Journal

Ukulele For Dummies

by

Way back in 2007, I was invited to photograph the Birmingham Jazz Festival weekend and even attended a few workshops. One workshop was hosted by a group of brilliant high school jazz students from the jazz school. The special guest was the blues saxophonist “Blue” Lou Marini. He listened to the group practice and was asked what he thought. His reply, and I am paraphrasing here, was that they each played their notes perfectly and it was all very technical. But this isn’t jazz. You have to pour your soul into your music to make it stand out. The kids grinned, tried again and their passion came through.

I am not musically inclined. I have never taken a music theory class. I can sing and have always enjoyed it so my experience with music in a group setting has been limited. I can hear subtle notes and pick up rhythms from each instrument individually. My musical tastes are eclectic. But I cannot play…yet. At one point in the future, I will have to have my daughter, who plays beautifully patiently teach her old man.

In the meantime, I will fat-finger these strings on the ukulele technically for awhile. But real soon, I will heed Blue Lou’s advice and pour some passion into it. Technicality be damned.

“Anybody can play. The note is only 20 percent. The attitude of the m*therf**ker who plays it is 80 percent.” – Miles Davis

The Old Man Was Right

by

Huh.

Way back in the early to mid 1980’s, I had purchased a generic, portable cassette player that I thought was the cat’s ass. I had control over what I listened to and could take it everywhere. I could copy our family’s limited albums onto a blank cassette and even record music off of the radio station. Audio freedom never sounded so good.

One day, my father asked me why I use cassettes when records were better? I remember saying, rather wisely I thought, that records were fine but I can’t carry a record player with me everywhere. I received a smirk and probably a “what the hell ever” sort of comment in return. Generational gaps, am I right?

Well, looking back, it seems to have stood the test of time so well, that everyone wants to have a record player now and scour everywhere trying to find those same albums. I know I did and acquired quite a few. However, if you don’t store them properly, they end up getting warped and unplayable. Ask me how I know.

Something unavailable at the time of that past conversation and I think we can both agree on, is the compact disc. Better sound quality, smaller in size, portable and you can even transfer the music digitally. A win/win/win/win.

As consumers, we strayed away from those CDs in favor of streaming our music and audio books. But I think it is time for a comeback. I’ve moved on from 8-tracks, cassettes, records and now, I think I am ready to move on from streaming.

For the past few months, I have slowly acquired a ton of digital music burned from compact discs that were borrowed from various libraries stretching from Cincinnati to Tulsa, Houston and now CCFL. Not to mention all of the CDs I have managed to keep ahold of over the years and all of a sudden, I am sitting on gigabytes of music.

There is a point to all of this, and once again, the old man was right. Over the years, I probably drove he, and the rest of our family nuts by suggesting the latest tech trends and tools to try. Since everyone else at the time was using Apple, I was on Android so it was a challenge to find a decent chat app to communicate long distance. Then I went all-in on Apple devices and decided that just plain old Messages app was perfect for our needs.

“Hey Dad, we can communicate on Facebook so you should sign up.” I promptly received, correctly, a “what the hell ever” comment that I waved off as a generational thing. Now I regret ever signing up for the damned thing and deleted back in 2018.

All of that is to say this: I am cutting back, way back on my digital tools, including my website. I want to de-BS my life and live more simply so I am taking steps to ensure this happens soon. Having lost one of my web domain names to a frickin’ casino in Iceland, I will hold on to the existing one with my personalized e-mail address for that domain. The same goes for my photography portfolio’s domain name. The web pages may disappear for awhile, but the names are mine. I own those lots even though there will be no houses on them so to speak.

Instead of a website and portfolio, I will journal using my own server’s database. An analog pen and paper are standing by too.

I’ll read analog books by day and the digital Kobo by night.

Eventually, I will even purchase a dumb phone that costs $100 that will allow me to call and text only. The current iPhone will be relegated to a camera and a portable music player (remember all those gigabytes of music files?)

It’s back to basics for me using the original pillars of the internet. WWW 1.0 brought us electronic mail, SMS messaging, digital journals, .PDF, podcasts, internet browsers and RSS. Speaking of browsers, I am going to remove 95% of all the apps on my iDevices in favor of using the browser instead. Too much personal data is being handed over to those app developers. Using a browser, I have more freedom and privacy.

I went online in 1996 when I purchased my first computer for college and have been an embedded netizen for almost thirty years. While I appreciate and am fascinated by technology and all it’s advances, the tech industry has proven themselves to be unworthy of holding the keys and locking their users in. They have bastardized the very tools designed for us and made us worse. As JOSHUA reminds us, this is all a confusing game. The only winning move is not to play.

So, kudos to my father who was right all along.

Why

by

Why write publicly? I’ve asked myself this question at least once a year, and my answer gets easier every year—no one cares.

Writing, for me, is a tool to organize my thoughts and process them. It’s also a log for me to remember and look back on to see how I’ve progressed over the years. But writing is a lonely hobby. If there is a limited audience, then what is the point? Put it into an email or a text message and be done with it, right?

Writing online with my domain, my website, and a server can be expensive. It doesn’t have to be, but I choose this over a third-party host and give up all of my rights, privacy, and autonomy.

Social media is not an option for those same reasons.

Social internet is an answer, but it takes too much time to build.

The hardest part of blogging, sharing my passions or thoughts, doesn’t always mean the people closest to you care to read them. Then the doubt creeps in, “Well, if they don’t care, why would anyone else? Why am I doing this, and putting myself out there?”

So, I do what I always do, which is to write for me first, and just hope that maybe someone else might find something of value in there. But over time I just became so frustrated with it all, I am going to close my website down and just go back to journaling for a while.

Why?

by

Why write publicly? I’ve asked myself this question at least once a year, and my answer gets easier every year—no one cares.

Writing, for me, is a tool to organize my thoughts and process them. It’s also a log for me to remember and look back on to see how I’ve progressed over the years. But writing is a lonely hobby. If there is a limited audience, then what is the point? Put it into an email or a text message and be done with it, right?

Writing online with my domain, my website, and a server can be expensive. It doesn’t have to be, but I choose this over a third-party host and give up all of my rights, privacy, and autonomy.

Social media is not an option for those same reasons.

Social internet is an answer, but it takes too much time to build.

The hardest part of blogging, sharing my passions or thoughts, doesn’t always mean the people closest to you care to read them. Then the doubt creeps in, “Well, if they don’t care, why would anyone else? Why am I doing this, and putting myself out there?”

So, I do what I always do, which is to write for me first, and just hope that maybe someone else might find something of value in there. But over time I just became so frustrated with it all, I am going to close my website down and just go back to journaling for a while.

Play More

by

Time to pluck the strings and finally learn how to play this ukulele. Pretty soon it’ll be music to my ears. Not anyone else’s, mind you.

Rock & Roll

by

As a follow-up to the previous post, I am looking for good cardio activities with low impact on my knees, so next up is cycling.

I recently acquired a road cycle and am slowly getting myself up to speed so to speak. Paired with AirPods, I can have a good beat to help me keep pace. Again, tracking activities is a cinch when using the Apple Watch and its built-in fitness guides. As a bonus, I’ve downloaded a third party app called Strava at the recommendation of the man who loaned me his spare bicycle. I like Strava but not too keen on the $80/y or $12/m subscription fee. I am unqualified to justify myself in that manner just yet.

No matter because for now I am content to let the good times…roll.

Play More

by

Time to pluck the strings and finally learn how to play this ukulele. Pretty soon it’ll be music to my ears. Not anyone else’s, mind you.

Rock & Roll

by

As a follow-up to the previous post, I am looking for good cardio activities with low impact on my knees, so next up is cycling.

I recently acquired a road cycle and am slowly getting myself up to speed so to speak. Paired with AirPods, I can have a good beat to help me keep pace. Again, tracking activities is a cinch when using the Apple Watch and its built-in fitness guides. As a bonus, I’ve downloaded a third party app called Strava at the recommendation of the man who loaned me his spare bicycle. I like Strava but not too keen on the $80/y or $12/m subscription fee. I am unqualified to justify myself in that manner just yet.

No matter because for now I am content to let the good times…roll.

The author reminds everyone not to shoot a selfie when riding and that he is not too bright.

Just Add Water

by

For the past ten years, I’ve been limited on active cardio activities for various reasons. I used to enjoy trail and/or bayou running but, because I run like the wind(ed,) nowadays, it isn’t an option. Not to mention the high-impact on my knees.

Until recently, I have had limited access to a pool to perform any consistent cardiovascular exercising. Once I had my Apple Ultra Watch’s swim settings dialed in, I was able to accurately track time, distance, laps and depth for a 15 yd-long pool.

Combined with a six-day physical weight lift training and other activities, I plan to insert aerobic swimming and resistance to better increase my health.

Seven pounds lost since this was taken

Why Photography?

by

I love looking through the photo archives. Photographs, to me, are a record. They show me how things were “way back then”.

Lately I have been wondering what are the new photographs I have, as well as future images for?

This is causing a thought-shift in how I approach photography and why I should choose to pursue it.

It is a fair question to ask if what I leave behind will be appreciated by others after I am gone but I am not so sure. It’s possible my daughter can peruse the archives as a record and hopefully share in my life, my memories and of our time together. But after that? No one else will care and decades worth of images will become digital dust. Sobering thought.

We just recently acquired and discarded decades worth of photographic memories of a loved one who documented everything. But those were their memories, not ours. No one else in the family wanted them either so into the bin they went. This saddens me deeply.

I’d like to print at least 50 of the best images for each year in the past and moving forward, as physical mementos that my daughter can pick and choose to keep if desired. I hope she finds joy in looking back and sparking her own memories. Other than that, who wants to keep around all that crap? They’re just photos after all.

I suppose the answer, currently, is that they are for me and my memories. I also enjoy the photography process and the pursuit of that elusive master shot.

The battery is charged again, so off I go to make more memories.

Why Photography?

by

I love looking through the photo archives. Photographs, to me, are a record. They show me how things were “way back then”.

Lately I have been wondering what are the new photographs I have, as well as future images for?

This is causing a thought-shift in how I approach photography and why I should choose to pursue it.

It is a fair question to ask if what I leave behind will be appreciated by others after I am gone but I am not so sure. It’s possible my daughter can peruse the archives as a record and hopefully share in my life, my memories and of our time together. But after that? No one else will care and decades worth of images will become digital dust. Sobering thought.

We just recently acquired and discarded decades worth of photographic memories of a loved one who documented everything. But those were their memories, not ours. No one else in the family wanted them either so into the bin they went. This saddens me deeply.

I’d like to print at least 50 of the best images for each year in the past and moving forward, as physical mementos that my daughter can pick and choose to keep if desired. I hope she finds joy in looking back and sparking her own memories. Other than that, who wants to keep around all that crap? They’re just photos after all.

I suppose the answer, currently, is that they are for me and my memories. I also enjoy the photography process and the pursuit of that elusive master shot.

The battery is charged again, so off I go to make more memories.

Interesting

by

With all of the recent life changes and the move to Florida, there are lost friends and now- found friends. Sure, I’ll miss those guys and girls in Tulsa, Houston, Birmingham, and Joplin, but for the past few weeks here in Florida, we’ve been greeted and welcomed by potential new friends.

It helps that we’ve ingratiated ourselves by winning group trivia with our correct answers for two weeks in a row. We graciously accepted an invitation to a comedy show the next evening and enjoyed cocktails and karaoke afterwards.

For the past few decades, the city of Cape Coral has a program simply called the “New Residents Club” due to the influx of people flocking to the island. With various ages and from all parts of the world, the groups are diverse and seem to keep it interesting.

And that is the point of this post- interest. In the past, I’ve noticed that I am fully engaged in another’s conversation and I always ask follow-up questions but then noticed it was seldom returned. I am happy to share my interests, but feel hesitant out of respect for them and their time, always afraid I am boasting too much, so I keep my answers concise and wonder why I am not receiving the same courtesy from them.

It wasn’t them, it was me. So I began to ask myself, “Have you tried to become more interesting?”

For me, to be “interest-ing”, is to be curious and attentive, and to practice “the continual projection of interest.”

❕
To put it more simply: If you want to be interesting, you have to be interested.

I want to be someone worthy of following and capturing interest from others. And so it is time for me to embrace some activities and hobbies of personal interest, (there’s that word again) to assist in becoming more interesting.

So, I’ve picked up the ukulele again

Kicked off the Palm Sunday photo project

Acquired a bicycle and will train with cycling this week

Fitness training and nutrition

Pickleball

Disc golf

Ultimate frisbee

Fishing in the canal behind the house (need a pole soon because the fish are jumping)

Bocce

Shuffleboard

Digital photography/hybrid sketching and painting

An armchair expert on palm trees

Finally, I will work on being an interesting person other people want to be around and are willing to open doors for. There are many roads to becoming an interesting person, but they all involve developing my curiosity and my desire to know and understand — myself, others, the world around me. I can commit to asking two people a day an open-ended question about themselves and really listening to their responses and then I can share my information and connections freely.

Interesting.