Pic from our last show

This is a pic from our last gig at Club 356 back on Aug.24. Yes, that's my goofy drummer's expression. I'm trying to count, what can I say! I'm just a newbie drummer although I guess I've now been playing for almost 7 years. I must have started in 2000 when I came back from a trip to Seattle. I stayed with a friend there who played guitar/keyboards. We went to the Experience Music Project, or EMP (and science fiction museum? They must have added the SF part since then). At the EMP they have walking tours of various music displays, some I think were specific to Seattle, like Heart's jackets (the girls' outfits I mean), Jimi Hendrix' guitar (if I remember correctly), etc. Incidentally, as it says on this Wikipedia entry, the EMP was designed by Frank Gehry, just like the dancing building I just saw in Prague. But more interestingly to me the EMP also had these jam rooms. You could go in there for about 10 minutes and jam on instruments. So my friend picks up a guitar, his then girlfriend got on the keys, and I sat behind the drums. Those two were jamming in seconds while I sat there stupefied. So as soon as I got back to SC I signed up for drum lessons.

My main question then was whether drumming could be learned or whether it was innate. I had this idea that getting each of the four limbs to do something different was inherent and could not be developed from training. My first drum instructor assured me that was not the case and one could learn to drum. So I started taking lessons. At home to practice I started playing on empty coffee cans with their plastic lids acting as skins. Two reasons for this: they're quieter and cheaper than a real acoustic set. In addition Corey wanted to make sure that I'd actually stick with this new hobby before I went out and blew a bunch of money on equipment (musical instruments ain't cheap).

Three drum kits and two bands later, I guess the drumming thing stuck. The kit at left is my Gretsch Catalina Maple kit. You can get more details on my drum page. This is the kit I use at gigs. I haul the whole thing around in bags in our pickup truck, carpet and all. Last time I set up at 356 it took me about 90 minutes to set up and mic the kit. I also have a Pearl Rhythm Traveler kit sitting at our harmonica player's house where we hold our weekly practices. He kindly lets me keep it there without having to break it down and set up each time. The Rhythm Traveler was my first acoustic kit. I bought it for its compactness: you can assemble it all in just a couple of bags because the toms lack bottom (resonant) heads so they just fit in like the Baboushka dolls. I could never get that kit to sound good. I think it just used pretty cheap Birch shells so its sound was never really that decent. It's good enough for practice but I don't think it's good enough for gigs. I did use it for the couple of times I played with my first trio band (guitarist, bassist, and me). We only played a couple of times before we split up. The Pearl kit is also too loud for home practice. So at home I use a Pintech electronic drum set. It's a bit quieter since it just sounds like you're hitting pads, but Corey tells me it's still annoying to the casual listener. I know the cats tend to run out of the room whenever I start playing it. One of these days I might consider changing it out for a Roland V-Drum kit; those used to be the creme de la creme of electronic kits. And I think they were also the quietest since they used mesh heads.

For now the drum kits I have are good enough for what the Hoodoo Hounds are doing. Most recently we just took some band photos last night for cover art for our demo CD. I think the intention is to lay down a few more tracks in the studio (maybe 3 songs a semester?) so that eventually we have a complete CD. In the meantime, once the 3 songs that we have recorded get finalized, we'll post them to internet radio stations, maybe Radio Paradise and maybe sell them for $3 at gigs. We'll see. Next gig may be as soon as Oct.5. At 356, where else? :)

The Cats

We managed to complete a number of chores today, i.e., laundry, some caulking (me), garden watering (Core), etc., all capped off by picking up the cats. In the left pic you can see what their week-long "jail" looks like. We bring the carpet tower, the boarding house has the hanging rope, but beyond the half-window and the couple of shelves, it's pretty cramped. Which is why the next pic is a bit blurry. It's taken at night and back at home where the cats have been fairly active. I can't blame them since they have a lot more room to move around in at home than they did in their little prison. We also took them on a short forest walk but they were both panting quite a bit, so we didn't go on a very extended walk. We let them inside to cool off — they like lying on the floor inside. They seem to be happy to be back home and we're both very happy to have them back.

PRG

Left Prague today, now sitting at the gate for the plane back to Detroit. Sounds like they're boarding...gotta go.

Update: Just made it home safe and sound. No delays, no lost luggage, hooray! It's now 22:00 our time so we spent about 24 hrs in transit. It's tiring. Couple of comments on the trip, for posterity:

• Started the trip in Prague via metro and bus. When we exited the metro I saw the 119 bus but of course close to the opposite exit (you can emerge out of the metro via several staircases, we picked the wrong one). So we ran to the bus and I started tapping on the door. The driver of the bus sitting right next to the 199 stuck his head out and starts yelling "Do przodu, do przodu!". He meant that the bus had to pull up ahead to the bus stop in order to pick people up. So a little further run up the road to get on the bus.
• The PRG airport looks new. Similar to the Warsaw airport but more established. As I recall, Warsaw's newer terminal 2 looked very similar (almost same design) but it had just completed and they were working on remodeling terminal 1 (departures). Prague's departures (what you see above) was already in use.
• The connections were such that we had little time to do anything at either Schipol or DTW. Which I suppose is just as well since we got home at a reasonable time. At Schipol they've recently introduced this new phase to the security clearance procedure. Now they conduct a one-on-one interview where the security fellow (I guess) tries to trip you up with clever questions, e.g., "why did you attend the conference", "do you have any battery operated devices, no? what about your laptop? aha!" and so on. A little silly IMO, but what can you do? You can't really joke with the guy.
• The Atlantic hop was on a 757. I thought and was hoping for the A330 for its personal DVD systems. I don't think they had enough people so they used the older 757. The 3x3 seating is not as convenient as the 2x3x2 of the airbus. And it's a long flight.
• In Detroit you have to pick up your luggage and haul it over to the X-ray machine. The only reason I can think for them doing this is in case they don't believe you when you tell them you have nothing to declare. So then they can make you open your suitcase to inspect. Otherwise, what is the point of having passengers move the luggage from one conveyer belt to another?
• The plane from DTW to GSP lacked air conditioning. Same thing happened on the way home from Warsaw. Maybe they figure, ah, the Eastern (or rather Central) Europeans don't use A/C anyway, so why bother. And they're going to SC where it's hot and humid anyway. Or maybe it was the same plane and they just haven't fixed it yet?

And that's it. If we retire now, we should be pretty much back on schedule tomorrow, with minimal jetlag. Then there's a one-hour window wherein we might be able to pick up the cats.

Prague Staroměstská

Today we toured Prague's old town. Beautiful old architecture, narrow streets, and plenty of places to eat and drink. Very charming. One of the more popular attractions is the clock tower. On its side is an astronomical clock and every hour on the hour the little figurines start moving as the bell chimes. Two windows open and the 12 apostles (more figurines) walk by and look at the crowd assembled below. And this does draw a good sized crowd although one web-based tourist guide I read said that the wait was not worth more than 5 minutes. I'd have to agree. It's really not that spectacular.

Prior to old town we walked by the dancing building in new town. They're also sometimes referred to the Fred and Ginger buildings. They were designed by Frank Gehry, a Canadian architect (based in L.A.) who also designed the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain. We took the pictures from the Vltava river side of the street, where we're standing below. As my friend commented on me at lunch, I look like quite the boffin in my lab, er, I mean rain coat.

And that concludes our 3-day tour of Prague. It really should have been longer, but now it's time to head back home and then to work. We leave tomorrow morning at 09:30 which requires us to get up at 05:00. We don't get in till about 19:30 if there are no delays. Too late to pick up the cats unfortunately, but I read on their web page that we may get a chance to do so on Sunday. I'm sure the cats would love to be home a day early. Maybe we'll have time to fit in a forest walk with them.

Later this month Corey has to travel to D.C., then I drive down to Charleston in October. Core then takes off to Reno in November, and I close out the year with a trip to Finland in December. I've been asked to serve as dissertation defense opponent to a PhD candidate there. When I asked my Finnish friends what it's like in Finland in December, they told me "Dark!". I've experienced very long bright days in Stockholm in June, but have yet to experience really long dark days. I hope it's not too cold.

Prague Malostranská

Today we walked a bit around the Malostranská area of Prague. This is where the Prague castle and St. Vitus's Cathedral are. The building in the pic is just to the left of the castle, not really the castle itself. If I remember correctly, it was closer to the National Gallery than the castle. I don't have any pics from the Cathedral. I took some of the interior but they're all too blurry.

Inside the Cathedral we ascended the 287 steps up one of the towers. That was a workout but the views from up there were worth it. It's just too bad the weather wasn't cooperating today. Most of the day has been rather cold and drizzly. The evening doesn't look much better so it looks like similar outfits for the conference dinner. I finally get to use the raincoat I bought in Zurich. I think it looks pretty cool, but someone in Leicester commented that it looked like my "flasher mac". Maybe it does look a bit like what a flasher would wear, but it served its purpose today.