A friend on Twitter (thanks @clevelandsaplum) dropped a link to this vid and turned me on to some brand new music: Lyrics Born.

Lots to like here – funky groove, cool sounds, nice hook.  And the video is fun.

Sometimes stringing, tuning, or fixing the intonation on my guitar can feel like a pain in the ass, especially when I’m just in the mood to pick it up and make some music.  However, it’s something that has to be done to keep the instrument in playing condition, and of course to keep it sounding appealing to the ear (we’ll make exceptions for bands that make their music sound crappy on purpose).

I’ve been fortunate enough to receive the gift of an orphaned instrument from a friend who found it, but doesn’t play it and doesn’t have room for it.  It’s a beautiful instrument.  It needs some cleaning up and a little bit of repair, but it’s in remarkably good condition as far as I can tell.

It also needs new strings.  Lots of them.

After I go through the exercise of getting this guitar/chord zither up and running I swear I am going to put it in a funk song (along with some toy piano, tinwhistle, home-built ukelele and possibly kazoo).

The Cleveland Marathon was well done.  The route took us through all the “hot spots” in and around downtown: Browns Stadium, the Q, Progressive Field, Tremont, Ohio City, the near west side, and across the shoreway back into downtown.

I’m glad to have participated as a part of Team In Training.  I got my “triple crown”, our team of 50 walkers and runners raised over $100,000 to fight cancer, and I got a groovy medal that is nicely tied to my favorite activity: music-making:

And now back to our regularly scheduled blog about DD69 music and all things idea juice.

I’m looking forward to having a cocktail.  Tomorrow afternoon.

I’ll be joining a whole boatload of other people to participate in the Cleveland Marathon tomorrow.  I’m walking the half-marathon to raise money for Team In Training.  This will be the fifth TNT event I’ve done to raise money to fight cancer.

It’s also my “triple crown” event since I’ve completed all three flavors of endurance events that Team In Training offers: three 100-mile bike rides, a triathlon, and now the marathon.

In December, as I was crutching around the house and/or soaking my sprained ankle in a cooler full of ice water, the marathon seemed pretty far away.  I wasn’t even sure that I’d be able to participate at all.  But over the course of the last few months I’ve gotten back out and walked mile after mile.

It will undoubtedly be challenging – all the endurance events are, and after all I’m a musician and developer, not a skinny athlete.  But I’ll do it, just like I do everything else, one step at a time.

And then I might have a cocktail.

PS. Sadly, my race number does not contain a ‘69′.

Charley was stunned that we were rehearsing for the second time in as many weeks: