Did it have to be Friday the 13th?

Lisa awakened me at 6:30 on a Tuesday morning complaining that she couldn't breath and had already been up for two hours fretting about it so she didn't want to wait until 8:30 when the clinic opened. I took her to the ER (at the hospital in Llano, 20 minutes from here). The doctor took a chest x-ray and sent her home with an antibiotic, cough suppressant and an anti-inflammatory. Thursday afternoon I came down with whatever-the-heck-it was so Friday (the 13th) she drove me to the ER (at the VA hospital in Temple, a little over 2 hours from here but substantially more affordable). The VA doctor had my chest x-rayed and sent me home with an antibiotic, cough suppressant and an anti-inflammatory. Neither doctor gave the condition a name but both appeared to have seen it before.

On the way home from Temple an idiot hauling a front end loader on a monstrous trailer pulled across the road in front of us, completely blocking the highway. Lisa, who was driving, managed to come to a full stop without hitting the trailer. The guy behind us was less fortunate. He rear-ended our car. The car is history, that's what the wrecker driver figured anyway. After calling 911 to report the accident we called our daughter Lily and, in relatively short order, our son-in-law, Kirk, arrived and drove us home (Thanks Kirk!).

As of tonight (Sunday) we've both got sore muscles in our necks but are otherwise alive, well and slowly recovering from our respiratory conditions. Tomorrow we'll go to the clinic and have our necks looked at.

It's all well and good to live in interesting times but, honestly, we'd much prefer having the words 'drama' and 'trauma' remain a little more abstract than they've been of late.

Sheesh.

The Army is still changing my life (thanks uncle Sam).

About eighteen months ago I started having asthma-like symptoms. I thought my childhood asthma has decided to revisit me in my golden years. At first the symptoms were mild and non-threatening but they gradually became more intense. After a kilo-dollar trip to the ER where they gave me a fifty cent Albuterol treatment with a nebulizer (lets talk about the rising costs of medical care) I went to the clinic in Llano. She gave me a prescription for Albuterol (we already had a nebulizer machine at home) which is very inexpensive and a rescue inhaler (Albuterol in a very small aerosol can for $40 ostensibly due to an exotic but necessary propellant) and that worked just fine for a few months. I scrounged an extra nebulizer machine to wag around in the van in case I had an "attack" while I was playing a gig and wound up using it on several occasions but my symptoms continued to become more frequent and more intense. I made another visit to the clinic and asked my PA if I was going to wind up needing a nebulizer treatment every four hours for the rest of my life. She gave me some samples of Advair and made it clear that she couldn't treat me for long with samples. Advair worked great and I only had to use it twice a day but a quick trip to drugstore.com showed me that it was going to cost around $400 a month. That was going to be a serious monetary obstacle for us. A few years ago I needed a complete physical and when the local clinic explained that it would cost several hundred dollars, reasoning that it was bound to be at least somewhat less expensive, I drove to the VA hospital in Kerville and got the most thorough physical I've ever had in my life for a grand total of $25. So, I said to myself. "Self, it's time to go see the VA again". I was able to get the forms online and fill them out. We had to drive to Temple (a little over two hours from here) but I'm getting superlative treatment and, so far, it hasn't cost me anything at all. My asthma-like symptoms have been diagnosed as COPD, I've had some minor skin cancers removed and I'm soon to be fitted for a CPAP machine to treat my mild sleep apnea.

Oh Goody, Another Presidential Election

Maybe it's age related but having seen a few presidential races, they no longer seem significant to me. As always, both candidates are idiots because that's how our political system works. Nobody who's qualified to be a good politician wants any part of the job and, conversely, anybody who wants political power is manifestly unqualified to be in possession of same.

So, one or the other idiot will win the election and then he'll proceed to make countless mistakes which may or may not contribute to the mess our nation has become. He may or may not get caught with his hands, feet, or other anatomical protuberances in a socially or morally inappropriate place and four years from now we'll all get together to decide whether or not we want to elect yet another idiot or stick with the same idiot for the next four years. Et cetera, ad nauseam.

The simple truth is that the President of the United States, who is generally considered to be the single most powerful man in the world, is powerless to change anything or, for that matter, do any lasting damage.

We may or may not have a worldwide depression, things will get better, worse, or stay about the same.

I plan on hanging around for as long as I can, to keep an eye on things, but I've long since outgrown the naive belief than my opinion, or my vote, is going to make the slightest difference in the way things are; any more than a single iron molecule could alter the course of a battleship.

Will I vote? Yes, probably. Have I picked a candidate? Yes, but my wife likes the other guy so we may simply agree to abstain together.

Maybe Having Kids Is A Bad Idea After All

When my daughter was five years old her mother Karen (her maiden name was Knight) and I divorced. We only had one car and I left it with her when she asked me to leave. I took only my musical equipment and clothing. I didn't hire myself a lawyer for the divorce, I hired a lawyer for Karen and paid him in advance. She got the house, everything in, on or around it, the car and custody of our daughter Catrina. I think Karen managed to break even on the car but she sold the house for enough to clear several thousand dollars in profit and liquidated everything in/on/around the house in a garage sale.

When Catrina was about 13 she decided she wanted to live with me. After a protracted battle, Karen capitulated and allowed her to come live with me on condition that I not ask her to pay child support. I couldn't have cared less about the money but I did insist that Karen sign a waver on the child support I was paying her. Karen did, in fact, sign a temporary child support waiver. A few short years later, my second wife, Kathy, and Catrina declared open war on one another. They refused to compromise, or even discuss their differences. At my wits end, I finally decided that my only option was to send Catrina back to her mother.

Catrina moved out, Karen rescinded the temporary waiver, and the state promptly came after me for back child support for the entire time Catrina lived with me. Of course there was no way I could pay it and I was self employed so they couldn't garnish my wages. I asked Karen to please do something about this. She agreed it was unfair but insisted there was nothing she could do.

After the shop closed I worked at one or another entry level job for the next few years and the state always took a little out of my meager check to apply to my back child support which, by this time, with penalties and interest, had grown to around $26,000.00. Karen agreed it was unfair but continued to insist there was nothing she could do about it. I finally started taking odd and part-time jobs that paid cash and that's how things stood until a few months ago when I decided to see if a lawyer could do anything to help me. I'd tried to hire a lawyer on several occasions over the years but they'd all refused me the minute I said the words "child support". This time I got lucky.

Linda Bayless, a brilliant lawyer from Kingsland Texas, acquired the records from the state of Texas, did some research and advised me that, in fairness, I owed Karen about $3,000 if you subtracted the child support she was morally (if not legally) obligated to pay me from the child support I owed her. She then made one phone call and the $26,000.00 the state was demanding suddenly dropped to $10,000.00. Karen, of course, declined to concede that she owed me any child support for the time Catrina lived with me so $10,000.00 it remains today. She'll get it eventually, but I'm in no hurry to accelerate the process. Am I wrong to feel this way?

Thus begins a chapter of our life.

On Tuesday the fifteenth of July at around 2 PM, quietly, in her sleep, my mother died.

Thus ends a chapter of our life.

The Perfect One-Night Stand

Years ago, over a dozen years into a marriage that remained stubbornly dysfunctional despite our best efforts, I met a nice lady while I was playing a gig in a beer joint. All evening, during my breaks, we talked, flirted and laughed together. After the show was over and my equipment was all packed away I sat with her until closing time. Just before the bar closed she told me she'd been separated from her husband for six months and wasn't interested in an emotional attachment but would be delighted to have sex with me. I was utterly stunned. Here was a confident, mature, uninhibited, attractive woman who wasn't looking for a serious relationship, didn't have a hidden agenda, was totally free of any emotional tax who wanted to have sex with me. The legendary, perfect one-night stand had suddenly happened to me, of all people. She had her own place right down the street from the bar so I followed her home and... well, it was about as good as two willing and experienced people who don't really know one another could make it. In other words, it wasn't very good. Live and learn.

I Now Pronounce You Man and Wife

When I was a child comic books were one of the profound joys in my life. I well recall how pleased I was with the first issue of Spiderman, but that's another story. One of the ads which appeared in the back of almost every comic book I bought in the late fifties and early sixties offered to make anyone an ordained minister for the princely sum of ten dollars. Fast forward to around 2006 when I came across the Universal Life Church on the internet. They looked mysteriously familiar. I can't swear they're the same folks who were in the back of the comic books but, thinking they probably were, feeling nostalgic about it and because it's free these days (instead of being $10), I applied and received my certificate of ordination. I printed it out on card stock, then I carefully reduced the image and printed out another copy for my wallet. A few weeks back, just joking around, I showed the wallet card to some friends and, to my surprise, was asked to perform the wedding ceremony by a young couple I know. I then checked with the courthouse to find out that, yes, I can legally marry people.

Today I performed that ceremony and was profoundly moved by the experience. While freely admitting that my track record with marriage isn't all it could be, I remain a strong believer in the sanctity and power of marriage. I believe that marriage marks the beginning of life's most precious journey. I won't reprint the entire service here, though I may eventually post it to my website, but here are the words which were so powerful that saying them moved me almost to tears.

"By the power of your love for one another, before God and in accordance with the laws of the state of Texas I now pronounce you man and wife. You may now seal your union with a kiss"

I've played the guitar in front of thousands of people without feeling the least bit nervous but officiating over the marriage of two young people with perhaps a hundred onlookers was terrifying and yet exhilarating beyond description. My authenticity as a Reverend may be ethically questionable but this wedding was as real as it gets (and 100% legal in the state of Texas). Life is good, love is wonderful.

The Great Castell Kayak Race

I had a very interesting gig last Saturday. My friend Jerialice hired me to run sound for The Great Castell Kayak Race. Entertainment was provided by David Lewis Morgan, David Byboth, Ross Vick of Trueheart and Joe King Carrasco.

David Morgan, David Byboth and Ross Vick all appeared sans-band, with acoustic electric guitars and I was fortunate enough to be permitted to accompany each of them during their performances. I've known David Morgan for a while and have become familiar with most of his songs but I'd never met, or heard, David Byboth or Ross Vick. They each risked having their performance degraded by permitting me to accompany them. Both are powerful and experienced performers with fully developed and complex styles so it was relatively easy for me to 'feel the groove' and blend into the mix though Ross has a love of subtle key changes which add wonderful depth to his songs but were a serious challenge for a cold follower. His chord structures are coherent and exciting so I got a little carried away on a couple of his tunes (sorry Ross).

Joe King Carrasco brought his band and they did a fabulous job. As a genuine Texan-By-Choice I love all the flavors of Texas music which include, though aren't limited to, Country, Rock, Rockabilly, Blues, Bluegrass, Tejano and Conjunto. Joe and his band are a wonderful blend of all these and more. They're accomplished musicians with no protruding egos and in combination their performance manages to be smooth, polished and professional while achieving the seemingly contradictory feat of being high-energy with the sort of slightly jagged edges that make live music so incredibly much more fun than recorded music.

I bought CD's from everyone on stage (except David Morgan who doesn't yet have a CD) and brought them home.

My Mind's Eye by David Byboth

The Road by Trueheart (Ross Vick)

Hot Sun by Joe King Carrasco

Y'all rock on and thanks a million.

Clueless is do-less

Trying to fix a computer for Missy's boyfriend, giving my grandson guitar lessons, trying to learn about blogging software, trying to learn about file servers, playing two-piece gigs with Ely, four piece gigs with Jerry or Fermin, helping Jerialice with sound at her Songwriters in the Round meetings, mowing the Benson's place every week, getting the ezine completed and published, taking care of mom...

Wow, and there's way more on my 'pending projects' list.

If there were three of me I'd be no better off because those other two bastages would be 'cherry picking' all the easy jobs and I'd just get stuck with the scut work.

I wash dishes, do laundry, run errands, shop for groceries, sharpen things (mower blades, axes, hoes, chisels, knives and/or scissors), do much of the cooking, change mom's diapers and try to do the occasional odd job while I'm at it.

Lisa's been after me to hang some grow lights for her African Violets. I think I've got all the hardware bought but I'm still pondering the details of getting it done. Once I feel certain I know what I'm doing, and how I intend to get it done, I get right on it but I do sometimes spend rather a long time thinking it over. Like an artist waiting for the muse, I'm a slightly challenged handyman waiting for a clue.

Time, life and distributions.

The days cascade into one another and I look up once in a while to discover that another week, few weeks, month, few months have passed. It seems impossible, I was only distracted for a few seconds. Where does the time go? Does it swirl away, in a counter-clockwise spiral, into some mysterious rabbit hole? Am I really so terribly late?

Mom's just gotten re-certified for Hospice care. It's somehow very significant to medical people (I don't waste time trying to fathom that); what it means to us is that a nurses aid comes in three days a week and bathes mom (we love our "bath lady"!), a nurse comes in once a week and takes mom's vital signs and. best of all, a social worker drops by about once a month and listens to our troubles. I don't suppose there's much of anything she could do to help us but she listens, she's sympathetic, she commiserates with us and I always feel better afterwards. Lisa was born Catholic so it's probably not a big deal to her but I think maybe I understand how it feels to have gone to confession and "unloaded". I expect Catholic priests and social workers are far more cognizant than I of just how similar their jobs can be. Carol (the social worker) doesn't cross me or mutter words of absolution but the net effect is probably about the same.

One of the fellows on the SATLUG email list insists that we Linux users should all give thanks to saint iGNUcious. My response is "Ok, but first, what distro is he using?".

A friend was complaining about the fact that there are hundreds of different Linux distros making it very difficult to figure out which one is best suited to your needs. My only comment was "Have you bought a car lately?". Too many choices can be awfully confusing but it's vastly superior to the alternative.

Hillary Who?

This is a significant day in Texas. Why? Because it's election day and why, you ask, is that significant? Because it means no more canned telephone calls from Hillary on behalf of herself, Bill on behalf of Hillary, Sally Fields on behalf of Hillary, legions of nameless campaign workers on behalf of Hillary and no more glitzy junk mail from the Clinton campaign.

I don't know squat about politics but I'm certain that nothing presented to me by the time honored tradition of media blitz can be trusted. I'll admit that I don't watch television or read newspapers so I don't know whether or not the Clinton campaign has gone the entire distance with their campaign but I do know that I've been awakened at least four times in the last couple of weeks by automated telephone calls in support of Hillary and I foresee many more such calls if she wins the nomination. I'll do whatever I can to prevent that.

Heck, I don't even know (or care) which party I'm registered with but I do have a voter registration card in my wallet and I'm darn well going to use it this evening to vote for whomever is opposite Hillary Clinton (if she's on my ballot) simply because whomever that is hasn't awakened me from a sound sleep in the attempt to promote their campaign and I fully support anyone who runs a peaceful, quiet campaign. I'm not hard to get along with as long as you don't disturb my sleep.

Ok, there are other reasons, like, how can I support a woman who "just lays there" when her spouse in unfaithful? She kept totally quiet in order to distance herself from his indiscretions but she should have thrown his arse out of the White House. Some women keep quiet because they're afraid but I'm pretty sure Hillary isn't afraid.

My wife says "Hillary already had her chance in the White House and she blew it".

I say "If she doesn't lose I'll have to become a campaign worker for the opposition".

Nuff said.

Born again eh?

It's really hard for me to relate to religious extremists. The only thing I'm extreme about is being tolerant. A person's religious beliefs, or lack of religious beliefs, is no more or less important to me than the pigmentation of their hair, eyes or epidermis. A couple of times I've had this mental flash of standing in line as a bodiless soul, with a large group of bodiless souls, in front of the fabled pearly gates while a fellow who looks like a cross between an Army drill sergeant and an angel is saying "You have the right to remain apostate. Nothing you say will make a difference. You have the right to a messiah. If you cannot select a messiah one will be appointed by the Deity." I suppose some folks might find this to be a frightening thought but I'm a veteran. I can stand in one more line as many times as it takes. No big deal.

Let's see, where was I? Oh yeah, I was talking about religious extremists. This morning one of our neighbors made a comment about a mutual acquaintance being a "Born Again Christian" and before I could stop myself I commented "Ooh, that's gotta hurt!".

Don't get me wrong here, I don't mean to imply that everyone who considers themselves to have been "Born Again" is an extremist but it's certainly true that a fair number of them are and it's equally true that, for the rest of my life, any time someone tells me they're a "Born Again Christian" I'm going to have to bite my tongue.

When I hear a funny one-liner or short commentary it's really hard for me to avoid using it at inappropriate moments and it's even more difficult when it came from my own dubious gray matter.

Here's an example from someone else "Jesus loves me but he can't stand you". I don't know who wrote it, but I love it. I can't think of another sentence I've worked so hard to resist repeating. If you repeat it, remember, you've got to use a whiny, facetious voice, ok?

Lisa says I'll probably get death threats for posting this but I figure most people are smart enough to see the difference between a little ribbing and being hateful. I'm not hateful, I don't have it in me. Am I religious? Yes, sorta. Can we discuss it? No.

Nuff said.

Good morning poopy diaper.

Thus dawns the much awaited day of Llano's Heritage Festival. I'll be playing on the courthouse square with my favorite drummer (my daughter Lily) and my favorite bass player (the inimitable Mr. Pat Gibbons) beginning at 1:00 PM and my custom-made, left-handed guitar returned from Ohio (Jay Pawar is my hero, thank you Jay, the refret is superlative) yesterday so I am going to bring the house down.

Nevertheless, I still had to clean mom up and change her diaper this morning. Nothing brings you back to earth any quicker than a poopy diaper. *sigh*

Anyway, I made a nice quiche for breakfast, which is in the oven as I type this, and the momma-sitter will be here in an hour or so. Barring unforeseen catastrophes Lisa and I will have a pleasant day of love, laughter and lots of photographs.

Otherwise, we will cope with whatever comes along. Bring it on.

Still muddling along

Mom broke her right hip about eight weeks ago and, following a brief stay in the hospital (in Fredericksburg, TX), she spent the next seven weeks mostly in a wheelchair. A few days ago she started physical therapy and is moving all over the house just fine with her walker, as long as she's supervised. I don't think she's quite ready to solo yet but things are pretty much back to what passes for normal around here.

My granddaughter Amanda posted something about a test at OkCupid so I went and took the one I could find only I'm not sure I got the right test because my results didn't look like hers (and she didn't give a link). They sent me an email to a link where they listed hundreds of potential mates. That's a little like winning the lottery after you joined a church that forbids gambling. I also noticed that one or two of those "potential mates" were men. I wonder what they're trying to imply?

Meanwhile, Lisa found the list of categories that men and women are sorted into by this test (at the bottom of the results page) and has been reading them aloud to me while I'm typing. Some of them are hilarious.

I'm so grateful to be happily married. Being single is the scariest thing I can imagine.

Sometimes Love is a Boadacious Breakfast

I slept late this morning and when I did get out of bed, brush my teeth, comb my hair and get dressed I sat and checked my email even before I went looking for a cup of coffee.   Sometimes I'm a slow starter.   Anyway it occurred to me that Lisa had been up for a while and was busy getting mom up rather than working on breakfast, even though she always wakes up starving so I decided she should have some banana nut pancakes (a particular favorite).   She saw what I was doing and suggested I add a couple of the fresh peaches our friend Pam brought us and, just for grins, I microwaved a handfull of dehyrated apricots in a half cup of water and threw them in too.

We got several batches of plums from our neighbor's tree this year and after I worked up the last batch I had seven cups of juice. It takes six cups to make plum jelly and I already had several batches put up but I hated the thought of having an entire cup of juice left over so I divided what I had into two 3½ cup batches, put one of them in the fridge in a covered container, added 2½ cups of unsweetened apple juice to what I had left and simply followed the directions for plum jelly.   It didn't set so I wound up with four pints of plum syrup.

A few days later I made a wheat-free chocolate cake.   Powdered sugar contains corn syrup and corn products are highly toxic to Lisa so a traditional butter cream frosting, consisting of powdered sugar and butter, is out of the question.   We've tried to produce a decent frosting using regular sugar but we've had no luck so far with that.   Then I remembered the "plum sauce" I got from my last attempt at jelly so I opened a jar and poured that over the cake.   Wow!   Serendipity is sometimes good stuff you know?   So, yesterday I remembered the 3½ cups of plum juice which was in the fridge, even though I'd intended to throw it away when my last batch of jelly didn't set but, having discovered "plum syrup", I got everything together and made myself another batch and that's what we had on our peach-apricot-banana-pecan pancakes this morning.   Life is good y'all.

Don Crowder

On the vagaries of domestic tranquility.

Lisa's been working on a website for her Llano Master Gardeners group and, naturally, she wanted to use all sorts of CSS tricks that I don't know anything about so I had to show her how to quickly and easily find CSS data by googling for information on specific features, anywhere you can find it, rather than a frustrating search of a single site when you can't find the keyword that leads to the data you want or a long and frustrating round of reading tutorials that never mention whatever it is you're looking for.   Then, if she found information and couldn't understand it I had to read it and explain it to her and then when she got it to do whatever she wanted it to do I had to admire it and compliment her on it.   I'm not allowed to be busy when she wants me to help her with something; I can help her with whatever it is she wants help with or I can pay, and pay, and pay for the next week or longer.   Nor am I allowed to distract her when she's busy; I can quietly leave her alone or I can pay, and pay, and.... *sigh* anyway, I've learned all sorts of new CSS tricks that I truly didn't want to know and getting the most recent issue of our ezine and personal news page finished was fun and challenging.


She insists that I mention how distracting I was while she was working, constantly bothering her with questions or wanting her to watch some video on YouTube.   I don't remember any of that but she did say that so I'm mentioning it.


I'm sweating bullets over the next post to my lockergnome blog.   It's entitled "How You Can Try Linux" and it's supposed to be a simple, clear, understandable explanation of all available ways and means by which an average citizen can get a first hand look at Linux.   There are lots of choices, enough to be really confusing, and I can't change that so I've got to explain each of them simply enough that an average person who knows nothing about Linux will have no trouble selecting an option that suits him or her.   Nothing to it, but it may take me a few more days.


I made another trip (my third) to the clinic in Llano the other day and our favorite PA, Joanna Schork, loaded me up with advair, singulair, levaquin and nasonex.   For the first time in months I'm starting to feel better.   On both of my previous visits to the clinic I called in and took whomever I could get because I felt so bad and Joanna wasn't available on either of those occasions.   She's certainly made a believer of me now; if she isn't available the next time I'm miserable I'll make an appointment for whenever she will be available and simply continue being miserable for as long as necessary.   Nuff said.


Don Crowder

Am I Reigning or Raining and Where's the Parade?

Because of changes in my mother's medical condition, Social Services has requalified us for respite care on Monday and Thursday afternoons.   It's a real luxury for us to be able to go somewhere together for a change even if it's just running errands and grocery shopping.   Lisa wants a rose trellis and the flimsy, crummy prefabbed trellis they sell at the lumber company is really overpriced so we decided to build our own.   On our last respite care day we took my old pickup truck to town, because it's the only thing we've got with room to haul building materials.   After we got to town the lower radiator hose developed a leak but we were only a few blocks from the shop which maintains our vehicles and we drove straight there.   The mechanic wasn't interested in working on it until it had cooled off a little so we made a half-hour hike to the nearest fast food place and soaked up the air conditioning for an hour before walking back and picking up the truck.   Because of the lost time we weren't able to finish all of our shopping but that just gives us something to do on our next respite care day.   That night I slow cooked a medium sized brisket in the oven overnight in a covered roaster.   The next day I let the cooked brisket cool for a couple of hours before removing it from the roaster and placing it in an aluminum foil basket in order to reheat it on the grill (allowing it to stay nice and tender while picking up some smoke flavor) but I found I didn't have any Mesquite wood left.   Mesquite wood makes the worlds best BBQ, no true Texan would dream of using anything else in the grill but there are affluent Texans who simply purchase Mesquite charcoal.   I'm not so affluent but every vacant lot in the neighborhood has Mesquite trees on it and most of those trees have dead limbs on them which is where I get firewood for the grill, by breaking off the dead limbs.   Mesquite is a particularly tough hardwood and a dead limb that's around 2 inches in diameter which hasn't aged enough to be suitable for BBQ cannot be broken, by me at least, and that's how I determine whether or not a dead limb is suitable for firewood.   I look for dead limbs that are around 2 inches in diameter and, when I find one, I give it a good yank; if it breaks cleanly it's firewood; if it doesn't I move on.   When I gather firewood I always get more than I need and the extra gets saved for next time.   Anyway, my firewood pile was empty, I was in a hurry and all the Mesquite trees in our immediate neighborhood are pretty well picked over but there was one 5 inch dead limb, about three feet long (I broke off the rest of it a couple of years ago) in a tree right across the street which I figured ought to be aged enough I could break it off.   I found a piece of rope, tied myself a lariet, walked across the street and was able to rope the limb right out on the end, where I'd have maximum leverage, on the first throw. I thought "Hot dog, I'm on a roll!", pulled the lariet tight and yanked down as hard as I could; it barely even moved.   It wasn't going to break off, nosir.   I left the rope hanging while I walked back across the street to get my bow saw and a lightweight six-foot aluminum step ladder.   I set up the ladder, climbed up and as I placed my saw for the first cut something shifted under one of the back legs and the other back leg totally caved in, bringing down the ladder, and me with it.   As I fell, I tossed the bow saw aside, knowing I didn't want to land on those wicked sharp teeth, and tried to squirm into a position that would miss the ladder but I didn't have much success.   I was able to roll as I hit the ground but my left leg and foot both hit the ladder hard enough to be well bruised.   Nothing was broken but it hurt like the dickens.   I limped back across the street, grumbling and cursing, and got my much sturdier 8 foot alluminum step ladder.   This time there were no surprises, I sawed a little over half-way through the limb, climbed down, moved the ladder, gave the rope a strong yank and down it came.  About an hour later we had Mesquite smoked beef brisket with brown and wild rice, Portabella mushroom gravy and green beans for supper and all was well with the world.


That was several days ago; by now, my foot's ok but my leg is still awfully tender.

Got Guitar?

My left-handed guitar was built for me, to my own specifications, by Jay Pawar back in 1994.   That was the year before he helped found Pawar Guitars and it was a sweet sounding monster-axe from day one.   I never owned a guitar that played so nicely or sounded so good and it'll do country twang, hard rock, heavy metal or smooth jazz with a combination of technique and electronics so I like to think that my guitar may have played a part, however modest, in the creation of the guitars he's building today.   This year, my Pawar is thirteen years old and its frets are all but worn out.   With a Strat or Tele style instrument it would be relatively simple to replace the bolt-on neck but my Pawer has a bonded neck so its frets must be replaced and while that's not a great deal more expensive, a skilled luthier is required to do a proper job of it, this is my baby we're talking about, this is the only electric guitar I own (why would I need anything else?) and I have gigs every week.   Fortunately I've had most of the parts needed to assemble a left-handed strat-copy buried in a box out in the shed since 1997 when someone gave me one that was in pretty sad shape and, because the parts needed to fix it weren't expensive, I ordered them.   In the back of my mind I was thinking about becoming one of those fellows who has two guitars on stage and swaps between them every so often but somehow it was just never the right time to put that guitar together until now.   I gotta have something to play while my baby's in the hospital so the strat copy is finally all assembled and only needs a little bit more fine tuning of it's action and intonation to be ready to boogie.   I should finish it up tomorrow but honestly, I don't have my heart in it.   I'm going to miss my Pawar and therein lies another interesting story.


Dan Erlewine is perhaps the most well known luthier in the world and, because I'm not about to let just anybody touch my baby I began my research on a refretting job with two emails; one to Dan and one to Jay Pawar c/o the website's dealer service email address (the only address I could find on the site).   Dan was real nice about it but the plain truth is that I can't afford his work so I contacted Dan's cousin Mark at Erlewine Guitars in Austin (TX) who's rates were pretty much the same as Dan's.   A little more research turned up Jeff Rice of Intown Guitar Repair in Greenville, South Carolina.   Jeff used to live in Austin, Texas where he still has a reputation as an excellent luthier.   In fact, there are still musicians in Austin who're willing to send their instruments to South Carolina to have Jeff work on them.   Jeff's rates, which are posted on his website, are substantially more affordable than those I was quoted by Dan or Mark so I was all set to send him my Pawar when I finally got a reply from Jay.   My email lost some time in being forwarded and Jay, who's a busy fellow, didn't get back to me right away.   Jay's a successful businessman these days and to tell the truth I didn't really expect him to respond to my email so I was surprised by his response.   Because he built my awesome axe in the first place, all thoughts of having anyone else work on it faded from my mind as soon as I got his email.   Jay explained that he doesn't really do much of this sort of work any more but he'd be happy to refret my Pawar.   That's just about the best news I've had in weeks and tomorrow I'm going to finish tweaking the strat copy and start building a packing crate for my Pawar so I can ship it to Ohio.


There are perhaps tens of thousands of guitarists in the world who are better musicians than I am, this is a given, but I'll wager there are no more than a handful who're happier than I am.   Life is good stuff you betcha, lemme told you.


Don Crowder

Hang on, I'll be there in a minute...

I don't post here as often as I should but I am trying to improve.   Right now, for example, I'm here trying to edit a typo I spotted in an earlier post when I should be working on my ezine which I'll have to post in about a half hour.   I think this site is important because it doesn't come with the kind of peer pressure I feel about writing anything for Lockergnome but I'm just babbling aren't I?   I need to fix that typo and get back to work on my ezine.   I suppose I should name this one "The Someday Show" and make a little banner image that says "More To Come".   Yeah, I like the sound of that.

Call me Jones...

I'm having trouble keeping up with myself. I created this blog because myspace was getting so darn much negative publicity but I lost interest in blogging somewhere along the way and then Chris Pirillo invited me to create another blog at Lockergnome but it's real intimidating for me to post anything at Lockergnome for crying out loud, pick any three average Lockergnome readers and add their ages together; they're still younger than me. So, ok, I don't wanna be a wuss you know? Um, Lockergnome blog, that'd be here:

Donspatch at Lockergnome


I've made one post and have the second one almost finished but damn it's intimidating. I have to write it, proofread it, edit it, proofread it, and then finally, waffle for a couple of days before I can post it.


The only good thing I've found as a result of this blog is a new granddaughter. She's hell-on-wheels, Do Not give her any trouble or she'll hand you your head. Her name is Amanda. Check her out.


Let's see what else? Oh yeah, check out my website and the ezine my wife and I write twice a month then snag some freeware from my favorite programmer's website.


I'll be making my second post to the lockergnome blog in.. um... well, sooner or later and I'll make an honest effort to post here (*sigh* and at myspace) a little more often.