Change of seasons

As you may have noticed, I haven't been fishing much lately. It's been cold, and the past few times I've been out haven't been especially productive.... Or comfortable! I waded the Desplaines last weekend, and although it was nice to wade, the water was ice cold and the fish weren't biting. I don't have fancy neoprene waders; my sweatpants and thin waders were no match for the frigid water. Especially when I went deeper....

The other day I stopped by the retention pond for one last hurrah. It was freaking cold out, but I managed what is probably my last bass of the year! On a homemade lure, no less. Those black fury knockoffs I've been making work pretty well. So far I know they can catch catfish and bass.

Notice the awesome hat- it was very cold that day

So far pretty much every post here has been about fishing (it's called "CB Fishes" after all..) but there is a subtitle in there: "...and cooks and makes music and stuff." I've posted a few recipes, and mentioned my music making in passing, but for the next few months I will probably be posting more about music and food than fishing. If all you want to read about are my misadventures in fishing, don't worry! Whenever I head out to wet a line I'll post about it, but realistically it probably won't happen much for a while. Come Spring, I'll be flooding the internet with novel-length fishing entries once again. I'll be making lures throughout the cold months, so I'll post about those adventures too.

So I've been changing gears, from one obsession to another. Fishing is a relatively new thing for me- as you can tell by my posts- but music as always been my main obsession. Before I had a full time job with downtime used exclusively for fishing, I was a freelance gigging musician/composer/whatever. Every moment of my time was spent thinking about music, practicing music, trying to get gigs, and making music. Since I've been gainfully employed, I've discovered the joy of hobbies. When my income depended solely on my effort, I had no time for non-musical endeavors.

Now that I don't make my living making music, my music-making activity comes in spurts. Right now I'm transitioning from obsessed-with-fishing season to obsessed-with-music-making season. The timing works out well; for the past two years, I've been releasing a freely-downloadable Christmas album. My lovely wife suggested I do it, and what a great idea it was.

If you feel like getting in the holiday mood already, you can play the previous two albums right here. If you like them enough, you can download them too!

Last year's:



The original, from 2009:




Lately I've been playing in Ableton Live, working on some holiday songs, sampling instruments in my garage, playing with Kontakt, my Korg Monotron, and generally being obsessed with music and music technology. Normally all this stuff happens in my headphones, and I'm pretty much the only one who hears most of this stuff (besides my students, who are occasionally forced to listen to my most recent creations).

Now that I've got a blog, I plan on sharing details of my musical adventures just like I've been sharing my fishing adventures. Fall and Winter are actually my favorite times to cook, so I'll also be posting lots of recipes. I've got a Bell's Brown Ale beef stew recipe to write up, as well as one for slow-cooked ancho chile pork. And one for Beckstrom Molé...