My kids' conversation

S is 4 years old, and E is 7. E was being kinda a wise guy, methinks.

S: Why does the sun come up in the day?
E: Because it wants to.
S: Yup.

S: Why does the rainbow live in the sky?
E: Because that's where it lives.
S: Right.

S: Why do books want you to read them?
E: So you can hear the story.
S: Yup.

S: Why do bracelets get made by other people?
E: Because people wanna make them.
S: Yup.

S: Why do newspapers not walk?
E: Because they're not real.
S: Uh huh.

S: Why do instruments make noise?
E: Because people want them to.
S: Yup.

S: Why you can eat some stuff and why you can't eat some stuff?
E: Because some stuff tastes like gunk.
S: Mmm-hmm.

S: Why is tape very sticky?
E: Because people want them to be sticky.
S: Yeah!!

Poinsettia

Here's a poinsettia that I won at the Department Holiday party. When we walked out this morning it was covered in dew, so I had to take a picture. Note to Santa: I wish I had a better camera!!

Fresh OJ

One of our secretaries gave me some oranges from her mom's yard, and I made fresh orange juice tonight. Yumm!!

Comment on my YouTube video

I love this comment:

You rocks dude. Good player, wish U a good continuation in guitar ;)

I like how the French use "dude" too!

New shirt day

Earth Wind and Fire

Shining Star - one of the greatest songs ever written. Ever.

The Roots

And to round out my whack musical tastes, I also love the Roots. The Roots are a live hip hop band. This particular version of the Roots is my favorite. The lead rapper is Black Thought and the drummer is ?love - those two guys are the foundation of the Roots. Scratch is awesome - he's a guy that does all of the scratching sounds and echoes and stuff - amazing he does it all with his mouth. Very cool, especially given all of the (c)rap that's out today.

Vital Remains

I also LOVE Vital Remains. Dave Suzuki, the guitar player, is one of my heroes. On the studio stuff, he plays incredible drums (he has to be one of the top death metal drummers out today) and his guitar playing is like evil Yngwie Malmsteen.

This live video shows their touring vocalist, but I much prefer their studio guy Glen Benton (from Deicide). I don't think Dave is with the band anymore, according to things I've read. That's too bad.

Immortal

Okay, to get some cred back, I actually have been listening to more black metal lately than death metal. I love Immortal. Those guys are musically awesome, and their promo pics are just over the top funny.

Stellar*

I know I'm supposed to be a scary death metal kinda guy. My favorite band is not death metal. Not even close. My favorite band of all time (as of right now anyway) is Stellar* (the asterisk is part of their name). I love this band. Though they only have three albums, I love em all, start to finish.

I discovered them on a trip to New Zealand in 2000. They had just come out with their first album Mix, which was something like the highest selling domestic record in NZ. A few years later they came out with their second album Magic Line, and about two years ago they came out with their third disc Something Like Strangers.

This song is not real characteristic of their other stuff, but it's one of my favorites that they do. It's "For A While" off of the third disc.

Sparkles

I have a new project. I just won this body on eBay, and I also bought a nice Ibanez Prestige neck from the same seller. I'm not sure if I should add smoked black chrome hardware, or shiny chrome.

Gravlox

I tried curing some salmon to make gravlox. After my neighbor dropped off some fresh dill, I found a recipe on the internet. It called for 2 cups of kosher salt, 1/2 cup sugar, 1/2 cup fresh dill, and some cracked pepper. I used some smoked pepper.

This is what it looked like coated on Sunday afternoon.



This morning (Tuesday) I took it out, rinsed it, then sliced it as thin as possible. The texture was perfect, but it was too salty even after the first rinse. So I soaked it in water and now it tastes much better.

Lights

I put up most of the outside Christmas lights this weekend. I still have to do the one across the front of the house. I like the rope lights on the palm trees.

Bountiful

One of the advantages to living in our neighborhood is we have REALLY great neighbors. One of our neighbors has a really beautiful yard that she is growing herbs in. She has all kinds of nice fresh herbs and vegetables, from kaffir lime leaves to lemongrass, ong choy (which she brought over a few weeks ago), okra, etc.

Tonight she brought over this beautiful bunch of dill, rosemary and parsley. Now I just gotta figure out how I'm going to use them!! I'm thinking maybe some dill cured salmon, and a roast chicken with rosemary and garlic.

Leftover fish

The sushi maker had all kinds of fish leftover when the demand for sushi died down, so he started making all of these really funky rolls. Some of them had tobiko on the outside, with cucumber and unagi, others had salmon and spicy sauce on the outside and crab on the inside, and just all kinds of combinations. They were awesome!! We're a little sushi'd out at this point though.

Old friends

Here are some guitars I've owned over the years, all of which I've sold. There are others but I don't have pics of them. Sadly, I wish I at least had a pic of my '72 Strat, if not the guitar itself.

Tinkering

I like tinkering with stuff. Especially guitar gear. I like to install my own pickups and set my own guitars up and stuff. But that stuff is relatively boring.

Here are some projects I've done over the years.

This one is a Dual Rectifier head that I recovered with tolex. The story is that this particular head was made for Tommy Shaw of Styx, but I can't confirm that. When I bought it, the tolex covering on the cabinet was coming off. So I purchased some new tolex from Mesa Boogie and covered it using contact cement. Here's what it looked like after I finished:


This was a tricky project. I wanted to diamond plate this guitar to make it look similar to James Hetfield's explorer. I bought a piece of aluminum diamond plate on eBay. I made a template using drafting mylar and traced it onto the back of the plate. Then I used a jigsaw to cut it out. There were lots of aluminum shards everywhere. I hand filed the edges down so there weren't any sharp edges. I think the hardest part was the cutouts for the Floyd Rose bridge and the pickups. I also made a truss rod cover, a control cavity plate and a bridge spring plate. It turned out pretty neat:


This one was a star body from KNE guitars, and a Mighty Mite neck. I painted the body using a spray can. The finish came out really bad, mostly because spray can paint has so much additives to allow it to flow well, that it takes literally years to fully dry.


Here's a really cool telecaster I made. Well, I didn't really make it, I just assembled it. The body is a super light ash body with full contours, made by Warmoth. The neck is also by Warmoth and is a fat 1" boat shape, with medium jumbo stainless steel frets. I had a friend do the finishing. The pickups are Kinmans and the bridge is Vintique, while the rest of the hardware is Callaham stainless steel. All I did for this guitar was put it together and wire it up. Actually, I did hand shape the pickguard. It's a Callaham bakelite guard which had a vintage shape, that I reshaped to look like Fender's Tuff Dawg Tele. I really like the way it came out, and it makes this tele really unique.


Finally, here's my homemade guitar pedalboard. I made this one out of a spare Ikea cabinet door, wrapped with tolex leftover from the Mesa Boogie project, and fitted with industrial strength velcro (that stuff is hard to work with!!). I use two noise suppresors on this board (one for the pickups and one for the preamp), one wah, one whammy pedal, and a graphic EQ. This board makes my ENGL sound monstrous, but more defined than the Dual Recto sound. In fact, it sounds like the best, gained out Marshall you've ever heard.


Anyway those are my projects I've done over the last few years, other than some routine pickup installations I've done in my and other people's guitars. But I'm getting the urge to do another DIY project - I don't know what yet though.

Stupidity in the Photo Booth

At my party, I had all of my guests sit in front of the iMac and take a picture with themselves with the iCam and the Photo Booth program. I thought it would be really stupid if I stood in back and ate something while everyone took pictures. I cropped out my guests in these pics for privacy purposes, but you get the idea. I think only my brothers will think this is funny.

She Loves You

At my party, I asked the band to do an original that we don't do as part of our current set called She Loves You. I really like this song, and the chord structure allows me to write a bass line along the lines of two of my favorite bassists, Mike Mills and Gene Simmons. I admit, I was quite a bit "busier" than I normally play on this song, but it's my party and I'll overplay if I want to!!

The rain let up

but not before leaving my entire backyard drenched and muddy. I was talking to my bro in L.A. yesterday morning and he told me to put out gin, Hawaiian salt and a ti leaf, which supposedly would stop the rain. I didn't have gin, but I had about a quarter of a huge bottle of Skyy vodka. The gods were fooled initially because the rain let up, but I think they realized it was vodka so they kept the rain going until early afternoon.

Here are some of the guests in the backyard. There were a lot more people in the house playing video games and watching Wall-E, and more hanging out by the sushi and tempura makers.



Here's the sushi maker. That was a big hit!!



Here's the tempura maker. I was REALLY nervous about this, because the tent for my band was right next to him, and any jarring of my tent might have dropped a big splash of water into his vat of hot oil, which would have been disastrous. Fortunately it didn't happen.



Here's the band. Because of the rain and the size of the stage, we had to play acoustically. Well, sorta acoustic - Danny played my electric kit and I played electric bass. It was the setup that had the smallest footprint on stage. I think the music goes over really well acoustically.



It was an awesome party!! Fortunately everyone braved the rain to make it out and I have to say, I have the coolest family and friends anyone could ask for.

Forecast

I'm having a big party at my house. There will be about 48 people, so inevitably some will have to be outside under the tent that I rented. Now here's the National Weather Service forecast for the next few days:



Guess which day my party is? If you guessed the (only day) with the picture of the thunder and lightning, you're right.

My band is playing under one of the tents. My forecast calls for RAWK.

Scary monster

My brother showed his friends the videos of my band in the previous post, and they said "your brother looks like a monster" or something to that effect. Ha! Funny! I guess it was a combination of the camera angle, my hair, and the fact that I'm bigger and taller than Kevin (the singer). I'm not a scary guy or anything. I mean, I love death metal and all, but anyone that knows me knows that I'm nowhere near "scary" (maybe my hair is, but that's a different story).

Anyway, I think this photo looks kinda "scary". My arms are not that big though - it must've been the way they were smashed as I was crossing them. I guess I like looking scary sometimes. That's the dichotomy of being the Death Metal Soccer Coach.



The fact that we chose green and red to paint adjacent walls in the house..... now THAT'S scary.

More videos from the show

Slippin Away

Here's the first video I ripped from our show last night.

Don't read this post aloud

If you like vietnamese food, you probably know that "pho" isn't pronounced like "faux", it's actually pronounced "fuh" (rhymes with "duh"). It's pretty cool then, that this restaurant in Wahiawa named themselves Pho King, as in "q: How is the food there? a: Pho King good!"

Desert Sea Live

The Desert Sea played our first live show at the Loft in Chinatown. I thought we rocked it. Derek had a bunch of friends come out. My buddy Neal came out and I was lucky that he manned the cameras (thanks Neal!)

I'll try to get some YouTube live clips up soon. Meanwhile, here are some stills.

Me:



The band:


Me loading out:

Iron Man Fire Chief

Either way, she's a hero!

iPod blues

At the last soccer game, my daughter came and asked me what was wrong with the iPod.



It had a huge crack in the LCD which has progressively gotten worse. So I had to pick up a new iPod, since it gets used almost 2 hours a day. Fortunately, my soccer team gave me a gift certificate in appreciation for my coaching, so I was able to use that to partially pay for the new iPod.

Notice the clear plastic case. It's bulky, but at least it'll (hopefully) stay crack free.

Guava ice cream

I attempted to make guava ice cream (without an ice cream maker). The recipe says that if you're not using an ice cream maker, you need to churn it several times while it's solidifying.

I boiled all the ingredients yesterday afternoon at around 4:30 and stuck it in the freezer. It's a custard based ice cream, which means it has egg yolks, sugar, heavy cream and milk. I added vanilla extract, and some fresh squeezed guava juice. It's not pink though.... I think next time I'll add some food coloring.

It still wasn't solid at around 9:00 last night, so I churned it again. Then I had to leave to pick up mom and dad at the airport, and I only got to churn it once when I got home, around 10:30. When I got up this morning at 5, it was kinda icy because I didn't churn it enough. It has the ice crystals in it.

Next time I'll start the process in the morning so I can churn it all day.

Painted

I painted my mask grey today. Too bad it's 4 days after halloween. Oh well, there's always next year.

Kids say the darndest things, part I

E (my 7 year old): Daddy, if most of Hawaii voted for Barack Obama, did most people in other countries vote for Barack Obama too?

S (my 4 year old): Look at my art daddy! I LOVE arting!!

E: Daddy, Barack Obama wants to stop the war in Iraq. How is he going to stop it? Is he going to drop a big bomb on them?

Kids are SO funny!!

The Loft

The band that I'm playing bass in will be playing our first official show on November 13th at the Loft in chinatown. I've played most of the venues in town, but never at the Loft, so this will be cool. I think Kevin said at practice today that they'd be promoting that show on the radio, so listen to Star1019 for the ad for the Desert Sea - we're opening for a band from nyc called Council. Or is it Counsel - maybe a buncha attorney rockers?

Last game today

It was the last game of the U8 Fall season. It was really sad! This was such a fun group of kids. Despite the fact that we lost this game (and the last 5), we have gotten so much better as a team. I'm really proud of these kids.



Here they are getting ready for their trophies and certificates (and lunch).



The parents and kids also signed a really nice card for me. A bunch of parents came over and told me that they thought I did a great job this season as coach! That was very rewarding. And I got hugs from a bunch of the kids too. All in all, a great end to a great season.