Monday, Nov 30

30.11.2020

Another decent day. Nothing too curious. Had over 120 beans, but slowly. Didn't get any problems from them. I guess at some point I may want to start taking less, so I can re-develop my sensitivity to caffeine. It worked before.

Deadlift

Warmup

180 - 3 sets of 8

200*1 for the first time in a long while - with a hook grip

Some overhand curls with an empty bar, a tiny bit of rear kicks for extra bloodflow.

Did a lot of drumming - got better, I hope. Recorded a couple important parts. Tried recording a fast part, but only could keep in time for five bars, then I got out of beat. I think I need to fix my bass drum better.

Most important revelation of the day - when recording live drums, you really have to lower the input volume on the audio interface/mixer.

Unless you're playing super quietly, of course. Then you may want to increase it.

And I really need to work on solidifying my bass pedal technique - it's all over the place. Fix the drum, stick with the heel-toe for now, and try to not lift up the foot completely off the pedal - if I do that, the beater flies back and hits me on the foot 😃 Maybe it's a good technique for something, I don't know. Really enjoyed drumming today. But I need to go through more lessons. I feel like I also need to improve my grip on the sticks. gotta look them up, do some stuff tomorrow. Hopefully, my cns will be able to take it.

Also I fiddled with the guitar once again - retuned it from C to D standart, and adjusted intonation. Figured out how to do it. The open string doesn't have to be "ideally" at the right frequenct to have good intonation - it should be in the green zone, just like the octave note. So if the open string is below and octave note is above "ideal" frequency but still in the green zone - that's okay. I remember when I first tried setting up the guitar - I was bothered by it way too much. Today I was actually quite curious to do it. And I think I managed to do it somewhat succesfully - however, the strings might still be way too floppy, even though I have heavy gauge strings on at the moment. I guess it's less floppy at this tuning on longer scale guitars. SG and LP are intended for "lighter" playing and lighter gauges.

Random pic of the day

O'Hara's Tower was a watchtower in the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar. It was located at the highest point of the Rock of Gibraltar, at what is now O'Hara's Battery, near the southern end of the Upper Rock Nature Reserve. Initially known as St. George's Tower, it was constructed in the late 18th century on the order of then Lieutenant Governor Charles O'Hara, under the presumption that it would be useful in observing the enemy at the Port of Cadiz. Not only was it unsuccessful, it was struck by lightning shortly after it was built, and remained in ruins for much of the 19th century until its demolition in 1888. Formerly referred to as St. George's Tower, it came to be known as O'Hara's Tower or, frequently, O'Hara's Folly.

The tower had first been proposed by General Charles O'Hara, then Lieutenant Governor, who served as Governor of Gibraltar from 1795 to 1802. He was notorious for having surrendered to both George Washington and Napoleon Bonaparte, at Yorktown (1781) and Toulon (1793), respectively. O'Hara had been of the opinion that a tower at The Rock's summit would enable the garrison to observe the activity of the Spanish fleet at the Port of Cadiz, about 60 miles (97 km) away. He was alone in this belief; despite this, with persistence, he succeeded in having the tower built. It was constructed of hewn stone and iron between 1787 and 1791. However, others' concerns were justified, as it turned out that Cadiz was not visible from the tower due to the elevation of intervening mountains. Not long after the tower's construction, it was hit by lightning during a violent storm and severely damaged. One of the tower's sentinels died in the lightning strike. By 1811 the tower had garnered the nickname of "O'Hara's Folly", bestowed by the garrison. O'Hara's Tower was in ruins through much of the remainder of the 19th century. O'Hara's Tower had been scheduled for demolition in 1888. The details of its demolition vary slightly. In one account, the tower came down that year as a result of target practice by the crew of HMS Wasp. In another, there was a bet between the gunners of the garrison and the officers of HMS Wasp. The men of HMS Wasp adjusted their guns such that they were able to target at a high elevation, and brought down the tower with their sixth shot. However this is unlikely due to the fact HMS Wasp (1880) foundered in 1884 and HMS Wasp (1886) was lost with all hands in 1887. Following demolition of the tower, O'Hara's Battery was constructed on the same site, with the first 6-inch breech-loading gun installed on a Vavasseur mounting in 1890.

All information taken from wikipedia. Mildly interesting.