Building the Ergonomic Guitar

Guitar blogger JP at Strat-O-Blogster recently tagged me with the blog meme “Eight Random Facts About Me”. For those unfamiliar with blog memes, it’s a question or topic passed from one blog to another. The result is something of a conversation carried across multiple sites. I don’t often talk about myself but I thought this might be a fun way to share a fact or two. To that end, here goes!

1. Hello. I’m Johnny Cash… – That’s right. I wear a lot of black. In fact, it’s all I wear. No, I don’t belong to a secret society, I’m not a vampire and I’ve never been to Fulsom. This started a long time ago and it just stuck. Now, I’m just happy I never have to worry about my clothes matching. Better yet, I can dress in the dark with no worries. Bonus Fact – I’m blind as a bat so dressing in the dark isn’t too far off the mark.

2. The Man Who Laughs – Like Cary at Electric Guitar Review, I’ve had someone tell me I laugh too much! Say what? (With apologies to Victor Hugo for borrowing his title.)

3. Predator III – My cat’s name is Predator and, given the opportunity, he would live up to his name. Unleashed on society, no cat, songbird, small dog or even child would be safe. Fortunately, he remains confined to the house. There he’ll sit – forever dreaming of meals accompanied by fava beans and a nice chianti…

4. “It seems that you’ve been living two lives. One life, you’re Thomas A. Anderson…” – When I’m not my blogging away as my digital self, I work for a large IT services provider as an engineer supporting a platform with $1000/min penalties for down time. Piece of cake, really. 🙂

5. The Man with No Name – Ok, I’m just missing a middle name but most folks find that odd. My dad, rest in peace, had this notion that only rich folks had middle names. Years later, I still don’t have a middle name but then again I’m still not rich. And, did I mention that Matt over at Guitar Stuff also has no middle name? A conspiracy against future guitar bloggers? You decide.

6. Baby Face Finster – Anthill Harry and I share the fact that no one realizes just how old we are. I can’t speak for Anthill but I’m 40 and frequently confused for being in my 20’s. Just a few months ago, a bartender made me wait 20 minutes while she had all the waitresses and kitchen staff check my driver’s license.

7. Rob the Builder – Here’s a trait I share with with Lori over at Play Like a Girl who says “If a task is more than moderately interesting, I’d rather learn how to do it myself than have someone do it for me.” I love learning new things and enjoy the challenge of tackling them on my own. It’s how I got into Information Technology, for example. By now, I’ve taken my share of courses but I’m largely self-taught. The same goes for building a guitar. I came to my first guitar project with an idea and no woodworking experience. I researched, asked questions and then jumped in.

8. Ahoy there maties! – I love boats. I fell in love with being on the water on our honeymoon in Belize. We stayed on a tiny little island in a cabana right on the water taking water taxis to the “main land” which in this case was actually just a larger island. Back home, I spent a couple of summers with a friend learning a bit about sailing. I haven’t had the opportunity to sail in years but I still long for it. Fortunately, we now live very close to the Hudson River in New York and have easy water access. All that’s missing is a boat. Of course, being the kind of person I am (see #7), I’ve been researching how to build a boat for a while. Can anyone guess what my next blog might be?

So that’s it. And, although the rules say I should tag other folks with the meme, I don’t want to put anyone on the spot. Besides, as I’ve looked around, many of the same folks I would consider tagging have already been tagged by fellow guitar bloggers.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this silly bit of fun. Meanwhile, If you want to know about the serious side of this blog and the motivations behind it, I invite you to read my About page.

We now return to our regularly scheduled programming…