Tuesday’s are busy days around our place. We usually take all our orders from over the weekend in to USPS, which we did today. Deborah packaged up all the book orders, I did all the eBay orders and we made it into town in time for my guitar lesson.

What’s in an E Blues Scale Again?

We found a great deal on a beginner Fender Guitar a month or so ago, and I started taking lessons each Tuesday. This was only my second lesson, but I learned today that I was not holding the pick properly (or using the proper pick), looking in the correct spot, plucking the stings in the correct way, and I lost track after that. It wasn’t really that bad but I have never picked up a guitar prior to my last two lessons so the learning curve seems high to me, especially when you have a day job and can’t practice all that much. I did continue on with the open E Blues Scale, and will try to use some proper technique for next week. At least I can play and still feel my fingers.

New Music Added

I received a few new CD’s from my trading pals over at LaLa again today, and few from Amazon. I have been trying to get a better collection of blues guitarist and these will fit the bill quite nicely.

• Santana – The Essential
• Santana – Supernatural
• Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble – The Sky is Crying
• The Killers – Hot Fuss
• The Killers – Sam’s Town

Everything Else

We finished our work today rather early and went out to dinner at a favorite local place in town called Locos. Usually a college hang out but we arrive well before any of the wilder bunch arrives and we had a nice relaxed meal. By the time we got home it was still light enough outside to take a short walk, only about 2 miles today.

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Today was another day of work here at the home office without having to go in the car anywhere. We are leaving for the gulf coast tomorrow morning so we had to get all the orders processed and packaged, and pack, so we can leave first thing in the morning.

Blogs and Twitter

I did my normal daily blog posts for the morning. I have been trying to get the hang of Twitter and finally did a blog post about it on my freelance blog. It has kind of thrown me for a loop the last few days as I have been trying to figure it usefulness out, but the more you use it the more you get the hang of it. For information on that, just see the other blog post called Is Twitter Really a Useful Tool?.

Elance Will Continue

I didn’t win the bid on the project that closed today, but, I wasn’t even the slightest bit close either, so hey, I guess I will try it again. The winning bid was some ridiculous fee of $50 and I was way way way over his bid for sure. I looked at a few more postings today on Elance, saved a few, bid on one. There are so many projects, and they range so much in what needs to be done it is hardest for me at this point to find something and go with it. As with everything else on the Internet (or anywhere I guess) it just takes time to figure it out.

Bags are Packed, We’re Ready to Go

Well, not really, still having to get everything together to leave tomorrow for the beach. We usually pack a few minutes before we leave so I still have a few hours to finish packing. I hope to have some time to update the s/v Island Zephyr blog once I get down there, since that is where the s/v Island Zephyr is located.

Practice Makes… Well… Noise

Any guitar players out there? I did manage to get in some practice to day and I now can say I know my first scale my memory, the open E blues scale, as my instructor has named it for me. The tips of my fingers now burn like I stuck them flat on an open fire but I can play the scale.

There is so much information about the guitar on the Internet it is hard to absorb it all, but I did find a good post on a variation of the E blues scale, E Blues Scale Variations that looked pretty good but far beyond my learning right now. We are really looking forward to getting back down to the gulf, should be a nice weekend, even if it rains all day.

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a Long Time Coming Home From Dallas

Today was the first day back at the house after being gone, for what seemed like forever, and it was a very busy day. Deborah and I have been in Dallas to stay with her mom in the hospital. It was probably one of the hardest weeks both of us have had in a while and we left after the funeral / memorial service for her mom was over. We will both miss her mom greatly and she has meant a great deal to both of us over our life time.  I am going to create a journal, called My Life in Europe, of her memoirs from her life in France and Germany as a way for me to remember her life.

Most of today was spent trying to catch up with various things after being gone for 10 days. Hordes of email to go through and time to make another to-do list for the day. First priority for me today was to finish some work for a client that I had to put off while we were in Dallas. Work completed, it was time to pick up the dog, Blazer, at the vet, get the mail, get some of the basic needed supplies at Wal-Mart and head back home. On my way out, our book supplier called to tell me that had an unexpected two truck loads of books and they needed to drop them off at the house. Just in time, since we have finally removed some of the boxes from the house. They were delivered while I was running around in town. Two to three pallets of books, enough to fill the entire living room. Deb had to bring them all in from the driveway since it was about to rain, she got her exercise in for the day.

Time for Orders and Music

The mail had a large assortment of CD’s I had traded and ordered before we left. This was nice and I have a good bit of new music to go through over the week. Delivered today was:

• Johnny Cash – The Essential 1955-1983 Box Set
• Phil Keaggy – 220
• Billy Joel – All My Life
• Harry Chapin – The Gold Medal Collection
• The Mamas & the Papas – California Dreamin
• Mark Knopfler – Golden Heart
• Vanessa Carlton – Be not Nobody
• The Church – Starfish
• Moody Blues – The Best of the Moody Blues
• Yes – The Big Generator
• Collective Soul – Blender
• Nirvana – Nevermind

Quite a mix and collection for the week. Usually I add a few to the collection each week but this week was a bonanza of music. I did decide while in Dallas that I needed to start archiving my images in a more direct way, along with slides and old photos from my extended family, so I picked up an Epson Perfection V500 Photo scanner. No time to unpack but when I can get to it I will enjoy getting, what I am sure is thousands upon thousands of images, into a digital format.

I managed to get in a little guitar practice today, not much, but enough for me to remember the three chords I was trying to learn before we left. Took a small but nice walk in the cold rain. Only did 3 laps (about 2 miles) but it was nice to get back into my routine of walking each day. I was able to walk back and see what the logging of the trees looked like. This started while we were gone and is continuing, what seems like in our back yard.

Last but not least I was able to get all the orders printed, no small task with about 70 book orders waiting for our return. All in all a very busy day. Tomorrow will be another busy day, and a trip into town for work and dinner.

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