A shakuhachi mystery solved

 I packed 18 things last night, 8 of them to go to FedEx today. 

I also practiced, and noticed something very important about the "enhanced" shakuhachi Yuu I'd spent so much money on. The utaguchi, where you blow, is at a different angle and this makes the curve at the opening much wider. 

There's a video on YouTube by Jon Kypros about blowing the shakuhachi, and he says that beginners tend to have the mouth closer to the edge, and as players gain more strength and experience, they position their mouths further away and blow with a more focused air stream. Those allows much more mature and expressive playing. 

In other words, this rather advanced shakuhachi I just got, is too advanced for me right now. I'd only gone ahead and gotten it because I thought I might be leaving for Hawaii ASAP to help Dave out. I'd originally planned to get it at least a year from now. 

I am getting stronger as a player, slowly but surely. My long tones are very gradually getting longer, I can call up the highest note with more ease, and so on. 

I had to move the clock an hour forward and got to bed at (by the new time) 8AM. I woke up at about 4, had my coffee and aspirin and washed my head/hair/ears with simple green, then ears with Dettol, then rubbed tea tree oil into my ears especially the left one that's having all the problems right now. 

All I had to do was load up the packages and go and that's what I did. Dropped things off at FedEx, picked up a couple of these cardboard trays I'm making the standard around here, and stopped at the chicken place for a couple of thighs and they threw in a biscuit. 

I at the chicken over by the bagel place where there was a place to sit, and wrapped up the biscuit. I also picked up a few bunches of bananas and an apple behind H Mart. 

I'd noticed Tom was doing stuff at his place when I rode past on my way out, so I stopped by on my way back and handed him the box with the fruit, and shot the shit for a while. He had one of his bum hangers-on helping him with some pieces of countertop material that were long, heavy, and had cut-outs for a sink. 

So he had these stacked in his truck and was taking them out one at a time and cutting off the sink part. He'd spent $50 on a diamond saw blade and I watched while he started cutting the 2nd one. He let the blade get too hot and ruined it. I told him how the guys next door to him, when they cut that kind of material, always ran water to control dust and to keep the blade cool. So he tried to get his friend to drip water onto where he was cutting, with a carbide blade he got out, from a small peanut butter jar. That went about as well as one would think. I left then. 

Then it was the usual, got back here, put things away.