Bill Roper's Journal

Work isn't (although the apps that have not yet been forceably uninstalled from my phone keep reminding me of meetings that I can no longer attend), but that does not mean that there aren't things that I need to be doing. Some of those are blocked until work actually sends me information that I need from them, but others can be taken care of.

I have paid the accountant for tax preparation, placed a call to my life insurance agent to see what we can do about reducing my monthly premium payment (I was told this can be done; now I need them to call back and do it), and spoke with my regular insurance agent about possible changes to auto insurance so that I know what my exposure is.

My *biggest* exposure, of course, is health insurance. I hope to get some ideas about that tomorrow when I talk to my financial advisor, although I expect that I will put the family on COBRA through year-end. I just really need to find out how to reasonably insure the kids in such a way that they can get the health care that I'm paying for.

In the meantime, I've started practicing for Debbie's Interfilk Guest concert at FKO. The number of days between now and then is relatively short and there's material to be worked up!

(I was looking at one of the songs today and said to myself "What rat bastard decided to chord this song in the key of F?" Then I looked at the music video and realized that the guitar player was playing a G chord. On a guitar that was detuned a full step. Well, that would do it. That song is *much* more playable in G.)

Guitar Acquisition Syndrome is a terrible thing. And -- contrary to popular belief -- there *is* such a thing as "too many guitars".

Last weekend, I went down to Tobias Music for their Taylor Custom Event, where they showed off a lot of custom Taylor variants. This was on Sunday, because the Fretboard Summit was in Chicago on Saturday, so the store was closed for the show and many people were in town. A bunch of the Taylor guitars that had been there came out to Tobias for the Sunday event.

I had gotten there early, because I wanted to take a look at the 517 and 717 Gold Label guitars that released recently. They are very nice guitars. Of course, I already own a 717e Builders Edition that I bought back in 2019. And while I was looking at those, the Taylor sales rep pulled a guitar out for me to look at. It was *also* a very nice guitar.

After the show was over, I went into the Taylor room to check on a model that was hanging on the wall there and confirmed that it sounded like I expected it to. And then I asked the owner, Paul, if I could take another look at the guitar that the Taylor sales rep had pulled out for me to look at earlier.

A few minutes later, I was sitting in a chair with that guitar, a 517 Gold Label, and a 717 Gold Label, playing them against each other to see what everything sounded like. And I liked the guitar that the sales rep had pulled out better.

It happens that the last person to play that guitar had been Andy Powers, the Master Guitar Designer for Taylor. I was the next person. And the guitar went home with me.

I cannot tell you what that guitar is right now. I'll get around to it.

In the meantime, adding that guitar to the collection caused me to exceed the maximum reasonable (or perhaps unreasonable) number of guitars that I owned, so one of them would have to leave. It is my second-oldest Taylor, the 710ce-l9 short-scale limited edition with an Englemann spruce top and Indian rosewood back and sides. It is a lovely guitar, but I have not played it very much at all since I got the 717 (also spruce and rosewood), so it has gone down to Tobias Music on consignment and should eventually make its way onto their website.

And the new guitar is sitting in my office now, along with my 326ce and my 326 Baritone-8.

I have a lot of guitars.

I got a call back from the guitar tech about my guitars. It is going to cost nearly $600 to get my Guild 12-string fixed up between needing a partial refret job and having the bridge removed and reglued.

He can't handle the Guild 6-string, because the neck reset will require refinishing that he's not got the equipment to do, but he has recommended some other shops that could do the work. That will have to wait until I get that guitar back from there and I'm in no rush to run pick it up, since it's nearly an hour drive each way.

Old guitars appear to be expensive, even if you already own them.

So my friend Amy McNally posted a picture of a set of fingerpicks several weeks ago with no real notice of what the plan was for them. There are a lot of things you can do with fingerpicks and I'm sure I'll find out at some point.

When I was in fifth and sixth grade, I spent a fair amount of time playing with fingerpicks as my guitar teacher taught me fingerpicking using a couple of Chet Atkins method songbooks. This was a good thing in the sense that I learned a lot about fingerpicking that way. It was a bad thing in the sense that it's really nice to have fingerpicks that fit.

My hands are not the largest hands in filking. They are, however, large enough that very few fingerpicks are likely to fit. I got some metal fingerpicks, because they are a bit easier to adjust. Unfortunately, I really hate the tone of metal fingerpicks to the point where I just put the things away.

But it is a brave, new, Internet-enabled world out there. Maybe I could find some fingerpicks that were big enough. And I found some large size fingerpicks on Amazon and ordered them, figuring that it was worth a try.

They were lost in shipping.

Stop laughing.

After several weeks of watching Amazon not deliver my order, I canceled it, ordered the same fingerpicks over again yesterday, and they arrived today, which is the sort of performance that I had expected in the first place, given that the picks are shipped *from* Amazon.

The new fingerpicks are still a bit smaller than I like. But they sound ok. And they fit ok *enough*. I played a few songs with them tonight and detected some long-buried memories drifting back to the surface.

I'll try it again and we'll see how it goes. :)

I had a chance to play a bit yesterday on a Taylor 652ce, which is their reverse-strung 12-string. It was very nice.

However, I already have my Guild 12-string, which is a very nice spruce and rosewood model from the early 1980s that is well played in. And what I have discovered, in the years since I acquired my first Taylor (710 cedar and rosewood six-string), is that there are probably more songs that are going to sound good on a six-string than on a twelve-string.

Not all of them though. (I spent some time playing through "Closer to Fine" today, which is an *excellent* song for a twelve-string.)

But there are not that many songs where a twelve-string would be a big plus for me.

And I have enough guitars.

Ask Gretchen. :)

I am in a mood and am shopping for a present for myself, because I have been working very hard on too many things. Also, I am old and cannot leave *all* of my money to my children. :)

I have been thinking about a new guitar since I laid hands on a mahogany-topped Taylor AD27 at a Taylor Find Your Fit session down at Tobias Music some months ago. That was a really sweet little guitar and not quite like anything else that I own, because I am a rosewood junkie. But I didn't buy it.

I discussed this with Gretchen and we agreed that I could go guitar shopping. So late in the day, I took our only available car away and drove down to Tobias Music to look at guitars. I took along my first Taylor, which was a nearly 25-year-old cedar/rosewood Taylor 710, because that's been my office workhorse lately and there's no sense buying a guitar that sounds just like it, since I already *have* a guitar that sounds just like it.

The owner is a very nice fellow and helped me set up in the Taylor room. They are currently out of the mahogany AD27, but they have a number of similar models, including a unique-to-them blond version of the all-maple AD27. This was interesting, because I haven't had my hands on an all-maple Taylor in a great many years, so anything I knew about them then would clearly be wrong now.

The all-maple AD27 turned out to be nice, but it wasn't different from my 710 in any way that I preferred, so it is off the list. I did get a chance to play an all-mahogany Taylor 324 and that had an interesting sound, so when the mahogany AD27 is back in stock, I'll want to take a close listen to it again. And I played guitars with spruce/ovangkoi (the latter being an African wood similar to rosewood) and spruce/walnut, both of which were interesting, but not in the way that the mahogany is.

There was another fellow who wandered in to look at guitars while I was there and this led to a great deal of guitar geekery, all of which was good.

So no money has been spent (other than on gas and dinner at Mission BBQ). Yet.

We'll see how things go when the mahogany AD27 is back in stock. :)

I went down to Tobias Music tonight for a Taylor Guitars Find Your Fit event. The main difference between this and a Road Show is that they don't bring in a lot of interesting custom guitars to look at, but there was a good selection and a good explanation of the various tonewoods and models.

Afterwards, I got a chance to look at and play a few of the guitars. There was an AD27 that really wanted to follow me home, but I really don't need another guitar.

Pretty little guy though...

Finally got the stand downstairs, so here's a photo of the new guitar and amplifier that my brother sent me for my birthday. 🙂

My brother sent me a belated 65th birthday present, which arrived today, just before my 66th birthday. It is an absolutely gorgeous custom electric guitar and amplifier. I have had a chance to unpack them, but not yet to hook them up and play them, which is clearly next on the list.

In the meantime, I have thanked him profusely. :)

Today, at Gretchen's urging, I pulled out my guitar and spent some time playing, which is something I've done very little of lately. I played a bunch of my own stuff, along with some Paul Simon, John Denver, Steve Goodman, the Beatles, and other assorted bits and pieces. It was sort of "anything that I can remember".

And then Gretchen suggested that practicing "Apology" for the Pegasus concert would be a really good idea, so we did that. Once I remembered the chords, it was fine. :)

Very late this evening, Julie wanted to go over to the deserted skate park and -- since tomorrow is a day off from school -- we took her. Unfortunately, although the ramps didn't feel wet to her, there were scattered slick spots and she eventually hit one and wiped out. She's got a couple of nastily scraped knees, but it doesn't look like anything worse than that, which we are thankful for.

And that's how it went today.