a tribute
This is an American made Fender Highway One Jazz bass that I refinished into Shell Pink. Before you cast judgement, it was inspired by one of my earliest influences as a bassist, Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers. An AOL-Time Warner executive gave Flea a 1961 Shell Pink Jazz bass as a gift, and it’s estimated to be worth around $30,000. Ever since I sold my MIA Jazz V, I missed that classic jazz growl so much. The pickups have been upgraded to Lindy Fralins, 10% overwound, and the bridge is a Leo Quan Badass II. It purrs.
It took a quart of lacquer thinner, latex gloves, tons of paper towls, several different grades of sandpaper, super glue, a can of nitrocellulose primer, a can of nitrocellulose color, two cans of nitrocellulose clear lacquer, tons of elbow grease, and a lot of patience.
Before:
During
After
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rekindled friendship
Ren & Stimpy are home for the summer, and Holiday is intrigued.
*edit*
That is my sister’s hand, not mine.
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sad day
I don’t have many sad days, but today was a sad day. I’m going to write about it to self medicate.
So I couldn’t sleep last night because I was experiencing anxiety knowing that I had a really long day today, and I had a bunch of final assignments to turn in on my last day of class. I ended up falling asleep between 2-3am last night, and I woke up at 6am and I couldn’t fall back asleep.
I spent a couple hours finishing all my classwork, then I loaded up my car to go to NoVA, and went to class. Turned everything in, and came back to pick up Mike and drove to my home in Catharpin to drop off a bunch of stuff including Ren & Stimpy, and loaded up all my bass gear, went to Centreville to drop off Mike, then drove as fast as I could to Seoul Presbyterian Church in rush hour traffic. A exhausting 3 hours on the road falling asleep half the time. During these 3 hours, I also realized that I had lost my phone. blah.
Rushed through practice with the guys for 2Gather since we were running late, and actually my new bass sounded pretty good through my new amp. I got to see some friends too, but thats where the fun ended.
The whole night, I remember just sitting in my chair during the message and during prayer time, and I just wanted to go home. I know I was tired, but that wasn’t it. I was zoned out during the message, with very little desire to engage and listen. During prayer time, people were responding to invitations by going to the front where they were prayed over by prayer counselors and pastors. I was surrounded by passionate prayers being yelled by dudes with much zeal, and I watched pairs of people sharing and praying. Closing worship was just led by Joon on guitar, no drums/electric/me so I attempted to worship on my own in the back. I stood up and tried to worship, but I decided that I won’t sing karaoke in His sanctuary, so I sat back down.
I quietly sat in my chair, just thinking “what in the world is wrong with me?” “Am I doing something wrong?” Then I started wondering if I did anything to offend God, even though I know grace doesn’t work like that. I don’t remember the last time I felt so dry and disengaged at any worship service. It has to have been at least a couple years. The night for me was drier than overcooked chicken breast from the day before. In the final minutes of the prayer time, I wanted so badly to petition and to hear from God, but all I could do was think about how confused and discouraged I was.
Totally bummed out, I packed up my stuff and felt like just going home to sleep, even though people wanted to go out to eat. I ended up grabbing a quick bite at Mcdonalds with a younger friend back from high school who insisted on buying me. The entire drive home, I just kept thinking about the night and how odd it was. When I was only 10 minutes from home, I was deep in thought when I noticed flashing blue and red lights in my rear view mirror.
“Great, this is literally my 11th time being pulled over,” I thought. I already have 5 tickets on my record, (only 1 was speeding), and I wasn’t exactly thrilled to swallow a 6th. According to Officer Wildman, K. L., I was going 52 in a 35 zone, though I thought it was 45. He told me the speed limit increased further up the road, and ended up writing me up for “failure to obey highway sign” instead of speeding (I think it was my desperate prayer for mercy while he was in his vehicle). Just exhausted, tired, and bummed out, I quietly said “thank you” as he handed me my license, registration, and ticket, and turned my car back on. After I pulled back on the road and rounded the corner, I noticed a speed limit posted at 50mph. Sweet.
I got home and complained to Joanne and Nathan about my crummy day, and I started looking over my ticket. Thank the Lord for comic relief. The fool thought I was white!
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it grinds my gears
There aren’t that many things in my life that I consider bothersome, but I absolutely hate it when I run out of boxers. I look through all my drawers, and even my luggage bags hoping that I left a clean pair in there from retreat, and then I just resort to going to my dirty laundry. It’s like having the honor of choosing the winning raffle ticket from a bucket. I don’t smell it or examine it, I just put it on and forget about it as soon as possible. Ignorance is bliss, but I hope I don’t get a rash or something.
*edit*
Okay, so I ended up finding another pair of boxers that were fresh. They were hidden in a pile of laundry I did weeks before. Geez.
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independence day
So I purposefully made no plans for my July 4th so I could spend some time at home with family.
At the moment, Mom & Dad are next door at our neighbor’s son’s wedding…
Grandma’s outside watering her garden…
Joanne’s at work, Nathan’s at a friend’s barbecue, and I’m just sitting here independently watching Food Network while eating this freeze dried ice cream.
My country ’tis of thee,
Sweet land of liberty
of thee I sing;
Land where my fathers died,
Land of the pilgrim’s pride,
from every mountain side
let freedom ring!
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craziest dream
I had the craziest dream just now during my nap. I’m only recording for my personal entertainment.
The majority of the dream took place at a huge concert hall, where my band and Sanctus Real were opening up for Britney Spears.
The sound guy that was setting up had speaker stacks that went up almost 20 feet, and were about to tip over. He was bald and crazy. It was both of my 4×10 cabs, ACF’s speakers stacked, and some backline cabinets stacked.
Bethany Dillon was on the side of the stage playing background acoustic guitar for Sanctus Real and working sound. I was so surprised! She was adorable, and had the sweetest smile on her face when I said hi to her. It was like seeing a long time crush again for the first time.
Here’s the best part. I got to hang out with Britney Spears backstage while we were waiting to start the show. We took a couple pictures together, but none of them showed up very well on my cell phone. I remember thinking “oh man I’m going to send this to Soo and she’s going to be so jealous” haha. I also remember being so impressed at how soft her hair and skin were when I put my arm around her for the pictures. She was actually really cool, and I totally had the hots for her. She had this pretty red outfit too. (A red version of the white dress in the music video for “Sometimes” when she’s laying down and its an aerial shot.)
When it was our turn for the soundcheck, my keyboardist Brian started playing the notes to our opening song, but I couldn’t find my bass amp, our lead electric Gurney was missing, and we all started to panic. I ran and found what I thought was my amp, brought it back to my cabinet, and opened up the rack to find that it was just my pedalboard.
Then we had a lady on a microphone yelling at us over and over to hurry up, and in the middle of running around, they turned the lights off on us and told us to get off. That’s when I woke up.
A couple things:
1. I miss bethany
2. Britney was so fun to hang out with and shes hot
3. I’m scared that one day that’ll actually happen to us.
4. Sometimes dreams are just so freaking fun. Thanks Big Man!
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Kirkland Autograph
Okay, it’s 3:30am, and I’m still not tired since I drank a cup of Cherry Coke Zero around midnight. So while I’m waiting for fatigue to kick in, I’m chatting with Mike Yi about the same old stuff that we always talk about. You know, music, gear, the culture of worship, God’s calling for our lives, praying crazy prayers, our dreams and visions for the Church, and of course food, and namely, grilling.
During our thrilling conversation, I briefly mentioned that I’m a fan of Kirkland Signature ground beef patties, and it got me thinking…
What is stamped with Kirkland’s Signature, that isn’t legit? Seriously, their vanilla ice cream is the best hand scooped ice cream I’ve ever had, their cotton undershirts are thick and super soft, and their milk jugs are rectangular and easily stackable for heavens sake. Their bottled water is cheap as dirt (but not dirty), their vitamins and supplements are affordable, and even their shampoo makes my mom’s hair look soft and silky.
I honestly can’t think of one Kirkland Signature product that I’ve tried that I’ve been disappointed with. There is absolutely none. If Kirkland Signature made bass guitars, I would probably own at least one. If they sold wedding rings, I’d take my wife’s ring size to Costco.
True story:
Years ago, I was diagnosed by my general health practitioner to have high cholesterol. I started taking Kirkland fish oil caplets everyday with dinner, and after a few months, my cholesterol levels were not only acceptable, but it was right in the middle of the ideal range. Trust me, it wasn’t the Omega-3’s, it was the name on the label.
So basically, in my life, I will be loyal to 5 things:
1. My Lord Jesus
2. My Family
3. My friends
4. A&T’s
5. Kirkland Signature
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worst marketing ever
Whenever I’m on Facebook, Yahoo! mail, or any website with a ton of advertisement, it’s fun to just look at the ads sometimes. I see ads like this and I’m amazed that someone is actually being paid to make these. Nothing about this picture of her makes me think “youthful.” Definitely not her hair-do. Barbara Walters? Are they serious? That’s like getting Lindsay Lohan to be the spokesperson for D.A.R.E.
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she just done got me mad
My former friend, Eunice Lee posted this image in a Facebook photo album of hers with the following caption:
“SO much better than A&T’s.”
And here are the comments that followed:
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yeah, i remember now. it came out of my butthole after i had severe indigestion and diarrhea.