okay dokey...this has been a pretty good week for training and just about everything else.....swam, ran, rode the bike trainer, bought new aerobars and a seat forward post (don't ask, i don't know why, nor what it'd supposed to do either...but if cam out at elements says i need one, who am i to argue)...am considering maybe plucking down for a better set of wheels (maybe after the xmas rush)..and the cannondale should be just right and ready for penticton....now i just have to get ready....
have been kind of been reminiscing a lot this week...don't know why, but have also been picking up my guitar a bit more, and actually wanting to.....it's just my little simon and patrick acoustic...got avenue guitars to set it up and put new dean markleys on it and it sounds great..i'm actually tempted to dig around for an amp for it even...well maybe baby
not that my playing has improved a lot over the years (i'm a little out of practise)...but i can still manage a few older tunes, and can
pick up new tunes pretty easily, but am still more of a strum and sing guy then a pick and grinnin' guy...and am not really sure if i want to go back and start playing the old doobie brother, alice cooper, eagles shit that was all the rage when i was in hi school...oddly enuff i don't feel the same way about the old murray mclauchlan, bruce cockburn, gordon lightfootz stuff though...probably says more about being about 42 days away from being almost dead (or at least 50) then anything else.
pick up new tunes pretty easily, but am still more of a strum and sing guy then a pick and grinnin' guy...and am not really sure if i want to go back and start playing the old doobie brother, alice cooper, eagles shit that was all the rage when i was in hi school...oddly enuff i don't feel the same way about the old murray mclauchlan, bruce cockburn, gordon lightfootz stuff though...probably says more about being about 42 days away from being almost dead (or at least 50) then anything else.anyway, i've started searching the net to see if i can track down my old guitar and amp...way back then i had an old clarke guitar and an old fender princeton amp...sold both when i was living in vancouver back in the early eighties....the acoustic ovation i had at the time was more then enuff for me at the time...but it was a great little package
i bought both at the old award music store that used to be on 95th street here in edmonton back in the 70s. (back then the cool music stores were all on jasper ave...ward, mothers, and kean craft was at 109th just bellow the old hovel)....and the more i think about it, the more cool that guitar seems...as most probably know, bob clarke built the clarke guitars here in in edmonton, he was a local legend, having played in a number of bands, and is mostly known for his days here with wed dakus's various outfits.....and a band that included a guy named barry allen, who i first remember seeing playing on tv with a band called Cheyenne Winter (who along with Privilege and Jason Hoover were sort of known)...at the time i was taking lessons from a guy whose name i can never remember (mack?)...and i still remember picking a song that bob clarke had actually written on a guitar that he made, which i still think was way cool....
anyway, the guitar was great....i changed out (upgraded ?) the pick ups on it, but with the goover heads and the bigsby it was all the guitar i needed...and it had a great feel...i hated strats and les pauls at the time (was i a snob?), and loved the clarke because the neck was wider then a strat, and had a better feel the most most of the olther guitars i tried out at the time...but i still suffer from the same issue i had back then too...i want my acoustic guitar to sound like a solid body, and always wanted the solid body to sound like an acoustic.....
anyway, guess i'll start searching ebay and whatever to see what i can come up with..i know with the princeton being a tube amp it may be in a junk yard somewhere...or in one of the pawn shops on hastings in vancouver....and the clarke has to be out there somewhere...i'll keep adding pix of it to this blog and to my 43 things pages ..i've got a bunch just on slides and negatives now...
anyway, as for the ironman try, it's preseason....i have picked out my training program out of triathlete magazine's "essential week-by-week training guide".....and the book has a great pre-season section, so i should be set..and if this week is anything to go by, it seems all do-able
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lso wanna listen to this new eliza gilkyson CD (wow!!!!)....she's in town at the arden tomorrow night, and man, i saw her at the edmonton folk fest this past summer, and liked what i heard, but this CD is even better, and imagine i'll be saying the same of the show...so i guess i'm not running right now, but'll be bouncing around the house listening to this thing for a while.....screw ac/dc, this is way better....the whole point is that i've got to get into and onto stuff that i like..and just do them, maybe that's the curse for the common depression...GET OUT OF THE HOUSE...before the day make my decision for me.....just have to list things i like to do, and um, do them....runnin', bikin', swimin', pounding out the weights, live music, lunch and coffee....and um, just music too.....the new little miss higgins cd's great to
o (how can you tell i've been to megatunes lately?)....but yeah, and have to add writin' to that list...how do i fit all this stuff in, guess that's the real frustration thing...which way to turn...do i run, do i do this thing, just how do i do all this stuff at once...i keep planning, and then when it's time to institute the plan, well, the follow through just isn't there...i hit the sack knowing what i want to do the next morning, but when that morning comes, i'm, um, here in front of this keyboard....it's sort of irritating to keep confirming things i already know....like taking a facebook depression/stress test....and guess what, surprises of all surprises, heck, it tells me i'm really depressed...and now, depressed even more by that confirmation...cool...now what, HECK I'M 50 IN JUST OVER 50 DAYS, I SHOULD BE DEPRESSED!!!!.....man is that old or what?...when you're older then most of the people you know is bad enuff, but when you're older then THEY'RE PARENTS!...now that's depressing...I HAVE CLOTHES OLDER THEN SOME OF THE PEOPLE I KNOW!!...50, 50, 50.....sucks big time...i ain't just getting older, i'm, well, well i just am getting Much older......
, he's a cancer survivor ..and listening, man you can hear a ton of life in his voice, that's inspiring...so i guess there's life after 50.......but cancer?..old people get cancer...i'm old..i better get tested i guess..oh wait, i'm waiting for results of yet another blood test...do i or don't i have hemochromatosis...just love waiting for those results, then what the heck will a positive test mean??.. i know a ton of blood donations, but what else...with less blood in me will i weigh less, will i run faster?..or at all?......oh well, i guss it's time to get out and test out the weather (will i need gloves?)....and try and get a run run at least.....maybe that'll cheer me up...writing this stuff certainly hasn't helped!
