Today's agenda

Student work to look at. Two mailings to put together.

Banjo practice, of course. A busy day, by the looks of it. I already dealt with the work of an advanced student. Now have query letters to read.

Only two weeks of school left, one more banjo class. Time flies when you're having fun.

I'm excited to be making progress with drop thumbing. I can see how it is often used and really adds something to an arrangement. I want to make my own arrangements down the road. JP has a good chapter on this.

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A sports break for a few weeks until March Madness begins. I am a March Madness fanatic. In my bachelor days, when I didn't own a TV, I'd often rent a motel for a week just to watch the games.

There was a motel out on Interstate next to a bar that became a favorite, where I could watch games with or without others, depending on my mood. I'd haul along my old Kaypro cp/m computer in those days and do work when the games weren't on. I was living on grants in those days, so had no immediate responsibilities to anyone, if I wanted to drink and watch basketball for a solid week, no one cared or even knew.

I didn't watch the games in my neighborhood, though, because there were too many distractions from the games themselves. I liked to be where I knew no one, no one could seduce me into doing something else. Hey, let's go get a steak at the Ringside, it's on me!

Sometimes I even did odd things, like speak only Russian and pretend I was a Russian sailor. In those days, unlike now, there were no Russians around, so no one knew the different, whether I was speaking Russian or not. I was, but badly, rusty from my Army days. A native would have picked up on this immediately.

It was fun, in the short term, and it even got me a few free drinks. But I bored myself quickly with such antics and fled to the motel to watch the games alone. If I had a girlfriend at the time, I'd even get a visit or two, a seedy version of conjugal rights ha ha.

Pretty wild days. The amazing thing is, somehow I survived them. It is a miracle I am still around.