I just got back from a vacation in Hawaii. Wow, I really needed that. What a beautiful state. I ate so much “Moco Loco” and fish tacos and wanted to sit in the 85-degree water at Waikiki forever. That is until Hurricane Ana decided to briefly target Hawaii. For the third time this year, the islands managed to avoid getting hit. We pray God will continue to provide this kind of protection in the future for the people living there in this special place.
I’m excited about playing live music, songwriting and recording again. I don’t know why I ended up in limbo for a while. I guess I have gotten too distracted by various things including my day job, and spending too much time surfing the web reading too depressing daily news. Enough of that.
I’ve gotten into reading through “The Artist’s Way” by Julia Cameron. And by just doing some of the assignments, I already feel it helping.
I have restarted my nursing home music ministry and have decided to go at it in an impromptu way by just dropping by a nursing home at the beginning of the week and letting them know that I am available to provide music for their facility later in the week if they are interested. Last week was my first try at this and it worked out great, playing a show on Friday at Bethany at Silver Lake nursing home. I had a lot of audience interaction with even a few people dancing. Playing live is also a great way, I’ve discovered to work out the bugs in my setup and in my playing. This week I’m going to give it a go again, so stay tuned to see how things worked out.
I even had some business cards printed. Check it out.
Here is a photo gallery of my recent visit to O’ahu. We ended up flying out two days earlier than planned due to Hurricane Ana that appeared suddenly and for a few days appeared to be on a direct path to hit Honolulu. So rather than risk being stuck on the 17th floor of a high rise with possibly no electricity or running water, we decided it’s better to be safe than sorry. All in all, the aloha spirit was flowing and we had a nice visit. I particularly enjoyed observing the many Waikiki musicians. I noticed that a number of them were making use of either an iPad or iPhone and a really cool and awesome music app called, Set List Maker, which is an app that I have been experimenting with and have started using in live performances this year.
Here is a demo of some sounds from my new Fender Marauder guitar using the neck pickup, the triple bucker bridge pickup and a Roland GK-3 and Roland GR-55 guitar synthesizer. The Marauder may be made in China, but no matter how much I gripe about it I am unfortunately restricted to a made in China budget. But Fender has done really well with this item.
Its construction was flawless and it sounds great. So for $399 I think it rocks. In this video you get a little taste of the Roland GR-55 guitar synthesizer tone machine. There will be more about that in the future. Anyway, this is, believe it or not, my first Fender guitar. A few years ago I was tempted to buy a Stratocaster, but being the budget conscious (cheap) person I am I was disappointed frankly in the quality of the Strats that I checked out back then compared to the price tag and ultimately decided upon an Epiphone Dot. I love my Epi and it will continue to get use. But I have never been totally happy with the one solid body axe that I’ve had: My Godin SD. It was my first electric guitar and it is a nice guitar, but the playability was always less that I wanted. When I tried out the Marauder it clicked with me right away and I knew I had to have it. Everyone has a Stratocaster…..so I knew this would be unique.
(I have reposted this article that appeared on my old site because it was a popular page and I don’t want it to get lost when I shut the old site down…..so here you go.)
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Hi again folks,
My crainiotomy surgery was one month ago yesterday (5/20/2010) – wow. So I thought I would give you a little update, including anyone out there who might be diagnosed with SCDS and considering surgery.
As you know I was in surgery Thursday May 20th all day from 8:30 am until 6:00 pm….Then I was in ICU for a day and a half and finally got discharged from the hospital on Tuesday, May 25th.
At the risk of being redundant, but for the benefit of anyone on the Internet reading this who might also have SCDS and had or will have the surgery, here is a bullet list summary of my post-surgical experience:
As far as I can tell everything is healing nicely and the SCDS plugging and resurfacing was a success and is staying in place as intended. I have noticed since the surgery that I no longer have persistent sinus drainage which we now believe was a slow CSF leak, which is now patched. This is a big plus as well as a reduction of my risk of contracting something serious such as meningitis. Until the healing process is complete and I am done with balance therapy I won’t be able to know how much the prior dizziness and blackouts have improved, but theoretically they should now be better.
I have been unable to hear in my left ear Day 1 post op to present. At first this ear was 100% dead. As of today it is still mostly nonfunctional, but every now and then I hear what sounds like bubbles popping and I am pretty sure I can hear the telephone dial tone very, very faintly. I also hear constant hiss or tinnitus in that ear. So, we are hoping and praying that there is still a little bit of life left in there which will slowly come back or at least be available to additional medical intervention.
The spinal headaches are GONE. I had these from Day 1 post op to Day 5 post op.
I was VERY dizzy Day 1 post op for about 2 weeks. The dizziness has gotten better steadily, but I still get dizzy pretty easily and it is easy to lose my balance. This is a retraining period that my brain is going through to deal with the loss of the superior semicircular canal. I started balance/vestibular therapy this past week and now have “homework” to do every day.
My vision has improved back to normal. Initially I was unable to see or focus on things steadily, especially things more than 5 feet away.
Part of my balance therapy is to walk every day. I am now able to walk 2-3 miles. This sure beats the first few days when I found I needed a walker which scared the heck out of me! I still get really dizzy pretty easily when I walk so I have to be very careful when I do this in addition since I am only hearing out of one ear it is easy to get surprised by vehicles approaching me from behind.
I got all of the 35 staples removed two weeks ago and my hair is starting to grow back….it’s about 1/2 inch long now and I am almost a hippie. I still have what looks like a bullet hole scar on my forehead from where they screwed on the head frame contraption during surgery to make sure my head and body did not move lest the accidentally cut the wrong thing. This was a good idea.
I am still not allowed to drive and I don’t know when that restriction will be lifted. Driving is dependent on how I do in the balance therapy and how my eyes and mind are able to respond to movement and my ability to read during movement.
I am still limited to not lifting anything over 10 pounds, but I hope that gets rescinded soon as there is a lot of work piling up around here that will need to get done. In the mean time I keep trying to ignore it and focus on other things that I can do.
If you have SCDS and have any questions feel free to contact me and I am happy to talk to you.
