How to go from plain old wood to a guitar… in this case even from plain old plywood!

After attempting a bass guitar earlier in the year, and only being half satisfied mostly because I chose horrendously hard, dense, heavy wood by mistake, this time I made it easy on myself and built using plywood for the body. This isn’t as weird as it sounds – quite a few vintage guitars were made with plywood, like Danelectro.

So you can see the final piece above, bright red, Epiphone Coronet style guitar, as recently sported by Alex Turner from the Arctic Monkeys. Which is great, considering this guitar was a Christmas present for Alex Turner, my son!

There was at least 2 big things wrong with it that I plan to rectify with my next build (already started a bit a Telecaster-style guitar) but there’s loads I’m happy wth also. It matches the original style nicely, the red is good, and despite the issue it does play quite well (slide especially!) The big Wilkinson P90 pickup makes a decent sound!

So the building continues and always looking to get better

We didn’t go to bed until 3.30am this morning… we watched Rage for hours with Ben and Lachie baiting each other with our knowledge of old music, the good, bad a ridiculous.

Actually increasingly impressed with my boys musical tastes. Didn’t expect that!

Farewell to 2022, which as I posted did actually end up pretty good for the most part for us.

We spent hours walking in the evening as we often do in the Summer… got Ben and Lach away from the screens long enough to take photos and ride bikes…

That is the way to spend a Summer evening ?

This is the year in which I thought going to Melbourne for a long weekend would be the most exciting travel I did all year!

At the end of May, for a trip I’d been waiting for for 2.5 years (thanks to you know what). I finally went down to Melbourne for a long weekend to see a 3-night stand by The Hold Steady, my favourite band in the world. Return flight, 3 nights in Melbourne, 3 shows and a few other nights in Sydney.

It was my first plane flight since 2009 and my first time seeing the band since 2009 (but the 2009 things were two different things…) but I had a great weekend and checked out a bunch of other things in Melbourne as well as the shows. Went to ACMI. my favourite museum in the country and did an inside tour of the MCG (which was more interesting than I thought it would be), .as well as enjoying some great shows by my favourite band two at the Croxton Bandroom and one at the legendary Corner Hotel (which I had never been to before).

But then, something even more amazing happened, and just last month…

Obviously I had some warning. but it didn’t seem real until it happened. My new work at Driversnote offered me the chance to take a 2 week trip to Denmark!

Yes — a trip to Denmark!

For someone who had never even been to Europe anywhere, this was quite an incredible chance. So for a week I was in a company-paid for hotel and after hours enjoying the sites of Copenhagen, then in the second week I did my own thing at my own hotel.

I visited all the museums and history of the Danish capital that I could fit in…. and I even did the legendary visit to Billund, the home of Lego! I visited Lego House for the day. did a big train ride to get there. and generally had that blissful Lego experience I’ve dreamed of since I was a kid.

It was so great to meet my work colleagues in person for the first time, even as they were changing offices from a central startup co-working space to their own private office in a different part of town (a sign of good things!) I got to see the old office,. and the new office (their new meeting rooms are name after Lego cars — this impresses me more than you can imagine!)

The amusing anecdote of the trip is that half way through I got COVID… of course I did some will say. It was my most social week in a long time seeing and doing so many things, so I just rolled with it. It really only knocked me about for 2 days and wasn’t that bad anyway really (thank you quadruple vaccine boosters), then I gradually got up to speed and fit in as much as I could anyway… I wasn’t going to let anything mess with this experience!

Apart from all this amazement, of course we went to Nelson Bay in January (with the most amazing view imaginable) and did a few other short trips, such as seeing The Killers just a few weeks ago and staying overnight nearby. We’re off to Nelson Bay again next month for even longer than before, so travel is being good to me

This one came along kind of earlier in the year (application in March, part-time start in May). but I didn’t realise straight away how good it would be, or how life changing…

I’ve been actively trying to get a new job for about 2 years now. Anyone who knows me knows this, although I probably haven’t let on to many just how dissatisfied I had become with my old job. Working in tech support for a high school is something I’ve done for 13 years now, since 2010 (5 years full-time, 8 years part time). but it looks like it’s finally coming to an end. And it probably should have a few years ago. but that’s fine.

After a whole bunch of attempts at getting some decent online remote support work and never quite getting there, in March I saw a Facebook ad for a company called Driversnote advertising for online remote support staff in Australia. They made an app for tracking your driving mileage for tax reimbursement records. which I had actually used once before so it was still on my phone. Doesn’t sound super exciting. I figured. but it’s obviously a successful business that people need. All good, I’ll give it a go — the chance looks good, and it’s only Australia they’re looking at, not the whole world.

And seemingly just like that. after a few video interviews with nice folks in Denmark (where the company is based). suddenly I had the job! At first, only part time.

So I started doing that,. and doing my old work too. An interesting combo, but my job was really working for me. I started to get to know everyone there, working in the day time and doing video chats and meetings at night. Nice people, interesting work with both a technical and customer service bent.

As the year has gone on. my knowledge has improved, I’ve been doing even more things including some help article writing and video sales chats with customer. And my skills have got better…. and heading towards the end of the year I have been offered more hours… so I don’t have to do anything else!

My school contract expired before Christmas, and while I thought there would be some discussion there it just ended. And it doesn’t need to be renewed. No hard feelings there of course, still lovely people and all. But I think it was long past time that I moved on.

And in November something else happened too relating to my job… but I’ll grab another post for that

When I see the year has largely gone by and I’ve only blogged minimally (although compared to the previous few years I probably did okay this year!)

I will put up a few things as I usually do to summarise the year and cover the year — loosely. I think on Work. Travel. Creating and Watching. Those categories should be pretty self explanatory.

In the meantime, it’s that wonderful time between Christmas and New Year when the days of the week don’t matter and even if you’re working it’s easy work. That about sums up the last few days. after a quiet but enjoyable Christmas at home with just the family.

But needless to say, after the last few years that were decidedly average. this year suddenly crept up on my and got better as it went along…

That’s right, a better year happened this year!

Can’t deny of course that there’s a lot of mess in the world. that isn’t changing. Floods, political horror shows (well, Labor got back in office, so that was something) and wars no one expected are certainly screwing things up, but my year got better, and I learned a while ago that if you base your view of happiness on “what is happening in the rest of the world” you will probably never be happy with things.

And yes, ignoring and or actively screening out social media most of the time does help with this. Hopefully this is also the year social media falls apart (and maybe the year blogging begins its come back?)

Anyway… without any further babbling, look at what happened…

Take your pick because either headline is quite remarkable.

Will is 18 now. Will that is my oldest son. Will that has my kidney. Wonder Will.

It’s a great day for him and he took it in his own typically quiet way. He loves his movies and his art books and he’s content to spend the day with them. We’re going away for a few days tomorrow which includes a big Gold Class movie night and a big Kinokuniya art book blitz, both things he loves. An the movies are at his beloved Westfield Parramatta (it’s hard to explain) that he hasn’t seen a movie at for 10 years.

So it’s a couple of days of doing Will things, which should be fun. He’s his own person and he moves at his own pace.

And he’s 18 now. An adult. He gets to vote in the upcoming election. But he won’t likely rush off for a lot of the other “adult” things for a while. That’s fine too. He’s going his own way and I like that too

Another interesting choice from Alex to start the year, and while I’m familiar with the movie and its famous “Catch”, I had never actually seen it.

And what a weird one! Psychedelic, at times creepy, at other times hysterical, it features a host of now familiar names in early career roles. Primarily among them Alan Arkin in the lead, but also Martin Sheen and Jon Voight. It had to have been made as much for the year of release (the same year as the original M*A*S*H movie no less), as a commentary on the Vietnam war even more than anything about WWII.

But it’s clear and it says a lot about the obvious futility and horror of war. I think Alex gets it at least that far — that war is bad, even when everyone is telling you it’s good.

On to next week!

(Yes, I think I will write up a brief thing about this weekly now, at least sometime in the week after seeing the movie. It’s as good a writing prompt as any!)

Happy new year and all and it’s a week into 2022 and rather than being a bright new year you would be forgiven for seeing the year as anything other than a total shit show again. As if the last nearly two years wasn’t enough on so many levels, 2022 so far at least seems to be trying to outdo it.

Since the whole world has talked about the C-word for nearly that two years (and I really say enough about it on Twitter and the like anyway), I won’t even say it here. Needless to say it has coloured everything that has happened for nearly two years now, what I have done and especially what I have not done.

Be that as it may, you still want a new year to start with new thoughts and new hope. I’m doing some different things anyway — working some shifts at the town library, in a general assistant type role, for one. Honestly, it’s solid and enjoyable work, just dealing with borrowers and reshelving loads of books everyday. I know what I’m doing, I know the subject matter and while it isn’t taxing it is enjoyable and a good bit of extra income.

And we will even take a week away at the end of the month, which is a good thing. There is a certain argument that right now no one should go anywhere, but honestly, the risk is the same at home as it is anywhere else. And we don’t exactly go to nightclubs anymore, and we will keep to our own space or outside, so really it’s all much the same. And it’s just good to get away.

So, on with another year. I can’t attach too may expectations to it, but I can just try to do good things.