Practicing to do nothing

I've been playing a lot of guitar lately. A lot! My chops are in a very good place right now. So, to celebrate, I'm going to go on vacation for the holidays to visit my parents in Oregon and get all rusty after a week without a guitar. I'll probably visit a few guitar stores in Portland and noodle around a bit, but it's not the same as playing for a couple of hours every evening. What's worse, I'll inevitably find some guitar there I can't possibly live without and spend yet more of my hard-earned cash.

I was hoping to record a little chops-heavy improv today in order to memorialize my current state of guitar manliness before it all turns to dust, but I didn't get around to it. Maybe tomorrow. I leave town on Monday, so I'd better get to it, eh? Just a little exercise in guitar wankery with some drumpad fluff thrown in to make it seem legit. It all seems so easy in theory, but I sense the prep work necessary whenever I step into the studio and get a bit flustered. I just need to record a couple minutes of whatever and put it online for y'all. The guitar playing will be good, I can assure you. The rest of it? Maybe. Do you care?

In the past few years whenever I've spent time in Portland, I've been frustrated by the lack of metal-oriented guitars in the shops there. It didn't used to be that way, but Portland has turned into a total hipster, indie-rock bore in the 15+ years since I lived there. But in my current return to fusion and progressive music, I've rediscovered the virtues of classic electrics like Gibsons and Fenders. So I'm sure there will be a bunch of cool guitars sitting in the funky little shops in that fair city. Along with a bunch of 22-year-old musical poseurs with attitudes and underdeveloped chops. But hey, with age comes wisdom. Or at least gray hair.