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A Hunting We Will Go

The time has come to finally get rid of my wife's 6 year old car: her much-loved G35 sedan. It's been a good car and a pleasure to own — but she's ready to get into something bigger and less car-like. So, we're going to haul off to the Infiniti dealer this afternoon and check out the 2009 FX35s. These are crazy-cool looking vehicles, let me tell you. To me, they're totally girly looking — but they have an awesomely feline and mildly mean-looking profile. She may go color opposite and get the brown, since she's kind of tired of white. We'll see.

I'm also hoping to replace my Nissan Titan with a Land Rover LR3 in the coming months — a vehicle I've been wanting for quite a while. Since the Land Rover place is so close to Infiniti, we'll swing by there, too, so I can see how well I fit in the thing. Being 6'4" and 225 pounds, I'm pretty picky about the cabin in my vehicles — but according to the specs, it's almost the same size as my TItan.

I've always like Land Rovers because I'm a fan of the geometry of their design, but a lot of people think they look like a box on wheels. Of course, I'm the guy that would be driving a Willys Jeep if I could find on in working condition, so the "military" squareness is right up my alley. But, you never know what'll happen when I get to see one up close and personal.

The biggest downside is that I have to deal with car dealers in the Texas summer heat...

Posted at 9:01am CDT | Permalink | Comments (2)

On A Tone Quest

Recently, I've begun tweaking my guitars with different capacitors to modify their tone's feel and quality, and I'm finding it to be dangerously addictive.

From a purely mechanical standpoint, if the tolerances are the close to the same, you'll not hear a whole lot of difference as far as the range of tone is concerned — between different types of capacitors of the same value, that is. However, the quality and feel of the tone is noticeably different between different types of capacitors. From ceramic to paper in oil, different materials will make your tone more bright or brittle, and others will sweeten and round it out.

I've spent the last week playing with some .022uF Tone Factory Vitamin Qs, and they really gave my Les Paul a more woody, rounded sound. Wired in the 50s style, my Les Paul has a great bark to it (no pun intended), and an overall warmer sound. When played with my high-gain effects, I get a nice rough sound, and great harmonic overtones.

That said, now that I'm mildly addicted to doing this, I'm trying out a few more "vintage" caps. The first up will be some Jupiter Beeswax Paper Foil caps, and I'll be giving the .022uF and .01uF caps a try. No pun is intended (again) but these beeswax caps — more so than other beeswax caps — are said to really sweeten the tone with nice lows and solid highs.

I'm also snagging some Sprague Vitamin Qs at .015uF, which are said to have a tighter tone than the Tone Factory Vitamin Qs. We shall see...

Posted at 3:33pm CDT | Permalink | Comments (1)

RAILhead Effects io Finalized

I've finalized the look for my io Super Distortion, and here it is:

For the curious, here's a gut shot showing off the uber-clean interior. All that's missing is the 9-volt battery holder I'll be installing in all my pedals.

Posted at 3:20pm CDT | Permalink | Comments (2)

The Peach Custom Fuzz Teaser

I'm finally ready to unveil the final artwork for my RAILhead Effects Peach Custom Fuzz, so here you go. Note, though, that these are just quick-n-dirty teaser pics, so the lighting is non-existent (thus the odd blue/white background). Regardless, you get the gist:

Here's an interior shot, showing off the most crisp and clean build I've ever seen in any pedal — if I may say so myself:

Posted at 3:52pm CDT | Permalink | Comments (1)

Wednesday, Miscellaneously

I hate writing User Manuals. I mean, it's not like it's hard to write or anything — it's just the idea of having to write them. I think knowing that I need to write them, rather simply wanting to write them, makes the whole thing annoying. At least I don't have a lot of them to do (they're for my effect pedals)...

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I got my Gretsch Country Club in Monday, and sweet fat on a stick, I'm in love. MUTHA! I love the action on this puppy — not to mention the sound, which is perfection in the neck position. I don't know if I'll ever let it leave the house, though.

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I'm getting closer and closer to opening for RAILhead Effects for business. We have a meeting with our CPA to finalize the good ol' Big Brother crap, and then we're good to go.

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One of the girl here at work is hacking up a lung. I'm getting sick just listening to her. And of course, the last thing I need to be is sick since I take Dad to his Dr. appointments every week. I really, really wish I could tell her to go home, but I can't — so maybe I'll just leave...

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I'm craving spaghetti squash for some reason.

Posted at 3:44pm CDT | Permalink | Comments (0)

Cycle 1, Day 7

We had our first "Fast Track" blood work lab today, 1 week after Dad's first chemo cycle. Everything is moving just as expected, so that's totally great. His white blood cell counts are on the way down, and his platelets dropped a bit — but that was expected. All of his other blood items were better than they were the 15th, which is nice.

I had been praying that over the weekend, Dad would begin to feel something happening with the mass in his chest. I prayed that he would keep it to himself until he knew, without a doubt, something really was happening — and at 9:30 on Saturday night, he called to tell me the lymph node under his arm shrinking, and that his breathing was also improved. He was also finally able to eat more. This was a total answer to prayer.

Since then, he's been doing great. He hasn't had any of the chemo side effects just yet, but we're expecting them to begin this week now that he's no longer taking the 5-day regimen of Prednisone. The Neulasta injection will be kicking-in — Neulasta being a drug that helps the body create white blood cells. Since this creation occurs in the bone marrow, you often feel aches and pain in your long bones and hips, which is where the highest concentrations of marrow are. This is also the week where his counts will be at their lowest, so he'll have to be extra cautious about what he does and who he goes around.

But all in all, things are starting off great — and we pray that God would continue to be merciful and compassionate as we walk through the next 6 months of treatment.

Posted at 5:55pm CDT | Permalink | Comments (1)

So Close, Yet So Far…

If there could only be one more day in this week, I would have my new Gretsch Country Club, but alas, the Gregorians were plotting against me even hundreds of years ago.

Posted at 3:28pm CDT | Permalink