Musings
CRUDE GREED
10 July 2010
Just a happy reminder, least we forget, that crude oil continues to “leak” into the Gulf of Mexico at a speed that in fact, it’s pretty hard for the human mind to grasp. Think about the whys of this disaster when you use your car to go to the corner store…
The David Wilcox Music Video Channel
Dot Earth's Continuing Coverage Of The Oil Spill
Wacom Cintiq 12WX
9 July 2010
I’ve been using an Intuos 3 8×6 for the last couple of years and really consider it the most useful tool for working at a computer so I guess it’s no surprise that I’ve been looking at the Cintiq series screen tablets with some curiosity and desire since I focused on them a few months ago. It also seemed that my mom, who is also an artist, could profile by using one. She tried a Intuos 2 way back when, but drawing on the pad while looking at the screen didn’t work for her so after some hesitation I suggested she try one… Which is why she asked me to install it on her Mac a couple of weeks ago, which I quickly tried to do (being in a bit of a hurry at that time), but wasn’t able too. Which led to it coming home with me so I could figure it out first… So here I am adapting, kind of, to a Cintiq 12WX.
Sticking it onto my Windows 7 machine worked fine and it didn’t take long to figure out that it had probably also installed perfectly on my mom’s Mac. The issue was simply that since it’s screen was set as an extension of her main screen I hadn’t realized that unless you set the “display toggle” to “pen display” and “force proportions”, when you switch between the two screens you can end up with the mouse pointer on the main screen but off to one side of it… As it was I couldn’t set anything up since whenever I toggled over to the main display the mouse pointer disappeared. So I’m like “where’s the pen? This isn’t working…” :P
Which is why “what I dislike about it” gets listed first.
Woops...
18 June 2010
Once again I spoke too soon since later that day the machine froze… So it seemed better to reinstall instead of losing more time with the whole business and so I did, although in truth I am still doing. It seemed dumb to go through the process of reinstalling XP and so, since my relatively recent machine supported it, I decided to go for Windows 7.
I always hope that each Windows upgrade will be the last but that just wishful thinking…
Sonny Terry's Washboard Band (With Bones!)
22 May 2010
There I am trying to find information on the web for Washboard Doc, see my Doc, Flash, Lucky & Red - Pretty Woman post, and re-reading the *Early Morning Blues* record credits the following stands out: "His first recording was with bluesman Ralph Willis about 1950. About two years later he cut with Sonny Terry for a Folkways LP, playing washboards and spoons". So I whip out my Sonny Terry's Washboard Band CD and once again go through the pdf file wondering if I missed anything…
Jam Vully 2010
17 May 2010
Sunday a week ago while picking up our gear at the Red Turtle I made one of those unfortunate movements which instantaneously blocks your back, which to state the obvious is somewhat of a pain… And although a visit to the bone shrink helped straighten me up, the sting of the strain remained loud enough that although I went to Blaise’s Thursday night Vully Blues Club jam, I did my best to avoid excess action and left before midnight.
In a sense this was just as well since…
Friday Evening At The Red Turtle
3 May 2010
Next Friday Dave & I will be playing at the Red Turtle Club here in town. It’s a bar that recently reopened and that actually has a real stage, not very deep but quite wide, that has already seen a good amount of musicians in the first three/four months the place has been opened. We stopped by a couple of days ago to confirm the gig, I had sent a picture for the flyer but had not heard from the organizer.
I asked about the bar’s name since “Turtle” is pretty hard for french speakers to pronounce and was wondering if there was a story behind it and sure enough…
Les Mont de Baulmes
17 April 2010
Last week I took a walk above the village my folks live in, with Elstir – their Shetland sheep dog – and made a couple of quick sketches. The one here on the right is of the Baulmine, a stream that has its source about 3/4 of the way up the mountain.
It has been highly canalized over the years because of the amount of water that comes down with the spring thaw as well as during big storms. The size of the rocks the water can carry during those moments is quite impressive, but its a bit late in the season for that now. I’ve drawn it off and on now for nearly 30 years watching the stream bed and its environment changing with time, tamed by man; or at least it seems…
The Moondog's Hum
31 March 2010
About a year ago Dave bought a cheap Chinese resonator guitar and decided that it needed a better cone. So he ordered one but it was a bit too big for the guitar’s hole. Having taken a look at it I told him that I could make the hole bigger and so he brought it over to my workshop and we (I) ended up adding two sound holes, since he received two with the cone, remaking the bridge and sticking in a pickup between the cone and the neck.
After all that the guitar sounded definitely better, which was nice, but unfortunately has an annoying hum when amplified.
TBA
20 March 2010
Today’s shameless plug…
The above is my forth TBA! Which is what (?) you may ask and I almost did when receiving the first email of congratulations for the first one…
Saturday Snow, Sunday's Stroll
8 March 2010
Just as it looked like the Spring was getting closer wouldn’t you know that the temperature would drop again, flirt with the -6° to -12° C (21° – 10°F), encouraging all the show that fell on Saturday to stay put and freeze up the town some more instead of politely melting away like I wish it would.
Sunday woke with the sun, not of the let’s melt all that snow kind but unfortunately closer to: “the sun is shinning, don’t forget your sunglasses it’s really bright out, hey it’s freezing! Where did you put my gloves?” kind. Brrrr…
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