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Happy 2025!!!

2025… my 50th year as a professional musician… well, if I can find a good fit musically… 🙂

As the name implies, I’ll probably do a lot of private reflecting on the last 50 years as I reread the various pages of this site… it’s been a wild ride but I’m really hoping it’s not over yet…

While I’ve enjoyed spending weekends at home with my wife, I REALLY need to be playing in a band full time again!! Unfortunately, all of the bands in the area that musically fall into what I’m looking for already have their ‘time keepers’ in place… and I need to play more than a few times a year… and I’m not ready to return to the tiny, dark bars for handfuls of people who could care less… if I did, I’m sure I’d be miserable the whole time and probably end up walking away within a month or two which wouldn’t be fair to my bandmates… c’mon 2025 – let’s get this party started!! 🙂

It’s taken me months to force myself to sit down and try to mix the kit then blend it with the originals then try to get it all to line up with the GoPro video (and audio)… I need to do this more to get even remotely good at mixing but here are some ‘highlights’ if you can call them that… I started out with some pretty straightforward tunes and eventually got into some more challenging stuff… 🙂

Enjoy!!

January 18… Tonight I followed through on one of Julie’s Christmas presents – a date night to see Almost Queen at the Troy Music Hall!!

We loved the show and the venue is amazing though it seemed like the sound was shooting over our front row seats and everything lacked some clarity… the show was very good!! They’ve been doing it for 20 years so they have it down pretty well… the Freddy Mercury character did an excellent job with the character and an admirable job with the vocals (there can only be one Freddy Mercury)… while he didn’t go for many of the high notes, his voice was still very powerful and within character and a joy to watch and hear… the drummer was great as well though he way overplayed to be Roger Taylor… 🙂

February… Wow!! Hard to believe it’s February already… No gigs in January but I bowled for the first time in over 50 years (subbing for a couple weeks in a small league with some friends from work)… injured myself both times I subbed… gave up bowling… 🙂 My wrist, fingers and arm are feeling much better after some recovery and a support wrap… now to continue the band search…

February 16… OK – there really ARE still some nice people left in the world… 🙂

About a week and a half ago (February 5th), there was a nasty winter storm predicted… heavy snow, then some icing… Thankfully we missed most of the icing and I was able to snow blow, shovel and rake the roof without issue…

A few days later (February 8th into the 9th), another storm came through dumping nearly a foot of heavy, wet snow and making roads slick early evening and overnight… Early the next morning (before the temps could rise and make it that much heavier), I cleaned off the decks and shoveled almost two feet that had been plowed in the end of the driveway… the snow was already wet enough that I knew it would just clog the snowblower… I moved a little bit at a time and it wasn’t bad at all… I was happy with the results but as it warmed up, everything started to melt like it was spring… a couple days later, the temps plummeted and would stay there for the foreseeable future… everything in our driveway that wasn’t a frozen rut from driving over the slush was a skating rink!!

Of course another storm was predicted for February 16th – this one mostly snow… I was at work the 14th when I realized that I had never cleaned out in front of the shed after all that slushy snow and the 2 day thaw that followed!! I was certain that water had probably got in and around the shed and frozen the doors shut and the snowblower to the concrete shed floor when the deep freeze hit… I was screwed!!

I got home and made my way to the shed down the icy path began pounding away with a small sledgehammer which didn’t make a dent in it… I desperately need some ice melt – preferably pet friendly but by now it was dark and I was exhausted so I went inside, showered and went to bed…

The next morning (February 15th) I made a grocery run followed by a visit to Lowe’s… little did I know that every place within 100 miles had been out of ice melt for a week or more… uh-oh… an older gentlemen working the floor smiled and gestured to an empty pallet that he said was cleaned out in less than an hour the day before… but we had a nice chat about winters and how there used to be so much more snow, etc…

I returned home, unloaded groceries and started hunting online – willing to drive as far as necessary… Walmart’s website says they have some in stock so I placed an order for pickup along with dog food we were running low on… I quickly received an order confirmation but about an hour later I got an email saying part of the order had been canceled because they were out of stock… of course – the ice melt…

I called Home Depot and the local Ace – all were depleted… I found a hardware store I hadn’t heard of in Warrensburg (about 20 minutes north of me) that supposedly had stock… I placed an order for pickup, received an order confirmation followed shortly after by a cancellation… now I’m getting nervous… if we get anywhere near the amount of snow they’re predicting, I’ll never be able to clear it with a shovel…

I find another small chain named ‘Do It Best’ that claims the Luzerne store (about 30 minutes west over the mountain from me) has 20 pound bags of pet friendly ice melt so I order one, receive the order confirmation and wait for what I’m sure will be a cancellation notice because I’ve been down this road before…

A couple hours go by with no word by which time I have to leave to pickup the dog food at Walmart 20 minutes in the other direction… while on the way I decide to give the Luzerne store a call… a man named Chris answers the phone and I tell him I placed an order on the website but hadn’t heard back… he finds the order and says, “I am so sorry”… (I already know where this is going)… “Unfortunately, the website that takes the orders doesn’t tap into our actual inventory and we are out.” I told him I understood – no problem… then, to my surprise, he says, “I do have some of the 50 pound bags… there might be a cost difference but if you like I’ll put one aside for you.” I was in shock and told him that would be great and thanked him very much. I got my Walmart dog food order loaded and headed over the mountain by which time the snow had already started… the higher I got the more it snowed and I could see the storm making its way over the mountains in the distance as they gradually disappeared…

I found the tiny store and Chris – who directs me around the back of the store and even loads the 50 pound bag in the back of my van… I thanked him again and asked him what I owed him (I had already paid for the 20 pound bag online)… he replies, “You’re all set.” I reminded him that this was the bigger bag and there was a price difference… he says, “I looked it up and the price difference was nothing… you were so nice about understanding the website mess so you’re all good. Drive safe!!” I’m tearing up again as I type this… I was totally caught off guard by his generosity and think I smiled all the way home… there really ARE nice people out there still. 🙂

When I got home (about 1:30pm) there was a light covering of snow on the ground… I unloaded the dog food and went around the back of the van to get the ice melt… opened the back door… took one step on the snow-covered smooth ice and SWISH – BANG!!! Both legs under the van and I landed flat on my back, elbow and head!!! Lucky for me I had my thick snow coat on with my knit hat and thick hood up… I lay there for a minute with the snow hitting my face – all the time laughing my ass off and hoping I could stand up without a repeat performance… I was able to get to my knees then my feet, get the bag over my shoulder and get it in the house without further incident. Now for the real challenge – getting in the shed…

2:00pm – drop a coating of ice melt all along the doors and the ice in front…

2:30pm – back at it with the small sledge… it was breaking up a little and I was even able to move a little bit with the snow shovel… I dropped another generous helping of ice melt and went back inside to let it work its magic…

3:00pm – more hammering and scraping and I was able to get the doors to start loosening up… I got them apart about 6 inches and was able to stretch my arm through the opening enough to reach my ice chopper… now things started moving!! After 15 -20 minutes it appeared I had moved as much as I could I coated everything with more ice melt…

3:30pm – more chopping, scraping and yanking on the doors… I’m making progress finally but learning that the ice in front of the doors is nearly 6 inches thick!! This is our original shed that got clipped by falling trees during the tornado back in July… it was still standing but with a nasty forward lean… I’d had to dig down in front of the doors just to get them to open far enough so I could get in and AND get the snowblower out…

The process continued until at almost 7:00pm – in the dark for the most part but I had gotten the bulk of the ice cleared from in front of the doors and could pull the snowblower through the opening (barely)… now I was certain I would be able to get the snowblower out the next day after clearing whatever snow might fall… time for some supper, another shower and some sleep!!

The next morning the snow continued to fall until after lunch… close to a foot when it started winding down… and I was able to shovel the snow away from the shed doors, retrieve the snowblower and clean everything up as planned… and I owe it all to Chris at Do It Best Hardware in Luzerne, NY!! I never would have made it otherwise… there’s more to this story but that’s a couple weeks away so keep reading… 🙂

March… I got my hopes up… local band looking for a drummer… interesting song list… the only videos I could find were a couple years old and they sounded decent but the website doesn’t list band members which is usually the sign of a revolving door… I’d planned to see them live to get a better feel but of course a winter storm cancelled that… they’d prefer a drummer with an e-kit (electronic drums)… I have my pads that I use for augmentation but am still hesitant to put my faith totally in electronics every gig… they have another performance coming up that I might try to catch though some of the places on their schedule are giving me pause… I really want to get back in the groove soon…

March 7… I’ve been going over and over in my mind just what to do for the guy with the tiny hardware store in Luzerne who was key to my getting my shed opened before the storm a few weeks ago… he has a Stewart’s and a Cumberland Farms right up the road but I have no idea which he might patronize… after much consideration, I decided on one of my favorite treats that, chances were, he’d never had… the amazing cookies from the Witch’s Cafe in Greenwich!! I called this morning before they got busy and ordered a box of a dozen and half of assorted cookies… chocolate chip, M&M, frosted sugar cookies, butterscotch, peanut butter, etc… I left work about 2:00 to pick them up then drove about an hour and 15 minutes over route 29 from Greenwich, through Schuylerville to Saratoga where I picked up route 9N – what I call ‘the back way’ into Corinth and back to Luzerne in hopes that he’d be working…

I walked in the store and spotted the familiar silhouette in the back of the store… “Chris??” I called as he approached the front… “I don’t know if you remember me but a few weeks ago I was running all over trying to find pet friendly ice melt right before that last storm… I’d ordered a 20 pound bag from your website but you were out and said that the website doesn’t tap your inventory… but you had 50 pound bags in stock, held one for me and, though I’m sure there was a price difference, you didn’t charge me… you saved my butt that day!!! I would never have gotten my shed opened or been able to clean up after that storm”… as I started to hand him the box I asked, “You’re not Diabetic are you??” He smiled and said he wasn’t… I gave him the box with the Witch’s Cafe sticker on it and told him that this was from one of my favorite places near where I work… he opened the box and his eyes got huge… “You didn’t have to do this…” he said but I told him I had to do something… I could see him tearing up a little as he said, “You just made my weekend!! You made my weekend… do you need anything??” Nope – I just needed to do something nice for someone who I didn’t know who came through when I really needed something the most. 🙂

March 22… a glimmer of hope… stay tuned… 🙂

April 7… well today almost lived up to this page’s name… there was almost a sequel… back on March 22nd, I was surprised when Rocco from Funk Evolution called to say their drummer was leaving and see if I would be interested… I told him I was (after a year of sitting home I was considering auditioning with one of the many doom / sludge bands that seem to need drummers)… there was going to be a band meeting the next day to decide my fate and he’d let me know…

After a week with no word, I reached out to see if I was still under consideration and, if so, could I get the song list as he said there was a ton of new material to learn… I also let him know I would gladly audition if they would feel more comfortable… he emailed back to say that they had 3 drummers they were auditioning NEXT weekend… this sounded familiar… when I reached out to audition originally he told me there were 23 drummers already in line… 🙂

Today came word that ‘the team decided they wanted something new and unexpected’ and selected someone in their 40’s… good enough…

I’m mildly disappointed… I’ve been chomping at the bit to be playing again full time and I love many of the band members not to mention that Josh – who was the bass player when I joined originally – had returned and he and I just clicked whenever we played together – making for one of the tightest bass / drum combinations going… but hey – everything for a reason as they say… 🙂

April 13… got Mom out for some shopping and lunch after a rough week or two… her sweet old roommate turns out has an arrogant dick of a son who comes in to visit 8:00 or 9:00pm – after everyone’s asleep, turns on all the lights, wakes up his mom and visits… OR sits with her just outside the door with another ‘resident’ – a younger man who treats it more like an apartment building and regularly checks himself out for the night and heads to local bars… and the men are loud which stirs up the other residents that have all settled in!! A couple nights ago Mom was so upset that they were going to medicate her to calm her down!! She questioned his visitations at that hour and was repeatedly told that he could visit whenever he wanted because he works late… BULLSHIT!!

Finally, a couple days ago, some of the few staff members with their heads on straight, told her she was entirely correct… that there should be no visitors on the floor after 8:00pm – what they called ‘lockdown’… the visitation exception is meant for resident’s that are sadly near the end of life… last week the son was contacted and told that, if he came to visit, he was NOT to turn on the lights and needed to take his mom to the dining hall… the nurses on the floor were also instructed that, if they saw him on the other resident who checks himself out together, they were to split them up because they apparently have no consideration for any of the other residents. Finally. We’ll see how long it lasts but I doubt it will work because a couple nights ago, all three nurses assigned to the floor called in and the one from an agency that was called in to cover has no idea of what to look out for.

April 21… Mom’s situation is no better – maybe even worse… the son has stooped so low that (this even after he took my Mom’s welcome sign off the door and hid it behind his mom’s TV… genius), despite being instructed by email, phone message and in person NOT to turn on the overhead lights at night, now – even though his Mom is in the dining room – he opens the door to the room, turns on all the lights, then leaves without closing the door!!

The end of last week, a couple of the better nurses (we thought) went to right to the top guy and told him this isn’t right and shouldn’t be allowed and something needed to be done… he agreed much to our surprise and today they moved her AGAIN… this time she was told the roommate is immobile and can’t use the bathroom, pretty much non-verbal and just lies in bed all day with her TV playing soft organ music… they lied to her… the organ music is blaring to the point we can’t imagine other nearby residents aren’t complaining and some residents regularly come in to pray with her… I took Mom shopping and to eat and we picked up foam ear plugs for sleeping but they don’t even remotely block out the organ music…

A couple months ago Mom was told by a staff member that she felt like they were trying to drive my Mom out… now I’m beginning to believe it… she’s the only resident on the floor with her full mental faculties even though some staff still treat her like dementia patient… but she speaks up – not only for herself but for other residents that otherwise wouldn’t have a voice… with Mom gone, they could pretty much do whatever they want because the other patients sadly don’t know day from night, wet clothes from dry, hot food from cold, spicy food from burnt or rude treatment from friendly and don’t say much of anything throughout their lonely days… I’m told by some that, unfortunately, it’s the same everywhere… short staffing and many that are there could care less about the residents… hopefully change is coming…

I’ve put in to get Mom on the list for the next opening at Fort Hudson – another facility where they have distinctly separate wings for the patient’s various stages of mental health so she’ll at least be around people much like herself… where I have to think the staff – at least in her wing – would be less apt to try to get away with poor treatment because those residents DO know the difference… here’s hoping it doesn’t take long because the Pines is sucking what little life she may have left right out of her.