This Winter 2016 semester is winding down to a close. I have to attend one more class tomorrow night, and then next Tuesday is the final in another class. After that, my first year of grad school is done, and I have the summer off until September, when I begin my final year of any and all college ever again.
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| "Ricardo" Cordoba GK Studio classical |
But I have to thank Evie for one little thing. She insists that I play my acoustic guitar, to the point where she'll pick it up and bring it to me. She'll bat away at the strings on occasion but most of the time, she just walks away after I strum a couple of chords. But she makes me play it anyway.
You might have seen my recent project to clean up Madeleine (a very heavy-metal guitar, because it has pointy bits). I wouldn't have been inspired to do that had I not started playing again, and I wouldn't have started playing again had Evie not insisted upon it.
I started saving my allowance since the beginning of this year to do what I've wanted to do for a long time: buy an honest-to-goodness Gibson Les Paul just to be able to say that I own one (kinda' fell in love when we toured the Gibson factory in Memphis in 2007).
I don't intend to join any more bands or head out to jam nights at a bar. That's not in my lifestyle anymore. But call it a bit of a status symbol. And I was calculating about the end of this year that I'd have collected the cash to buy what I was looking at (and also proud of myself for planning the purchase with cash rather than credit). This weekend, I found a "blemished" item for about $400 less than its retail price, so I moved on it after thoroughly examining the shop's purchase/return policies and also exchanging messages with them.
Had Evie not demanded that I play, the LP might have remained an unattainable dream, and I wouldn't have thought to start saving part of my allowance every week. Or sell my bagpipes in order to generate additional funds for an instrument I WOULD play (the set that has remained in its case untouched since 2008, after I made the decision to return to college; see how all of this comes together?). The sale of the pipes pushed my savings to the point where I could move on the blem guitar.
So of course, to match the rest of the arsenal, it had to be the right color.
You might have seen my recent project to clean up Madeleine (a very heavy-metal guitar, because it has pointy bits). I wouldn't have been inspired to do that had I not started playing again, and I wouldn't have started playing again had Evie not insisted upon it.
I started saving my allowance since the beginning of this year to do what I've wanted to do for a long time: buy an honest-to-goodness Gibson Les Paul just to be able to say that I own one (kinda' fell in love when we toured the Gibson factory in Memphis in 2007).
I don't intend to join any more bands or head out to jam nights at a bar. That's not in my lifestyle anymore. But call it a bit of a status symbol. And I was calculating about the end of this year that I'd have collected the cash to buy what I was looking at (and also proud of myself for planning the purchase with cash rather than credit). This weekend, I found a "blemished" item for about $400 less than its retail price, so I moved on it after thoroughly examining the shop's purchase/return policies and also exchanging messages with them.
Had Evie not demanded that I play, the LP might have remained an unattainable dream, and I wouldn't have thought to start saving part of my allowance every week. Or sell my bagpipes in order to generate additional funds for an instrument I WOULD play (the set that has remained in its case untouched since 2008, after I made the decision to return to college; see how all of this comes together?). The sale of the pipes pushed my savings to the point where I could move on the blem guitar.
So of course, to match the rest of the arsenal, it had to be the right color.
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| "Madeleine" Jackson KE3 (standard D tuning*) |
"Ty" Conklin GT-5 |
This is a stock photo of what's coming:
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| "???" Gibson Les Paul Studio T |
It's entirely possible that I name this guitar "Evelyn," because she was pretty much responsible for this happening (and I'd have to use Evie's full name because there'd be no confusion then, since she has no idea who the hell "Evelyn" is anyway).
* Because standard D tuning makes it more metal, naturally.
