I seem to go in for weird social media breaks around my birthday. And I don’t really go out. After a nasty bout of identity theft a few years back I’ve long since removed my DOB from most externally facing things and just tend to go quiet for a few weeks. It helps that it’s almost always during the Easter breaks when the Fam is nesting.

If no-one knows it’s your birthday you don’t actually get older. True fact.

This year I was given a decent guitar kit by The Fam so I have a nice modern Strat build underway which is far more exciting than the Fender Duo-Sonic I bought for myself in a sale. That Duo-Sonic might actually have the fastest eBay turnaround of any guitar I’ve ever bought (including the additional time it took for the shop to send me a replacement because the truss rod was busted on the first one).

There’s some good wood in the kit (2 piece alder body, maple neck and board) and hardware is decent (all Wilkinson) and it’s coming along nicely, although I’ve gone off piste already and sourced some Bare Knuckle humbuckers and have a new pickguard on order to make it HH rather than HSS. Also, the prospect of soldering a Schaller megaswitch has been gave me anxiety dreams.

But for now I have a plank under tension which plays (and stays) in tune under considerably whammy abuse. And some electrics that make the right noises when held close to the strings. When the pickguard gets here there’ll be some assembly, a couple of weeks of playing in with the wood still bare and then an oil finish. (Probably.)

Now I’m back at the grindstone, and I need to remember how to write code. And who I’m currently writing code for. And find out if they’ve noticed my unannounced absence. Gah.