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Welcome to my blog

After years of urging from my brother (also my first drum teacher), I have decided to start the blog experience. As the title and sub-title suggest I will be posting thoughts about my teaching, coaching, performing and percussion repair/construction. But just be aware that I reserve the right to include archaeology, bicycling, fly fishing and anything else that my mind wonders upon. My intent is not to cause controversy but rather to share these thoughts with whomever is interested. I don't sell anything and I ask that you do the same if you use any of my ideas, just reference this blog if you pass them along. * This is not a DIY blog. Many of my posts will discuss what I have made and the materials that I used but not how.  I learned woodworking from my father using hand and power tools. As a bicycle mechanic for 22 years, I learned to use metal working tools including cutting torches. If you have no experience in using these tools you should find a skilled teacher. T
Recent posts

Another visitor

  We had a Great Horned Owl visit this week. He chose a tree in our backyard and spent about 5 hours there. One of our Abert squirrels found him to be interesting enough to require a little further inspection. The crows were next. I was surprised that it took them a long time to see him. The crows only stayed for about 15 minutes harassing him. Normally they continue their barrage of sound and flybys until he flies away but this time they just gave up. I love the way owls seem to have a stoic attitude toward the crows, just sitting there and refusing to acknowledge them. He did however show some interest in the squirrel probably because they are normally on his menu. This owl (or his ancestors) has been in our neighborhood for years. We can hear his calls in the morning 2 to 4 times a week.

The ghost of Muppet?

 Patti noticed an insect bite on her ankle. This was on Monday and by Tuesday her ankle was swelling, the area had turned red with a small circle around it. At this point we decided that it should be dealt with by a doctor rather than just taking antihistamines. As we suspected, it was a spider bite and it had become infected. But what kind of spider? Thursday night I found a Black Widow crawling on the floor which I squashed. Since the symptoms of a Black Widow bite are much more extensive than what she was experiencing, we don't think it was from this. Even so this caused us to call our favorite pest control guy who will be coming next week to deal with all of this.

ROKU

 About 3 years ago we purchased a ROKU stick to do some streaming. We usually watched ACORN that had the Murdock Mysteries and Foyle's War, but it wasn't until the pandemic came around that we started binge watching. Brokenwood, Pie in the Sky, 800 Words, Rake, Mystery Queens, Whitstable Pearl, just to name a few that was on the menu. Everything was great until Saturday when in the middle of one show an alert showed up on screen. "ROKU is overheating".   I didn't know that could be an issue. Doing a Google search I found that it was a quite common issue. The most common cause is the location of the 'stick', ours was in the back of the amp for our home theater and being very close to the air vents it wouldn't dissipate the heat properly. The fix is to locate the 'stick' further away from other sources of heat. I had another HDMI cable that was long enough to put the 'stick' on top of the cabinet but I quickly realized that I had connecti

Muffet 2.0

 We have a new spider. This time she is in the living room window. She is the same type of spider as our original Muffet. I think I'll name her 'Charlotte'. We have been under an air quality alert for nearly a month because of the smoke from all of the forest fires. This means we can't open the windows at night when the temperature drops. Patti's voice has been affected so badly that she speaks at a pppp  dynamic by the end of each day. Even changing the filter in the house 2 times a month. Unfortunately it produces some dramatic sunsets, and during the day it looks like more like a bad film noir movie set in LA.   

Muffet is gone

Sadly she just curled and died. One day she was on her web and the next she was on the window sill. She got rid of a massive amount of flying nasties in her life time, but she also provided a lot of education for us. Filling the coffee pot, washing dishes, or just sitting in the kitchen we would always look for her in the different areas of her web.  I think I'll put an ad on our 'Neighborhood' app. Position open: Fly exterminator provide your own web must not bite.

Morning visit

  We have been visited by deer quite a bit lately. This beautiful guy is in full velvet. Yesterday morning we had two walking up our street, one of which stopped in our front yard for a quick snack on our hedge. A small price to pay for a glimpse of them.  Maybe this one felt a little a little guilty so he did a little tree trimming for us pro bono. He posed for this great profile shot in his photo op but unfortunately Muffet's web created a lot of glare through the kitchen window. And yes, Muffet is alive and well, keeping us safe from the little flying nasties. 

BFF

  It's been over 20 years since I was able to see these two play together. Elsa was our Lab/Pyre mix and McKinley was our friends' Malamute.  He weighted 150 lbs. and she ....about 95 lbs.  The first time they met they became instant friends, within 10 minutes they started to play and this continued until McKinley's death about 5 years later. We made the mistake of letting them play in the house the first time, but with a combined weight of over 200 lbs. it felt like a 4.8 earth quack in our house. Two years after his death, Elsa and I saw another malamute during our daily walk. This dog was about 50 yds. away walking towards us. When Elsa saw him she raised her head and I swear she had a smile on her face. She started to pull on the leash walking faster but when he was just a little bit closer I could see that she knew it wasn't McKinley. She lowered her head, slowed her pace, and lost all interest for the rest of our walk. Elsa died 3 years later.  When a clap of thun