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Showing posts from April, 2008

Business

I have been insanely busy this past week. Today is a little less busy and I find myself with a couple of hours of free time; though, I do not know what to do with myself. I'm so used to having to do things that I've lost the ability to come up with things to do for myself. I've taken lots of camera-phone pictures during the busy week and I plan on posting them with an interestingly devised narrative of the busy-ness. However, I don't think I have time to do that now. (I wasted most of the couple of hours of free time on trying to decide how to spend it). What I do have time to do, is write about Fulton Books , which is a small independent book store in Gloversville and has hosted open mic nights and other musical performances, and is going out of business this coming Friday. (I am trying to bring up the local newspaper's website to post a link to an article about the closing, but www.leaderherald.com is not coming up... ). The owners of the book store also own the a

Lazy

I have been incredibly lazy today -- yesterday, too, actually. In fact, now that I reminisce, I recall taking two mid-day naps yesterday. Today, I have not taken a nap; although, I did sleep until 10:15, which is incredibly late for me in my current state of not-being-a-college-student-anymore. Still, I have not done much of anything today except: scan every single job search website for interesting openings, turn the sprinkler on, move the sprinkler to various parts of the lawn (front, back, etc), walk to the store to buy hot dogs to grill for dinner, and play about 12 games of solitaire. I also did a load of laundry and -- oh, wait! -- I did take a nap! Right before lunch. Anyways, I have been putting off blogging about this past Thursday because I have been so incredibly lazy that I have not wanted to even sit and type. Plus, Friday was quite busy (more on that later). Still, here I am. And, so, here I go: I attended open mic, as usual, and I made a friend. I met Amy Antin outside o

Quotes

The car shopping saga continues. I received a quote from one of the dealers that I've been emailing (the one that reminded that I had been looking at other cars) and it's a pretty good quote. I think that I prompted him to offer this good quote because I told him in email that we are pre-approved for a loan through our credit union. In fact, I told all the dealerships this. After I received the pretty good quote, I tried another dealer to see if he could beat it. He wouldn't give me a price, but said, "we'll make it worth your while." Which is a load of bogus if you ask me. I told him to give me a number, which is "concrete," where as words can mean different things. Anyways, we are going to go to the place where we got the quote and inform him that he will have to do better because another dealership has stated that they will. So, things are rolling now. I have to thank Gary Moon for his awesome advice on car shopping and haggling with dealers. He s

Stuff I Have Not Posted About, But Should Have

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I have been behind on some happenings that I would typically have posted about if not for slightly more important things that I chose to post about instead. This should be a quick catch up. First, I have had a couple interesting thoughts lately that I've captured in my pocket journal. Here they are: I want to meet a man named 'Joe' and have dinner over at his house. Then, when people ask me what I did last night, I'll say, 'I ate at Joe's.' I think it would be fun to sit in a public place (a park or busy sidewalk) and read 'Stalking: for Dummies.' Sorry. I do have weird thoughts some times... Any hoo. I had a gig at Jitters Cafe a couple weeks ago. It went well. I sounded great (in my own, and Stephanie's, opinion). There wasn't much of a crowd, but a family of three listened for quite a while. I didn't keep a set list. I often asked Stephanie for suggestions on what to play, which made things fun in a different-than-usual way. I played a

Buying

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This past Thursday, I met with a friend who up until very recently worked at a car dealership. I was hoping he would be the guy who could give us an honest deal on a new car for Stephanie, but, since he doesn't work there any more, I asked him for some inside tips on the best possible pricing I should be able to get. The meeting was very helpful to me, as I was uncertain as to what I should expect for realistic deals. Now I know. Let the negotiating begin. After the meeting (at Uncommon Grounds -- paper cup, in case you were wondering), I attended open mic. I played Wildflowers by Tom Petty again and Road to Nowhere . For Road to Nowhere , Zach Edwards played djimbe and he did a fabulous job. Faith also joined me and did background vocals. I took a picture of the list: Willie debuted a new song that I think is called Janitor . He is a janitor, you see, as well as a song writer. The song was awesome. It had the typically Willie wit and sounded really good. I took a picture: Later o

Sunday Evening

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I just returned home from test driving a bunch of different cars with Stephanie. Let me tell you, there are a lot of different types of car sales people out there... Anyways, I wanted to continue talking about the Shawn Mullins concert. If you haven't read my last posting, then you should scroll down and read that one first. Then come back and read this one. Go ahead. I'll wait. ----------- Okay. Now that you are back, the concert itself: We entered the Linda and discovered that it is a rather cozy place. The chairs are wide and relatively comfortable. There is plenty of leg room. The ceiling is high and the place is dimly lit. Cozy. There weren't many people seated, which meant that there were plenty of open seats to choose from. We sat a little left of center and two rows back from the stage. The stage set up was simple. There was a microphone stand, two monitors, two guitars, and a stool with a bottle of water and capo on it. Soon, a guy came up and tuned one of the guit

Early on Sunday

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I stated in that last blogger posting that I was going to write again Sunday evening. It's Sunday morning. I have some time to kill and I've decided to write about the concert that I attended on Friday and how I came to find out about it. The Friday before last, I was on my way home from work listening to 97.7 WEXT when a familiar song called All in My Head came on. I smiled a little because I had just bought the CD that the song came from a few days earlier and I had been listening to it incessantly. The CD is by Shawn Mullins -- who had some national fame in the 90s due to the song Lullaby -- and is excellent (although, I still prefer his previous release 9th Ward Pickin' Parlor because of the song Blue as You , which has the most excellent acoustic guitar tone I have ever heard in a recording -- Tom Petty's Wild Flowers is a close second). I sang along with All in My Head (because it's an awesome song) as I pulled up to a stop light, putting my turn signal o

Big Tease

This blog posting is a big tease for the blog posting that I will created tomorrow evening. On Thursday, I played at Caffe Lena's open mic (which is pretty routine and doesn't really elicit any tease-esque qualities). On Friday, I met my songwriting idol -- no -- hero. And I saw him perform at the Linda in Albany. I also met his dog, Jack. Earlier tonight (Saturday), I performed at Jitters Cafe and played a new song. Tomorrow, I am going test-driving for cars with Stephanie. How did all of these things turn out? Tune in and find out.