Everything Bianca

Back again!

Okay, so on my second visit to San Diego: 

Plane ride on Sunday morning followed immediately by work. After the meeting I had lunch.

I ate at Tabule again. This time I had the white sea bass ceviche. Love their ceviche. It was the one restaurant I missed, and fed me only as much food as I could eat.

I walked out to the Gaslamp Distric looking for dinner, but I never got around to it. I just walked the city for about an hour and then returned to my room.

Monday morning I had breakfast at my #1 breakfast spot. Granted the Cheese Shop was good, but Richard Walker's Pancake House WINS. I had a monster veggie omelet and pancakes covered in cherries. So good. Promise. I would have eaten there again if I could.

Monday evening I visited Seaport Village. It was behind my hotel. I found this shop called Hot Licks and bought all sorts of Habenero hot sauces, and even a habenero mustard. I had them shipped to me. I hope to have my spicy gifts soon.

All that walking and I was finished. I had my dinner at the hotel. They had a restaurant called DW's pub. I brought the monster hamburger and fries back up to my room. 

Tuesday morning I was in the airport by 5am preparing for the long flight home. Had a little fun with turbulence (henceforth knows as "rough air", probably for those who don't speak English.) And watched the plane circle Atlanta looking for a decent spot to land.

I caught an itty bitty puddle jumper back to Pensacola, seats 50, if I heard the stewardess correctly.

So, I had fun. Nice trip. Very happy to be home.

How do I get through being frustrated with playing my guitar?

It happens more now than before, and much of it had to do with forming chords, and playing songs.

... and general suckage that presents with a 1st year newbie. 

I went back to theory. I put away my finger picking lessons book and picked up my scales and chords book. 

After giving myself a 24 hour cool down period after getting testy enough to hit my guitar. (No hitting!) I picked it up again and set the metronome. I played one scale in one pattern for one week. That was it. Peaceful. Easy.

Then I went back to playing my songs, and forming a few new chords. 

So, in my thought, the best way to handle 'getting ahead of myself' is to reset the practice session. When I find myself doing too much, trying too much - go back to scales. Set the metronome low, and play that single scale for 10 minutes. 

I'd like to blame my stiff steel guitar for my inability to form chords easily, but that's just a lame excuse. The strings have nothing to do with how quickly my fingers get into shape, and I've discovered that in these past few weeks.

While playing Dock of the Bay (yes, still) I had a single moment where my fingers formed a G chord all at once, not a string at a time. That was a small glimmer that progress can and will happen.

Why am I still on Dock of the Bay? Well, it's great strumming pattern practice. I keep experimenting with what sound best for my dismal skill level, and different ways to strum out the chords. I am definitely anti-pick, and strumming with my thumb is... getting better. The best is a hybrid thumb / finger pick / strum thing I have going. 

And singing it really... really... slow, to allow myself more time to switch chords. <-- Another frustration dodging tactic. 

Mostly, it's my hand that's lagging. The muscle strength, the flexibility, the dexterity. I don't have it, and nothing but practice is going to get me there. 

So, my personal lesson is: practice something, anything. Mary Had a Little Lamb if it comes to that - but don't stop playing. That will get me no where. 

I have my midnight tickets for The Dark Knight. But why? Well, I love midnight showings. I love being in a crowd that's dressed up, rowdy, and all giddy. I'm not really even that... 'gun ho' for the movie, but I'm stoked about being in the moment.

Now... here's the snag. Me? Myself? I will be in line at 10pm (maybe earlier). That's the kind of person I am. Make a night of it. Get awesome seats. Meet people. Make friends. And the spontaneous shouting and applause at midnight showings rock.

And that's what I'm going to do, despite the fact that I know my husband is going to call me all kinds of names and not join me. 

It's my neurosis and it's my responsibility to feed and water it. 

I hope there are people there in costume and make up. That would be +++ neat.

Having grown tired of my collection of Nintendo DS games, (Brain Age, Dalmatian Nintendogs, Tetris, and Puzzle Quest), I decided to search for some new games to play.

the above mentioned were all well loved and played into the ground. 

I knew I wanted puzzle games. So I searched for some of the highest rated ones out. I never found someone selling Meteos. This upsets me...

...but I bought Crosswords instead.

Oh this story is going to be disjointed. From the top!

I found 4 titles, well reviewed, that I wanted to add to my collection. Meteos, Neves, Zoo Keeper, and Picross DS. 

I thought, "Hey! Lets do that buy local thing!"

Bad start. None of the above mentioned games were sold in any of the stores I visited. 

So I went online. I found Neves through a 3rd party Amazon seller. Buy.

The other three? I went to the third party and placed an order. The order was canceled "Out of Stock."

That put me on a mission to get them all. 

I found Zoo Keeper and Picross through other stores and bought those. Meteos? That was a near lost cause, until I read that the Disney version is just as good, with improvements, save for the fact that it's Disney characters all over it. 

I still didn't have a game in hand on July 3rd, and I wanted something to play over the weekend. Best Buy did not have it, and I was steamed... so...

Crosswords. I do not enjoy crosswords. The clues sound so foreign and ... rely so heavily on pop culture. (The ones I've seen of course.) I got it anyway, and was greatly suprised.

Listen: 

Crosswords on the Nintendo DS has ANAGRAMS (and word search too!)

The bold was necessary. I L-O-V-E anagrams, and the crosswords were fun too. 

Neves is the best. It's about 500 tangrams. Untimed, timed, and in 7 steps. Viola. I'm tearing that up too. 

Zoo Keeper is Bejeweled with animals. W00t. (I need not say anymore.)

Picross is a Nonogram that makes pictures. 

Meteos goes back on the list for future gaming spending. 

Now... all I need is a Nintendo DS game with Logic Puzzles and I'm set. 

CJ is sitting on the scratching post, giving a most magnificent yawn. I didn't get a picture of Misty this day because CJ, fascinated with the camera strap, knocked the cam from my hand. Coincidentally, the batteries went dead.

Either way I found some subpar batteries to use for this one shot. CJ and Misty asleep in my husband's spare chair.

I present to you. The cuteness. CJ's on the left. Misty's on the right.

How can you tell them a part??? After a while, you really just know.

[Your basic cut and paste job. I read this as a random comment somewhere else, and now present this for your random post pleasure.]

A man went to a hotel and walked up to the front desk to check in. The woman at the desk gave him his key and told him that on the way to his room, there was a door with no number that was locked and no one was allowed in there. Especially no one should look inside the room, under any circumstances. So he followed the instructions of the woman at the front desk, going straight to his room, and going to bed. The next night his curiosity would not leave him alone about the room with no number on the door. He walked down the hall to the door and tried the handle. Sure enough it was locked. He bent down and looked through the wide keyhole. Cold air passed through it, chilling his eye.

What he saw was a hotel bedroom, like his, and in the corner was a woman whose skin was completely white. She was leaning her head against the wall, facing away from the door. He stared in confusion for a while. He almost knocked on the door, out of curiosity, but decided not to. This disinclination saved his life. He crept away from the door and walked back to his room. The next day, he returned to the door and looked through the wide keyhole. This time, all he saw was redness. He couldn’t make anything out besides a distinct red color, unmoving. Perhaps the inhabitants of the room knew he was spying the night before, and had blocked the keyhole with something red.

At this point he decided to consult the woman at the front desk for more information. She sighed and said, "Did you look through the keyhole?" The man told her that he had and she said, "Well, I might as well tell you the story. A long time ago, a man murdered his wife in that room, and her ghost haunts it. But these people were not ordinary. They were white all over, except for their eyes, which were red."

There are a few non-english songs from my youth that come back to me. There are 4 that I have not found. I found one today after hearing Le Vent Du Nord on Morning Edition. They sounded like this song I was calling, "Budah Yay"or "Ziggy Zah Zon."

After hearing Morning Edition, I had a genre... Canadian Folk... and this afternoon, I had my mission. 

Mission accomplished.

There are more songs out there, waiting for me to find them, but for now, this will be played to death all day today.

Acoustic guitar progress - shaky for this month. I did not travel with my guitar, so I missed a lot of practice, and then getting back into the groove has been shaky, but as this month closes, I've been practicing about every other day, working back up to daily.

I quit my guitar lessons. 1) Traveling, so I didn't practice. 2) Working harder, so I can't take my lessons during my lunch. If a Saturday slot opens up, I'll certainly return to it. I miss my teacher already.

In the meanwhile, I've been working through this book called Fingerpicking Guitar. I've been practicing different picking patterns and progressions. As for my songs, I've been improving upon Blackbird and Dock of the Bay. I'm still working on a suitable picking / strumming pattern for Dock of the Bay.

When CJ and Misty were 'younger kittens' they'd both sleep behind me. Alas, they aren't too keen about sleeping on top of each other anymore.

Today's picture features Misty, who is currently sleeping behind me in the black chair. (I had to stand up to take the picture, of course.)

CJ is curled in a near perfect ball sleeping on the "cat chair" covered with my red robe (more like the cat blanket).

Tomorrow I'll aim to catch CJ's 'greeting pose.' He hops up on the scratching post with his "Love Me Please" face and waits for me to come up and pet him, at which point he lifts his paws to my face head-butts my chin.

Misty doesn't greet me. She will, however, meow incessantly when she's ready for me to verbally call her over. Then I must lift her up, and present my arm for her to lick, and not just any part. She really loves the inside of my elbow. Goodness forbid I've been lax on the nail clippings... she likes to knead me while she tries to lick my skin off. 

Yesterday, a very special "internet friend" was put to sleep.

Before I had CJ and Misty with me, I followed Gun-Hee's journal.  Gun-Hee is a fellow Abyssinian. He died yesterday at the tender age of just under 2 years old from FIP. Gun Hee's mom was religious about taking pictures of him, and it made me think, "hey, I better break out my camera. I don't know when I'll lose my own two."

Rest in Peace, Gun-Hee

In that spirit, I took pictures of CJ and Misty, and the baby Mockingbird we found out in the grass yesterday. I'm not going to care if I'm bad at "picture-taking." Better to have a cruddy picture than no picture at all.

As for the baby Mockingbird... We've been keeping him in an empty, never-used litter box with a towel. The mother bird has been feeding him under the carport. We've been bringing him (or her) inside at night to keep hir warm. 

CJ and Misty (CJ up top)

Baby Mockingbird

Since the mother and father have been keeping up on predator watch and feeding the baby bird, we have not fed it.

We've been checking on him every 30 minutes / hour, and the parents seem to be just fine with hir in this location. I really hope our vigilance and make-shift nest is enough to see this baby through to adulthood.

(And yes, when we bring him inside at night, we lock him away from CJ and Misty.)

No pictures this time. I went by myself, and I'm no good at picture taking. However, since there were no pictures, I'm not as apathetic about talking about my trip, as I seemed to be about Oahu. I mean, if you can *see* where I was, what's there to discuss? Plus. I'm sure the internet will do me fine.

I arrived in San Diego Thursday morning. I took a cab (one of probably 15 companies, *laughs*) to the Marriott Marina.

See? Lovely photo. Lovely hotel as well. I had a nice room where I could see downtown San Diego, part of the harbor, and the stadium from my balcony.  The staff at the Marriott was also quite helpful. I was given a map of the Gaslamp Quarter and walked that area to my heart's content. Excellent pedestrian area: wide sidewalks, clear signage, and a glut of shops, eateries, and entertainment.

Thursday Lunch: My first meal was at Tabule International Cuisine. I had a delicious Salmon Ceviche. I've never eaten Ceviche, but it was delicious. A very cool lunch, and a great start to my culinary exploration.

Thursday Dinner: I had Rama Thai for dinner. First: Atmosphere. Atmosphere. Atmosphere. Very elegant space. I was immediately struck by that. The photos on the website are bright, but at dinner the restaurant was at 'candlelight' brightness. I can see the place where I sat in the first picture in the photo gallery! The brick wall at the back was a large waterfall. Oh, to eat... I had coconut soup and shrimp red curry. Both quite delicious, though I was a bit disappointed at how 'unspicy' the curry was. Amusing though, because the table next to me had asked for mild and was saying that was still too spicy. I asked for 8/10 on the spicy scale. Maybe the chef thought I was kidding. Oh well. It was still good mild.

Friday Breakfast: I took a morning stroll to the Cheese Shop and had a veggie omelet. It was a sizeable omelet with spinach, mushrooms, green peppers, and cheddar cheese. It came with hash browns and toast, but I concentrated on the omelet. It was very fresh and delicious. I ordered a fruit bowl to go so that I'd have something during my meeting.

Friday Lunch: I shared the fruit bowl (large portion, seriously) with the sandwhiches we had during the work meeting. It was enough to share with 5 people, and was filled with at least 5 different seasonal fruits.

Friday Dinner: I had dinner at Masala Spices of India. My server was exceptional. I know I enjoy eating Indian, but I couldn't speak eloquently on the cuisine. I told him I liked my food spicy; I love vegetables and meat equally, and would like to have lamb in my main dish. He gladly took the menus out of my hand and told me what he would select. According to my receipt I had Desi Chatt, Chutney Tray, Jeera Rice, Rogan Josh, and a Bombay Breeze (that was a fruit juice mix). I loved it all. Very good.

One could argue that's there isn't anything I'd eat that I wouldn't find delicious. That's okay. I like finding everything delicious, delectable, and awesome.

Okay, wait, there was one meal I had that I really wanted to regurgitate - Saturday Breakfast. I got this egg & cheese croissant in the SAN airport. It's the kind of sandwhich that makes you hate yourself while you eat it, and you know there's nothing good about it, and you probably would have gotten more nutrition eating a protein bar (which I consider fortified cardboard). So no, I don't eat everything indiscriminately.

However, there was a final pleasing meal.  In the Memphis airport, where I was laid over for a good 2 hours there was this superb sandwhich shop in the B terminal. I had smoked turkey with gouda on a rich bread I cannot identify. With some olive oil / herb red potato chips. *That* made me feel good to eat.

See? My trip reports are much richer when there are no pictures. 

Due to changes at work: traveling / more work. I cancelled my lessons, which were during my lunch on Friday. Hopefully a Saturday slot will open and I can continue them, but for now, I'm back to teaching myself.

If I can stay in Pensacola long enough. *laughs*

And with that, I tell you that I will be in San Diego at the end of this week. Fun!

Work related though, so not too much in the way of sun and fun.

But I do hope to sit in a few nice restaurants while there.

I added text, explanations, and it's all organized and such. I'd like to think the site is done now - and fully presentable.

The info I added is 6 years overdue. Oh well. Better late than never. 

http://nysidra.com

Okay, I've returned from my lovely vacation in Oahu.

I'm uploading pictures (in the images section) and video (at youtube) now.

So, tomorrow morning begins my travel to Oahu, Hawaii. Yay!

Oahu Album
Pictures will be uploaded here. They will probably be large, raw files. Should be interesting.

Twitter Updates
In addition to the ever-present most recent twitter to the left. I'll be doing the play-by-play (as I remember to) there.

I'm summarizing my guitar playing when I haven't really bench-marked anything yet.

Last night I played the current scale I'm working on at 80 bpm easily. It occurred to me that I could turn the metronome up and see where I'd break, but I wanted to move on with the night's play.

Speaking of scales. These are the techy things I have in my head:

Chords: I know the Key of C (triads?) and its barre and 7th chords. (I guess that's how you word it.) I also know a spattering of other majors and minors. I know common chord progressions. 

Scales: I know the pentatonic scale from the open fret to the 15th fret.
I'm learning ... also a C scale, but the parts are called F Lydian, Mixolydian, and Aeolian. I don't really know what those mean, but if you ask me to play it. I can. The nerd in me is slightly embarrassed, but I'm out to learn to play guitar, not pass a pop quiz on theory. I'll eventually read a book that puts all this together, but better I know what it sounds / plays like first. So I like to say to myself.

Songs: 

I can play Blackbird by the Beatles. I did so this morning for my coworkers (by their request!!) and it was at its smoothest and getting better weekly.

I'm working on Dock of the Bay by Otis Redding. I hate the sound of a pick on my steel guitar. It feels / sounds so horrible. I nearly cried this week listening to myself play. As a compromise the following day, I strummed with a combo of my thumb on the down stroke and index on the up stroke and I liked it. The strings didn't buzz like they when I use my pick. I didn't sound like I was punching the chords. My  fingers made a soft, pleasant sound. I'm going to practice with both my fingers and the pick. Even if I hate the pick, I need to learn to use it. One day, I might like it. Only time and practice will tell.

The next fingerstyle song I want to play is Scarborough Fair as played by Stephen King (you can find him playing on youtube. I'll add a link later). I gave my teacher the sheet music I wanted to learn from. It's epic and probably way beyond my current skill level. Oh well. I want to try.

Body: 

My left thumb is numb. The back of it. My thumb tingles slightly when I run my finger along it. It's been this way for two days. I am not amused. I think (hope) I may have pinched a nerve while playing with a 5 lb weight.
I don't even notice my left finger tips. They don't hurt, sting, or tingle anymore. My callouses are not too thick. I buff them when they get torn a little.

I keep all my nails short save for my numb left thumb. I grew to dislike the sound of my nails on the guitar and the upkeep they required. Flesh makes a pretty sound, and the tips of the fingers are my right hand are starting to feel just slightly tough on the ends.

I'm not finished with it yet, but really - read this book. Wait. I'm not supposed to say that.

This story is epic, detailed, intricate, richly detailed, and epic. 

I said epic twice. 

I adore this tale. I'm over half way through it and I anxiously await its continuation.

Rich stuff.

Okay, let me give this a serious try.

I am greatly impressed by the descriptions of fights, battles, and physical conflicts. I do not think I've ever read a fight described in such simple and vivid ways. I really saw the fight. I saw the conflict. That's no easy feat. 

I am impressed by the characters. How they grow, change, the distinct way in which they see the world and mature. 

The social and political battles. I have found myself at certain points of this book with my breath held rapt, whispering my anticipations out loud, and getting goose bumps. 

This is not the typical fantasy fare I've been exposed too. There's less magic and more ... Oh, I don't know the word. (Epic comes to mind.) 

Durham's Website

I want to create a card game. The refrain hasn't faded since it started this morning. I thought one based off Krae Virdani would be interesting, and I also thought I was thinking about a trading card game.

Hours of research have set me straight. Since I don't 1) have a large circle of friends to collect anything with and 2) don't care to sell it, I am probably thinking along the lines of a "dedicated" card game with an TCG feel. Like, you'd have all the cards, but still build a play deck from it. That's loose at the moment. 

I can't say I've ever played a trading card game. Sure, I've played a few rounds with my husbands M:tG cards, but those were his decks, and they were some mean decks. In fact, I can't touch them any more. (Something to do with beating the creator with his own deck, no doubt.) I have to build my own decks if I want to play, and I don't care to play that much.

Either way, the idea of creating a game has always lingered. I halt every time I start thinking of a computer game to create. No passion there. While thinking about ways to print the Nysidra cards I just finished (not a game, but still cards) the card game idea occurred to me.

I'm still doing research and jotting down notes. I think I know a theme I want to go with, but I have a few game-minded friends that I want to consult first: Jesterman, The Gnat, and Corkchop, to be precise. On this project, I actually know people who could provide insight into the mechanics. 

We'll see.

Yes. Easy Mode.

Let's begin from the beginning.

This week practice was rather... clunky. Take that along with my further listening to Judas Priest and picking out what I could and could not play with an acoustic. 

"Why don't you give up and play an electric guitar?" I asked myself.

Well? Why don't I? I promised myself that if I played guitar for 6 months and still enjoyed it, I could [get a guitar teacher, but I broke that rule so...] buy myself another / better guitar. Next month will be 6 months.

Ask your teacher, I chided. 

So I brought it up with him today. Should I just give it up and go with electric?
He stood up and handed me an electric guitar and plugged it in. "Play this for the session today," he told me.

I laughed the first few minutes. "Ladies and Gentlemen, Welcome to Easy Mode!" I thought to myself. My goodness, the thing is like butter under my fingers. Utterly effortless. No wonder I read all those recommendations to 'barely' press the strings. Well, you can't do that with Patience. Barely pressing her strings is what you do in order to make no sound at all.

That was strike one in Patience's imaginary coffin.

Strike two had to do with my ignorance. Yes. Ignorance. To yourself always be true and such.

"Why don't people play finger style on electric guitar?" I asked, seeing no significant difference as I played Blackbird. 

He began to explain and then I summed up his words.

"Prejudice? That's it? There's no real reason? You mean I can play fingerstyle with an electric just fine?!" <-- I'm typing that the way I felt it. I sounded more bewildered. Strike two, all the way. Nothing stopping me from fingerstyle, and if I want, bluegrass. Ignorance really, but since no one ever mentioned it, I thought there was some kind of actual impediment.

Live and Learn.

Strike three. Final blow.

We were discussing the Beatles and how Blackbird was the only song by the Beatles that I liked. I like plenty other Beatles songs, but I liked them as played by other people. The discussion moved to Yesterday, and he began to play the chords on my guitar. 

"Wow. Your guitar is hard to play."

Okay, I wouldn't say hard, but Patience certainly isn't easy mode. Without Patience, I wouldn't have these wicked callouses so quickly. I wouldn't have named her so aptly, and ... other stuff. Who knows. I don't regret having my guitar. Had to start somewhere.

It's just really time to move on. And why buy a nylon acoustic when an electric does the same thing, and plus some? Probably something to do with resonance and body and stuff, but um, yeah, not that important. 

I'll take easy mode now, and by now, I mean some time in June / July. I have to get back from Hawaii first.

I have been married 4 years today, happily so.

I'm thinking hard for something else add. Do I tell you my lackadaisical story of looking up marriage laws, going to the notary, and correcting him when he tried to tell me that he had to do anything other than sign my paper? Then we went across the street where I looked for the most simple silver bands available and bought two. May 15, 2004, 10am.

Do I think back to how the word 'husband' choked in my mouth? How I called him my "Beloved" my "spouse" my "room mate for life"?

I like my simple silver band. I'll probably upgrade to titanium one year, for kicks. I call him my husband freely, and without hesitation. 

Four years, and I remembered it was our anniversary when he said, "Happy Anniversary" a few hours ago as we stood outside cleaning up the aftermath of fixing his car.

"Oh, really? That's today?"

Yay us.