So here I am at Crest, CA's community club house, doing a benefit for the community club house. It's a community center but the sign said "Community Club House". People don't realize that CA has a down home, warm, country people side to it. Except they aren't like Jeb Clampit type country. Mostly smart. Even smart people can be warm, gracious, and unassuming.

That's one of the three others in the group, and myself. This group's called Copper Creek. There is also a female singer and another guitar. All three of them sing a lot. I pretend when forced. I do air vocals to make it look like I'm harmonizing. The woman who sings is this guy's wife--the player in the pic. I really like her voice. Just something about the timbre and richness or something. Not a huge range, just a nice sound.


PS: even though I kind of botched every single tune, but I faked it well enough, I'm told I did not misbehave or act like a mad angry man in front of people. Being one with minimal frontal lobe development and activity, I have to be careful about such things.

Zen and the Art of Sanding Teak

One thing about this teak business, it is tedious. I've learned a lot and from researching the topic I have concluded I'm doing it right. It is very easy to lose patience and want to cut every corner in the book. I'm not paid to cut corners and I don't enjoy the result when I know I didn't do it how I think it should be done. Often, I am not concerned that others may not see the necessity for the measures I take. It's often got to do with me and some sort of feeling of self honesty. Bizarre.

Maybe too many chemical fumes.

Once I get in the groove though, I find hours just float by. And I also find ideas of all kinds come to mind. Labor, if it is solitary, and unmarred by an over-the-shoulder tyrant, can take you to that sort of dreamy place where ideas live.

I've thought of various designs and concepts that could be engineered into reality while doing the menial tasks that I do. At times I feel guilty that I may be taking jobs from illegals, and I endeavor to stay under La Raza's radar.

The only thing between me and working on any of those ideas is laziness, and some genuine exhaustion. Knowing they are there, and that I am in the perfect place and situation to explore them gives me some satisfaction.

Back when I worked on items that received patents I always felt that the actual idea, even though I methodically worked to find the solution, was just floating "out there" waiting for someone to tune in the right frequency and pluck it out of the air. Of course, tuning to that frequency is something of an art.

It may be that when you go through every known answer, listing the pros and cons, that the ideal solution comes out as the mind merely makes some logical jump like putting a piece in a puzzle. It doesn't feel that way though. In my case it seems so different, yet it does fit the parameters I put in place. I hope to experience that again sometime and have the same reaction, "holy smoke!! Where did that come from? That's it!".

In the mean time I'll wrap wrists and elbows hoping not to further inflame angry tendons while I make art out of the most insignificant and tedious of jobs. The surroundings are all anyone could want, and I like it. I feel like I shouldn't be so happy with such under achievement, but I am. Partly because things have been evolving and moving forward. It is not a case of stagnation. Besides, I'm plenty grateful someone is willing to pay me enough to work in paradise, at my pace, and without constant oversight.