It’s -4F outside here in sunny Winterpeg. That’s a nice day for us (later this week it is expected to be - 38F with the wind chill), so I’ll being going out shopping for essentials today.

We have become accustomed to this though. J think it’s called Canadian brain freeze. Frostbite of the fingers, toes, ears, and nose is our biggest concern. As a former westcoaster on an island where cold and snow was something we saw on mountains across the water, it took me time to get climatized. Once I got used to layering and learning what I needed to keep warm it became more bearable. Still it can be a PITA. As for snow, it’s good for skiing, snowmobiles, and kids. That’s about it as far as I’m concerned. It’s also good for rusty cars after salt does it’s job.

So my thoughts go out to all of you in this recent storm and deep freeze. Take care and be safe.

Get better soon, Rollie. I know the Windy City can also be brutal.

Cheers!
FSB

Tip: Shovel a little a lot of the time, rather than shoveling a lot one time. Easy peasy.

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Hello, big guitar. Meet my little fingers.

Got through the blizzard with power still intact, and we went out and did some major shoveling to make sure there is a clear pathway and the car is dug out. How did I wind up in Canada? I don't even have a passport. Seriously, I don't know how you guys deal with that crap on a constant basis, usually worse than we usually get here, and it can get bad here. I guess you're probably better equipped for it, and just used to it. I still managed to put in some bass time, at least. So the whole day wasn't spent in the snow.

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Sooner or later we get everybody with or without a passport. But you have to come with a shovel. If you own a road grader you can take the express lane. Watch out if you have a Zamboni though. They’ll stop you from leaving the States at Chicago.

Up here we have lots of snow mobiles and dog sleds that are running off to go to Alaska where it’s warmer. Some of our planes have skis. We have a lot of grain trucks to pick up and dump snow. The Trans Canada Highway is somewhere (last I looked) around 3,365 miles across this big country so graders are plentiful to plow the streets. Everyone works as a team and we all stay inside together or go out together. We’re like lemmings.

Keeping warm is a fashion statement so we like to strut our stuff to see who looks the goofiest. Victoria Secret has been replaced by thermal underwear on the Catwalk. We don’t like heat and suntans and we run those who do out of town and send them to Florida, Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. The rest of us stay here for the Flu season. Hockey players are our biggest export. Football players are our biggest import. We teach them how to play in the snow.

Our cars have more plugs, and more snow brushes. Scraping ice is a national recreation along with curling. Just like cellphones, we think that electrically heated car seats are a gift from the man upstairs. We pray that our cars start each day. We get our beer from a cold trunk. It’s trendy to have a fender bent so we have to drive the streets in the worse conditions so we can be trendy too. We like Fender bending. On the other hand, most of us (even little old ladies) are well experienced in Winter driving . We also like our province run hydro crews. They are awesome.

Other than that we're KrAzY
Last year was full of unusual weather and this storm managed to miss the boat. Glad to read that you’re making out okay.. Others are not so lucky.

Hope it’s over soon for you guys and gals, Paul.

FSB

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Hello, big guitar. Meet my little fingers.

My family looks like the United Nations. That allows me some great ethnic food. Tonight we’re invited for Ukrainian Christmas dinner with 12+ non meat main courses. Should be fun. Hope there’s perogies
FSB

I’m half Irish and English. When they come to my place it’s bangers, pototoes, and beer.

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Hello, big guitar. Meet my little fingers.

Sounds delicious! I haven't had home-made perogies since my grandmother passed away in 1988. I hope they have them for you.

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Marky

Remember the music is not in the guitar

No perogies this time. If I’m lucky I’ll find some in the freezer. If not they’re as close as the store down the street, and I don’t give up easily when it comes to perogies.
FSB

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Hello, big guitar. Meet my little fingers.

I understand and admire your determination.

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Marky

Remember the music is not in the guitar

I didn’t know what a perogy was or the fact that you could eat sour cream until I moved to the prairies. Now they have me hooked. It only got worse when I discovered there were so many kinds, names, spellings, and ways to cook them. I need a fix.
FSB

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Hello, big guitar. Meet my little fingers.

Been busy the past couple of days. I barely have even been online. Since it's been too brutally cold the past few days, I haven't been able to walk outside at all, so we've been doing some shopping, mostly for clothes and things like that, which is a sport itself. I think tomorrow will be "warm" enough to go out for a walk, which will be great. It does look like it's going to warm up this week, in which I never thought I'd think the upper 30's and into the 40's would be considered warm, but I'll take it.

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I'm winding down after a terrific weekend. I hope you can get your outside walk in tomorrow Paul.

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Marky

Remember the music is not in the guitar

Yup! That’s how It works. Paul. Spend some time freezin’ your beegeezus off. Watch the temperature warm up to very cold, and then it’s a walk in the park. Pretty soon any temperature over zero will have you real comfy.
FSB

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Hello, big guitar. Meet my little fingers.

Yeah, I've found this to be true. Hell, 50 degrees might be considered shorts weather at this point.

We've been toying around with the idea of moving the Orange stack in where the studio was and getting rid of the big desk that's in there, where my girlfriend had the recording computer (it's in our office, now) and getting a small table/desk to put near the door (the amp will be in the back corner of the room, where the old desk currently is,) so that she can have a set up there, especially when she records her vocals in the adjacent hall area.

We'll then make the current rehearsal room into a walk in closet, which it is mostly now with the extra garment racks we set up in there. With the amp out of the room, we'll have space for the one rack we got yesterday, so it's in a better spot. These rooms aren't big at all, so we have to be creative in how we situate everything. I actually like the challenge of that, taking a situation and see how you can make the most of it.

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Sounds like you have a good plan for the recording/rehearsal space, Paul.

I’ve made some recording room changes too, and the most difficult problem is that my capable computer is a desktop in a good space by itself; but because I have traps, vocals, piano, amp, and mixer hooked up, recording as is can be awkward but not impossible with location issues. A laptop will help for sure, but other existing alternatives may come into play. A second pair of hands would be even better.

Funny how a little move of gear in a limited space can keep you busy.
Meanwhile, tonight I made beef fajitas, and my better half and I grabbed some beverages and watched the last two episodes of GOT at the other re-arranged family room end of the music room. How this quality show regularly misses out on awards says a lot about the awards. IMHO.

FSB

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Hello, big guitar. Meet my little fingers.

I think if you can get a laptop that's powerful enough to do professional recording, that would be ideal over a desktop, simply for the reason of portability, especially if you are dealing with space issues. Speaking of which, we went to Walmart tonight to get a few things, and to get a computer desk, and they didn't have any, so we'll have to look elsewhere, or order online. They used to have them, so maybe they stop selling them? At least we managed to get everything else.

I'm not sure if I'm going to be working on that tomorrow, or not. I do have to do some more laundry, so I'll have to play it by ear. We're going to also order a couple of foldable 5 space guitar stands https://www.americanmusical.com/Item--i-MUS-GS7561-LIST to slimline space, and have the basses and guitars lined up in a row for access.

Right now, I have a few of those triple guitar stands that are set up with the guitars circling around each other, and those do take up a lot more space, plus hinders access to certain ones, depending on the direction they might be facing, especially when next to the wall. Another convenient thing is we so happen to have a total of 10 instruments (7 basses and 3 guitars,) so that works out pretty good, unless GAS prevails and more instruments are acquired.

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FSB - I think a laptop is a very affordable option today and could be a good way for you to go. I bought an HP laptop for under $300.00 a few years ago and it still works great. It has plenty of power in quad processors but I did upgrade the RAM from 4 to 8 GB. IMHO, you can't go wrong with something like that.

Paul - That guitar stand looks really nice and On-Stage is a good brand. The only caution I have is that I have heard that certain padding can affect the finish of a guitar over time. I'm not sure what "Velveteen rubber padding" is but I know people who have had their Gibson's nitro finish marred by contacting the padding. Now those people put a cleaning cloth or a sock between their guitar and the padding.

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Marky

Remember the music is not in the guitar