The Right Key

I just washed my dishes, and cleaned the kitchen up a little. And then I practiced my guitar for about an hour. I played the CD October Road by James Taylor and picked my guitar to it. It is amazing to me that I can do that now after all these years of wanting to, that is, find the exact key to pick the notes to whatever song I have playing on my CD player (or my iPod, the tape player, radio, or record player for that matter.)

The Urge to Write

I always have the urge to write after I read great online journals like Bitchypoo. I wish this urge would stay with me, but these past few years it disappears quick. The urge is in me strong right now and so I'll go with it and see how long it takes until I move on to something else.

Project D-Create a Healthy Lifestyle Program

1.

Alison Krauss and Robert Plant Duet for Raising Sand

Here's a video about a new CD I bought myself for Christmas. I love it!

Project C-Clean My Place Up Completely.

Where I am at on my house cleaning project: I had four of the rooms in my place cleaned up. And then Christmas happened. It left a bit of a mess. I need to catch those four rooms back up again.

Cleaning To Do List:

1. Tunes playing. (Raising Sand by Robert Plant and Alison Krauss. Have you heard this CD? It is so good! A newspaper article I read about the best CD's of 2007 said it was the best of the best and I can see why.) Done.

2. Wash dishes. Dry. Put away. Done.

3. Wipe off counters, dish rack, top of fridge, stove burner pans, stove top, etc. Done.

4. Organize fridge and wipe clean inside and outside. Done.

5. Pick up living room. Done.

6. Dust. Done.

7. Wipe off table. Done.

8. Sweep. Done.

9. Wipe down kitchen floor. Done.

10. Bathroom clutter. Done.

11. Clothes in dryer. Done.

12. Gather in trash. Done.

13. Wash cloths, etc. in washer. Done.

14. Scrape-scrub toilet. Done.

15. Sweep bathroom floor. Done.

16. Wipe down bathroom floor. Done.

17. Wipe down counters. Done.

Cleaning Session started: 12/27/2007 4:27 PM Ended:12/27/2007 6:33 PM.

(Later after I picked up some rental DVD's and some Mexican food. For my away-from-cleaning dinner break I watched the movie Super Bad and ate three-fourths of a three taco meal.)

18. More tunes. Done.

19.Dinner mess cleaned up. Done.

20. Clean off computer desk. Done.

21. Dirty clothes picked up. Done.

22. Clutter put away. Done.

23. Top drawer organized. Done.

24. Clean under drawers. Done.

Cleaning Session restarted: 12/27/2007 9:40 PM Ended: 12/27/2007 10:48 PM

As of 12/27/2007 10:48 PM my kitchen, living room, bathroom, and office is up to par.

Project B-Website to My Liking.

1. List "Cast of Characters".
2. List "Places I Frequent".
3. Post an entry about what I did this Christmas.
4. Jazz up my "Life and Projects" heading.
5. Add to my Projects list some sort of Exercise Program, and my latest Music Project.
6. Fill out my Profile information.

Project A-Desk Area Organized.

1.

Tonight a Quiet Night, but on Monday I Partied with Friends

Recently this happened:

I came home from work. I surfed the Internet. I napped. I ate some turkey vegetable soup. I watched the first episode of the first disc of the television show, 24.

If someone were to ask, “What have you been up to Harley?”

Monday I partied and played music with some musician friends at a co-jammer Fred's Christmas party out in the country about 10 miles past Little Town. There was plenty of good stuff to eat, including a turkey and dressing. (I brought some corn chips and salsa. What was I thinking?!)

Fred handed out cards and he had us all pick gifts starting with the person who had the number 2 card, and then the person who had the number 3 card, and so on. If a person before you had a gift you wanted you can take it from him and he/she had to pick another. I ended up with the present I wanted: a cement statue of an angel.

I'm Baaaack!

I'm back!

*sound of cricket's chirping*

Hello! Anyone here? I'm going to start writing here again.

*more cricket's chirping*

Sigh... Oh well, nobody's around to read what I have to say. That's okay. I'm going to start some new projects and track in words here the steps I'm taking to complete those projects, plus I'm going to write about my life in general. If anybody comes here and reads what I have to say that'll be nice. But I'm doing this for myself first. I'm doing this to help myself become more focused and productive, to log all this focused and productive activity, and to have a hell of a fun time while I am doing all of this.

Wish me luck.

*"Chirp. Chirp. Whatever..."*

First on my list of things to do: go cricket stomping.

*"Chirp! Chirp! We're sorry! We're sorry!"*

All righty then. From now on, let's see some encouragement.

*"Chirp! Chirp! You can do it, Harley! You can do it! Good luck! Good luck!"*

Murphy's Be Damned Law

Recently broken things around my place have been fixed. My parents and older brother came over Sunday and we fixed a leak in the roof near the swamp cooler on my trailer. My step-dad also recently showed me how to unplug my kitchen sink. Monday I hired a man to help me get my furnace running and in the process I, myself, replaced a broken electrical breaker without getting electrocuted. I also took my truck down to a tire center and had a slow, air-leaking tire fixed.

Wednesday my refrigerator died.

Sigh.

"Why, God? Why?"

I stayed up way too late last night. I watched all of the episodes of the second disc of "Desperate Housewives". Earlier yesterday while recuperating on the couch I finished watching all of the third disc of the second season of "CSI-New York". All the while then I was avoiding cleaning the freshly discovered dead refrigerator and trying not to notice that my trailer was getting smellier and smellier. I was too damn sick to have to deal with all of that. I shouted out, "Why, God? Why?"

This morning the refridgerator food is now in the trailer park dumpster. I still need to wipe the refrigerator itself down. I did remember to turn the fridge completely off. Near the area between the freezer and the cooler it was hot and I didn't want a fire to start in there.

I am feeling good enough to go back to work and so I need to go get ready. If I get to the store early enough, perhaps I could get a bite to eat before I start my shift.

Dead Refrigerator

I need to go to bed. It is late. I probably won't sleep well. I ate a take-home tacos dinner I picked up from a nearby restaurant. I ate them late into the evening. When I eat my dinner late in the evening I never sleep well that night. So why do I do it?

I just threw away the entire contents of my refrigerator. My refrigerator just up and died. And I didn't realize this until it was too late and everything spoiled.

I called work and told them I was sick early this morning. And I was sick so don't think I was faking it or imagining it. I felt like I was coming down with the flu. I had a high fever and my body ached in my muscles and joints. At work yesterday I took two Advil and drank some Airborne. Last night I drank some Alka Seltzer Plus. I felt like crap most of the day but surprisingly towards the evening I started feeling better.

Whenever I am sick I need comfort food so it depressed me when I opened my refrigerator earlier today and realized that all the food in it was not fit to eat. And the smell! Really awful. I just shut the door and lied on my couch and avoided dealing with it. That didn't last long because soon the rotten food started stinking up the place.

Revisiting Project #3, the One Where I Am Figuring Out a Way to Keep My Home Clean Moment by Moment

As I am starting to slide back into letting my place get messy, I have to ask myself this question: what is it I need to say to myself to keep me in a constant cleaning mode?

I came up with the following:

“I am cleaning as I go.”

“I don’t want to come back to this mess.”

“I am not thinking about it, I am just doing it.” (Cleaning.)

“Don’t act on that urge to put it off until later. Do it now!”

“Don’t forget: I love cleaning my place up. I love it when my house is all clean and organized.”

“Keeping my place clean and organized should be one of my top priorities.”

“My life runs so much smoother and I am much happier having a clean and organized home.”

“There’s a mess there! Clean it! Now!”

I believe the human brain is like a computer and in it you must feed the correct data to get what you want. I want a clean and organized place, dammit! Maybe if I continuously feed my brain the above data I’ll get what I want.

I’ll keep you informed on whether this works or not.

Work-in-Progress Part 3

This is my art work-in-progress part 3-Self-Portrait: Man with Backwards Baseball Hat. I had planned giving this to my younger sister for her birthday in early October, but it is taking me longer than planned. Who knows? Maybe I'll give it to her for Christmas.

Six Questions Revisited

I need to be answering these types of questions on a more regular basis. They help me do the things I need to do and want to do.

1. Blood Pressure? 129 over 82. It should be 120 over 80 which means it is still a little high. I just went to the doctor on Monday and he upped one of the meds to make the numbers go down. The thing is I’ve yet to take the stronger meds. I have to start tonight when I take my new daily dosage.

2. Did you practice your guitar playing today? Yes, but I only worked on one song. It’s called Breath Me and it was recorded by someone named Sia. I first heard the song while watching the final minutes of the series, Six Feet Under. The combination of the powerful manner in which the series ends and the overwrought emotion of that song; I couldn’t have been any more deeply moved. After that I simply had to find the song on the Internet, download it, and then find the guitar chords to it and learn to play it on my guitar.

3. Where are you on your house-cleaning project? I have completely cleaned the inside of my house. But I’m starting to slack on keeping it that way. I need to go through it again now and deep clean, dusting the furniture and washing the floors and wiping everything down. I haven’t let it slide all that much, but I want to get it back to where it really looks nice again. Then I want to wash the windows and winterize them where the cold can’t get in. And then I need to go outside, and clean the sheds and my truck and work on the yard and landscaping. Oh, I really should wipe sweep off the roof and likewise winterize it. There is a leak around my swamp cooler sometimes when it rains. Wow! There is still so much to do!

4. What loved ones I have contacted lately? I’ve been isolating. I’ve just been going to work and then coming home and hanging out by myself. I’ve been spending the majority of my evening time lying on the couch watching Nip/Tuck-Season 3. I am one of the best customers at the neighborhood movie rental store, and when I found out the latest Nip/Tuck DVD had been released, I requested the store owners gets it for their library. After all, they already had season 1 and season 2. It was just a day or two that passed after my request and I walked into the store and there season 3 was on their new release shelf. Yes, the store owners do spoil me. Yes, they do.

Ah, but characters in DVD television series are not real life loved ones and I do need to contact my real life loved ones more. I did see my parents on Monday and Tuesday. Tuesday was especially fun because my parents and I, along with my older brother, met at the local casino for breakfast. We all had a fun time stuffing our faces and teasing each other and laughing and generally being the loudest people in the joint. When we were through eating, I must state right here, I DID NOT go gamble. It has been 38 days since I flushed my hard earned cash down the gambling toilet. I know this because I have been tracking my bad gambling habit with my calendar. With me being the poor man that I am, the last thing I need to be doing right now is feeding some slot machine with little or no payback in return.

Oh yeah, I did also hang out with my best friend, Sy, and another friend, Chelsea, at McMenamin’s Oregon Hotel Saturday night. The Portland band, Sneakin’ Out, played a set there in a double billing along with the artist, Ashleigh Flynn. It was the first time I heard these artists perform and I will say here I was duly impressed, especially by the musical abilities of Sneakin’ Out. One man played a mandolin, another played a bass acoustic guitar, while the third man played all these different types of instruments he had surrounding himself. These included a pair of bongos, a xylophone, cymbals, drums, chimes, a typewriter(!), a steel tie he wore that he clicked with steel finger attachments, etc.

I was so impressed by it all that I ended up buying two CD’s, one full of Sneakin’ Out instrumental originals, and one where Sneakin’ Out played back up to Ashleigh Flynn’s incredible vocal talent.

The highlight of the evening though was when Sneakin’ Out did their version of the Pink Floyd piece, “Money” from the album, Dark Side of the Moon. Oh. My. God. It was so incredible. You’d simply have to hear it to know what I am talking about. I’ll leave it at that.

5. What art piece have I worked on today? Because I am writing this entry it has propelled me to add to my Self Portrait: Man Wearing Backwards Baseball Cap. I’ll post the latest version of it in an upcoming post.

6. What exercises did I do today? I went to the gym tonight and I worked out on two different exercise machines that aim to exercise your stomach. Plus, I stretched for about 5 to 10 minutes. Plus, I did the usual fifteen minutes on the cross-country machine. Plus, I lifted weights focusing on pumping up my biceps.

Funny-Guy Vendor

The other day I was at the store where I work and I was standing by the back warehouse door scooping up some dirt and throwing it in the garbage. All at once the buzzer alerted me that a vendor was waiting outside to be let in to make a delivery. I decided to have some fun and in a loud falsetto voice I asked, “Who is it?”

There was a hesitation and then I heard, “Land shark.” You’d have to be a fan of the early days of NBC’s “Saturday Night Live” to appreciate the joke, and appreciate it I did laughing almost hysterically as I opened the door for the funny-guy vendor.

New Radiator

(Written Friday morning.)

My truck is in the shop. I am riding my bike down there in a short while and picking her up this morning. I had to have her radiator replaced. It will cost me around two hundred and eighty nine dollars. The mechanic said it needed replacing because apparently a rock that I ran over, shot up and pierced it.

I was heading for my younger sister’s place up in the mountains to visit for a day or two last week, when I happened to glance at the water gauge. I was only about fifteen miles into my journey and my truck engine was starting to get hot! I immediately pulled over and called my sister and told her I had to turn around. I was so disappointed. So was my sister. I rarely ever make such a lengthy trip as this, and I really wanted to hang out with her. We’re not only related, but she is one of my very best friends. The main reason I don’t travel to her place all that often is because I over worry that my beat-up old truck is going to run into mechanical problems. And that, my friends, is exactly what happened. Damn!

Ten Things to Do Before I Die (I'm 52 Years Old)

1. Raise money for some charities through what I create artistically and musically.

2. Have the ability to perform a two hour set of songs all by myself in some sort of musical performance.

3. Complete enough art pieces that I can put on an art show.

4. Sell my art online on EBay.

5. Someday own a place again big enough to entertain all my loved ones.

6. Once again own a brand new motor vehicle.

7. Tour Europe.

8. Meet the Great Love of My Life.

9. Write a screenplay and sell it.

10. Act in a movie.

Work-in-Progress Part 2

This is my work-in-progress part 2, Self-Portrait with Backwards Baseball Cap. I need to start working on this more because I think I am going to give a print of it to my younger sister for her upcoming birthday. As you can see the drawing is a long ways off from completion.

Jammin' Birthday

We celebrated a buddy's birthday at a recent jam session. One of the ladies baked a cake, and I brought some ice cream. I also bought him a backpack for his music suppies and a notebook to keep his songs in.