dat - Posted - 11/18/2014:  12:27:30

I do pretty well with a finger on each hand, I'll type 6 or 7 letters with my right index then one or two letters with my left

DeanT - Posted - 11/18/2014:  16:22:56

Cool, I'm a two finger typer as well. But then I play banjo with 4 fingers

chuckv97 - Posted - 11/18/2014:  16:27:21

I heard years ago that Alan Munde did a 4 string forward roll,with only the usual thumb and 2 fingers. He would cross over the thumb to the 2nd string. But you're more like a classical guitar player.

DeanT - Posted - 11/18/2014:  22:28:12

My background was blues fingerpicking, when I took up banjo, there was no way I was going to waste one of my fingers! When I do traditional three finger patterns, I use T,M,R

OM45GE - Posted - 11/19/2014:  03:16:53

I sometimes use thumb and three fingers on the guitar usually on classical tunes without picks but mostly use thumb index middle with picks for both guitar and banjo.

DeanT - Posted - 11/19/2014:  05:48:43

I didn't used to use picks on guitar, but I do now, the banjo spoiled me

chuckv97 - Posted - 11/19/2014:  06:47:30

I play a nylon string guitar so I need nails to play it,,but the doggone things keep breaking and splitting. I tried different stuff to harden them,but no luck. I used to crazy glue a piece of ping pong ball on a broken nail to get by for a week or so.

DeanT - Posted - 11/19/2014:  09:50:22

Bend a banjo pick tightly around your fingertip, then bend out teeny tab at the end, to simulate the tip of your fingernail. 

chuckv97 - Posted - 11/19/2014:  10:16:13

Good suggestion,but I played so long with nails that the tone I get with any kind of picks is inferior. It took me a long time to get good tone with fingernails.

DeanT - Posted - 11/19/2014:  15:16:17

What I did above is how I went from no picks on my Telecaster, to playing with picks on my first banjo.  

OM45GE - Posted - 11/20/2014:  11:57:38

I gave up on trying to keep my nails long enough to play guitar and have been using picks since the '60's

DeanT - Posted - 11/20/2014:  13:31:57

I've used alaska picks with some success on guitar too.

dat - Posted - 11/20/2014:  13:37:31

I've seen alaska picks, but it seems like they would be awkward since they fit on your finger on the back side

OM45GE - Posted - 11/20/2014:  14:05:15

I could never get the hang of those.

DeanT - Posted - 11/20/2014:  15:07:32

They hook under your fingernail. I had to trim mine down some. 

OM45GE - Posted - 11/20/2014:  16:13:01

I've got some around here somewhere. I'll give them another try if I can find them.

dat - Posted - 11/24/2014:  06:07:26

monday again, seems like it comes around early in every week

DeanT - Posted - 11/24/2014:  10:07:18

Yep, but it's a short week!

dmiller - Posted - 11/24/2014:  11:39:36

It'll be a normal week for me.  Sometimes I miss the jobs I used to have that gave you the holidays off, but I've gotten used to working on holidays.  We do get paid time and a half for the 6 major ones.  Sunday and Monday have been my "weekend" for the past 13 years, so if a holiday falls on one of those two days - - I have it off!

dat - Posted - 11/24/2014:  11:59:24

short weeks make more work during the days before and after the holiday

dat - Posted - 11/24/2014:  12:00:08

I almost hate to see them coming or take any vacation days cause I know it'll be a headache when I get back

OM45GE - Posted - 11/24/2014:  13:31:19

I know what you mean. No one does my work when I'm gone unless there's an emergency that needs to be dealt with so I work may ass off for a week before I go and a week after just to stay caught up. We have a use it or lose it vacation policy and I get six weeks a year. I don't want to give the the SOB's anything so I take it regardless. I'm off the rest of this week, extra work be damned.

dat - Posted - 11/24/2014:  13:44:45

We get 5 sick days and 5 vacation days, me and another guy can only take 2 days in a row and one of us have to be here, when the other is gone we work through the day without an actual lunch break, if we don't use it we loose it.  no more than we get it is easy to use but hard to take.

OM45GE - Posted - 11/24/2014:  13:46:31

That sucks

DeanT - Posted - 11/24/2014:  16:36:35

Time to retire

chuckv97 - Posted - 11/24/2014:  22:11:33

Yyeeaaahhh!! well,maybe in a couple more years. My weekend was last week Tuesday through Friday. Six more weeks,then I'm taking 3 months off. Yippee..

OM45GE - Posted - 11/25/2014:  05:51:21

1,087 days, 8 hours and 9 minutes to go. I thought it was less but found out I have to wait an extra six months for health insurance continuation.

DeanT - Posted - 11/25/2014:  05:57:08

There is light at the end of the tunnell...

OM45GE - Posted - 11/25/2014:  09:58:33

Yes there is. It's sort of sad because I used to love my job so much I just planned to keep on working as long as I could. Now that we've been bought by a HUGE (120,000 person) company, the administrivia has completely taken over and the fun is gone.

DeanT - Posted - 11/25/2014:  10:10:26

 loved my job too! I'd still be doing it if they would let me. I got caught up in the AF restructuring, and my time was up. No complaints though, times they are a changing...

chuckv97 - Posted - 11/25/2014:  12:23:36

Some days I still feel like a paid tourist,other days I'd rather be at home pickin',reading,or chasin' women....err....they can run faster than me these days though

OM45GE - Posted - 11/25/2014:  13:10:14

I'm right there with you on that.

DeanT - Posted - 11/25/2014:  17:14:24

women are supposed to run too you, not from you...

chuckv97 - Posted - 11/25/2014:  20:45:45

Tell that to the gals I stalk at night......😉

DeanT - Posted - 11/25/2014:  22:22:23

You are a banjo player, you should be beating them off with a stick...

dat - Posted - 11/26/2014:  05:44:28

music soothes the savage, but a banjo chases them away screaming

DeanT - Posted - 11/26/2014:  05:53:13

yeah... but then they stalk you on face book...

chuckv97 - Posted - 11/26/2014:  05:55:22

I came to the party late - all the good women are taken

dat - Posted - 11/26/2014:  10:13:35

I was lucky, I picked up the banjo after we were already married or she never would taken a second look

DeanT - Posted - 11/26/2014:  10:16:38

I did the same, she thought my guitar was cool when we met. When the band needed a banjo player, and I brought one home, she rolled her eyes, and hasn't stopped...

OM45GE - Posted - 11/26/2014:  11:27:02

My wife doesn't really appreciate musicians. She likes music but doesn't get the personality type or instrument acquisition syndrome. She seems to have a particular disdain for banjo players - or maybe it;s just me!

chuckv97 - Posted - 11/26/2014:  16:17:30

Well, at least we didn't drive them away by taking up the fiddle.
If more people saw and listened to Bela Fleck or Jens Kruger,they might get a better appreciation for the banjo.

DeanT - Posted - 11/26/2014:  17:24:54

I like to point out that I'm not a drummer...

Scaggs7 - Posted - 11/26/2014:  17:29:46

my last acquaintance loved musicians but left for another kind of professiin
things never last forever in this age

OM45GE - Posted - 11/28/2014:  04:11:48

My 2nd wife had a voice like an angel played a pretty good guitar. She could bring tears to your eyes with her version of  Desperado and when she and her two sisters sang three part harmony it would sing the angels to sleep. That said, she was pretty much a whack job.

DeanT - Posted - 11/28/2014:  05:43:17

One of my x's was like that, awesome one moment whacked the next. Bipolar as hell, and made life totally miserable for everyone. 

OM45GE - Posted - 11/28/2014:  08:02:26

That sounds like the dearly departed Lonnie. She had a sneaky left hook I quickly learned to avoid.

dat - Posted - 11/28/2014:  10:03:29

I'm lucky enough that I can get along with all 8 of my brides personalities

DeanT - Posted - 11/28/2014:  15:33:35

My x suppressed all her whacked personalities until after we were married