Double Weekend, Making Things, One Week Till Rocky Mountain Way

It was a weird last few days. I was off last Wednesday and Thursday, then went back to work on Friday, then off again for another two days. It was like a normal weekend, then compressed an entire work week into one day and BOOM….the weekend. I’m not complaining, though. I’ll gladly welcome any paid days I’m going to have away from the world of orthopedics. I’ve been in it almost 31 years. I’ve had my fill.

Last Wednesday and Thursday were like two polar opposites. Wednesday I spent about three hours outside in the morning; mowing, cleaning the gutters, pulling weeds, and cleaning the windows inside and out. The windows were something I’d been procrastinating on. I usually do that in May once we start getting warmer weather, but I just wasn’t feeling it. But then last week looking out the living room windows I was shocked by how filthy they were. I knew Wednesday was going to be decent weather and not unbearably hot, so that was the day. It felt good when I was done, but with all the up and down on the ladder played havoc on me the next few days. Really sore.

That afternoon after going into town for groceries I sat down and watched the horror movie In A Violent Nature. It’s been dubbed an ‘ambient slasher’, and that intrigued me. I’d heard good things and it was getting all kinds of praise for it’s unique take on the slasher movie. Plus the practical effects were also getting a lot of praise as well.

Well, it wasn’t bad. It was a totally unique experience in terms of taking the slasher film to some other place. No music score, and the film was shot from the perspective of the undead slasher, Johnny. The kills were indeed interesting, unique, and pretty gore-filled. The acting was good, and the look of the killer was pretty cool. Essentially, this was Friday the 13th but with no “Choo choo choo…haaa haaa haaa” sounds adding to the anxiety. It felt oddly toothless and kind of boring to me. Like I said, wasn’t bad but it just didn’t grab me like I’d hoped it would.

I’m hoping my other highly anticipated horror film, Longlegs, will fill the void In A Violent Nature left. It opens this Friday.

Thursday was the complete opposite of Wednesday. Weather was humid and overcast, and the only activity was painting at the kitchen table with my wife. We burnt through a bunch of the series Evil, ate coney dogs, and were in essence a couple bumps on a log. It was nice, but even doing nothing can be exhausting.

Friday was pretty slow at work. I was by myself and there wasn’t really much to do so it was about as quiet a day as you can get. It helped that the majority of the businesses in town were closed, giving their employees and nice four- day weekend. Not our business. Despite being slightly miffed about not having a four-day weekend the day was easy.

Saturday I had my dad over for coffee in the morning, then the wife and I headed into town. We decided to replace the handles on the kitchen cabinets. Try and spruce them up a little without having to spend a ton of dough to do so. Of course that never works out the way you think it will in your mind. They fit, but you could see the screw holes in some, while the drawers required washers as the screws were too long in those. They wouldn’t tighten enough in order for the handle to tighten correctly.

In the end we drove back into town around 6pm and returned the handles to Menards. I just wasn’t feeling it. Kind of bummed me out, actually. So back to old handles until we decide to drop the big bucks and redo the kitchen.

Sunday morning I got up and took the dog out for a little walk before going out myself for a 2 1/2 mile walk while listening to the audiobook version of Stephen King’s Needful Things. Glad I got the walk in relatively early, as the air quality was 71 which isn’t good at all. We can thank all the surrounding lakes and neighbors for their various fireworks displays for mucking up the atmosphere. I’m not a fan of fireworks anyways, as it generally puts family pets into a state of absolute panic. But also, I like to breathe and when everyone and their mother is firing off parking lot explosives in the humid air the smoke hangs out longer than it should.

Needless to say, it’s been a rough few days as far as my allergies go.

Besides painting, I was working on music this weekend as well. I set up my old Korg D-1600 behind the drum kit downstairs and am using that as a mixer for the drums, which I then run that into my new recorder. That way I can put 5 or 6 mics on the drums if I want, then run stereo lines into the new recorder. I can get a nice full drum sound without having to use up over half my tracks for just drums.

It all sounds kind of ridiculous, I’m sure. Most people would go with a music program on their computer then have limitless tracks to record, but not me. I’m pretty old school in that regard. I grew up learning on standalone multi-track recorders, starting with a Tascam 424 cassette 4-track recorder. Then worked my way up to digital recorders. I just like it that way. I found this great Tascam 8-track digital recorder back in the fall of 2023 and I’ve loved working with it. I wasn’t recording acoustic drums, but with the last few ideas I’ve had I’ve wanted to incorporate them into the music. This makes it relatively easy, using the old recorder as a drum mixer, complete with effects and EQ, so I can tweak the sound to where I like it then record them onto the new recorder. It’s not the most ideal setup, but it works for me.

One week from today the wife and I head off to Denver, CO for a week in the Rockies. Besides seeing Dr Dog at Red Rocks on Thursday, the rest of the week is sort of up in the air. We’ve got an Air BnB set up in downtown, as well as a car rental so we can get around. We might catch lunch with my wife’s cousin(she has two that live in Denver), but other than that we’ll just play it by ear. It’ll be nice to get away and decompress from the last year or so.

Oh, and our daughter passed her state exam last Wednesday. She’s officially a licensed beautician. She can cut hair legally in the state of Indiana. She starts a job at Costcutters here in town tomorrow. So things are looking up for her(and for us.) It’s not the end goal for her, but a great training ground to beef up her skills at cutting and coloring hair. She still wants to make it back to Expressions Day Spa eventually. She just needs to work up her speed a bit.

That’s what the last few days was about here.