Gonzalez Reeds And Other Family Dinner Chit Chat

Since I’ve never even had the opportunity to actually see or place in my hands any type of Clarinet, much less the Gonzalez reeds that my sister’s middle son was trying to explain to me at dinner at their place over the weekend. It felt good to get away from the house and the farm, with no major holiday or family events being celebrated, just a night away from all the critters and chores that keep me pretty chained to the old homestead the majority of the time.

A nice home cooked meal is always a welcomed change. One that wasn’t placed into some type of Tupperware and brought over for me to re heat by one person or another, usually my sister. I was able to sit and watch TV with my nieces and nephews, while smelling all the wonderful aromas that were floating out of the kitchen. It’s the small things like that which people that are suddenly on their own and secluded from most of the world.

Dinner was awesome, sis is a wonderful cook, something that my mother spend a lot of her time teaching her to do. So most of the dishes are from our mother and they taste just like home!

My Dream – A Gibson Les Paul

As much as I would like to think that on one of these Christmas mornings that I would wake up and find the awesome Gibson guitar that I have been drooling over for some time now, I don’t think that it will happen. First of all it is only me here at the farm, second is I don’t put up a Christmas tree anymore since it is only me here and third – no one has a clue that I would love to be able to play the guitar.

I have always wanted to play the guitar. I used to beg my parents to buy me a guitar, telling them that I didn’t need for them to pay for guitar lessons, that I would learn to play it on my own, it never came to be, which I never really understand. I come from a very musical family and if I couldn’t figure out how to play it on my own I would like to think that one or more of my relatives would certainly take the time to teach me a few things. Alas it never happened and most likely it never will as there really isn’t a lot of extra money for such luxuries these days and it doesn’t look like that will be changing anytime soon due to our lovely government and the election that just took place. But that is a subject for another time.

A Decent Bass Equializer Pedal

It’s so good to get a hand written thank you card in the mail these days, it just makes me think that they are cool enough to take the time and effort to write the card, address the card, put a stamp on it and then get it to a mailbox. When these days in just a matter of minutes you can shoot someone a thank you and or a card with all of today’s technology communication options.

The reason I bring this up is that in today’s mail there was a thank you card from my 19 year old nephew for the bass eq that we, the aunts and uncles, all pitched in a bought for him as his High School Graduation gift. He is a good kid and he deserves a decent Bass Equalizer Pedal, and so much more, but that’s another story.

Exceptional Taylor 214

Found myself an exceptional taylor 214 at musicians friend today. I have decided to get back into playing the guitar and the only one here in the house is for a young child. Probably one of my brothers or sisters or possibly left here for any of the grand children to play with while visiting. My mother always made sure that there were plenty of age appropriate toys for everyone to enjoy.

I look forward to getting back to my guitar playing. It gets pretty lonely around here some nights and watching TV and surfing the Internet sometimes just doesn’t cut the mustard.

Ring Ring

These days it seems to be a big deal for everyone to have some special ring tones for their cell phones. You almost never hear anyone’s cell phone just ring a standard ring like all the home phones used to do. Now they have these little snippets of digitized music that play when a call comes in.

Some of the tunes I have no idea what song they are from or what they are supposed to mean. But some have been cute or recognizable, like the Star Wars theme song or even some oldies songs like Saturday Night Fever.

Ring Tones of Today
Today’s Ring Tones

4 Years Old & Playing Jambalaya!

Don’t miss this. The kid playing the “Button Accordian” is 5 years old and is Hank Williams Jr’s son. The little guy is awesome.

Turn the volume to its highest and enjoy the jambalaya!

This little guy is simply fantastic. Turn on your speakers and enjoy.

Bulletproof Microphones

Since both of our parents were killed over five years ago now, my oldest sister is always stuck playing hostess for most of the major family holiday dinners and get-togethers. Since I am on my own and live the closest to her and her family it only makes sense for me to pitch in where the others really can’t manage to do for a variety of reasons, I try and help out in any way that I can.

Over Christmas it was mentioned that we should try doing some karaoke at the next family dinner, which just so happens to be Easter and that believe it or not,  is only a few short weeks away. My sister does have a karaoke machine but it’s been around the block a few times from the look of it and it doesn’t have the microphone that used to go with that particular karaoke machine. I have been looking at various microphones online in my spare time and have been totally surprised at how many microphones are really out there.

I think I finally decided on the right one, the sm57, but what freaked me out was in the description part of the add it boasts that it is bulletproof and how it stands up to road travel and abuse. Guess these are just an added bonus to the whole deal, I really don’t think anyone in my family would get that crazy during karaoke at my sisters on Easter, but in case they do I will know that the microphone will make it through all right! I can’t wait to share this story on Easter day with the family members that manage to find their way there this year.

He’s Large!

There’s a scene in the movie, Popeye, where Olive Oil is hanging out with her girlfriends and she starts to sing a song about her fiancé, Bluto. She tries to sing of his virtues, but the song ends up, “He’s large,” and the girls sing along like backup singers, “Large.” That was the polite way, back in the 1980’s, to describe guys like me. I’m large and I’m not all that worried about losing weight. I’m not fat. There is a difference between large and fat.

My problem with being large is finding clothes that fit. For some reason a lot of U. S. manufacturers have decided that men who are wide must also be short. If I can find clothes that fit me around the waist, the legs are too short. If I find a shirt that is large enough for my barrel chest, then the sleeves are too short. That is why I shop for Large Men’s Clothing online. I know the measurements that I need and I can usually get enough details from the web site to know if the clothes will fit me.

Enjoy the video, thanks to YouTube! I’ve always been a Popeye fan and was thrilled when this movie came out. I think it’s time to dig that movie out and watch it again, probably been ten years since I’ve seen in last!

Running Up That Hill, Without the TV Set

With everything that needs to be done around the farm and the house by me, myself and I, I don’t usually have a whole heck of a lot of down time, but when I do I really like to kick back with a cold beer and watch an hour or two of some good action or comedy shows and/or movies. You would think that with all the channels that I get with my current Direct TV package that there would be several things on tonight, but that just wasn’t the case.

I started to watch a movie on one of the Showtime channels called Bellflower but after staring at the screen for over 10 minutes and still not catching on to the plot or being entertained at all I couldn’t deal with this movie another minute. The good news is that at the beginning of the movie they played a song that I swear I haven’t heard or even thought about in well over 15 years “Running Up That Hill” but I they only played about 45 seconds of it, just enough to tease me into turning off the TV and turning on my computer to try and find this song on YouTube. I had no idea that there were several versions of it, but it didn’t take too long to find the one that I was used to hearing, the one by Kate Bush.

For some reason this song just moves me, not in a bad or depressing way, mind you. I really can’t explain the feeling, but it is a good one and those feelings are hard to come by lately so I’m going to take it and run up that hill!