Monday, February 12, 2024

Thank you, Adam Rapa

 Well, sure enough, the 49ers didn't win, the other guys won. Haha! If I had any clue as to how to bet on a football game, I'd honestly have bet $100 on the game. But because gambling of all kinds is illegal in Hawaii and to do what illegal gambling there is, you have to be raised in a family that's done it for generations and I was not, I don't gamble at all. 

It's still funny though. 

I could round up about $7 so after taking some big things to FedEx I rode over to Nijiya for some eggs and a couple of packages of ramen because I wanted to use up the other half of those sausages and with the weather so cold, I crave junky foods like ramen I guess. 

It was very calm as most people were inside watching the game, and I talked a bit with a couple of friendly Hispanic guys out front. We were all kind of at loose ends, the guys because one of them had farted in the car and they were waiting for it to air out. That was pretty funny. 

I rode back here and did stuff and eventually practiced. I've not been practicing regularly and that's a bad thing because as it stands now, this job with Ken is the thing that's fleeting while busking is going to be my career from here on out. 

So I practiced and warmed up by doing those half-step bends just like Adam Rapa says he did a ton of as a young student and that he swears by now, and I'm beginning to see why they're such a good exercise. Half-step bends require the back part of the tongue to be "anchored" firmly while the front part moves. I have no idea how air gets through with the tongue like this but it does, somehow. And it's pretty much the same tongue movement that allows one to, without street and strain, go from low C up to high G and higher. 

The other thing that I think has been helping is a breathing exercise I've been doing, when I remember to, while out riding the bike. It involves keeping the chest up and breathing using the diaphragm but with the chest up, and it can be a real workout. Done right, I can feel it in my *back* and that's what trumpet people online are saying it should feel like. 

I packed 15 or 16 things, all small things so I didn't need the bike trailer. I took 'em up to the post office and then rode up to the little head shop by the tiny Filipino market to see if they had a mortar and pestle. The thing is, "popcorn salt" which is salt that's in really tiny grains so it sticks to popcorn, is no longer a thing. So I want a way to grind regular salt down smaller, so I can have finely powdered salt to season nuts with, as it's hard to find macadamia nuts with salt on them any more and the ones that do have salt are unreasonably expensive. The guy in the head shop, a nice Indian (maybe Pakistani?) guy, told me he'd seen popcorn salt in a market ... but he's not sure it's a market was have here in California. Very pleasant guy though. I think I'll have to improvise something.

I went to 99 Ranch and go some things and got some money back because Ken's not coming by this week - I think he's off on a mini-vacation somewhere. I think what goes on is that Suzy, his wife, gets stir-crazy sitting around the house all day for days on end, and drama happens, and next thing is Ken booking a hotel somewhere nice. It's not like it's off to Cancun or something, they're somewhere here in California or in Reno or Vegas. 

I also ate some dim sum, three little porky things, at 99 Ranch because I was hungry. After 99 Ranch I stopped by one of my chin-up places and did some chin-ups, then went to H Mart. I got ... more things. By this time it was well after 7PM, which is late for this town. Also there's the permanent "law" of the Wartime 3-Hour Shift, such that 7PM will feel like 10PM so... it was late. 

All I wanted to do was get back here so I rode back post haste. It was 8PM when I got in, so the equivalent of getting in at 11. 



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