I’ve been going to the Apple Worldwide Developer Conference for years. The last few years the ticket sales have been a bit quirky and many of us even had alerts that texted and emailed us when the announcement page changed. This year the page changed and announced that they’d start selling tickets at a predetermined time, 10AM PDT on 4/25.

Everyone knew the Apple Worldwide Developer Conference would sell out quickly, but for me it was under a minute. Here’s how not to get tickets to go.

1. Log into the site before the official sales start at 10AM PDT. This will serve to confuse things later
2. Start hitting Command-R as it reaches 10AM PDT.
3. Keep hitting Command-R for a minute because nothing is happening.
4. SEE THE PAGE THAT SAYS BUY A TICKET! CLICK THE BUTTON!
5. GET A LOGIN PAGE AND LOG IN!
6. Get an error page that tells you to retry or to click on a link to report the issue.
   1. Reporting the issue could take more time, and may not get a response.
   2. Refreshing will let you try something quicker!
7. HIT REFRESH!
8. SEE THE PAGE THAT SAYS BUY A TICKET! CLICK THE BUTTON!
9. Get the error page again.
10. Refresh again because we’ve determined it’s quicker, right?
11. SEE THE PAGE THAT SAYS BUY A TICKET! CLICK THE BUTTON!
12. Get the error page again.
13. OK, it’s time to try something new. Quit the browser and reopen.
14. Go to the WWDC ticket page.
15. GET A LOGIN PAGE AND LOG IN!
16. Get a page that says SOLD OUT.

OK, at this point, have a shitty rest of the day. This part isn’t necessary if you’re not me, but unavoidable if you are. I also added a nice trip with my mom to her doctor who made us wait an hour after the appointment time. He’s a super nice guy so I couldn’t stay mad, but it didn’t help my overall mood.

My sister attributed my problems to something stupid that actually did cheer me up. She said it was probably Megan’s doing, from wherever she is now, because she thought I didn’t need to visit San Francisco if she’s not there. We both laughed about it. It probably would be something she’d do and it’s nice to think that Megan’s still around somewhere, messing with us.

Yet another reminder of how I’m getting old. It’s my birthday weekend and it’s not really the greatest confluence of events. I’ve mentioned several of the other events and today I found out that Joe’s Cellar, one of the last neighborhood dive bars, is closing tonight. The building was deemed unsafe and was condemned. I was told by the manager at Portland Brewing that this was my last chance to go and it was packed full of people. I guess the weekend there has been nuts, or so said the bartender who might just have been the closest thing to a zombie that I’m ever going to see. Most of the patrons were probably not born when I first went to Joe’s Cellar with my buddy Greg, his dad, and his dad’s co-workers.

I just realized that there’s a couple of other close dive bars and I think I better give them some of my (not huge) business before they close as well. Crackerjack, here I come!

P.S. I just got two emails from two different people on two different dating sites. One from a fake person, and another from someone who is fifteen years older than me. Nice, eh?

Well, it is my birthday and I should’ve made a list of the things I wanted to do. I suppose I did make a short list and I nailed it:

1. Take the day off work.

I meant to do a couple more things, but whatever. I sat on my ass and went out to lunch with a buddy from work at a place that is run by an old grade-school classmate. The only things I did today were lame, like answering all the birthday wishes I got on Facebook (which weren’t that many) and trying to undo whatever my computer is doing to scramble the music in iTunes.

But it is my birthday and it is an off year. I started out the day trying to listen to Marc Maron’s interview with Johnathan Winters and quit just in time to find out that he passed away today. Closer to home, my sister’s goofy old basenji Dede had a seizure at 4AM and had to be put to sleep early this morning. And as my mom predicted, my sister didn’t cry when my dad died, but cried when her dog died.

Hooray. One year closer to my AARP card. I suppose it beats the alternative.

I haven’t gone out to see a live band in a long time. It’s not really my thing because even when I was young I was old and crotchety and I generally think it’s too loud and crowded. The sound is bad and just distorts in my ears. I wonder if people who really like loud music aren’t deafened by it already.

But my weird travels through old-timey music took me from banjo lessons to youtube to fiddle videos to thinking I should go see Beausoleil avec Michael Doucet. They’re a band I would really look forward to hearing on Prairie Home Companion, back when I listened to Prairie Home Companion a lot. Not sure why I quit, but nevertheless, I started trying to google Beausoleil. My first problem was that I didn’t know how to spell Beausoleil since I never took French and I had a heck of a time. When I finally figured it out and thought, DUH, I found out they’re touring and making a Portland stop. I bought my first ticket for a show in a long, long time. And, sadly, the first live show I’m not seeing with Megan in a long, long time too.

The opening band was the New Iberians from Portland and I’m not a big fan of their Zydeco/Blues music. When I got to the venue, I noticed I was one of the youngest people there. The New Iberians started out OK but went towards the Bluesy-rocky stuff I don’t like. The sound was muddy, and the women next to me talked throughout the entire set. I wondered if I made a mistake.

When the New Iberians finished, they started taking AWAY speaker cabinets and put up a couple of JBLs. Not only did this clear up the sound, but Beausoleil avec Michael Doucet (sans Jimmy Breaux) was exactly what I wanted to hear. I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to play Cajun fiddle in Michael Doucet’s style, but it sure was fun to listen to. I thought I’d miss hearing the accordion (I guess Jimmy Breaux ‘retired’ and started his own band) since that’s what drew me to Beausoleil’s sound, but the music was great without it. And late into their set, Michael Doucet played the accordion! So I guess I’m a fan.

I am also a bad son. My mom was admitted to the hospital again last night, and I called but didn’t visit today. She was admitted to the ICU(!) but is well enough that they sent her to a normal room and talked about letting her out tomorrow. It’s her birthday after all! Keep your fingers crossed…

Daylight savings time is making me very tired indeed.

Last week, after surviving the tower snookering, I noticed that my forearms seemed sore. The tower was wobbly after we took down the guy wires, so I must have been holding on for dear life and my death grip led to sore forearms. It’s a much better outcome than, say, falling off.

The only other new thing is that I’m realizing how awful my violin playing sounds. It’s actually an improvement that I can hear what I should be playing and know when I’m getting it wrong. It’s also a good thing that we insulated a lot of our house and it’s also a good thing that I don’t play an amplified instrument like the neighbor kid plays. I just keep practicing and tomorrow I should have my first fiddle lesson.

I was kind of upset that the only message I’ve seen on OKStupid lately is one that said, “Sorry, not my type,” but that person certainly isn’t my type either. Who can’t be bothered to write in complete sentences? I bet she can’t spell, either. Plus, most of the time I get NO reply, which at least leaves me with some dignity and the ability to imagine that maybe my email was lost.

So no clear narrative to my life, but at least nothing disastrous at this time, and that’s ok by me.

I suppose I was suckered several times this weekend. My buddy Greg is moving and he needed to take down his 70′ ham radio tower. He suggested cutting it down, which I first thought was a waste since that would mean it would end up as scrap, but the more I thought about it the more I thought it might actually be fun.

By the time I got to his place, other old friends were there and they wanted to take the tower down carefully so they could re-use it. Taking it down carefully is a lot more work requiring lots of ropes and pulleys and one poor sucker who has to climb up the tower risking life and limb. The other guys were a lot older than me (or a lot lazier like my buddy Greg) and somehow I was talked into going up the tower. Saturday I spent two or three hours taking down all the feed lines that used to go to the antennas that I helped take down years ago. Sunday I spent six hours disassembling the tower 10′ at a time, from the top. This also meant we were taking down all the guy wires that helped keep the tower steady and safe. We got it all down and fortunately the worst I can say is that I’m just tired.

I didn’t have time to practice my violin or finish my taxes but I did go to the gym twice. No wonder I’m so very, very tired.

I think I quit writing much on my blog when I realized I didn’t care about writing that much any more. Part of it was just the practice of writing something down every day and that became less important. Plus, I didn’t have that much to talk about on a daily basis. Right now I have a lot to talk about but I’m not sure I’m the one who should be doing it. Let me just say that several of my friends have lost their mothers lately, and I hope they and their families are all doing well, or as well as can be expected. My own mom has been in the hospital twice lately, and it’s no fun.

So, on this day two days after Valentines Day, what am I doing to cheer myself up? After wasting hours and hours for several weeks trying to undo all the damage that TuneUp and iTunes have done to my music library, I thought I’d use some correction tape to mask out some of the things in my beginning violin book. Unfortunately, Office Depot brand correction tape doesn’t work. It either spools off and won’t work because the tape is loose, or the correction bits don’t stick to the page. I’m taking it back (I hope they take it back) and getting Liquid Paper.

I’m also reading the news, which is a horrible thing to do if you’re trying to cheer yourself up. Since work was so hectic this week, I was catching up on a couple days worth of news, and the lighthearted articles from 2/14 were nothing I wanted to see. Fake marriage proposal rejection videos are also not funny to me at all. However, dudes hurting themselves while doing stupid things is pretty funny. Accidents, not so much.

So, articles on the hopelessness of online dating and people mistakenly telling me about their friends and their romantic weekends are not what I’m looking for. Two empty bottles of whisky (which took me months to empty, and have been empty for days) aren’t helping my mood either.

Oh, well. Maybe I’ll play some of the music that iTunes didn’t “fix” for me.

Not real sure why I’m feeling all that cranky right now. I’m finally getting over my cold. Yeah, I had a fever, then stomach problems, then a head cold with a 101.9°F fever, and now I’m feeling better. I’m also sucking ass at playing the banjo and the only New Year’s resolution I’ve kept is to stop watching Hawaii Five-O.

Check it out, though, new glasses and a haircut. You know what that means? I can see my computer screen so I can DO MY TAXES and my head is cold.

Check out that puss though. I’m not sure why the ladies aren’t crawling all over this guy.

Tomorrow I pick up my violin and I can have TWO instruments to play poorly. Nice.

101.2°F

Much better now.

I’ve been a lazy lump of sloth this week. I finally remembered that some time ago I had this same sort of thing happen, a cold followed by odd lingering stomach problems and I even went to see a doctor about it all. The Asian doctor recognized that the aging Asian man in front of him probably had GERD and prescribed something or another that was replaced by Prilosec OTC. Everything was sort of OK until just recently and I finally remembered this. I started taking whatever-it-is I found at Costco (not Prilosec) and I was starting to get better but today I FELT LIKE I’M COMING DOWN WITH A HEAD COLD. So just to recap, I had a fever, I had stomach troubles, and now I have a head cold. I love winter.

As far as my New Years resolutions go, I’m taking banjo lessons and boy do I suck. It’s still fun, though, so tough beans for anyone who has to listen to it.

I didn’t sleep well last night and I’m either coming down with another cold or I’m allergic to beer. I sure hope it’s not the allergy bit because that would surely suck.

It was a somber week at work. One of our co-workers had a heart attack in the parking lot and was not doing that well.

Today was Megan’s funeral and I’ve heard it was planned out by Megan. The service was surprisingly quick with hardly a mention of her name. There were standard prayers that were over in half-an-hour and no speeches. Later we all met at a restaurant and had a bit of a wake. It was actually quite nice and full of old friends I hadn’t seen in years and I appreciate that she didn’t give us any chance to be sad. But all last night, as I was tossing and turning with a stomachache, I felt like I was going to see Megan in the afternoon and I knew that wasn’t the case. I knew none of us would be seeing her again. I wonder if that was making my stomach hurt.

OK, so somewhere in the middle of kvetching about things I’m not doing this year, I realized I should shut the hell up and make a list of things I want to do. So today, on the biggest annual procrastination day of the year (otherwise known as the day my self-assessment for my work review is due) I took my violin to the luthier to get it back up to snuff! Then I went to a beginning banjo class (clawhammer for those of you who know more about banjo than I do) without having a spot in the class and made it in off of the wait list! This is something I never was able to do for medical school! (Yeah, I know, they’re not really comparable.)

I have to go back tomorrow to rent a banjo for the class, but this new-found interest led to watching YouTube videos of old time music, which led to the realization that I like old time violin, which led me to YouTube tutorials of violin exercises. So, now I have two instruments I could be playing soon (or not, we’ll see) which really does make more sense than keeping up with my twitter feed or my Facebook page. I feel sorry for anyone who has to hear this racket, but my mom’s hearing is going and I can hear the neighbor’s kid practicing on an electric piano so there’s no guilt! Plus, all my adolescent shame is gone and I can practice the violin outside of the closet!

I suppose it’s time to prioritize. I sure wish I was more organized. I can make lists, but then I forget to look at them. The list on my iPhone, for example, has items that I haven’t done for a month. I suppose that’s why I hire people to do renovations. It takes me months just to get around to fixing a squeaky door. I’ll have to rethink this.