Japanese Les Pauls Pretty Inside and Out

Today I had some fun putting Harmonic Design Z90 pickups in my History Les Paul clone. These are P90-style pickups, made to fit a humbucker hole.

I noticed a few things.

First of all, the Japanese use pretty dubious electronics. The potentiometers were very small, and the tone capacitors were super-cheap ceramics. I keep reading complaints about cheap tone capacitors. It’s hard for me to believe they make a difference, but you can get very good Vishay capacitors for about $3.00 each, so what’s the point in going cheap?

Second thing: the woodwork is even better than I thought. The guitar is a solid piece of very nice mahogany with a thick maple cap and a very thin piece of sycamore veneer. It’s not as expensive as a high-end Les Paul with a cap of fancy wood and no veneer, so I thought there might be some difference in the instrument’s performance. Now that I’ve seen the inside of it, I tend to doubt the veneer makes a difference.

The cavities in the guitar are finished very well, and they’re painted with what looks like shielding paint, and the plastic covers have metal foil in them. Most expensive guitars look pretty bad once you open them up. This one shows a surprising level of meticulousness.

The pickups did not work. At least the bridge pickup didn’t. Someone who tried the guitar a month or two back told me something about a problem with the selector switch, but I think the real problem was the bridge potentiometer. I tested everything as well as I could, and I believe the bridge potentiometer is shot. Maybe it’s corrosion from the Japanese climate. The other pot acts funny, too. The resistance goes infinite when you turn it to 10.

I went to a website and found myself some full-size American pots to replace the small Japanese ones. The cavity is big enough. I ordered four. Why wait for the tone pots to poop out? I ordered some Orange Drop capacitors, too. I’ll stick this stuff in the guitar, and I may fix the wiring so pickups can be switched without soldering. Might as well. I don’t think you need soldered connections in a guitar. After all, the cord is the biggest connector, and it has solderless jacks on each end.

This has taught me a little bit about Japanese guitars. If I were buying a new Les Paul clone, I’d order a Fujigen gold top off Rakuten for about a thousand dollars. At that price point, you get Japanese wood and Japanese electronics. American electronics add over $300 to the price. I’d dump the Japanese electronics and pick the American electronics myself. For $60, I’d have something better than the higher-end guitar. And because I’ve seen the guts of Fujigen Les Pauls, I think I could be confident that the instrument itself was top quality.

I’m not sure, but I think a person who did this would end up with an instrument surpassing a Custom Shop Les Paul, for under $1500. I don’t know enough about Gibsons to say. I do know Fujigen has better quality control, so when you buy one over the web, it’s not the crapshoot a Gibson would be. If you got one with a flamed top instead of gold, you’d have veneer, which (I assume) is not what you get from the Gibson Custom Shop, but with a gold top or a black guitar, who cares? I doubt Gibson is putting bookmatched flamed or quilted maple under gold and black paint.

I believe you have to go with the Custom Shop to get a Gibson with a properly set neck with a long tenon, but that’s not the case with Fujigen products. I think they find it difficult selling cheap woodwork to discerning Japanese consumers. This is the country where they used to buy American cars, take them apart, fix the problems, put them together, and THEN sell them.

I may be nuts, but it’s starting to look like a smart consumer buys Japanese wood and American electronics, unless he’s willing to pop for a used top-tier American guitar in great shape.

It’s sad that you have to become a luthier in order to make an electric guitar work, but I guess it’s better than the hassle and expense of paying other people to do the work.

Maybe I’ll post photos when I get the electronics fixed.

Protect Your Investment With Grolsch Gaskets

Sometimes there are expensive ways to solve a simple problem, and you waste money on them, and then you find out about a much better way that costs almost nothing.

Today I have an example.

When I got my Gibson Blueshawk guitar, I did not realize that guitar makers were incompetent. The electric guitar has been around for something like 70 years, but most electric guitars are still designed so they fall off the strap unexpectedly. The manufacturers don’t warn you. If you’re used to acoustic guitars, you won’t see it coming until your precious instrument falls and gets badly damaged. This happened to me, and it’s how I learned that guitar makers are incompetent.

Over the next five minutes, I (or any intelligent person) could come up with ten good strap or strap-button designs that would solve the problem, but most manufacturers have not bothered to try.

I asked “experts” (mostly Guitar Center salespeople) what to do, and they recommended silly solutions like Dunlop Straplok buttons. I bought two sets of these. They are very stupid inventions. You have to mount a special adaptor to each end of your strap, permanently. Once the adaptor is there, you can’t adjust the strap without tools. You have to open up the holes the strap-button screws go into. And the Straploks are designed so you will probably fail to engage them correctly the first time. This happened to me, resulting in a second guitar drop and more damage.

Do not buy these things. They are worthless, and you will reduce the collectibility of your guitar by drilling into it.

A couple of weeks back, I was researching the issue, and I found an Internet forum thread that contained the most intelligent solution to the problem. You won’t believe it.

Buy a six-pack of Grolsch beer, or, better yet, buy a GOOD beer that comes in the same type of flip-top bottle. Remove the gaskets from the bottle tops. Put your strap on your guitar. Stretch two gaskets and slip them over the strap buttons, outside the strap. You’re all set. Unless you jump around like a monkey, your guitar will never fall off the strap again. No drilling. No tools. And you get beer.

The gaskets obstruct the strap holes. There is no way the strap holes can open wide enough to let the gaskets through, and the gaskets will not come off unless they are subjected to stretching. The pulling of the strap does not stretch the gaskets, so it doesn’t pull them off the buttons. It’s brilliant. And the gaskets actually look better than those stupid Straplok monstrosities.

I bought a bag of 100 gaskets. I’m set for life. You can get them at any online homebrew supply joint. I think I paid ten bucks.

At least I can be glad I dropped my second-cheapest instrument.

Fruition

Last week was fantastic.

For the last few years, I’ve been dealing with a nagging problem. My primary approach to solving it has been supernatural. I have chosen to hold off on using some earthly weapons I have at my disposal. God has been completely faithful; last week he gave me a big victory, in pretty much the way I asked for it. Maybe I’ll write about it eventually.

I’m having lots of fun with the guitar. My arm pain went away when I started using dumbbells to exercise my forearms. Last week, I noticed I was bending the .73mm Dunlop pick I was using, along an axis from the tip to the back, and I realized I was getting too strong for it, so I upgraded to a .88mm pick. Now I’m playing louder and clearer, because the pick is stiffer. I’m not completely ready for the heavier pick, but I can’t go back to the thin one, and I know I will get stronger during the coming month.

My left hand is also getting better. Notes I could not fret well in the past are sounding clearer. I suppose it will be another couple of months before I really feel strong.

I suspect that the dumbbells are improving my hand strength, not just my forearm strength. Maybe forearm workouts are a good idea for guitarists, generally.

The Burny Les Paul I bought is turning out to be a wonderful investment. I got a little help with the electronics (guitarist from my church advised me), and now I am able to use a Fat Sandwich pedal to get a B.B. King tone you would not believe. I actually wrote down all the settings so I could repeat it. You can convert your amp, guitar, and electronic settings to numbers in order to record them in a compact notation. Figured that out on my own.

The neck on my Chinese Epiphone is actually slightly better than the one on the Burny, but that’s probably a truss rod thing.

I think I’m going to stick with nines and tens (strings) for the foreseeable future. The Burny has DR Pure Blues nines on it, and the tone is pure bliss, and it’s easy to play. I have some problems feeling the strings with the pick sometimes because they’re so thin, but I think I can overcome that. I am able to get three distinct notes out of a single bend, and I don’t think I’ll ever be able to do that with heavier strings. Maybe I’m wrong. I don’t think it’s a strength issue. I think it’s just the nature of heavy strings. They don’t seem to increase in pitch as much for the same degree of bending.

I really wanted to get a Japanese Les Paul and put single-coil pickups on it, but I can’t stand to take the humbuckers off my Burny. They’re amazing. So what do I do? I guess I’ll have to get a second Burny eventually. What if I like the pickups on that one? Hope that doesn’t happen. Every so often, one turns up with P90s already installed. Maybe that’s the best bet.

I am ready to take the next step in my Fretboard Logic studies. I have the “CAGED” thing pretty well under control, although I can’t make an A-type chord above the seventh fret. It’s impossible for me to line up three fingers between two frets that high up. I assume the answer is to do a sloppy second bar with the ring finger. I can’t believe a human hand exists which can get three fingers into that space.

I have to start writing original variations and tunes. I have been determined to learn to impersonate recordings accurately, because this is a sure way to build good technique, but I have to do my own thing, too. I already have the tab paper. I should get a tab-editing program.

It’s difficult to write tab, because you have to put down the guitar pick and pick up a pen, and it breaks the concentration. I may start writing it with my left hand. It doesn’t have to be pretty the first time around. I can fix it later.

I still think about my upcoming major guitar purchase. It’s slated for January. Right now, I’m strongly considering a Heritage H555 with single coils. But I may have to put the decision off until I really know what I want.

I may try out high-end guitars and discover that vintage Japanese guitars are as good or better. If that happens, there is no way I’m going to drop a pile on an American-made money sink. When you own a tool that costs too much, you tend to treat it like a sick baby, and you don’t get proper use from it. I am not afraid to risk the destruction of an $800 Japanese guitar, but I would be very nervous about putting a new Heritage on an airplane.

It should not be a surprise that the Japanese make great electric solidbody guitars. Japan is considered to be the home of the finest carpentry in the world. The strange thing is that their acoustics (and most of their pianos) are so bad. I guess it makes sense. A Les Paul is just a neck and a board, so if you make them fit together right, you should get a great sound. Copying the sound of a complicated hollow box would surely require more familiarity with American culture and the American sound.

Even semi-hollow electrics do not require perfect resonating chambers, so presumably, Japanese ES copies are also good.

Les Paul himself used to play a guitar that was actually a board. To be precise, it was a four-by-four with a neck. He called it “the Log.” It upset people, so he glued parts from an archtop to it, to make it look like a guitar. It’s in a museum now.

It may sound insane, but solidbody guitars would probably be good woodworking projects for me. The bodies would be a joke. Just cut, rout, and sand. The only hard part would be making a neck and headstock and setting the neck correctly. You can actually buy necks already made, if you get in trouble.

God gives us the desires of our hearts, according to Psalm 37. I am here to tell you it’s true. I am killing the electric guitar, and I am cooking better than I ever did, and I have wonderful friends. I have great tools, I’m thin, and I even have a pickup truck! I guess God has to be careful about rewarding us when we are not serving him. Once we’re back on track, his blessings will not corrupt us, so he can be more liberal.

If you want God to bless you, crucify your flesh so your evil desires don’t rule you. That makes you a fit candidate for blessing.

Things are going great, and I’m even meeting amazing Christian women. I keep pointing this out: non-Christian women, as a group, are a never-ending torrent of disappointment and conflict. They are neurotic and chronically unhappy. They expect men to solve all their problems. They blame us for everything that goes wrong. They think bickering and put-downs are the proper way to demonstrate their worthiness of respect. They are draining. They expect sex no later than the third date, and if they’re in their baby-crazy years, there is a good chance they’ll defeat contraception in order to trap you. It’s extremely difficult to find a non-Christian woman who interests me enough to make me risk the pain.

Christian women are completely different. The problem with Christian women is that I want to take ALL of them home. How do you choose? They’re pleasant to be around. They’re encouraging. They’re polite. They listen. They understand that a mate is not a competitor. They’re not princesses who have been raised to believe their overpriced weddings are the focal events of all creation. It’s hard to believe they’re for real. It’s such a beautiful thing, dealing with women who don’t put you on trial and make you walk on eggs. I can’t get used to it. I know it’s real. It’s like moving from Miami to Texas, where the people were so nice to me. It seems surreal, but it’s genuine, and I can trust it.

God will change your life so you can trust happiness.

Tonight I’m making Champagne chicken for 15 people at church. Boy, are they in for a shock. This stuff is incredible. I will not pretend to be modest. They think my pizza and cheesecake are good. They don’t know what they’re in for.

Electric Bliss

This morning, the phone kept ringing while I was doing my morning prayer regimen. Drove me nuts. I finally answered it, and it was Mike. He was going crazy, brainstorming about my new smoker idea, which is this: drill a hole in a Ronco Showtime rotisserie oven and pump in smoke from an external box containing flaming wood.

He pointed something out. You can’t slow-cook stuff in a Showtime oven. The burner has a fixed heat setting, and it’s either on or off all the time.

I hadn’t been concerned about this. The Showtime oven makes nice, tender meat, so I figured I’d be content with using it the same way I do now, but he has a point. Slow-cooking is better.

Here is my answer. Cut a hole in the back of the oven and insert a smoker heating element with a thermostat. You can set the temperature and walk off and not worry about it. Or as Chairman Ron says, “Set it…and forget it.”

This will be a thing of great beauty. Think about it. You make a smoke box from a propane tank, some scrap steel, and a conduit elbow. You plumb it into the side of the oven. You put the smoker heating element in the bottom. You cram your meat in there and smoke it over low heat while using the “No Heat Rotation” setting on the Showtime. Then when you’re ready to eat, you turn the Showtime to “Normal Rotation” and brown the meat.

I felt we should put a hole in the top of the oven and mount a smoke pipe, but that’s just pimpage. The smoke will go in and out just fine if you leave the door cracked.

This could make some really brutal ribs or pork butts or chickens. And it’s cheap. You can get the ovens for $50 on Craigslist. The smoker element runs about the same price. If you spent $150 on this thing, you would be at the upper limit of the price range, and a smart person could do it for a hundred and ten.

Mike was highly disturbed by the prospect of building one of these things. I’m not sure he slept last night. I can tell he’s not going to have any peace until we give this a try.

In other news, my secondhand Japanese Les Paul clone has been delivered and put to work, and it’s amazing. It screams quality, or maybe it’s actually screaming “BANZAI” and it just sounds like “quality.” Using this neck is like dancing on greased glass. The humbuckers (probably Japanese L8000s) have a thick, sweet, almost nasal sound which is addictive. Apart from the dings and scrapes, the fit and finish are perfect. And I suspect the previous owner almost never played it. The finish on the bridge is going, but there is no fret wear. Maybe he just held it in his hands while he danced in his underwear. A lot of guys do that, when they find out how hard it is to actually learn to play.

There are two disappointing things about the guitar. First, it was advertised as a “long tenon” model, which means the neck is supposedly attached the way the better Gibsons had theirs attached. But the tenon is a weird type that has a screw in it. It appears to be very long and solid, but it’s not standard Gibson engineering. Someone has suggested to me that a clever Japanese instrument maker used screws to hold necks in while the glue was soft, so they could be adjusted a little before becoming completely solid. The Matsumoku factory is known for this method.

Second thing: there is a dime-sized mashed place on the edge of the guitar, in back, up high. The binding is a little mooshed, and some wood is showing. This was not clearly indicated in the photos. My luthier says he can make it prettier, but with a polymer-finish guitar, there is a limit to the magic. I just want it cleared up to the point where it doesn’t pain me to see it every time I grab the guitar.

I tried to put a Bigsby on the guitar, using a Vibramate mounting kit. Problem: you have to use a strap pin to hold the mount on, and the strap pin on my guitar is slightly off-center. So another job for the luthier. I would not be afraid to drill a new hole, but I’m going to have to fill a hole and then drill another one right next to it, and that might conceivably require a little knowledge and skill, and I have neither.

I am missing ZZ Top very badly, and this is especially true now that I have a new guitar to mess with. I’m working on SRV’s “Honey Bee” and B.B. King’s “Sweet Sixteen” instead. I’m making good progress. I don’t know if it’s the slippery neck or what, but the up-the-neck intro to “Honey Bee” is not giving me problems. I’m also impressed by the weepy, mournful tone the guitar gives me on “Sweet Sixteen.” Oddly, I prefer it with the Tube Screamer on and the bridge pickup selected.

It looks like Japanese Les Paul clones are great instruments. I don’t know if this thing is as good as a real Les Paul Custom, but it’s so good, I don’t care, and it cost one fifth as much. If I break it or someone steals it, who cares? I’ll Ebay another one. And I’m not afraid to modify it.

You can get new ones. Fernandes still makes Burny guitars, and the top two Les Paul models are still made in Japan. You’ll pay about a thousand to get one in your hands. You won’t be able to try it out first, however.

I don’t know why the Japanese make such beautiful electric guitars and such crappy acoustic instruments, but I’m not complaining.

I love my Chinese Epiphone Riviera, but I’m not so stupid I can’t see the difference in quality between the Riviera and the Les Paul. The necks are equally well set up, but there is something friendlier about the wood on the Burny, and it makes a real difference when I play. I can’t really say why, but the body on the Burny just looks better. The finish just seems classier and less flashy.

I’m wondering if I can have the fretboard on the Epiphone buffed or otherwise treated so it feels a little more like the Burny. And I’ll say one more thing: I would love to see what a Burny ES335 clone is like.

I think I made a mistake when I bought my Vox AC4TV amp. This is a magnificent machine; it has a nice tube sound, and it attenuates to 1/4 watt, so you can make it sound nice without rattling the walls. When I bought it, I looked for other attenuated amps, but I couldn’t find any this quiet. Now I’ve learned about the Bugera V5. This thing goes down to 1/10 watt, and it’s half the price of the Vox. Good info, if you’re currently shopping.

I’m wondering how they do the attenuation. Maybe it’s just a big resistor. If so, I should be able to put a bigger resistor in the Vox. But the Bugera is so cheap, I have to wonder if there is any point.

I’m going to get a Way Huge Fat Sandwich distortion pedal. Maybe I’m stupid, but they sound great in demo videos. I like my Tube Screamer, but how can you resist something called a “Fat Sandwich”?

Time to crank up the amp. Hope I can quit before my fingers get too sore.

Do This Do This Do This

I made a delicious leg of boneless Costco lamb today, with fresh rosemary from the yard, on the Showtime rotisserie oven. While I was enjoying it…it hit me! BUY A USED SHOWTIME, DRILL A HOLE IN THE SIDE, AND PUMP IN SMOKE!

Hold me down, or I’ll be in Hialeah in half an hour, buying a pre-owned oven from Craigslist.

God’s Own Cake and the Devil’s Music

I took the Tower of Babel cake to church to get rid of it. It was a great success. Now they want more. I have piles of bananas scattered on the kitchen counter, fresh from the trees in my yard. I guess I’ll freeze what I can’t cook immediately and put the rest in cakes.

My nam wa banana tree finally produced. The bananas are very nice. They’re finger-sized bananas, but they’re not like the lemony guineos we always have in the markets in Miami. They’re very sweet, and they have a smooth texture. It’s a little like banana ice cream.

God keeps working in my life. Last week I led some of the armorbearers on the first Armorbearer Freedom Fast, and Mike joined in. Some of us were fasting to beat gluttony. I was fasting in support of the others. Mike called and said he went to a restaurant after the fast and ordered a kid’s portion. He couldn’t face a regular-size meal. In the past, it has always been hard for Mike to face regular-sized meals, but that was because they were too small. His new attitude is incredible.

I worked at church on Sunday, and when I left at nearly 4 p.m., I hadn’t eaten anything except a piece of cake. I didn’t want more food, but I made myself stop at Five Guys. I got a bacon cheeseburger, Cajun fries, and a large Coke. I ate two thirds of the burger and a third of the fries. I drank half of the Coke. I threw everything else out. I didn’t want it. Today I went to breakfast with my dad, and I left a fourth of my nova bagel on the plate. Not bad. My Armorbearer friend who was fasting because of his weight said he tried to eat something he usually enjoys, and it made him sick, so he couldn’t do it.

Fasting works. My pants and belts do not lie. We are getting supernatural results. And my dad is witnessing all of it, which is also great. One day, we’ll get him.

Church continues to amaze me. I keep meeting extraordinary people there. One of the new Armorbearers is a drummer. His name is Travis. I started talking to him yesterday. I asked him if the drums were his only instruments. He said he played TWELVE, and he listed them. And he said he played them WELL, so apparently it’s not like Prince, who claims he can play forty but probably includes instruments that made noises because he accidentally sat on them in the studio.

I know everyone thinks Prince is a genius. When I see him do something that indicates talent, I will agree. So far, all I’ve seen are weak pop tunes. And he holds a purple guitar sometimes. Wait. I think it’s white. Anyway, I haven’t heard any solos yet.

Travis got a full scholarship to college, based on his ability. That’s what he does now. He said it was largely based on his sight-reading skills. He actually knows who my trombone-virtuoso cousin is, which is astonishing.

So now we have two professional musicians in the group, and they’re not three-chord wonders or rappers. They are real musicians.

The other musician, Zachary, is trying to find a hundred-watt tube amp he can afford. He said he would consider building one, if he had the skills. I used to build temperature and current controls for diode lasers in college, and I have a ton of tools. He sent me links to some sites that have amp plans. Interesting.

One of the guys bought a Bushmaster AR-15. He brought it in for us to look at. We were handing it around and admiring it in a back room. I said, “You know, church has CHANGED since I was a kid.” That cracked Travis up.

My music is going really well. The bluegrass is coming up to speed. My left hand has only had five weeks to get strong, and that’s not enough. When I use a capo (makes fretting easier), I get a taste of what my playing will be like in another month or two. I plan to continue playing bluegrass, simply because it’s great for my technique and it’s wasteful to throw away a whole genre you’ve already learned.

I was suffering with online blues lessons, but I couldn’t take it any more. I got a ZZ Top book, and I started working on “Tube Snake Boogie.” I realize this is not good music for a Christian to work on, but hear me out. The guitar stuff is all blues-based, and it’s HOT. It will get me into electric blues via the side door, and it will help me get familiar with my instruments and amps. I don’t plan to sing this filth in the sanctuary.

I struggled for a week, but today I got it working. I put new strings on my flamenco guitar (like a classical guitar, with a cutaway and a different sound), and I started using it for practice. This is much easier on me than my dreadnought and heavy hollowbody. It allows me to practice pretty painlessly. I actually got through the first page and a half.

I may get hollered at for saying it, but so far, as I expected, this stuff is a complete joke compared to bluegrass. True, you have to go up the neck more, but so what? I’m using elevens, and the guitar’s action is very light. I’m playing at half the speed of bluegrass (or less), the strings are kinder to my hands, and the licks are child’s play. The only real problems are getting used to playing over pickups and coping with the light strings. When you’re used to blasting thirteens at maybe eight notes a second, you can barely feel elevens.

When I used to try to play Stevie Ray Vaughan material, it was difficult, but then he played very fast, and he didn’t cheat by using his left hand to play the notes. He did it just like a bluegrass guitarist.

I’ve noticed that some rock guitarists play runs that seem very fast, but their right hands aren’t keeping up with the notes. Evidently, you can effectively double your speed by hammering on and pulling off and bending the strings with your left hand, between right-hand notes. I wonder how many of these guys could cope with bluegrass. I know some of them have been there; Steve Morse does both styles.

I had a feeling this would turn out to be easy, simply because I know the kind of people who play rock. They are not known for being industrious. Rock guitar isn’t about artistry and sacrifice. It’s about looking cool and attracting shallow women so you can fornicate. That’s what got Pete Townshend started. I know there must be many rock guitarists who woodshed all the time and aren’t afraid of difficult material, but a lot of this stuff appears to be based on using two fingers, the way you might when you’re stoned in the back of a tour bus. And everyone loves nines, and I don’t think that’s totally based on professionalism. It just might have something to do with lack of character, in some cases.

When you play an electric guitar, the gadgetry does a whole lot of the work. It’s pretty cushy compared to killing yourself to get music out of an acoustic.

I look forward to getting a grip on this form of music, and then I want to do a reverse Ray Charles. I want to use bluesy sounds to make music for God. I know you’re supposed to go the other way, ripping off gospel and using it to play secular music. I don’t see why I can’t turn the tables.

I’m glad I held onto that flamenco guitar.

Tisha B’Av is about to start, so if you’re fasting in sympathy with Israel and the Jews, it’s time to get on it.

Life is wonderful.

Flerb

Here is today’s fun guitar news.

I realized I had to get a few effects. You can’t just play the guitar through an amp. Oh, no. You have to have reverb, plus maybe a wah pedal and an overdrive. I got a wonderful inexpensive tube amp, but it has no reverb, and even though it can be limited to 1/4 watt, it’s a little hard to drive it with enough power to get good distortion. So I’ve been shopping and fiddling around.

I ended up with a Pedaltrain pedalboard. This is a thing you attach pedals and a power supply to. It lies on the ground, and you work the pedals with your feet. You’ve seen guitar players use them.

I am not in love with my old Blues Driver pedal (which I think I killed today anyway), so I started looking for new and relatively cheap replacements. I loved the way the Boss Super Overdrive sounded on Youtube, but the Guitar Center kid convinced me I really needed an Ibanez Tube Screamer, so I decided to give it a shot. I also loved the way the Boss Fender FRV-1 sounded on Youtube. But the Guitar Center kid convinced me I needed a Holy Grail. So I got one. I also got a Voodoo power supply.

I came home, fiddled with the pedals, decided they were okay, and put them and the power supply on the board.

I wanted a tiny board, because I don’t plan on collecting a large number of pedals. But Guitar Center had an outrageous deal on a PT1, which is a middle-sized Pedaltrain only Guitar Center sells. So that’s what I got.

I’m fairly sure I destroyed the Blues Driver by using the wrong power cord. I believe I reversed the polarity, frying something or other. But I never liked that pedal anyway.

The Epiphone Riviera continues to please, although I have started to agree with online reviewers who say the pickups lack brightness. Should I return it to the store or get new pickups? Not sure. It’s so cheap, I hate to get rid of it. It seems to be a great guitar to take with me if I play elsewhere, because it’s nearly disposable. Maybe new pickups would be a good investment.

The bluegrass is going EXTREMELY well. I had forgotten how good I used to be. It’s a shame I’m not a big bluegrass fan. I can really make a flattop quack in pain. When you play bluegrass, you have to use a big, obnoxious guitar and heavy strings, and you have to dominate the instrument and essentially torture it to force good sound out of it. I can do that. The good players really work the instrument. Ordinary players will just let it lope. That kills the passion and compresses the dynamics. You have to beat the guitar to death.

I am blessed with two phenomenal flattops. Right now, I’m using my old Taylor 710. It’s like a Martin D35, but when I bought it, I compared it to a Martin, and it was vastly superior. It has tons of bass, a piercing, ringing, sweet treble, and an incredible action, and it’s extremely responsive. If Martin has ever made a guitar with a decent action, I have not tried it.

Some people pick on Taylors, claiming they’re overrated, and that they’re slapped together in giant factories where no one cares how they sound. Whatever. Mine has Mr. Taylor’s signature on it, and the serial number is under 7,000, so maybe they made them better when mine rolled out. It’s great, regardless of what other Taylors are like. And the sound keeps improving as it ages.

While I was shopping for pedals, I heard a thing called a Fat Sandwich, made by Way Huge. I thought it sounded tremendous. When I get to the point where I understand pedals, I may try one.

I wish my fingers would harden up already. I begin every day’s practice on the wimpy strings of an electric guitar, and that’s no strain, but when I move to the dreadnought, I get about twenty minutes of playing before the pain sets in. And while I am now strong enough to play well with a 0.88-mm Dunlop pick, I lack endurance. I want to upgrade to the 1.0-mm pick as soon as I can.

It’s a blast to make real music again. I’m looking forward to the day when I can do it on the electric guitars as well as the Taylor. Right now, the contrast is horrendous.

On Second Thought, Don’t

I can no longer keep up with the good stuff God does in my life. I just don’t have time to blog it all.

On Saturday, I cooked for our church’s Rhythms Lounge event. Young people come to the cafe and perform. Some play music, some recite, and others sing. This weekend, we had a guest performer: Zach Freeman, the son of two of our pastors. He plays guitar and sings.

What a show we had. We have a regular house band composed of church members; oddly, it’s not the same band that plays during worship. They jammed with Zach for maybe an hour. We heard a lot of blues and even a long funk session.

I can’t describe the quality of the playing. I had no idea these kids were this good. They were so tight, you would think they had been playing together for years.

Zach started off with his Strat and some effects, and he created an ambience you could almost swim in. I wish we had recorded it. Ordinarily I’m not a big fan of reverb and sustain pedals, but he used them to draw us into a world that did not exist before he started playing.

When the other players got going, we heard bass licks that started and stopped the show at will. The keyboard player, who claimed he couldn’t play blues, performed gymnastics that had everyone gasping. When it was over, the whole crowd started yelling and crying out. A friend of mine leaned over and said, “They’re praising God in Creole.”

I couldn’t ask for a better end to my first week of renewed guitar practice.

It gets even weirder. I have a new guitar! For a long time, I’ve wanted a thinline Gibson guitar with single-coil pickups and a Bigsby, but doubting that I would use it, I never gave in to temptation. This week I started reading up on Epiphone guitars. This is Gibson’s Asian line. Ordinarily, I won’t go near an Asian instrument; Japanese dreadnoughts sound like cigar boxes and have actions that tear up your hands. But I kept reading reviews, and I thought to myself, “If I get one of these things, I have 30 days to try it out, and if it works, it will be a fantastic asset, and the price will be so low, even if I get a better instrument later, I’ll be able to drag this one when I travel without worrying about what happens to it.”

I drove down US1 to buy some bird seed, and I was praying in the Spirit while I drove (good way to redeem the time), and I started thinking about Guitar Center. I felt I couldn’t stop myself, so I decided to go with it. I went in and found an Epiphone Riviera on the wall. I still didn’t intend to buy it. I asked the salesman a few questions, looked it over, and told him I would take it. I felt like I had to do it. I think he nearly fainted. I didn’t even ask to play it. There was no point.

This guitar was made in China. They get spotty reviews that go in two directions. Some instruments are written off as junk. Other buyers say they can’t understand how Epiphone can sell such gorgeous instruments at this price point. It looks like I’m in the latter group. This thing is virtually flawless. It sounds good. It plays well. So far, I’ve only been able to find one tiny imperfection in it. And it cost about 13% of what a new Gibson would cost. I could put a thousand dollars’ worth of upgrades into it and still be way ahead.

I don’t know what the story is. Maybe it was God. Maybe I just like shiny new stuff too much. But I try to walk by faith, and this felt like God’s urging, so I didn’t want to screw it up.

On Saturday, the music materials I ordered arrived. I got a copy of Tony Rice Guitar, plus Dan Crary’s Flatpicker’s Guide, plus a giant tablature book called The Big Slab of Tab. I used to play things from these books, many years ago. Back then, I had some trouble with a little bit of the Tony Rice stuff, but as I noted the other day, my practice habits were completely wrong. Fifteen minutes a day.

I got these books because I feel that God is restoring my life and undoing past failures (and also because I owed Tony Rice a royalty).

I’ve been working on the tunes, and it’s crazy, but there is a big long Tony Rice lick I could never conquer in the past, and after two days, I nearly have it beat. I figure I should be able to play coherently, with the correct super-heavy Dunlop pick, within a week. Maybe I’ll upload an MP3 when that happens.

To get back to church, I cooked for the first two services yesterday, and then I served as an Armorbearer at the last service, and I attended a meeting at which we welcomed four new ABs. Guess who one of them is? Zach Freeman. He goes to college in another state, but he’ll be here all summer. I spoke up and informed him of the rule that ABs have to give each other free guitar lessons, and he said, “I GOT you.” Ha!

I keep meeting remarkable people at my church, semi-ghetto though it may be. The background of the people is totally unrelated to their potential and the contents of their hearts. Some are from the neighborhood, which is pretty depressed. Some are from areas that are more affluent. But there are incredible human beings there, from all sorts of different areas.

When I met Zach on Saturday, I was looking forward to meeting a young man everyone admired so much, but he treated ME like a celebrity. He kept talking about my cheesecake and how great it was. I’m just the guy in the kitchen. He, not me, was the talk of the church. It’s wild, how God raises up powerful people and keeps them humble. With his help, an camel really can go through the eye of a needle.

I may have to make him pay off on that lesson thing, although when he sees how hopeless I am, he may wish he had kept silent.

Another new AB has a wonderful trait we needed badly: he’s Cuban. That means he can FISH. And we need that, if we are going to keep angling for my dad. We talked about dolphin fishing, and he told me a few things even I didn’t know. So I’m hoping we can get him on the boat in a few days. He’s also a professional photographer, so maybe we can preserve a few images.

We don’t get very many Cubans in our church. Strange. I know a bunch of Puerto Ricans, though. God tends to recruit from the bottom of society, and Cubans are at the top.

Today I got up, hoping to rest after a busy weekend, and what did I see on Drudge’s page? The Supreme Court has INCORPORATED THE SECOND AMENDMENT. At least, that’s my understanding of it. I don’t think I’m exaggerating, but I haven’t read the opinion. I’m sure liberal judges and lawyers will do their best to interpret incorporation out of the decision. Anyway, Wayne LaPierre says firearms bans can no longer be enforced anywhere in the US. This is gigantic news. God has worked a real wonder.

For a long time, I’ve believed God was going to preserve and expand our gun rights, even as our government pushed farther and farther in the directions of sexual perversion, anti-Semitism, military weakness, weak boarders, and socialism. It looks like I was hearing from God, and not from my own limited mind.

An evil time is coming. When it does, people will remember the Jewish names Madoff, Stearns, Goldman, Sachs, Bernanke, Emanuel, Frank, and Geithner. I think these names will be used to justify a wave of anti-Semitic barbarism. In that day, Christians and Jews who have armed themselves, bought rural land, and learned how to use tools will be way ahead of the game. I strongly suspect God is getting us ready. This decision will certainly help.

What will God do next? I can’t even guess. The spectacle is exhausting me.

King of the Closet

Yesterday I had a major guitar breakthrough. I think I connected with an amp and electric guitar.

I already had two amps. One is a Fender Blues Jr. (tubes) and the other is a cheapo solid-state Crate. The Crate is just unforgivable; I only got it because it gave me some hope of getting distortion at low volumes. The Blues Jr. sounds fine but doesn’t do much until you turn it up (or maybe I don’t know how to use it).

I picked up a Vox AC4TV (tubes), and I cranked the power down to 1/4 watt, which is 1/60 of what the Blues Jr. consumes. It didn’t sound all that great. I had the tone control up pretty high, because I thought this would fuzz up the tone, and I had the volume control very low, because…silly me…I thought this would reduce the volume.

I decided to try it the other way around. The amp only has two sound controls, so it’s not like I had a big choice. I turned the volume way up and turned the tone way down. What did I get? Neat fuzzy distortion, like Otis Rush. Actually, it’s more like his voice than his guitar. It sounded wonderful. I couldn’t put the guitar down.

A long time ago, when I was shopping for an electric guitar, I found an ES355 (or was it an ES330?) which had a similar sound. This is the sound I like.

Don’t try to help me understand why “volume” means “tone” and “tone” means “volume.” I don’t care. It works.

“COINCIDENTALLY,” I’ll be cooking for my church’s Saturday-night Rhythms Lounge event tomorrow, and guess who the guest is? Zachary Freeman. He’s a jazz and blues guitarist. His mom is a pastor at the church. Pretty cool. I haven’t heard him, but people at church rave about him.

IT’S COINCIDENCE! DARWIN! DARWIN! SOCIALISM! VIVA CHE! OBAMA WILL SAVE US!

Whatever. You believe what you want. I’m going to stay connected to the power supply.

My miracle weight loss is continuing. I put on a few pounds while I worked on desserts for my church, and I also discovered Five Guys, so I have been concerned. Today I weighed myself, and it appears that the weight loss is progressing again. Fantastic. Only God could do this. I don’t diet; I’m not gifted with perfect willpower. I’m just not a fat person any more. It’s as if I had been born to be thin. I hope I knock off ten more pounds, so none of my pants will be able to intimidate me. I wore my super-thin black jeans to church on Wednesday. I still need to lose an inch to make them comfortable. I bought them for riding motorcycles; grease and dirt don’t show up much on black jeans.

I got to the range yesterday and chronographed some 10mm ammunition. I don’t have the results before me, but it looks like 12 grains of No. 7 powder will give me good results, and 12.5 might be ideal. At 12 grains, I get 1200 fps, and I want 1250. One disappointment: my Wolf primers seem hard. Two out of twenty failed to go off on the first try. This is fine for target practice, but for self-defense, I’m going to need something like Federal. I am told Federal primers are the softest.

The primers and cases looked okay after firing.

The gun shoots great. My accuracy was affected by the way I had to contort myself to fire through the chronograph, but I shot more than well enough to splatter an assailant’s brains. The recoil tires my hand a little, though, so I think the gun would tend to lose accuracy after a dozen or two dozen rounds. Not enough to matter in a self-defense situation, but it would be annoying in practice sessions.

The consistency of the handloads (especially the low-powered target rounds) was very good. I plan to load defensive rounds one at a time, for total confidence, but for routine target shooting, I think I can rely on my powder measure.

I also tried my Bill Springfield AR trigger. It’s better than the stock trigger, which is not exactly a surprise. I’m not sure I love it, though. Still seems a little balky.

I had to buy cheesy PMC .308 ammo, because I left my Radway Green at home. I don’t know how good PMC rifle ammuntion is, but their pistol ammunition is the worst I’ve tried.

Yesterday, I was shooting into an area the size of a baseball at 100 yards. Acceptable under the circumstances, but I would like to do better. A range officer who shoots .308 says reloading is the only answer. If I start reloading, I think it will be time to consider a .260 Remington upper, which was my real goal anyway. Maybe the .308 upper was a mistake. It looks like I can’t do precision shooting with cheap ammo, so the money I save may be a hollow blessing. Still, if times get really hard, cheap ammo in large quantities may be a real asset, and I can’t get that in .260.

The Leupold scope is a dream come true. I don’t even understand all the knobs yet. The field of view is gorgeous, and everything is sharp.

Speaking of hard times, a man named Hank Kunneman appeared on Sid Roth’s show yesterday, claiming to be a prophet. He said God had showed up a couple of things. First, the next couple of years will be pretty rough, and it will seem like Obama is doing very poorly. Second, God intends to reverse some of the bad legislation Obama has signed, and he intends to change the Supreme Court.

He reminded us to pray for our leaders, and he was right about that. I think Obama is an embarrassment and an obstacle to God’s work, but I have resolved to pray, daily, that God will change his heart and the hearts of our other leaders. The Bible tells us we have a duty to pray for our leaders, so I’m going to stay on it. I also pray that God will take down leaders who refuse to change, replacing them with godly men. So I’m covered either way!

I hate to say it, but I feel bad for Obama. I believe he is in for a long stretch of humiliation, and if he doesn’t get right with God and the Jews, there probably won’t be any end to it. Remember Nebuchadnezzar, wandering around on all fours, eating grass.

I don’t know if Hank Kunneman is the real thing or not, so caveat emptor.

I’m out.

Cheesecake Rejection

I got a call from Mike yesterday. He has been on the road with his son, who is a hot football prospect. They were touring schools. I got on him about going to church, and he swears he is going to try. It can be very discouraging, trying to get people to attend. After a while, you feel like letting the issue drop and devoting your attention to something else. But I think he may get serious now that he has time.

While I was on the phone, we talked food. Here is the idea that hit me: pineapple upside-down cake made with banana nut bread. You make two cakes and put the pineapple stuff between them. Then on top…carrot cake icing.

Is that sick or what? I can’t wait to try it. It’s the most beautiful cake idea I’ve ever heard of. I think Mike levitated when I brought it up.

I’ve been having trouble baking for my church. They keep wasting the food I make. I baked three cheesecakes last week, and today I found out they weren’t putting them on display. I made raspberry sauce, and I bought red and yellow raspberries to scatter on the cake, and I guess it’s all ruined now.

I don’t want to be a pain, but I informed the pastor who runs the cafe that I don’t want to bake any more until I know they’re going to sell the food. It’s stupid to show up at two p.m. on a Saturday and bake for four hours when you know they’re going to throw the food out later.

In other news, I have been fiddling with music practice for two days now. Yesterday I installed Dunlop Straploks on my electric guitars. I don’t know why electric guitars come with such useless strap buttons, but my Blueshawk has a nasty dent in it, which it got on the day I learned I needed locking buttons. I don’t want that to happen again.

Why don’t they use steel eyes instead of buttons? It’s so obvious. Put a spring-loaded connector (like the one on a dog leash) at each end of the strap, put a fabric sleeve over it to prevent scratching, and you’re all set. The Dunlop things work, but the concept is incredibly stupid.

I researched amps. It looks like the best amp for practice is a tube amp with virtually no power. Like four watts. I have a 15-watt amp, and it’s tough to set the knobs so it sounds good but doesn’t blow me out of the house. Wish I had known this back when I got it. Vox makes a 4-watt practice amp which can be driven hard at power levels as low as 1/4 watt. Maybe some day I’ll try one.

The practice went way better than I expected. I picked things up surprisingly quickly. I’m devoting part of the time to studying the workings of the fretboard. I have a book called Fretboard Logic, and I’m doing the exercises. Maybe this will open the instrument up to me. In any case, I have to have some kind of music in my life, and guitar is convenient.

Guess I should get rid of the cornet.

Sometimes a Christian Has to Face Hard Jobs Like This One

Tomorrow is going to be an interesting day. On Friday, I finally got one of my church’s Armorbearers out on the boat. Sadly, all we caught were triggerfish and grunty-type things, but we had a great time, and my dad was exposed to Christians, which is the main thing.

Funny sidelight: I gave my dad the last names of the guests I expected, so he could inform the marina guard. Their names are “Victory” and “Christian.” Seriously. He asked if I was joking. Only Victory showed up.

Tomorrow, I am planning to take my pastor out on the boat, with some of his relatives. At least one of them is also a pastor, and my AB friend will make another appearance to help me take care of everyone.

This is tremendous. My father finally has an excuse to associate with Christians. He loves to fish, but my secular friends have dwindled in number, and suddenly we find ourselves supplied with courteous, responsible, industrious, grateful Christian guests.

In other news, I nearly blinded myself today. I decided to put a new trigger in my AR10. I got it from Bill Springfield, who modifies stock triggers for a reasonable price. I started yanking pins out of the gun, and as I was trying to get the old hammer out, the hammer flew out so fast, I couldn’t see it take off. It spun so hard I could hear it, and it flew by my left eye so closely my eye could feel the wind it generated.

I was horrified. I had no idea this thing could jump out. I would have worn safety glasses, had I had any clue. I have to thank God for watching over me. Right now I could be at the ER, listening to a surgeon debate the feasibility of saving my eye. Is there ANY job you can do with tools that doesn’t require safety goggles? I’m starting to wonder.

I hate brushes with disaster. For hours after they happen, I relive them over and over in my mind. I can’t help thinking about what could have happened.

The AR10 is wonderful, even though it tried to kill me. Everything fits so well. It’s nothing like an AK, where they sort of hammer the parts in any way they’ll fit. The pins that hold the upper and lower together are extremely precisely fit, but I can remove them with my fingers. The pins for the hammer and trigger are nearly as easy to deal with. The whole job took maybe 20 minutes.

I don’t want to sit around dry-firing it, not knowing whether the gun will be damaged, but I had to dry-fire it a couple of times, and it feels great. One thing I noticed: I can’t activate the safety unless the gun is cocked. I can’t remember whether it was that way with the old trigger, but I don’t think the new trigger and safety have any differences that could account for a change. All the obvious differences in the fire control group are in the front end.

Can’t wait to get to the range.

I also want to try out the new 10mm. I made up 70 rounds of ammo for it, including 20 rounds of defensive stuff, in two batches of 10. They carry different charges. I want to chronograph them and look at the cases after I shoot, so I can see if they’re safe to use. I’ve never used my chronograph. I hope I don’t shoot it.

I like the 10mm so far. I got some Hornady factory ammo for it, and I tried carrying it. It’s only half an inch longer than my 9mm, and the width is not much greater. It fits in the same pocket holster and has the same capacity, but the ballistics are infinitely superior. Nearly equal to .357 Magnum. I think this may be the best possible compact carry gun, barring obscure calibers I’ve never heard of.

Supposedly the 10mm is “inherently accurate.” I have never understood what this means. You would think any uniformly made ammunition in any caliber would be accurate, since you would expect it to repeat its performance reliably, but I guess that isn’t how it works. Ballistics is a black art. Mankind has been creating new calibers for centuries, yet we get big improvements all the time, which suggests that it’s not an easy puzzle. If the answers were obvious, we would already have them, right?

I considered getting an AK pistol for the truck, and I still might do it, but I took the Vz 58 out to the truck to see how it handled in the cab, and it was very easy to deal with. Fold it up, turn on the laser and flashlight, and you are ready to obliterate any assailant within a hundred feet, with no need to shoulder the arm. A pistol would achieve the same result, but it might be heavier, since it’s an AK, and it would be a fresh cash outlay. Of course, one attraction of the AK is the knowledge that it’s a cheap piece of junk. Were it stolen, I would care very little. I would hate to lose a pretty Vz 58, though. Maybe a second-rate Century Vz 58 is a good solution. Functional and light, cheaper than the better models, and equipped with a buttstock.

I could put a pistol foregrip on the Vz, which would be illegal on the AK.

I guess it sounds silly to have a long gun in a vehicle, but it’s not. Watch videos of actual gunfights. People with long guns hit things, and people with pistols miss. That says it all. Add superior ballistics and high capacity, and you end up with a picture in which pistols, not long guns, seem silly. If you arm yourself at all, you tacitly acknowledge that you want effective protection, and a pistol ain’t it. Not even close. A pistol is a very dumb idea, except when there is no other choice. In a vehicle, you have a choice.

I hope we get some fish tomorrow, and that my dad makes a good connection. I put in a lot of preparation today, and my AB friend is donating a day of his time. Let’s see what God does for us.

New Steel Cheaper Than Old Tanks

I will never understand tools and technology.

A six-foot length of 1/4″ angle iron costs over $40 at Fastenal, and it’s not that exciting to work with. You can make braces and legs and frames and supports from it, but that’s about it. A 4′ by 8′ sheet of 14-gauge steel, which is much more exciting and useful, costs under $30. How can that be?

This is interesting to me, because I have been trying to find a used propane tank to turn into a smoker for my church. You would think an old tank would cost nearly nothing, but the characters who sell them think I should pay about 80% of the cost of a new tank. I can spend a hundred bucks on a tank that will make a smallish smoker, or I can buy a couple of sheets of steel and make a giant and amazing smoker.

I guess I was stupid to build the Hoginator from a Char-Broil grill. It worked out, but the grill alone was a hundred bucks. For sixty, I could have had enough sheet steel to make anything I wanted.

I ought to quit fooling with this idea. A steel smoker needs shelter from the rain, and my church does not have a suitable enclosure. And if I make the smoker, I will be the only one who ever uses it. If I quit, it will sit and rot. And we have a lot of people who have a pork phobia. Wish I could do it, though. It would be great to have the versatility of a smoker.

If you want a phenomenal high-capacity smoker, and you have an understanding wife, I may have the perfect solution for you. The idea hit me the other day. Go on Craigslist and look for a “warming cabinet” or “proofing cabinet.” These things are used to warm dough while it rises, or to keep food hot until it can be served. They heat to 225, which is perfect for smoking. They come fitted to hold pans, and you can put wire racks on the shelf supports. Put a hole in the bottom, plumb smoke in, put a hole in the top, plumb smoke out, add a pan if you want beer or water in the bottom, and you have a killer smoker. At least, I think so. I see no reason why it wouldn’t work.

These cabinets can be over six feet high, so you need to try to find something that isn’t too big. I found one with an asking price of $399, so my guess is that persistence will produce something one or two hundred dollars cheaper.

If You’re Ever in Thebes, Drop by the Palace

Just got back from church. I should be more precise: just finished eating a burger from Five Guys, which I bought on the way home from church.

The weekend was a blur. On Friday night, we had all-church prayer, which was fantastic. On Saturday, we had a Marketplace Ministry event where we heard from Brian Klemmer, a well-known motivational speaker. I drove home, bought food and cooking equipment, drove back, and made two cheesecakes and three loaves of banana nut bread, and then I hung out at our cafe for Rhythms Lounge, our Saturday-night youth event. It’s sort of like a beat bar, only with no drugs or alcohol (that we know of).

Got up this morning, drove to church, made six dozen garlic rolls and dough for 12 pizzas. Worked through two services. Sat for the third service, taking a brief break to assemble and bake two pizzas. Got out my rotary hammer and drilled some giant holes in the floor of the kitchen to see if I could remove some old angle iron supports. Went to an armorbearer meeting. Went to Five Guys.

Today at the cafe, people were eating my brownies, cheesecake, pizza, garlic rolls, banana nut bread, and pineapple-cream cheese spread. All on the same day. I can’t believe all the crap I can cook now, and how fast I can do it.

People kept asking if I was the food guy and telling me how great everything was. It was hilarious. “Try the cheesecake.” “I don’t like blueberries.” “I know, but trust me, TRY THE CHEESECAKE.”

It’s wonderful to do well at something and get a little recognition. I’m positive God gives me recipes, but I still get to prepare them, so I’m in the chain of success somewhere.

I was thinking about it yesterday. I’ve been involved in several things at church, but the only authorities who have followed through with the things they’ve involved me in have been the Armorbearer and cafe guys. The Armorbearer guys don’t have all that much advancement or opportunity to provide me, so there has been a limit to what I could do for them. The cafe guy had more problems I could fix, and he gave me support and got out of the way, and now I’m paying off for him like a slot machine.

The pastor involved me with a book he wanted to write, but then he hired a PR chief to be in charge of all writing jobs, and the Haiti mess popped up, and suddenly, the book was not a priority. Piles of dead bodies were rotting in the streets of Port au Prince, so the book had to be put on the back burner while charity logistics were worked out. I did some writing for the Haiti relief effort, but the PR boss hasn’t asked me to do anything in months. I guess someone else is doing the work.

It’s a little weird. Given my unusual set of skills, I could have done a lot for them, had I been included, but God has his own plans, and I ended up doing security and making food. As far as I know, nothing is happening with the church’s book-writing plans, but because I got so much support in the kitchen, the cafe is blossoming like a rose.

I assume there was a purpose in the way things worked out. It has been fantastic for me, so I can’t complain. I love what I’m doing.

Sometimes I wonder whether the folks at church are truly aware of what I can do; I could have gone to Haiti and created a blog about it and gotten a lot of traffic, and I could have done photography and written books about it. These things would have been very easy for me, and I don’t think anyone else at my church could get it done. I’ll put it this way: they haven’t done it. But ideas that make sense in the natural are often wrong. “There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.” Things are probably going exactly as they should be.

I’m meeting all sorts of people, which is good for me. On Saturday nights, twice a month, I’m in a cafe full of kids in their teens to early twenties, mostly of Haitian descent. As an Armorbearer, I get to meet various speakers and teachers. I’m going to be doing krav maga again, and I may conceivably exercise. I’m learning all sorts of things about running a restaurant, and I’m becoming a very efficient institutional cook. I even get to use my tools sometimes. I’ve done welding for the church, and now I’m working on removing old steel from their floor.

It’s not bad.

God puts people in authority over us, and he helps shape their decisions. Look at Joseph and Jacob, in their dealings with Pharaoh and Laban. I’m not comparing the good people at my church to a couple of heathens, but the same principle applies. You will not always understand the decisions your authorities make, and sometimes they will seem crazy, but you should not be quick to react with rebellion and disrespect, because sometimes, a crazy decision has a supernatural cause contrived for your benefit.

Weird stuff keeps happening to me. Since the Rendezvous conference last month, I’ve found that when I pray in the Spirit, I’m actually singing, because there is a melody to it. And I generally seem more musical. I used to hear all sorts of musical variations in my head, but I was frustrated because I didn’t hear many completely new tunes. Now I’m starting to hear entire melodies. I need to start writing them down. And I used to have a funny problem when I sang in church: I couldn’t harmonize, which is usually pretty effortless for me. I thought it was because the music was so loud I couldn’t hear myself, but that was wrong, because now, all sorts of harmonic variations are coming out. There’s more to it than that, but that’s all I feel like saying. Something supernatural is definitely going on.

I have a pretty wild testimony. Nutty things are going on, but generally, the people around me have almost no interest whatsoever. Sometimes I have the strange sensation that I’m invisible. I tend to think my testimony is like a cake in the oven. I want to take it out now, but God wants it to stay in the oven until it’s completely ready, so for the moment, nobody wants to hear it. As a result, people who read this blog know more about it than people I go to church with.

Maybe Joseph felt this way when he was stuck in Egypt, forced to live in luxury and power while his relatives were still dirt-farming in Israel. I feel like I’m being restrained for the present, but even though I’m not doing anything impressive or significant on the grand scale, life is very, very pleasant.

I am considering turning my banana-nut bread recipe into doughnuts and adding coconut glaze. Thought I’d throw that in just to horrify everyone before posting this entry.

Another Brush With Death

A while back, I wrote about a Bosch charger that blew up on me. I was cleaning up my workbench, and I had a Bosch charger and a Panasonic charger next to each other, and when I moved the Bosch, it touched the Panasonic. There was a noise and a flash, and the Bosch quit working. I opened it up and replaced the fuse, but the whole unit was garbage.

A reader suggested the outlet was bad, so I checked it, and the test doodad said I had an “open hot.” I checked to find out what that meant; tradesman jargon is generally meaningless at face value, and this was no exception. Far as I could determine, it just meant the wire that carried the power was not connected. Which was wrong, since the outlet had been working.

The circuit in question was installed by some lowballing chusma a long time ago. He used the cheesiest Chinese sockets imaginable, and I suspect that his son ran off with one of my fishing rods. I think he made the sockets in his garage in Hialeah, out of papier-mache. I bought a box of outlets a year or two ago and replaced the Chinese junk, but the “open hot” outlet was the lone holdout. I ran out of new outlets, so this one didn’t get changed.

Today I started working on it again. It turned out I had bought a replacement outlet, so I didn’t need parts. I shut down the power (I thought), and I started checking the wiring. When I took the front plate off the square box, half of the Chinese receptacle came with it. Very nice.

I poked around on some adjoining outlets, and suddenly, I felt a tingle. I got shocked. I could not believe it. Somehow, juice was getting through. I disconnected everything that was hooked up to the circuit, and I flipped the adjoining breakers. Still, the juice flowed. I found this out by causing a short that scarred my screwdriver.

Here’s what I eventually found. There were four wires, not three, going to this circuit. The genius who installed it ran a red hot wire to one breaker and a black hot wire to another breaker. Don’t ask me why. I cannot fathom this type of brilliance.

I went back to the breaker board and capped off the red hot. I rewired the circuit so everything ran off the same breaker. I tried the circuit tester. All was well.

Someone explain why an electrician would put two hot wires in one 120 circuit. No, I don’t want to know. I’m just glad all I lost was a battery charger.

His Price is Far Above Rubies

Went to church tonight to do some work on the kitchen and work security for the Tuesday service. While I was there, THREE women stopped me to tell me how amazing my cheesecake was!

I knew this would happen!

More

I got my press ready for 10mm today. Problem: since the gun isn’t here, I can’t check the ammo to see if it chambers and ejects. I made five rounds without powder or primers, and when I get the gun, I’ll see if the external dimensions are okay for the chamber. Once I have it working, I don’t think I’ll need to adjust anything but the seating die.

I have relatively cheap Laser-Cast bullets for practice. I plan to use a recipe that gives about 1060 fps in a 5″ barrel. Internet sources say I’ll only lose about 5% of optimal velocity with a 3″ Glock barrel. When my Speer Gold Dots arrive, I’ll be using a 1250-fps recipe, so I should come in at about 1200.

The modified primer feed on my press is working great. There is nothing like having your own machine shop.