Fastest Guitar...Stuff

The other night, my friend Greg was over and we were checking out some videos on YouTube of these guys who play the guitar really, really fast. We found out that this can mean two different things:

1) You can play a lot of notes in rapid succession in a pleasing, or at least indiscernible, melodic pattern (indiscernible because it's too fast to even hear any one note)

2) You can play a few notes in rapid succession, focusing not on the progression of one note to the next, but rather the speed at which you can move your pick over a single string.

Here are some examples:

"Dave's Bar And Grill"
This video is of a dorky little guy in his basement; he's got a clock in the background to prove that he's not speeding up his video. He has a moment of pride when he says "if you can pick faster than that, I'm bowing down to you right now..." then he feels a little guilty for saying it, and follows it with "...anyway...and I hope I do find somebody..." Awkward little guy.


"Sunglasses and Tank Top Guy"
This guy tries to cover all the bases, and gives examples of each type, all the while maintaining an almost humorous sense of his own greatness. His sweet sunglasses and tank top alone have me totally convinced of his awesomeness.


"Tank Top Mullet Man"
This guy is actually my favorite of the group. You can actually hear the notes in his raging fast "sweeps" because he is a very clean and accurate player. I'm starting to think that wearing a tank top is a crucial element in this style of playing. I also like the way he looks at the camera in a sort of "oh hey, welcome to my trailer, I will now nonchalantly blow your mind."


"Axel"
Quoted from YouTube: "This rare footage of the Columbian Guitarist known simply as Axel documents record breaking guitar shredding speeds of neraly 10,000 notes per second. Current technology lacks the sophistication to fully dupliacte the rapidity of the finger motion or articulation of every note, as does human sensory perception, but the soaring spiritual essence is still captured in these few seconds of film..."

I like how it's "Axel" instead of "Axle"

This guy wins. Period.

Maggie!

This is our new little dog: Maggie! We got her last week from the Pasadena Humane Society. She's a little dachshund with some labrador mixed in (so says the vet). He estimated her to be about 8 months old! We had been thinking about getting a little dog for some time now, and we'd even gone to visit a few, but when Jess saw Maggie, she fell in love.

She's adjusting to life at our little town house with two cats. The cats aren't quite as excited about the situation just yet, but they'll come around (well, Binx will at least...).

My aunt told us to stop getting pets and have babies already! We figure that every new pet we get buys us another 1-1.5 years before we have babies ;)





Here's a little video of Maggie for your viewing pleasure

Happy Berfday Dinner!

Last Friday we headed out to the Wolf Creek Brewery and Restaurant for my birthday dinner. My parents, Jess' dad (out visiting from Kentucky), my brother Donny and his friend-that-is-a-girl: Shannon (Are they? Are they not? :) ), a bunch of the SGUC gang, Greg, Sooz, and even Ryan and Christen Paige (who happened to be out visiting from Nashville) came to hang out and eat and have a generally awesome time.

***UPDATE***
For those keeping score, according to Donny's comment on this post, he and Shannon officially "are" as of this past Sunday.

Here are some pictures from the extravaganza:

^Tim and Leah with Baby Micah


^My dad and Jess' dad (I think they're talking about shadow puppets)


^Donny and Shannon


^My girls


^Some of the SGUC gang (Jon, Chesed, Steve, Spring, Danielle)


^Me and Josh and my slice of cake (I wonder how much cake restaurants give away each year on account of birthdays?)


^Greg and the Sooz (Master's/Chorale/Chapel Band/Europe buddies)


^It was good cake


^My cats took this picture and put it on a birthday card for me

Happy Birthday To Me!

This is what greeted me as I came in to work this morning:

Thanks Nat and Allie :)

Wow, 25...so far so good!

***UPDATE***
I suppose saying that I'm 1/3 of the way done with this life can seem a little morbid, but here's why I said it:

-I hear that the average life expectancy for males born in 1983 is 71.0 years (according to this website) based on US statistics. So I'm just goin' off the stats.

-I don't think I'd like it so much to live to be reeeeeaaaaal old. Just plain ol' "old" is good enough for me. Have some grandkids, get my senior citizen discount, travel, that kind of stuff.

-Heaven is gonna be so much better than this world TO START WITH, so it follows that it'll be exponentially better that being reeeeeaaaaal old in this world. And no, I will not define how old "reeeeeeaaal old" is ;)

So I don't want to sound morbid, I was more just saying "so far, so good" in regard to the big picture.

Sailing With Seth

A couple weeks ago, our friend Seth Horner took us out on his sailboat up at Castaic Lake. It came about because I had perused pictures he had put on Facebook from a previous trip and left him a comment saying "man that looks awesome, next time you go, we'd love to come too!"

He responded much quicker than I had anticipated (it being December and all; not a big time of the year for sailing), and we planned for a day a couple weeks later.

So we set out that morning wondering how it was going to be, since it had to be like 50 degrees or less outside, and would probably be colder on the water!

All in all, it was completely freezing, but also totally awesome. Seth's brother Josiah, and his sister Rachel along with her friend, also came with us, and we had a great time out on the water.

^Seth setting up the mast in the parking lot

^Jess mid-blink

^The girls frequented the inside of the cabin

^Seth and Rachel out on the kayaks

^She's so pretty :)

^Josiah doin' some fishin'.