This is the day every year when I am thankful to be an American citizen. Not in a jingoistic way… I’m not blindly patriotic, and consider America to be a work in progress. However, I am thankful for our freedom and for the principles that the country was founded upon.
And yet, the 4th of July is also a little strange to me. I’ve never completely internalized the connection between fireworks and patriotism. I know the national anthem and can reference the rockets’ red glare stanza. It’s just a little ironic that we celebrate our love of America by blowing up small parts of it.
Say what you like about this country. I love it. I’m proud and thankful to be a citizen. And I think Lady Liberty is kinda cute, although my masculine ego is slightly threatened by taller women.
Last night I completed the trim work on the wall project at home. It has turned out quite good. I definitely got a lot of benefit from using two great tools on this project: my trusty table saw, and my new compound saw. These tools made it pretty easy to complete the job in decent time and to get clean results. I need to get a compressor and a nail gun to make the installation of trim faster, but even with ye olde hammer, I managed to get the thing done. Next project is likely to be whole-house baseboard moulding, for which the compressor/nail gun combo will be a must-have. Hooray for progress!
Last night we assembled The 1Uppers for a (nearly) full-band rehearsal… we were missing one guitarist, so I got to hold down the fort with my trusty Telecaster. Man, that’s a great guitar. I had a blast working on those songs with the band, and we’re starting to sound pretty dang good. Jon Hyde is positively slaying the pedal steel parts on these songs. He seems to have an endless supply of interesting licks. I’m going to need to do a lot of practicing to keep up!
I need to buy a combo amp for these kinds of gigs, and I’ve decided to look around for a used Fender Twin or perhaps a Hot Rod Deluxe. Either amp would be great for general use. I just can’t show up for 1Uppers gigs with my rack setup. It just doesn’t seem right… 🙂
The Tele sounds surprisingly warm and is really comfortable to play on these songs. Part of the joy of playing guitar is the feel of the instrument, and this guitar has a lot of goodness.
