Just kidding.
Been a rough period since my last entry. I sorta promised weekly postings, but I’ve been kinda preoccupied.
Depression has been a bit out of control. It’s not like I’m on any meds, as I’m not taking any medication, despite being diagnosed. Yoyo has been keeping it a bit more under control.
OK, onto a few highlights. I’ll keep this somewhat short. At least short by my standards.
I got some 2A lessons from Joseph Harris. I would strongly recommend that anyone interested in 2A get some lessons to get started right. Have I said this part before? Sorry.
Nationals. Oh what a screwed up weekend, but with a good ending. My wife takes the car in for an oil change, and it’s making a noise. We were both aware of this. I forget what they said it was, but I knew it wasn’t that. Turns out it was the alternator. But, the part is out of stock, and the are going to do a recall repair that I already repaired, so I won’t get my car back for several days. So, a oil change ends up tanking my plans for Nationals. Enter theroybit(another YYE forum user). We modify my plans so instead of the family, it’s just my son and myself going with Roy and a cousin of his. Met some amazing players, played some amazing yoyos. Saw many familiar faces. I didn’t get to say “hi” to Andre, but did get to say “hi” to his wife. YYE had a nice booth at Nationals. So did other vendors. Met Michael Montgomery, whose videos have helped me learning yoyo. Met Zammy, who time after time blows my mind with his creativity, which was rewarded by him getting Trick Innovator of the Year. Saw the YYJ team. Didn’t get to meet YYF Ben, but I did get a great view of his 2A performance. 7th Place, the guy is a great entertainer. Nationals was my high point of the month. Got some new stuff as well.
October 12-14 was the Sac Horror Film Fest. Between September 28th and October 10th, I had to design from scratch a lighting design show for Rocky Horror Picture Show shadowcast for Amber’s Sweets performance troupe. Due to how a file was being handle poorly, I had to redo all of act I, but Act II used a corrected file and I was able to fix act I, while Act II was laid down perfectly. So, skip ahead to the Sac Horror Film Fest. It went really good. I mixed Creature Feature, and sat through hours and hours of horror and thriller films. Now, with nothing to do, it’s just a slow march to October 26th and the Harvest Festival at my kid’s school.
What’s really been bringing me down is my in-laws business. Too much crap going on there recently. Hires, terminations, too many steps forward crushed by massive backwards steps.
Things to look forward to:
$700 bill to take care of my vehicle’s timing belt. Maintenance, can’t be avoided.
Disneyland? Maybe. Maybe not. We’ll see. The amusing story is that each Disneyland trip ends up costing us something. One year: brakes. Another year was a massive scheduled tune-up. Another year was a set of tires. This year, the alternator replacement was like near $600, and now nearly $700 for the timing belt change. Ouch! This is the biggest one yet! If we do go, it will be the last trip on our annual passes. I don’t think I’ll be able to swing by the Sunshine Kite Company if I do go.
Learning new tricks. What I’ve been working on is getting smooth. I’ve got to integrate a few more tricks into what I know.
Having some 2A foundation has made a huge difference. I’m still not doing 2 handed stuff yet, but I try a bit most days. Also, it’s opened up new yoyos that are way more accessible to me. Thanks to Fritz Clapp of an outlaw biker gang that’s gone corporate, I’ve picked up 4 Raiders this week. But if I wasn’t trying 2A, I wouldn’t have bothered with the Raiders. I got some Loop 808’s at Nationals. I gotta say the Unleashed are still my favorites. Having 6 Unleashed, I gotta do my cap and half swap project soon.
I’ve secured the gig for sound for CalStates and BAC for 2013, so expect world class sound and service for these events. I’m still gunning for Nationals. At Nationals, the company was so disconnected from the event. So, I might ask you guys to start a campaign to get me in there as the real sound provider. I mean, even with the clear disconnect and not paying attention, the speakers were not up to my standards(sorry, very high), and the monitor angles were playing havoc with the main PA, causing dead zones, some phase issues and some zones with serious comb filtering. These could have all been fixed with simple things Yes, I’m an audio engineer, this stuff irks the crap outta me. This is Nationals, it deserves people who will do their best. I always do my best.
My latest set-back isn’t depression or finances. It is in fact yoyo related. My right middle finger is torn up bad where the string goes. I’m trying to take a break but I find I just can’t. I gotta blow some time every day throwing. Still, it hurts a lot. The fact there’s some open areas there doesn’t help much. YYE tape doesn’t nothing for the pain, but it seems to be preventing more issues from cropping up. I’m so glad I found my roll.
My son insisted I set up his 2 Classics the same, so they are both siliconed and have YYJ Speed bearings in them. He’s 6 and attempting 3A. Yeah, he’s attempting all 5 styles. He’s DOING 3 of them. 2A is developing, and 3A he just started. Now he wants to try spin tops too.
Later today, I go get to fight a traffic ticket. Joy. Kids are out of school for a month(off-track). I get to deal with 4-way fighting… I might need to order a LOT of strings this month. I’ve also Terrapin X Dry Play treated a pair of Trifectas and it’s a massive upgrade doing this. I’ve snapped one into my Burnside and am sending that set-up to a friend of mine for him to use to compete in SER. He’s choosing this over his own Burnside! Well, it used to be his Burnside.
OK, so my trick progress:
2A: Inside loops are really clicking. 5 loops are really reliable. Hop the Fence is hit or miss, but it’s the start. Once I get the first hop clean, I’m good. Outside loops are coming a bit too. Managing string tension is my biggest issue.
1A: I may have skipped talking about the Zipper, but that’s fun and I’m really nailing that good. I’ve been able to do that, but I’m doing it better now. Wormhole came together real fast. The issue there was not the Ripcord part, but positioning for the second half. Eli Hops is really getting reliable. Kwijibo continues to get better. McBride’s Roller Coaster and Buddha’s Revenge are getting better since I’m getting that 1.5 mount a lot cleaner. I’m sure I could do Rewind, I’m just not taking the time for it, but I can do triple or nothing and have been kinda screwing around with black hops. Cold Fusion, Dr. Strange and Slack Trapeze are all good. Slack Trapeze does need more work on the slack portion.
I’ve now gotta go back and hit tricks I skipped. Boing E Boing is one of those, as well as boomerang. The leg wrap trap has also been skipped. I need to go back and address those. I also want to add laceration and iron whip. The wrist whip is just a side plastic whip, that was easy. If I can do it, mondial and pop’n’fresh too. I think after this I might try grinds.
4A: No real progress. I keep getting knots. I can’t figure out why. It’s not the yoyo, it’s me. I gotta clean up my binds I think.
5A: No real progress either. I mostly do some simple stuff to show kids another way to play.
3A: Let’s not kid ourselves on this. It’s gonna take some time before I even try this.
Some case/collection pictures are up on my Facebook. I’m planning to get my Royale review on my yoyo site this week and have it out to other locations as well as YYE. THis is long over-due. I apologize. Life happens. Depression sometimes crushes the will… However, now it WILL be done!
So, keep throwing. Keep your strings fresh, it makes a world of difference. Don’t be afraid to try new things. My yoyo therapy works decent for me. It helps me focus.
