Catching Up

Well, you've heard it here before - it's been a long time since the last update. Let's catch up

I guess that not all that much has changed, depending on your point of view:

• I'm still contracting at BEA Systems, and working on the same project.
• I'm still cycling, though I've finally moved outdoors.
• I'm still doing weight training.

Home Life
MB and I just got back from a great vacation. It was a driving vacation from Denver to Santa Barbara, CA, and back, with some stops along the way. We took Jake and our bikes. Our intention was to stay in SB the majority of the time, but the weather made that a very unattractive option. It was gray and chilly both full days we spent there - a far cry from the sunny, 75 degree days we expected. So, we migrated from SB up to the Santa Ynez valley, right next door. This is SB's wine country. The weather was very nice there - the fog burned off by noon every day, and the countryside was beautiful.

I managed to get out for one serious bike ride in while in the valley. I rode out Happy Canyon road and a couple of miles up the Figueroa Mountain climb. My intention was to ride to the top and come down by a road on the far side, then return to town. I turned back because the road turned to dirt and I had no idea how long that lasted. This was probably the steepest road I've ever climbed. It was narrow, the surface was bad, and the curves were very tight. The descent was basically no fun for a wimp like me. Later in that same day, MB and I drove the loop that I'd intended to ride, but from the opposite direction. I realized during this drive that I was very underprepared for cycling the entire loop, both fitness-wise, and in terms of the food and water I'd brought. I'm glad I turned around at the dirt section.

MB and I got in a really nice hike the next day - back up to Figueroa Mountain to a trail that descends to the Davy Brown campsite. It was mostly shaded, and was very scenic. I was freaked out about the possibility of Jake running through a bunch of Poison Oak and getting it all over us (specifically me, because I'm allergic to the stuff - MB has never had it). We escaped unscathed (but I itched anyway, just at the thought of it).

Personal Stuff
I'm turing 40 in a few days. Weird. I'm sure everyone reflects on their achievements on this particular decade change, and I'm no exception. It has me considering what to do with the second 40 years of my life. I'm currently reading "A Beautiful Mind" and it has me wondering if I could have achieved something interesting in the field of mathematics had I stuck with that. Naaaahh. I think that I will change something within the next few years, but we need to pay our house off first. That will give both MB and me the freedom to try alternatives without pressure to make a certain salary.

Return to Guitar
I've returned to being a "guitarist". I've known how to play for about 20 years, am passably good, and have had periods where I was pretty intensely into it. I even had a home studio at one point (download some of my tunes). For the time that we've been in Denver, however, I've hardly picked up a guitar. A few months ago, I decided to clear out some space in our office by selling off my unused musical equipment. The keyboard and effects rack went quickly on eBay. Then I came to the guitars. I figured I'd never miss my Squier Strat and Traynor solid-state amp, and found a possible buyer at work. He ended up declining to buy. The interesting thing is that something happened to me during the selling process: I realized that it was pretty damn sad that I was losing something that I'd worked so hard to gain - the ability to play a guitar fairly well. So, the selling process had reignited my interest in playing guitar.

I decided to take the Strat in to have some setup work done on it. The guy I took it to quoted me $125 for all the work he thought was necessary. Crap, that's about what I was going to sell it for. I couldn't reconcile paying that much to fix the guitar. I was really bummed, but then he made me a good trade for a nice used Ibanez S470 he had hanging in the store. The thing plays like butter, and is a beautiful oiled mahogany finish.

Having a new guitar really got me back into playing. I sold the Traynor amp and bought a similar-sized Marshall AVT20 (tube preamp, solid-state power amp), which sounds so much better than the Traynor ever did (to my ears). I played all the time. But I realized something: the reason I'd lost interest is mainly because I'd been in a rut for a very long time. The same scales, the same licks, the same everything. I decided it was time to me to dedicate myself to "re-learning" the guitar, and to me that meant learning some applied music theory in order to understand the "why" behind the "how" that I already knew a bit about.

To that end, I've dedicated myself to learning as much as I can in the time that I spend playing and reading about playing. I've played a few times with a jazz guitarist friend of mine who happens to also have a teaching degree in music. He was (and I'm sure will continue to be) very helpful in getting me started. I bought a couple of books, and have re-read some others that I have. I now keep a selection by the toilet downstairs and re-read the sections on harmony over and over. I've read a bunch of stuff on the 'net that musicians have been so very kind in publishing for the benefit of others like me.

The gratifying thing is that I'm seeing real results!

• I've been studying intervallic relationships on the fretboard, and have finally come to a basic understanding of chord construction. Again, the "why" of chords, rather than just the "how".
• I finally understand what a "key" is all about, and how the chords in the key are derived (embarrasing - how can you play for 20 years and not understand this?).
• I can actually watch a Joe Pass video that I've had for years, from beginning to end, and understand the majority of the content. I used to turn it off within 5 minutes, disgusted at how ignorant I was about my own instrument.
• I'm still pretty much in a rut on the pentatonic scale, but am starting to see the way out via a better understanding of scale construction and the application of arpeggios. I expect this to be slow work, but I can now see the path, where before I didn't know the path even existed.

Unfortunately, I played a very nice Taylor (a 414CE) at Guitar Center recently. I couldn't believe how great it sounded. I say unfortunately, because now I must have one (or something like it). I got sign-off from MB to buy a fine acoustic (my words: "my last acoustic guitar") for myself for my 40th birthday. To that end, I spent a couple of hours at GC yesterday. They no longer had the 414CE that I'd fallen in love with, so I played a bunch of others (Larivee, Tacoma, Martin, other Taylors). I'm now kind of turned on by the Taylor 600-series jumbo that they have there, and the 314CEs that they have in stock are almost as attractive as the 414. Unfortunately, the strings on the jumbo needed replacement for me to truly judge whether it is the one. And a big part of me feels the need to find a 414CE to play again before commiting to a guitar for life. I'll post an update when I finally commit.

Work
The system I'm helping to build is finally reaching the point at which it has taken its final shape. We're fixing bugs here and there, and there are pieces of code to tidy up, but by and large, the system runs. This is a very nice feeling. I expect we'll need to do a lot of performance tuning before it can be loosed upon the world, but that's true of most applications. I thought I'd be booted out (expected, when you're a contractor) sometime in May, but found out while trying to secure myself another position there that I'd been "reserved" until the end of June. Good news, but not news on which I'd bet the farm.

The job market basically sucks right now. Such a huge difference from a couple of years ago.

Cycling
The Denver weather has finally sorted out into full-bore Spring. We've had our first real series of 70-degree days, and no snow. I've bumped up my outdoor riding quite a bit - mostly commuting, so far. I did get out with Brian for a ass-kicking early-season grunt up High Grade Road to the old schoolhouse at the top. We planned to turn around there rather than completing our usual loop, initially because of time reasons. However, once we were there, I realized that I'd probably have had to turn around for exhaustion reasons anyway. Brian couldn't get his bike into it's lowest gear because the derailleur was rubbing against the spokes a bit. Sympathetically, I told him I wouldn't ride on my "granny" ring during the climb. Well, this is the first time that I did that climb without using the granny gears. Fact: ignoring the grannies, my bike is geared just a bit higher than a two-chainring bike. Doing this climb - the first one of the season - in these higher gears was, well, Torture. I can't recall when I was ever so spent, at any point, on this ride.

My good friend from home (KY), Steve, is coming out in July to do the Triple Bypass cycling tour this year. He's insane - he trains at basically sea-level and he'd going to come out here and do the TBP. He did very well last year, when he joined Brian and me for the last day of the Courage Classic (he actually dusted us on the climbs). But that was a 70-mile, one big climb ride. The TBP is a one-day 130-mile ride, over three significant mountain passes. Last year I did it alone, and crapped out in Arapahoe Basin, having completed two-thirds of the ride. How humiliating. Brian is doing the TBP this year, as well, so the three of us can suffer together.