I have not had the time to write new articles or record my progress but I felt
guilty for not updating the website for a while.

This past year, lots have changed in my life. I could not tell you that I would
be playing jazz banjo before the year was over in January. The realization of this
has made me conclude that same thing will happen in 2005. Of course I have my
banjo goals for the year:

1. Attend two banjo events - Allenberry in February and the FIGA Convention in
   August.

2. Continue to practice the jazz banjo strokes I need to master. Jim has been
   concentrating on teaching me the rudiments of good banjo playing. Every day I
   turn on my metronome and practice right hand techniques, triplets, and
   ratamaques. I also take a set of songs I learned and play every one of them
   with just the Bechtel stroke. Then I play every one of them with just the
   tremelo. Then I play some of the songs with a variation of strokes and 
   tremelo.

3. Continue to listen to songs and determine how the chord progression goes by
   ear. I will start jamming in 2005 and I hope to jam to most of the songs 
   right off the bat.

These goals will not provide me with where I will actually be next December. I
have a desire to be a professional banjo player but I also have a plan to
continue being a computer engineer for the next twenty years. All of this could
change as time goes by. Only time will tell.

I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas or other holiday and I will write more
next year.