2026 50/90 Challenge Day 81/90

Yesterday was the first day of Autumn so of course here in New England I am sitting in my home office freezing my rotund ass off. Winter is here, kids. Last week I was dipping in the Pacific Ocean on an 80 degree San Diego, CA day and today I’m sitting here shivering with the heat cranked up. Life is so unfair sometimes.

That’s not what I came here to write about though. I came here to write about the 50 Songs in 90 Days Challenge that has just over a week left. The end is almost in site and I am not stressing out at all because I’ve already finished 50 songs. Everything is gravy now. Can I get to 60 songs?

What did I accomplish on day 81, yesterday? I started the morning with 51 songs complete, five ready to mix, one waiting for me to write lyrics, and two waiting for me to record rhythm guitars. That adds up to 59 songs. The first thing I did was crank out the two songs worth of rhythm guitars. I did that before work. Later, just before bed, I added two more songs. My unofficial goal was to get to 60. I was up to 50 songs in progress on July 31st so I figured 10 songs in August would give me an album-in-a-month by RPM Challenge rules so that would be a nice round 60 songs for this challenge. Adding two more songs last night brings the total number of songs in progress up to 61… I am such a dork. Seriously.

Both songs are a little gimmicky. I figured why not, I’m already over the 50 song goal so there’s no reason not to be a little goofy. One of the newbies is in 7/8 time and the verse and the chorus are the same riff just in different keys. I think I’ll keep the rhythm guitars clean(ish) on the verses and nice and fuzzy on the choruses too. The other song is a 12-bar blues riff in 5/8 time because why not?

So the current to-do list includes five songs ready to mix, three ready for lyrics, and two ready for rhythm guitars. One of those last two has a melody already.

Nine days to go. I am feeling pretty good. I just wish more of the songs were good. I think of the 61 I have, one is good. The rest are somewhere between meh and god awful. That’s a pretty common percentage for me though.

Frugal Film Project Take Two: August Edition

You folks out there in internet land have just been dying for this post, I know it. The August edition of the Frugal Film Project take two. Take a cheap film camera (a Lomo Lubitell 166 Universal) and shoot a cheapish roll of film each month for a year. I failed in this last year so to torture myself as punishment I’m actually doing two rolls of film this year. Kodak Gold 200 and Kentmere 100. I started in May this year and for three months I’ve managed to stay on goal. Today we add month number four, August.

The color pics go first this time, Kodak Gold. 12 shots taken in Boston while wandering around the Back Bay on August 15th.

Here we go!

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A roll of 120 film through a 6×6 camera gives you 12 shots. Amazingly, all 12 came out… sort of. They all generated an image. I’ll take that as a win. Now let’s take a look at the black and white shots. Kentmere 100. These were also taken in Boston’s Back Bay on August 15th. I had a pretty busy photowalk that day.

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There you go. Two rolls of film for two instances of the Frugal Film Project. 24 pics doesn’t seem like a lot, but when you add them all to a post here… 24 is a lot!

So I have matched last year’s failed project. I made it four months before crashing and burning. This time around? I’ve already shot the Gold 200 roll for September. I have them on my Flickr account but I’m not going to post them just yet. I still have to shoot the Kentmere 100 roll. If I can’t get that in this weekend then… well… then I guess that part will be a failure.

Untill then? August is done. Four months down.

2026 50/90 Challenge Day 80/90

And just like that, we’re back babie!

After a few days of not making any progress at all, I finally got something done yesterday. Day 80 was spent getting back to work and dealing with a stomach bug (or something) that has been seriously kicking my fat ass. No clue, but it was not successful in stopping me from being silly, musically, though it was a close call.

I didn’t start thinking about 50 songs in 90 days stuff until after 10:00pm last night. At that point I sat up in bed with my laptop and my goofy little USB piano keyboard and I started another song… and then another song. Two new songs, numbers 58 and 59 if you’re keeping track.

One of them is in straight 4/4 time and isn’t very interesting. The other is a math problem. I’ve been messing with weird time signatures all throughout this challenge. I’ve done more work in 5/8 time than I had done in the previous 55 years combined. I also did one song in 9/8, which I treated like 4/4 with an extra eighth note. Last night I thought to myself what if I did 4/4 but only added an extra eighth note on every other bar? Next thing I know I’m trying to write riffs in 17/8 time. Yup. Song number 58 is in 17/8 time.

It’s not good. Not even close. It’s overly simple because I was afraid if I did anything even minutely complicated on top of the weird time signature then I would never, ever be able to play the guitar part. Nope. I kept it simple as well as rhythmically silly.

Oh, and spoiler alert for tomorrow:

Mission Beach

A few random photos from our day at Mission Beach in San Diego, CA. We did go for a swim in the Pacific Ocean. While, as a New Englander, the idea of having an ocean to the West instead of the East might seem wrong and also kinda silly, it is the biggest swimming pool on the planet Earth so its pretty impressive. 

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We tried to see the sunset on the water but the clouds did not cooperate. When I say we tried, it wasn’t just this day. It was every day we were there. The clouds never let us see the horizon.

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2026 50/90 Challenge Day 79/90

On day 79 (yesterday) we had plans to fly from Cleveland to Boston and then to take an Uber home. We did not do that. The weather was supposed to be shitty and we were worried about flight delays (which did in fact happen) so we rented a car and drove home… from Cleveland… it took 11-12 hours. Also, I got sick.

So no, I did not get any work done on the 50 songs in 90 days challenge. Sorry. I was busy… and sick.

2026 50/90 Challenge Day 78/90

Day 78 had no progress at all. Again.

I did, however, see Rush again and it was glorious, again.

There will be no progress on day 79 either. We were supposed to fly home from Cleveland today but the weather forecast is a tad unsettling. We are going to drive it instead. That is about 10 hours, conservatively. No time for homemade rock and roll for me.

2026 50/90 Challenge Day 77/90

Day 77’s update is the same as day 76. Nothing. We drove 2656382755 miles going from San Diego, CA to Phoenix, AZ via the moon or something. Today we are flying to Cleveland, OH and tomorrow we fly home.

We are travelin’ folks.

2026 50/90 Challenge Day 75/90

Day 75’s progress was the same as day 74’s just without the hoopla. I mixed one song. The project was already technically complete with day 74’s one song, but having 51 songs done and having the project 102% complete is also pretty cool.

Days 76 through 79 are likely going to be shut out. As insanely busy as our trip to California has been this far, it is about to get much busier. I might not get anything more done on this project before I get home. Just as a heads up.

Fun with Moving Day

How’s this for a wacky movie day experience.

My step daughter rented a u-haul pod to ship most of her belongings from Massachusetts to her new school address near San Diego. The plan initially was to have it dropped off on campus, then we would show up and unload it, and they would pick it up when we were done.

Nope.

The campus has a one hour parking limit and that includes movie trailers and the like. So what to do?

How about have the pod dropped off at a u-haul storage facility sort of near the campus, then we rent a van and go to where the pod is stored, unload the pod into the van, then drive the van to campus and proceed as expected.

The plan worked like a charm with only one minor hiccup. The storage facility was half an hour away from the campus. No biggie. We got it done. Van rented, pod met and unloaded, van unloaded, van dropped off. Now all that is left is to unpack.