at the bar with everyone, but i found myself having difficulty mustering enthusiasm for it after a few hours of being jostled and trying to talk to bunches of different people. i think this is why having a house party was such a good idea the last few years. now i just need a house

2. Facebook is great in that it allows tons of people to wish me a happy birthday. also overwhelming, because now i feel like i should respond to most of them. but in truth, i probably won’t do that… i think that if the only way you wished me a happy birthday was over facebook, hopefully you are not expecting a personal response. hopefully… that being said, was great to hear from people who i haven’t talked to in a long time.

3. birthday cookies with M&M’s FTW!

4. I’ve been having a LOT of “what have I done/should I do with my life?” issues lately, and having a birthday did not help that. I am still stuck between not wanting to totally start over and yet feeling that i may have made some poor choices over the past 15 (gulp) years that need to be remedied before they spiral out of control. Of course, that’s half my life, so trying to make changes now that remedy bad choices for the last 15 years is going to be difficult. but you gotta start somewhere. Which is a good segue for what i’ve been wanting to tell all of you…

5. I”m going to clown college. I think it’s the right time and the right fit, and i’m tired of all of you holding me back. Next time you see me i’ll be spraying you with a flower on my lapel and then making a balloon doggie for your child.

6. Actually, i have been thinking about more education. but what? and to what end?

7. Also, I would like to say that having someone come and clean my apt once a month is a wonderful thing. I don’t know why i didn’t do this earlier. Oh wait, yes I do.

8. it’s almost snowboarding season! I have new boots, a new zipper on my jacket, and a new season pass. i still need new pads (tore mine apart last season), a replacement buckle for my hydration pack, and a good tuning/sharpening/waxing for both my boards.

9. What is your favorite computer solution for home media management? Roku? that new blu ray player? PS3? Media PC? Apple TV? tell me!!!