Guitrwiz

The name Guitrwiz began in the late 1980's when I was working at IBM and email was restricted to 8 characters.  Short for Guitarwiz, it stuck.  Around 2004 I was trading guitar equipment online via eBay and elsewhere when I decided to take the next step and become a dealer of boutique, custom equipment.  The name Guitrwiz just worked and the domain name was registered.

Hi, I'm Steve.  I am a Dad to 2 awesome kids, son, brother and friend.   I am a photographer, backpacker/hiker, climber, private pilot, web designer, senior network/systems engineer, guitar player.

I grew up in Northern California (San Jose/South Bay Area) and relocated to Colorado in 1994.  At this time, through a series of events I switched careers from Electronic Engineering to the field of information Technology.  I don't have a type-a personality but have made a heck of a career cleaning up messes left by many a type-a consultant.  :)

Living in Colorado at an elevation of 6500ft , surrounded by clean air, 54 fourteeners (14,000+ft mountains), two smiling children and great people all provide fantastic inspiration!  I've played guitar since 1979 after short stints with drums and piano. I grew up with rock 'n roll, and have since enjoyed the journey into blues, jazz, country and classical; all ending up rocked out.  On these pages I share my love of guitar with you.

When talking to others about their beliefs, thoughts on an afterlife, God or higher power, etc., I have heard as many opinions as people.  Most people believe there is good and evil and many desire to be good - all have a conscience,  All have a belief ;Even Human Secularism, or atheism is a religion; it is just that they believe themselves to be the higher power (a god).

The big question comes down to what happens when you die?  Many religions and beliefs are based on doing good and if you do good enough, you enter a better life, Heaven, nirvana, etc.  But, what is good enough?  What if, just maybe, you miss the mark by say 1 good deed?, 101 good deeds?  What if you throw out an expletive that last second of your life? What is the mark and how hard do you have to work to reach it, if you ever can?  The only hope I found was in what Jesus taught.

Jesus taught love;  taught to love our enemies, taught to give (not take) and taught that eternal life in Heaven is a FREE gift to ANYONE who simply believes in and follows Him - not through our works (i.e. good deeds) and certainly not available via cash or credit.  Jesus IS pretty cool and is the only way to eternal life that I've found.  If there's another guaranteed way, I'm all ears.  :)

Many find it hard to reach Jesus because too many 'Christians' stand in the way.  There are multi-billion dollar, media-driven organizations (WFC = Word-Faith Cult) and Countless Cults formed over the past century teaching things neither Jesus nor the Bible taught.  All formed to glorify themselves, teaching neither truth nor Jesus.   But all calling themselves Christians.  How confusing is that?

In no way is this saying Christians are bad, as most are not.  I myself am a 'Christian', but I personally choose to follow what Jesus and the Bible teaches to God's glory, rather then man-made religious riff-raff in the name of and to the glory of man.

I fell in love with guitar the moment I heard Eruption when Van Halen I was released (1978).  I have since enjoyed teaching others over the years, both young and old; the freedom, peace, love and enjoyment of playing and creating on the guitar goes beyond words.

A friend introduced me to a company called Kyäni that creates a super-food, super anti-oxidant product line based on Alaskan wild blueberries of all things.   the multi-level, high pressure sales turned me off immediately, but after researching the products and Kyäni (the company), I decided to give it a try.  After just 3 weeks on the Kyäni 'Triangle Of Health' line, I installed a sprinkler system (trenching by hand) and moved 7 tons of river rock to finish a landscape job that would have crippled me before.   For the First time in 10years; no pain!

With Spring here, I've started climbing in preparation of tackling several more of Colorado's 14ers (14k ft peaks) this summer; Still no pain.  This skeptic was sold! I recently signed up as a distributor to share with others suffering from sciatica or other ailments a possible solution to provide comfort and relief.

If you wish to check out the products yourself or the company, you can do so by visiting MileHighKyäni.com.

My bucket list consists of climbing Mt Denali (McKinley).  In the mean time I'm attempting to tackle all 54 of Colorado's 14ers.  I also enjoy rafting, snowshoeing, cross country skiing and biking.  In time I hope to try trail running again as I put Kyäni up against my knee pain (runner's knee).

It seems many guitarists ask each other an odd question; 'what equipment do you use?'.   Being a tone junky who spent years on a personal tone quest, I realized 1 important thing; Tone begins in the heart and extends through the fingers.  Equipment can carry you so far, but watch someone like Jeff Beck who plays with no pick, a guitar and an amp..,  Simply amazing and humbling!

I'm nowhere close to being that good, so I've leaned on equipment to carry me! LOL. 

My main Equipment consists of a Parker Fly Classic guitar  into a Blues Jr. amp,  sort of. OK, here's how it really goes... The stereo signal comes out of the guitar, splitting at a 'Y'. The 'ring' (Piezo) goes to a Roland Cube 30X for crisp and clean acoustic tones.  The 'tip' (magnetic) goes into a GT Pro rack which loops out to a Fulltone wah then into a Barber Tone Press, then a choice of a modded MT-2, Fulldrive2 or MXR Boost/OD, off to a HBE phaser, HBE analog delay, then back to the rack and into a 2CH (cascaded) TB202 tube preamp and back to the GT Pro return.  Main outs are to the 2.1 Fostex monitors and the aux out is to the Jr.  I personally think tube amps give the electric guitar the best tone due to the tube's harmonic characteristics which solid state or modeling simply can't capture.  After lugging around a Marshall TLS601 and a Twin, I downsized to the Jr as it is all I really need at this time in my life, but keeps the tone (without the ear-bleeding volume and weight).

I recently picked up playing bass (SR500) to assist in the production of my first CD; which didn't happen..., yet.

When I started playing guitar, I just wanted to get right to playing. Unfortunately, I skipped a lot of valuable theory which I had to learn later, and the older you are the harder it is to pick things up!

I was leaning on the theory I had learned in 6th-7th grade piano lessons. It was good but on any instrument, to be proficient you need to learn and know your instrument intimately. Once I memorized the fretboard (knowing where every note is on every fret and every string), a whole new world was revealed. Applying chord, scale and modal theory (modes) to this world opened up an infinite palette of creativity.

The links below are available to download and print. They touch on some basic chord and scale building which can hopefully allow you to create on the fly!

Growing up in Northern California, My Dad introduced me to backpacking and respect for the wilderness.  I've hiked many miles of Yosemite's backcountry which is truly one of a kind in it's majestic beauty.  Moving to Colorado, The Rocky Mountains have opened a whole new chapter in high country mountaineering.

So far I've peaked Mt Evans, Grays, Torres, Lincoln, Cameron (unofficial), Democrat and Bross. Mt. Bierstadt and Pikes will have to be revisited as weather cut those climbs short. I plan to add to this list in the coming months and years.

Half Dome (both the hike/backside and face) and Mt Denali (20,335ft) in Alaska are on my bucket list of climbs.

Following a dream I had since I was a kid I did my my first solo June 2002 and received my private pilot certificate by the end of the year. I have logged only 100hrs flight time as I have had to put flying on the backburner when my daughter was born. The age old question of fly an hour ($150/hr) or put food on the table has put flying into hibernation.

I still enjoy flying via Flight Simulator X using Mega Scenery textures for realistic scenery overlays (full Colorado and California sectionals). It's not the same, but I hope it allows me to keep my mental edge until I can once again take to the skies for that $150+ burger or breakfast across the state.

I got excited about computers and coding back in 1985 while working on my Electronic Engineering degree. Back then it was designing the hardware with a minor emphasis on programming (The IBM XT/AT were the standards at the time). While working in IBM's development labs I was given the opportunity to be the dept PC tech.  I suspect this was the official start of my IT career.

In 1994 when I relocated to Colorado, the window for continuing my EE career ended short, but a new door opened in Information Technology (IT) that I have worked ever since.  I started out in NetWare and moved to Windows server technologies with the advent of NT, focusing on LDAP/Active Directory and Exchange (email/messaging).  I've worked with Linux (RedHat/CentOS, OpenSuse and Postfix over the past decade, and must say; 'it just works!'  A novel approach after working with Microsoft technologies these past couple of decades.  technology has changed a lot, and for the most part it has been good (namely virtualization (ESXi/vSphere) and storage technologies (NAS/SAN)).

I plan on adding a blog to this section for tips, tricks and information to assist other techs and engineers to hopefully get them through the tough times.   In the mean time; consider this 'Under Construction'.  :)