Hill Country Rain
Sharon and I got up early this morning. Me to do some work (what else is new), and Sharon got our gear ready so we could go to Kerrville. We didn't do the whole popup-camper thing - my work has been too impossible to allow us enough time to have done all that. But after searching Sharon couldn't find our tent. So I thought I'd try to find a hotel room in Kerrville. Thinking it was a long shot - I did find one at a Days Inn for probably double their normal price. But this town has two major festivals going on this Memorial day weekend. So I took it anyway. Feeling slightly old, slightly decadent about the arrangements, and a bit dissapointed that we wouldn't be camping. That all fell away, when after enjoying a nice day of music, the skies opened up and it started to pour rain around 10pm. We huddled under a roof while a couple of guys on guitar led a singalong of old classics. The rains started coming down harder and rivers started forming down the hills everywhere. After 2hrs we decided to leave. We gave a couple of young girls a ride to just across the highway so they could avoid two lake-size puddles on the way to their car. Now I'm sitting in our air-conditioned suite -- feeling quite please in how events turned out. Sleeping in a puddle wouldn't have been any fun, and there's plenty of people in that condition there tonight.

  posted by John : 11:31 PM

 
Some interesting tidbits about the song It's All Over Now - performed by the Valentinos, written by Bobby Womack. Svend uploaded this to the listening room tonight. As good a closer song that would be for a mix, I'll see if I can follow it...

  posted by John : 9:59 PM

 
Wild Things
Is it already time again for a new mix in the Listening Room ? Why, I should say so. You know what to do... listen to the mix, and add to it with a song from your precious mp3 collection.

Had a nice get together with a couple of friends yesterday. Lots of storytelling over dinner outside on a warm evening. Stories of rescued birds, feral cats and feral children. At one point I had to cut Sharon short as I was eating my dessert and she began to tell the details of how her nephew has lately begun to cook and eat wild birds. The theme that emerged was what we would do to help a seemingly helpless creature, and when is it our place to step in. But then again we each have our limiters for compassion. Or there would be alot more animal collectors in the world.

  posted by John : 1:49 PM

 
Went to see the film The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill tonight. An intimate study of some members of an urban flock of parrots, and a man who has devoted himself to them. We both loved it. Something more to see when we get to San Francisco. And just down the street from you Anzo & Killer?

The shots of this birdman next to images of Alcatraz probably weren't trying to infer anything, but I at least had to look up a bio for that guy when we got home.

A new feature at Landmark movie theaters are the ads by Stella Artois beer before the feature. They show a short film, followed up by a beer ad. I like the idea - its about time shorts were worked in to regular programming. But as with most mass attempts at programming, you would see the same short played each time you go to these theaters in a given month. A reason to go back, but also a reason to wait until the short has changed. Tonight's short was the girl screaming across Central Park and chasing after a guy who screams back. Cute, but quite alot of screaming.

  posted by John : 8:57 PM

 
Folkin Eh?


The Kerrville Folk Festival is coming up soon. We'll be setting up a popup camper there for the duration (three weeks), but we'll probably only go for the first and third weekends. First weekend has the New Folk competition which is a highlight. The campground scene goes all day and night and the quality of songwriting and musicianship among the festival-goers is like no other festival. Only drawback is it can get pretty hot. But the evenings are beautiful, and we like to take a daily trip to a spring fed river for a swim.

Except for the first weekend of my first year going to this festival (when Sharon and I met), I've been a volunteer. The perks are pretty good - festival pass, camping, food, beer, flush-toilets. But this year I'll shirk all responsibilities and be a paying Kerr-vert.

Anybody want to come down for it? It would be great to have a Camp Canada there.

  posted by John : 8:26 PM

 
retraining
Always thought I was pretty decent typist. I guess you could say keyboardist, but not of the musical kind. But I recently realized that I hold the shift key on the right size of the keyboard in combination with certain right hand keys. 'I' and _ (underscore) for example. No idea where I picked this up, or why its only particular keys, not all of them. I can only assume that it had something to do with skipping off the last month of typing class in high school. Since I got a rather tiny, portable keyboard (I like standing my laptop up vertically when I work so I need an extra keyboard) - I noticed my hands were hurting, from trying to form some of the upper-case combinations. So I'm working on retraining myself to type the 'right' way.

I've also decided to work on memorizing the military/phonetic alpabet (Alpha Bravo Charlie Delta Echo Foxtrot Golf Hotel India Juliet Kilo Lima Mike November Oscar Papa Quebec Romeo Sierra Tango Uniform Victor Whiskey Xray Yankee Zulu). I have too many phone conversations at work where I'm fishing to try to make these up (L as in ... Lucifer, J as in Jellybean, etc.). This may be as successful as my attempt to memorize all 32 Mexican State names (not very). Or I could make up my own list to use - that would be more fun.

  posted by John : 9:50 AM

 
Sharon
A tribute to my wonderful wife, on Mother's Day...

Quicktime video

  posted by John : 11:46 AM

 
Squeeze Players

photo

Thanks to Aaron for tipping us off to the fact that the incomporable Glenn Tilbrook was playing tonight at Antone's. Glenn and his new band "The Fluffers" were in fine form. At their best on the Squeeze songs, of which they did quite alot. There were maybe 150 people in the club. Much different than the thousands at Squeeze concerts 15 yrs ago (gasp, its more like 20 yrs ago).

photo

A highlight of the show was Glenn's leading the band up on top of the bar where they did a short acoustic set of Goodbye Girl and Black Coffee in Bed (track #3 in this mix). The band smoothly moved back to the main stage to finish the song electric with a crowd singalong. I captured a 5 min video of this...

Quicktime video

The Fluffers' keyboardist, Stephen Large, was excellent - and great fun to watch. Something like a cross between Jools Holland and Keith Moon. Switching between a stack of keyboards and a full B3 Hammond organ with a Leslie speaker setup for that true soul sound. At one point during the finale he curled himself up ontop of the organ keyboard, playing one big chord.

photo

Ears still ringing, and my throat sore from singing and hollering. A thoroughly fun night.

  posted by John : 11:11 PM

 
Wi-Fi Blimps
Knud sent me this link to a Discovery Channel Canada video that aired recently about Stratellites. Sanswire has accepted the challenge of what is quite simply the key to the next generation of the Internet, a Global Wireless Broadband Network. Maybe -- if the FAA doesn't mind them flying around the stratosphere.
  posted by John : 7:08 PM

 
Internet Dog Feeder
Denver the dog gets fed by remote strangers via a contraption hooked up to a web interface: the internet dog feeder. I wasn't going to feed him. But then I saw Denver lying next to the bowl, and he didn't look too fat, and read that his intake is monitored somewhat. And I felt compelled to watch this work. Good boy Denver.
(found from surfing a link Shamus posted on the Glob)

  posted by John : 6:09 PM

 
This is turning into gadget week for me. I finally got a new laptop from my work. Not the super-slim one I was thinking of, but very nice. Built-in Wi-Fi, DVD and a CD-burner. Almost 10x the memory and speed of my old machine, which I had for 5 years. The screen can go to very high resolution, 1400x1050, where the old one was distressed at 1024x768. And its silent (like the Toyota Prius). The old one had to be shut down at night if I had it in the bedroom, the fan was so loud.

Time to go do some work on it...

  posted by John : 12:20 PM

 


Rented a snazzy little Toyota Prius from Hertz today. Its a gas/electric hybrid. You push a button to start it, and its totally silent. Feels like a golf cart as you pull forward. Then the engine engages as you pick up speed. Driving it feels a bit like visiting the future. The color display in the center console is constantly updated to show the current energy source, and whether the battery is running the car or being charged by the engine. I don't know who would need such a display past the first day of use, but this is the first generation of this technology. The display also shows you constant update of miles-per-gallon. When driving along the highway its showing around 50mpg. Will be interesting to see what it costs in gas when I return it, vs the usual $10 or $11 I've been spending on other cars.


  posted by John : 9:20 PM

 
Kids, Moms & Dads
We're back home now, recovering from the trip and last night's baby blast a la casa de Marty & Joanie. In case you're not sure, click on a picture to see who each one belongs to. Fiona and Alan had their party earlier so they hung back at home - so the pics of the Fiona-Fran-Alan team were taken 6 months ago. Please excuse the blurries...


  posted by John : 5:04 PM