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If you long to get the band back together, that sometimes just isn’t going to be possible. For a gruesome example of that, take a look at any recent death by overdose or otherwise of bands of the past ~20 years or so. They’ll never reunite or get back together. Same goes for some bands I’ve been throughout my life. Due to either distance from where I currently reside, or just bands breaking up badly with a lot of feelings being hurt.

Well at the beginning of 2011 (yes, my new year’s resolution of sorts), I decided that the band would never get back together, but I still loved to play. Due to me not really playing much in the past ~10 years since my last full time band went to nevermore, I figured – “screw it, time to just jam“.

I started that journey by taking it to the top of the mountain and meeting the local yoda of guitar. While he didn’t tell me anything really new that I didn’t already know, he did inspire me to forge on with my quest. He did provide some ideas of theory that I wasn’t too keen on; or rather that I ignored a lot.

I spent time going over the major scale again, as well as other things. Of course I felt stuck in a rut, but things were getting better. Now being it’s September, 9 months later, I can say I have played pretty much every day minus a few. I have jammed with a few other people earlier in the year, that didn’t quite work out. I’m actually a better player than I’ve been. I can actually pick out cover songs rather quickly now.

Of course that has negated a lot of my original writing skills, but lately I find that it’s coming back now that I’ve learned how most songs are structured by figuring out the cover route aspect. Where to from here is anyone’s guess. At least I’ve renewed a kindred spirit and love for just playing. Thanks yoda!

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It really is.

Beatles – Birthday. (Rare)

Technically Speaking, that’s about all I’ve really said today. ;)

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These are 3 gifts that would really surprise me and delight me if I received them on Christmas. Doubtful that I will be receiving any of these, but if you feel like being Santa, DM or @ ping me. I guess you could call this my Christmas list for Santa or something like that.

Number 3: iPad

I don’t have one, and am holding out for v2, but will take a v1 one gifted to me.

Hey, you can purchase it at Walmart or Target now. I’m sure it won’t be too far behind that they will be available at TJ Maxx, Walgreens, and – Kmart!

For now though, I wouldn’t mind having one if I didn’t have to shell out the cash for one. Especially seeing that v2 is rumored for an April refresh. Now from past experience with Apple products, prices pretty much stay the same.

I’m currently pondering and considering an Android Tablet that I feel might compete and be just as good. Something like the Galaxy Tab by Samsung comes to mind.

Number 2: Macbook Air

I think by now most of the bugs of v1 Air have been worked out or at least optimized fixed somehow. I like the small footprint and when I’m at home, I plug in my regular Macbook to a monitor anyways. When mobile, the lighter, the better. Plus the smaller form factor seems to be a big win.

Number 1: Harley or Honda Goldwing

I found out that my 50cc was just not enough. I originally bought the 50cc to see if I still liked to ride. Not to mention the aggravation of owning a cheap Chinese 50cc, means they break down quicker. Like mine is currently sitting – broken down, needing to be worked on, and no garage or scooter tech in sight.

Figured that spending a little bit of money to see if the ride urge was still there was smarter than going out and plunking down money on a big bike. Well the ride urge still exists, and since I’m older, I want something that rides smooth and not some racing bike.

For now though, I guess I’ll have to find me a 50cc scooter tech to revive and fix my Chinese scooter. I do miss riding places for sure. Now the weather has changed up a bit to the colder variety, but when I returned from NYC last year, I had to retrieve my scooter from the place that was winter storing it in February! I rode home on it on a day that was like ~18 degrees Fahrenheit. Honestly, I would like the scooter fixed so I could ride it for now; that would be alright for this gift item also.

Technically Speaking, I really don’t expect to receive any of the 3, but if you don’t ask, people out there will never know and you’ll never receive!

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Since it is the 4th of July, I figured this list of Free Patriotic Wallpaper might interest the reader here:

As the summer season approaches, in the U.S. another major 4th of July celebration quickly approaches this July. Cities and towns across the country start gearing up as early as May for the local festivals, fireworks and events. One of the most popular things that many geeky Americans do is loading free patriotic wallpaper themes on their desktops.  MakeUseOf features some pretty cool articles on wallpapers, such as Tina’s resources to pimp your wallpaper , or the review of WallpaperStock’s high resolution desktop wallpapers, so I wanted to add to that list by providing a resource for some of the top Patriotic wallpaper sites on the web.

Whenever I’ve searched for wallpaper themes, I’m always shocked at how inundated the Internet has become with poorly made, amateur websites covered with Google Adsense ads and cheesy content. This seems especially prevalent within the category of wallpapers. So, at the risk of coming across as a bit ethnocentric, I would like to offer you geeky U.S. patriots a list of high-quality free patriotic wallpaper themes that they can use this year as part of their Fourth of July celebration.

American Greetings Offers Free Patriotic Wallpaper Themes

Apparently American Greetings isn’t just all about selling greeting cards. For those who travel to their web page , American Greetings offers a small collection of free wallpapers. One of those wallpaper categories is “military & patriotic wallpapers,” which include some pretty impressive images.

Free images here include things like fireworks on a backdrop of the American flag, the words “Courage and Compassion” on a backdrop of the Statue of Liberty, and a pretty cool “Support our Troops” wallpaper featuring an Army helicopter and other military imagery.

FunUtilities.com – But You Have to Download Crawler?

One of my favorite collections of free wallpaper is FunUtilities.com . When you search for “patriotic,” you’ll uncover a huge assortment of stunning backgrounds for your desktop. But when you click on “Download,” there’s one drawback. The site forces you to download and install the Crawler toolbar before you’re allowed to download free wallpapers from the site. Now, for a lot of people this isn’t a big deal, but for a lot of people, being forced down download and install anything isn’t very cool.

However, the five pages of amazing artwork sure is tempting enough to go ahead and install crawler just to download a few of these. They are easily some of the best patriotic wallpapers you’ll find on the Internet.

This Nation – Cheesy or Not?

This Nation is one website where I really like the free wallpapers one minute, and then I can’t stand them the next. The biggest problem is that I can’t decide whether they’re cheesy, or just extremely emotional and inspiring. Some of them work very well, but other ones look like one of those Sunday morning gospel shows where the clear biblical text scrolls across the backdrop of some inspiring nature scene.

However, this site does deserve mention because some of the text-on-image wallpapers do look pretty good. You’ll find four pages of them to choose from at this site, and they’re all free for personal use.

Visual Xtreme – For Patriotic Gamers

Reviewing the patriotic category of wallpapers over at Visual Xtreme , it’s pretty obvious what demographic these images target.

Technically Speaking, be sure to always read more … and Happy 4th of July!

I re-opened the Embargo Zone as of late yesterday. I had alluded to this in my last post of another PR release I received, and I have been receiving quite a few lately, most I archive/delete, but some I decide to post. Announcements right before Valentine’s Day such as the WooMe announcement, and the Slacker Radio announcement.

Here is how you can submit your PR, announcement, startup, etc… The first post on there is the cross post from this blog. Be sure to follow ‘the zone :) on twitter!

Technically Speaking, I have another site that will soon be resurrected from the “dead“. Look for it soon!

While I can’t really go into deep details here, the whole NYC experience was a costly yet interesting one. While the sun sets on the bright lights of life in the Big Apple, the twists and turns somehow end up working out. Note: The track that is auto-playing is “Little Wonders by Rob Thomas”; video at the end of the post. I feel the lyrics sum things up rather well at this time.

Sure, I will miss the location of living across the street and around the corner from the places where NYPD rolls on a call, as well as the views, I won’t miss other aspects of living in NYC.

If nothing else, I can always say that at one time, for 6 weeks, I lived right next door to the Empire State Building. I walked the streets at night exploring the neighborhood.

While for some people that love the whole NYC experience, such as my buddy in Chicago who loves brick and subways, I’m more of surfer dude and always have been.

Technically Speaking, while I wish that the whole situation in NYC would have been fully resolved and I could talk more about it openly, I just wanted to update everyone – as well as say – Happy Thanksgiving week! If you want more details, just ask me directly and I can provide them privately. I hope you know what you are thankful for. I sure have a lot to be thankful for this past year.

One last thing I want to share with those that have given me the crazy eye about my definition of a nice lawn – not so crazy am I? :)

Little Wonders by Rob Thomas