Save Your Ass, And The Rest Will Follow

   Time for the bitchin'..

   Things aren't happening!!  I'm not perfect yet!  I don't have a professional touring band!  It's hard finding a place to practice drum set in Brooklyn!  My coffers are not overflowing with Music Money!

   /bitchin

   Harder than the long trudge toward good-ness is dealing with the fact, on bad days, that there is a long walk ahead and that I'm doing OK.  On good days the walk is nice - the trees are green and the birds are chirping.  I can take steps between sunrise and sunset, resting with another satisfying day of work under my belt.
   Good days require little impedance to to practice.  A handful of free time, few enough distractions and tools of trade easily accessible.  I make a little progress here, a little progress there - some active listening, some rudiment and speed practice and some rocking out time.

   Bad days are like all that, but as if encased in a suit of loosely mixed cement.

   I sometimes start my day poking around the interwebz on practice techniques or styles, where I sometimes find great drummers, slowed-down chops, and inspiration:

Getting Inspiration for Playing the Drums -- powered by eHow.com

   Setting goals seems to be an important part of organizing one's life.  Here we go.
Short Term

• Attain pair of matching sticks.  Somehow my set of VicFirth HD4s were lost in a shuffle of some sort.
• Attain comfy throne.  What is a drummer not on a throne but an uncomfortable stick-slapping foot flappin' doofcabibble?  I mean, I hate being uncomfortable!  I do have a thing for this bad boy:

Pork Pie Big Boy Bike Throne

• Cycle in more whole drum kit practice.  I've been extra rudiment-oriented, focusing on single practice pad, sometimes to metronome, sometimes to music, but linear.

Long Term

• Survive more comfortably with combined incomes from drum lessons and bar work.  
• Travel to locales that allows for new music discovery.  I would also accept an opportunity to play music that would allow me to travel.  

   OK, I have to get to work at Breukelen.  I will now utilize my time to actively listen to the funky funky music I'll be piping through the speaker system.  Good luck to all in future endeavors.