February is nearing an end and spring isn’t too far away. Here are some things going around in my head.

I’m still thinking of buying a house. The one I like right now is $104,900. If I put $21,000 down on it with a 3.774% interest rate and live there/own it for 30 years, I will have paid a total of $244,920 towards principal, interest, and taxes. That’s kind of discouraging. However, if I rented the same little place I live in now for $715/mo for the next 30 years, I will have paid $257,400 and have nothing to show for it. At least with a house I’ll have more room to work on all my projects.

It’s about 1:30 Sunday afternoon and the sun is bright and shining outside. I should be thinking about going to bed. I’m really tired of these third shift hours.

My bass guitar is nearly done. A few more clear coats, assembly, and then wiring. One of my next projects is to record an album. I have about a dozen original songs that I want to get down. First I want to do a preliminary recording, evaluate it, and then maybe record it in a studio “for real.” The problem is that studio time is expensive and I’d really like to record it on tape. Recording, mixing, and mastering could run up to $10,000. I don’t have $10,000 and I don’t know if I could manage to raise that much on Kickstarter. So I’ll have to do some serious shopping around after I get the rough draft recorded.

I’m becoming even more weird and introverted than usual. It would be a good idea if I got out more. To that end I’m thinking about taking a class at the local community college just to keep things interesting. I’m not super thrilled with my options (the good classes always get cancelled due to low enrollment), but something like calligraphy or photography would be okay. I’m open to other suggestions.

Picked up some melatonin today to add to my daily supplements. Maybe I’ll start sleeping better. Third shift workers tend to produce less melatonin due to being awake all night.

It’s not even March and I’ve already got motorcycles on the brain. I’ve been saying “maybe next year” for the last six years and this year will probably not be any different. I still like the newer Triumph Bonnevilles and the no longer in production, Triumph Thunderbird Sport. A Yamaha Fazer would be okay too.

More to follow.

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This is a work in progress that I posted on YouTube a few weeks back. For the sake of posterity, here are the lyrics. If this is new to you, I hope you’ll give it a thumbs up at YouTube and as always, your comments are appreciated.

An Indian takes aim at a star on the wrapper from my Tootsie Roll Pop
That I bought just a moment ago down at the corner shop
If it will grant a wish there’s just one that I need to come true
So I close my eyes and think of you
(more…)

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I was encouraged to write one of these things, so here goes.

January 2011 I started running a CNC lathe at work which was quite a departure from supervising and office work. It’s much less stressful, but at times monotonous.

Early 2011 saw rising gas prices and my increasing frustration with my daily commute. So by summer I had put away my Mustang in favor of a boring and fuel efficient Honda Civic and packing my bags for Aurora. It’s the first time I’ve lived alone and I’m not sure I like it. Having a roommate kind of keeps you in check. If you decide to sleep twelve hours straight every weekend, no one is around to say that it’s weird. Someone told me, “But when you live alone you can walk around naked.” Is this something that people everywhere are dying to do? (more…)

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As I was leaving a friend’s house at about 1am this morning having just watched “It Might Get Loud,” I started to realize that I’m the happiest that I’ve been in quite a while. This isn’t to say that I’m blissfully happy, but rather less miserable. So there’s still room to be more happy. At least I’m finding the things that are making me happy. I’m chipping away at some projects that I’ve had in mind for a while. A big part of what makes this possible is the fact that I have more time on my hand living so close to work. Anyway, here are some of my irons in the fire and maybe I’ll elaborate on some of them later. (more…)

Filed under: Art, Music by John
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Well, I’m pleased to say that my Materialism 2010½ update is pretty much taken a non-issue! Days later I bought a new computer, Adobe Creative Suite CS5, and my parents gave me a pretty keen desk for my birthday at the end of July (and I don’t feel I need a new drawing desk nearly as much as I once did). Now it’s nearly a year later and I guess I never did Materialism 2011, so here it is. This one is coming around as I get ready to move all my stuff from Chicago to my new place in Aurora.

First, some thoughts. I’ve been doing some thinking and wanting to cut down on things that I own. Instead of owning lots of things, I’d like to have a few good things that will last. Furthermore, I’m trying to be more conscious about the country of origin whenever possible. Also, as this will be the first time I live in an apartment by myself, there are a number of first time purchases I need to make. Luckily, I’ve found some good scores at garage sales and my current roommate is handing down a few things to me.

Flatware: I went to Target thinking I might be able to get some flatware that was made in the U.S.A., and I was. Unfortunately, it was plastic. It will do for now and maybe I’ll cheap out and get some made in China eating utensils. I’ve already decided that I’m never going to be completely free of things made in China, but there are other options. If you want flatware made in the U.S.A., you don’t have many options. One of them is Revolution/Sherrill that makes the stainless steel Hudson pattern. This is the most affordable option I’ve found. Now, if I go ahead and buy this stuff, it better be the last flatware I buy for twenty years. And I hate the idea of losing one of them, whether I get the service for four or eight. So this might be one of those areas where I cheap out and go with overseas products. We’ll see. I’ve got enough plastic forks and spoons to last me a while.

Motorcycle: This could actually happen this year! However, if I get a bike, it won’t really be the one I want. I’ll get either a used Yamaha Fazer (the same bike that put me in the hospital twice); a Triumph Legend, Thunderbird, or Thunderbird Sport; or a 3rd generation Honda Magna. Only the Magna comes close to fitting the bill for a long distance trip, and I don’t really have time to take such a trip this year. Besides, the money for a motorcycle is coming from the sale of my Mustang, which I’ve recently replaced with a fuel efficient (and more boring) 2010 Honda Civic. The more sensible thing to do would be to take that extra money and save it or put it towards paying off the Civic early. So as the Cubs fans say, “Maybe next year.”

Television: At first I had planned to go without a television in my new place. If I have a television, I’ll just watch it. So I went to cancel my Comcast service here in the city and get setup with Comcast internet only in Aurora. Turns out, there aren’t any great deals for internet in Aurora and Comcast is the only option. If I go with their internet only, it costs $30/mo for six months, and then $60/mo after that. $60/mo for internet only! Right now I pay $72/mo for internet and hundreds of channels that I don’t really watch. The Aurora rep said he had never heard of anyone getting service so cheap and my best bet was to try and transfer it over. So that’s what I’m doing, because I know that in six months time it won’t be so nice out and I’ll want to watch a little television. And I might not be content with the 20″ tube television that I have in storage somewhere. And if I do buy a television, do I get a simple one that works for now, or do I get a nice fancy one to last me many years down the line? Decisions, decisions.

Smartphone: I don’t get it. Why hasn’t the price on these come down? It’s not the price of the handsets that irk me, so much as the data plans that are required to operate them. With cell phone companies making money hand over first, you’d think one of them would cut rates drastically to try to steal customers from their competitors. I wonder if there is some good old price fixing going on. Anyway, I’ve told myself time and time again that I wouldn’t get one until I could get the numbers to makes sense. So if I could get a phone with a data plan and kill internet (and cable) in my apartment altogether by tethering the phone connection to my laptop, then it would make sense. Or if it offered so many productive tools that it helped me make more money on the side, then I could go along with that. So far I haven’t been able to make that stretch, but I’m still waiting.

iPod: My new car doesn’t have a nifty six disc in dash changer like my old one and I like to have a lot of options when it comes to listening to music. The car is equipped with an auxiliary input that an iPod (or iPhone) would hook right up to. Still, my daily commute is less than ten miles one way and this seems more difficult to justify now.

Oh, I’m sure there are lots of other things that I want, but I’m going to leave it at those big items for now.

Edit: I’m adding a typewriter, a turntable, quality coasters, and bottle pourers.

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Moving isn’t fun at all. If you disagree, you’re sick and should seek help immediately.

So, starting tomorrow I’ll be living in Aurora. You should come visit because I don’t know anyone else that lives in Aurora. Anyway, I’ve never lived in an apartment all on my own, so this will be an interesting experiment. Furthermore, there’s a lot of things that I don’t have because I’ve been mooching off of roommates all these years. I thought I’d try to see how few things I could buy that were made in China. It’s a pretty difficult task. I’m going to post a great big materialism post later, but right now I’m in the middle of boxing up things. Part of the materialism thing is, even though there are things I want to get, there are more things that I want to get rid of. Some of them are perfectly good things that I simply don’t have a use for, like the guitar wall hangers that I just sold on Craigslist. So once I get settled in, I’m going to go on a selling and giving away spree. You’ve been warned.

More to follow.

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