I didn't get things posted today, I heard from an ol shipmate right after I got home, and we ended up texting for a couple hours

some days I have a lot of spare time, and post a lot. 

Probably most days, but not today.

Anyway, as long as I'm talking, I figure it's a good time to mention that a month from now is my 20th anniversary. 

And this is my 66600 post. (Yeah, 666 and a couple zeros) 

To let you know I'm going to have less spare time after my 20th anniversary. 

It takes all my spare time, after work, before work, and on weekends. I've got a couple other things I want to focus on.,... like learning to play guitar, music theory, and make a couple books... maybe 3. One on my family tree, one on my favorite poetry, https://better-than-palgrave.blogspot.com and another on the history of my home town https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100095524357751

Life is too short, and none of us have any idea when the clock will run out for us. So, since I'm 55, have diabetes type 2 (recently acquired in Jan 2021) so I need to get to work on my other hobby interests while I still can, 'cause they are going to take a long time. 

As for the poetry and history, the links above show I've got a really good start on those. I started the poetry project before I started this blog, and interrupted what was a good start, until I was done with this project. I have about 175 books of poetry, that I am about 1/2 way through and then putting the ones I like the most, in one book, means I never have to hunt through the 200 books to find them. If you ever look up the Ralph Woods Treasuries, or the Between the Bookends by Ted Malone, the collections of Tony Wons... you'll find a lot of great stuff, and I want to select all those and put them together in one book for myself. 

The history of my home town will take a lot more time and effort once I'm old and retired and can get back to Michigan to pound the pavement to research it more. 

I already spent about 12 months tracing out my family tree, and that's the majority of the work on that project, I just want to index, cross reference, etc etc so I can look up any last name to see if there's a connection with any other family last name.

So, learning to play guitar... I bought a couple guitars at estate sales, and facebook marketplace, very inexpensive, except for the Taylor... some local online auction and estate sale auction company never handles guitars, they mostly do companies going out of business...   and they had an auction that was fronted by a 66 Ford truck, So I was looking at that, and a Taylor 110 acoustic was there... and a very old Ibanez. For the price of a new Yamaha.. it's a 2008 and likely never used. Long story, but I think they were both owned by a woman born in 1944... do the math, she was 64 when she got the Taylor, and the company she bought the strings for the Ibanez, went out of business in 1987. She owned a couple guitars she didn't play. I found her name on the Ibanez case, and looked her up. Amazing woman! I am guessing she's dead, hence the estate sale of her things... but I'm going to try and see if she's alive, to learn more about her, and the guitars... hey, you all know, I'm very curious. 

Anyway, for the curious about guitars, I bought a 1960s Aria, 1960s Goya, 1960s Kawai, 1960s Ibanez, and 2008 Taylor. Models I can fill you in on later but all are big acoustic, no electric, dreadnaught size, or darn close to it.

I've wanted to learn to play guitar since I was 4... and heard so much cool music on the radio, like the Beatles, Beach Boys, Elvis, Johnny Cash, Eagles, Frampton, Patsy, Willie, and all the country and western hits, 50s music, 60s music, Motown, etc etc. and especially all the one hit wonders on 45s from the 60s and 70s

But poor families don't gift guitars. Damn shame, kids who are studying music, and playing guitars, and trying to do all the guitar music, don't have time to get into much trouble, often find themselves with cool girlfriends, cool friends, great teen age years of experiences, etc. I had my first guitar lesson last Saturday. It was nothing hard, but a very basic beginning, and I was STOKED afterward as I drove to get lunch, wondering if I'd win the auction on the Taylor and the Ibanez to make a hope for a REALLY good new guitar a reality

Hell, my grandma was so musically gifted she was given a scholarship to Intrerlochen for piano talent. She was so dextrous, she could type a hundred words a minute on a manual typewriter, she told me.