Rambling post

Part 1: In Which I Talk About My Lack Of Writing

You've all been there. Life takes its toll on every responsible "adult" (let's face it, I'm an overgrown kid, no matter what everyone wants to say). Between school, work, family, and my wonderful girlfriend, I've not much felt up to writing lately. Lately meaning a very long time, of course. I may have to just force myself to write my catharsis here instead of releasing emotion into video games and deepening the indention in my mattress. We'll see how that goes.

Part 2: In Which I Talk About Music And Instruments

That guitar I started building? Yeah, it still isn't done. I am full of shame, but I am slowly getting there. It isn't far from done. I do have a new acoustic electric, but I'll write a whole post on it later. My beautiful Gibson amp from the 1950's is currently on the workbench, waiting on new capacitors and tubes. Darn being busy. As a insurance policy for that amp, I received a Kustom Defender 5 watt head. That amp is killer for the money, people. I can't say enough good about it. Very Fender-y but thicker. Can't wait to see how it sounds after I replace the stock tubes. Musically, I've kind of been punk/pop driven lately. Everything from 90's to now, pop, punk, and all stops between, and even a little alternative thrown in. As far as Christian music, I've gone a little old school lately, pulling out Bebo Norman and Page CXVI.

Part 3: In Which I Talk About Life

Life has been crazy lately, but hopefully is calming down now. I have been taking every class I can, and working every hour I can, and working in as much time with my girlfriend, friends, and family I can. Sleep... Never enough... But that's OK, because I need time with the people I love while there is time to have. That became evident to me a few weeks ago while visiting my grandfather the night before he passed away. I felt so many emotions that night, but the real takeaway for me was that I was right in trying to spend time with my friends and family. In a shift... College seems to go on forever. I just want to finish so I can get a job that agrees with my back and interests. I'm looking forward to that day. Work is going pretty well, I just can't wait to have my own air conditioned office and work hard with my mind instead of my hands.

Part 4: The End

This is a pretty chaotic post, tons of topics, but I needed to write it. If you read this far, congratulations. Your attention span is longer than mine. I'd appreciate your prayers. The past few months have been pretty rough for me, not just busy. I'm looking forward to a little peace and quiet. I just don't know if/when it will come. If anyone knows of a way for me to slow down, let me know. Haha. Thanks for reading this. By the way, the more feedback I get, the more likely I am to write more often. Feel free to shoot me messages about anything, and as always, I welcome your comments. I'll try to make the next post lighter and more interesting, so don't let this one throw you off! Until next time: love you all, and I hope something here helped you.

Until next time, stay classy, Internet.

P.S. I forgot to mention. Coffee has been kind of slow. Hopefully soon I'll have time to break out the hipster side of me again, and pretend that I'm a barista.

New Guitar. Part 1: Back Story and The Beginning

I had a need. A new electric guitar that fits the sound that I like/want/need. Being cheap, however, I was looking at pawn shops for a terribly beaten guitar that I could lovingly bring back to life. Apparently, I'm not the only one who does this, however, as every time I'd ask about such a beater, I would be quoted a price fitting a nicer guitar. I could not bring myself to pay these exorbitant prices. I had all but given up on finding something that fit my budget, and so I hit my knees.

I raised a prayer asking for a guitar, and promising what talent I have to His service, even if I didn't get one. When I stood up, I felt that I would get a guitar, but I would have to work for it in some way. I thought I'd have to work for the money to buy one. Turns out, I'd have to work for the guitar to even exist.

In my many internet travels that week, I found a website that was selling bodies and necks that their manufacturers had built, and ended up with no use for them. They were put on the website a few per day, and so I patiently waited. About two or three days went by without so much as a wood scrap that I liked. Then I found it; a double cutaway guitar body that looked beaten, bruised, and badly painted. I saw the love that it needed. I knew that it wasn't going to be easy. But it was beautiful in its own way, and I could afford it, a neck, and a bridge to get me started building. I snatched the parts I could afford.

They arrive, and I find that what I thought to be a matte-black painted body was actually a very dark tobacco-colored sunburst (which is a dark brown that fades to black at the edges). My aspirations of painting my new friend faded when I sanded it smooth, then used a damp rag to wipe the dust off. A gem appeared with that wet rag. A road-worn, beaten, bruised gem.

It almost made me cry as I realized the metaphor it contains. That story of that body is almost exactly the same as us as Christians. The world takes us and molds us into something very profane, very ugly. But then, just as this body comes to me to make it beautiful, we came to God for the same reason. Even though our bruises, scrapes, and scars are still there, we've been sanded, prepped, shined, and protected from the outside world.

Anyway, back to the build. Below are some pictures of the sanded-but-not-finished body. I know, it looks horrible like this. Just wait. I sanded like crazy to get this beauty ready to paint (kinda like God shapes and smooths us). Finally, it looked very beautiful, and I was getting impatient. See pics below of pre-laquer.

And on goes the clear, satin laquer.

 Isn't that a handsome body? The guitar ain't bad either, huh? :D Anyway, This'll just about do it for Part 1. Hopefully, Part 2 will be shorter, and come soon. Thanks for reading! Any questions or comments, please let me know!

Why must I be eluded by excellent Frappes?

Tonight, I was in the mood for coffee, and being of the thrifty sort, I decided I'd try to make my own frappe.  So, out came the stovetop espresso machine, blender, and milk frother, and I try my hand.  Again.  I have yet, after about four attempts, to come up with a passable frappe.  Cappuccino is easy to make, as is mocha, but the excellence of the chocolate or caramel frappe eludes me.  How hard can it be to perfectly blend ice, milk, and espresso?!  I may now actually have to break down and ask a real barista how they make it, but I hate asking advice from people who do this for a living.  I suppose I'm afraid that they will find out that I'm stealing business by making my own $5 coffee.  Anyway, back to the frappe.  First attempt, FAR too much ice and milk, and it was made with a very thin caramel-flavored coffee syrup.  I believe that this syrup is made to simply give a little flavor to a drink, not truly flavor the whole thing.  A much thicker syrup would probably work better.  Second attempt, I added more coffee and syrup, and it was better, but still needed flavor.  Third attempt turned out much better than the first two, as I used plain chocolate syrup (just like the stuff used for chocolate milk), but the texture was still off.  There was liquid and ice, not an icy liquid.  It was blended well, but there was still a very thin liquid and tiny bits of ice floating in it, and it separated badly.  My last attempt still was far from perfect, as the texture was even farther off, but the flavor was better.  At any rate, whipped cream and a drizzle of chocolate syrup help smooth it nicely.  Perhaps a heavier cream would help, but a poor college student can in no way afford to buy cream as often as I drink coffee, especially when there are always several gallons of milk in our refrigerator that I do not have to buy.  For such a modest price, I believe I can stand a slightly sub-par frappe, but that will not stop me from experimenting further.  I will post again on the coffee, especially if I develop a superior frappe recipe.  If it is pretty, I may even post a picture.  Be blessed, friends.

Intro! It's me!

So, I understand that it's weird for a strait guy to have a blog, but sometimes, I have some crazy/awesome/stupid/fun/uplifting/hilarious things to say, and I can't help but think someone might be interested.  I have MANY hobbies, right now my big two are hats and soccer.  You may be asking yourself "what kind of hobby is 'hats?!'"  Well, good question, let me explain a little!  Before you can be obsessed you must find hats!  My style is vintage (see blog title) so I have a need for vintage fedoras, homburgs, westerns, etc.  Being a starving/broke university student, I have very little money to spend on hats, so I must find good deals, or go bareheaded.  This gets harder and harder every day, since there are more and more hipsters snatching up anything that has a brim all the way around.  However, unlike most hipsters, I don't have a desire for the cheap cotton/polyester/rayon/crap hats that are sold at dept. stores around the country at this point in time.  I'm interested in hats made of fur (if you're an animal lover, my deepest apologies, but if they didn't want to be hats, they shouldn't be so soft and comfortable) and RARELY wool.  Now, once you find a vintage fedora at a good price, they often have something wrong with them, such as a rotted sweatband, stained ribbon, or dirty felt.  That's where the physical activity of a hat hobby comes in for many people.  These things must be remedied before it looks amazing.  Then, for an adventuring hipster like myself, I don't want to limit myself to only one size of hat, so I'm beginning to build myself a set of tools for totally renovating hats.  This starts with a hat block, which is simply a piece of wood shaped like the inside of a hat.  So, me being the type of guy who never goes only half-way, I had to build my hat block better than anyone else's hat block.  Mine will not be limited to just shaping the hat, but also putting the "crease" in the top!  But not just one crease, either!  The top section of the block will come off, and a different shaped section can be put in the original's place.  This way, it is simple to build a new section with a different shape if I so desire!  I even already have a few old hats to stretch out in this way! I just have to get this block build.  I have most of the materials, now all I need is time with which to build this puppy!  Sorry if this sounds like a rant, but it's the big project right now in my hobbies.  Maybe next time I'll have a small update/pictures on this, or something from my own life!  Peace, brothers and sisters, me and God love you!