I haven't touched a guitar in over 20 years. Rate my skills. It's crazy how good I am at everything. I can't wait until I retire to just keep picking up hobbies and excelling in them. That's what life is all about.

https://imgur.com/a/WVfh1t4

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5278285&forum_id=2#45845364)

Brother, you are right. I am slowly reclaiming my life. I beat TSINAH today in the race to 50 pounds lost.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5278285&forum_id=2#45845396)

when a young associate writes a memorandum/brief, u can tell immediately whether he/she has that lawyerly skill that goes beyond logical reasoning and writing ability-- so too, a guitar player either has that musicality or he don't

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5278285&forum_id=2#45845672)

You just know that CSLG grew up a rich kid who probably just mentioned "guitar seems cool" and his parents bought him a nice guitar and got him professional lessons where he learned those pentatonic blues riffs.

I have no anger or ill feelings toward CSLG but I had to borrow friends instruments, save up and buy my own guitar and teach myself everything I know.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5278285&forum_id=2#45855205)

The thread triggered me. I had flashbacks of my parents laughing at the 13 year old version of myself and telling me to fuck off when I said I wanted to learn guitar. Memories of scraping up enough to buy a Squier strat and playing bands that my parents called bullshit.

I'm glad that your parents were supportive but also envious of the guy wearing an mxpx shirt playing a very nice electric guitar he got as a teenager and playing blues licks he was very clearly taught during lessons his parents paid for.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5278285&forum_id=2#45855471)

DCs are fairly expensive now, over $2k used - my $2100 was actually on the lower end of the price scale on reverb.com etc these days. But I have monitored these for many years. I want to say when they (this model) came out new, late 90s to mid to late 2010s, they were a bit less than a normal Les Paul, maybe $1200ish? Maybe a little more? For a long time they were $1200-1500 on the used market, only in the last few years did they shoot up in price so much.

That said, a $1200 guitar in high school is expensive. I knew one kid with a Les Paul Custom in MIDDLE SCHOOL and he wasn't even that rich, another with a les paul standard (but he was rich), everyone else had squires and ibanezes.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5278285&forum_id=2#45855667)

Everyone I know pretty much had solid state amps, myself included. One guy had a marshall combo that I think was tubes. One guy was a pro, like he was a young phenom and played in local metal bands at local clubs and even he had some solid state stack.

I bought this Art SGX T2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXzbminAPkw that was BIG TIME to me back in high school - basically a 90s multi effects processor that could do pretty much everything that I needed, never even occured to me that I would want a tube amp once I got this thing

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5278285&forum_id=2#45860374)

My mom was terrible with money and basically lived support check to support check. She was super generous with everyone and definitely spoiled me and my brother, but not in a crazy way. Most of the stuff we bought were video games, skateboards, bb guns, etc. So nothing really expensive. I bought that guitar in like 1997, and I think it was like $800 at the time (although I could be wrong). I took lessons for about 2 years (from about 13-15) and then I was in a band for a bit.

I stopped touching my guitar for the most part around 18 and it was packed away at my mom's house until she died in February last year. Didn't touch a guitar for at least 20 years besides the occasional time I would run into someone playing and I'd pick it up for like 5 minutes.

As a side story, I bought a black face proreverb for $300 at a garage sale back in 1997. Was an insane deal because the lady's husband had passed away and she had no idea what it was. I sold it in college though since I never used it.

As far as my financial success, I'm 100% self made, brother. I had no financial help starting my firm or with college/law school and 100% of the cases I had when I went solo were from people who weren't family members. I paid for all my law school/college with money I made investing my Everquest winnings.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5278285&forum_id=2#45855928)

Pay off 600k house worth 2.2 mil now. She could have gotten deep into the real estate game herself. Her house appreciated more than double the rate of inflation. That 10k a month was more than a handout, it was a gift.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5278285&forum_id=2#45856018)

I wouldn't be shocked if your mom received substantial assets on top of support and blew threw that too.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5278285&forum_id=2#45857651)

Boomers are fucking unreal.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5278285&forum_id=2#45860264)

This cuts pretty hard at your rags to riches, I paid for law school with my EverQuest money story. I'd say this was a pretty brutal selfpwn and no amount of, "but my mom was an irresponsible birdbrain" can take away from the fact you grew up with a shitload of money.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5278285&forum_id=2#45860407)