I played professionally in the 80s. “Adulted” from the 90’s through ~2014-ish, picked the guitar back up around 2014. I retired from an executive position at JP Morgan Chase in 2019 when I was 52. I got my golden parchute and took a two year hiatus from 2019-2021.
During this time I re-dedicated myself to guitar. I started practicing, not noodling. Developed practice plans to recover what I had lost over the decades. I think I am stronger as both a player and song writer now and I am still working to improve.
During this time I also travelled around the southwest volunterring time with different small luthiers/repair shops to learn how to build and repair guitars.
During this time, I discovered forums. JCF, TGP, to name a few. Tried many. Chose JCF and TGP. Then I found the Fractal forums when Inhot an Axe FX. At first everything was cool.
Then TGP just got to be… ugh.
JCF is on life support.
The fractal forums werr cool on the surface but once I was there a while the feel good vibe seemed… stepford-ish.
I wanted a place that was not over-moderated and with people who shoot straight. Rig-talk fits that bill for me so I signed up.
One thing I learned on forums is to jump in if you have something to contribute and to sit back and observe if you don’t know what you are talking about.
My weakest area musically is amplifiers. I build and work on guitars. I would like to think I play pretty decent. I use amps. I am sitting back and learning here as there is a lot of focus on the amps here so rig-talk also gives me the opportunity to grow my knowledge.
In November 2021 my wife came down with Covid pneumonia. 2 weeks in the ICU, 6 weeks in the hospital. She was given less than a 25% chance of survival. She made it and is going to fully recover. But I am carrying the yoke of our household, pets, family, and my job. I am also her care taker. She is still weak and recovering though she gets stronger every day. This has severely limited my online activity.