A video clip from my October trip to Escalante

This video was taken at Jacob Hamblin Arch in Coyote Gulch, about forty miles southeast of Escalante, Utah. The hike was great, once you got out of about five miles of sandy washes. This canyon's walls are massive. It is hard to get the correct scale of things in this video clip.

Escalante is riddled with terrain like this, including many various death traps and fun stuff. It's my kind of place. Just take a lot of water with you and don't trust the boy scouts. They kind of go a bit feral when they are set loose out here.

Enjoy!

What's that smell? (Featuring guitar video)

Have you ever had one of those days where you smelled like toast? I'll be damned if I didn't have one of those days today. Being sick sucks rotten vegetables. I need to invent the "Face Diaper". There's this guy that every time he sees me he mentions the dangers of pornography. I'm thinking that he owns a secret stash of Good House Keeping magazines, and his wife doesn't know anything about it. I really hope that they have kids. I did a crap video of me showing of the guitar build. I didn't make it from raw materials. It was a build made up from castaway parts and cheap stuff. I have been sick so I am not in the best mood to play guitar or look presentable. Enjoy!

I'm trying

I never knew that this loss of my sister would be so hard for me. It really takes effort to break out of the grief. I've had some pretty horrible dreams where my parents keep telling me to go find my sister. I tell them that she's dead and they respond that she isn't and that I need to go and find her. When I go and look for her all of the negative aspects of the last few months fill my dream.

The extreme loneliness that comes after the sadness and shock, well, that is something that I never expected to feel. A couple of weeks back I made the mistake of driving by her old apartment building. I looked up at the apartment and saw that it was still empty. I don't know why that messed with me, but it did.

I have had some good things happen. My quarterly checkup with my oncologist was great. I am in good health. I've met some people in the past couple of weeks that freshened my hope a bit. I am forcing myself to play the guitar. Maybe I will write songs again and record, who knows? I guess the old cliche is true: it just takes time.

"The Joy of Blogging" by Maynard J. Simmons

Hello. I'd first like to thank Grüntark Q. Sherman (his real full name) for allowing me to share with you my remarks concerning blogging. Secondly, have you ever wondered if there are donkeys on the moon? If so, did you know that you can blog about such musings? Also, did you know that doing such a thing can create joyful thoughts in your mind? Friends, this is the joy of blogging.

I once was lost and now am found. I credit my parents putting my face on milk cartons for this happy event. Even better, I blogged about this experience. It made my toes tingle and my hair curl from excitement. Yea, my heart was full, and verily I felt as though the rapture had settled in my pants with every fiber of my being. Wait...that might have been Fiber One and beans that caused a rupture in my pants. I get a little confused when I'm happy.

There is a reason that I touch on this subject, briefly. I feel that my dearest friend Grüntark has lost the joy of blogging and is focusing too much on the ass end of life. I've witnessed him eat a whole bag of cheese curds and a jar of green olives while watching Little House on the Prairie reruns. The thing is that he keeps yelling "whore" and throwing throw pillows at the TV. What's more confusing is that it is only when Charles is on screen.

I think Grüntark would like to hear from all of you. It would cheer him up. It might even get him to blog more frequently. It might even get him to stop calling Mr. Ingalls a whore. Yes, he may once again experience the joy of blogging.

~Maynard.

I like the taste of ham in the morning.

I really think that Christopher Walken would be great as the Shamwow and Slapchop pitchman.

You know when you've been surfing the web too late at night when you start happening upon celebrity death pics. Don't ask.

I've been getting really deep in to the whole "Paul is dead" conspiracies lately. But I believe Paul when he answered Chris Farley's question on SNL, that, "I wasn't really dead." My take on all of it is that the Free Masons are behind it all and that 2012 has something to do with it. Ringo shot JFK! For realsies and realsies.

I finally finished the "Black" guitar, after much hassle. It isn't a dream to play because I had to put such heavy gauge strings on it to pull the neck forward that I can feel my metacarpals and phalanges stressing out when I try full step bends. The neck also has one dead spot on the 12th fret of the G string. A dead spot happens when the resonance in the neck cancels out the frequency of the note played--you get a fast decay of the note played. Fortunately, this is the only spot and I can play around it. That said, the guitar is pretty nice all around. The point of the guitar project was to use what parts I had laying around and whatever other parts needed would be acquired cheapity-cheap. I have proven that a good-playing and good-looking guitar can be had for under $100, so long as you put it together, set it up, and work the kinks out of it yourself. Good luck with that, though.

As for the new year, I haven't got any plans, so I'm up for whatevers.