Mini Vacation, Digital Delays, Splitting Hairs

As I figured, my mini vacation was over before it started.

Last week I was off Wednesday through Friday, then the weekend as well. That was 5 days in a row for you folks not counting. I had big plans that included working on some painting, recording some music, and just in general getting all the creative pistons firing. While I did play some guitar, the paints sat untouched. I’m disappointed I didn’t get some art made, but I still enjoyed my time off.

Wednesday my son and I headed to Fort Wayne in the morning. I’d bought a BOSS DD-3T Digital Delay pedal from a pawn shop downtown. They had the pedal listed on Reverb, which is where I typically buy music equipment online if it’s not at Sweetwater. I’d been looking for one of these pedals for awhile. I had a BOSS DD-2 waaaay back in the day and it was a great pedal. It was used when I bought it in the early 2000s, so a decade later it was starting to act up, not engaging when I’d click it on and just some general wonkiness going on.

I ended up replacing it with an MXR Carbon Copy analog delay pedal back in 2015. While that’s a fine delay pedal, it just didn’t hold a candle to the BOSS. The MXR colored the sound, while the BOSS felt like more of an instrument to itself. Infinite delays, crisper sound, and just more options for experimentation. I missed having it in my signal chain, so I started looking for another awhile back. The cool thing about this BOSS delay is that the “T” in the DD-3T stands for tempo. You can tap out the tempo on the pedal itself instead of using a knob to lock the tempo of the delay in. It’s pretty damn cool. Something I’d always wondered about, if they made a delay pedal where you could do that. I’ve got a BOSS looper pedal that you can do that for the click track, and had wondered if there was a delay pedal that had that. Turns out they do.

Anyways, my son and I got downtown around 10:30 and picked up the pedal. It was a beautiful morning, so great road trip weather. After we grabbed the goods we headed to a little Mexican restaurant and got lunch. I’d never been there, but my son and his girlfriend had eaten there once before. Excellent food, so I’ll be taking my wife back there at some point.

Our final stop was at Sweetwater. I needed some strings for my Jazzmaster, Jaguar, and Mustang. Plus, it’s not a trip to Fort Wayne without stopping and gawking at things I can’t afford. My son hit the percussion room to play on some really nice electronic drum sets. I perused the used guitars, then made my way to some really expensive Gibsons and Fenders. Besides the strings, I did end up buying a set of Seymour Duncan Antiquity pick ups for my Fender Mustang. I’d wanted to get a nice set of pickups for that for some time now. They were on backorder but they had a set coming in soon so once they arrive they’ll send them my way.

I used to put pickups in myself, but over the years I started taking them to a guy in Fort Wayne. I’m going to install these myself and save $100. I figure I’ve got nothing to lose. If I screw it up, well I’ll just take to him to fix.

I was also eyeing this stunning Charvel San Dimas electric guitar. Black with tortoise shell pickguard. These are basically super charged Strats, with humbucker pickups and a Floyd Rose locking tremolo. I’ve wanted one of these for years. I almost did a bad thing and left the store with it, but I used some self control and instead bought some pickups.

After we got home and I goofed around a bit with the delay pedal, I hunkered down on the couch and jumped onto The Criterion Channel. They had a William Friedkin collection and two of the movies were ones I’d always wanted to watch but hadn’t, Sorcerer and Cruising.

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Sorcerer I was more familiar with because I’ve owned the Tangerine Dream soundtrack for a long time. It’s an amazing score, and the first film the band had worked on. I loved the movie. Loved it. Roy Scheider was lead and watching that movie reminded me of what an amazing actor he was. The movie is four guys from different backgrounds and legal issues driving crates of old dynamite through 200 miles of South American jungle for an oil company. It may not sound like much, but man oh man it was intense. It may not technically be a horror film, but it’s definitely scary on other levels.

Cruising is Al Pacino as a cop going undercover in the leather/BDSM gay nightclub scene trying to find a serial killer of gay men. This one was a little rougher, but it was still decent. I can’t believe they showed this on network television when I was a kid. Yikes!

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Thursday I did some work around the house, then had a back massage which was much needed. I’ve come to look forward to my monthly massages. They really do help out with the sore muscles. Came home and enjoyed a couple pints and watched a couple horror flicks on Shudder. Nothing to write home about, but it satiated the horror movie appetite decent enough.

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Friday I had lunch with my 20-year old. She was in town doing a job shadow at one of the downtown spas. She’ll be graduating from beauty college in May or June, so she wants to get into this place under an apprenticeship. They had an open house at the beginning of the month for future hair stylists and she went to that. Well the next day they called her to see if she wanted to come back and job shadow, which of course she did. While she was there they set her up with a job interview for this Wednesday. She was pretty blown away, as this is the kind of spot she’s wanted to get into.

After the last 6 months of relationship nightmares, losing her dog to her ex, health scares, and moving to a new place the recent good fortune is well deserved, IMO. It does my heart good to see her getting things back on track and growing and maturing as an adult. She’s got her eyes on the prize and is doing everything she can to reach it. Plus, she may be moving back to town if this job works out.

And we’ll be hiring movers for that move.

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Saturday I hung out with one of my best friends. Had some laughs, ate some food, and watched a couple episodes of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Sunday was spent mowing the yard, shampooing my daughter’s bedroom carpet(big dogs, big stains), then grilling some chicken.

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I’m taking this Friday off, as well as the 26th. This Friday just because I felt like it, and the 26th will be for my wife’s 50th birthday. We’re just heading to the Fort for some dinner in the early afternoon. And this coming Saturday I’m taking my mom to see Joe Satriani and Steve Vai at the Embassy Theater. I think she’s more excited than I am, and I’m pretty excited. This was my Christmas gift to her. When my wife and I saw Steve Vai back in 2016 she’d said she would love to see Steve Vai. Well, she’s seeing him and Satch. Should be a hell of a concert.

That was my last five days. Nice time off, but it’s just never enough.