Several Stupid Things, Decisions & Otherwise/GFM Update

So, I have this new part-time job, to replace the one I was fired from a month, ago (more on that, later). It is, frankly, kicking my butt, but I'm enjoying it immensely, and between you, me and our respective therapists,  my butt was in need of kicking. I intend to write a new chapter, and it started on 10/22/2024. 

But heck, let's get to the several stupid things. I was making plans to arrange for Inyen Vina ("IYV") in Vietnam to make me one or two custom guitars. I'd pretty much decided there was no way for me to get everything I wanted in just one, so two was looking more like the stretch goal. And then, I saw Andre Fludd review this:

Nothing he describes here, to me, is a deal-killer—especially when these and other issues are being reported on the Boden Essential of late, as well. I believe I have a solution to the thigh-cut issue he describes, but I have to have one in my hands/on my lap to explore that, fully.

So, yes: I bought one. It's due to arrive in January, 2025. 

I was never in love with the .strandberg* Boden or Salen body shapes, and I'm even less enamored of this HILS Next HN3. I did order it in Ivory, as I wasn't very happy with the color choices, overall. Ivory was my least-unloved. 🤔

But I got it for $449. Now, the next-to-last guitar I bought new was an Ibanez RG-440 from about 1981-2. New, Made-in-Japan, hard case = $400 in 1982 moneys. The last new guitar I bought was a Carvin Holdsworth H2T, and I got a deal on that in the '90s, because I ran Atavachron. Still, IIRC, that was high-$800-to-low-$900 with the options I wanted. 20% off, maybe. A wonderfully fair price for a handmade in California guitar.

Listening to Dr. Fludd play the guitar, the pickups seem o-kay, if a bit brittle-sounding to my ear. But that's easily resolved. Just throw money, right? Suhr SSH+ Humbucker Bridge Pickup, here we come. I'll have to see if there's a mount for a single coil that fits a humbucker rout. I have no real need for anything else, there. If you know of one, leave a comment! Else, I may try to enlist help in 3D printing such a beast.

This means I've spent money that I do not yet have in my hands, but feel good about happening upon in coming months. New job: physically demanding of the old man, but my cardiologist would be thrilled. There's little that motivates me more than being a little "work out sore." I have that in spades at the end of this week! I've lost almost 30lbs. since August through elimination of 80%+ of simple carbs and sugar from my diet (had a pre-diabetes diagnosis, and decided I had to turn that around while I still could). This will help me maintain a good weight, and feel better for my remaining time, I hope.

Also, the new job: at age 61, this is the first union job I've ever held. I am proud to be a part of organized labor, at long last.

The former job? I worked there seven years, and loved that job so much. It's very disappointing that it ended the way it did, as I feel I was fired in retaliation for knowing I was not being paid fairly, demonstrating that I knew I was not being paid fairly, and for demanding that be resolved to my satisfaction. But I still shop there, and I love everyone who works there, like family—seriously! I suspect what comes next will be pinned on my boss—again, unfairly (yes Nick, I saw you slink out as stealthily as possible, as I headed to the time clock that day, when I was going to be fired less than five minutes, later). But that's business—not personal. They knew I lived with an attorney; heck, she even worked for 'em for a couple of years. Just not as an attorney.

So, we're not 100% done, there. However, I have new things to do, new purposes to fulfill, and a new job that has done for years what I wanted my old employer to implement. Oddly, they copied my new employer's techniques in many ways. They just didn't devote the time and focus, there. As I said: regrettable. But they're a private, ESOP company—the employees and officers are the only shareholders. The new employer is a big, public company, and the labor is organized. Big differences.

GoFundMe update: we had a great day, this past week, and raised $150! However, it was my intent to wrap funding by the end of the month (in order to have it be a holiday gift to a deserving kid), but since my former employer so graciously paid out my unpaid vacation time, I had enough money to cover getting the Positive Grid Spark GO, but not enough to cover the Fesley FLP-350 I had planned to acquire for this purpose. So, I propose that I instead clean up the Epiphone SG that I bought this past spring, with hardshell case, a cable, some picks, a new set of strings, a tuner and the brand-new, only-tested Spark GO, and make that the gift package. I am in touch with someone who will select the deserving child, and take care of receiving the guitar and amp, etc., from me, and will give the whole shebang to the child/parents, all without my knowing who received it. I have no need to know that. I will hopefully get ID-blurred photos or video, to share, and if I do, those will be shared! 

Your thoughts? Let me have 'em, please.

ETA: Here's that H2T, and an Ibanez Prestige bass from circa-2000 that was, no contest, the best stringed instrument I ever owned. That thing was magic.

The H2T on the wall.