Californiaman

By all means go. It's a great opportunity and a way to help move on from your recent loss of a loved one. I've made that drive so many times to see my parents in Palm Springs. Now that my mother has passed, I try to go out to see my dad as often as I can. He is 84, sharp as a tack but has a serious and rare health condition. So I go. For me, it's a drive that can last anywhere from 4.5 hours to 6 or 7. The benefits for you Duane are two fold as I see it. Take what ever he wants to give you and listen to him talk about your father.🙂

She just put out a "huge" rock-n-roll album appropriately called, "Rock Star". It's one of her biggest selling albums. Come on man!

What most of you are doing is known as portmanteaus. That is the combining of two words with separate, different meanings, in order to create a new word with a new meaning. I used this as a warm-up assignment with my students one day when, after one of my students asked me, "Mr. C, have you ever felt your cellphone ring and you reached for it and it didn't"? "Like a false alarm?" "Or phantom ring?" I said. So I got it. It's called a portmanteaus. It's a French term. In this case there were a couple of examples on Wikipedia I found. Phantom vibration syndrome or phantom ringing syndrome is the perception that one's mobile phone is vibrating or ringing when it is not. Other terms for this concept include ringxiety (a portmanteau of ring and anxiety), fauxcellarm (a portmanteau of "faux" /fo͜ʊ/ meaning "fake" or "false" and "cellphone" and "alarm" pronounced similarly to "false alarm") and phonetom (a portmanteau of phone and phantom)[1] and phantom phone signals.[2]According to Michael Rothberg, the term is not a syndrome, but is better characterised as a tactile hallucination since the brain perceives a sensation that is not actually present.[3] WebMD published an article on phantom vibration syndrome with Rothberg as a source. [4] Several other articles have been published in 2010s, including in NPR, Bustle, CBS News, and Psychology Today. [5][6][7][8] Here's one I've used since high school/ It's the combination of Fu@%ing and Idiot. Fid-iot noun a really annoying stupid person. "That guy's a real fidiot." ARCHAIC a person of annoyingly low intelligence. "he entered their employ and learnt their secrets by pretending to be a fidiot"

Gentrification

I have several fuzz pedals but seem to prefer the fuzz face sound of the ‘69. I like that Hendrix tone. the fulltone soulbender is another I like. My HBE UFO I enjoy using with psychedelic acid rock.

The price was right. $100.00 for a Fulltone '69 Fuzz. It's practically new in the box. Since I'm familiar with it, I have the larger box version, I've seen lots of comparison videos between the version 1 and 2, why not, right.

Certainly not. But there are forces at work now who would scrub our past of anything that violates their woke dogma. Like the recent brewhaha about the famous photo of George Mendonsa and Greta Friedman. You know the sailor kissing a girl on the streets of New York City. Some VA administrator wanted to remove this from every VA in the USA. Wanker's probably never had a real kiss in her life, let alone a romp in the backseat of her boyfriend's car. This photo certainly didn't bother Greta Friedman and she's publicly stated so. In fact, both Mendonsa and Friedman would show up at patriotic events and sign copies of the photo.

But I love teaching and seeing students become life-long learners. Students who go on and make something productive out of their lives. When it goes right and it's does more times than not, it's a rewarding experience. Especially years later when a former student says thank you. You had an impact on me.

Idaho is the same way. Although, before I do something like that, I'm wanting hours and hours of practice on the range. That was actually something I enjoyed doing when I lived there. Jaxson50, he was a member here, he and I went. I had a great time shooting a .357 Smith&Wesson and a Glock 20, 10 mm. But I wouldn't carry openly without more practice and a feeling of utter confidence that I knew what I was doing.

I agree with you on concerts being a great way to blow off steam. The arena shows, outdoor venues, and stadium shows were great for that, especially in the OC and LA area. Being that I'm a little older now it's the more intimate shows that I prefer. Thinking about Richie Kotzen May 17 in Agoura Hills. I like places like San Juan Capistrano's Coach House, The Canyon in AH or the Celebrity Theater in Anaheim. It's worth the travel when you get great seats. I think the last big show I went to was way back in the mid '90s. That's when I was an A&E writer for a newspaper in OC. Might have been the KROQ Weenie Roast and before that Lalapalooza, both at Irvine Meadows. Still, some of the stadium shows at the LA Coliseum were epic. U2 and The Who were two great shows. Some of the all-day shows back then, where multiple bands took the stage well into the night were so memorable. One in particular featured, Cheap Trick, Molly Hatchet, Black Sabbath (Dio) and Journey wrapped it up. I remember rolling into the Coliseum parking lot around 8:00 in the morning. We then proceeded to go looking for beer. All we could find at the local liquor store was Malt Liquor. Yikes! That was day to remember. Talk about blowing off some steam.

Yes, I agree.

Yeah, not funny anymore. Although it does have it's moments. It's become a reflection of the woke world, a dark shadow that has crept across our land. I did recently watch a Youtube collage of the late Norm MacDonald's Nightly News skits especially during the OJ Simpson trial. Now that stuff was brutal social commentary on the trial and Simpson.

I took a mythology course once. The professor wanted us all to choose a mythological figure who we would be called by in the class. Since Californiaman is close to the beginning of the alphabet I hoped nobody would take the name I was hoping for. When he called my name I was stoked I got to pick the name I wanted. I told him and the rest of the class, "Ulysses". His reply was, "Clever choice." Ulysses, is the Roman name for the Greek mythological character, Odysseus, one of the cleverest characters of the ancient world. We were told that when he takes roll for the next time we meet that we needed to quote our character in some meaningful way that relates to our character. The next time we met, I was ready when he called my name. I couldn't wait because it was such a classic quote. "How my naked ears were tortured by the sirens sweetly singing." That lit him up. "Oh yes! Cream. Of course. Very Clever."

I'm really liking putting a quality pedalboard together. Most of the front end stuff on my board is going to Fulltone products. Here's a photo from NAMM this year. Brad Jackson from Jackson Audio has taken over the build process for Mike Fuller. Jackson Audio builds some quality pedals too. Brad Jackson, Californian, and Mike Fuller

Duane, I've had several students who were able to graduate at the end of their junior year. I think the best was one of my juniors was so caught up in the gang life that he was on the verge of falling headlong into that lifestyle. After working with him consistently and after days of encouragement he started to move away from the gangs and the street life. He became the first person in his family to graduate high school. He enrolled in the local jr. college and is now an auto mechanic. Sometimes a little encouragement and persistence pays off. So my question to you is, did you stick around for your senior year? Or did you graduate early?