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adventures / music / photo / video / weekend — Comments Off
15
Jun 13

Our last sea day

We’re on our way back to the States. Here’s the view from our veranda, look at all that deep blue:

There was a giant brunch buffet this morning to mark the end of the cruise. It was an embarrassing amount of food:

They had two chocolate fountains.

And ice sculptures everywhere.

The entertainment tonight was comedian Buzz Sutherland. He’s just been enjoying the cruise with his family and does his standup tonight. Sweet gig. And a great show. Check him out on YouTube.

There is a martini bar on board, notable for being an ice-covered bar. And, apparently, the bartenders are trick drink makers. I walked by just as a guy poured these seven drinks simultaneously out of a clutch of shakers.

I don’t know what the ship record is for this, but that guy was pretty proud of himself:

Finally, here’s the promised video of pianist Jordan Peterson. He’s playing tunes covering about a 50 year range, and he’s worth hearing:

Tomorrow we have to get off the ship.

Friday / music / video — Comments Off
31
May 13

Just skip to the music

And on the fifth day of this crud, I have the worst of this crud.

The good news being that, soon, I’ll be on the other side of it. The bad news being that I haven’t slept all week. Though I did find a nap today.

And then I spent most of the day complaining about my head: my head cold, my sinuses, my headaches and all. It just goes on and on.

So some music then, because why not? Earth, Wind & Fire covers on this edition of YouTube Cover Theater. This guy personifies the concept, claiming over 175 million YouTube views of his various videos, Igor Presnyakov covers Let’s Groove Tonight:

Tyler Robinson covers September:

This is crazy good, and sometime soon you’ll be telling people you knew Emily Elbert way back when:

High school jazz bands better be covering EWF. Bass player’s got chops, too:

You get a lot of drum solos and recordings of bass solos and backing tracks when you search for Earth, Wind & Fire covers. But you also get the criminally under-viewed Allen W. Davis:

And then I spent 20 minutes listening to Davis’ other stuff. Fascinating.

Couldn’t pick just one Earth, Wind & Fire song to end with, so here’s the Greatest Hits, Volume 1, off a vinyl transfer, as it should be:

Have a great weekend!

music / photo / Tuesday / video — Comments Off
28
May 13

The blehrgh

I’m coming down with it, whatever the sinus-driven, allergy death mojo of the day is. The Yankee got it last week — she was fine when she got on her bike and then after a short ride she was feeling less than her normal best self. And that continued for several days before her medicine took hold.

Me, I got home from my weekend visit to see grandparents, stood outside for about 10 minutes to rinse the bird souvenirs off of my car and came inside feeling it too. So I’m telling myself these are Tennessee Valley allergens, which means I could flush them out of my system soon now that I’m back on the plain.

Otherwise, I have developed local allergies and that would be no good.

The good news is that this seems mostly confined to the region between the third rib and the nasal cavity. The bad news is that I’d rather have pretty much any other part of me not feeling well.

The upside is that it gave me the opportunity to not only listen to, but live this song:

But, I mowed the lawn today. I trimmed back a tree. I took this picture of Allie:

Did some other things. Felt my head swim. Started taking sinus and allergy pills myself. Life is grand.

Adam came over for dinner, and then we all ventured out to the new Dunkin Donuts. It opened today! And it closed this evening. So they aren’t 24-hours yet, after all.

If they were worn out on the first day, this doesn’t bode well. (I’m sure they’ll be fine.)

Finally, if you ignore the reporter, this is the best story you’ll watch all day:

history / Monday / music / video — Comments Off
20
May 13

Caledonia Soul Music

Today is the day for it.

Here is, perhaps, my favorite interpretation of it. The grail of Van Morrison collectibles — back when the physical media and other realities made it difficult to acquire — this is actually an outtake His Band and the Street Choir sessions in 1970. Amazing stuff.

cycling / music / Thursday / video — Comments Off
2
May 13

There is an etc. at the end of this post

I rode my bike 15 miles today, just hitting the hills out through the back of the neighborhood, down to the state park and back up to the main road.

There’s a hill right off that drops away like a waterfall. From the very top of it, and from a stopped-start, you can coast six-tenths of a mile and hitting about 28 miles per hour. That’s fun, but climbing back up it is the ride. So we did that a few times. And then we took one of the side climbs on the biggest “hill” in town a few times.

So that was a nice 45 minutes or so on the bike. And then, as evening sighed and gave way to night, we ran about two miles on one of the neighborhood paths.

It sounds like we’re in shape or something, right? My run would disagree.

And, now, Pavarotti sings Nessun Dorma

On that run I found the first honeysuckle of the season. It seems late, in general, but everything about this spring is late. We broke 70 for less than an hour today, but at least we broke 70. Have I mentioned I live in the deep south?

The the nice part about sucking wind on a poor run at the height of spring is the smell of so much honeysuckle. Trying to enjoy the nectar of the honeysuckle just before a run? Noticing there was not really any nectar to speak of? That was an odd thing, but this has been an odd spring.

Otherwise, class, grading, etc.