Mike Jandreau

Writer.Musician. MovieSnob. Web Guy.

I’ve gone a week without blogging, that seems like a lot given how much I’ve been updating the last few months. Why? Glad you asked.  I’ve got a lot going on.  Oh, you want to know what? Okay, fine, I’ll tell you.

• My love, neigh obsession, with Full House has taken a step further.  I’ve now built and have been updating a website lovingly called What The F*#k, Full House?! (http://www.wtffh.com). I’ve been pointing out fun bloopers, mishaps, and continuity issues with the show since about a week and a half ago. And it’s fun. Stupid, yes, but fun.
• I’ve also been spending a lot of time doing some code updates for a website for a fantastic charity that I work with: Boston Bakes for Breast Cancer (http://www.bostonbakesforbreastcancer.org).  They’re kick-ass, and you should support them.  Not by donating money (though that’s cool, too), but by buying desserts.  What happens is kind of genius: you (the consumer) go to a participating bakery or restaurant and buy a dessert at any point during the week in May.  That bakery or restaurant turns around and gives the money to Boston Bakes. Who then gives it to Dana Farber.  In 2011 they were one of the top donors in terms of percentage of money raised being donated (no operating costs, etc. taken out of the donation money).  It’s pretty awesome, and I’ve been working with them since 2010. (MJJ Designs, my company, built the website, and have been maintaining it ever since.)
• I started writing a book.  Well, that’s not entirely true.  I wrote a book.  It’s done, and has been done for a couple/few weeks now. (I can’t remember when I finished.)  I’ve sent it off to my buddy who does copy-editing to do a first draft proofread for me.  I’ve also been working on the website for the book.  My plan is to self-publish it through iBooks, Barnes & Noble and Kindle.  They all take a pretty big cut of the money, but I don’t mind. I’m not doing it for money.  Why am I doing it? I have no idea.  It seemed like a good idea at the time.  Note: please don’t ask me if you can read it, it’s not ready yet.  When it is, I’ll gladly refer you to where you can buy a copy though.  It’ll be reasonably priced, I promise. And if you ask nicely, and I like you, I’ll probably just give you a copy. 
  Double note: this is also the first time I’m telling anyone, really.  Though indirectly, you should feel special that you know.  I don’t know why I haven’t mentioned it, but now you know.
• I’ve been planning the rest of my Vegas Vacation slated for the end of June into July.  Probably not the best idea to go out there then, as my skin will cook off of my body. But so what.  I rented a big house just off the strip as it’ll be cheaper than renting multiple hotel rooms for everyone that’s coming.  Should be a great long weekend, and I’m looking forward to it.  I haven’t been on a vacation in five years, and I’d say it’s well deserved at this point in my life.
• I had brunch with my dad and Megan yesterday, which was interesting.  It was the first time I’d seen him since he moved way out to Fitchburg, which if you’ve never been, is like 49 hours away. (Okay, that may be exaggerating a bit, but it’s still really far away.)
• I have a ton of to-do tasks in my task manager for this week, and they’re glaring at me right now.  I hate being responsible, I really really do.

There you have it, a nice orderly list of what’s been going on in my life.  Don’t you feel better about yourself?

I remember climbing the tree in my Grandmother‘s yard every Sunday when we’d go visit her.

I remember going on my first date to the movies, to see Father of the Bride with my first girlfriend when I was 12.

I remember moving out on my own for the first time.

I remember driving back from Long Island with Leeloo for the first time.

I remember some of the oddest things, but I don’t remember where I was going with this when I started.

Sometimes I get into these reflective moods where I look back on life and remember random things.  Tonight seems to be one of those moods.  The strangest things come to mind, for seemingly no reason at all.

It’s raining tonight, but was beautiful and sunny earlier.  I knew I should have taken a walk at lunch when I had the opportunity.  The sky was beautiful and blue, the sun was out, and everything was just right for an afternoon walk.  Now the sky’s grey, the rain is pouring down and the thunder and lightning are doing their thing.  It’s kind of eerie and beautiful, sure, but it’s not the best for taking a walk.

My day’s over, and what a day it’s been.  For a Monday, I was surprisingly busy, though I suppose that’s not bad.  When I’m busy, the day goes by faster than usual.  The afternoon had its moments where I was bored, as usual, but this morning went by in the blink of an eye.

I’m on the couch now, with Commissioner Gordon (the name I gave my new laptop), typing away, watching Friends.  Yes, I named my laptop Commissioner Gordon. It fits in with all my other electronics: Batman (my iPhone), The Dark Knight (my iPad), and Alfred (my desktop Mac).  It only seemed fitting to name this something similar.

It sounds like the rain is letting up now, but I just looked and it’s not.

Most of my recent round of blogging have been focused, and I’ve had a topic to write about. This is the anomaly, which is why it’s really about nothing.  My mind’s all over the place the last week, and I think it’s coming across here.

There’s a Microsoft Surface commercial on now.  I don’t care whether or not it’s the greatest tablet on the face of the earth – I’d never buy one because this commercial is terrible.  It’s the one where they’re all dancing and clapping their keyboard to their Surface tablets.  It’s really stupid, and doesn’t do anything to sell me one of these devices.  Not that I’d ever buy a non-Apple product again anyway. (Go ahead, make your comments about how they’re overpriced and whatever else you want to say.  They’re better, who cares if they cost more.)

I remember Hurricane Gloria. It was the first time I asked my dad something that he didn’t know the answer to.  The power was out for days, and I asked when it’d come back on, and he didn’t know.

I remember the first time my dad brought home a computer for us.  The concept was baffling, and there wasn’t much you could do with it, but all these years later I’m really glad he did, and taught me so much.

I remember high school, probably a bit too well.  It wasn’t the best experience of my life, for sure.

I still don’t remember where I was going with this, though.

In my recent effort to make myself healthier, you may recall that I’ve been playing my drums more often than I’d been playing them over the last year.  Instead of once per week, I’ve been going three times a week.

The downside there is that my hands have been hurting a lot, and I’ve been getting tons of blisters.  You’d think after nearly twenty years of playing that I’d have calluses on my hands, but I don’t.   So each time I’d play, I’d come home with gaping wounds on my hands, which was terrible.

I decided to try wrapping my fingers in medical tape, which worked fine for a few weeks but wasn’t a viable solution.  It ended up that the tape would fall off from the sweat after a while, even though it was “water proof.”

I had tried drummer’s gloves back when I was in my late teens, and I ended up shredding them to bits after just a week.  I either play too hard, or the gloves weren’t very good, and they ended up in pieces.

After ten plus years of thinking they wouldn’t work, I decided to give them another try.  They arrived on Thursday, and I brought them with me for Saturday’s session.  I may have gotta a size too small, but otherwise it worked out well.  The blisters that I developed Saturday were much smaller than the last time I played a week ago, and there was literally no pain at all in my hands.  Overall I was pretty satisfied.

The one downside was that because it was the first time I was using them, they left quite a mess on my hands.  See the before and after photos below:

You can see there that there’s a ton of leftover fuzzies on my hands. Not the end of the world, but it was a surprise to take the glove off and see that.

I also think I may need to re-order and get a large instead of the medium.  The medium was a bit tight and may have lead to the few little blisters that I did get.  They weren’t uncomfortable, but they were certainly tight.

Overall, worth the money. We’ll see how they hold up over the next few jam sessions. My gut tells me they probably won’t, but it’ll be nice to be surprised and have them just last.

While we’re talking about drumming (and by we, I mean me), I’m thinking I want to get some more cymbals.  Sure, I have plenty, but I’m thinking I’d like some more smaller ones.  When I first started playing 19 years ago, I found that I liked bigger crashes better — the 18″ ones were my favorite.  Now that I’m in my ’30s, I find myself preferring the 16″ ones, and am wanting to try out some 14″ ones, as well.  It’s nice to be able to afford the luxuries of just buying them for myself. I know many of the guys I chat with on the Pearl Drummer’s Forum have to work hard and save their money to afford a new cymbal.  I feel bad for them, and appreciate how lucky I’ve been.

I haven’t started losing any weight with the additional workouts, if you were wondering.  I feel skinnier, but I think the lack of weight loss is due to me gaining muscle in its place.  Not a bad thing, I suppose.  I haven’t changed my diet at all, either, because I’m terrible at being healthy.  But hey, I’m trying.

It’s been a number of years since I wrote anything about going to the gym, or being healthy. But that time has come again. I realized a few weeks ago in going to Drum Time that I was getting winded running up the three flights of stairs to get to my space, and then getting tired too quickly. Specifically the muscles in my arms and wrists.

So I set off on going to the gym at my complex. In addition to my new Drum Time schedule of three times a week, I’m going to try to go to the gym three or four times, too. Nothing major, I don’t want to kill myself, just enough to be healthy. So,e treadmill or bike time, and some light free weights to get some muscle back in my arms and wrists, which should help with the drumming stamina.

I feel pretty good after today’s 45 minute workout, which included a mile and a half on the treadmill at a 5.5 incline, and a few sets of free weights with the dumb bells. My arms are going to be sore tomorrow in addition to my calves. I think the incline may have been a bit much for my second day of exercising, but we’ll see tomorrow.

I decided to take Friday off entirely, to give myself a long weekend. Which worked out well with all the errands I had to do. My dad moved a week ago and I’ve been helping clean up the empty house in preparation for being sold, and that’s included a number of trips over there to meet people to buy some of the unwanted antique furniture. It’s hectic, but I don’t mind helping out.

It’s back to work tomorrow, which is good. I’ve got tons of irons in the fire. So to speak, and need to get to work on a bunch of those irons before they get backed up. (Is that even a thing, do the irons get backed up?)

I suppose being busy isn’t the worst thing ever. Setting myself daily goals (thanks to Wunderlist, the best task manager for every operating system on earth) has helped immensely. Having a daily routine has helped quite a bit, too. Not that I was a giant mess a few weeks ago, but having some sort of regiment has made me feel better, in some strange way.

The week ahead will be another busy one. Starting a new (and huge) project, finishing up one more, and continuing one more ongoing project. Based on past weeks, that should help the week go by quickly, which is always nice. It always seems that time is relative based on how busy you are. Time doesn’t actually go by faster when you’re busy, it just feels like it does. Time goes by at the same rate it always does.

That’s all I’ve got today. You’re welcome.

I decided that for tonight (and Saturday’s) drum time (my affectionate name for when I play my drums), I will make a special playlist, containing some of my favorite songs, and some that I haven’t played before.

I know you’re dying to know, so here’s what I’ll be playing along with for my next two sessions:

• Passenger – Deftones & Maynard James Keenan
• Come Undone (Cover) – Adrenaline Mob (featuring Lzzy Hale of Halestorm)
• Brother – Alice in Chains
• Breathe (2 A.M.) – Anna Nalick
• Cover Me – Candlebox
• Far Behind – Candlebox
• Call Me Maybe – Carly Rae Jepsen
• The Red – Chevelle
• She Said – Cinder
• Clean My Wounds – Corrosion of Conformity
• The Downfall of Us All – A Day to Remember
• Arterial Black – Drist
• Barely Breathing – Duncan Sheik
• White Rabbit – Egypt Central
• Where Did You Go – Full Devil Jacket
• Levitate – Hollywood Undead
• 2 Minutes to Midnight – Iron Maiden
• Since U Been Gone – Kelly Clarkson
• San Francisco – Madam Adam
• Dyers Eve – Metallica
• Everywhere – Michelle Branch
• Cemetery Gates – Pantera
• Purple – Pop Evil
• Look In My Eyes – Rains
• Bully – Shinedown
• Wait and Bleed – Slipknot
• What do I Have To Do? – Stabbing Westward
• 22 – Taylor Swift
• If You Could Only See – Tonic
• Not Enough – Van Halen
• Fallen – Volbeat
• Shoot It Out – 10 Years

As you can see, quite the eclectic playlist.  I jump from Taylor Swift to Slipknot to Metallica to Michelle Branch.  Why? Glad you asked.  For one, it keeps a drummer versatile to be able to play along to various styles of music. Sure, I could just slam my head to pure metal the entire time I’m playing.  But there’s only so far that style of music can take you.  By adding in some pop and mellow tracks, it helps me be improvisational.  I don’t play those types of tracks note for note, but instead put my own spin on them, making them more fun, but also keeping me on my toes.

Classics like Dyers Eve and Cemetery Gates are just fun to play.  Of the 33 songs I put on this playlist, 22 I’ve never played before. So this should be interesting!

Have any suggestions that I should add?  I’m not leaving for drum time for 6 more hours, and will gladly take requests. (You’ll just have to trust me that I’ve played your requested song, unless you want to hike into the city at 5pm.)