A rainy end to Spring

The traditional start to Summer is coming in with a storm.

… After solving the mysteries of the Rubik’s cube, I’ve decided to try and learn the piano. I figured it was the next natural step.

Target had a 61 key keyboard on sale for $77, so I figured why not. I’ve wanted to learn an instrument to give me something to do. Being that my love life hasn’t really blossomed, I thought why not do something constructive and better myself while I wait for cupid.

A friend of mine who is a big music fan – even though he has to admit his first concert was Barry Manilow – recommended the piano. I originally wanted to play the guitar and learn the “Estaban Way.” He said it would be more impressive to play the piano … and also his band needed a keyboard player. Well, I may never get to that level.

The keyboard comes with 100 songs programmed in, with three different levels to learn a song. The first 50 can be done with one hand. So far, I’ve learned to play “London Bridge,” the happy birthday song and “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” which doubles for the ABC song. So, you can say I paid that much to learn that much to learn three/four songs. But it’s still early.

I’ve tried a two hand song, “Ode to Joy” and have it worked out with my right hand, now I have to pick it up with the left. As long I don’t give up, it shouldn’t be a problem, right?

… Recently, I wrote a strongly worded response to a friend who wrote blog that was so beneath a civilized person. I don’t want to get into what it was, but I know at least two people read it and agreed with most, if not all of it. They might have been surprise with the strength of it.

I’m not writing about that reply. I started writing online almost two years ago, not meaning it to be serious. It had been about a year or so that I had been fired from the Press-Enterprise and had given up on writing. I started the blog on myspace just as a way to write once in a great while.

Then, I felt the passion to write again and tried to blog once a week only to find it didn’t get many hits. So I stopped for a while because I felt I was wasting my time. But what I was finding was what I was missing in Riverside. I found my voice. I started to wonder how come I never wrote like that before I was fired. I’m thinking it was because I lost my passion in Riverside. I was beat down and felt under appreciated, so maybe I just stopped caring.

So, do I want to start writing again for a living? I don’t know.

(Coincidentally, this is the last blog I write on my Compaq computer as I bought a new HP that comes with a Blue-ray player. I had my eyes on a new one and I couldn’t wait any more.)

… I have been haunted recently of echoes. You see May 31 would have been the 11th anniversary of being with Valerie. As that day approaches, I start to think back at the happy times. Just the little things remind me of her. Of course, after the good times, I start to think about the bad times and I just wonder why it didn’t work. I’m probably better off with out her.

I don’t expect many of you to get this. I just needed to say that.