Practice and Improvement

Today I did a lot of work on my guitar. I played a little GH, but nothing mentionable.

I didn't create much, but I played all I know.
I got Hey There, Delilah back in shape.
It's a good song.

My fingers are killing me right now, particularly the ones on my left hand.

I'm getting better, but I need to keep going. I feel like I've almost slacked off.
I think I might head off to Guitar Cardio to do some exercises.

That should help.

I just had a thought recently... Eliza's older sister Abi is getting married this summer.
I'll be there.
I bet I'm going to be asked to play her a song... I might have one written by then anyway.
Scary thought. I might actually have to play in front of a crowd. I've never done that!

Anyway, I'll keep chugging along.
Here's the awesome vid.

Receiving the Eagle Scout Award

Today I spent every waking moment dealing with my Eagle Court of Honor.
I had things to write out, I had to iron all of the uniform, there was the actual occasion that evening, and that night I spent dealing with concerns abt... Eliza. Her boyfriend broke up with her - not like we didn't see it coming.

I gave an acceptance speech thingy - it went well, supposedly. I ended up directing it toward the younger scouts and the cub scouts that were there. I gave my two-cents about why Scouting is important and why they should never give up, I think.

That evening I saw Sarah there at church. We spoke for a bit - Everyone was dressed up - it was kind of amusing. Aside a personal fiasco involving her I won't mention, nothing significant happened. But needless to say, clearly the assertion that she's just been busy is true. My freak-out mode officially ended yesterday...

Uh... by the way, for those who wonder, Sarah is my girlfriend, or at least was at one point (complicated i know), and Eliza's my best friend - she lives like 7 hours away these days... but we keep in touch still. She's moving to Utah around the time I go back to BYU-I, so we might hang out every now and then more in the future.


Anyways...
I listen to music from Guitar Hero that I put on my iPod more than I thought I would. I skip lame bonus tracks, but considering the GH songs constitute 88 out of a little over 400 songs I have, I would hear them randomly often.
It's part of getting exercise - I listen to it when I go running.

This is one of my "big news" posts - there aren't very many occasions where I deviate almost completely. But with Eliza's breakup, my Sarah, and my Eagle Scout award thing tonight, there are always things to be blabbing about.
I'll shutup for now.
Peace.

The Hard Way: Eliza's Necklace

I don't care for removing things from their backgrounds, as I'm sure I previously mentioned.
This is what you'd call the worst case scenario.
There are endless varieties of ways to separate one object from another. There is Hue, Saturation, and Brightness - at least one of these varies in some degree between separate objects. The other 1% of the time, usually the location or the size/shape/texture varies enough.

This time it was medium grays on medium grays... yuck... what a nightmare. I learned something, though - If you keep a steady hand, a layer mask can be fine tuned. Apparently different brushes on a layer mask and a careful stroking of it can get you what you're looking for no matter what. That's a big confidence booster: it proves that anything can be removed from anything. It did take a few hours, though - but probably half that time was spent searching for and attempting other things - and failing.

It's pretty, isn't it? Eliza sent it to me from her phone. Maybe my work's not perfect, but good enough for a source image, and I can always touch it up.

Eliza's Coming !!!?

Eliza Owen, one of the (if not the) closest of my friends is going to be stopping by this evening. That's kinda crazy, considering she's had two birthdays since I saw her last. I'll be strange - it's been so long...

That's the headline of today, aside the fact that I dug up my old Japanese stuff (which in comparison doesn't even register on the radar), which I will deal with next post.
Tonight will probably be a night I'll remember for some time, whether for good or ill.

All I know is the house is clean (finally) and my mom made brownies. Yum!
But seriously... This occasion is sure to be anything but typical.

...
...later...
...

The funny thing about tonight is I never had a brownie. Eliza had at least two I believe...
She's known for being the Sugar Angel.
天使の砂糖 (That's Tenshi no Satou.)

Anyways, that was fun, and a lot less weird than I thought it would be...
We haven't seen each other in almost a year and a half, but it was just like old times...

I still am curious how our parents got along... they didn't say anything or make any remark. I felt like there was bound to be some comments coming, but they said nothing, which is surprising. I almost wish they had - makes me wonder...

エライザ/ Eliza... what can I say?... All I know is she's one of a kind.
The kind everyone wants, but nobody deserves.
If there is such a thing as too much fun, only she would know. She's the best friend anyone could have. Everyone needs an Eliza... lol...

If only, if only the woodpecker cried...

Abi and Drew were here too, of course.
アビ/ Abi is the lovable older sister - Who I seem to share a plane of reality with, as odd as that sounds. We both are in college and both have been using the invisalign braces, and just got them off at the same time. It's funny how much we seem to have in common, despite how different we are...

ヅレウ/ Drew is Eliza's adorkable twin brother, who is her total opposite in every way. And yet he's cool. A little obsessed with Halo, and nerdy, but we all love him anyway. He's writing a sci-fi book about something. Supposedly I'll be aiding with it.

Well, that's all I got to say about that. wow. just wow.