nicknickhall

Still on the shaky side. My remaining Heritage guitar is a sweet, stunning, Sweet 16. I've had equally stunning h-530, h-575, and custom h-150 come and go. At 70 years of age I'm not sure how long I can wear my rock and roll shoes. Carpe Diem indeed

As I push 60 here and have learned a lot of hard lessons, they're changing all the questions anyway. It's funny though, in spite of all the technological progress, and I've worked in high tech for 15 years, progress is just an illusion. The 4g wireless network i help to build still can't deliver a telephone call at the same quality that we had 50 years ago on landlines...and as fast as my computers are now, they're just as buggy and prone to needing reboots. Move ever onward anyway!

It's morning in CA. I just looked at the HOC member map and there's a good group here in CA. I've been here for 20 years as a resident. Have also resided in Japan, Florida, Massachusetts, New Orleans LA, New York, and my hometown is Charm City, Ballmer MD. As a 6 yr old kid I was the early riser in my house. I'd switch on WMAR at 6:55 am so I could gaze at the test pattern, followed by jets, ol glory and the anthem, and then "The Early Riser" himself, Mr. Stu Kerr. He presented as the station janitor and welcomed early arriving viewers to his show. I remember cartoons and give aways. You could send him a postcard and he would call you up and ask you a question. If you got it right you win a prize. If you got it wrong you win a prize. I scored a camera and a bat as I recall. The camera was a 126mm (?) plastic box w/ a plastic lens. Now I take pictures for a living with a magnesium alloy computer with very nice lenses thank you very much. I no longer have the bat, sadly, but I still swing my bat from the last softball league i played in (highest caliber coed league in Pleasanton, CA) My kind of league, slow pitch- where do ya want it pitching. I led off with a .750 average for the year, all singles. Most teams put their weakest fielders in right. So I let the ball get deep and punch it over the second base-person's head and stroll to first. My bat? Wonder Boy of course. What is the Portal page? I just looked at it today and don't have it figured yet.

Send in the clowns! Ladies and Gentlemen, please direct your attention to the center ring, and don't pay any attention to the man behind the curtain. PT Barnum and my ol' neighbor Izzy who was a car salesman and liked to say, "there's an ass for every seat"

And your point about the other professions is very true and i'm old enough to know it from personal experience. The other day i was meditating on the fact that everybody cheats all the time, trying to rationalize all this rule bending. My work has me on the road for lots of 200 mile days on the freeway so on those days; what percentage of folks are speeding (myself included when i think it's safe to do so), texting on phones, driving distracted. I've even seen a definition of homo sapiens as "the lying ape". I am certainly not a holier than thou type. So, maybe, it's when we talk to each other that we should be able to agree on our truth as a common ground for action. I have a friend from college who scored big as a hedge fund mgr. He's always had an arrogant side, and now his knowledge of the dishonesty used as tools in the financial industry has hardened and accentuated that part of his personality. I always admired his success. it was high stakes he played and he paid a price in stress. But now he's become self-righteous when he deflects any criticism of his casino buddies. He considers them the "hard eyed realists." Which makes me just a sucker. And it makes him a prosperous crook. Yikes.

well put Spectrum 13. And I made full use of the web while i was checking what i think i know, that is semi hollows use laminate to check feedback at high volumes. The guitars that are solid carved (archtops) pieces of wood charge a premium for it. i fault the kids boss at the store for blowing smoke up the kid's wazoo to sell him a guitar he didn't need or even understand. I sent the kid a citation from a book article about guitar construction that uses the scofield model specifically. Then the kid rejected my information in favor of his local prejudice, that's a little disturbing, but not unusual, as you point out. still, in this world everyone's entitled to an opinion, but you're not entitled to your own facts. I was interested to see what the seller's level of knowledge was vis a vis his tools so i could gauge the value of his description. i got my answer. The first two lines of the article description talk about the solid wood, and they remain unedited today. I've got two hundred plus transactions on the bay and i'm always cross checking my facts to know i'm not misrepresenting anything. If I placed that article for sale, described that way, i'd be ignorant and dishonest. And so it goes.

So, there's a scofield jsm100 up on ebay. seller says it has a solid wood top. i write to seller, ahem, you describe your guitar as a 335 type (laminate top) and your listing (jsm 100) as a solid maple top and bottom, but ahem, your guitar has a laminate top. seller responds saying his boss at the store where he teaches guitar says it's solid so it's solid. Here's the problem, young americans don't know the diff from a solid piece of carved wood and plywood. I am depressed. has it come to this??? come on kid, really?, you don't know... and, i'm not a solid wood fanatic, i like laminate. laminate is amazing. works great in semi hollows, but geez kid, this on the same day as a beautiful h530 w/ Bigsby comes up on ebay and the seller intends to ship it in bubble wrap and a gig bag. like that is sufficient protection. common sense says a hard case inside a box might do it but bubble wrap and peanuts to protect a hollow body guitar with a Bigsby on it??? i need a drink.