TubaOrNotTuba

This might be a good time to mention my favorite coffee mug. I know. Not a common thread. But if you drink a lot of coffee and do it over a long period of time you too might acquire a preference. In my case the mug was created a lifetime ago. Sometime around the time of the Korean conflict I think I have more than one of them and they have dates stamped into the base because these were former military surplus mugs I had an uncle that was in the forces and he gave us some one summer. They were created out of a material known in the industry as melmac. A sort of plastic I assume. And they are indestructible. You can even clean them by taking them down to the beach filling them full of sand and gently massaging until the coffee stains are gone. No ceramic here. What sets these mugs apart beyond the indestructible part is that they’re comfortable. Well balanced. Capable of keeping my coffee warm for a very long time. And if the mug falls on the floor I just have to clean up the liquid. The mug is and continues to be indestructible. They travel with us when we camp. I know I have seen those fancier mugs made of stainless steel but the reality is that they become too hot to hold if your coffee is hot and too cold to hold if your coffee is cold. This material is preferable on so many levels. The colour choices odd. I have one that is green and another that is yellow. I have seen other colours while checking out the prices on eBay but that was a while ago. Anyhow tell me about your preferred coffee mug.

I wish that I had more skill in telling stories. I mean I can read things for other people letting go in short bursts of creation but I want to be able to do more. However my take away from watching YouTube videos is that very few people are actually skilled at telling stories. Hours of narration but only minutes of content. Therefore I also tend to react to some of the funnier things that I see happening. For example there is one person who manages to always find a way to get lost and also to attract wild animals. That part does not always turn out well. Another has found that riding ferry boats randomly will take you to other parts of the world but then you have to find your way back home. I cannot imagine what the budget must be for some of this travel. Finding something to talk about every day comes with its own set of issues. No need to repeat myself because that will happen naturally. At least I have not had to seek out a copy of a thesaurus. Believe me some of the people on YouTube would be well served by such an acquisition. I have to wonder if they ever replay the videos they create. No matter. I am far from the moment where I am going to start creating a new channel with content that will amaze the world. Perhaps this is why so many people like to talk to their pets. Not with them. If your dog is responding to your thoughts you have a larger issue on your hands. Not wanting to point fingers. And although I listen carefully I have never received an intelligent thought from any of my own pets. Just an indication that more food will be appreciated and the sooner the better.

Having the rightful capillary is important. I am now trying to calculate what is the difference for musician between acting in a cover band or a tribute band. Remember most musicians perform covers of tunes written and performed by other people. Those in a tribute band tried to be more specific. They choose an artist and then they perform cover tunes of the music by that artist in part to mimic the original sound and at the outset to act as a tribute to the artist involved. I am truly not talking about something I know anything about. All of the music I performed in my earlier life came from sheets of tunes that had been written and performed by others. Sometimes centuries before my birth. At no point today go onstage and pretend that I was being as good and see original artist. My effort may have been attribute but I can assure you that handle or Beethoven never heard about my efforts. I guess that’s the point of this. In all comes down to history and where you sit on a continual timeline. If you are laying on your bag with guitar strumming a tune you are rarely performing either a cover or attribute. As my friend would say you’re simply noodling which has nothing to do with food. And anytime I have taken a recorder and played something that I felt really good about I was noodling in my own way. As you can guess I rarely have any exposure to live music. I live too far from the road as they used to say.

This morning I hoped to demonstrate their usefulness have a portable GPS to a family member. However the internal battery was completely discharged which means that I had good intentions and no results. Not to worry I know where I am and I was not going anyplace. We have other distractions right now. There is a very small human visiting. One that is still not at the point of telling us stories although that will come. Instead this is a pretest where the small human is still trying to figure out what on board systems function and what they do. If you hear a shriek that sounds like a fire alarm that is just a baby testing systems if you see a baby trying to fit a foot into the mouth that is just preparation for later moments in life. We all put our foot in their mouth eventually. If the baby reaches out with two hands equipped with small razor blades I think that is just a moment of testing to see if other humans will bleed. Just a theory. Outside the rain is starting. There is a strong possibility of a thunderstorm although I will wait for the sound and lights. As I mentioned earlier my weather forecasts are generated in Toronto and without boots on the ground we get and educated guess nothing more. Actually the rain has already started to fall. A classic demonstration of a shower. If we do get thunder I have found a thunder shirt to help to ease the stress of one of the two dogs that are visiting. Unsure if the shirt will fit.

Right now we have two dogs visiting with us. Volume is just a normal filled with joy Labrador. No food is safe. The other is somewhat older. Somewhat def. Somewhat blind. No warnings are given when the older dog decides to change course to position under your feet so you had best be up to your finest dancing skills. I have not fallen yet but today is young. However the sense of smell is still keen and so carrying a piece of cold pizza will buy me a moment of safety. Yes I will run out of pizza and I will have to find an alternative measure. Right now we are waiting on repairs to a Jeep. I cannot claim to understand all the technical aspects but the deal seems to be that the rear axle has to be dropped. Then the coil spring will be properly seated back in place and the axle will be placed back in its place and then all will be fine. As you can imagine I have been spending time trying to visualize how this happens. It makes me think back to the days my father repaired our station wagon while parked over the top of a deep ditch. There were several long 2 X 4 pieces of lumber involved in the process. And it worked although again I was not the one doing the heavy hauling. For those who have newer cars you will never know the joy of getting down and dirty with the mechanical parts. This is how some people spend their vacation time. In retrospect we have never being faced with large mechanical adjustments to any of the cars we have owned over the years. Proof that we are lucky.

The law is the law. Sort of. Recently I have been following a podcast by a lawyer in the United States who takes the time to examine some of the rulings made by the courts and how they have historical precedent or not. In other words what someone thinks the law means will still have to be interpreted. Hence the whole idea of having a judge. You know, to judge. I have relatively little experience with the law. Yes mommy I have been a good boy. But I am fascinated to watch the pre verifications that are offered. If you do not like what the law says shop around. There may be a different court with a different judge who will then give you the remedy you so desire. Hardly a firm foundation for society but this is what we get when we allow different parties to play. Is it a good thing that law can change? For sure. I do not want to return to the older system of an eye for an eye. Particularly when my eyes are no longer as good as someone else is. I will continue to follow the line of thought offered in this podcast because it brings me to a place that I had never considered. You know, that the law is not simply the law. I have no plan to begin a life of conflict with society but I do want to know what possibilities exist. In passing I am unsure just how this nation handles the mysteries of law. We also have a Supreme Court and legislatures but beyond that point there is a great fog. I will continue to study. If only for the intellectual pleasure it brings.

The law is the law. Sort of. Recently I have been following a podcast by a lawyer in the United states who takes the time to examine some of the rulings made by the courts and how they have historical precedent or not. In other words what someone thinks the law means will still have to be interpreted. Hence the whole idea of having a judge. You know, to judge. I have relatively little experience with the law. Yes mommy I have been a good boy. But I am fascinated to watch the pre verifications that are offered. If you do not like what the law says shop around. There may be a different court with a different judge who will then give you the remedy you so desire. Hardly a firm foundation for society but this is what we get when we allow different parties to play. Is it a good thing that law can change? For sure. I do not want to return to the older system of an eye for an eye. Particularly when my eyes are no longer as good as someone else is. I will continue to follow the line of thought offered in this podcast because it brings me to a place that I had never considered. You know, that the law is not simply the law. I have no plan to begin a life of conflict with society but I do want to know what possibilities exist. In passing I am unsure just how this nation handles the mysteries of law. We also have a Supreme Court and legislatures but beyond that point there is a great fog. I will continue to study. If only for the intellectual pleasure it brings.

There are two schools of thought according to what I have learned. There are those who believe that only a chosen few are able to sing and there are those who believe that everyone can sing in one way or another. My own life experience puts me clearly in the middle of the pack. I actually used to be paid to sing for children while trying to convince them that they were singing for me. Anyhow all through my life I have been exposed to the techniques and results of a lot of different singers. Only now am I starting to recognize things that have always been there right in front of me. I have been listening two vocal analysis videos where someone who understands the technology and the technique tries to make it clear to the rest of us. Fascinating. Not all the examples are recent. Some of the lessons take examples from songs and singers that I have been listening to for a lifetime. Without actually recognizing some of the nuances. Hearing the examples now with explanations of what I am actually listening to opens a whole world of study. As it happens I have not spent much time singing over the last few years but maybe I should start again. Not because of my excellent technique but because of my better understanding of the whole world of sound production. I will keep my efforts private for now. If you happen to hear me seeing you are far too close. I will have to practice if only to keep my own interest alive.

There it is again. The unmistakable hiss of a radio. I know exactly which radio. A small receiver that sits on the shelf in the other room. And the hiss begins every day at exactly the same time. Just loud enough to be noticed but not much of a nuisance. I have learned over the years that you can program devices to do things at the same time each day. Think of it as an alarm if you will. But I cannot find how to turn it off. I mean I can turn the radio off but that is not the problem. Each time that I push the power off I am simply resetting my problem for another 24 hours. The building display tells me nothing other than the power is on. The manual that comes with the radio tells me nothing of use. So I am left with a mystery. If I remove the battery it might reset the function. Or not. It might just change things to another moment in the day when I am not paying attention. So I’m going to let things go and treat this as a lesson in life. We can respond to the things that alarm us but we do not always find an obvious solution. I consider myself fortunate because it is a radio and it could be tuned to some awful background music. A simple white noise is nothing more then something that could help me sleep under other circumstances. And for those who need to know this is happening every afternoon. Which means that I will find an answer. At a moment when I least expect it. Not going to get too upset with a small hissing sound. I will save that for snakes and deflating tires.

The best kind of day is one where you learn something new. Not necessary for the information to be important but new. And so a few minutes ago I learned that there are different kinds of golf balls. Not just colours. Actual differences in the way they roll and the way they respond to being hit. I had heard of those fancy chalk ones they explode when you hit them but that wasn’t what this was about. Some of the golf ball manufacturers have full test facilities. Laboratories. I do not golf. Take that as a starting point but now I want to know if the same strategy of having differences in the balls. Applies to other sports Are there hockey pucks they’re just a little bit different? What about tennis balls? How about badminton birdies? Actually I know that one a little bit. Some of the shuttles have feathers and some of them have fancy plastic. But that wasn’t the point of this all. You can say that you practice a given sport but if the basic equipment changes from person to person is it even possible to make judgments about either your own or collective skill level. I will have to put some research into this question. Call me challenged. And for the record I have no long term expectations about learning to play any of these sports. That part of my life is an earlier chapter. Right now I just want to make sure that when I get hit by a golf ball it is one of the soft ones that leaves no lasting mark on me. Is that too much to ask?