GRollins

There's still a paperclip on this thread indicating that there are attachments. There are still no pictures (at least I can't see them, maybe you folks can). At least I was finally able to get my daughter's picture up; the guitar's not important in the great scheme of things. NKB4691, Thanks. I won't lie. It was a booger of a project. I've got it in mind to build a double neck next, six and four. For that one I think I'll just keep things nice and simple. Full length necks with wings. Something I can do with my eyes closed. None of this 3-D jigsaw crap I set myself to this time. Flat top and back, not carved. It'll be a cakewalk after this one. The guitar after that...Katie bar the door...probably another like this, but applying what I learned on this one (mainly what not to do). I have a habit of overdoing it and learning from my mistakes as I go. Makes for a steep learning curve, but the lessons tend to stick better if I learn them the hard way. For what it's worth, I've got scads of pictures and notes. I could potentially do an entire build thread. However, given that the pictures won't show there's no point in messing with it, either here or in the guitar forum. I'd rather put the time and effort into the next instrument. Life's too short to argue with inanimate objects. Sometimes life's just too short, period. For that matter, some here might recall that I built a keyboard a while back, using red oak and black cherry. That might, in theory, be of interest. I don't remember how many pictures I took while building that, but it was fun to do and it works great for my purposes. Grey

What the frack? I just tried to load a picture to the original post again (being both stupid and stubborn), and the site decided to put HTML at the beginning of my post. What's that all about? I swear this site makes no sense to me. It won't even do the same thing twice. Grey

If I can think of something else to try regarding pictures I'll do it, but for the time being I've kinda run out of patience with a certain recalcitrant website. Maybe dB can load the pictures from the side if I send them to him. I don't know. But this is seriously annoying. There are a number of pictures on FB. Look me up: Grey Rollins. There ain't too many guys with that name wandering the planet. For all I can tell, I'm the only one in all of human history, though there was a woman in VA with a hyphenated last name sort of thing that I ran into one time. Hint--if you start seeing stuff about plants, it's her, not me. The only plants I talk about are the trees I use for wood. Grey

Look me up on FB. The pictures went up first time over there with no bullshit...nyah, nyah, nyah... I may not trust Zuckerberg, but his code works fairly well. Grey

For what it's worth, I just tried posting using Chrome instead of Firefox (my usual). That didn't work either. It would help if there was even a tiny hint as to what was wrong, but I guess that's too much to ask for. Grey

I believe it may be picky about the file type. File extension may have to be in the name as well. dB The same thing happened when I posted about my daughter's death. I tried to post a picture. It said it was there. No error messages or anything, but it refused to show. Less than the 1M limit. Later I fiddled the image a little in Irfanview and saved it. It was somewhat smaller and posted okay (at least I could see it finally). The pictures I'm trying to post are JPGs, nothing weird. One's 520kb, the other's 435kb...neither's anywhere near the 1M limit. If I use the Select option to choose the file, it goes to a white popup box--no text, no nuthin'--just a white box with an X in the corner. If I hit X it goes away and it appears that the file is there, but it does not show in the post. If I use the Drag-and-drop option, again, it appears to load. It shows as a little icon at the bottom. Does not show in the post. The Attachment Manager says that it's there. When I look at the thread out on the main page, it says that there are attachments. Well, then where the hell are they? If I post two pictures, it says there are two. Neither shows. I can't add another because it already knows that I've reached my two picture limit, even though the pictures do not show. I can delete them and reload. They still don't show. I tried posting just one, thinking that maybe the total of the two pictures might be too close to the 1M limit. No dice. The JPG extension is there when I put the file in. I don't see any way to edit the file name, per se. This should be a really simple process, but it's not working and it's pissing me off. It would help if there was an error message or something to tell me in what way I have angered the gods, but they, as usual, sit in inscrutable silence. Yes, I've already resaved the images in Irfanview after my accidental success in posting my daughter's picture--figured it might change something in the metadata that made the file more acceptable to KC. Didn't work this time. There's no point in posting in the guitar part of the forum...it'll only put me through the same wringer...same code, right? Grey

Sigh...so why aren't the confounded pictures showing up? They're less than 1M and the Attachment Manager says that there are two pictures. Okay, just use your imagination. Picture a guitar. The kind you'd buy in a dime store. The ugly kind. I don't have time to argue with the Attachment Manager at the moment. Maybe later. Grey

I think most people know by now that I am primarily a string player, not keyboards. However, I not only play stringed instruments, I build them...from raw sawmill planks all the way through to something that you can pick up and play; I'm a luthier. So, one morning I woke up with this fantastical (as in fantasy), silly (as in bone-headed stupid), unshakeable (as in obsessive, to the point of madness) notion that I wanted a Les Paul with a full length neck. For those who are keyboard players, the phrase "full length neck" may not mean anything--it means the neck is continuous for the entire length of the guitar. 99% of the guitars out there have necks that are formed separately from the bodies and either glued or screwed into place. Full length necks are not generally found in guitars and basses because, frankly, they're a pain in the ass to make. Well, I...being me...wasn't content to just build a guitar in a Les Paul-ish body style with a full length neck and wings. Nooooo...not yours truly...I went off the deep end. Nothing would do but to build the guitar with a closed, book-matched face, thus turning the whole project into a 3-dimensional jigsaw puzzle. What. An. Idiot. Well, I got the bloody thing done, in spite of changing my mind on a number of things in mid-process (just to make life more difficult, natch) and, although there are a few touch-up things still to be attended to, I'm calling it finished as a slightly early birthday present to myself. So there... Grey

I find it interesting that the title of the thread is "Playing less, and choosing only the notes that matter," which says nothing whatsoever about speed...yet inevitably a number of people instantly started piling on the speed-is-bad bandwagon. You can play less, but still play fast...for instance, by leaving gaps in fast flurries of notes. And you can play only the notes that matter fast...or slow, of course, depending on the needs of the tune. I was talking with a guitarist that I met in a music store. I'd heard him play and thought we might have something in common. I asked him what sort of music he liked. The answer was Steve Vai. I asked what he found in Vai's playing that spoke to him. His response was that Vai always played "the right note." I found this an interesting response for a number of reasons, not least because Vai is a fairly flashy player, yet his music obviously worked for the fellow I was talking to. (For the record, I prefer Vai's teacher, Satriani.) What notes are the "right" notes and how fast to play them will vary depending on the style of music, the player, and the listener. To me, that seems painfully obvious, yet others feel differently so maybe it's not so obvious after all. At this point I'll bow out of the thread. There are clearly people that have entrenched positions that speed is always bad (even when they confess to liking players who aren't/weren't shy about doing a fast run or two, e.g. Coltrane, Corea, et. al., not to mention any number of pieces of classical music such as Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto); it's not worth having arguments about and the last month has been stressful enough already. You guys/gals have fun. Grey

The "less is more" line is a mental trap, frequently used as a guilt trip/mind control technique by those who can't keep up. Can you imagine John Coltrane's response to someone telling him "too many notes?" Probably not printable. It all boils down to what kind of music you're playing. If you're playing, say, a children's sing-along song, then less is definitely more. Row, row, row your boat does not need a lot of fancy filigree...ever. It destroys the intention of the song. Stick to the basics. If you're playing Miles Davis, say, So What, then you've got two choices: Play it as it came off the record, in which case you're going to walk in the footsteps of those who came before, or take it as a jazz tune, meaning stretch and improvise...probably calling for a sorta medium level of improvisation; not too crazy. Yet something by Keith Jarrett would tax even accomplished players, yes? If someone else is telling you that you play too much, it may be a sign that you need to find different people to play with. If you're telling yourself that you play too much, you may need to realign yourself vis-a-vis your preferred musical genre--find simpler music to play. Sometimes that messes with your self image; who you think you are as a musician. I, for instance, adore classical music, but would be an ambulatory disaster as a classical musician. I would take too many liberties with the music. I know this about myself, so aside from learning a few riffs here and there as "how do they do that?" exercises, I avoid playing classical--I just listen to it. (And play air conductor, but don't tell anybody.) Yes, there are people who play too much...in my opinion. My personal bane is people who play scales at light speed, but only scales. Nothing but scales. Ever. Scales quickly get boring at any speed, fast or slow. Show me someone who can develop a melody. Then I'm open to slow, fast, or mid-tempo, depending on the melody itself and the skill of the player. It all depends on the music. I can't imagine Close To The Edge with Rick Wakeman replaced by a third grade music teacher with only rudimentary piano skills. Conversely, I'm sure Wakeman would be happy to play songs for his granddaughter's elementary school class...once. But it would drive him absolutely stark raving bonkers to do that sort of thing all day, every day. Grey

Grey

Let's hope this doesn't become a fad or anything... A boy who Olivia dated for a while and whose mother works with my wife was in an accident today. Don't know if excessive speed was involved, but he hit a tree, same as Olivia. The pictures I've seen of the truck he was driving look pretty rough. He got "a bump on the head" from what I'm hearing, but is expected to be okay. The boy's mother is in full-blown panic mode (knew Olivia and adored her) and claims that she has not let go of her son in the eight hours since the accident. Close call, and her heart is still pounding. Go thou, and do likewise. Hold your kids while you can. Grey

My daughter had the most amazing immune system of anyone I've ever known. I can only recall her being sick once in her entire eighteen years and that was back when she was two or three years old--she didn't remember it. Sadly, I think that blessing may have had the inadvertent effect of making her think that nothing could touch her; that she was invulnerable. She did, in fact, get a couple of minor wounds in her life, but nothing that mattered. Again, I think that may have bolstered her sense that she was a female Wolverine; that no germ could bite her and that no wound could scar her. Not so. Grey

Incidentally, MAJOR kudos due for Riverbanks Zoo. My daughter had only worked there for a couple of months prior to the accident and they have been Johnny-on-the-spot at every turn. They have treated us as though we were part of a huge family and just generally been friggin' amazing. If you're in the area, go to Riverbanks Zoo. Not only are they good people, but it's been rated as one of the best zoos in the nation (USA Today ca. 2019). (I confess being partial to the Matschie's Tree Kangaroos--living plush toys, they are. Gorgeous. My wife's favorites are the meerkats. Olivia was partial to penguins...they've got something for everyone.) Grey P.S.: We watched the movie Happy Feet about seventy-'leven times when Olivia was little. She went into penguins the same way most kids go into dinosaurs. Knew every single nit-picking detail about every species. Something about penguins spoke to her.

I find this whole situation troubling...on many levels. Evidence continues to accrue, but I will not comment as to which side of the scales I think it belongs on. Grey

What a difference a day makes... I've got a buddy who's fond of saying that "no good deed goes unpunished." Sometimes I think he's right. I find myself in a difficult position regarding Matthew. For a quite a while we were getting information from Olivia that indicated that Matthew had a difficult home situation. Okay. As alluded to above, I had a rough childhood myself, so my antennae went up. Then this whole Olivia situation went down and...suddenly things are going sideways regarding Matthew. Yesterday while I was talking with Matthew, my wife was talking with his mother and came away with an impression that was at odds with what Olivia had told her. I didn't know this until after I made my previous post because my wife had to run do errands before places closed for the day/weekend; it was an hour or two after I posted before my wife and I had a chance to speak. Without going into details it seems that there's the possibility that Olivia and/or Matthew may not have been telling the truth about some things. Then this morning my wife got an email from another of Matthew's family members accusing me of making an 'outlandish Egotistical post' here, in this thread, on KC. Yep. They went to the trouble to track me down here on KC. Interesting. Well, be that as it may, this family member is reiterating what Matthew's mother told my wife, and indicates that Matthew has in no way been abused. Now, look, if the facts of the matter are other than I've been told, then I'll adjust my point of view. But I'm also remembering that no one would believe me when I was a kid. No one. The adults said one thing and I was saying another and the adults were believed by default--I was "imagining things" or "lying to get attention" or whatever. The adults got all the credibility by default and I got none. The people who should have been defending me did nothing. Zippo. Nada. Turned a blind eye. Hmmm... Folks, I don't know how to parse this. I'm getting conflicting information and there's no way to talk to Olivia to seek clarification as to what she told us. I can't see a way to get to absolute bedrock truth on the whole Matthew thing. Facts are facts. They exist with or without peoples' belief or opinions. At this point there are, shall we say, "votes," piling up on one side of the scales. But is the 'truth' open to a vote? With that in mind, I'm putting those who have read my posts regarding Matthew on alert; that all may not be as I was led to believe. I'm not sure what the actual facts are. Maybe I'm just too cynical, based on my personal experiences. If my daughter or Matthew were exaggerating or outright lying, then it's a slam dunk--there's no need to feel for Matthew beyond him losing his best buddy (which, granted, is bad enough). If the adults are closing ranks to defend themselves, then the scales tip the other way. That's what happened with me, but is it what's happening here? I simply do not know. With this post, I'm closing out discussion regarding Matthew. These are murky waters and I don't want to lead anyone astray. Grey

Matthew was able to come visit today. He literally just left. I talked to him for an hour and forty-five minutes. For crying out loud, his mother was brick-wall filtering the information that got to him and he knew almost nothing about Olivia's condition. (She appears to be a major control freak.) I had to start from scratch and tell him nearly everything. It was one of those things where he was desperate to know what had happened, but hearing the words hurt. Poor kid. I brought him up to speed so he could better understand the circumstances that led to turning off Olivia's life support. He knew that had been done, but not why, and that's a bad place to be. I am at a loss as to why his mother is acting the way she is. According to his grandmother (who seems to be made of better quality materials than his mother...) he's bottling this up inside. I was able to get him to leak a few tears. (I was prepared--had tissues at hand.) And I made damned sure to tell him that I wasn't angry with him, that sometimes life just throws nasty stuff your way. It wasn't his fault. I got him to talk a bit. Yes, he appears to be having trouble expressing himself, but I tried my best. The circumstances weren't optimal, but I told him that if he wanted to talk, we were here and he was welcome anytime. Maybe the circumstances would be better on another occasion. Or maybe just knowing that there's someone out here who gives a damn will be all he needs. Did I do any good? Ask him, not me. But at least he knows there are people who cared about Olivia who also care about him. Possible ray of sunshine: It's possible that he might get to leave home and live with his grandmother. From the admittedly limited amount that I know about his family life, that might be a good thing. Cross your fingers, folks. He's not out of the woods yet. Grey

I am glad to say that I have successfully rebooted. The funny thing is, I could literally feel it in progress. I sat down to respond to an email, and during the fifteen or twenty minutes while I read their email and wrote a reply, I could feel my personality reintegrating. Quite interesting, really. Like plate tectonics at high speed--all the continents resumed their (nearly) normal places. As I said earlier, I've been through crises before and the very fact that I survived the earlier ones gave me confidence that I could and would survive this one--even though it's arguably the worst pain I've ever been through. I know the paths through that dark forest. What I didn't expect was such a profound change in such a short period of time and the subjective feeling of it all coming together. Pretty cool. Not that I recommend the journey as an afternoon lark, you know? Note that I am not saying that there will be no more tears--I'm sure there will be--but they will be brief showers, not torrential downpours. Those who are religious would no doubt attribute this sort of thing to higher powers. Me? It was time. What I needed was to know was that my daughter was out of pain. TOD was 18:00 Monday and less than 24 hours later my head started coming together. It's now been another 24 hours past my reboot and I'm holding steady. I've even cracked a few (quite lame) jokes, much to the chagrin of my family members. I feel that it's important for them to see that someone can be as far down as I was, then come back, just as proof that it can be done. Knowing that something is possible is half the battle. If someone tells you that something is impossible, and you allow yourself to believe them, then you'll have a hard time breaking free of that conviction. I can already see a change in my wife's mindset as she watches me. And as the two of us lead the way, the boys are coming back too. I will survive. We will survive. Many, many thanks for your support. It means more to me than I can say. Now I've got to figure out a way to get past Matthew's parents in an effort to help him, beginning with telling him that I do not hold him responsible for my daughter's death. It was her foot on the accelerator. It was her hands on the steering wheel. Not his. But getting through to him with his parents barring the way? That's going to be difficult. My wife and I are working on it. Please direct your collective goodwill towards Matthew. He needs it desperately. Grey

Some of the "mementos" being pushed on us strike me as being in incredibly poor taste. Now, given that somebody, somewhere must be buying this stuff, I guess other people think it's wonderful, but still...some of this is pretty cringey in my estimation. Like skin-crawling, I-can't-believe-I'm-hearing-this, involuntary recoil level reaction. And, really...must you refer to the process of removal of organs from my daughter's body for donation as...wait for it..."excavation?" WTF? I hope to Gussy that I simply misunderstood and that there's some legitimate medical term that sounds like the word excavation. Please? What, are you telling me that they took a backhoe to her body? Seriously? This has been arduous enough without that kind of insensitivity. New Rule: Nobody else is allowed to die. Period. None of you guys and gals are allowed to die. Take it off your to-do list. Take it off your life list (Warning: macabre joke). Just don't. I don't want any of you folks to have to deal with this. Grey

The thing is...this was one of those phone calls that should, by rights, come in at three in the morning on a winter's night, with cold rain and fog and miserable weather--certainly not at 1 PM on a hot, sunny, summer afternoon. That, in itself, was jarring. One of those disbelief things that this can't be happening because...of course things don't go this seriously awry under those conditions, right? I mean, 1 PM on a Friday on a sunny day means a fender-bender, at most. Right? Right...? This was more than a fender-bender. I offered in the "Boring Songs" thread to let people have photos of the car in the event that they had obstreperous teenagers who needed the hell scared out of them. Most certainly not a mere fender-bender. I spent about twenty minutes wallowing in my Kubler Ross denial stage because things just don't go that far wrong on sunny days. Can't. Not allowed. My wife dispersed that with her first report from the hospital. She actually beat the helicopter bearing our daughter to the hospital, while I stayed home with the boys. Grim report, that one. Denial stage--over and done. Boom. Totally. Time to get real. My daughter needs me and my wife (do not read this as criticism) wasn't asking the questions and getting the answers that we needed. She was in freaked-mom mode and I don't blame her. Do me a favor. No...do yourself a favor. Go grab your children and hold them desperately close, because you never know when your last hug will be your last hug. Forever. Grey

For those who are concerned about my/our mental condition(s), thank you, but this is not the first storm that I've weathered. One of my degrees is in psych; I got the degree in order to...how shall I put this...try to unravel some things that occurred in my childhood. I've spent many days wandering the recesses of my mind and know where the dark spots are and how to handle them. The short version: I'll be okay. It just hurts like hell right now. I could do without some of the additional fol-de-rol heaped on me by the medical profession, but that, too, I shall survive. I'm watching over my tribe, so to speak, and everyone is on course so far. Grief is a predictable adversary. It hits hard, then backs off and tries end runs around your defenses. Some succeed and I cry. And that's okay, because tears are nature's pressure relief and you need that at first or you'll lose your mind. For my part, after a while I get tired of grief trying to turn me into a whiny brat and I start pushing back. You know that thing from Dune? "Fear is the mind-killer..." That. Just replace the word fear with grief. Allow it to wash over you, then when it's gone, stand, dust yourself off, and resume your journey. The worst is already past. I'm not saying there will be no more tears. There will. But I will survive. Because survival, by god, is what I do. Grey

Okay, I diddled the image so that it's smaller and it seems to have uploaded this time. The file size was 985k, which is less than the 1M max, but the newer version is smaller. Maybe it was a size problem. The picture is Olivia in her prom dress a couple of months ago. Go back to the original post to view. I'm gonna miss that kid. Grey

Thank you to all who have expressed good wishes. This has been an impossible time. Parents aren't supposed to outlive their children, especially when their children are only 18 years of age. That's just not right. Yes, intellectually I know that these things happen, but this time it's not a story in the news, it's us. For those who did not see my posts in the "Boring Songs" thread, I said something disparaging about 1-4-5, 12-bar songs, then added a postscript that I might be a little more curmudgeonly than usual because my daughter was in ICU. That had the unintended consequence of derailing the thread. My apologies. That was not my intention. Here's the condensed version of what happened: On June 25th, Olivia was driving a car belonging to a friend of hers. She was speeding. She lost control in a curve and the car struck a large pine tree. Her friend managed to climb out the window and made it to the side of the road in spite of his own injuries. He flagged someone down who dialed 911. He was taken to the hospital in an ambulance. He'll be okay. Olivia was airlifted to a trauma center. She had a long list of broken bones and a collapsed lung, but the real problem was bleeding in her brain; she was in a coma. She had managed to tell the person who had stopped to help her first name, but never made it as far as her last name. She never regained consciousness. Then she began that downwards stair step that you sometimes see in people who are severely wounded. A stroke, Then a second stroke. And that was in addition to the bleeding damage she had already suffered. Et-horrifying-cetera. We elected to discontinue life support and donate what organs and tissues could be saved. I may have more to say about that later, but for now I'll just put in that the process was not graceful. Part of me wants to reconsider the organ donor symbol on my driver's license. Enough of that. She is now out of pain. That was important to me because even with a dozen IV drips of everything under the sun in addition to being in a coma, she was still slowly drawing her left leg up, pulling against the traction. I didn't like the looks of that and asked several different people. Got the same answer each time. Even though she was unconscious, sedated, on pain killers, etc. she was trying to draw her leg away from the pain; in some deep, ancient part of our brains, we're still aware that we're wounded. Okay, that was it. By that point, it was already becoming clear that they'd reached the bottom of their bag of tricks and that she wasn't coming back, but I had to get someone to say those words aloud instead of feeding me "well, there's this one more thing we can try" (DO NOT ASK--you don't want to know). I pushed harder and finally got a doctor to admit that, yes, she was gone. We should have had that admission at least two days before, but... Anyway, I'm sure some of you have had dealings with medical folk and have stories of your own. Be that as it may, then the organ donation nightmare began, but I started pushing harder and harder on that and finally prevailed. They finally let her pass last night at 18:00. It's finally over. I miss Olivia more than words can say, and as you are aware, I'm not shy about lengthy posts. She was a good kid. Kind to everyone except her youngest brother. Good with animals, both wild and domestic. Beautiful--yes, every parent says that, but I've got pictures to prove it. Yes, every parent says that too...speaking of which... There was supposed to be a picture in the original post. I'm not seeing it and if I tag where I think it should be, I get one of those broken image things. It didn't look like it loaded properly last night, but when I went to try again, it showed as a thumbnail...? What did I do wrong? DB, can you beat this thing into submission? Let me know if there's something I need to do. Please spare a thought for her friend. His name is Matthew. To be honest, I'm not sure what their relationship was. Never saw them hug, kiss, or even hold hands, but they were thick as thieves. Inseparable. Considering that I kept hearing tales of abuse and cruelty regarding his home life and that his main buddy is suddenly gone, he's going to have a hard time. I've talked to the boy on several occasions and think he's got promise if only life will give him half a chance. Hell, a quarter of a chance. Setting aside my feelings of loss, he didn't deserve to lose his one support in life, dammit. This is a slow-motion tragedy that will unfold over time and I'm powerless to stop it. Again, thanks for your good wishes, it means a lot. This has been a little bit horrible and it'll take time to heal. Grey

Olivia Airlie Rollins 2/24/03 - 7/5/21

Anybody got teen-aged kids they want to scare the ever-living fuck out of? I'll send you a picture of the car so you can show them. I made damned sure that my sons saw the pictures and we (I and the boys) went and found the crash site. I rubbed their noses in the fact that this is what can happen in an accident. They're 14--too young to drive yet--but I want them VERY aware of the downside to acting stupid in a car. They were pretty somber afterwards. The trick will be to keep them from forgetting once they get their driver's licenses and start thinking foolish thoughts. Bottom line: Car + Tree = BAD Grey