Since class doesn’t start until 4PM today, I decided to jam on the keyboard I borrowed. =P What’s the use of having a keyboard if you don’t even try out the cheesy “brass ensemble” sound on a Casio keyboard? haha I decided to get down on “Let’s Groove” by Earth Wind and Fire. I’ve honestly always wanted to try learning those horn parts for fun then teaching it to my sister but she’d rather see the music instead. So with that in mind, I decided to see how far I can go trying to transcribe the song.

Started off with the intro since it is the beginning of the song. Here’s how it looked like when i was halfway done.

Looks pretty decent I’d say. I’ve been playing by ear for a good couple years now and I’d say it’s about time that I learn how to do this stuff. Then again, I am taking an “Intro to Music Theory” class this semester so I suppose you can say that is the fuel to my fire.

After a grueling 2 hours from the start, here is the finished product.

I’m pretty satisfied with myself although it might not be at it’s best. After finishing this, I thought I wasted a bunch of time just trying to figure out how to write it out but technically would count as “lab hours at home” for my music theory class. =] Good amount of practice.

Hopefully I can keep this up and become quicker doing this so that I can try to transcribe some music and divide it into parts for my jazz accordion band!

Enjoy!

Word.

Nice song to listen to when chillin’ out and stuff. I’m actually about to sleep so listening to this stuff is a good relaxant. Mad props to Mayer Hawthorne for having different styles of produced music. This song is something that Frank Sinatra would sing.

Good night.

Hit this on accident because I blanked out. After realizing I couldn’t turn out of the way without power steering…

Fail. The lip is busted where it once was the first time it got damaged when I ran over it on accident. It’s currently being held on by a bolt and some fiberglass behind. Not cool. >__<

Here’s a pic of the current members of the band.

From top left to right (then following with the bottom row): Erwin, Issac, Moses, David, Edwyn, myself, Mike, Nate, Sheppi (my sister), Janine, Lynn, Judy, and Charisse.

Pretty much spent the whole weekend (well, it actually started Thursday night then ended Saturday night), I hung out with the band and practiced before the competition that Saturday night. Friday was pretty chill because I hung out with my old buddy from high school. Got some good Lollicup boba drink over in Irvine.

Haven’t had good Taro Snow drink for a good while. I think by far, this is the best tasting one that I’ve ever bought.

Anywho, to wrap the whole thing up, definitely had good times hanging out in the hotel room and got closer as a band. =] Here’s a video of the band’s performance.

HD video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgtuW7KoGsc

Unfortunately, I can’t post it up because embedding is disabled by the person who uploaded it. So here’s another one that’s a bit lower quality.

Like the post I made earlier back in June, we played “Watermelon Man”, “Evil Ways”, and “Smooth”. We named the medley “Taking off with Hancock and Santana”. With these songs, we won in the category that we competed in. =] From what I was told, the judges really like our enthusiasm and spirit when we played so I guess it’s a good thing that we were all into it.

Overall, even though it becomes tedious practicing for the competition and what not, but having this once a year helps me refresh my chops as a drummer. I really focus on playing with accents and crescendos to assist with the dynamics of the song.

Good job D&G fam-bam! And special thanks to Ms. Debbie Gray for making this possible! =]

PS: My sister told me that one of the judges from the East Coast loved us so much that she personally went to Debbie and asked her if our band can tour the East Coast next summer. ^__^ Pretty intense, I’d say. It’ll definitely be an experience when it happens summer 2010. yeh!

And here is the video of a section of the track that he drove. Pretty awesome, I’d say.

Some of you who play Gran Turismo or Forza will notice this familiar part of the track in the game. If you want, more pictures can be found here in this thread post.

Went to the local gas station to gas up and pump the tires to spec. Actually on the way there, I stalled the FC since it’s been awhile since I drove it. lol Oh well. After that, scooped up a jar of these guys.

Zipties make it possible for my undertray to be held up under the motor. lol I’d use the bolts and stuff, but they all fell off while driving a while back.

Since Sean has Justin’s floor jack and tools, I had to resort to Jesse’s baby floor jack. Of course, it’s not made for low cars so I resorted to a ghetto way of “raising” the car.

Drove up on one brick then put the other ones on the rear and front of the one the car is resting on just to support the wheel if it the car’s position does move while lower the jack. After a good 20 minutes spending under a car that wasn’t raised high on one side, the managed to mount up the undertray. Success!

Drove back home relieved that all that had to be done, is finally done.

The FC does officially run again. But I still have many things to take care of before it’s running back on tip-top shape.

Noticed the temperature readings about 80-90 Celsius as well. According to RETed’s website, FC3S Pro, I’m running at normal temperature (even though the sensor is on the block instead by the thermostat, I’m assuming that the temperature would be very similar if anything).

I took this picture after I parked the car. I guess it ran a little more hot since the car wasn’t running anymore. But either way, it’s in the “green” zone. =]

Coolant bottles and funnel ready to go!

Topped off the radiator until the funnel was a bit full then started the car. Had to make sure there was always coolant in there to ensure no bubbles into the system.

As soon as the thermostat opens up, more coolant gets circulated so I had to make up for the coolant being circulated by pouring more.

The FC ends up idling for a good 10 minutes but there was no sign of the Greddy water temp gauge reading the temperature. I knew something was wrong and I was hoping it wasn’t something major. Perhaps it was a faulty gauge? Messed up sensor? Incorrect place for wiring? I decided to double check on the wiring I did. No way that the sensor would be crap since it’s fresh. As for as a faulty gauge, I hoped it wasn’t the case.

After some good thinking, I realized there was not enough power coming from the cigarette lighter so I did more searching under the dashboard to find some 12V sources of continuous power. I found one that was directly on the key ignition but there is still power drawn there even when the key is NOT in the ignition. I made the assumption that if I did find a way to connect it there, the battery would get drained by powering the gauge non-stop. So more searching I did… Rather than finding a source via Factory Service Manual, I depended on the volt meter poking at random plugs. Alas, I decided to settle for one when the ignition is on so i just wired it up as done in the picture above.

Turned on the FC to see if it works…

And it does! But the battle is not yet over…

Warmed the FC up again later on when I came back home from helping Adan’s GF smog her car… And it still didn’t go up. =[ What could the problem be, I wondered to myself. Ate dinner in frustration after parking the car back in the garage. Thought about it and maybe the wiring could still be off. By now, I was suspicious. Went to the garage, put the key in the ignition and turned it. Of course, it does what it did in the video, but nothing more. But once i turned on the parking lights, BAM, the mystery was over. I realized I wired one of the power wires to the parking lights. So I combined both red and orange wires together and now the water temp gauge works flawlessly.

I guess tomorrow will be the day when I'll be able to see how hot my motor is running with my coolant leak. Hopefully it's near factory spec. I know for a fact that least I officially finished wiring the Greddy water temperature gauge. Correctly that is. *whew* Just gotta make sure i put back my undertray before driving anywhere... AND putting some gas into the car. =P Doesn't help that it's empty right now. xP

Until next time.

A big shout out to everyone who lent a hand on helping me out or making this possible! =]