Banjo Lessons 1 - 10

Lesson #1 My Teacher
My teacher wears suspenders and speaks in rhyme. Coolest factor is really high right now.

Lesson #2 Tuning a Banjo
Teacher-Let's check your banjo to see if the cold weather outside got to it.
Me-(after plucking acrossthe 5 strings) How's that?
Teacher - Well, close enough for country music.

Lesson #3 The Scale

I had a lot of trouble finding B Flat until I remembered that A Sharp and B Flat are the same note.

Lesson #4 Sheet Music
There is no sheet music for banjo. Real banjoist play by ear/what feels right...I'm in trouble.

Lesson #5 Wall of Frustration
We all experience the wall of frustration. It's like El Guapo, we all have our own. Mine just happens to be learning how to play the banjo.  As my teacher said, The only thing you learn from success is that it feels good.

Lesson #6 Mistaken Identity 
My teacher has me confused with someone else, that is good at playing the banjo.

 Lesson #7 Clapping 

It's really helpful to sing while you figure out how you want to play the song. -Teacher Sing AND play banjo? At the same time? I can't sing and clap at the same time.

Lesson #8 Costume
If I ever get serious about performing...I need to consider a costume. Every other banjoist has one..


Lesson #9 Sickness
If you are sick, do not go to banjo lessons.


Lesson #10 Blizzard
If there is a blizzard, banjo lessons will be canceled.

RimRock Farm

 

 I had heard a lot of great stories, so I had to check it out myself. It started out as acres of untamed land and through more than a decade of blood, sweat and tears became a beautiful cross country course that's also been used for weddings, retreats, etc. In fact, they even have their own graveyard. It 's uniqueness, makes it ... unique.

 

 This feature is of a covered bridge over one of the many ponds. As you can see, I was not the only visitor. It's a busy place.

This is a view from inside the covered bridge. Can you find a rhombus? Triangle?

Another cool feature would be all of the silhouettes of folks relating to KU track history and beyond.This is one of Jim Ryun, he broke a lot of distance running records, went to the Olympics and such. As if that wasn't challenging enough, he served as a U.S. Congressman for quite a while.

This one is of Coach Timmons, the man behind RimRock Farm and former coach to a lot of driven, successful athletes and adults. Thanks for the boost, Pheffer...The silhouettes are larger than life size.

A lot of runners have told me it is a challenging course to run, and I only walked part of it. I can say, it does take a lot out of you, but it was worth it all.

How to Do Themed Christmas wrapping

First you need to gather the necessary supplies: a couple creative friends, desperate for entertainment,...

some sharpie markers, tape, rocks, tissue paper, scissors, you get the idea. 

Also if you can multitask a classic Christmas film adds to the experience. 

 

Next you need to determine what your theme is going to be. 
 If everyday has felt like a battle. Why not have a theme that fits your feelings?

Thus the theme is laid. Give those you care about everything they would need to fight the daily battle against....whatever it is they are fighting.

Go big or go home.

Not even kidding.

Always be OVERprepared.

What better way to say Merry Christmas?

1 Fish, 2 Fish, Dead Fish, Undead Fish

So I'm not much of an animal person, but I have had fish for a few years. They are a unique kind from Asia, White Cloud Minnows. They are somewhat colorful small and difficult to kill. Not that I am trying to kill them on purpose, I just was less successful with other kinds of fish. I believe the words they used were resilient, to temperature changes and pH level changes, etc.  They were just the right kind of fish for me.
  However, since I have moved 3 times in the past 5 years, moving them has become less fun each time. After the last move, I decided that I would not maintain the typical number of minnows to 5-7, I would just let them die, naturally....In their own time. I started with 4, and one died a couple months ago. They strangest thing happened last week though. I had a fish come back to life. Seriously, he was stuck in the filter. I thought I would get him out the next day so I wouldn't smell fish on my hands since I was going to bed.

I tried to take pictures of my tank, but even with the underwater setting it just wasn't working, so I'll try my best to illustrate my point. Here you can see that one fish is stuck in the filter.

This is the next day. Two fish are again swimming in the water....

First I was shocked, doubting that he was ever really stuck in the filter. I quickly reminded myself that he really was stuck in there. Are there any life lessons I can learn from this? I would have put more that to that, except that that fish was on his side in the bottom of the tank that evening. I guess I can say that they are true to the advertisement: Die Hard minnows.
Here is his final resting place (between the rock and the leave plant you should be able to see his red tail attached to his silvery body).

If there were room in the label,  I would change this one to, "stranger than fiction."

How to Clean a Banjo

I wanted to learn how to play the banjo, because I thought it would be fun, but I don't have any money to buy one.  So, I got a loaner banjo from a friends' attic. It smelled horrible. I did not bring the chipboard case into the house and it needed some serious cleaning. Now you can benefit from my experience.

 

 First take it all outside, paper towels, window cleaner and a dust cloth. I used the dust cloth on everything first, then took the window cleaner and paper towels to the drum head (round plastic part of the banjo).

This banjo has had some abuse, probably some water damage on top of being old. Like original parts made in the 1950s and coming from KCMO - making it unofficially a ghetto banjo.

You can see where some wear is showing on the upper frets. I guess banjoist use that region a lot....

Well, the towels got black, not even kidding, it was disgusting. After wiping everything down, I realized it still looks like a ghetto banjo. Style points! 

So the next step would be, how to tune a banjo, or getting a strap or restringing a banjo or finding a case that isn't moldy... Never-mind, we need to name it, "Elliott."

Thus makes the beginning of yet another adventure....How to Play the banjo...

Nelson's 1st Car Show!

My roommates and I went to our first ever car show this weekend!

We were so excited to see so many cool, shiny and colorful cars.

 I got my picture taken with a GREEN car!

Then I had my picture taken with an orange car!

Look at how shiny this red car is?!

Look this one has a bike in it to that matches! They are BOTH black!

I think this one looks really red and reminds me of Star Trek, or
Back to the Future or the 80s.

I think this one must be really old because it is made out of wood.

I needed to get a picture of myself with some of the people there too! It was a really interesting group of people. They had a live band playing, food for sale and you put money in plastic cups to vote for your favorite car.

I really don't know a lot about cars but if I had any money I would have voted for this one. I'm not sure it got any votes at all.

Leavenworth

My roommates and I decided to take a day off and make it adventure day to Leavenworth! 

We got to see my hometown, visit the high school I attended, the home I spent my childhood and saw the federal penitentiary too! Our lunch break was at Homer's drive in. It was quite a tradition rich establishment. Hamburgers, fries, and ginormous milkshakes.

I used to go to this place all the time. It was like a huge playground for kids, but is a bowling alley now.

Just to give you an appreciation of how great a landmark this dinosaur is, I recruited Pheffer to help.

This was a really unique Korean church we stopped at. It took us awhile to figure out that Pheffer was trying to tell us to take her picture in front of it.We have no idea why...

From a distance anyway we saw the federal penitentiary. They weren't allowing any visitors. We may have looked suspicious, a garden gnome, a German immigrant and a mute Asian...

On the way back home we came across more photo opportunities.

What a great adventure it was.