Monthly Archives: September 2005

Sunday

Some day, when I’m awfully low,
When the world is cold,
I will feel a glow just thinking of you…
And the way you look tonight.

Tried to repair, or at least investigate, the problems of my bike. I took off the chain aided by the quick-release link that I’ve learned to love, and made my usual bi-weekly cleaning procedure. To debug a derailer, you need a clean drivetrain (unless you want to have hands soked with oil and grease).

Degreaser on, flush with soap water, brush with brush set, more degreaser, more brushing, clean with water and wipe off with a piece of textile. (Hey, how do you say the english word for trasa?)

It seems like the whole derailer needs to be replaced, it is like it’s become hit by something. The whole cage is bent, and there is much play when I try to move it up and down. I think that I can see som pivots that have become disaligned and do not hold the mechanism together.

On the bright side, the derailer was a bit bent before this final blow came, and I was thinking of getting a replacement next year or so. Front derailers don’t seem to be extraordinarily expensive, too. I found the same mechanism, new, for $24, and that’s doable for a brand new one.

I practiced a lot on my classical piano homework. My teacher has on my request started to give me technique practice instead of classical pieces, so that I can improve my playing in both the jazz and classical field.

I am currently practicing simple upwards and downwards scales in C Major. I really need to get them flowing, since that is one of my weaknesses. Some day I hope I’ll be able to play the piano like virtuosos such as Jordan Rudess, but I have still many years to go.

A long day…

..and I’m finally home. The blues mass went great, and we had many listeners. I got to play some nice organ solos and we probably sounded good. A friend of ours seems to have recorded the whole show on his DV cam, and we’ll get one DVD copy each of the film.
After the gig we went home to one of my friends, listened to music, ate some food, and watched two movies; Blues Brothers and Robots. Both movies were really great, with a lot of humour and action.
When travelling home to my place, we got to see this big northen light on the sky. It was stretched across the whole sky and had this blue-green light. We stopped the car, stepped out and just gazed at the view.
Tomorrow I’ll be going to the church and meet a friend of mine, and afterwards we’ll have a cup of coffee at my place. Okay, I don’t drink coffee, but you get the idea.

Transportation problems

As it seems now, I have great difficulties getting down to the Sigma Square tomorrow for the gig, so I’ll have to use my imagination to get my equipment down. It is now late in the evening, and we’ve been rehearsing most of the afternoon.

Blues mass

I just got home from my piano lesson, and I’ve got about one hour before I’ll head down to the Bäckby Church for a rehearsal for the Blues mass we’ll be having downtown Västerås tomorrow.
I play synthesizer electrical organ in the band (wish I had a real Hammond B2), and there are about 6 other people in the band.
I have an annoying thing going on with my laptop, every time I hibernate to disk and resume the computer again the soundcard coes crazy. I then have to:
1. Kill all applications using the soundcard
2. Re-mount my network shares that contain the music
3. Remove and re-insert the snd-cs4236 module
4. Start the sound-enabled programs
5. Set the volumes with alsamixer
…and then I can start listening again. I think that the sound drivers could get a bit better for my Dell Latitude D266XT. Also, how do you re-mount SMB shares automatically?

Electronics

I am currently having a break at school while writing this. I am a third-grader at ABB Industrial Highschool in Västerås, Sweden. The current lesson is Electronics, and we are currently studying the various types of diodes; the Zener and LED:s.

First post

Hello, weblog!
Today I have trashed my front derailer on my bike, and it seems like I need to get it replaced. A shame, since my bike is very important for me. Well, it seems like I have to use the bus system again.
I also had my first jazz piano lesson. I got some stride piano and left hand voicings to practice on, and some alterations in four-note voicings.
Well, this was my first post on this weblog (or blog, not sure what I’ll call it). Hope I’ll be able to keep writing here.