Reading: Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine
Music: NPR
TV/Movie: Battlestar Galactica
Link o' the Day: T Campbell's blog

Chiming back in here on Tuesday. The days are warm enough to melt some snow, although it all refreezes at night, and each night's freeze builds upon itself, so now we have these impregnable blocks of ice all over the place. Still, it could be worse.

I finally got my fiddle! The idiots at UPS had been attempting to deliver it to the wrong house. If it weren't for some suspiciously senseless tracks in the snow, I’d have never known. Anyway, I have it, and am discovering what a tricky instrument it, thus far, is to play. Moving from guitar to mandolin was fairly easy as they’re held nearly the same, and the idea of plucking strings is the same. The fiddle is tuned the same as a mandolin, but the playing is entirely different.

Currently I'm still trying to get the damn thing properly tuned. I'm getting closer, and there are a few webpages out there with some basic info to get me started. I have a book/dvd on order, and am considering lessons.

Speaking of music, Sunday night I dropped by the RiRa pub downtown to check out one of the weekly Irish music sessions that happen around Providence. It’s been over ten years since I lasted followed the sessions scene in this town, but I'd like to check it out a little more now. I'm years away from being good enough on any instrument from joining in. There aren't any slow sessions (for beginners) in the area. I'm just going to hang back and watch and get a feel for the scene, and continue to practice each day with either mandolin, fiddle, or bodhran (or all three). I have around ten traditional celtic tunes mastered (on the mandolin), so that's about 490 to go (at least). The bodhran is a little more flexible. It's an easy instrument to get the basics of, but a hard instrument to be really good with--and there's little less tolerated that a bad bodhran player.

* * *
Picked up another rejection slip. Time to send it out again. And time to work on some more stories. I have a bunch of notes written down, and I've got a PDA w/ 8MB of memory now with which to store these ideas with a convenient hot-sync to get them to the computer. No more jotting them down on little pieces of paper, only to lose said little pieces of paper. I could never get the hang of voice-recording my notes, but the PDA should help somewhat, and for longer notes, I have a collapsable keyboard to make the job easier.
* * *
I am pleased to report that Pretty Maggie is feeling much better. It’s a long road to recovery, and she’s not entirely there yet, but I think it is safe to say she's just about back to hale and hearty status. My leg is pretty much healed up all nice-nice. With injuries and illness, snow and ice, January was a rough month in spots. I think February is going to be a great improvement.

Still, I can't wait for spring to get here.

* * *
Today's link takes us to T Campbell's blog. T Campbell is the author and mastermind behind the excellent SFnal/fandom-inspired comic, Faans. T has been leaving blog entries at his Faans site, but this new blog covers a lot of his process and progress in his various writing and comic projects.

Cheers!