The Blog of G

Well it can be and what a life that would be nothing to do all day except eat, sleep, pee and poop! One can only dream.

One year ago today a little Puppy came into the world, a few weeks later and she came to live with us, where she has felt (I hope) happy and loved ever since. In return she has showered both of us and everyone she meets with affection, sought to distract us from the daily stresses of the world and made us laugh again and again.

So as today is her birthday I thought I’d share a few moments from the last year, with the world.

Happy First Birthday Buffy

Thank you for being our best friend

So a while back Elly and I were planning a holiday. Once we had decided on destination and timing and some activities etc, Elly’s thoughts turn to packing (so she can decide how many bags we’re going to need to check in) Part of this process included, what electronics would we be bringing.

Of course our mobile phones would be required so chargers and socket adapters would be required as well, Elly’s Kindle cause it’s so much easier than carrying the amount of books she will read in a week and of course my netbook so we can connect to the free wi-fi in our hotels and not have to pay for an internet café, plus it would mean we can watch some of our TV shows while relaxing before or after a hard days touristing.

This of course lead to the usual discussion over how pathetic the speakers are on the netbook. It’s not so much that their bad speakers, more that they are pathetically quiet. So, I said I’d have a look for some sort of portable speakers to help.

After a bit of digging about online, reading some reviews and so on I decided to grab one of the XMI X-mini II Mini Speakers from Amazon.

Included with the speaker is the USB charging cable and a small pouch to carry both the speaker and cable in, which is a nice touch. The speaker itself has a short cable, about 3 inches, attached which plugs into any headphone socket and wraps away into the bottom of the speaker for storage.

The next thing that I noticed is that the unit shipped fully charged, another nice touch. Immediately it was connected to my mobile phone and tested, the sound was pretty good and the volume level was more than respectable if a little tinny sounding.

Just as I was starting to feel a teeny bit disappointed with it I remembered that the speaker had a neat trick, a quick twist of the base and the bellows style middle of the speaker was expanded. this really surprised me with how much it improved both the over all sound quality and increased the volume.

Now let’s be clear about this the sound quality is never gonna match a decent Hi-Fi, for a start, this is a mono speaker, add to that it’s tiny (see photo’s) and anyone with even the most basic knowledge of sound will know that. Here’s the trick though, you can’t stick a Hi-Fi in you pocket, this you can and the sound is definitely better than any laptop, mobile phone or mp3 player speaker that I’ve heard.

The battery life is surprisingly good, I get about 2 days out of it between charges. I used it constantly while studying for my recent exams just to give it a decent test you understand And charging couldn’t be easier, just connect it to a USB port and it will charge in about 3-4 hours, I’ve even charged it from the USB ports on my X-Box 360 while it was off.

There’s also a neat little trick it can do, if you have more than one you can daisy chain them together to give more volume although if volume is what you are after this is not the best solution.

Now think about the cost, we paid £20.00 sterling for ours. Since then Amazon have reduced the price again, it is superb value. My biggest concern about it is that those annoying teenagers that play music from their phones on the bus will get hold of these and become even more annoying. As a small device to make using your laptop in a hotel or even a small presentation a little less painful I couldn’t recommend this mini speaker more.

A long time ago in a galaxy far far away, wait no that’s not right, it was about 20 years ago in pre-Celtic tiger Dublin. Hmm thinking about it maybe I was right to start with. Anyway I digress, back to the story I want to tell you all.

I was young, and with all the things that come from being a teenager who has just finished school and having a dream in my mind that I just knew was mine for the taking I set about a career as a musician, composer, arranger, songwriter and really just all round rock god The next few years were to hold stories of success and failure, of immense joy and deep heartfelt anguish. All the usual stuff a teenager goes through and genuinely believes is unique to them.

I loved to play, write and arrange music, I enjoyed it immensely and I believed I was really great at it, just the world hadn’t coped on to my genius, eventually I would cop on.

When I did, I ended up in a job I didn’t really want for a while and slowly I drifted away from all my music interests. First I stopped writing and arranging and eventually I stopped playing. I’m really not sure why, I guess I just got caught up in life and decided I had less and less time for it which I’m now discovering was really stupid.

I’m saying this now as I’ve recently started playing again, bizarrely as a result of studying for exams. At some point about two weeks before my exams were due to start, when I was studying, I started to get distracted by thoughts of playing as I got tired from studying. After a day or two of this I gave in dug out my horn and had a blow for about half an hour and then returned to study refreshed like I’d just started.

Even after that first day I suspected that there was something more up with my playing than just a lack of practice and I’ve discovered that my beautiful twenty year old horn is in need of a major overhaul. In the mean time It’s still playable, just not with any other instruments as the tuning is a little wild in places.

It still allows me to practice my scales, arpeggios, long tones and all the other boring stuff that all instrumentalist must practice to play the tunes that everyone loves. Unfortunately this is only a small part of playing and the most fun part, playing tunes as part of an ensemble, be it a real or virtual, is not possible with my baby, until I can afford the overhaul.

Hopefully it won’t take too long for me to save the funds to get the work done. Thankfully, I have a solution that will keep the itch scratched in the meantime. A few years back, while considerably flusher than I am now, I invested in an EWI, that’s an Electronic Wind Instrument.

At the time I bought it I practised and played it a fair amount but thanks to a less than simple manual and some difficulty setting it up and familiarising myself with it that didn’t really last long. However in the meantime a number of people have come along and published a number of simple how-to’s on you tube, so I now have it set up to my liking and am getting my playing back in shape reasonably rapidly. Who knows what may come of this.

In the meantime, if you’re an EWI player why not leave a comment below about what style and music you like to play and if you are struggling with an EWI take a look at Saxman999′s channel over on youtube or leave a comment below and maybe I’ll be able to help.

Back at the start of May 2010, I stopped smoking. About a week later, on her birthday, Elly did as well. We’re both off them a year now and I’m still so amazed and proud of Elly for stopping on her birthday of all days, a great gift to give yourself sweetie

We were both surprised at how easy we found it, after all its a really hard thing to do, isn’t it? All the cravings for the drug you’re no longer giving your system, all the habit times, when you had one no matter what and in less than a week we both just stopped. No patches, no gum, no magic pill, just stopped and haven’t really thought of them since.

Having been an addict for more than 17 years and tried and failed on numerous occasions to quit, I’m so grateful to a man who wrote a book and fought a crusade against the tobacco industry and even after his death from lung cancer he is still helping people like me to stop.

That man was Allen Carr and the book he wrote was called “the easy way to stop smoking”. I listened to the audio book version and Elly read the dead tree version and we both stopped.

We weren’t able to quit but now we have stopped and that’s the secret to this. Don’t think about quitting, just stop. The book goes to great lengths to explain the difference and outline how to keep your mindset right so do read it.

Allen Carr’s easy way workshops are also an option and offer a far better success rate of 90% versus the 10% of nicotine replacement therapy (an ironic name for patches, gum, inhalers etc which actually contain nicotine and are every bit as addictive) for roughly the same cost.

Now my only question is why does our government spend so much on quit smoking campaigns and even helps with the cost of NRT yet there is no financial support if you choose to take the Allen Carr seminars or read his book. Wouldn’t it make more sense to support the method with the highest success rate?

In Ireland we spend ridiculous amounts of money every year on quit smoking campaigns that simply don’t work. That could be used to give people who want to stop a spot on an Alan Carr workshop! That’s a workshop with a 90% success rate and a money back guarantee, shame our government isn’t progressive enough to think beyond the publicity stunt that was the smoking ban and see the benefits this would have not only to the people and business of this country but also to the health service.