some things i did learn.

the things i did learn this weekend. {some of them anyway}

sometimes, when driving to sacramento on a friday night at six pm {eighteen hundred hours for those of you in the military or those who have changed their clocks} when you expect a great deal of traffic, there is none.

sometimes, when you are terribly excited about performing {everything about the evening really} you play worse than you have in years. amazingly bad.

you will miss christian more than you realized.

you missed steve tiller more than you realized. steve may also buy your guitar which makes you happy as you wish it to be in hands that will love it.

you don't really remember at the moment what you did on saturday. did you just sit around?

taking a sandwich on a long ride is an exceptional idea, but putting lettuce on said sandwich is NOT a good idea.

you LOVE sparkling mineral water, especially when it is lime or lemon or orange {something 'citrusy'} flavored.

you are terribly overwhelmed by all of the things you must do before riding your bike to maine.

you are overwhelmed about riding your bike to maine.

your landlord is, as he put it, "walking with jesus."

your hair seems to be growing more slowly on top which concerns you.

you do not like cell phones, and as you prepare to buy your first one for the bike trip this summer, you come to some realizations. see exerpts below from letter i wrote {on saturday} to verizon.

1. why does it seem that i get varying answers to the same questions every time i contact A.verizon or B.a shop that deals in cellular service? my questions are not difficult and i am utterly perplexed as to why no one seems to be able to give me any definitive answers...when they do of course, i ask someone else {yes, i have called several times} and get a completely different answer. completely different. for example the question "do you carry a bluetooth phone?" i have received three answers for this question. "yes," "no," and "i'm not sure." this my friends, is amazingly frustrating. were i a conspiracy theorist, i would assume that it is some sort of hoax in which you folks steal my money. while i have noticed that the people working in these shops are typically not very intelligent, they could at least be more knowledgeable about the services provided.

2. there is no need for these people working in these shops to dress up. the fact that the man is wearing some cheap-ass tie with some cheap-ass dress shirt does not make me trust him more, or believe he is more intelligent than he really is. i am not fooled.

3. why the hell are cell phones set up like this? all of the other things i pay for monthly are simply done by a means of my being charged for the amount i use them. ie: internet, electric, gas, water, regular phone, etc. the cell phone plans are confusing beyond belief and my theory is that this confusion causes people to pay you more money because they have no idea what the fuck is going on, and they give up searching for the exit in the dark. in a sense, you have created the perfect means of making money. confuse the people so much, give them little control, and they will accept all that you say. it is not fair to change the rules, after the game has begun.

4. there are too many choices, and yet somehow, amazingly none of them suit me all that well, which strangely, in a sense means that there are not enough choices. why can't we set up our own plan, specifically tailored to our needs?

5. the phones themselves are too complicated and many of them are too small. i do not like feeling as though i am talking into a peanut. why for example, does my home phone simply have some numbers and a few extra buttons, when these goddamn cell phones are littered with unnecessary things. you might want to take into consideration, that not everyone wants whistles, and bells, and video games, and all manner of crap. perhaps some people just want to use their phone to talk to their friends and loved ones. hmmmmm, what a novel idea.

i also learned, that i have a bit more recording left than i thought on the new record which demands that i focus my time better, which also means that i ride my bike less, which means that i grow a bit more nervous about those 200 miles i will ride on may 15th. ok, go record jeff, go.

Posted by jeff pitcher at May 3, 2004 09:24 AM

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