Health & Vanity

[So I realize this reads more like a report, but...well, I don't know what I'm really trying to accomplish.  I am not used to writing about non-fiction items in a blog, but hopefully I will find a more interesting way to relate it.]

So the other day a co-worker of mine comments that it looks like I have been working out.

A few things...

I have been working out.
I work out regularly.
I ride a bike to get anywhere, and for fun on top of that.
I eat healthy portions and, in general, only for what I need.

Now, I'm not perfect, but a majority of the time these things are true.  To explain all these things, I will begin with why I started in these habits in the first place.

Working out.  To me, as a guy, and really just as a human being, working out is exercise.  In my personal opinion, belief really, the human body was not made to sit behind a desk and I fear the day I get a degree and end up in such a place.  To me, exercise is not something I list as a hobby or interest.  It's just something a person should be expected to do.  I still list biking as a hobby and interest.   And I do not find working out to be something I dread or do not want to do.  It can be hard to schedule at some points in my life, but I look forward to it very much when it again becomes part of routine.

I bought a rode bike nearly a year ago.  Before this, I rode a mountain bike too short for me.  I will not mention the name of the bike or anything else as I won't even pretend to be that particularly interested in that aspect of biking.  However, it is very nice and to this day I have not tired of biking around to get around, no matter how "inconvenient."  I am astonished the distances some people find "tiring" to travel to when they own a vehicle, and the all out refusal for some people to walk to almost anywhere.  To me, a mile does not constitute the use of a vehicle, but I am getting ahead of myself.  I do not care about the environment, but I suppose it is an added plus.  I do, however, love my heart and partially bike for this purpose.  Really, I find it endlessly fun.

I had bad eating habits.  I was exposed to healthy alternatives early on.  The kinds of friends I developed ate much differently from my family.  My mother cooks excellent Mexican cuisine, but she is horrible about providing snacks and other such things.  I avoid coke and snack usually on salty stuff to wash down with a beer.  I avoid eating very late at night, mostly for my sleeping habits, and I had to deal with curbing my hunger when I knew I really was eating enough but my body was used to more snacking often.  I did this for my health, to avoid obesity (which I was never really close to), and to improve muscle development and sleeping habits.  I now work in a health/natural/organics food store.

Still, in the end, when someone comments on how good I've been looking, it fucks up all the nobility and I end up feeling better than a whole lot of people.  This is a difficult thing to do in a city like Houston.  Heck, even in the States this is difficult.  But I do it.

Up until some jerk compliments me.

My Guitars

So I know I said I didn't know what this blog was for...and I still don't.  I may or may not still use the tags feature, but I probably won't write anymore drunken rants.  And I had the idea of a recurring gag of "boring lists" that I'd put up, but what's with that anyway?  Anyway, I figure I always have these ideas, but I haven't been putting them down a whole lot.  My first idea was a post entitled, "Sex and Morality," which was to be a sort of all-around joke about sex, morality, and Christianity.  In the end I figured too many people would make assumptions about me and I'm not clever enough to make the whole thing seem like a joke.  Then I thought about writing about Houston's really shitty bus system, but then I would be limiting my demographic.  Finally, I thought about a story of a Hitman and his Cat.

As you can see, I have lot of thoughts.  For the most part they go toward my girlfriend, but the rest of the time they just kind of stay stuck in my head.  I still do not plan for this blog to become popular, but I do want to get into the habit of writing and write about something interesting.  Still, I refuse to choose a topic, style, and post about why it's been so long since I've posted.

Recently a co-worker of mine, Greg, inquired about buying a guitar from me.  I told him which one I would sell, for what price, because I had thought about this before.  That night, I got it out, played it a bit, then considered the whole thing once again.  See, I had not thought about this for a very long time, so I hadn't considered my feelings about my guitars for a while.  It's like someone asking you which child you would kill:  You already know because you've thought about it before, but then you spend some time with them and realize that maybe they aren't as worthless as you thought.

Guitar enthusiasts, I do not know anything about guitars, but I do enjoy playing them as a hobby.  Still, feel free to check out my "gear," as they call it.

First, the item I offered up for sale.

Bam.

I bought this guitar off a missionary in New Caney, TX for $70.  It's a Burswood, which I couldn't even find a website for.  I've been trying to get rid of it for $50 because I don't really use it anymore.  The strings are a little far from the neck and I didn't know any better at the time.  This was my second guitar, but first acoustic, so I assumed it was supposed to be more difficult to play.  It is definitely playable, though, with a little perseverance and hand strength.  I had a few discussions with the girl who sold it to me, and I even met her entirely family...but I never met her!  Crazy, I know.

I mainly like it for this bit...

Boom.

 Yeah.  The white part of the bridge, which I guess is the bridge, is help up by a toothpick.  It smells like glue all the time, strangely, to this day.  I never quite figured out where that came from.  When I first started playing guitar, for some reason I was a lot less reserved about playing in public.  And because of this...

Side!

people would always say, "That's a pretty guitar."  Yeah, I don't play on sidewalks too often anymore.  Houston is too humid anyway.

Anyway, I figured for anyone stumbling across my blog that happens to like guitars, they would take an interest in my humble collection.

The very first guitar I ever got, a gift from an ex-girlfriend, was a Squier Strat by Fender.

Indonesia.

It gets pretty loud and has stayed together pretty well over the years.  The only problem I have is every now and then I have to take the input jack out and tighten the washers.  Second view...

 Don't be fooled by all the knobs, only the volume one really does anything.  It has a whammy bar, but I pretty much never use it.  If I gave this thing away, Frontman amp included, I'd probably let them go for $100.  I've was looking at this one Ibanez Artcore back in Austin, TX, but looking at their collection online I don't know which particular one it was and can only assume it was a pretty decent price considering the prices on their website (the store was letting it go for 350).  I settled for something else I'll share later.  Anyway, 

V70CE/BK

Speaking of Ibanez, time for my acoust/electric...

For $200 I acquired this from a Guitar Center.  I was originally going to order a similar, smaller acoustic electric that my friend, Andrew, had and simply wanted to try other Ibanez guitars.  Later I learned I shouldn't have picked black, but I enjoy it much.  Boy did I get a treat when I learned how other acoustic guitars are supposed to feel like.  It can pull off a nice jazzy sound when I want it to, but it wouldn't be my first choice for folk.  Oh well.  At the time I think I was really looking into jazz guitar as something not entirely difficult.

Here's a piece of hardware I got for $80 off Craigslist...

That's a BOSS-ME30 multi-effects pedal.  It was made in 1997, reflected in one of the presets being a "grunge" setting.  Awesome.  I really only bought it for reverb, but it ended up being way more than I ever needed.  It can be a lot of fun, but frustrating in how much control one has over the effects.  Sometimes I just want to turn a knob, you know?  I'm lazy like that.  And on my recent trip to Austin, this shit happens...

That there is a Roland Cub-80X.  12 inches, 80 watts, 35 pounds, 100% man.  Remember how I said I like knobs?

I love it.  There's a knob, two left from the power switch, which acts as the delay but also doubles as a looper.  It records about 40 seconds, loops that shit, and then you can either play over that or record even more tracks.  I have recorded up to six tracks so I don't really know it's limit or if it really counts them as separate tracks at all (there's no way to delete the last thing you recorded, you can only delete it all at once).  It's been tons of fun.

Well, that was a rather boring post with drab writing and uninspired photography from my cell phone.  As I write less preoccupied, more often, with more interest, and a better understanding of how this blog editing thing works, I'm sure I'll figure out how to churn out more interesting shit.  In the meantime, you now know a little more about my guitars then when you first came in.  Tight.