kcjonez.com

My life has been pretty shit for the most part. Like I’ve been dealt aces and eights every hand, losing to the dealer’s royal flush! Every time I turn around, there seems to be a brand new shadow on the horizon.

I am so ready for it to just be over! Don’t worry, I’m not going to off myself anytime soon! You just get to a point to where you say: “Fuck it!” and you’re ready to take whatever nature has to offer. While I’m still here though…

I have dealt with ADHD my entire life! Between that, depression, and anxiety, I have always been a recipe for disaster. I had been previously treated for ADHD, and very successfully! Unfortunately, I stopped taking those meds back in 2020 for some reason. Since then, I had been on those nasty opiates, and my depressions took over as my evil source. Now add to that a handful of meds every morning to treat all of my ailments, and everything went downhill from there. To make matters worse, I couldn’t concentrate, or focus, on anything. I’d think of something that needed to be done, and would start getting up to do it. While getting up, 12 more things that need to be done would pop into my head, overwhelming me to the point of saying fuck it again, and I’d lay right back down, getting absolutely nothing done! My med doc put me on Modafinil to try and keep me awake during the day, but it did nothing unless I actually got up and started moving around!

I doubt anyone is actually reading all of this, but I’m typing it anyway! lol

I recently was FINALLY able to talk my med doc into putting me back on ADHD medication, but it didn’t come easy. Apparently, science still doesn’t recognize ADHD as a valid condition. Add to that my last psych eval stated that my ADHD was most likely due to underlying issues; such as my medications I was on. It didn’t matter that I’ve had the condition since I was a very young child and wasn’t on medications! I swear, my mother must have gotten high af every day while pregnant with me!

Long story long, I talked him into prescribing it to me, again, and it has been an enormous help in my every day life! My depression has gone down (it will never go away) after stopping the opiates, my testosterone levels are rising, and I can fucking concentrate again! My energy levels are still shit, but YOU try laying in bed for 4 years and see if you can hop up all motivated and shit! lol

I have actually been picking up my guitar again, nearly every day for about an hour! Yay me! Aaaaaand there’s a problem there as well! (*rolls eyes*) My gut got so fat, that my guitar sticks out so far, that I can’t reach half the shit I used to be able to! The playing has come right back, cept for my picking. That will take me building strength again! I just need to lose this weight first and foremost! I hate being a fat-ass-fatty-fuck!

Anyway, keep your fingers crossed that I’ll be able to lose this weight and get back to it again! Lord knows, I need to do something! What does it say in the Bible? Shit or get off the pot? Something like that…

I had been on opiates for major chronic pain for about 7 years. It worked, but it also came with a ton of side effects that weren't so cool.

One of the side effects was that it lowered my Testosterone levels. A LOT! Like, I went down to 17, when a person my age should be between 300 and 700! Some of the fun things about low Testosterone (in men), is that it greatly reduces your energy levels, desires, and passions. It causes depression to become worse, anxiety levels to rise, and it just LOVES your belly!

I gained over 80lbs in my gut alone! And I look like I'm carrying around a full term manatee! All of that added weight, especially where it is, puts a lot more pressure on my spine. Mainly where my pain comes from. So I haven't been able to stand for more than 30 seconds without being in excruciating pain. Being able to exercise in order to lose weight has been impossible.

Welp, I had been tapering off the opiates for about a year, and I have been opiate free for over a month now! Yay me! I had blood tests done a couple weeks ago, and my Testosterone levels have already jumped into the 120's! My energy levels are rising, passions on the rise, and I'm feeling better mentally. My doc says it will take about 6 months to start noticing my weight going back down, but I'm on the right path! I have actually picked up my guitar(s) a couple times in the past week!

SO, keep your fingers crossed. Or your eyes. Whatever works for you!

For some reason, I have lost every ounce of energy I had left! I can’t seem to get out of bed any longer than it takes me to go to the bathroom, or feed my kiddo. I haven’t even eaten much of anything g other than Ritz Crackers and these Welch (real) Fruit Gunny things.

My Mac has become a butt-warmer for my kiddo, and she has also found that sitting between my double bass pedal on my kit keeps me from playing it! lol Every time I play it, she runs under the bed terrified of it. :(

I’m not sure what has changed with my health since this started on Friday of last week. I had a seriously rough day! I was fine most of the morning, but I got wrapped up in a new PS4 game, and didn’t even have my breakfast till around 12:30 when I usually eat around 5:00am! I popped in the shower around 11:00, ate at around 12:30, and it all went to hell! I got so nauseous that I almost cancelled my 1:00pm appointment! As of today, it hasn’t changed! Absolutely zero energy!

Anyway, not sure why I’m explaining all of this in an update, but it is the reason all of the site updates I had planned have come to a halt! I’m hoping it starts coming back soon as my legs feel as if they’re beginning to atrophy!

That’s it for this week. My brain is so lazy that I can’t think of anything else to update…

Welp again...

The dude who was supposed to buy the recording setup bailed on me. He told me to consider it a done deal, then stopped responding when I had the setup in my Bronco, ready to go! So, I'm still sitting on the setup, and it's still for sale.

On a brighter note;

I REALLY wasn't happy with the drum sounds on my new e-kit! And it was one of the many reasons I wasn't playing it. It just sounded...electronic.

So I went ahead and ordered the Drum Module for the Alesis Command Mesh Kit SE, and Holy Haysoos! The sounds are 150% better! And it has twice as many sounds as my Surge Mesh Module did! It's still limited in certain areas, but I'm still learning how to configure everything. I can also import drum kits, and hoping I can get a Portnoy Kit! His sound has always hit home with me, and that's what I want damnit! lol

Still working on the site, and it's beginning to come along! I've had the same site for 5+ years, and it still had a lot of original content from the template. I just didn't care about updating it. It did bother me though.

So, keep checking back for new features! And don't forget to register an account! Member stuff will be coming soon!!!

I've been struggling to find the energy to get up and practice my drums! I purchased the expansion pack, and I now have a 10-piece set, which should give me even more motivation! Well, it may to most people, but it doesn't happen to me...

I have been on this medication for my chronic fatigue, and it works great! But it only works when I actually get up and start moving around. Once I have done that, I'm usually non-stop the rest of the day! Unfortunately, it takes me a bit to get out of bed and STAY out of bed! The medication doesn't work in those circumstances...yay me!

I have sold off my Tascam recording gear, and I'm dropping it off tomorrow. Thinking I'm going to run down to my favorite pawn shop, that has a NICE set of Behringer Studio Monitors! The guy said they have been there quite a while, and he'd be willing to work with me on the price, so I may pick them up. Kinda thinking my neighbors aren't going to be digging them though...oh well! lol

That's pretty much where I sit at the moment. I have been working on the site quite a bit due to my staying in bed most of the day. Hopefully you'll start seeing some new features added as I write the script!

Keep coming back, and sign up for an account if you haven't already! There will be members only content coming soon!!!

Enjoy!

I finally managed to get the [Read More] buttons working! Apparently it was a matter of placing certain CSS Rules in the correct place.

I also managed to get the spacing in between updates down to a normal spacing. I had been using all div's, and it was causing an excess of space between objects. So, I went with adding the script within one div, and it all fell into place! Yay me!

I'm also working on the lower portion of the site, where the pictures are outdated, there's broken links, and the contact info at the bottom are showing a bunch of nonsense.

1) I fixed the broken links, but two of the pages are still being worked on.
2) I added my twitter feed, but it's having issues since changing over to Elon's X
3) The "nonsense" at the bottom is being worked on as soon as I finish writing this.

Thanks for your patience, and for your visiting the site! It will always be under construction as I add new features, and I have many ideas that will be coming soon!

Just a heads up:

I'm trying to clean up the site a bit (and finish certain areas), and I'm adding "Read More" buttons to my long-winded updates. Unfortunately, they aren't displaying the formatting, and they're showing up as one big blob of words!

So, I'll be working on figuring this one out, and hopefully, I'll have it fixed soon! Just bear with me a bit.

Thanks!

So, I STILL haven't been able to pick up my guitar! And it has been driving me INSANE!!!

I still have them hanging on my wall, staring me down any time I'm in the room (which is always), and begging me to play them! But I just can't seem to get the motivation yet.

To continue this, I'll need to give a little backstory:

Since I started playing guitar and jamming with others, I have been fascinated with the drums! I would drive drummers around me nuts asking to play their kits! Some would be fine with it, others were pretty touchy about it. So my time spent drumming wasn't near as much as I had wanted.

I had one drummer back in 96-2000 that was my girlfriend's cousin. And he was very cool about letting me play his set! And I did...a lot! And I got pretty decent on them. But it was nowhere near the time I needed to get really good, so I had always been...OK on them. I could hold a beat, maybe a couple of fills, and that was about it.

Move ahead a few years (back when I did my little stint on drugs. Yuck!), and my roommate had a big set that he just had. He didn't play them, although he claimed to be great on the drums (*rolls eyes*)! They weren't even set up. They just sat in a room, basically in a pile of junk!

I wound up setting them up the best I could (much hardware was missing), and I started playing all the time! And I got much gooier on them! To the point where I was playing my usual odd time sigs, and some killer rolls!!

I even said at one point: "If I had the choice, I would play drums over guitar any day!" They just made me feel good! All that energy release, the freedom to throw your hands around, the technical expertise they required to play, just everything fit me so well! But, I quit the drugs and everything went downhill from there. Not that I regret quitting! I couldn't stand doing them when I DID do them! They were just...always there.

I'm pretty sure all this passion and desire to play went away due to the torture I went through while on drugs. The roommate was pretty obsessed with my guitar playing, and he would literally force me to play when people were over. If I said no, we would be on the ground trying to kill each other! It went on for so long that I developed PTSD over it all, and it haunts me to this day, 15 years later and 15 years sober!

Back to now; Even though I don't have the desire to play the guitar, I still always have the desire, if not need, to play the drums! I'll go into music shops when I drive by them just to see if they have a set I can jam out on for a bit.

So, I had been spending all this money on paranormal investigation gear, and racking up all these little loans. They have actually been helping my credit since I pay them off pretty quick.

I just paid one of the larger ones off at the beginning of this month, and just have two small ones to go that I should have paid next month. So I got that wild hair, and I ordered an electronic drum set!!! YAY ME!!!

I picked up an Alesis Surge Mesh SE set, some DW3000 double bass pedals, a drum amp, and some good ol' Vic Firth 5A sticks!! And now I'm finding all kinds of new things to buy! ruh roh! lol

I signed up for the Drumeo app, and I plan on starting from scratch so I can start doing it the right way. I know how to do paradiddles, and I can still hold a decent beat, but I never learned my rudiments, and that's pretty important to know!

My hopes in buying a kit, are that I start playing enough to where I want to start recording again. And THAT will make me pick up my guitar! So hopefully, I'll get the best of both worlds back! Plus it will get me some much needed cardio so I can lose some damn weight! Ugh!

So that's my update for today! Wish me luck!

We're halfway through 2023, I'm 54 years old, my health continues to decline, I haven't picked up a guitar in a good two years, and I have a multitude of guitars, amps, studio equipment, ADAT Recorders, DAWs, mixers, and cables EVERYWHERE!!! But I still don't have the desire to play! It drives me completely insane!!! I miss playing so bad, and have 3 guitars hanging on my walls just begging to be played, but I still can't get the motivation to pick one up and start pickin away.

My health has continued to decline, but has improved in some areas! My bad conditions have gotten worse. But that was to be expected. I've gained a new one! Diabetes! I'm unable to do the Pulmonary Function Testing we've been trying to do for a couple years, and my Oxygen levels keep getting worse.

A few things I have changed
   1. I have been wearing Oxygen tubes at night while I sleep, so that's been helping.
   2. Ive been drinking NOTHING but water. I had to stop the tea, due to the high sugar content! So it's one RedBull in the morning, and water the rest of the day, and I've been averaging 80oz per day! Yay me!
   3. I have started dieting...My weight reached 260lbs, and I'm plain ol FAT! All that extra weight has been doing a number on my back, and I'm in a crapload more pain! So, I'm trying to get rid of the weight, but with my next to zero level of testosterone, AND the inability to do any sort of strenuous exercise, I'm pretty screwed there.
   4. Finally, my doc and I have decided it was time for me to start tapering off of the opiates. It was actually my idea to start, but Melynda has been bringing it up, more and more lately.

So, we took me down from 90mg per day, all the way down to 55mg per day. However, instead of all the pills, we have gone to a patch. And the patch delivers roughly 40mg per day. She had me taking 7.5mg of Morphine twice a day as needed for pain, but I have eliminated those, and I'm strictly on the patch now!

All of these changes have done a LOT of good! Especially coning down off of the opiates! I have more energy, My depression is down...a LOT, my anxiety has nearly disappeared, and I feel a little better in general! Except for that pain! That has gone up tremendously, unfortunately.

I actually tried picking up a guitar the other day and played for about a minute and a half before I lost interest. BAH! My testosterone is going to have to come back up a LOT for that to come back! But it's all getting there; slowly, but surely.

That's about it. I bought a new vehicle: 2023 Ford Bronco Sport Big Bend! It's amazing!!! And it's much easier for me to get in, and out of, and to drive! Plus, you just don't live in the Colorado Rockies and drive a Ford Fusion front wheel drive! It's just plain ig'nant!

I'll try and update more often. Especially as my playing starts happening and I start recording again! That'll be rad!

Everything has become almost impossible to do now. Health has been getting worse, depression getting worse. Anxiety, pain, memory, concentration. It's all going to hell in a handbasket. And to top it all off, I got some pretty bad news from my doctors that pales everything by comparison.

So, my music seems to have been put aside for now. However, I do want to get at least one good song out. And soon!

I'm going back to the new style of DAW recording instead of the analog I was setting up. Those Tascams are a bitch anyway! My DA-88 has some issue setting the track and getting audio to it. My DA-38 is eating tapes. Yadda! There was a time, not long ago, that I would have jumped at a chance to tear them apart! But, that time has long since passed and I don't really care to mess with them.

So, I'm back to the faithful Adobe Audition, Reaper, PCDrummer, Power Tab Editor, and now; new Focusrite Software! I grabbed a package deal that included the Focusrite 4i4. I have used an AudioBox, Presonus and some other USB Audio Input device, and nothing matches the Focusrite! They just know how to do it right!

So, we'll see how it goes trying to get that "Perfect" song out!

To all my fans and friends, thank you for over 40 years of music and encouragement to do music better! I owe it all to you!