Weekend of April 4th, 2014

Disaster!

My crab cake put-together turned out like shit.  Oh well.  Better next time.

Friday me and my girl went to the park near us to see if it was pet friendly and what its picnic amenities were like.  We walked the 1 1/10th mile track and found that it was a mix of stark soccer fields and a delightful bird sanctuary.  The 97% chance of thunderstorms never got to us(yay 3%).  Its a nice park all things considered.  There's a grill section and a covered pavilion, and it doesn't seem to have a lot of busy traffic.  I am thinking of doing walks there every Tuesday and Thursday.

Sunday came around and we had planned our first picnic.  The clouds were all around us, but the rain stayed away.  The day started with me finding a four leaf clover among a field of fresh new spring clover.  I have pretty good luck when looking for clover, if I really want to I generally find a 4 leafer, this one was not really looked for.  I was walking over a patch of clover while taking the dog for a walk, and I saw a particularly broad clover.  I thought it might have been a large 3 leafed one, but nope.  We stuck it between 2 pieces of wax paper so that it could stick around a little while with us.

The picnic was fine, though the doggy did not have it in it to do many laps around the park.  Still, she had fun and played with me in the creek that runs along the back side of the park.  We ate our picnic out in the open because the covered pavilions were occupied.  It was fine since the sun was not out.  My gal made us a special yogurt kind of cake that had a tang to it that I really enjoy(sour cream donuts are my fav at Dunkin').

I came across a amp kit manufacturer that will also put them together for you and ship them ready to go.  They are Ceriatone, and they happen to be based in a far east country that I do not mind dealing with.  They do almost exact copies of by-gone era amps that are no longer produced(the custom shop versions from the companies feature many changes).  I would really consider it, since you can have them add some modern stuff to it(like an effects loop), but they are still expensive even if they are less than half what other people charge for them.  I'll probably do a write up about what the "Hand-wired" craze is all about, and why I feel it might be worth the money.

Inspired by finding these amps I played with some more amp models in Rocksmith.  I have found that I can like a billion different shades of 70's Marshall tones, and realized that as long as I get one that does a version of these million shades, I should be happy for a while.  I also see why people buy lots of distortion pedal variations.  I wish they had more 2x12 cabs modeled because I seem to like this set up, though it may be due to me having a 2x12 in real life.  It could also be that its just enough low end to get those mids pushing without being boomy.  That's one of the struggles in my guitar rig decisions: can I live with just a 1x12?  I feel my thoughts may be colored by a few things.  1: I have only ever had a 2x12 and 2: solid state is not as loud as tube, so I may think I need the 2x12 to compensate.  When its closer to decision making time(when I have the money in hand), I'll go try out a few things.  I have a local shop that has Orange Tiny Terrors in several flavors, and I have a big chain that I hope will have a selection as well.  I'll take whichever sounds good to me, no matter who offers it.  Hand-wired is starting to look good to me though...