Jack's Diary

Actually, the guitar is helping. I kind of get into playing and figuring out the songs as they come up, and the next thing you know an hour is up. I haven't really been eating after dinner, so my weight has come back to a reasonable 165.

I also added that plus no sweets to my habits list. I don't know if a Margarita counts as a sweet though - I'm sure those mixes have plenty of sugar. But at least it's like one every couple of days, say.

I think the approach that I've come across for practicing guitar is really effective - amazed it took so long to discover. All I do is turn on Pandora to my rock station and start playing along to songs. Try to figure out the chords, mostly, although trying to through a lick in here and there. It's pretty interesting because it gives you exposure to a wide variety of song. Sometimes I figure out all the chords, most for easy blues-rock style songs, but a lot of times I'll miss some.

For example, Gimme Shelter - it turns out that it's three major chords just rotating, not the usual 1-4-5 or something, which is really standard, but like a 1 - flat 7 - flat 6 or something, I think it's actually C# - B - A I'm not even sure what the key is.

But one that I figured out pretty much, which I've always liked but never got, is "Go Ask Alice" by Jefferson Airplane. For some reason, I got stubborn and just spent some time with it. It has a pretty unusual progression - the verse is F# - G x 2 A, so having to major chords right next to each other like that is something I haven't run across much. It's a short song, but there's kind of a bridge which alternates between A & E, I don't think it's a key change though.

But I like the easy ones. I've started taking notes. Here's my list:

1. Canned heat - I'm gonna leave the city - 3 chord circle
2. Satisfaction E D A riff, then E A I think
3. Start Me Up - 3 chord circle
4. Turn the page Key of G or Em - Em D A then Em D with a C D snuck in at the end
4. I've never been to Spain .... E A B only really easy
5. What it's worth - two chords only! E A, straight alternation (mostly maybe )
6. Before you 'cuse me CCR Key of E 3 chord blues
7. Keep your hands to yourself Key of A 3 chord blues
8. CCR traveling Band F# blues 3 chords 1-4-5
9. Don't know much about history B E F# just 3 chords
10. I've never been to spain 3 chords
11. Turn the page Verse Em D A Chorus Em D Em D Em D Em C D Em
Lead in E15 E14 B15 G14 B12 x 2
Count 1 2 3 & 4 &
Shambala
Beast of Burden Verse E A E A E A chorus A E A E A E B -
Midnight special Key of D
All along the watchtower Am G F (Key of C) // this is just a youtube version, not Hendrix
Spirit in the Sky - Key A Riff A - D - open string chord - A Verse A D A E repeat
Jimmy Vaughan - Cool looking woman - G C D Blues nice lick to copy
Chubby Checkers - The Twist - Key of E - Straight Blues
Can't always get what you want Key of C 3 chords
Mary Had a little lamb SRV E flat 3 chord 12 bar blues
Gimme Shelter C# B A loop
Go Ask Alice Complicated F# G then A /then E A a few time then back to F# G
 
I know nothing about chords etc but I do know that you are playing my kind of music :D One of the best concerts I ever went to was the Rolling Stones at the Kooyong tennis centre in Melbourne back in the '70s. It was midday & outdoors & stinking hot & they were sensational! Midnight Rambler was amaaazing. I just love music but have never learned to play any instrument or to read music. What a joy it must be!
 
Hey Cate - you are so cool to have been to a Stones concert back then. I finally saw the stones in 2017 in Buffalo and they were still sensational - what a band. There is something about their music that appeals to me like no other.

Btw, it's not like I'm any good at guitar. I think because I never practice. But I find that just spinning up Pandora and trying to play along is a really nice way to enjoy music while at the same time getting some practice in. Just this past week or two I've just started using that way of practicing, and it's been a real eye-opener. For example, "Miss You" played and I grabbed my guitar and found that it's 3 chords, mostly just two, Am and Dm. That one was easy. Some of them are pretty easy, others much more challenging. It's not like I'm memorizing licks or anything, it's just chords and freelancing a bit.

I feel like I gained some time today because I passed up a walk to Jamaica pond with my wife this morning. I just have all this gear from work and I want to get some time in this morning. It's a nice day, but if I have time I'll hit the beach. The Patriots play at 1, then I'm going to my sister's for dinner. It's always fun to hang with them - he's a great cook.

I put about 4 hours into working yesterday, and I'm hoping to limit it to maybe a couple today. I made some good progress. Nothing like working uninterrupted, at home, with some jazz playing in the background, on a weekend when you know you're not going to get some jarring emails flying in demanding immediate attention.

The nice thing is I can bill for the extra hours. It will be nice to be able to do that in the upcoming 3 months, after which I'll semi-retire, hopefully.

I interviewed my ex-boss Friday night. It was nice catching up with her, we joked around about the old days for a while. I kind of let it be known that I was in a decent situation because I could bill extra hours. She floated the idea of part-time, but that's out of the question - I'm already putting in 50+ hours on my current job. So it doesn't look like that's going anywhere. It would be nice to work from home, though. I sent her an email saying thanks, and let me know if there's anything else I should now (e.g. what is the offer, if any).

Oddly, I'm up to 167 today despite not eating sweets or anything after dinner, no snack or anything. I did drink a lot of water yesterday. I walked around the beach for a couple of hours listening to Eckhardt Tolle on audiobook, "The Power of Now". What a great book. So calming and full of hope and wisdom. I'm going to get his other books.

Anyway, I'll work now. It will be 2-3 hours, if that. Then watch the Pats, then dinner.

Oh, yeah. I finally insisted to my wife that I wasn't going to watch "Blacklist" anymore. It's a Netflix series, and it's just too stupid. She refuses to watch anything in Japanese (even though she's Japanese and it's the language I'm studying) but I got her to agree to watch a French film. French cinema isn't for everyone, but you usually come away feeling like you watched something worthwhile. It's like the opposite of the noisy Hollywood action movies - there's a lot of stillness in them. The movie we watched was something like "Mal des Pierres" which looks like it might have won a prize at Cannes in 2016.
 
Hi jack what kind of hours will semi-retired be for you ? 50 seems a lot.
I'm always fascinated with the internet and the ads that come up while I am on here. Right now an ad for mastering the guitar is staring at me . Also one on spreadsheets. It's very strange lol .

All sounds good with you . Have a good week .
 
Petal001 said:
I'm always fascinated with the internet and the ads that come up while I am on here. Right now an ad for mastering the guitar is staring at me . Also one on spreadsheets. It's very strange lol .
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Ha! I've been getting ads for boots for days now! At least I know where that lot have come from. :D

Jack, your life right now sounds so on target - not meaning weight - more like, I'm admiring how you know what what you want to do, and how you want things to be, and you head straight to it! That's not all that common, it seems to me - and it's great! :)
 
Hi Petal - for sure when I retire, I'll focus on guitar and Japanese. But I will probably take some courses on software because I'm not convinced I'm really going to retire, and want my skills up-to-date.

A-glow - thanks for the kind words. I don't really feel that way, but you might have a point. I think the habits app is helping. I've got a good streak going for practicing guitar. I dropped the exercise a couple of mornings this week, though, for the first time in a while. Maybe I'll go to the gym today to compensate. My weight's about 166 or so right now, not bad.

I had a long talk with my ex-boss last night. It was a good conversation. I just wanted to see exactly where she was in terms of how serious she was about the opportunity, like, if she wanted to blow me out of the water with an offer (just in case). But it was more of her wanting me to give her a number to start with (like they always do). Why does it have to be me giving away the number? I probably would've eventually given in if I was serious about it, but I finally told her it wasn't really about the money, that I was thinking about retiring and so forth, wasn't ready to jump into another opportunity. She understood that, and it was very amicable. But, I do have trust issues with her anyway. She verbally promised me some stuff when I turned down an offer from (BIG company) to stick with her (tiny company) back in the day, which she never followed through on. That's on me for not getting it in writing, but still.
 
Speaking of guitar, I've been basically just playing along with Pandora and taking notes on the what the chords/structure of the songs are. It's amazing how much easier it to figure out the chords than it used to be. It's not like I get them all, I don't. Layla was a killer, for example. Mostly I just get the 1-4-5-6 chords, but occasionally I grab a major 3rd or flat 7. One trick I find in some songs is instead of a minor third, they'll use a major third - I saw youtube video about that. The other thing is they use a certain key, but the root will be not on the first of the key, but for example the fifth, which is a mode called Myxolidian, popular in rock & roll. And sometimes they will alternate keys, for example, there will be something in E-A-D, with say D as the root, but then they will bring in the B.

The other thing I'm working on in mixing little fills in between the chords. I saw a video about that the other day, and realized I'm not paying enough attention to making sure I hit the fill notes in rhythm.

The other thing I'm working on is always knowing what pentatonic I'm in. It's very easy to get lost once you start venturing around the fretboard, and I really need to tighten up on exactly which frets I'm on, specifically where is the root note for each pentatonic box, but at least which frets the boxes are on, and don't vary from that unless you know what you're doing.
 
Work is getting easier, for now. We've waded through a lot of the backlog. I got a couple of long-standing issues resolved last week. A wave of installs for the new release has been completed. Unfortunately, a trip to do an install at a client site next week got canceled. It would've been my first time on-site to do an install, and P would've been there, so I wouldn't have been alone.

The big problem coming up is they are going to want me to do training. I still barely know the software and even less about the hardware interface. I think I'm going to take some time out this weekend to go over a training video the P presented, and some documents. I don't have anything I have to get done this weekend, and it will increase my confidence and ability with the product.

At least, I got some good feedback from my boss's boss last week. He was in town and came over to introduce himself and just asked me a few questions. I said it's a learning curve for sure, but I thought I'd been effective. He said that's what he was hearing, so there you go.
 
Jack what habit app have you got ?

You sound on top of the weight now , congratulations. And good you are keeping up with the hobbies
 
Hi Petal,

It's not really an app, it's a website that I put together to track todo lists and habits. It was mostly for resume purposes, but also because I couldn't find any apps or sites that show you how many days in a row you've completed a particular habit. For example, James Clear is a big habit guru, and he's selling a beautiful habit tracking, leather-bound *notebook*. Kind of hard to believe in this day and age - I just am no good when it comes to putting pencil to paper.

Here's an example of my "100 pushups a day!" entry for September and October so far. Actually, I've been doing them longer than that, but I started really tracking them in mid-September. It's not perfect - I need to figure a way to get the highlight to look like today, (October 5th). It's some kind of bug in the plug-in I'm using, the way the colors are faded like they are on the other ones. I haven't been able to fix it so far.
Screen Shot 2019-10-05 at 9.58.42 AM.png
 
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That’s interesting a bit like the calender I used to use for fitness app . My son is always working on similar projects .
 
Hi, Jack. I think you are smart having trust issues with your ex-boss & it sounds like you are strengthening your position with your current job. I think to keep in mind that you can stop work at any time if you feel like it puts you in a very good position. You seem to like a challenge & to keep your mind active. It's great that you are at 166 lbs & happy with that too. You have done very well.
 
Thanks, guys. Yeah, Cate you are right, I keep telling myself 3 more months, just 3 more months.

Petal, your son must be a software guy. Good on him to be doing his own projects. It shows he likes what he's doing and is probably good at it.
 
So, it's already 7:30. I don't want to waste the evening. I could do Japanese - need to get back into that - play some more guitar, watch some anime...anything but reddit.

Tomorrow, we're going to the art museum for a free tour. Then I'm going to watch the Patriots, then the Celtics.

I've been really listening to Eckhardt Tolle a lot. As much as I love his book and what he says, I can't seem to convert to the ego-free, living-in-the-now kind of person he proposes. There is a lot of meat to what he says, though. Like not resisting life, but fully embracing and accepting it (take steps to change what you don't like, but don't resist life). And obviously, not focusing on the past or the future, but rather on just now.

The biggest thing for me is, if I'm behind at work or something, then I'm concerned about the consequences of not getting caught up - so I put in some extra time and feel better. Tolle would say, yes, of course you do that, but just keep your focus on the present. He says, only focus on the past and the future to the minimum extent possible. Like an 80/20 split between now and non-now. I guess that's ok then.

Another big thing, his biggest thing, is to reduce your thinking. Your mind is not necessarily your friend. It's a tool to be used when necessary - but it's not your true self. Don't identify with your mind, your ego. When you minimize your racing thoughts, it allows you to be present in the now, where you can experience a sense of joy, of lightness, of inner peace. Because you don't allow your mind to hammer you ruthlessly with all these thoughts - mostly repetitive and negative - you become aware, conscious, alert, attuned to the nowness of things. In a word, enlightened.

When you listen to him, you buy in, totally. But then reality hits and you realize, bah, I'm not enlightened. I'm still worried. But, I'm going to keep at it. It's worth working for.
 
Jack I’m a huge overthinker but trying to control it somehow now . Sounds like you had an awesome weekend planned . Hope you had fun
 
Hey Petal - yeah, totally. My problem not being in the moment - my mind will drift off, not always in a good way. At work, it's not so bad, because it's very involving. But Tolle has helped in particular with sort of de-emphasizing the importance of the past. You just can't get caught up in ruminating, everybody knows that, yet a large percentage of people probably do it.

Cate - cool video. Kind of bluesy, it reminded me of Fast Car by Tracy Chapman a bit. The guy has technique I can only dream about. The giveaway is how he throws in little bits of licks here and there to spice things up, all while doing a tricky strum pattern. Yeah, difficult to play - especially while singing.
 
B came over last night to watch the Celtics. I haven't seen him in a few months, since he started the new job. It's not an easy one, it's kind of a mailroom thing, but man he looks great - must have dropped a good 30 or 40 lbs. Before he was doing a driving job.

He loves music and I wanted to show him what I was doing on guitar, plus teach him a little bit. I tried to show him before, but he kind of dropped it when the job started. Because I showed him a few open chords, and chords are really hard for beginners.

So, I'm showing him now what I think is a better way, which is the way I'm doing right now. That way is by actively listening to music, and trying to figure the root note, then playing the pentatonic scale to it. So much better than practicing chords. And it's easy to hooked, because you just keep listening to songs you like.

The nice thing about doing it that way is you only have to hit one note at a time, unlike chords which usually involve three fingers.

But the next cool trick I'm going to show him is how to form chords out of the Pentatonic 1 scale. For example, if your playing a 1-4-5 major progression, 1 chord is an A shape, and the 4 and 5 are D shape. True you can't play the whole chord, but it's a path toward chords.

He was getting the hang of it a little bit, too. I was playing chords and he would play a little lead. Sounds like fun, right? It sure beats grinding out chords. You gotta start them out with the fun stuff.
 
Work - I have a remote install Wednesday. P is overseas on training, but J will be around to help. My concern is that neither of us really understands the equipment configuration. But J knows the software inside and out, plus the tech will be onsite. I'm assuming J is going to take the controls, but got the configuration files and have gone through them. I'm laying the groundwork as much as possible. I still have some questions for the tech on what he knows and how he wants the equipment configured.

P has a little bit of a weakness when it comes to travel. He kind of goes incommunicado. I wanted him to stick around yesterday afternoon to review the install configuration but caught him slipping out a 2 pm. Plus, the boss said training doesn't start until Wednesday. He's probably going to travel Monday, check in the place on Tuesday and start the training Wednesday. I don't really know.

I can't really criticize him. He's really fun to work with and very, very knowledgable. It's time I got up to speed anyway.
 
The other thing is, in the midst of all this, the boss gave me not one but two programming assignments. That's good in one way - I like programming - but as usual, it means I have more on my plate than I can handle.

Fortunately, I am allowed to charge for the hours I work, for once. It was a good thing I checked with the boss on that right at the start, because the previous boss only allowed for 40 hours, no matter how many you worked. I guess the new boss has plenty of budget right now since he's short two positions at this point.

So I will probably do some work from home today. He wants on of them done by November 15th. Right, good luck with that. I need to get my dev environment set up for one thing, which is always a hassle. That's my goal for today.

Other than that, I will do a little shopping my wife asked me to do, play some guitar, do a little Japanese (I have to get that ball rolling again).

My company paid me the same week I invoiced this time around - noice!

What they are paying B for his mailroom job is criminally low. It's not that much above minimum effing wage. This is a 61-year-old guy with a college degree in Finance. He really got smoked by the 2008 recession. He was the wrong age and could never get an office job after that.

His other problem is he not assertive enough. Neither am I, but I do have a breaking point where I just won't budge. I won't snap (for the most part), but I'll get into a discussion about priorities or I'll start letting you know what I'm unhappy about. You are allowed to say no.

B isn't gonna do that, unfortunately. He's just so self-programmed to be Mr. Nice guy. It's a protective layer, in a way, to avoid confrontation, I guess. But underneath that layer is a very fun and interesting guy.
 
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