Merry Christmas to All (and to all, a good night?)
I hope everyone had a good day today. It was nice to see lots of folks that I hadn't seen in a while last night at Christmas Eve service, including rachelsahm who had recently returned from across the pond. This service is always one of the highlights of the church year for me, because the service itself is always meaningful and filled with wonderful music (thankfully, I wasn't quite as involved in the music as last year - when I was in a guitar duet, a handbell quartet, two handbell ensemble pieces, a half dozen choir pieces, and the usual "king" solo - and therefore not so occupied that I couldn't enjoy things). It's also enjoyable because it's a chance to see a number of friends who no longer live nearby, but are in to visit family at Christmas. Lots of hugs and well wishes, and every year I leave with a smile on my face, even if last night I was a bit tired after a long day (I was up at 6:00 for a swim and work after being up late cheering on the Redskins the night before).
I am somewhat amused that rachelsahm is going through sufficiently strong guitar withdrawal that she asked to borrow one from me. But at the same time, I do understand, and certainly don't mind loaning her one. I'm down to one guitar here at the moment (I own three: rachelsahm borrowed the Fender 12-string acoustic, mastshade is teaching himself to play on my old clunky 1962 Arbiter - after which even a 12-string ought to seem easy, and the Gretsch 6120 archtop is here). Building a solid-body electric was already on my list of things to do. Maybe that'll be a winter/spring project.
I really enjoyed the TSO show with urania, cossaccountant, and Ron on Saturday. We had fifth-row seats - close enough to really see expressions on the faces of the band members, feel the heat blast from the fireballs, get snowed on, and I could even pick out a few things on the guitars ("hey, you're playing this song in C... it's in B-flat on the recording!"). Then after the ride back with dinner along the way, the four of us sat around here at my place and hung out for a while, which was also fun. I sometimes worry what will happen when I put friends of mine who've never met together for something, but it usually works out okay, and it certainly seemed fine in this case.
Ron's parents (who sometimes refer to me as "our second son" or "our tall son") came over for dinner tonight. I didn't realize it until they commented about the kitchen floor, but it's been several years since they'd been here. So I got a chance to spend some time with them and have a decent meal (they raved about it in fact, which was probably overdoing it... fairly basic stuff: a pork roast in the crock pot, mashed potatoes, green beans, and Ghiradeli bake-from-a-box brownies).
Tomorrow morning I leave for Lynchburg, coming back on Saturday, so I will most likely be out of the loop internet-wise for a few days (my parents have internet access, of course, but I can't read email from remote and probably won't update LJ). Not that it's entirely a bad thing.
I am somewhat amused that rachelsahm is going through sufficiently strong guitar withdrawal that she asked to borrow one from me. But at the same time, I do understand, and certainly don't mind loaning her one. I'm down to one guitar here at the moment (I own three: rachelsahm borrowed the Fender 12-string acoustic, mastshade is teaching himself to play on my old clunky 1962 Arbiter - after which even a 12-string ought to seem easy, and the Gretsch 6120 archtop is here). Building a solid-body electric was already on my list of things to do. Maybe that'll be a winter/spring project.
I really enjoyed the TSO show with urania, cossaccountant, and Ron on Saturday. We had fifth-row seats - close enough to really see expressions on the faces of the band members, feel the heat blast from the fireballs, get snowed on, and I could even pick out a few things on the guitars ("hey, you're playing this song in C... it's in B-flat on the recording!"). Then after the ride back with dinner along the way, the four of us sat around here at my place and hung out for a while, which was also fun. I sometimes worry what will happen when I put friends of mine who've never met together for something, but it usually works out okay, and it certainly seemed fine in this case.
Ron's parents (who sometimes refer to me as "our second son" or "our tall son") came over for dinner tonight. I didn't realize it until they commented about the kitchen floor, but it's been several years since they'd been here. So I got a chance to spend some time with them and have a decent meal (they raved about it in fact, which was probably overdoing it... fairly basic stuff: a pork roast in the crock pot, mashed potatoes, green beans, and Ghiradeli bake-from-a-box brownies).
Tomorrow morning I leave for Lynchburg, coming back on Saturday, so I will most likely be out of the loop internet-wise for a few days (my parents have internet access, of course, but I can't read email from remote and probably won't update LJ). Not that it's entirely a bad thing.