My pedal chain has been upgraded to include a Walrus Audio Fathom multi-function reverb device.

My thoughts should be focused on what is next. They should be focused on the thing that should be dominating my time. That is how things should be going right now, but that next thing is illusive. Even as my thoughts stand at the edge of what is possible. A few moments of reflection let me think about what could be, but they are not guiding me forward into any one course of action. That is the problem with things right now.

Well I spent some time thinking about adventure today. This seems to be the part of the quarantine where I wonder about being somewhere else. That was bound to happen at some point. That bound point was now and it happened without much fanfare. My time should have been spent doing other things, but that clearly did not happen.

Today a little bit of time was spent looking at getting some new shorts. My clothes shopping follows a pattern. I find something that works and buy every color of it.

Today was one of those days where I meant to sit down and record about 30 minutes of sweet guitar tones. For some reason that did not happen. My new Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 works pretty well and it was easy enough to learn how to use. Right after getting it and trying to use it I strangely wanted to go stereo on my guitar pedalboard for the first time ever. At this point, I have no real reason to need stereo recordings of my uber sweet guitar tones. This is probably an example of where I want the technology, because it is possible. Some people in the video tutorials solve the problem by outputting two signal chains and some of them just record the same thing twice to create the stereo guitar effect. 

I have been looking at buying the Fender Jim Root Jazzmaster electric guitar.

Well the weekend means a decline in the sheer amount of talking on the phone. That is an entirely exciting thing that happens 2 days a week. Specifically, it happens on the weekend.

Today I did manage to renew my American Society for Public Administration (ASPA) membership.

Today I spent a ton of time watching the NFL draft on the over the air broadcast of ABC in high definition. Sitting down and watching the NFL draft was somewhat relaxing. Intellectually it did not require a whole lot of focus or attention, but it was something that seemed more normal than the things we have been doing.

Welcome to Friday amid the great quarantine of 2020. I sat down to write a little bit this morning and got bogged down thinking about how to best spend my time. Recently, I have started to focus back on picking up training and coding skills. Now seems to be the time to take my machine learning skills to the next level. Maybe some of that is my constant interest in getting more certifications. I keep doing them to prove to myself that knocking these things out is both possible and to understand how much of a commitment this type of training actually requires. One of the interesting things about being an adult is that I do not have 12 hours to do anything continuously. That amount of time in one block just does not exist anymore. I really have a maximum of 2 or 3 hours to do something. That means taking on something monstrous and trying to complete a Herculean task might not be possible anymore. Even writing that last sentence made me a little bit reflective about what could have been if the time when I had it had been used to its maximum potential.

It has now been over 2 years since I deactivated my Facebook account back on April 4, 2018. Not using Facebook took me a day or two of adjustment, but then I stopped picking up my phone to check for notifications. I try really hard to keep my Google Pixel 4 XL smartphone in a Pelican G40 personal utility go case. That is really the best way to keep from checking for updates.

My new Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 showed up yesterday. Today I installed the free version of Pro Tools First on my workstation. Normally, I just record audio with Audacity, but this seemed like a better thing to try out.

We have been in quarantine for over a month now. Every few weeks out of habit, I do Febreze my Scandinavian Designs Wau desk chair. Recently I moved to the heavy duty version. That is what was available for purchase at the time. 

Today I started working on finishing up the “Google Cloud Fundamentals for Azure Professionals: Core Infrastructure” Coursera course. It looks like this course can be finished for free right now and really only includes a few quiz items. Strangely enough it looks like I have already consumed about 50% of this course, but I don’t really recall doing this course. Maybe this course has some overlap with something else in the Coursera system. I have done a ton of classes in Coursera so that is probably what happened.   

I have to admit the Fender Jim Root Jazzmaster guitar in polar white looks pretty awesome. If we were not in quarantine, then I would probably want to see it in person at a guitar store.

Earlier today I started to think about how I should go walk on the treadmill.

I made it to chapter 5 of “No Filter: The Inside Story of Instagram” by Sarah Frier (2020). My predilection to listening to books about business continues. This book has been pretty good so far and I’m enjoying thinking about what happened to Instagram.