Purple is my favorite color, and Iron Maiden is my favorite rock/metal band. As such, resistance was futile! Temu find: Factory Custom Purple Alexi Laiho Swallow Tail V Electric Guitar (photo 1) Another Temu find: Unbranded Rockingbird Electric Guitar (photo 2) But the coup de grace, ultimate find, was on Facebook Marketplace: Iron Maiden Killers Eddie electric guitar, ash body—hand-painted, sealed 15 times over—a fragging amazing guitar body! [UPDATE] I'm pretty much done buying guitars. There aren't any out there that I want at the moment. Even with the ones I plan to sell after giving them a comprehensive setup, I have more than enough, plus, I'm just about out of room to display them. Exceptions: 1) I finally found a 7-string Iceman kit at guitarkit.com. I've been looking for one of these for quite a while; 2) I'm currently winning an Enya Inspire 39" Smart Electric Guitar on MAC.BID, though I don't expect to win. While it's $500, my max bid is $140, and I won't bid more; 3) I backed the LightJam Kickstarter several months ago. I should be getting it soon, though the last time I checked, a few weeks ago, it showed it was in the packaging stage. 4) It's not a guitar, but I am currently winning a Vangoa Mandolin Musical Instrument A Style Acoustic Electric with a max bid of $51. The current bid is $50. With about 5 hours left until the auction closes, I don't expect to win. Since these mandolins retail on Amazon for $140, which is very affordable, I'm not going to bid more on this auction. If I buy any more, I think my wife will disown me.

I have several Ideas for future posts. They will take a significant amount of time to create. So, here's a poll to gauge interest. I'll do them in order from most votes to least votes. If there's something you'd like to know about that I didn't list, comment to this post, tag me in your comment, and I'll see what I can do. If you have an idea, please check the comments to see if someone already suggested your idea. If yes, give it a thumbs up. It'll be easier for me to see which topics are the most popular in the comments. Thanks.

What song are you dying to learn or learning to play?

It came from out of the blue and happened quickly. A week before Christmas, I got a message through LinkedIn from someone I worked with at ADT (he was let go about a year before me). He told me that his supervisor asked him if he knew any software testers for a new opportunity at the company. He gave them my name and contact information. The next day, I got a call from the company's recruiter to set an appointment for a screening interview. It was scheduled for the next day. On the screening interview call, the recruiter told me that the hiring manager already wanted to interview me, but we still needed to go through the screening interview, which went well. The next day, which was Friday, I got a call from the recruiter to set an appointment to interview with the hiring manager and a few others. That interview was scheduled for Monday. The interview went well. On Tuesday, I received a call from the recruiter with a verbal offer, during which she said that the written offer was forthcoming, but that I probably would not receive it until Monday because of the Christmas holidays. I gave a verbal acceptance contingent on the written offer. To my surprise, on Wednesday, Christmas Eve, I received the written offer, which I immediately accepted. It's with a federal government contractor, so I had to go through an extensive background check. I was told the background check would take 4-6 weeks, so I expected a start date no earlier than the middle of February. Once I filled out the forms, made some corrections, and got fingerprinted by the DHS, I sailed through the background check in a week! I start the job on Monday, 02 February 2026. My work desk is ready, just waiting on the laptop(s) and overcoming my lack of motivation to put up some curtains in my office to keep the sun from peeking through the narrow openings in the blinds. What a relief! More than 150 resumes/applications submitted in over nine months resulted in one screening interview. Then in the span of a week from a recommendation by a colleague, I have a new job. Crazy!

What songs do you or would you play around a campfire? I'm partial to the old classics, Camptown Races, She'll Be Coming 'Round the Mountain, Home on the Range, I've Been Working on the Railroad, Oh! Susanna, This Land is Your Land, and Clementine. What other suggestions do you have for me? I want to play songs people will probably know the words to, so they can sing along. So maybe, Row Row Row Your Boat, Michael Row the Boat Ashore, On Top of Spaghetti?