New Grandson Hospitalized but back home

Ever since Gideon, my newest grandson, made his first public appearance on Wednesday, July 25, I have been sporadic at best as far as keeping up my blog. I offer you my sincerest apologies. Gideon was not doing well Monday and Tuesday, with fever and lethargy, as well as loss of appetite. His father took the day off Wednesday, when Gideon was exactly one week old, and took him to the Doctor, who immediately took him to the Emergency Room.

The medical folks at first suspected viral meningitis, which is never good, and is life-threatening for a week old infant. They did a spinal tap, and took blood and urine samples for cultures, then started an IV drip with saline and antibiotics, and administered tylenol orally. He was in the hospital Wednesday and Thursday, and came home Friday. Wednesday evening we got the results of the spinal tap, and thankfully, they were negative for meningitis. Wednesday and Thursday I was at the hospital from just after work until bedtime, checking on my grandson, and taking his nephews to visit him, and give comfort and assistance to my son and daughter in law. Last night I was so exhausted from the rigorous schedule, that after I called Dish Network to get my bedroom setup working again, I went to bed. One of my kids, or somebody, had changed the VCR setting, and I couldn't get it back right, until the Dish Network support desk person talked me all through it -- about a half hour ordeal, with polite assistance from Dish Network.
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I thought today I would review another guitar, this time an Oscar Schmidt OE-40B (gloss black finish). The OE-40 is a budget version of the Washburn J-9, and both, as you can see from the stock photo, are copies of the Gibson L-5, full bodied archtop jazz guitar. Also available in natural or tobacco sunburst finishes, it has 20 frets, 25 1/2 inch scale, trapeze tailpiece, adjustable rosewood bridge, rosewood fingerboard with pearl inlays, standard 2.7 mm fretwire, Grover Tuners, Washburn gold-covered humbucking pickups, amber colored bell shaped control knobs, maple top and body, and a fully adjustable neck. At this price point, it is a huge bargain.

Now, for playability and tone. I put flatwounds on it and had it set up for those. It is much easier to play with those than my OE30 was with a stop tailpiece. The trapeze tailpiece on this one might make the difference. Through my Epiphone Galaxy 10, clean setting, you can pretty much hear the wood. Dark, smoky jazz rolls out of this guitar just like it was made to do. I tried to learn "Ain't Misbehavin'" by Fats Waller when I first got it, and I could close my eyes and see the portly gentleman playing stride piano accompaniment to my feeble attempts at mastering his masterpiece. It is a real Wes Montgomery type tone. Same results through my Carvin MTS-3200 2 x 12 combo, but much louder at 50 watts than at 10. The guitar can get down and dirty on the distortion side, but it doesn't really feel right. This guitar was made for coaxing mellow, perhaps into the bluesy tones, not for heavy metal or grunge. If you don't have a jazz or blues background, I suppose you could easily use it for that, because the pickups are humbuckers, but my youngest son has a Dimebag Darrell guitar, which as he put it, "is only good for metal and heavy metal". The OE-40 is as smooth and mellow as the Dimebag is aggressive.

I have been very pleased with this guitar, and regret that I have not played it more. If you would like one, it is available Here.

Until later. . .