More guns =

 I was up late, photo'd a bunch of things to list during the day, got in about an hour's practice. The hand position to hold the flute is just plain odd and there's no way around that. If I had long spidery fingers I could probably get away with using the "balance" system to hold the thing but since I don't, the "pressure" system is what I'm learning. 

I have a 3C mouthpiece coming in for the cornet, so I won't have that somewhat stuffy, old-timey sound if I want to or need to go out busking with it.  There's a thing called Bugles Across America or Taps Across America where they want people to go out and play Taps at 3PM local time on Memorial Day which is Monday. I might grab the trumpet and go out and do that. I did it that one time on the steps of the old post office and the bell ringer at the Catholic church on the square there actually held off ringing the hour for me. That was cool. 

What I don't get is, I can pick up the trumpet after a layoff and whip out high C's like it's nothing, but my endurance is shit and it doesn't seem to matter very much how much I practice.

So far I do not seem to be running into this problem with the flute. In the end, there are two things I want: (1) I want something that will help my being able to play the shakuhachi, and (2) I want something I can "get around" on better than the trumpet. I want to be able to take any tune bouncing around in my head and work it out, and I could do that on the trumpet until I ran into the ever-present range issues, and I always had to work pretty hard to learn each new song.

It was so warm overnight I dug out the fan I used last summer and had it blowing on me so I could sleep. All sources say it's going to be a hot summer. 

On the radio they're saying "more guns = more gun violence" and in a sense they are correct. But in an individualistic, violent, society like that of the US, if you take away the guns you'll just have knives, bombs, gasoline and other flammables, etc. In New York City at least for a while when the crackdown on other things was severe, attacking one's foe with acid to the face was popular. Violence is good for our economy and that's what matters. 

I started to list things I'd photo'd last night and got a few listed but then Ebay's listing software went down. So instead I packed a couple of things including one large box to go to FedEx and took those up there, and didn't really find anything to take home except one smallish box with bubble wrap in it. 

Once I was back here I finished the listings and was cleaning the bathroom when Ken showed up. He said he had to "disappear" into the back for a while, so while he looked around in back I packed things to take to the downtown post office, and did other little jobs, including doing a modification I like to do on my fan, which is cut the face of it out so it's not only more efficient (not having to blow against the front screen) but it makes it possible to clean the fan easily. Then I cleaned it, of course. 

I kept Ken's mug full of diet 7-Up and ice, and he took breaks from his looking around in back. Eventually I asked him what he was looking for and he said some Freon he was sure he had, and had I seen it? I said I'd notice something like that, and I looked on Craig's List and there are a few people selling Freon, although it's not cheap at several hundred dollars for a standard container of it. It's to fix Ken's A/C system at his house, and we discussed changing out the motor capacitor and other cheap fixes first. 

Ken's blood sugar sensor went off a couple of times, and he checked it and his blood sugar was quite low, so he had the regular 7-Up I keep around here. We talked about a bunch of things and before we knew it, it was just before 1AM so he left.