H.I.T.S.
Todd at Micarelli’s told me last week that he was annoyed at the TV commercial that shows a girl looking for a laptop at one of the big retail chain stores. During the commercial, she bypasses an Apple laptop after looking in disgust at a price of more than $2,000. As Todd is a recently converted Maccie, he was indignant, since he’s familiar with Apple prices. The laptop that they actually show in the commercial is a top-of-the-line model with all the bells and whistles — so the comparison is a bit weak. I do find it amusing, however, that Apple and Microsoft seem to be conducting a low-key media war against each other with their ads and Todd said he’s perfectly happy with his Mac Mini.
My most recent purchase also finally arrived last week. I’ve previously detailed how my friend, Nic, had shown me his fancy Variax guitar, which has a small processor inside it that gives an array of different guitar sounds and tunings.
Knowing that Mrs. Schulze would kill me if I bought any more expensive guitars, I set out on a quest to find a reasonably priced version of the Variax on eBay, having convinced myself that it would fill all my needs for teaching.
In my imaginary scenario, I just take the Variax to the store, eliminating the need to sometimes cart various guitars with me.
With that in mind, I scoured the listings on eBay. At first, I was fortunate not to find anything. Finally, though, I hit pay dirt a couple of Wednesdays ago. The mother lode of purchases appeared in the form of a pristine-looking, used Variax from a non-smoking household. Although I didn’t really care if anyone had smoked around it, my theory was that anyone that fussy must have taken good care of it.
Anyway, with the click of a few buttons, it was mine, thanks to the immediacy factor of Buy It Now and PayPal.
I began imagining myself conjuring all kinds of exotic sounds out of my new purchase, but four days later, there was still no word from the seller with a tracking number. My blood pressure was steadily rising, as I’ve become used to tracking my many purchases via UPS.
I finally gave in and e-mailed the seller, who promptly replied telling me it was sent by snail mail (parcel post). I then remembered that I’d mumbled to Mrs. Schulze, wondering if she minded if I bought another guitar. Now, I had to ask her advice about how long it would take for the guitar arrive.
I casually remarked, “Hmm…did I tell you I got one of those guitars from eBay?” quickly adding, “They sent it by parcel post. How long will it take to come?” She replied, “About two weeks, from California. Why would they ship it that way?”
So, my punishment for buying yet another guitar was to check on the USPS Web site day after day. Evidently, parcel post tracking is never updated — it only showed when it was shipped. In all, it took 10 days to arrive (when seven days were quoted on the site).
All’s well that ends well, though.
Thankfully, I like the guitar, but I avoid saying that at the store because they make fun of me and cite past purchases. They debate how many weeks it will be until I get rid of it.
The Variax is totally high-tech in that you can connect it to your computer (Mac or Windows) via a USB connector and program different sounds and tunings into it. Most of my students have raved about it.
You can see what I’m talking about by going online at http://line6.com/variax/
and, hopefully, we can feature it on an upcoming H.I.T.S. show.
In other news, we’ll be dragging some of the students to the Smokehouse in Oliver Square this upcoming week to have our first student jam. I think it will be great for some of the kids (and adults) to get up and play with me on guitar, Jim Hayden (another teacher) on bass and our drum teacher, Jason King, on drums. As the American Idol finale will have happened, we can hopefully drag Mrs. Schulze out to sing as well. We’re inviting anyone reading this to show up and cheer the kids on!
It’s a logical progression from playing Guitar Hero or Rock Band to actually getting up and playing with real musicians. If we get enough people coming, we’re going to make it a weekly thing.
We also have Memorial Day being observed on Monday and you can learn more about it at http://www1.va.gov/opa/speceven/memday/
. Another excellent site is at http://usmilitary.about.com/cs/generalinfo/a/veteransday.htm
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England also has a similar celebration called Remembrance Day on Nov. 11 each year and you can read about that at http://www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/customs/Remembrance.html
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Finally, I’ll be going back for another blood test this week to see if my leukemia has advanced any more, so please keep your fingers and toes crossed for me.
Happy surfing.