play it by ear?

really good jam yesterday, despite y not being there. things are slowly coming together, things are getting tighter, less mistakes being made. j and m only took one 420 break and both were motivated to keep going. i played my heart out as well… i guess i have some demons i need to exercise or something (shocker, right?).

i’m starting to believe in j’s plan that by next summer we’ll be able to play a show.

the other day j said something as well which i thought was interesting. both m and i play by ear. we can’t read music. heck, i can barely read tab and i don’t even think there is tab for drums. j on the other hand relies 100% on tab. so every song we learn, he needs to study and m and i just kind of fuck around until we get it. because of this, j claimed we were superior musicians to him. which is kind of funny, because j has always been one of my musical inspirations/mentors/idol. i’ll take it as a compliment.

anyhow, towards the end of the jam, m pulls out a little thing he’s been fucking around with for a while and holy moly, i fucking love it! pardon the potato recording quality.

little rough still, this was the very first time either j or i played along to it, so there is work to be done for sure. but man oh man, this is something. can’t wait until next weekend to flesh it out more.

i guess i still love her

haven’t really spent as much time caring for her this year… i think this will be only the second wash this summer. i desperately need to decontaminate the paint and the whole drivers side needs polish, last time i was in tremblant the parking garage dripped shit all over the side and it kind of stained clearcoat. thankfully it’s only visible in the brightest of sunlight.

foam canon is a must. if you wash your car at home by hand, get a pressure washer, even if it’s a cheap one, and then get a foam canon. makes all the difference.

she cleans up nice i think…

as annoying to clean as they are, BLQs fuck.

no flames today… it is saturday morning after all. pow pow pow

hi ren

i don’t hear voices. i’m a functional and productive member of society. i am well respected in my industry. i am a mentor to many. i have a family that is thriving. i create things. i have no debt. i am successful. by all measures, i am a fully functional, well adjusted human. at least from the outside.

but fuck me does this ever resonate with me to my core. i listened to this when he released it a year or two ago and really liked it, but didn’t really process it. but now here i am, saturday morning, getting ready for my weekly costco run, listening to this again and every hair on my body is standing on end, my stomach is turning, my heart is pounding… and who the fuck is cutting onions at this hour? jesus christ.

thank you ren. i hope you’re doing ok. i’m working on being ok myself, i’ll get there eventually.

exploring

when was the last time i wrote a whole song? it’s been a while. actually, the last time i really remember writing a whole song, not just little riffs was when i still had my explorer and lived on greene av in that awful apartment where everything went wrong. that’s when my explorer was stolen, along with the bag that had all my notes. damn, that was a long time ago.

i miss that guitar. i should buy another one. or maybe build one. actually that’s not a terrible idea. almost symbolic? ok lets do it.

maybe i’ll document the build here when i get the kit. will very likely need to order a ton of other stuff, i’m sure the tuners, pickups and pots will be the hottest of hot garbage. we’ll seeeeee!

i’m working on something now, Asus2 with a G# diddly thing to Emaj… and then to… something. haven’t figured it out yet. i have the progression in my head, i just can’t quite place it yet. lyrics.. oh man, i have a few ideas, just need to decide on what fits best once i have the rest sorted.

math is hard

it’s always been so easy. maybe too easy. right from day one. there was never a chase, there was never a challenge, there was never any drama. maybe that was a red flag that i missed? no, i don’t think so. easy doesn’t automatically mean bad. does it?

you always knew exactly what you wanted and how to get it. that’s still one of the things i admire about you, even if i do resent you for it sometimes. your laser focus disregards collateral damage.

mistakes and errors happen. it’s normal and it’s ok. doubling down on something that is wrong doesn’t fix anything. repeating your point again, but louder, doesn’t fix anything either.

to be fair, just agreeing to end the conflict doesn’t fix anything either. i’m worried if i change that though it will not end well for either of us. i don’t want to have arguments with you about things you know are wrong.

sometimes you can allow yourself to be happy as well. not everything is a crisis. you don’t have to try fix everything. sometimes it’s ok to just sit in the middle of the chaos and laugh. it’s fine. really!

i know you think the answer is some magic pill. i disagree, but you do you. the only thing i ask is to fucking do it, or stop talking about it. it’s been years now.

i’m saying all of this to get it off of my chest, but i think i stopped caring long ago. you’re not going to change, and neither am i. maybe that’s fine. maybe that’s ok. we each have jobs to do, and honestly, i think we do them better than most. look at the results or our labor, they truly are exceptional.

we’re like an arithmetic problem in which you do all the steps wrong, but still end up with the right answer.

today i learned

learning something new is such a double edged sword.

understanding something sets you on the path to harnessing, controlling, manipulating or avoiding it’s power or effects. in my professional life, this is my bread and butter. i’ve earned what i have by being better than most at understanding the business i’m in, the technology we use and the people involved. i’m not afraid of facing new situations or scenarios, i welcome being thrown to the wolves, i seek out conflict wherever i can as it always yields results. i’m a research junkie. i love fucking around and finding out. the key part of it all though is that it’s 100% done with a purpose in mind. as a result, even if the exercise is what most people would consider a failure, i will have learned something new and then can use that to influence other decisions. there are 2 things i like to tell my team all the time which i think might drive some of them a little bit crazy, but i do it anyways. “if you didn’t see it with your own 2 eyes, it didn’t happen” and “i may not always be right, but i am never wrong”. the former mostly used in the context of being faced with a problem that seems unsolvable, go back to the beginning and take nothing for granted, you missed something or were mislead by someone. you are missing information. the later is mostly used in the context of taking giant confident leaps in certain directions to solve a problem based on your gut feeling from previous experiences and if for nothing else it can help rule out certain factors quickly or at least you will have learned something, and if you learn something, then it wasn’t a failure, and you were not wrong to do it.

the flip side of the knowledge coin is that once you learn something, you can’t really ever unlearn it. and not all knowledge is comfortable. not all knowledge is helpful. not all knowledge is safe. at least on the professional side, this is less of an issue, at least for me. no one is going to get hurt. it’s all about money and time. yes, maybe you may lose money, but money comes and goes. you can always make more money. and time passes whether you like it or not, there are always 24 hours in the day and there will always be 24 hours in the next day as well.

on the personal side of things… well… that’s where it’s a little different. every time you learn something about someone else, your relationship changes. especially when you learn something about them they didn’t want you to know. that in itself is scary to me because there’s no take backsies, once you know, you know and now you deal with it, or suffer internally, but at least you have the choice. what’s even more terrifying is when you learn something about yourself. you can pretend to ignore it, but you will always know and you don’t really have a choice but to deal with it in some way or another eventually.

today i learned about limerence, and well… fuck me. i don’t really know how to process this new information. it almost feels too easy to now just blame certain feelings i have been dealing with and behaviors i’ve been exhibiting on something instead of figuring them out myself and properly correcting them. like seriously? what the fuck? reading the definition alone i felt a sudden, and overwhelming sense of relief. but at the same time, it feels… undeserved? and then i kind of felt sick.

then i took a look at r/limerence and my mind was blown.

even more so now i feel like this is a cop-out. it’s like when a client opens a ticket for an issue with one of their systems and the issue is caused by a known bug with no vendor provided patch, solution or work around. the only thing we can tell the client is that unfortunately it’s a limitation of the system and that there’s nothing to be done. i fucking HAAAAATE that. i much prefer situations that ARE fixable.

does my software have a bug? who do i need to talk to in order to get the developer to release a patch?

i think i need more time to think about this.

post nut clarity

there’s a spa in tremblant that i’ve been to a few times that has a giant hot pool, as in hot tub temperatures, but big enough to have like 50 people in it. at one end there is a waterfall that you can sit under, which is my favorite spot.

all you hear is the sound of thousands of liters of water pouring over you. all you feel is the relentless pummeling and weight of it on your head and shoulders. you can’t see anything and the heat is intensely comforting. even breathing is a challenge under that waterfall. you have to concentrate, you need to keep your head down allowing the back of your head to kind of shield your mouth and nose, you need to inhale slowly to avoid aspirating water. hardly anyone else ever sits there, or if they do, they don’t immerse themselves completely and just let the water pour over their back. it is isolated even if there are people all around. the whole experience is a momentary escape from everything, you have one job, breathe. everything else becomes irrelevant for a few precious moments.

i’m feeling things that i haven’t felt in the longest time. so long in fact that it’s as if i am feeling them for the first time again. any lessons i may have learned over the years have all but evaporated at this point, so mistakes are bound to happen. and mistakes i have made.

not a word i said was a lie, but my brain and my heart apparently don’t always see eye to eye. we each have roles to play, and i think i let my heart go off script a little too far. much like in any performance, when one side goes too far, it puts the other side in an unfair position. they maybe have been presenting their lines to perfection, and yet now their partner has deviated from the plan. they must either adapt for the sake of the show, and who knows what the result may be? or stick to their lines and potentially sour everything.

neither option is appealing.

i wish i could sit under that waterfall right now, just for a few minutes.

cars are pain

twice in the last week someone has asked me “so steve… what’s your next car going to be?” and both times i really could not answer.

i am due, over due actually. i’ve had the s4 for 5 years now. when was the last time i kept the same car for more than a year? i can’t even remember.

admittedly the s4 is good… it’s been 100% reliable, it doesn’t look dated, it’s still mint inside and out. it’s taken all the mods i’ve thrown at it really well, and nothing has broken despite pushing just shy of 500 and i can shoot fucking flames out the tailpipe if i want. the only thing that mayyyyybe isn’t the best is the suspension, but that’s my own dumbass fault for wanting to live the low life, so i can deal. at least rene levesque and st laurent have been repaved recently in the worst spots so i can make it to work when i need to get to the office now, just can’t enter the parking without scraping lol.

if i were to get into something else, what the hell would i go for that makes sense?

rs5? they’re fucking expensive and stock, my s4 wins all day. so that doesn’t work.

golf r? i’ve already had one, but could see myself getting another. except i can’t deal with the stupid haptic touch infotainment crap vw did. mk9 is supposed to go back to buttons. so for now it’s a no, to be re-evaluated next year.

porsche macan? other than the turbo or gts, it’s a q5. lame. and the turbo and gts both have the same problem as the rs5, expensive, and not that fast stock. also, it’s basically a snooty sq5.

sq5? arguments could be made… stock it is slow, but not that expeez to fix that. but since when am i an suv guy? mehhh…

so what if i keep the s4 and instead buy someone else’s problem, i mean project car?

late 80’s porsche 944’s are nice, and reasonably affordable… parts are a little harder to find, but not impossible. they’re also simple enough that i could probably do most of the wrenching myself. they are slow af though. that’s a problem. and i’m not about to turbo or sc a 30-40 year old porsche motor. swap? 1.8t? vr6? hmmm i’ll put this in the maybe column.

late 70’s mki vw rabbit is another one on my list of cars i must own before i die. but unfortunately, ’round here they’re all rusted to shit by now. i could try to import one from the us… they would classify as classic so no special retrofit or anything. but what a colossal pain in the ass. i dunno. also, they’re getting more and more expensive now, and parts are basically unobtainable. dan’s had one in his shop for like a year now waiting on parts… not sure i can do that. might need to find one that’s already mostly restored. $$$

eugh.. so what do i do? talk about first world problems here.

i should probably wash the s4 and take some pics this weekend.