Got up and out to the chiropractor’s office today.  I’m glad I went, my neck has been bothering me since I fell in mid-December and an adjustment helped it out quite a bit today.  After that, we grabbed some lunch and then came home so Eve could nap while Tasha and I relaxed a bit and then it was off to Michelle and Ed’s house for some Pandemic.

Michelle makes a shepherd’s pie (technically cottage pie because it uses beef) and it is PHENOMENAL.  She made it for us shortly after Eve was born and it contains a ton of things that I like: cheese, mashed potatoes, beef, and biscuits.  The only thing that could possibly make it better is if someone put some bacon in there, but suffice it to say I am still full as I write this.  Gaming with them was fun!  Eve had a new experience tonight… Ed and Michelle have some very well-mannered cats, and Eve grabbed one of them (named Gandalf) by the tail.  Gandalf was really cool about it, but Eve had a death grip on that thing and was thrilled with herself.  We quickly ran to Gandalf’s aid and Eve went back to playing with her toys.

The rest of the night was spent doing some chores and relaxing.  I played one of my new guitars for awhile and surfed around on the Internet, and now I’m spending some time relaxing and listening to The Beatles.  Life is good!

Today was my buddy Bruce’s going-away lunch, and he wanted to eat at Quaker Steak & Lube.  This place is known for it’s wings, and since I’ve never really tried wings before I opted to try something new.  Not one to go small, I opted to try 3 wings from the hottest sauce in the “HOT” category and three wings from the lower of the two “INSANE” sauces.

I started with the HOT category wing.  It was hot, intense, but not too crazy… then I decided to move on to the INSANE wing.  I went with a half of a wing just to see how it went… and that was all I ate of that particular variety.  The taste of the wing was better than the first wing, but the heat started coming on stronger and stronger until it was basically just abject pain for 15 minutes or so.  The worst part about it was the nagging desire to attempt to eat more of that sauce, but I opted for caution and went back to the HOT variety.  It seemed timid in comparison… it was very interesting to me the relative difference after I tried something orders of magnitude hotter.

So I got a bumper sticker that proclaims me a Atomic Sauce Survivor and some good memories were had.  So far, no meaningful fallout from the process either… time will tell whether or not I regret things on the other side.

Right before I left for my business trip, a large box arrived at my house that contained the guitars that shipped from my cousin, John.  John is the owner/operator of a business called Custom-Relics that creates guitars inspired by famous artists or customized just for you.  Since I run his website for him, he made me two special guitars in payment (as is our deal).

The first guitar I got was a thinline rosewood telecaster with a Bigsby B-16 bridge (on the left in the photo).  I asked John for something similar to that because I like rosewood, and the inspiration for the bridge (that proved to be John’s bane) came from a posting on the Unofficial Warmoth forums.  I thought it was unique looking, and asked for it.

The guitar in the center is my Made In Mexico strat, which was in John’s care to get the pickups rewired.  This guitar was the project guitar that he and I were working on in December of 2009, adding Klein pickups.  At the time, we left quite a solder mess in there and John replaced the pickups and rewired it using the experience that he gained since then.

The guitar on the right was a surprise/Christmas gift.  John informed me that he was building me a unique strat and I would get very little additional information about it until I got it.  On Christmas, he surprised me with it… the paint job inspired it’s new name (Boba Fett), and the neck shape is the same shape as my Les Paul… big and fat.  I have spent quite some time with it since I unboxed it last night, I really love the guitar.

Having all these nice axes is great… I need to play more and learn some lead stuff so I can properly enjoy these instruments.  Thanks John, you’re the best!

I’ve decided to change the format of my goals for 2012.  Instead of an enumerated out list, I’m going to have a goal statement with actions that I will revisit on a semi-regular basis.  To start I will state the goal, give a little background, and set an actionable task that I can achieve.  The idea is that this will keep me more motivated toward progress.  We shall see!

Goal 1: Save 3-6 months in an emergency fund.

Too much time has passed since we paid off our last debt.  The next step is to save up a 3-6 months rainy day fund, and we fell woefully short of that for a variety of reasons.  We were doing very good until the baby came, then hospital bills, a new (used) car purchase, and the continued reliance on some comfort spending to deal with stress has led to a less-than-ideal state.  On top of that, we just had to replace our water heater so that makes setting the first task easy.

Task 1: Survive until February, sticking to the budget and conserving money where possible.

Goal 2: Build another instrument.

This year I want to continue my foray into learning to build instruments.  Last year I spent the lion’s share of my time working on Dad’s ukulele while I saved up enough cash to make a purchase of tools, tonewood, and an acoustic guitar kit.  The purchase happened late in the summer last year, and I wasn’t able to execute quickly enough to begin work before the weather turned cold.  I want to start out this year working on my own acoustic guitar kit (from StewMac) and as the summer warms up I will add into the mix my project to build two Les Paul guitars alongside a buddy of mine from work.

Task 1: Set up spindle sander and purchase template wood for acoustic project.

Goal 3: Read more books, targeting 10 non-fiction books for the year.

My previous desire to read has slowly perverted over time into spasmodically checking Facebook and reading just enough to get by when solving problems at work.  I have noted a very disturbing trend of comfort in my current set of skills and interests, so this year I want to get back to reading.  I have accumulated a small (large) pile of books that have either been started or ignored after purchase, and I will begin by finishing off some of those from my reading pile before moving on to new endeavors.

You will notice that I am targeting non-fiction books, but I am non-specific about the content.  I suspect based on my reading pile that this will run the gamut of professional development, religion, guitar-building, and programming… so be prepared for some variety.  Also, given my past record of reading voraciously I stand a very good chance of blowing this 10 book target out of the water, but only time will tell if I return to old habits or if I am destined to eat my own words.  Just in case you’re interested, I will post the titles and authors of what I’m reading.  If you have follow-up questions, feel free to hit me at any time and we can have a nice discussion of literature.

Task 1: Finish reading ‘Leadership Gold’ by John C. Maxwell, for half-credit.

That’s all the goals I am setting for this year.

There are several other areas that I want to continue developing in or rekindle, but I don’t feel a specific drive to set a goal around them and have to track them throughout the year.  These include, but are not limited to: continuing my spiritual/charitable development, getting back to karate, blogging, taking less work stress home with me, getting some weight off Teddy by walking him more, and spending quality time with Tasha and Eve but again… these are cross-cutting activities that are hard or annoying to track.  It’s not that these things are not important, in fact in many ways they eclipse the goals that I have set… I just don’t want to get so bogged down in tracking things that I lose time to actually do things.

So there ya go!  Expect an update periodically as I finish tasks and set new ones.  Questions and comments welcome!

I sit here, writing this blog during the very last moments of my vacation.  Work begins anew for 2012 tomorrow and I am optimistic for a change.  I know generally how tomorrow will go: a huge backlog of emails, followed by confirming travel plans and expectations for my trip to Nebraska tomorrow night, and with any luck at all I can actually get some work done for the back half of the day.

I am looking forward to a routine again.  I am looking forward to a fresh year, hopefully full of optimism.  I have been thinking about my 2012 goals and resolutions and I think I’m going to change the format a bit.  We’ll talk more about that tomorrow.

For now, I need to get a few things done around the house and then head to bed so I’m less of zombie tomorrow!

Personal

1. Have a baby.  We’ve got a pretty good jump-start on this one.SUCCESS!  In case you’ve been living under a rock, Eve Marie Dalcher was born on March 23rd.  She is awesome, and here is a photo album to prove it.
2. Give more.  Tasha and I aim to give 5% of our income to charity this year.SUCCESS!  We hit that target, and then some… including donations of our time to charitable causes.
   
3. Save 3-6 months of expenses in our big emergency fund.FAIL!  The baby, the new car, and several visits by Murphy have reduced our emergency fund to below the 3 month mark.

Recreation

1. Train at the dojo as often as possible.  I’m going to shoot for more workouts than last year (53).FAIL!  Because of my lack of blogging (see below) I don’t even really know how many workouts I got in this year, but I can tell you that it’s around or less than last year.  The trials of new parenthood and the demands of the office were the primary causes, as well as a general lack of motivation that I’m not proud of.
2. Build a guitar.  I’m going to start with a StewMac kit and go from there, starting as soon as the weather gets warm.SUCCESS (kinda)!  Instead of building a StewMac kit, I built a ukulele for my Dad instead.  It features a French Polish finish that took 3.5 months to apply, and it went very well.  I’m counting it.
   
3. Daily blogging.  Same metrics as last year.FAIL!  This one fell prey to fatherhood as well.  The numbers aren’t even close enough to count, with entire months going by without a word here.  I have become more active on Facebook, less so on Twitter so I am still sharing… it just hasn’t been here.

As I write this post, I am sitting on my parent’s couch in Pekin finishing the very last of my Illinois Christmas vacation. I realize that my blogging as diminished in the last several months, normally I would be sitting here apologizing for that indiscretion.

Instead, I like to think that I replaced the blogging time with living time. Whether that takes the form of spending quality time with Eve and Tasha, doing additional side projects for fun/profit, working out, or taking part in Church activities I like to think that the additional time doing has been beneficial.

Next year we are going to get back to some goals and find some balance. It will be good for all of us.

Before the Foo Fighters concert, I was sitting around musing about how weird it was to be out at a concert while Tasha watched Eve.  I have the greatest wife in the world to allow me to do such crazy things as going to a rock show on a Sunday night, leaving her to diapers and feedings and whatever other fun things that the baby is able to muster up in my absence.  I figured this is the type of thing that I should be blogging about, then I had to tack on some dreaded words: IF I WERE STILL BLOGGING.

So I decided after the show, no matter how tired and deaf I was (am!) I would write something for the blog tonight.

The opening acts for the Foo Fighters show were Mariachi El Bronx and Cage the Elephant.  Mariachi El Bronx was so far off the chart for things I wouldn’t ever listen do that we didn’t even elect to go into the venue during their set.  I imagine there exists a slim reality where I could have walked through the entrance to the venue, been teleported into a strange parallel universe where mariachi music was hardcore and cool, so I won’t immediately say there’s no chance of me ever liking it… but it’s mathematically unlikely.

Several of my indie music friends should recognize Cage the Elephant, since they are a rather popular band.  I can tell you this: their sound guy hates everyone.  Their drummer and guitarists were quite capable, but the lead singer’s volume was way too high for the rest of the band and his vocal track borderlines on coked-out howler monkey so it wasn’t working for me.  It’s a shame too… I really wanted to have a good experience listening to them, so I could tell my other indie music friends how good they are… but it wasn’t working for me tonight.

Exhausted of lackluster music, I was relieved when the Foo Fighters came on.  Within their first three songs, they had the crowd engaged and were rocking it out.  They played “Learn to Fly” early and then promised that they weren’t one of those crappy bands that plays an hour and forty five minutes and is done, so we might want to call in sick to work tomorrow.  They finished their encore at 11:47 pm, having played almost two hours and forty-five minutes.  Dave Grohl doesn’t phone it in either… they were rocking it out the whole time.

The part that impressed me most was how the band engaged the crowd.  Dave Grohl took the time to call out individuals that he noticed enjoying themselves, happy birthday wishes to people with signs… he even implored all of the teenaged kids in the crowd to go buy guitars so there can actually be bands that use real guitars in the future instead of computer equipment.  There was so much good music to be had that it’s not even worth rattling off the list of songs… if you heard it on the radio and it was by them, they probably played it.  They also played tracks off of their new album, which seems to be very good.

Dave pointed out that one song “These Days” is his absolute favorite song he’s ever written.  He wrote it “in like a minute” and was playing the chords and working out the lyrics and realized that he was writing the song he’d been trying to write for 20 years.  It was a cool song, very introspective.  It’s worth a listen.

Suffice it to say, the Foo’s made up for the lackluster opening acts in a huge way.  If they come out here again, I’m not missing it.

I am about to cover a topic that I don’t often write about, speak about, or share with others: my Catholic Faith.  If you are not interested in such things or don’t have anything constructive to add, you might want to just pass this blog post by and wait for my next update.  Consider yourself warned.

Since we moved to Colorado, Tasha and I spent nearly two and a half years looking for a Church that could replace St. Joseph’s Catholic Church in Pekin as our parish home.  Neither Tasha or I were particularly observant up to this point, however we tried a few of the Catholic Churches in the area and none of them felt right until we found St. Mark Catholic Church.  I found it rejuvenating to go back to Mass, have Reconciliation (particular thanks to Father Jim at St. Joseph’s for giving us a head start on that topic), and in general just get comfortable participating in the faith again.

When we found out we were having Eve, it became more viscerally important to both Tasha and I to become comfortable with the Church’s teachings because we were going to have a child to worry about.  This urged us further into our analysis and participation in Church practices and activities (mainly, we began giving more) and looking for different ways to learn more.

I have never been what you would consider an “active person” in my Church… I would go to Mass and that was about it (and for quite a long while, not even that.)  Last year I told myself to just go, listen, and not think about things too hard and you’ll find out the right thing to do.  For me, the right thing to do took the shape of a program called “That Man Is You!” – a 26 week long men’s fellowship designed to strengthen Catholic men in their exploration of the Church’s teachings on how to become a better leader, father, and husband.  A man named Tom provided a short talk about the program at Church one day, and I just got the feeling that it was the right thing for me to look into.  He was looking for volunteers to help plan the program, so I volunteered.  It turns out that it has been primarily him and I organizing things, with the help of a few others, so we had a lot to do.

One Sunday last month, I was helping to promote the program by handing out flyers at the Church.  Since I had to arrive early and stay late to help answer questions, I had about an hour between Masses.  Most of the time I would get some food from the nearby Sonic and then head back to the Church.  I spent the spare minutes milling around the lobby, waiting for people to arrive and reading some of the flyers they have freely available.  One of the flyers had a portrait of a young priest and it was entitled “The Life and Legacy of Father Michael J. McGivney“.  The contents outlined the short life of Father McGivney and told of the reasons that he founded the Knights of Columbus.

The Knights of Columbus… I remembered those guys from St. Joseph’s Church in Pekin.  All I could recall was that our local DARE officer was a knight and they would sometimes come to Church in their regalia.  I don’t even remember WHY they would come to Church, but that was the memory that came back to me.  I didn’t think too much of it beyond that, then I put the flyer back in it’s place.

Fast forward a few more weeks.  I was back at the Church to help sign people up for our “That Man Is You!” program.  Once again, I was at Church early waiting for people to arrive.  Across the foyer, a man showed up wearing a Knights of Columbus vest.  He told me he was there to help set up the gifts and greet people.  Since there wasn’t anyone arriving at the Church yet, we introduced ourselves.  His vest was full of pins and badges, however the one that caught my eye was a big green button that said “Ask me about K of C!”

So I did.

He explained the intent of the organization, how they were firmly rooted in Catholic teachings and care first and foremost about families.  They do charity and social events, including the fish fry’s and pancake breakfasts that I vaguely remember mentions of from my youth.  I asked about time commitments, and he said that the only thing required to stay an active member was to attend monthly meetings and you could be involved in as much or as little charity work as you desire.  That sounded good to me, so he left me with a bunch of information.

After discussing it with Tasha and reading all I could about their organization, I have decided to join their ranks.  Last Wednesday, I was initiated and took my First Degree.  On Saturday, I take my Second and Third Degrees and become a full member.  I have already attended a meeting and gotten to know several of the men in our Council and their families, and I am excited at the prospect of learning and doing more.  The big thing I am looking forward to participating in is their charitable programs.  It feels good to help others, and this gives me a structure and some motivation to get off my butt and do more good for people, and the world needs more of that.

Now, I fully expect that many of my friends (and even my family) won’t really understand this.  In short, my response to questions / ridicule / skepticism is this: participating in this way is really working for me right now.  It makes me feel like a better person, like I am making a difference and helping people out while strengthening my relationship with Tasha and our family.  Yes, I can do that in a myriad of other ways, but this is the means I am choosing for now.  Much of my motivation is coming from Eve… I don’t want her to grow up and only see Daddy sitting on his butt in front of the computer, video game, or TV.  I would much prefer her learn how to help people and how to do good by my example.

Oh, and the other common question: no, I won’t be dressing up in the regalia.  I have to be a member for at least a year before I can take the Fourth Degree.  All in good time.

We spent the weekend socializing with some of our gamer friends, including my friend Ed Healy.  He came to town to run one of his Gamerati Tour event stops and asked if he could stay with us for a few days.  He was a great houseguest and is a lot of fun to have around, so I hope it’s not the last time he stays here with us while criss-crossing the country.

While Ed was venturing out to Colorado Springs, I got the last bit of French Polishing done on Dad’s ukulele.  After a nervewracking process of removing the masking tape that covered the location where the bridge would be, I installed both the bridge and the nut.  Today I fixed up the peghead to accommodate the ukulele tuners that I am going to install.  All that’s left is to install the tuners, apply the label, and give it one final polish before stringing it up and hearing how it sounds!

Oh, one other fun thing… last Friday was the start of the “That Man Is You!” program at the Church.  I helped organize getting this thing started, and it was really encouraging to see 20 men show up at 5:45 am on a Friday morning to watch the DVD series and have a discussion about the topic.  The first session was about leadership in our society today and the morality of the people that our society considers leaders.  Let’s just say it was a pretty stark portrait painted by the speaker.  We get to find out more next week, so stay tuned for more.

That’s about all I have to say at the moment.  I am confident that this is going to be a good, full week (which I hope will include more blogging!)