Friday, August 19, 2005
Free at last!
My eight-and-a-half-year trist with JAU-mobile II is coming to an end.
(The JAU-mobile II got it name from being the second shoebox to bear the license license plate "JAU 220." JAU-mobile I was an '88 Ford Escort wagon that decided to blow its head gasket on New Year's Day, 1997.)
Oh, my beloved cherry-red (now fading to pink) Mazda 323 has seen me through 3 career changes, four cities, and 6 residences, it lost a window to a thief in Garfield Park and has lugged my entire life halfway across the state.
Just one week after I spent $340 for 2/3rds of a new exhaust system, the transmission started slipping. Then I thought, " I could spend $1200 to rebuild the transmission, $140 for an the annual city parking permit, and another $400 for a year's insurance. . .or I can rid myself of this money-sucker once and for all."
Seeing that my travel is 80% by bike, bus, or foot, I figured I should finally join the few, the proud: the carless.
Let's see, what to do about that other 20%?
I have those nerdy baskets on my bike, so I can just bike to the grocery store--which I should have done more of anyway.
To get back and forth to the city/suburbs, there's the train, and even better, there's a couple van sevices that are pretty cheap on weekends.
When I go out for a loal night on the town, other people usually drive anyway. If not, the bus, late night ride service and cabs are plentiful enough around here.
But. . . the question remains: which one of you guys can give me a ride to the laundromat?
Thursday, August 11, 2005
Giving in to lessons
Okay, after years of playing the guitar, I’m finally giving in and going to take lessons.
There’s a bunch of stuff you can learn on your own, then you reach a certain point when you either can’t learn much more by yourself, or you realize, "Geez, maybe I've been teaching myself all the wrong technique!"
I've actually been pretty careful of my technique, checking in with other players and getting DVDs and book from the library, but I've reached a phase in which I want to actually become a good player. I'm just kind of tired of playing other's people songs and playing pop music. I'd like to get to know the instrument a little better for composition purposes--I have music in my head that I just can't get into and out of the instrument.
I don't know, maybe being down in corn country I've also let the bluegrass thing get into my blood. . . no. . . I’ve always had a blues itch, and the bluegrass I've been hearing down here is a close cousin, rekindling the itch.
I think I resisted lessons because they were pretty expensive, but now that I'm out of the urban/suburban area, lessons by decent teachers are actually quite affordable.
Anyway, my instructor will be Lou DiBello at Corson's guitar store in downtown Urbana. I ran into him when I was browsing the classical guitars and he convinced me that some lessons would be worth a half hour a week (along with his minimum requirement of a half hour of practice five times per week).
Done. I'll start next month.
Years down the line good instruction will hopefully get me to that point where lessons can do me no more good, since I'll have mastered the techniques and theory, and learned the
proper way to teach myself.
