What’s really good?

Nostradoomus

Nostradoomus

Well-known member
In lieu of the depressing garbage currently engulfing most of our respective worlds…tell me of your wins lately, big or small. We need all the perspectives to balance it out.

I’ll start. It’s some serendipity bullshit. Met a dude at a local brewery the other day and we got to talking (a bit, I was just buying a tall boy and leaving), said I was looking for work and he told me to hand a resume in at X place.

Two days later he shows up at my door to buy something I had on marketplace. I have my fb completely anonymous, couldn’t have known it was me. One of those “DUDE!? WHAT?”situations. So he bought what I was sellin (a wah) and also took home two of my home brew pedals at the same time…a very welcome cash infusion to my paltry bank account. Let me know how to go talk to etc.

Anyway I went for a mini interview yesterday and a full one today and I nailed it, just have to jump thru some legal hoops first because it’s working with vulnerable folks and totally understandable. But I have a job now…upward and onward.

The best edit: he took the pedal I affixed with 5 white washers without a care in the world because it sounded so good 😂
 
I started practicing singing around July or so (which to be honest was not that useful to start with) and have been taking actual lessons for around 3 months now (which is a million times more helpful). And while I'm not very good yet, considering that I couldn't really hit or hold notes to save my life before, the progress has been amazing in such a short time. Especially if you compare it to someone who has been playing guitar for 3 months, for example. The lessons are always really nice and I feel like I'm making good progress every time.
 
Fama said:
I started practicing singing around July or so (which to be honest was not that useful to start with) and have been taking actual lessons for around 3 months now (which is a million times more helpful). And while I'm not very good yet, considering that I couldn't really hit or hold notes to save my life before, the progress has been amazing in such a short time. Especially if you compare it to someone who has been playing guitar for 3 months, for example. The lessons are always really nice and I feel like I'm making good progress every time.
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I love singing, I relate to and appreciate this!
 
owlexifry said:
received a lease renewal offer letter/email on Friday 😅😅😅

boy howdy. that’s a heck of a relief.
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What are the laws surrounding tenancy in your part of the world? Mine are rock solid in favour of tenants, original agreed upon lease that transfers over as month to month with minimal (3.5%) increase if we sign away. Thankful for that here too lol. I’m renting a whole house with a shop for 2k Canadian and that’s wild.
 
Couple of weeks ago visited a guitar store I rarely visit because it tends to cater for a more hard rock clientele than me.They were having a sale and (maybe because of their normal clientele) a Gretsch 6120 RHH was on sale. Given the sort of players who normally shop there it hadn't been molested like most of their guitars and was pristine. Got it for a decent price and it has turned out to possibly be the best 6120 I have yet played. It's phenomenal. Some guitars just suit you and this one is so me. It was almost an impulse buy (I had just sold a guitar and was thinking about getting another big semi-acoustic) and one which has worked out way better than I expected.
 
I called my union benefits office to inquire about my HRA, which I can access with a debit card for any eligible medical expense.

It's an account that I can divert some of my pay into that is tax-free.

I've never actively diverted my income to this account. Now that stickwife and I are trying to have a child, and IVF is looking like a real possibility...I gotta find some way to pay for that shit.

Granted, it's supposed to be covered in California for all plans issued in the state after early July of 2025. My health care plan is issued in January, though, which means that the earliest we could possibly expect to see that benefit is the beginning of 2026. We've recently received some test results that indicate that we may not have that long, though.

Well: I inquired about the account, and was told that I have a whopping $30,000 balance. That's a HUGE amount of money for me.

A package for three IVF attempts costs about $50k, and that represents a significant discount from doing these things individually...so I still have to figure out a way to make that extra $20k, but diverting some of my income to that account will help. The excess I may have to pay off in installments if that's a possibility. Possibly sell some shit that I don't need.

But that $30K in that account that I didn't know about means that it's *possible* that stickwife and I may be able to welcome a stickchild into this world.

I've always wanted to be a dad. Circumstances made that prospect difficult for me in my earlier life. It's part of the reason I kicked drugs and alcohol. And this gives me hope.
 
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That is AWESOME! Hope it all comes together!

Stickman393 said:
I called my union benefits office to inquire about my HRA, which I can access with a debit card for any eligible medical expense.

It's an account that I can divert some of my pay into that is tax-free.

I've never actively diverted my income to this account. Now that stickwife and I are trying to have a child, and IVF is looking like a real possibility...I gotta find some way to pay for that shit.

Granted, it's supposed to be covered in California for all plans issued in the state after early July of 2025. My health care plan is issued in January, though, which means that the earliest we could possibly expect to see that benefit is the beginning of 2026. We've recently received some test results that indicate that we may not have that long, though.

Well: I inquired about the account, and was told that I have a whopping $30,000 balance. That's a HUGE amount of money for me.

A package for three IVF attempts costs about $50k, and that represents a significant discount from doing these things individually...so I still have to figure out a way to make that extra $20k, but diverting some of my income to that account will help. The excess I may have to pay off in installments if that's a possibility. Possibly sell some shit that I don't need.

But that $30K in that account that I didn't know about means that it's *possible* that stickwife and I may be able to welcome a stickchild into this world.

I've always wanted to be a dad. Circumstances made that prospect difficult for me in my earlier life. It's part of the reason I kicked drugs and alcohol. And this gives me hope.
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That’s exciting news @Stickman393 !

This thread prompted me to think about what’s good. After I failed to think of anything, I dipped down one level into gratitude. So I’m going to say my wife and kids.

I never wanted to be a dad. When I found out the woman I had been seeing for the past month was pregnant, and she wasn’t going to abort, I literally left the country that day and got blackout drunk. But I came back the next day, and I gotta say: the choice to be a parent with her was the best decision I ever made.

All that stuff that I used to think was important doesn’t matter at all. I used to see only the hard shit with being a parent. But the lows of it are reciprocal to the highs.

It’s good shit.
 
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Nostradoomus said:
In lieu of the depressing garbage currently engulfing most of our respective worlds…tell me of your wins lately, big or small. We need all the perspectives to balance it out.
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I took my substantially modified fretless bass over to the builder's shop last weekend, and not only did he compliment my painfully rudimentary woodworking re-do, he asked me to make a couple more similarly weird onboard preamps for very uptown NAMM 2025 booth basses. And then he gave me a spare body for my bass so I can play with a nicer control layout, or at least another one... :ROFLMAO:

That body has fire and water damage from a catastrophic shop fire a few years ago, but it seems to have dried out by now and looks to be perfectly salvageable. I love the Phoenix rising vibe and really want to do right by that. It's great to have a winter project that means a lot to me in any case!
 
Not music related even a little, but I’ve had some of the best apples I’ve had in my life in the past few weeks and eating good fruit always makes me so happy. Still trying to hunt down some SweeTangos but I might have missed the season. Something to look forward to next year!
 
finebyfine said:
Not music related even a little, but I’ve had some of the best apples I’ve had in my life in the past few weeks and eating good fruit always makes me so happy. Still trying to hunt down some SweeTangos but I might have missed the season. Something to look forward to next year!
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There's an orchard about 30 minutes up the road towards Mt. Hood from me that grows 130 varieties of apples. Looks like SweeTango is a proprietary hybrid though, and it's not on their current availability list. We got lucky with our mini 4 way apple tree this year and have been enjoying a lot of great baked dishes recently, good times.
 
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