Here's a nice Christmas story (It's long, but it helped me get over a few things by writing it all down):
My family had a nice relaxing Christmas - we just stayed in NC and avoided the chaos that comes with the Holiday season.
Since my time at Nortel is all but over (they're in Ch. 11), my wife and I decided to not go overboard this year on presents. Since both of our boys (16 and 11) play instruments (my oldest plays guitar & bass, and the young one plays drums), I'm usually buying something instrument-related. Usually, there's a guitar or bass under the tree and new tympani's or cymbals, etc., but not this year. I restricted myself to buying other music-related items that didn't have too much financial impact.
Anyway, my youngest brother's wife had to go away for the Holidays, so we invited him down for Christmas Eve dinner and Christmas, as he lives only 45 minutes from us. He's a great brother and a wonderful uncle. He bought a couple of pedals that my son had been wanting, and some xBox stuff for the the little guy. Most of the night, we were all upstairs jamming and banging on stuff. I showed him my "new" 1985 T-40 monster. As he was leaving later that night, he tells me he's got something of mine in his truck. Now, he and I do a lot of other stuff together - like ride dirtbikes and street bikes, etc., so I just thought that I had left a tie-down strap or something in his truck after our last trip. I didn't have a clue that he was going to hand me an Epiphone box.
I was blown away as he pulled out of the driveway and I'm holding this box. I open it up and there's that unmistakable, beautiful T-Bird shape staring at me. Now, we never really exchange Christmas gifts between us, so this was kind of awkward for me to receive this. What's even more awkward is for me to walk back into the house holding this new bass. My oldest boy is a guitar-nut, and he immediately knows how cool this thing is. He and I go Pawn-Shopping (that's a new verb) and are constantly looking for guitar/bass/drum bargains. He and I almost bought one of these T-birds last year while we were at a music store in FL.
So, upstairs we go to put the spurs to her. What a cool bass. Yeah, it's neck-divey, but it's really, really mean. A lot of people complain about the weight, but compared to my 2 favorite basses: my G&L L2k and the Peavey T-40, the T-Bird is as light as a feather. One really interesting note about this bass: The neck pickup seems more growly than the bridge pickup. The bridge pickup is really full and meaty, almost opposite of what you expect out of a twin humbucker configuration. I find my favorite setup is to have the Neck pup at 70% and the Bridge pup at 100%, tone rolled down to 40% or so. Very cool bass.
Anyway, I just thought I'd share a great little story. I'm getting over the awkwardness a little more every time I take it off the wall to play it.
Hope you all are having a wonderful Holiday season.
Steve
