Snow fun...

We've had snow on the ground for a couple weeks now. It had almost all melted yesterday, but then we got another 6 inches today. A few of us went out for an hour or so after dark and created a snow sculpture in the spirit of Calvin & Hobbes... right outside our building with five stories of windows on two side looking out at it. I doubt it will get any real reaction (just a chuckle or two...) but it would have been such a waste to stay inside all day.






















I'm not convinced captions are necessary.

Videos!

Just though I'd post a couple videos that a friend uploaded to youtube after the open mic thing last week...



This, ironically enough, was a song called drifting that someone sent me on YouTube a few months ago. It seemed like a good challenge to learn, so I tackled it. No loop pedal on this one.



People always say audience interaction is a good thing, so I decided to let the audience "write" the song (you'll see...). On top of that, it was 100% improv. Just me jammin' with my loop pedal for a while.

Winter is here...

The next few long months of winter officially began last night with a good dusting of snow, nicely coinciding with the start of December. Its been a busy couple days as far as my guitar playing goes. On Thursday, I played a few songs as part of our departments "open mic" night. That went pretty well... I used my loop station pedal (which allows a player to record parts on the fly and immediately play them back, overdub, etc.) for the first time live, which was a good experience.

Then Friday, our grad fellowship had an advent service that I played guitar/djembe for. Anyhow, with the associated practicing for these events, I've been playing guitar quite a bit lately, and it seems like the more I play, the more fun I have. And its even more fun when people actually (seem to) enjoy hearing you! Almost an honor.

My Thanksgiving break was pretty quiet. I had dinner with some friends Thursday night, but mostly took the opportunity to get research done. lame, I know, but I'm taking a full two weeks at Christmas where I'll try not to do a lick of work.