I was very fortunate to be able to host the world-famous Terry Scott Taylor at my home as part of his mid-west tour this year. Below are two video snippets of his show. He spent a lot of time tuning so if you want to get a real feel of the evening just loop the tuning bit over and over. :) The house was packed with fans (well, sprinkled with fans) and Steve Hindalong of The Choir paid me a great compliment: "You've got a great sounding home." YES!
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Saturday, June 27, 2009
NEW SONG!
This ditty popped into my head about two months ago while changing a diaper. Of course by the time I finished writing and recording it Tessa is walking... go figure! And since I seem to be the only person on the planet who listens to music instead of watching it I set it to some video. Mucho Rembrandty.
Monday, June 22, 2009
Why I Loves Me The Internets
Though you young punks may find it difficult to believe that this geezer who only in the past year has purchased both a cell phone and an MP3 player, I was an early adopter of the internet. Heck, thanks for BigDork I even used Google back when it was Beta (and wasn't cooperating with Communist China or protecting pedophiles).
So after the usual years of "golly gee there's lots of fun time wasting stuff out there" you get to the point where it's just a resource, replacing that old fashioned library.
Case in point: Last night I went down into the basement and the furnace sounded... funny. A bit more exploration and I find that the AC refrigerant line is frozen up with frost all over it. YIKES! Visions of thousands of non-existant dollars leaping out of my bank account spring into my mind. In the olden days of even fifteen years ago you'd have to make some phone calls and wake up repairmen or wait until the library opened and grab a dozen books on air conditioners and spend an hour or so leafing through them to find what you want. No more! In a matter of five minutes I was able to find the name of the frozen line (the refrigerant line... yeah, makes sense but often these things are called something like the Howitzer Return Feed) and how to fix the problem. I also found plans to turn my AC unit into an ice cream factory and/or nuclear refining facility.
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet
My grocery bills have given me the blues. Part of it is having four kids between the ages of eight and fourteen, any three of which are in a growth spurt at any given time. But the other part is prices at the grocery store and with the rampant printing of money and upcoming Obama-government mandated growing schedules for farmers it's only beginning.
Two examples.
Less than ten years ago I bought myself one of these cheap-o Indonesian-made guitars. $80. The tone isn't perfect nor does the neck melt into your hand but I'm not all that great of a guitarist and I needed an electric to knock around upon. This fit the bill.
Two years ago my son wanted nothing more than a guitar for his birthday. Well, a guitar or a $5000 gadget. I went shopping and found that this particular model was now $100.
Now I see that it's raised up another $20 to $120 American dollars.
2000 to 2007. 25% price increase in six+ years. 2007 to 2009. 20% increase in two years. Graph that out and you'll fill your drawers. That is if you're in the market for a beginner guitar.
Example Two:
Can o' corn at Aldis. Notice that this is not an actual Aldi's can of corn. Photographs of such a rare beast are not released to the internets. I'm using Aldi's here 'cause I'm frugal (or cheap) and it's easy to compare historical prices because they have ONE type of canned corn. Apples to apples.
Ten or twelve years ago this tasty product was twenty-five cents. A mere quarter. It was that was for years and years. Then about four years ago it went up to 33 cents, you know, about the time ethanol came into fashion.
Farmer Bob: "Hey everybody, let's turn our food supply into fuel, not because it's more efficient or creates more energy than we put in but because it makes us feel good. I could plant corn for humans and get $10 a bushel or I could plant feed corn for cows and get $10 a bushel or I could plant corn to turn into gas and get a Bush-Government subsidized $20 a bushel. I'm no dummy. Oh, and since I'm not planting corn for humans the guys who are now want $12 a bushel and since I'm NOT planting green beans those have gone up from 30 cents a can to 40 cents. Less product, same demand, higher prices."
Thanks for the monologue, Farmer Bob.
The bad news is that a can -o- corn is now 49 cents. That's a 100% increase in less than ten years. I won't go into how your favorite milk products (cheese, ice cream, and everybody's favorite lo-fat yogurt) went from $1.69 per bag (this is cheese I'm talking about) to $3.69 in the same few years. Ice cream at least only went from 99 cents to $1.69 in less than ten years. Inflation? It's already here.
Just in case you're wondering, we tried messing with food prices before with FDR and it failed miserably. Back then we had a supreme court with a slight understanding of the U.S. Constitution so they rightly struck down the Agricultural Adjustment Act as unconstitutinal. I doubt our current court will have the moral compass or the spine.
Two examples.
Less than ten years ago I bought myself one of these cheap-o Indonesian-made guitars. $80. The tone isn't perfect nor does the neck melt into your hand but I'm not all that great of a guitarist and I needed an electric to knock around upon. This fit the bill.
Two years ago my son wanted nothing more than a guitar for his birthday. Well, a guitar or a $5000 gadget. I went shopping and found that this particular model was now $100.
Now I see that it's raised up another $20 to $120 American dollars.
2000 to 2007. 25% price increase in six+ years. 2007 to 2009. 20% increase in two years. Graph that out and you'll fill your drawers. That is if you're in the market for a beginner guitar.
Example Two:
Can o' corn at Aldis. Notice that this is not an actual Aldi's can of corn. Photographs of such a rare beast are not released to the internets. I'm using Aldi's here 'cause I'm frugal (or cheap) and it's easy to compare historical prices because they have ONE type of canned corn. Apples to apples.
Ten or twelve years ago this tasty product was twenty-five cents. A mere quarter. It was that was for years and years. Then about four years ago it went up to 33 cents, you know, about the time ethanol came into fashion.
Farmer Bob: "Hey everybody, let's turn our food supply into fuel, not because it's more efficient or creates more energy than we put in but because it makes us feel good. I could plant corn for humans and get $10 a bushel or I could plant feed corn for cows and get $10 a bushel or I could plant corn to turn into gas and get a Bush-Government subsidized $20 a bushel. I'm no dummy. Oh, and since I'm not planting corn for humans the guys who are now want $12 a bushel and since I'm NOT planting green beans those have gone up from 30 cents a can to 40 cents. Less product, same demand, higher prices."
Thanks for the monologue, Farmer Bob.
The bad news is that a can -o- corn is now 49 cents. That's a 100% increase in less than ten years. I won't go into how your favorite milk products (cheese, ice cream, and everybody's favorite lo-fat yogurt) went from $1.69 per bag (this is cheese I'm talking about) to $3.69 in the same few years. Ice cream at least only went from 99 cents to $1.69 in less than ten years. Inflation? It's already here.
Just in case you're wondering, we tried messing with food prices before with FDR and it failed miserably. Back then we had a supreme court with a slight understanding of the U.S. Constitution so they rightly struck down the Agricultural Adjustment Act as unconstitutinal. I doubt our current court will have the moral compass or the spine.
Monday, June 8, 2009
Observations
This morning as I rode my bike to work (riding my bike to work four or five days a month plus keeping up with five kids is the only exercise I get) I noticed that they had stopped working on the expension of the art museum. Oh wait, there's four guys in hardhats standing on the corner. Around the corner along Main Street are two more groups of hardhat guys holding signs. On strike. Don't they know we're in a bloomin' recession?!?! That there are tons of people out of work (so they tell us) that are just itching to get a construction job? Seems like a pretty risky time to go on strike.
And then the thought occured to me that perhaps this is the unions flexing a bit of muscle since they have the full backing of the Obama administration, just testing to see how scared businesses are of earning any unwanted attention from Washington.
And then the thought occured to me that perhaps this is the unions flexing a bit of muscle since they have the full backing of the Obama administration, just testing to see how scared businesses are of earning any unwanted attention from Washington.
Friday, June 5, 2009
Still Afloat on Oceansize
If they sound this good live imagine how amazing they are in the studio! Well, actually it's pretty close, just a bit cleaner.
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