The next two gigs are going to be Friday and Saturday nights at Valentino's. I'm also looking forward to these gigs, and Saturday my friend Pat will be coming down from L.A. for business, and he wanted to get together for dinner. We're trying to get the other "virtual" friends to join us. We'll see...
6:26 AM ~

What's Your Flavor?

Following The Regimen

I've been doing pretty good this week as far as following a regimen. Yes, leave it up to the Olympics to spark a little inspiration toward a goal. I really admire the athletes and their commitment to excel in their sport, and to "go for the gold".

I've been practicing a lot more on drums lately. Which is good for me. I'm starting to get on a roll (pun intended) with my daily drumming regimen.

"What on Earth does this bad boy DO when he practices on drums?", you say.

Well, without boring anyone, I basically practice the 26 standard rudiments that I'd been taught by my drum teachers since day one in elementary school.

Aside from the standard rudiments, I practice to a metronome. And I spend a lot of time "improvising" several routines so that I'm ready for drum solos.

And, I'm suppose to have an aerobic workout because drumming is a very physical instrument and one must have a certain level of endurance to play for 4 hours at a club and maintain the same energy level the whole night. So, I'd been running and walking this whole week, taking it easy to avoid injury.

A Rest From Caffeine

I just realized I hadn't had a single cup of coffee (the caffeinated kind) in three days! That's amazing for me, considering I'm a big, big coffee drinker. Well that's okay. I needed the rest anyway.

So, this morning I went down to the local watering hole (you guessed it, Starbucks) and I splurged... I got me one of them Cafe Mochas... grande size.

And for once I finally asked the lady behind the counter what was actually in a Cafe Mocha. And now I understand. The Starbucks recipe for a Cafe Mocha is a double espresso with chocolate and cream! Jeez, no wonder I'd been "bouncin' off the walls" every time I had one of those Cafe Mochas.

Cascading Style Sheets

I spent much of the afternoon "tweaking" this site because I had accidentally deleted my template on the Blogger site!

What a scare!!!

And so I DID find a backup file, but it was one of the older ones. And so the process began to try and piece everything together again. And now it's done!

The good thing was that I played around with my CSS template and redid some of the text elements to where I finally liked them. I think it's looking pretty nice now. What do you think?

Age Of Empires

Last night I played Age Of Empires on the computer. It's been awhile since I've played it, and it's one of those highly addictive games. I'm pretty good about it now, since I had to "wean" myself off of the game a while back.

Last night, my wife was sort of joking about me putting all this effort into my blog. But there's a part of me that needs to write. I just have to express myself through writing because it feels good, actually.

It's my own form of self-therapy.

Cami mentioned something about going through her archives and just seeing what she had done on a particular day. For online journalers, there is a distinct advantage to "referencing" your life. And it's nice to know what you had done on any given day.

Lately, I more or less had converted my blog into some hybrid journal of sorts. Well, that's okay with me. If there's a way to do something slightly different, then we should go for it. I think hybrid is a great word. To me it means improvement.

Cyn had made some interesting comments in her journal that made me really think:

I can't believe i've been rambling for over 6 months now. and i find it even harder to believe that you are reading my shit.

No, this will not go on forever. but i love jaycine.com. and that will exist in one fashion or other for a very long time...

I guess all things do not last forever, especially the good things. But for me, I will continue to write in one form or another as well.

It's just something that needs to be done. That's all...
9:58 AM ~


on being a parent

Cami had some nice thoughts about being a Mom. I think it's true that there are certain things that "kick in" once you find out that you're going to be a parent.

Even before the child is born, it seems that parents go through some sort of "nesting" ritual, preparing the nursery and just fixing the place up for the coming arrival of the newborn infant!

But there are also many things that parents learn along the way as their children grow.

"Teach your parents well..."

When my wife and I had our first child, we went crazy with the home improvements! We had new carpeting put in, I myself installed new tiles in the kitchen and dining room. I also tiled the bathrooms too! And, we turned one of our rooms into a full-fledged nursery. I painted the ceiling into a blue sky with white puffs of clouds! The center light in the ceiling was transformed into a bright sun.

Yeah! We were a bit fanatical about our first child. But when our second child came, we were much more relaxed and it was a lot more fun.

Actually, our second child was born twenty-two minutes after we arrived in the hospital. We just barely made it to the delivery room when her water broke just as she sat down in the hospital!
2:00 AM ~

monday, september 18