Lots of practice

Earlier tonight I played guitar a couple of hours with a bass player who lives nearby. Yesterday we practiced three hours. We've been jamming for a couple of weeks now, more and more frequently, and already have nearly thirty songs we're working on together. About half of them are Rocky's and the other half are a mix of my originals and some cover tunes I know quite well.

It's been a long time since I've had another musician to jam with regularly. It's been even longer since I've met anyone who is willing to practice several times a week.

Rocky has several arranged songs with interesting original bass guitar riffs. I am having great success in playing rhythm chords and lead guitar riffs to his bass lines. I hope to have some new material to post on my web site soon, maybe even music videos for YouTube and such.

Local fans

With nice weather here, I am riding and playing more often. I have also found a couple of places to jam with other musicians and artists. A woman recently told me to keep doing what I do because I make a lot of people happy. The sight of a bicycling guitarist readily brings a smile to people's faces. Nearly all the responses I notice from other people are positive ones. Yesterday I was actually cheered by more than one group of people who saw me. One guy in a group of teenagers walking nearby raised his arms up high and yelled "The Bicycling Guitarist!"

I can handle fame in small doses like this. It's a nice feeling to be appreciated and to realize one is making the world a more fun place for others just by being who you are.

What's going on

It's been more than a month since my last posting. In mid-April I received a series of emails from a bicycle enthusiast who offered more information about the history of Schwinn lightweight bicycles and suggestions for how to improve my ride. With his permission, I edited and posted his content on my web site. The new pages are

Schwinn lightweight bicycles history

Suggestions to upgrade my Schwinn Sportabout

My 1965 Ford Falcon Ranchero is still sitting in the driveway with a bent driveshaft as it has since the summer of 2007, but last month I got a replacement tailgate skin for it (not yet installed) and this month I got a spare hood. Both parts were very reasonably priced from a local man who had them left over from his own ranchero restoration project.

Namaste TBG

Don McLeroy betrays America and Christ

Mr. McLeroy is the chair of the Texas State Board of Education. There was a vote yesterday about the standards for students in that state. Since Texas is such a big customer of textbook publishers, the standards for Texas affect the quality of textbooks for the rest of America.

I just read that in Friday's testimony, Mr. McLeroy said: "I disagree with these experts. Someone has got to stand up to experts." This is right up there on the stupid scale with the quote by Ray Mummert, a pastor from Dover PA who said in 2005: "We've been attacked by the intelligent, educated segment of the culture."

So Mr. McLeroy figures that, as a dentist, he is as much of an authority on scientific matters as the experts... I also read that even though the main weasel words were voted down some amendments were passed with weasel words in them so expect some lawsuits folks!

Thank Mr. McLeroy for adding to the financial hardships of Texans in these hard times, as well as for succeeding in at least part of his evil plot to DUMB DOWN our schoolchildren. Does this clown have ANY integrity? He should resign if he isn't fired. Some people are PROUD of being stupid and insist their stupidity is just as valid as someone else's smarts. I don't mind that normally, unless they insist their stupidity is MORE valid and insist that everyone be just as stupid as they are.

so-called "Intelligent Design" is NOT science

In online forums wherever evolution is being debated, some people still claim that intelligent design is a scientific alternative to evolution. I have one word in reply: BULLSHIT!

Okay, I'll say a few more words. The Kitzmiller v. Dover trial in 2005 made it clear beyond any doubt that ID is not science. It was also established beyond any doubt that intelligent design IS religion, although those who advocate it emphatically deny this is the case.

So-called intelligent design is so-called scientific creationism renamed to try to slip past the courts into public school science classrooms, and so-called scientific creationism is nothing more than a literal fundamentalist interpretation of the Book of Genesis of the Christian Bible.

People can believe whatever they want, but a fundamentalist interpretation is not supported by the evidence of the world God created. There have been at least a dozen court cases challenging the teaching of evolution the past forty years, and the creationists lost EVERY TIME. It isn't a conspiracy; it's not the devil. It is simply that the evidence supports evolution and falsifies a literal reading of Genesis.

Some people who used to believe the earth is flat (maybe some still do) would use a fundamentalist interpretation of Bible verses to "prove" it. Churches and people who are in denial of the fact of evolution are modern-day flat-earthers.

Like I said, believe what you want, but don't try to legislate ignorance in the teaching of American children in public schools. Home school your kids or send them to a private school that doesn't conflict with your beliefs if you want them to think the earth is flat.

Bicycling Guitarist jokes thread on BikeForums.net

Hi all.
Last night I saw a headline on MSNBC that said "After pullout, some will stay." To my disappointment, it was about Iraq.

Oh, and the other day I was posting to a science news group and neglected to give a reference link to the source (they get really annoyed at that). So I posted another with the link and said "A Cite for Sore I's."

These and more jokes by me and by other people can be found in the Bicycling Guitarist jokes thread at Bike Forums.

Polishing a brick

No matter how much you polish a brick, it won't become shiny enough to be a mirror. I sometimes think of that when working on my web site. Lately I have been promoting my site and making slight improvements to the HTML code. I don't know exactly how much time I have spent on my web site the past ten years, but it is probably many thousands of hours by now.

For what it's worth, I publish my original songs and essays to share with the world.