My nephew has been playing the drums for a little while now. I've been trying to go over to jam with him every other Saturday. I usually take one of my electric guitars, but today I decided to take my bass guitar. We typically play for about an hour when we get together. This is a short 1 min clip of us playing around.
My bass guitar skills need a lot of work. This was only first time playing through my Orange Amps bass amp at a louder volume. I defiantly need to get the tone a little more dialed in.
I recently started playing guitar again. I even picked up two new guitars and put together a new bass and guitar rig. I always wanted an Orange Amps setup, and now I have one for my bass and my electric guitars. I really love the current amps I have to play out of.
I started watching this guy named Ola Englund on YouTube and he does bi-weekly series called Sunday With Ola (SWOLA) and in this video he posts a riff challenge. Ola posts a 45-60 sec drum line that he makes downloadable. After you download the drums, you're suppose to write a guitar riff to it, and post a video of your creation. If you're lucky Ola will watch your submission during his SWOLA episode that is put on YouTube.
I decided to start doing this bi-weekly challenge and posting my submissions. This video is of my first of many videos.
On April 1st I headed out to Marin County to run (hike) 200 miles.
Back in October of 2020 I went out to the Marin Headlands with a small crew to try to cover 150 miles, but I fell short of my goal and headed back to Fresno feeling very disappointed. After about 2 days of feeling sorry for myself, I decided I would go back to Marin and try to cover the 150 mile distance one more time. I also decided that 150 miles were not enough and that I wanted to take a shot at doing 200 miles. I wanted to prove to myself that I am capable of doing the distance that got the best of me, and a little more.
I got a crew together and started planning. I decided to start on April 1st and try to finish on April 4th (my birthday).
The attached video is of that 200 mile adventure. I stopped taking video the final 15 miles of the adventure, but my wife took photos so my video ends with a photo montage of the run.
I planned on writing a very long and detailed blog about this 200 mile experience, but as life kept getting busier and busier, I was unable to deliver what I originally had planned.
So for now... this is my Headlands 200 blog entry.
This is some of the music I've been working on. This is just a quick demo of 4 songs and an intro that I've been playing around with. This is a very rough recording. I mainly wanted to get this recording done so that it would be easier for me to start working on the lyrics. Once the lyrics are written and the vocals are recorded I will re-record all the guitar and bass tracks.
My plan is to work on the lyrics while I'm running my 100 miler this weekend.
I've been playing around with writing music whenever I'm free. I have the drums, keyboards, and bass recorded for 5 songs. I'm starting to get ready to record the guitar tracks now. Today I played around with recording the guitar parts. I should start recording later this week now that I have everything set up. This was just a quick recording I did today to see how things would roughly sound.
Once all the guitar tracks are done I'll start writing lyrics and looking for someone to record them as well.
On April 1st I set out to do 200 miles in the Marin Headlands. I did this as a fundraiser for the We Defy Foundation. The above link is to a podcast I did with my buddy Bernard about the experience of covering 200 miles, and the reason I picked the We Defy Foundation as my organization to use this as a fundraiser for.
I will hopefully have the video from the 200 mile adventure edited and posted within the next few days.
I just realized I never posted about my 10th Headlands 100. I just got on here because I decided I wanted to start posting again, and I found the beginning draft of blog for my 10th running of the Headlands 100 that I never finished. Instead of trying to write about something that happened almost 19 months ago, I think it might be better to just post the video.
Since this event I attempted to run the Headlands 150 miler that took place during the later part of 2020, and I failed to complete the distance. I did go back out in April of 2021 and completed the 150 mile distance, and then decided to do an extra 50. I was planning on posting about the 200 mile experience tonight, but when I saw that this entry was left unfinished, I figured I should do a quick post on this instead and wrap it up.
Tomorrow I'll post the first of two blog entries about the Headlands 200 event that I did back in April of this year (2021).
I've decided to give this blog another honest effort. I feel like there has been so much going on in my life that I'd like to write about. I'm playing music again, my kids are training jiu jitsu with me, and just a bunch of random stuff.
