Bring on the Weekend - 12.10.10

I have really enjoyed my stint here as the lunch reporter. So thanks yowhatshakin for nominating me, and to everyone who has played along this week. For other newbies, this was a great way to get a feel for quite a few other members, here. If some asks you, don't be scared! A lot of you have thrown out songs and performers as answers to some of the questions this week that I am not familiar with at all. So I'll check some of them out on Youtube, etc. I am a real music lover, so I enjoy checking out new stuff a lot.

I have a really strange day going, so I will have to report on lunch later. I am hoping to get home, and maybe have clean-out-the-refrigerator salad or something.

I think I will give a little overview about Montana. People are often curious, just how bad is the weather? I am a native, but moved away for 10 years and just moved back 3 years ago. So, the weather. It does get cold here, and the weather is pretty cold Dec-March. I think you really have to find a way to get out in the cold and enjoy the outdoors or you'll really miss out. So for outdoor winter activities I downhill ski and ice fish. I love downhill skiing, I love to hangout with my Granddad so I love to Ice Fish!

On the skiing front, I am volunteering this year with an Organization called Eaglemount. Eaglemount runs programs to help people with physical and mental disabilities recreate—and hopefully it builds their confidence generally. The winter sports program is at Bridger Bowl, near Bozeman. So I will be giving a lesson every Thursday afternoon for 8 weeks to someone who is handicapped. I don't know whether my participant will be physically or mentally challenged, but I am training for both types. Mentally handicapped participants use ski's like the rest of us, but they train-up volenteers on dealing with the handicapped generally. Physically handicapped skiers have a lot of special equipment that I have to learn how to use. I also hope to do some spot work later in the season doing the same thing for the Wounded Warrior program, which is a project to help injured VFW's adjust to life as a handicapped person. I am very excited about this, my sister is a veteran volunteer with Eaglemount, and that is how I found out about it.

My non G&L question is. How do you volunteer in your community? Are you able to use your talents as musicians to do so?


There is more to Montana then the weather. It is a beautiful place, and people are very friendly and laid back. My commute to work is about 15 miles, takes less than 20 minutes. I recommend you all come and vacation here! If you want to ski come in the winter. If you have kids come in the summer. But if you don't have kids, come in the early spring before school gets out or fall right after school starts. The weather is great, especially in the fall, and there are way fewer visitors in the national parks and what not. The weather, to me is not actually the biggest characteristic of MT. It is rural. There is no Indian restaurant here in Helena. There is one passable Sushi joint, open only for dinner. Ditto Thai, (actually like nights a week). There are 2 music stores, and I will be charitable and say that one of them is nice to have in town.

G&L's Website says that there are 3 dealers in MT. I am suspicious. One of then is in Billings, I know nothing about it so it very well could be a decent dealer. It's only 250 miles away! One of them is in Missoula, and it is a good music store. I was in there over the summer. I didn't recall seeing G&L, could I have missed it? Maybe. They have a great Fender selection, both new and used. The other one I would be shocked if they had an instrument, it is in a town of about 3000 or so. But I would be wrong, it is only 60 miles away!

This is one of the reasons I play G&L – I don't have to wonder what the quality so going to be like. So I when I buy online, I only have to worry about the seller!

So my G&L question for the day is—How do you find em? How many of you use a local dealer? How many use online dealers? How many are like me, and mainly deal in used on ebay? (Evil Bay, I picked that up here from one of the Aussies. I love it.)

And if you want to name names, good or bad, fly at it. Especially online. For people who live in rural areas, it really is nice to be able to find dealers/sellers that others recommend without having any skin in the game.

Finally, I am going to leave you with a favorite Youtube video of mine. I love JJ Cale. (Are you starting to wonder who I don't love? It's a good question!) This just totally cracks me up. Very Dry JJ humor, and very tasty, very laid back JJ pickin. I posted this in a youtube thread a while back, too.

[youtube]jcoBYhYXjy8[/youtube]



Keep playing, and I'll see you 'round here!

I'd love to see Montana, it looks like a beautiful place. Very different to where I'm from in Western Australia, which is flat, dry and hot!!! I'm yet to go skiing, the only thing holding me back is the cost - it's so expensive. I started summer training with a local biathlon club once, but the costs forced me to quit. I was going to have to sell a guitar to finance the cost of the rifle and that just didn't gel with me.

I enjoyed that JJ Cale clip, very cool. Love the drummers kick drum and the hippie wizard keyboard player!

I personally do nothing to help within the community. My girlfriend works for a large bank as a manager of community relations, her job is to give community groups money, which is pretty neat. My band does some work for a charity called Aussie Helpers, who help people, especially those in rural areas in need of assistance, whether it be drought, fire or flood.

I've only ever bought a G&L online. Two from ebay, once on the US site, once on the Australian site. The first one I bought was from a dealer in Kansas called 'Willoughby Music' and I received such good service that I contacted him again to place a custom order.

Great week Jeremy!

Nice of you to volunteer and help people. Years ago I did some volunteering helping kids with math. I also volunteer to be a friend to one person who had a slight mental handicap many years ago. Our hobby band's last drummer volunteered us to play music at his neighborhood fair where they have games, food and music at his local high school to have some fun and raise money for their school. The band jumped at the chance and we (and the audience) had a great time.

Since you brought up skiing. I used to ski years ago and I stopped after I hurt my knee during the mid-1980s. I did not break anything but I did require surgery to repair some ligaments. I did not pick up skiing again after I healed.

A couple of years ago I decided to introduce my children to skiing so I took them up to Mount Hood (less than 70 miles away). I gave them a choice of learning how to ski or snowboard, I told them I can teach them how to ski, but if they chose snowboarding then they'll have to do lessons. Naturally they chose snowboarding. I help them after their lesson, but I really can't show them what I don't know how to do. They were frustrated and I know it wasn't a lot of fun (it is hard to have fun skiing at the beginning in any case) to be falling constantly.

Surprisingly last year they asked to go up to the slopes again, but now they want to try skiing. I took them up and although I wasn't skiing I was able to show them how to do snow plow, sidestep uphill, and how to get back up after they fall, and how to get their skis off and on. Then I signed them up a lesson. After that outing we went up to skiing another time, and again I sent them off to a lesson. When they got done they told me that the next time I have to go skiing with them because they feel like they are ready to do it without an instructor, but they want me to help them in case they get in trouble.

I haven't had skis on for something like 25 years, but when I was helping them I feel that what I used to know I still have the skills to do. So a few weeks after that trip we went skiing again. I decided that the beginner slope was more than enough for all of us so that's where we skied. At first I was pretty tentative, specially because we took a wrong turn and ended up on a steeper part of the run. But we made it down without incident. The rest of the day we stayed over on the easiest parts of the run and we all started to get more comfortable. I did not tell them, but I started to monitor to see if they can make it down the hill without falling. After a few runs they achieved that. Then I decided to see if they can make it down the run, which is probably about a mile long, without ever coming to a complete stop. I lead the way so they weren't conscious of my goal. They both followed me all the way without ever falling or stopping. At the bottom I told them what they had just done and they were very hyped about their achievement. Now they love skiing. The most amazing thing for me was that I did not fall a single time that day; after 25 years of not having been on skis I was quite happy about that.

Montana is truly beautiful. I have been to Glacier National Park and drove Going To The Sun Road and it was spectacular. I'd love to take my family to Yellowstone and then come north to Montana if I ever get around to planning such a trip.

You did a great job at LR this week. Unfortunately I did not have time to participate.

Kit

My non G&L question is. How do you volunteer in your community? Are you able to use your talents as musicians to do so?

Not so much the musician in me but rather the scientist. I have a small circuit of schools for which I am a 'judge' for their science fair. Sometimes I have to shake my heads but there have been a couple of gems over the years of truly original ideas. The most impressive one was somebody from Arrowhead Elementary who had gone to nearby St Edwards State Park to deduce the prevailing wind direction in the Hannukah Eve Storm that raged in Seattle in 2006 by recording the direction in which trees had been toppled.

So my G&L question for the day is—How do you find em?

It's basically all of the above: stores (notably Buffalo Brothers and locally the Zobrist which unfortunately closed in 2001) and eBay. But in the used department lately it has been a lot of personal transactions with other collectors and I really like that. Your chances of not being hoodwinked increase drastically with either a store (through eBay or not) and personal contacts.

Enjoy the Big Sky Jeremy!

- Jos