Not sure why I've gotten lazy at blogging. I guess I just forget at times. Here are some updates, bullet-point style:
- Music
- Planets has a gig on Thursday, 6/8, our first return to the Sunset since our first show last year. With all the progress we've made, we still haven't made it over the hump yet. Robb has been prolific and we have about 12-13 songs to choose from, with more on the regular. This will be our last show until late July as Cass and fam will be in Spain for about 3 weeks after the show.
- Sunset Grooves is humming along. We got video footage from our last show and though it was decent, I'd say our weak spot is our backing vocals. We are pretty average at it and I don't know how to unlock it so that we're better. Maybe if we didn't dissect songs we already know on the regular? Is it IEM mixes? At that show, I had my vocals way up and Jen's way back, just for reference, and on my isolated channel, it still was off at times. I know for me, sometimes it's singing notes that are just at the top part of my range, so unless I'm on it, I'm usually off it. Dennis is proving to be a great guitarist and an average vocalist, like the rest of us. He is going to try leads on a couple songs, so we'll get to hear what he can do. I don't know if there are any tunes I could try, but if there is, I'd like to.
- Forest Ray is yet to get off the ground. I went to see them last week and was pleased that they are a little more animated live than on record. The drummer, Miles, also skews towards harder music, and it was clear when he played. I think it'll be fun to play with him. After the Planets show this week, it will free up Thursdays, so I hope to finally rehearse with them sometime in the next week or so. As far as the tunes go, I'm comfortable with about 8-9 tunes, which will be most nights. Though Peter did say there are a couple shows where we'll need two sets, which means I'll need to learn about 6-7 more tunes.
- Job
- Almost 2 weeks ago, Andrea from AWS reached out to me about a role. She is on the content team and I worked adjacent to her team last year. Her and I and someone else on the team, Marlee, all met on a call, and long story short, they need people to do some grunt work. Good thing I am not above grunt work! I met with their manager, Shawn, on Friday and pretty much had a job offered. As of now, nothing is official, but it is definitely on the table and I hope to know more this week. Good news is it will pay me double what I'm getting now, bad news is that it is likely over in mid to late December. But, knowing what I know now and how we can survive, I can likely put away $500-800/month until the end of the contract. And, I'll continue looking for a FTE role somewhere to get out of contract-land.
- Family
- Riley is home from CMU and enjoying his summer so far. It's weird having someone in the house now when I'm "working from home," but that's what summer is going to be now. Hay will be back next week and then they start working at the Y mid-June.
- Marci and I spent a quick 1.5 days in Bellingham last week, using up her PTO and an Airbnb gift card we had from Christmas. Stayed at a little converted garage over Bellingham Bay and slept in a crappy bed and listened to trains honk all night. Not a great night, but nice to get away.
- Anything else
- Finished Barry and Succession. Marci and I are now watching Taste the Nation on Hulu. I have one more episode to go in BCS before it's over. Do I start Breaking Bad again??
- I got 3 tickets for Raiders of the Lost Ark on the big screen on Wednesday. Marci and Riley are going and they both thought it was for Dial of Destiny. Oh well, sucks to be them. I hope DoD is good when it comes out at the end of the month! I have been not reading reviews and I'm hearing from some that it's great, from others that it's crap. Who knows??
- Playing lots of games on PC. I bought Ghost Recon: Breakpoint and Danny and I have been playing every few nights. It's a good time and a good way for he and I to stay connected. I also bought RDR2 for the PC and though I can't run it at full GFX, I can run high enough and it looks badass. Hoping I can slog my way through it this summer.
