danajohnhill.org

Earlier this year, I purchased a Fender ‘65 Reissue Twin Reverb guitar amplifier from my local independent music store, Lipham’s.  I not only got a great deal, but I was glad to support local business, particularly one that’s been around for so long.  I’m not saying that Lipham Music is the best store in history–their selection is fairly modest, and they seem to be stocking many more Chinese-made instruments these days–but they do sell Fender and Martin guitars, and, what’s more, they’ve outlast most of the other shops in town.

Last night, after dinner, Miriam and I went somewhere I haven’t been in a long, long time: Best Buy.  I used to go there a lot in days of yore, especially back when HDTV was just being introduced, and I was eager to see what it looked like.  Their service was always lousy (not as lousy as Circuit City, of course), and just about everything I ever bought there broke within two years, but they’ve always had a lot of stock.  Last night, I discovered a new department in an area where CRT televisions were once displayed.  Best Buy now sells musical instruments.  They have drums, keyboards, DJ equipment, and guitars, including Fender and Gibson.

A number of things bother me about this.  First, I don’t think their staff cares about these instruments, since I found every guitar grossly out of tune.  Second, their prices were absurd.  The same Twin Reverb I bought for $899 at Lipham’s was marked $1,699 at Best Buy.  Maybe that’s what they’re going for elsewhere, but it just seemed extreme to me.  Finally, I think musical instruments are just Best Buy’s latest passing fancy.  That’s what troubles me most.  In a worst-case scenario, here’s what I imagine occurring:

1. Lipham Music loses sales to Best Buy.  There are only so many new electric guitars and amplifiers–particularly higher-end models–that will sell each week in Gainesville.  If Lipham loses those sales, it could hurt them significantly.  Lipham’s closes.
2. Musical instruments make up so little of Best Buy’s bottom line that they give up on the endeavor.
3. Gainesville has no music store.  Since Best Buy’s decision is made at the national level, they don’t care that Gainesville is left with nothing.

I don’t know how likely this scenario is.  I may just be paranoid.  But I know that I’d never get a deal on an amp at Best Buy like I did at Lipham’s, and Best Buy doesn’t have the tradition of heritage that Lipham’s does.  After all, a little more than ten years ago, the Best Buy was a Montgomery Ward.  Lipham’s has been in business for fifty years.  But these are hard times.

I hope they can weather the storm.

When I graduated high school in 1995, the best hope I had for keeping in touch with my friends was to know their phone numbers and mailing addresses.  Nobody I knew had email.  In fact, I only knew a few people who had ever been online.  So, I had many notes in my senior yearbook from friends and classmates that included a telephone number, and for a while I did stay in touch.  Indeed, I used to get actual letters from my friends off at college.  Life being what it is, however, I had, by 2000, lost track of many of those who had once been close to me.

Social networking websites have wrought much evil, but they have reintroduced me to several friends who had, for all intents and purposes, dropped off the face of the Earth.  Facebook has done more to counter the diasporic effects of time than anything else, and on Monday I experienced a rich reward: I had dinner with Erin Alvarez.

It had been almost ten years since I had seen her last, and until we found one another on Facebook, I couldn’t have guessed she lived here in Gainesville.  But she does, and she has a nice boyfriend, and we had a great time at Big Lou’s, and I am looking forward to spending lots more time catching up and hanging out.

Now if I can just persuade my friends Dan and Burt to move to Gainesville I’ll be set.

I’m not going to go Ted Kaczynski here, but I cannot fail to notice the ways technology has caused me immense frustration over the course of the last year.  In 2008, I had to buy a new television to replace one I had purchased less than two years before; I had to buy a new computer to replace another that failed in data-losing fashion; and I experienced a months-long plumbing nightmare.

My new HDTV is the greatest thing ever, and thanks to the good folks at Quality Plumbing, the drain is clear, so that horror has ended.  But no sooner had the water begun flowing than more trouble has come along to take the place of the old.  This weekend, after being at work all afternoon for back-to-back beg-a-thon shifts, I arrived home to find the house exceptionally warm.  The air conditioner was blowing hot air.  Thanks to help I received in the past from the Clays–who had a similar problem–I knew the culprit was a bad capacitor, and I did replace it today at minimal cost.  But, that’s just the beginning.

Miriam began complaining recently that the laptop–my expensive replacement for the old computer that failed so horribly–was behaving oddly.  For instance, when she would turn it on, the screen would be blank.  Not having experienced it myself, I couldn’t guess the cause.  By Sunday morning, however, it happened to me.  Indeed, after starting Windows, the screen would go blank and stay blank.  Sara told me that that is precisely what her HP laptop did to her less than a year after she bought it.  This computer is less than ten months old, so it is still under warranty, and, if it’s going to break, now’s the best time, being the holiday between spring and summer classes.  But, hell fire, what is the world coming to that we cannot make a product that lasts more than a couple years any more?

I’ll confess my share of the blame: I have allowed myself to become captive to the power and convience of computers.  Indeed, I use a computer every day for many important tasks.  Consequently, when I have this sort of problem, it’s a cripling predicament.  I spent an hour and a half on the phone this morning with HP technical support (not being jerked around – it just took a long time to run some diagnostic tests), and now I will be without my laptop for two weeks.

I’m not planning on going off the grid, but sometimes I’m tempted.

After almost two weeks of off-and-on work, I finally put the finishing touches on my newly motorized bicycle, and this afternoon, as I pedaled briskly down my street, I popped the clutch and the engine came to life.  I have to make some minor adjustments to the carburetor to reduce the idle speed, but it seems to be doing what it was designed to do.

The engine is something I bought online for $124.  It came with everything needed to convert a 26″ bicycle to a moped.  As I wrote recently, however, my Schwinn–a gift from Jeff and Sandi in 2007–was just slightly too small to accommodate the motor.  It turns out that many mountain bikes have small frames for their wheel sizes.  Bikes designed for road use generally have great big frames with lots of clearance for an engine.  Serendipitously, Sarah Jean had a bike laying around, and she just gave it to me.  For nothing.  The engine fit perfectly.

The kit came with comically mistranslated instructions.  I made better progress when I discarded them in favor of photos of other motorized bicycles online.  The throttle cable and carburetor cable gave me trouble, as did the chain, which required the removal of several links.  I didn’t have a chain breaking tool, but I got the guys at Bikes and More on 6th Street to do the job for me.  It was cheaper than buying the tool.  Alas, they made it an inch too short, so I had to improvise my own tool (a nail set), and I put a link back in.  I was extremely confused by what to do with multiple springs, and where the printed instructions included patently false information, a Flickr search showed me that one spring wasn’t mean to be used as a spring at all, but as a heat shield for the clutch cable.

I wouldn’t say that I was going the full 30 miles per hour this afternoon that some have claimed.  It’s really hard to judge speed on a bicycle.  Supposedly, if you make some changes to the exhaust system you can dramatically increase performance.  But that would involve increased noise, and that’s the last thing I want.  I’d be willing to sacrifice speed for less noise.  As it is, right now it basically sounds like a chainsaw.

Getting used to the clutch and the braking system will be my biggest challenges now.  Braking involves putting in the clutch to disengage the drive, then stopping as normal.  But you have to remember to start pedaling before you pop the clutch again, or else you’ll stall. I think I am going to just use the engine when I have to go up steep grades, and when I have long straightaways where I don’t need to do a lot of starting and stopping.  It’s going to make my life easier.

I recognize that 2008 was, for many, a bad year.  The worst economy in generations, rising unemployment, and record prices for almost everthing stemming from gasoline that topped $4.00 a gallon made life difficult for a lot of people.  In spite of all this, 2008 was good to me.  Some highlights:

• I began classes at the University of Florida.  This is remarkable, because had I waited any longer the window would have closed on me, probably forever.  The University announced this year that they were changing their admissions policy for transfer students.  Unlike other universities in Florida, UF doesn’t have to admit students with transfer degrees from community colleges.  They can pick and choose.  And when the average GPA for entering freshmen at UF is over 4.0, there is little incentive for them to take people like me.  I got in just under the wire.  School is challenging, but rewarding.  I feel very grateful to be where I am.
• This year I became active in a roller debry league.  I am not a skater, of course, but I spent a lot of time with the girls who are skaters, and contributed to the league in my own small way.
• I did lots of traveling in 2008.  In January I spent a weekend in Daytona Beach at the wedding of my closest friends; in June I spent almost a week in Chicago, which is surely one of the world’s great cities; in early August I spent several days in Hilton Head, South Carolina, which I didn’t care much for as a place, but can now say I’ve seen; went to Savannah twice; had a great weekend in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, which is a delightful little town; had an incredibly memorable week in Washington, DC, where I saw a million amazing things.
• I made lots of new friends, and reconnected with many old friends on Facebook.  I saw Burt twice.
• I got myself an amazing Fender Telecaster, which is ideal in nearly every way.
• I continued my incredible no-vomiting streak.
• I paid off all of my credit card debt.
• I watched lots of Olympics on TV.
• I became the last person I know to buy a laptop computer, and it’s changed my life.
• I discovered Samuel Johnson, which also changed my life.
• I had several photographs published in books, magazines, and even the website of the Wall Street Journal.
• I ate an astonishing amount of Hungry Howie’s pizza.
• I perfected the grilled cheese sandwich (the secret ingredient is salt).
• I read: Emma; Persuasion; Oroonoko; Wuthering Heights; Lady Audley’s Secret; Evelina; Robinson Crusoe; Roxana; Oliver Twist; The Monk; Clarissa; Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and tons of poetry.
• I saw Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band in concert; they played “Jungleland”.

So long, 2008.  You were good to me.  As I do every year, I close with the Stephen Foster sentiment that has become my credo: Hard Times Come Again No More.