Morning has broken and so is my browser!

I decided to test my notebook to see if it will do the job of accompanying me to Brazil to help me communicate via Social Media (and of course this blog) while I away. This notebook is a fairly early model of a type which was notoriously low powered. Tablets eventually overtook them as the small computer of choice.
This notebook is slow as sin but has the advantage of having a decent real keyboard and if it should get lost or stolen it would not be the end of the world (but it would be the end of me communicating so let's hope that doesn't happen!) It is of course lighter than taking a laptop.

I turned it on and it eventually informed me that it needed to install the latest windows updates. So I waited patiently for that to complete and then found I now had Internet Explorer 11 on my machine.
Great I thought, I have the very latest browser now, so I then logged on to blogger.com which immediately started generating errors whilst informing me that my browser was not supported!!!

Ggggrrrrrrr! Back to Chrome then!

Am I a Psychopath?

Does cycling madly on a cycle path make me a psychopath? I cycled around eight miles yesterday as eight months (hmmm, eight is re-occurring here) of sedentary living is not normally a precursor for three weeks of touring in a hot climate. I cycled at great speed (with miss-functioning gears) trying to keep ahead of a very dark looking sky threatening to shower on me at any minute.

Today my bum aches and I am very tired, so that's good then!

As the rain falls, my spirits rise (although they are not connected)

My throat is no longer sore, yippee! Feeling good, now on to more planning. Got a whole load of tips from a post on Facebook about remedies for reviving my voice. I cannot predict how good the monitoring will be at the gigs I do in Brazil, so forewarned is forearmed as they say.

I phoned in some final dimensions to Flightcase Warehouse to have a custom built case for my Fender Esprit guitar, ready made for my trip. I want it to be as comfortable as me on my journeys.

I have ordered a special apre performance string cloth to help keep the tone and condition of my strings good  for as long as possible. I can only imagine how sweated over they will be in a climate as hot as Brazil.

Ordered a Post Office Credit card yesterday which is apparently good for making purchases abroad, and picked up 350 Reals in cash so that I have some local currency when I arrive.

Today, I will put together a little press release and send it to the local papers in case they find my little adventure newsworthy, not guaranteed but always worth a try.

Am I doing this too early or am I just well organised, flight date Feb 11th.

Was going to go out for a cycle ride to tone me up fitness wise but it's raining now so another day it must be.

DJ Stevie D

Wrist is much better today after yesterday having it bound up in a bandage on top of lashings of deep heat and a full dosage of Ibuprofen. However I feel distinctly under the weather which is not how I need to be with all of the things I need to get ready before I go away.

One of the things I am doing at the moment is selecting a number of tracks to be played before my first gig.
Apparently I am to be a DJ for the first part of the evening, before taking the stage for the first gig. My taste is very diverse, much of which will probably not create the right atmosphere before I play. I enjoy music in many ways and one of them (as a songwriter) is in the way songs and lyrics are constructed, I can admire a song's construction or it's lyrics/concept/subject matter or all three without it being 'my sort of music' (whatever that might be) and then I end up adoring it.

I love music very, very much and I can hate it too with a vengeance.

The secret's in the wrist action!

I have been having a day of rest, due entirely to the fact that I sprained some muscles in my wrist carrying too much shopping at one time. Just makes me realise how easy could be to throw out plans for touring Brazil in February if I don't look after myself. It's only a little sprain and I hope to be over it in a day or two.
I am being responsible though, I have actually recently restrained myself from doing something I enjoy a lot, I declined to go ice skating because of the tour and because the last time I skated I smashed up my chest three times nearly cracking a rib or two.

Great fun though.

Charged guilty of Neglect!

 I dug out my Fender Esprit today, to start to prepare it for my tour of Brazil and what a state it was in. Bunged back into it's case after the last Neurotics gig and left sweaty, dirty and with a broken G string.

It was a forlorn sight; I am not too good with keeping up maintenance with my guitars. It always seems so pointless to clean them up before a gig because they are going to get sweated over again so soon afterwards.
When the gig is finished I forget all about it making them shine again.
Anyway, my Fender has now been cleaned and restrung with the finest strings that can be found in our dis-United Kingdom and is back to being a glimmering black beauty.

 Ahh, you always rust the ones you love.

Today Harlow, Tomorrow Brazil (Well not actually tomorrow)

Hi all,
         long, long time since I put anything on this blog isn't it. I take the position that I do not have time to write about stuff that often and so I need to have something that motivates me to make the time to do it.
It also has to be about something that people may be interested in. Sooo....

I have committed myself to a tour of Brazil in February, all on my own, with a band being supplied for me when I get there, that means that I will be undertaking this all on my own and be playing with a band I have never met or heard.

Now that sounds like an adventure and seems like it would lend itself to a rather interesting blog. So if you want to, follow my exploits day by day as I prepare to leave, and travel with me as I attempt to fashion a band into a fantastic Neurotics line up with a couple of days of rehearsal and a roll of gaffer tape.

Sounds like the making of a great reality TV program! Stay tuned!