It’s About Time

Last night, I came back late from Church because I had to speak with a couple who visited with us.  Amanda didn’t go to Church because she hasn’t yet fully recovered from recent flu.

I was pleasantly surprised to see a note with drawings on my laptop keyboard in the office.  It makes the heart warmed alright.

Amanda's Love Note to Papa

my wife told me that Amanda explained to her that the lines indicate her love for papa.  Her love goes through her to mine, so she said. How cute.   Makes my day, for sure.

Larrivee L-10

Yesterday, got a call from a young chap, asking about my L-10. Malcolm had told him about my intention to sell it. So we arrange to meet this morning.

He came with his father, albeit later than agreed.  Anyway, it turns out that his dad knew my brother (from the same church previously).  And he has seen me before when we visited their church sometime back. I didn’t ask anything further as the conversation kept getting disrupted here and there.

Anyway, the chap likes the guitar though he was thinking it came with a electronics pickup but was satisfied to know that Malcolm could install it for him easily.  He likes the setup, action and all. So the deal was completed pretty quickly (partly due to his dad being in a hurry to get to somewhere).

SO….. I’ve sold my Larrivee L-10 and hopefully, with D03-R soon to follow. This is the shortest time I’ve own a guitar.  Less than 3 months. Had it been L-09, I would not be thinking of selling at all.  Maybe I’ll get a L03-R.   I am thinking perhaps I could now get the Goodall Grand Concert…… since I strained my right shoulder muscle over a week ago, it was a pain to play dreadnought.  Just a thought.

Romans 16:25-27 ^“Now to Him who is able to establish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery which has been kept secret for long ages past, ²⁶ but now is manifested, and by the Scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment of the eternal God, has been made known to all the nations, leading to obedience of faith; ²⁷ to the only wise God, through Jesus Christ, be the glory forever. Amen.”

W.H. Griffith-Thomas, in commenting on Romans 16:25-27, sums up the importance of being established in the faith:

In every age, under all circumstances, the Christian life should be one of spiritual consistency, for if there is firmness in the inner life there will be steadfastness in the outer conduct. A strong Christian is one who is saved, sanctified, and satisfied in Christ. His position as an established believer makes him at once happy, holy, and helpful. Weakness is perilous to the believer’s own soul, and prejudicial to anything he endeavors to do for His Master. Strength, on the other hand, will give the heart and life confidence, comfort, and courage, and prove the means of usefulness on every hand. Let us, therefore, never fail to recall this last word of this important Epistle, the absolute necessity of strength and steadfastness in Christian living.”

(Epistles to the Romans, p. 441)

Good food for thought.

Last Saturday morning, while trying to read book to Amanda on bed, I accidentally sprained my neck muscles without trying hard. The pain increases as the day wear on. Man, it was literally “pain in the neck.” 

Pasted salonpas on the shoulder region nearer to the right side of the neck. It was “minty” but during the night it was terrible as the neck is so sore that to turn from one side to another, I had to support my neck with the palm of my hand.  Really pathetic.  Didn’t sleep well.

Next day on Sunday, mentioned this to Thuan Wee, one of our deacons who is a doctor. He says it’s called “aged”   Well, aging or not, it was painful. Thankfully, he and Daniel gave sound advise to help remedied the situation. Basically needed to slowly stretch the muscles region. Been doing that and it really helped.  Now I am almost out of the “stiff neck generation” category. 

Never had that kind of pain before. Well, there’s always the first time. . . .

I removed the pickguard of my Larrivee D03-R several months ago as I didn’t quite like the tortis styled pickguard it had on originally.  Malcolm tried to dissuade me cos he thinks it looks nice with that.  I told him that maybe it’s because I’m a slow-adapter to such design that I find it hard to accept.

It became a distraction and almost an obsession to remove it.  Anyway, after reading forum such as AGF, about others who had done it, I decided to give it a try and it was a success albeit time consuming because you don’t want to ruin the sound board.  Needless to say (but I am saying it) there was a pickguard shade on the sound board.  Not that I mind. I was actually thinking giving it several months maybe the color tone will all even out. It is showing signs of color changing though.

Few weeks ago, I was sitting down playing another guitar when I glance at the D03R and thought it does look good with the pickguard.  Tried to order a new pickguard from Larrivee website but they don’t ship international.  Too troublesome to bother my good friend John Ball in MN.  So I thought, since I still have the original pickguard which I had meticulously removed and thoroughly cleansed of tacky glue and all.  I decided to paste it back.  Malcolm chided me (the nerve of that guy!) for having itchy hands, amongst other things, for removing it in the first place.  Anyway, found this 3M adhesive spray that is really easy to use and overall cost is still cheaper than ordering a brand new pickguard plus shipping and all.

This afternoon, I sprayed the 3M adhesive on one side of the pickguard and after having cleaned the sound board, and paste it, voila! The job was done!  It’s one of the rare times that I didn’t destroyed something that I removed and able to reuse it again. Man, I deserve a pat on the back.   So it’s back to business again.

Well, after a week plus of EPL, we see Man Utd defeated by Burnley and then rebounded to thrash Wigan 5-0. At half-time, it was still 0-0 and people are wondering if Ronaldo’s departure is that significant.  Many forgot that Utd didn’t win the first 4 games last season. I recalled it was a stuttering start. 

Anyway, I was glad that Rooney opened the scoring with a world class header to register his 100th goal for Utd. I’m personally glad for Michael Owen who scored his typical goal and kicked off his premiership scoring for this season.  Good for Man Utd. 

What makes teams like Utd enjoyable to watch is their resilience, and gumption to fight on when the goings got tough. 

Well, the EPL has barely started for a week and already there are shockers : 1) Liverpool was beaten on the first day of EPL (cos it’s the only top 4 that didn’t register a win – big deal!).  Pundits and sports writers speculate that they’ll not be able to win the Premier League. What rubbish!  One swallow doesn’t a summer make!  Idiots!

2) Man Utd got beaten by newly promoted Burnley yesterday; whose last triumph was 1968.  Undoubtedly, the naysayers will speculate that Utd is facing a crisis cos of Ronaldo’s absence.  Ha! That’s the beauty of football, and as Arsene Wenger says before the match between Arsenal and Celtic a couple of days ago — “it’s down to 11 vs 11 on the pitch.”  Nothing else matters. If teams turn up expecting to be beaten; they’ll be beaten!  A team that comes up disrespecting the opponents might can beaten too!  Another team that turns up expecting nonthing; gets nothing! 

I think it’ll be interesting to see how things fare in a month’s time. When things are more settled; transfer windows closed. 

Well, last weekend saw the new EPL football season started with lots of goals and furore.  The usual pundits with their dead-sure predictions came reversing some of them without shame as usual.  Classic example, the writing off of Arsenal pre-season due to sale of Edabayor and Toure, saw a heap of praise over the play when Arsenal beat Everton 6-1 in style. 

Personally, I could care less about pundits prediction.  Most fueled by need to keep readership writes in tabloid manner.  Speculations aplenty.

I think the usual top four will still be there. Interesting to see how Man Utd will adapt to changes without Ronaldo. Not that it will suffer greatly for after all football is a team sports.  Most tend to think that minus one equal disaster. Most didn’t recall that it was ROnaldo who almost jeopardize Man Utd’s chance to capture the Champions League trophy when his penalty was missed. It was John Terry’s slip-up (literally) that saw Utd winning the trophy. 

I would like to see Michael Owen proving pundits and critics wrong.  Especially Capello who seemed to have an axe to grind against Owen since Real Madrid’s days. I still think he is much better player than Berbatov the new le-sulk of EPL.  I’m waiitng for him to do that. Maybe it’s the underdog mentally. 

Chelsea will still be a strong team because of its resilience but will not capture league title due to injuries.  Utd starts off with injury much like last season, but should rebound quickly. Liverpool? Unlikely given Benitz’ unusual reluctance to field non-spanish players (maybe he can communicate better with them?).  His ultiamte mistake to leave the Israeli player out consistently. 

Everton, will be affected by City’s distracting tactics.  Aston Villa, need not panic and sack O’ Neil. That would be a knee-jerk reaction for sure. 

On a side note, interesting to see how Arsenal will fare against Celtic tonight in Scotland.

Since my last post on L-10, I’ve brought it to my good and trustworthy luthier, Malcolm, for corrective action.  Previoulsy, the guitar was sent to Jarvis for saddle replacement to FMI. Somehow, it didn’t feel right — no scientific data to show just a guitarist gut-feeling — that’s why I decided to go to Malcolm.

As it turns out, the filing work down on the FMI saddle was uneven, to say the least.  Anyway, had the original bone saddle placed back and added shim to bring it to the level that I was comfortable with.  And as predictably, the guitar was much playable since.  Nice feel to it. It could be further improved later on.

Well, I use Martin SP+ PB strings light gauge on it. The 5th and 6th strings are more “intense” so to speak. I’m likely going to change it to EXP 11 (80/20) and think it’ll be to my liking.  I’m starting to enjoy this piece more and more. Who knows, I might decide to keep it and upgrade it to improve its tone and all.  Will update.

Came across this counter while surfing Ovation Fan Club forum. Thought it’d be interesting to see how many people visited my blog from other parts of the world.

I’m not kidding myself to think that I’ve got fantastic blog because truth be told, this blog wasn’t intended to dialog with others (but not against it) but venting of inner thoughts outloud.

However, I would prefer to paste this counter on side bar instead but haven’t quite figure out how to do that.

Let’s see how many foreign visitors there might be.