8r4d If you’re not a #violin player chances are you’ve never really payed any attention to the intricacies of the parts of the instrument itself.

I’ve been in #orchestra for about five years now and playing for over eight, and it was in about my second year that I upgraded from my student violin to a fancier model. The student model came fully equipped with all the little bits to make it easier to play, including a full set of fine tuners. But when I upgraded, the luthier from whom I bought it said something like “this one doesn’t have them and we can always add them if you want to later…” and I bought it and have been mucking around tuning my violin with the pegs for years.

Which is fine.

But I was sitting there struggling the other day for the thousandth time and it occurred to me that I should probably price out what it would cost me to put on some fine tuners… which of course turned out to be about fifteen bucks via a next day shipping order from Amazon. In other words, I’ve been struggling for years thinking this was a complex problem when it was about as complex sitting in the dark for five years before just ordering fresh light bulbs for a burnt out lamp.

In other other words, my violin now has fine tuners and my tuning is immensely finer.

pixelazy The #autumn colours are on full display this week, even tho the #rain is making it harder to explore

8r4dsfeets #autumn is in momentary colours

8r4d Oh, maybe you can’t tell but my morning #coffee and writing sesh has me trapped here while the #rain tuckers itself out. [read more...]

pixelazy Even a little #spider needs a caffeine fix, I guess. This little guy was literally climbing the walls from the buzz. #macro #insect

8r4d #flashback to #chicago #marathon 2023 because I’ve been meaning to repost some of the pics that got lost from this site when I got hacked last spring. It was a year ago this weekend that we did our little #running #travel adventure to the windy city to run the Chicago Marathon after years of deferrals. Technically the race was October 8th and Thanksgiving weekend back in Canada (which is next weekend) but dates, memories, blah, blah, blah, I’m calling it this weekend and today as the one year anniversary of my last marathon. It was a blast, but I think I’m sticking to shorter distances from here on out.

8r4d #flashback to #chicago and travelling there on our #running adventure for the 2023 Marathon. Travelling with friends is always a blast and hitting the tourist highlights in the days leading up to the race was pretty sweet: deep dish pizza, downtown, the pier, and all over town for food and sights. I can’t even begin to post all the great things I saw without about ten posts of flashbacks, so this small collection will have to do on the one year anniversary.

8r4d So, our regular Sunday morning #runcrew #running adventure was usurped by a turn through another charity race, this time dropping in on the breast #cancer fundraiser Run for the Cure where about 4000 participants fun runned through a south-central #yeg neighbourhood. We parked at a cafe about 4k away and ran there and back for the 5k race, which gave us a little over 12 klicks on the day and a well deserved coffee meetup afterwards. #runforthecure

8r4d It’s been damn near a whole decade since I bought this little #truck which pretty much makes it the longest-owned vehicle I’ve ever lain claim to. I don’t recall the exact date, but it’s been a chunk. Needless to say we’ve entered into the era of minor repairs and ongoing maintenance. Sure, it was pretty much parked for most of the pandemic era and my work-from-home phase but that just means I fell out of the rhythm of keeping her tuned. This weekend has been some general catchup, from a good long wash to an oil change, some battery TLC and a brand new set of tires. Nothing special, but even if they last me half as long as the last set I’m sure I’ll be doing just fine.

8r4d If you’re curious how the writing is going, here’s the thing: I spend at least three solid sessions per week giving Starbucks a few bucks for #coffee and a table. I sit here, in one of three locations, almost always in the same chair pounding away words on my #keyboard for a couple hours. My goal is to average 500 words per day, including all days, off days and on days, work days and play days, and in the last six weeks since implementing a lovely little spreadsheet to more formally track that I’ve averaged about 650, again, writing about 3-4 days per week. In essence, that’s a handful of 1500-2000 word sessions.

The novel itself is not so much stalled as I’ve slowed construction-proper in favour of doing some shoring up of the backstory foundations. I got to a point about 80% of the way in where I found myself trying to build a satisfying build to the climactic conclusion on a concept that I had loosely in my own mind but for which I hadn’t really done enough world-building. That kind of writing risks plot holes or weak sort-of “because story” justifications, and I wouldn’t have been happy with that and surprisingly its much tougher to untangle bad writing than just writing it right in the first place. So my last couple months has been a twisting whirlwind of finding yet another new routine to settle into and simultaneously punching through what is becoming a novel-length collection of backstory short stories. Really.

And if nothing else, I’m keeping the local cafes on their toes, too.

8r4d This October morning #sky #sunrise looked like a roiling sea on the horizon and kinda matched my vibe. [read more...]

8r4d A year ago tonight I was wandering around Chicago having arrived that day for the upcoming marathon weekend. This year we’re enjoying the #autumn #trails while out on our regular #running meetup.