Since Gary was making fun of my self portrait with my cell phone, I thought I one up him with a phone photo of MY toaster. Notice that I have a retro look also.
Lex’s 1st Axe
Lex got a guitar today. It’s a Squier MA-1, made by Fender. Very much a real guitar, 3/4 scale. He’s wanted one since before Xmas, and has been very patient as I researched guitars and looked into lessons.
I told him from the outset that I would get him a real guitar only if he was willing to take lessons. I have a good friend (some of you know Gerard) that used to teach young kids. He agreed to teach Lex. Even tho Lex is a bit young for guitar lessons, I think it could work well with Gerard, as we’ve discussed my approach (at this point) is mainly to maintain Lex’s interest in music, not to put him on a learning schedule. To facilitate an appreciation of music and musical instruments, to give him an enjoyable learning environment, to teach him to respect the instrument itself… he already knows quite well that this is not a toy, and he’s cherishing it. I think it’s the first thing he’s owned that he realizes can’t be easily replaced. I sure hope he keeps that attitude. (Fact is, he wants to smash it like Townsend. I think I’ll steer him towards burning it like Jimi.)
I hope I’m making the right decision, cuz he’s so young. I didn’t discourage the idea, but tried not to encourage it either. Like I said, he was patient. And he was persistent. Even Xmas didn’t distract him.
Now I want to get a piano in the house. So I can take lessons.
It’s the BIG 50 for Mary (and the little 15 for Veronica)!
Happy Birthday to the two of you! Any special plans for either one of you?
Spring is in the air
Took advantage of the sudden warm weather to make a golf road trip yesterday. Nine of us headed a couple of hours south to Cumberland MD to the Rocky Gap Resort, just over the Pa/Md line. to play their Jack Nicklaus designed course.
The weather was in the mid to high 50s and the sun was out. It was quite comfortable, in fact I was even a little bit warm in the turtleneck that I was wearing.
I meant to take my camera with me but forgot so I had to be satisfied with shots from my phone. I was actually surprised at how well it turned out (the camera feature works much better at close range than it does at long range as the following show).
When I went to Rocky Gap’s website to get the links I was surprised to find a couple of shots that closely matched mine, so here are two of my camera phone shots (kind of ugly because of the poor lens quality, time of the year, and shooting into the sun) taken from the same spot as two of the photos on the website (Click here to see them – I can’t download them because they are imbedded in a Flash movie)
Eat your heart out guys.
Look Familiar?
Got this at a flea-market years ago. Just had my 2nd toaster-oven break in less than a year so I dug it out of storage. I knew it worked, and y’know what? It makes toast better and faster than any toaster-oven I’ve ever had.
A New Years Memory
It’s a little strange sitting home watching football on New Years after so many years of being at bowl games for the holidays (for the record I’ve been to 23 bowl games) but with the slump that Penn State was in before this season I’ve started to get used to it.
One trip that stands out was thirty years ago. Penn State played Alabama in the first Sugar Bowl in the Superdome on New Years Eve December 31st 1975. The game started at about 8 PM local time and seemed to drag on forever. Penn State wound up losing 13-6 with the game ending a little past 11:30 which meant that we were going to have to rush to get down to Bourbon Street before midnight.
I was with Tod Jeffers and he and I rushed to the famed Pat O’Brien’s. Unfortunately, hundreds of others had the same idea and we wound up trapped in line during a rainstorm. Sure enough, midnight struck with us still in line. Cheers and noisemakers started going off and everyone started hugging and kissing their dates. Bummer, we had lost the game, we were soaking wet, and we had failed to get into the bar before midnight – the night wasn’t going well at all.
At that point I looked up and there was this cute blond coed dressed in Penn State blue standing in line just in front of me. Time to seize the moment. I just grabbed her, wished her a Happy New Year, and laid a big kiss on her. The kiss must have worked because I wound up dating her for about 3 1/2 years.
And a Happy Birthday Dad!
For many years I would call Daddy at midnight to wish him a Happy Birthday as well as a Happy New Year. I eventually stopped once they moved to Chicago because I woke him a couple years in a row. I do still think of him (and Mommy) at midnight though. Wish I could call and wake them now.
Merry Christmas To All!
And to all…. I’m going to bed…. after I wrap 2 more gifts.
Look to the right
Following up on Marilyn’s suggestion that we document everyone’s birthdates, I’ve now added a section to the sidebar on the right that has a countdown to everyone’s birthday. If you want to know what the exact date for someone is, simply click on the “Upcoming Birthday’s” title and you will be taken to the thread where everyone posted the birthdays of their immediate family members (sorry Shannon, I left your “family members” off the chart).
State College Santa Crawl
has now gotten official recognition at the Santarchy!(Santacon) website. We are in the Santacon archives section.