This Memorial Day I went up to Booneville, NY with my dad. We visited several grave sites of our ancestors on the Merrill & Wentworth side. There was a short service to remember those who have gone before us and all that they fought for. It was really a moving time. I have limited saavyness with getting photos into the blog. Here are thumnails, then maybe I’ll make an album for it all under photos. Any WordPress users want to give me a tip on an the easiest way to blog with the photos?
Archive for May, 2009
Memorial Day 2009
Saturday, May 30th, 2009Welcome New Baby!
Friday, May 29th, 2009
We are so excited for the arrival of Leif Walter Hansen, who arrived early this morning, around 12:30, and weighed 7 lb 6 oz (or there abouts, my memory is sketchy mid-sleep!)
Can’t wait to see this little guy and his mom and dad who are all doing well!! 
Harvest Cafe
Sunday, May 24th, 2009Last night I played with Eric Donaldson at the Harvest Cafe. We’ve been practicing during the past couple weeks. Eric is a professional sculptor who likes to play music anywhere. We’ve known each other since high school.
There was a bunch of people there, and we even collected some money (Eric did a raffle for some interesting prizes, and a basket was passed around for us). I didn’t know too many people but met some friendly ones. My sister-in-law and nephew also came and seemed to like us ok
Golf Marathon
Sunday, May 24th, 2009Earlier this week we participated in the Ironman 100 Golf Marathon. It’s a fund raising event for Young Life. You golf the whole day – 100 holes at a country club! Since this was my second time golfing in my life, I enlisted the help of my buddy Nate. Jill was our caddy too, so I got to spent the day with two of my best friends!
The weather was great, even for maniac amateur golfers sprinting around. The golfers get prizes too at the end based on how much they raised. Jill and I got a bottle of wine and some coffee and miscellaneous snack items.
For a non-golfer, the day was actually pretty fun. I couldn’t have done it without Jill and Nate since I’m such a noob golfer! I used a five-iron the entire day except for when I tried one of Nate’s fancy drivers. The first swing was a total miss. The second hit the ground, snapped the club in two, and the bottom part flew about as far as the ball. The clubs weren’t even Nate’s, they were his friend’s fancy ones (he’s an actual golfer). I felt really bad, and didn’t touch any clubs except my trusty five-iron the rest of the day.
New Guitar Update
Thursday, May 21st, 2009Well, just in case you care, I sent back the Ibanez ARC500. The neck was a bit too thick, and just didn’t feel right – I’m used to playing my flat-necked Ibanez S320.
So I sent that back, and now my top three candidates are:
I’ve owned the Hagstrom before, but the intonation wasn’t great, and at that point I was after a different style guitar. Now I’ve come full circle, and it’s looking like a good deal. Other than the intonation problem mine had, it was a great guitar.
Let me know which guitar you like best, and if you’ve played any of them!
PS The pictures don’t necessarily show the color I would get.
New Guitar
Monday, May 18th, 2009I bought a new guitar, and it arrives today! As with all my gear purchases, I spent hours and hours researching my decision online last week. At the same time, I’m trying to sell my other two electric guitars to retroactively fund this purchase. My candidates were:
All of these guitars have excellent reviews and look stunning (although I haven’t seen any of them in person yet). I went back and forth for days trying to decide. I asked Jill which one looks better about 20 times, and she actually didn’t like the guitars with inlays on the fretboard or the ones with a double cutaway. I know it’s sort of silly to buy a guitar based on looks, but I had researched everything else to death and was still having trouble deciding.
I finally went with the ARC500 for a nice double-humbucker Les Paul sound (that I miss since trading my LP Studio). There is VERY little information about this guitar online. It was produced in 2007 and then just drops off the map. Several vendors have it in stock, but it’s not on the Ibanez site at all, and there’s less than 10 reviews online anywhere. So I had little to go on, but everyone I asked said it looks the best, and it had the features I wanted while being simple in design. Ibanez are known for their high-value guitars on a budget. $750 for a guitar may seem expensive, but for a professional instrument it’s very cheap.
As with all my large online purchases, I contacted several vendors and got the price significantly reduced from retail ($150 off for a brand new one, or 20% off). It worked out for them too since I completed the sale outside of ebay, saving them big fees.
I’ll try to let you know how I like the guitar tomorrow, but I’ll probably be too busy playing it to blog
Outdoor Fun
Monday, May 4th, 2009We had time this weekend to go over to Delaney and hike around a bit. I like it there because there is a lakey-pond-thing and the smell of the water just makes me nutzo! It is pretty well used, so not Ben’s number one pick because of other people around. But, there are enough trails that you can find your own peaceful spots. Among the sights were and awesome moss bed, flowers, beez…
