That month of February just seemed to flee; don't know what it was so afraid of, but if you look quickly you can see it vanishing in the distance.
Just about gone, and there's not a thing to be done about it. But everyone's tired of hearing about how fast time flies when you get older, we never seemed to notice that when we were young, blah, blah, blah.
So, what have I been doing instead of posting here more often? Home repairs? Not exactly. But we did have to call the overhead door guy three Sundays ago. The garage door opened, my wife backed the car out, then I pushed the button to bring the door back down. Instead, it failed in the open position, and it didn't take long to figure out we weren't going to get it to close. Since we couldn't secure the house, we skipped church, much to my annoyance. Within a couple of hours the repairman came out, and he made a good repair...the door runs more smoothly than before.
That, and our dryer failed on us. The appliance repairman gave us a choice, he could put in a new motor. But that would have been more than half the cost of a new dryer, and there were no guarantees how long we'd have until something else failed on the old machine, the heating element, perhaps. Sears happened to be running a special - free delivery - so we now have a new dryer. Much better than what we were using. But, it's been a bit costly this month.
What I'm more excited about though, is I've been taking a continuing education class online, on writing for internet markets. I'm most of the way through the course, and I'm very encouraged. I had no idea how many different options their are for writing and having content published online...this course has been worth every penny.
One thing I will probably do is start a new blog, and monetize it. This will be a more focused effort, as soon as I decide what I want to write about.
But never fear, Poppy's Front Porch isn't going anywhere, I'm just expanding my opportunities to write. I will post more than the once a month rate so far this year, but it may only be just two to four times per month, at least for a while. It's possible I might move some subject matter over to the new blog, but right now I think the family stories, photographs, and much of the silliness will remain right here.
Showing posts with label time - the relentless passage of. Show all posts
Showing posts with label time - the relentless passage of. Show all posts
Monday, February 28, 2011
Friday, January 1, 2010
01-01-10
This is just nuts, as I told my wife earlier in the day. 2010 already? When we were younger, The Year 2000 was a ways off yet, but it was something we could kind of imagine...it was on its way. Then, there was that movie 2001. But 2010? Yeah, right.
Where did the last 25 years go?
The kids spent New Years Eve with some good friends of the family, so my wife and I had the house to ourselves. We built some popcorn and watched a movie we hadn't seen in a long while, The Princess Bride. We enjoyed the quiet evening at home, and the kids had a good time at their party...stayed up until midnight even.
This morning after breakfast my wife and I bundled up and drove to the local Wally World to exchange the flannel pajamas I got for Christmas for the same thing in size XL. That, and we bought a few other things.
It's been bitterly cold all day, it may have made it up to 15. In the afternoon, I went out to sprinkle some snow melt chemicals on the worst of the icy patches, and to take the trash cans to the curb for tomorrow morning's pickup. Other than that, I've stayed in. The weather guessers say it may get down to one or two below zero tonight.
We're starting to put the Christmas decorations away, bit by bit, which always makes me a bit sad. That, and I had hoped to light the oven to bake some snack mix this evening. Our oven is tempermental about lighting, and it was nothing doing tonight.
Not much of a report, I know. But I thought it was interesting how today's date looked, using just the last two digits of the year. There will be some fun number sequences this year...08-09-10, 10-10-10, and 12-11-10, to list some obvious ones.
Where did the last 25 years go?
The kids spent New Years Eve with some good friends of the family, so my wife and I had the house to ourselves. We built some popcorn and watched a movie we hadn't seen in a long while, The Princess Bride. We enjoyed the quiet evening at home, and the kids had a good time at their party...stayed up until midnight even.
This morning after breakfast my wife and I bundled up and drove to the local Wally World to exchange the flannel pajamas I got for Christmas for the same thing in size XL. That, and we bought a few other things.
It's been bitterly cold all day, it may have made it up to 15. In the afternoon, I went out to sprinkle some snow melt chemicals on the worst of the icy patches, and to take the trash cans to the curb for tomorrow morning's pickup. Other than that, I've stayed in. The weather guessers say it may get down to one or two below zero tonight.
We're starting to put the Christmas decorations away, bit by bit, which always makes me a bit sad. That, and I had hoped to light the oven to bake some snack mix this evening. Our oven is tempermental about lighting, and it was nothing doing tonight.
Not much of a report, I know. But I thought it was interesting how today's date looked, using just the last two digits of the year. There will be some fun number sequences this year...08-09-10, 10-10-10, and 12-11-10, to list some obvious ones.
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
More fan commentary on music by the pro's
First, when Mike says he’s tickled about the response we’ve gotten here at “The Porch” from King Harvest, that goes for me too. What a nice thing to do.
Time passes...oh boy, might as well enjoy it
From Cousin Mike…
“Many of the acts that we admire would be old, gravelly and scraggly, like the drummer on this cable show. I heard a new Bob Segar song the other day and you can definately hear some age in his voice.”
True enough, and it is kind of a shock when you detect that in a voice, or see a recent photo or video of someone we listened to in our teen years. It’s as if, “How in the world could those guys be the same ones I used to hear on WHB or KUDL-AM…and still hear from time to time on KCMO-FM, KCFX, or KBLV? (Pardon my five local radio references, a.k.a. shameless plugs.) What happened?”
It’s like you mentioned on your blog when you turned 50, that you didn’t feel all that different. That, and something I heard in a sermon by one of my pastors once. He observed that your spirit doesn’t age (which could also explain why some guys get into trouble when they attempt some stunt they used to be able to do, but their body can no longer handle. Intellectually, they should know better. But deep inside, it just doesn’t seem like things could have changed that much.)
On occasion I’ll tune across our public television station and watch part of a rock concert. Something like Austin City Limits, but the one in particular I’m thinking of was another show…a name I don’t recall at the moment. Anyway, a year or two ago, I saw part of a festival of some sort, too many big names to be one band on tour with one other opening act. After a few notes got my attention – oh yeah I recognize the song. That’s really Joe Walsh? Still sounds great, but how can I put this kindly…um, obviously some time had passed.
I’ll mention a few other examples. The Rolling Stones - all in their 60’s, though one member of that band might be 70 by now. I *think* Eric Clapton is 60, but I’d have to check that. Sir Paul McCartney is either 64 or 65, the last I heard. Richard Wright passed away on September 15th, at the age of 65. He was one of the founders of Pink Floyd (I know Mike, not one of your favorite bands).
(As an aside, I also like a lot of 1980's music; so a lot of this isn't as obvious with the younger bands. Not yet, anyway.)
I guess the only point here is that we’re oblivious to time passing until some event or bit of news actually catches our attention. We open our eyes a bit and say, “Oh! Really?” No big revelation, that; it’s the same old story.
“So teach us to number our days…” (Psalm 90:12)
The Band
Mike continues...
“Levon Helm! He's the drummer for The Band and he's the drummer on my cable show!”
Yes, when I think of The Band, three names pop into my mind; Levon Helm, Robbie Robertson, and Rick Danko. I had to look up on Wikipedia to find the other two names from their late ‘60s, early ‘70s lineup, Richard Manuel and Garth Hudson.
I clicked on the link and enjoyed watching the "King Harvest Has Surely Come" video. I can’t say for certain that I recall hearing that song. It kind of rings a bell, well, the title does anyway. I didn’t have that album.
Of course I had to watch the video of my favorite song of theirs, “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down”. This was from a live concert, I think it was “The Last Waltz”; the studio version was released in 1969.
I know I have only a few regular readers here, and some of you might only be familiar with Joan Baez’s cover version of that song. Pretty enough song in it’s own way, but as a kid I thought it was strange that this gal would sing a guy’s part “Virgil Caine is my name…”, and say things like “…I’m a working man” (actually “…I will work this land” in the original). Not until I heard the original by The Band did I realize what an amazing song it was. If you haven’t heard it by The Band, then you haven’t heard it. I invite you to take a few minutes and treat yourself here...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38JpAMG65Dg
Since I still had Wikipedia open (my research on the other members of The Band), I clicked on their “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” article. Here’s an excerpt from a quote by Rolling Stone Magazine reviewer Ralph J. Gleason, describing the impact of the song on listeners…
“Nothing I have read … has brought home the overwhelming human sense of history that this song does…It's a remarkable song, the rhythmic structure, the voice of Levon and the bass line with the drum accents and then the heavy close harmony of Levon, Richard and Rick in the theme, make it seem impossible that this isn't some traditional material handed down from father to son straight from that winter of 1865 to today. It has that ring of truth and the whole aura of authenticity."
That pretty much describes it, I think. Further down the article is another interesting comment by Band member Robbie Robertson:
"At some point [the concept] blurted out to me. Then I went and I did some research and I wrote the lyrics to the song." Robertson continued, "When I first went down South, I remember that a quite common expression would be, 'Well don't worry, the South's gonna rise again.' At one point when I heard it I thought it was kind of a funny statement and then I heard it another time and I was really touched by it. I thought, 'God, because I keep hearing this, there's pain here, there is a sadness here.' In Americana land, it's a kind of a beautiful sadness."
Back to the videos. What I find interesting is that in both of them, there isn’t a whole lot of showmanship. By that I mean there’s not people running around jumping on the stage, no pyrotechnics, no big overblown laser light shows. Just five talented performers, putting their efforts into their music. I like that.
“Did I just win "Six Degrees of King Harvest"?”
Yes Mike, and here it is. Your gift is the permission to participate in the dance. It’s your choice, whether to dance outside or more privately inside, with the moonlight streaming through the window. And you don’t have to wait until the night of a full moon, just as long as “the moon is big and bright”.
Okay, I made mention of 1969 earlier. Hmmm...maybe I ought to tackle that year next for a music list. Right off the bat I recall a whole lot of change...from Jay and the Americans "This Magic Moment" early on, up to Led Zeppelin's first album by the end of the year.
I do try to keep some variety in my posts here. But I gotta admit, I've been enjoying this music theme.
Time passes...oh boy, might as well enjoy it
From Cousin Mike…
“Many of the acts that we admire would be old, gravelly and scraggly, like the drummer on this cable show. I heard a new Bob Segar song the other day and you can definately hear some age in his voice.”
True enough, and it is kind of a shock when you detect that in a voice, or see a recent photo or video of someone we listened to in our teen years. It’s as if, “How in the world could those guys be the same ones I used to hear on WHB or KUDL-AM…and still hear from time to time on KCMO-FM, KCFX, or KBLV? (Pardon my five local radio references, a.k.a. shameless plugs.) What happened?”
It’s like you mentioned on your blog when you turned 50, that you didn’t feel all that different. That, and something I heard in a sermon by one of my pastors once. He observed that your spirit doesn’t age (which could also explain why some guys get into trouble when they attempt some stunt they used to be able to do, but their body can no longer handle. Intellectually, they should know better. But deep inside, it just doesn’t seem like things could have changed that much.)
On occasion I’ll tune across our public television station and watch part of a rock concert. Something like Austin City Limits, but the one in particular I’m thinking of was another show…a name I don’t recall at the moment. Anyway, a year or two ago, I saw part of a festival of some sort, too many big names to be one band on tour with one other opening act. After a few notes got my attention – oh yeah I recognize the song. That’s really Joe Walsh? Still sounds great, but how can I put this kindly…um, obviously some time had passed.
I’ll mention a few other examples. The Rolling Stones - all in their 60’s, though one member of that band might be 70 by now. I *think* Eric Clapton is 60, but I’d have to check that. Sir Paul McCartney is either 64 or 65, the last I heard. Richard Wright passed away on September 15th, at the age of 65. He was one of the founders of Pink Floyd (I know Mike, not one of your favorite bands).
(As an aside, I also like a lot of 1980's music; so a lot of this isn't as obvious with the younger bands. Not yet, anyway.)
I guess the only point here is that we’re oblivious to time passing until some event or bit of news actually catches our attention. We open our eyes a bit and say, “Oh! Really?” No big revelation, that; it’s the same old story.
“So teach us to number our days…” (Psalm 90:12)
The Band
Mike continues...
“Levon Helm! He's the drummer for The Band and he's the drummer on my cable show!”
Yes, when I think of The Band, three names pop into my mind; Levon Helm, Robbie Robertson, and Rick Danko. I had to look up on Wikipedia to find the other two names from their late ‘60s, early ‘70s lineup, Richard Manuel and Garth Hudson.
I clicked on the link and enjoyed watching the "King Harvest Has Surely Come" video. I can’t say for certain that I recall hearing that song. It kind of rings a bell, well, the title does anyway. I didn’t have that album.
Of course I had to watch the video of my favorite song of theirs, “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down”. This was from a live concert, I think it was “The Last Waltz”; the studio version was released in 1969.
I know I have only a few regular readers here, and some of you might only be familiar with Joan Baez’s cover version of that song. Pretty enough song in it’s own way, but as a kid I thought it was strange that this gal would sing a guy’s part “Virgil Caine is my name…”, and say things like “…I’m a working man” (actually “…I will work this land” in the original). Not until I heard the original by The Band did I realize what an amazing song it was. If you haven’t heard it by The Band, then you haven’t heard it. I invite you to take a few minutes and treat yourself here...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38JpAMG65Dg
Since I still had Wikipedia open (my research on the other members of The Band), I clicked on their “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” article. Here’s an excerpt from a quote by Rolling Stone Magazine reviewer Ralph J. Gleason, describing the impact of the song on listeners…
“Nothing I have read … has brought home the overwhelming human sense of history that this song does…It's a remarkable song, the rhythmic structure, the voice of Levon and the bass line with the drum accents and then the heavy close harmony of Levon, Richard and Rick in the theme, make it seem impossible that this isn't some traditional material handed down from father to son straight from that winter of 1865 to today. It has that ring of truth and the whole aura of authenticity."
That pretty much describes it, I think. Further down the article is another interesting comment by Band member Robbie Robertson:
"At some point [the concept] blurted out to me. Then I went and I did some research and I wrote the lyrics to the song." Robertson continued, "When I first went down South, I remember that a quite common expression would be, 'Well don't worry, the South's gonna rise again.' At one point when I heard it I thought it was kind of a funny statement and then I heard it another time and I was really touched by it. I thought, 'God, because I keep hearing this, there's pain here, there is a sadness here.' In Americana land, it's a kind of a beautiful sadness."
Back to the videos. What I find interesting is that in both of them, there isn’t a whole lot of showmanship. By that I mean there’s not people running around jumping on the stage, no pyrotechnics, no big overblown laser light shows. Just five talented performers, putting their efforts into their music. I like that.
“Did I just win "Six Degrees of King Harvest"?”
Yes Mike, and here it is. Your gift is the permission to participate in the dance. It’s your choice, whether to dance outside or more privately inside, with the moonlight streaming through the window. And you don’t have to wait until the night of a full moon, just as long as “the moon is big and bright”.
Okay, I made mention of 1969 earlier. Hmmm...maybe I ought to tackle that year next for a music list. Right off the bat I recall a whole lot of change...from Jay and the Americans "This Magic Moment" early on, up to Led Zeppelin's first album by the end of the year.
I do try to keep some variety in my posts here. But I gotta admit, I've been enjoying this music theme.
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