The Lily and Jacoblog: A Very Good Week

Years from now, I will look back on this week fondly.

Biggest news is, of course, that Jacob got accepted into the Thorton School of Music at USC. So incredibly proud of him and thankful to everybody who made it possible. He started playing tuba in middle school, mostly because he was one of the only kids big enough to hold one.

He tried a little violin and trumpet, but over the past four years he's fallen in love with the bass. He's only gotten more and more serious about learning music theory and found a great mentor in Dean Taba who encouraged him to pursue music as a career.

Auditioning for the school in-person was impossible due to COVID, so Dean called in some of the top musicians in Hawai'i and we hired them and a videographer to create a short video showcasing Jacob on electric and stand-up bass playing both jazz and Hawaiian standards. Check them out (don't seem to work on mobile, so view full website version):

Kim (fully vaccinated) got to return to in-person hula activities, which in this case meant making the whole regalia of lei, dancing, chanting, and eating freshly prepared Hawaiian food in an awesome Windward side setting.

She came home after a full weekend of rehearsals, filming, and performing and was so energized.

How jazzed was she? Well, she started making a new drum and I helped out too. Fun with power tools.

At the Museum we safely moved a number of highly important surfboards off display in the just now closed exhibit and into a new storage location. Couple boards were over 250 lbs and more than 17 feet long so it was a logistical, engineering, and conservation puzzle to solve but the team figured it out. Plus got a great accidental renaissance picture to boot:

Descent of the Papahe'enalu, 2021

I got my first shot of the Pfizer vaccine and made an appointment in three weeks for my second shot. I will admit that I got a little choked up. Truly awe inspiring what we can do when we focus up and work together.

Said goodbye via Craiglist to my Monsta Carver skatesurfer. Bittersweet but it was time. I consider it a win that I skated with it for nearly 9 years without a serious injury. While I never truly learned how to drop in I managed to check off pool riding from my bucket list. Man I wish that boards were like this when I was a kid. So much fun. Carve on, my Monsta.

And the Franketstrat project continues. Pulled off all the (really really awful and cheap) hardware:

Gotta love the star inlay on the fretboard (or...not).

Took some sandpaper to the body to rough up the existing paint so that the spray paint would stick

Took the guitar to the museum so as not to inflict stinky spray paint fumes on my family and neighbors.

After some passes with black spray paint, I hung it up to cure by the butt of a dinosaur, which apparently is a traditional luthier thing. Dunno, seems weird.

Once the black was good and dry, it was time to mask off and spray the white.

Didn't try too hard to replicate Eddies Frankie #1 but there were a couple details that I wanted to try and get in there.

I just love the those three thick and two thin stipes of black on the upper cutaway. Also there's that one little squiggle among all the straight lines....One difference was adding a painted headstock. Had all kinds of different thicknesses of masking tape from the model building toolkit, so it was fun to pull them out.

Main thing was I wasn't going to stress about it. Didn't take super long and just sort of went for it.