Hash House Harriers run #400

I love these guys. I'd be running with them weekly if it were not for the punishing drive to get there and back. I don't think that you can be a member and still take yourself too seriously. I must make the effort!

Here are some images of the 400th run celebrations today that I missed out on.

Working out

I continue to be amazed at the different ways there are to train my body to be resilient to various workloads. Today I split wood for three hours continuously. All by hand of course with my beautiful splitting axe. I also got the tiller through the sopping wet gardens and mowed the grass around the lakes in our yard, but the real fun was splitting the fire wood.

It helped that the sky was a stunning azure. It was the kind of sky you can use as reference for 18% grey. Lovely. It seems a rare treat. I am not sure how it is that I can take so much pleasure from such qualities, but I do.

The bush is full of water. The heavy work is done for the trail to get the truck back in there to pick up the wood, but the ground is still far too wet to think about driving there and the wood isn't all split anyway, but it's coming. Where I stood to swing my axe today the water was a third of the way up my rubber boots. Fun eh?

I enjoy the intensity of splitting wood by hand. It's like running for endurance. It's a slow burn that can be maintained for quite a long time once one is fit to the task. Wet hands have been the limiting factor since the thaw. Once my hands are wet from handling the soaked wood for an hour the skin loses it's ability to adhere to the flesh. After an hour and a half of splitting with wet hands I have blisters and some tenderness around some of my nails. I've been keeping at it so I've been adapting to the work more and more as I push a bit to try and beat the bugs, of which there will be nightmare quantities of this year if it ever warms up. The mozzy hatch has been slow, but the ponds are squirming with the little devils and some were taking flight today.

The low humidity and extreme drying conditions were such a treat today. It made my day to be in the forest with the air so clean and rich for breathing. The trees have finally leafed out so the wind can be heard rustling them and was the perfect sound track for my day. It was dry! The air itself was dry and I was thrilled. How wet do you have to get to appreciate a truly dry day? Personally, I had to get very wet, but that wasn't part of the picture for me today.

Today, simple as I may seem in this, I was able to take two pair of gloves out with me and always have reasonably dry gloves to work with. I'm feeling like I should be shamed somehow about being so excited about it being dry enough to have a change of gloves every half hour or so, but that's just the way I roll I suppose. I would set a wet pair in the sun, propped up and catching some of the breeze and it was a quick drying time today. Yeah!

I was richly fed this morning and adequately hydrated when I went out. I only expected to split for an hour, but because I could keep my hands dry, I was able to split for three hours. I find it very entertaining to train my body to do something and then, when the opportunity arises, see what potential has been building up, waiting in reserve. It's always with kid like glee that I feel my body warm up and the settle into a great long run or like today, the splitting. Apparently one guy with a good axe can split a lot of wood in three hours.

I was careful to take my gloves off when I was pulling stove length pieces out from under water and my hands are certainly feeling used up rather completely tonight, but I had energy to burn today. I haven't been running as much as I have been, but I've been viewing some of the labour I do as training and treating it like work out time instead of what it is, just plain old work. I'm not fitting into any other crew of people that might view working out like this, but that's OK too. Actually I was canned from one forum thread because I was posting to a "workout" thread and it was deemed that things like three hours manning an axe isn't work or providing increased fitness. I posted other more traditional rundays too, but that seemed not to matter. I just won't travel in straight enough lines for many people it seems. I'm hear to testify that it is work and it's pretty much a whole body experience to boot. I hope I'm able to function at a decent level tomorrow because I left it all out there today.

After a lot of re hydration and fueling, I went out to drag the tiller through the mud bogs my wife calls gardens. The drying conditions were so go that I couldn't help myself and at least try and open up the dirt a bit or to get out and beat back some of the mold and moss beginning to grow on the bogs/gardens. I hope it's dry tomorrow too!

I'll finish the grass cutting tomorrow and then see if I can lift an axe again. I treat it just like running in that I take my warm up extremely slowly. I find this to be one of the most valuable things I've learnt from my running experience. Warming up very slowly seems to prepare me to go to very end of my potential and maybe beyond, more often than not. If I warm up too quickly I lose a lot of pacing consistency. Now I want to train to race again, just for the joy of watching it come together. Or at least I'm getting hungry for it which is good. For now I'll have to be content applying that energy to some long outstanding home projects, like the wood.

The balsam poplar is sweet in the air tonight. Sensual to a fault, and no regrets about that at all.

Went to friends to help celebrate Corny's 50th birthday tonight. It was an old fashioned country folk party. I fit right in for the most part. Maybe that takes training too.

Stringing the Floyd Rose

What a sucker for machines I am. I really don't care what or where, just bring them on. The more persnickety to adjust, conserve, repair or maintain the better. Gear that rankles other peoples nerve ends usually simply serve to engross me. The Floyd Rose floating guitar bridge is in that vein.

I own a worn one, which of course only increases the likelihood of sinking hooks into my curiosity.

I restrung the RG220r tonight for the first time since finalizing the setup on it. I've played several other electric guitars since, which has helped to better understand how the darn thing work. I went with a slightly heavier gauge string to help create a firmer feel for my left hand fretting and was also rewarded with a much improved tone. I don't know that I can quantify it articulately, but it's a stronger tone with more presence.

The strings of choice were D'Addario nickel wound XL EXL 110. It's not a big move, but it sure had a big impact on the setup and sound. I was playing with the idea of moving all the way into a jazz type string that would have taken the high E string from .009" to .012" or more. In putting the .010" strings , compensation springs for the bridge had to be tightened significantly. I would guess that I moved them maybe 5/16". I expect that additional springs would be required to accommodate heavier gauge strings of which Chris supplied me with two, just in case! Thanks again Chris. I didn't expect to have that much change in string pull weight, but there was a huge difference in the compensation required to bring the bridge to a neutral position with these heavier strings. I think it's sounding pretty darn good just now. I like the setup and the new pickups seem to make me want to play it more.

If I was handier with things electrical I'd sure love to split one of those humbuckers out to show me a single poll. I'm not sure I'm brave enough to get back in there and make a mess. I got away with it the first time, but I'm scared now with a heap of more variables to account for to bring more options into play.

I think the compensation springs are being better utilized as they are opened up more. I'm guessing, but they appear to be at some kind of mid way point in their utility and I like that. I still suck at using the tremolo, but at least I can play the thing in close enough tune now, not to offend myself. It's so dramatically different than the acoustic that I can hardly relate to the two as both being guitars. It's been like getting a new instrument entirely. I'm enjoying it more and more all the time. It's different, but I've learned some things with it that are valuable, one of those things being a more conscious sense of touch when fretting strings.

I've been playing with my voice too. I can't imagine all the things I'm oblivious to when I discover such simple gaps in my practice like I've done recently. Coaches in all things are a gift. Unfortunately my voice is more akin to a goose fart than a musical instrument so a voice coach is out of the question. The prize this week was learning to lift my chin up. Normally I'm crouched over my guitar instead of opening up my throat and mouth. Duh. It was fun to hear some improvements on this front. It's allergy season and even when it's not I'm not the clearest voice by any stretch, but I'll take what improvements come my way. I'm working up Kathleen Edwards song, "I make the dough". It's an irresistibly pretty song. I just can't get enough of it.

I tried to talk Snoot into working a lead part into a break on that one, but she's being all sixteenish just now so she'll squirrel away her efforts and I'll have to get along, like I've always done with music at home, alone.

I took the mandolin rental back. I'll miss having one around, but that one was not set up well and proved very difficult to play cleanly. I played another one this week that was very easy on the hands in comparison and that was very welcome. Although it's tempting to gravitate in that direction, I think I'm a word guy more than a player. Shoemaker stick to thy last. Now if I could just remember that truism for more than a nano second at a time.

Audacity is the real deal for playing with the learning curve musically. I love it. I need to spring for a microphone or two and stands. Working with a click track or metronome is paying dividends with the timing for lyrics. I'm sure it's doing other good things too, but they escape my notice just now. I feel so white. Rhythm just doesn't come easily to me, but it's fun when it does.

Teen angst

Poor Snoot. She's 16 and is a stellar candidate in the best teen to live with catagory. We attended an open house at some friends new home tonight and Snoot didn't want to attend. The friends have a daughter of similar age, but shares few interests with Snoot, so we didn't balk.

We arrived home late and found that all the grass had been cut and the dog had been bathed. Are we walking on the sunny side of the street here? I believe so.

The bad news is that included in the wide mix of people at this open house was a new German immigrant that was crazy for music and Snoot missed it.

Over the course of the evening I eventually found myself drawn to a guitar and banjo I found upstairs in the new recreational space. This crazy German came bounding up the stairs when he heard me playing and jumped right in with a big grin on his face. I hassled him, he hassled me and then he said I had to come to his place where we would get some more instruments.

Twenty minutes later and after some crazy driving, we were back at the party unloading two sizes of djimbe drums, a sixty some year old tiny acoustic guitar with outstanding resonance. and a newer hollow body electric guitar and amplifier. I'm a stickler for setup so I would have been just as happy spending the time setting up the guitars for intonation and tuning, but for a change of pace I just enjoyed what they had to offer. I got to play with a drummer for the first time. How sweet was that? Very sweet I can tell you. I'm so easy.

This fellow was very supportive and forgiving musically. I've been playing with click tracks and metronomes, but live is better. Enough said.

He appeared to be beside himself with glee that this was all happening and frankly I'm having a tough time getting too much of it myself. I've played for many years, but not with others very often or, until recently, with any significant amount of fun factor.

Playing with people schooled in some of the fundamentals can be very rewarding. Last weekend yielded similar results. I'm happy to find that some of my efforts while playing alone have some relevancy to a broader context in music. It didn't matter what style either of us played, we could both have fun at the same time. He knew a lot of old funky melodies. I feel like aging isn't all bad tonight.

Five gets you ten, Snoot joins us next time. :D

North by East West

I've been hounding the Canadian music scene lately. Getting back into some of the things I had forgotten made me happy once. Kids are wonderful to me in the ways they can teach. Snoot is hounding her own tastes in music and that's so good for me.

This relatively new site about the Canadian Music scene has caught a lot of peoples attention including mine.

This post in particular, didn't bore me for a second. Sometimes I crave things that bite.

lj2blogger

Wow, that was amazing! I bet you never felt a thing. :P 609 posts transferred quite painlessly from my Live Journal account to my new Blogspot blog. Yummy. I love it when things work out. I had no idea that I'd accumulated that number of posts. It was fun to go through the archive and see some of the pieces I'd forgotten.

I post mostly because I enjoy keeping friends and family up to date on life here. I enjoy writing and enjoy the feedback when I get it. Please don't hesitate to heckle me. I'm really enjoying the ease with which this place works. It's going to be fun to try and make it look more like my own, but I can't say as I'm unhappy with the stripped down look. I'm sure I'll get distracted from that sometime soon, but maybe not.