So long 2009...

What? 2010 already? It can't be.
It seems like only a year or two ago we were running around Rockwell testing each PC and marking it with either a Green Y2K compliant sticker or a Red Non-Y2k compliant one. (As a side notes it's scary but some of those PCs are still in use on the manufacturing floor 10 years later!)
And then on New Year's Eve 1999 we were watching the massive fireworks from around the world, starting in Sydney, then Tokyo, and so forth to welcome in the new millennium (a year early). I remember rushing home to see the Paris and then the London displays, and the rows of fireworks running up the reflecting pools in Washington DC.

I guess I've been a little lazy about updating here but here's a dozen blog posts I never actually posted but meant to:

1) My Kindle DX review (amazing piece of equipment I love it!)
2) My Kindle Cover from Oberon Design review (even prettier in person!)
3) The Kindle DX screensaver Author Challenge (Try to read at least one book by each author who's picture is part of the screen saver. Of the 15 authors I had read 7 before getting the Kindle, and finished one since - Jane Austin, and started another - Alexander Dumas)

4) my reviews of the 3 free books I got from the Early Reviewers program at LibraryThing:
Dance in a Buffalo Skull
Dragon Forge
Any Given Doomsday

5) NetFlix and how I love discovering new TV shows (Castle, Big Band Theory, Leverage, Doctor Who, Sarah Jane Adventures, Heroes, Chuck) or revisiting old ones (To the Manor Born, The Grand, Flambards, Brideshead Revisited, The Good Life/Good Neighbors, Keen Eddie)

6) Monty Python For the First Time (One of the guys I work with told me he has never seen Monty Python. None of the TV shows or movies! So I took the TV show DVDs in to work and we are watching them at lunch. It's fun watching him encounter the dead parrot, Johann Gambolputty de von Ausfern -schplenden -schlitter -crasscrenbon -fried -digger -dangle -dungle -burstein -von -knacker -thrasher -apple -banger -horowitz -ticolensic -grander -knotty -spelltinkle -grandlich -grumblemeyer -spelterwasser -kürstlich -himbleeisen -bahnwagen -gutenabend -bitte -eine -nürnburger -bratwustle -gerspurten -mit -zweimache -luber -hundsfut -gumberaber -shönendanker -kalbsfleisch -mittler -raucher von Hautkopft of Ulm, the Nudge-Nudge Wink-Wink Guy and the animation of Terry Gilliam for the first time.)

7) Return To Marching Band (I played in the South Milwaukee Heritage Days parade)

8) Return To The DM's chair (I had so much fun running the Free D&D days sponsored by Wizards of the Coast that I started a 4th Edition campaign with 4 of my friends. We're meeting roughly every other Saturday.)
(On another side note today Dec 31st, 2009 is the 32nd Anniversary of the first time I ran D&D. Peter Nelson got the basic set for Christmas 1977 from his uncle and I read and ran it at our family's yearly New Year's Eve get together.)

9) Return of the Owls (they are back in the neighborhood, I heard two of them in the woods hooting at each other while I shoveled snow for the first time this season.)

10) Root Canals Are No Fun (I really don't recommend them)

11) TurkeyCon 2009 (Our annual board game event the day after Thanksgiving, attendance down a little from last year but a good time was had by all)

12) The summer cats - this I feel the worst about, I don't have pictures of all of the foster kittens from this summer and I'm sure I've forgotten some of their names.
Rosamund (who is still with us)
The Great American Composers - Cole, George, Irving, Vivian and Jerome
The UK Counties - Stafford, Claire, Cornwall, Devon and Kent
The Tea Babies - Darjeeling & Jasmine (both adopted Dec 20), Oolong and Rooibos who died before they could be adopted and the two unnamed ones who died before we got them from the barn
Arwen from the same barn who only lasted a week and Brambles who lasted barely 4 hours
Ovaltine (adopted Dec 20th)
Frodo Baggins who was adopted but then returned and we kept him (Michelle scooped me on this story)

Domo Arigato, Mr. Scott-o

The Office
One of very few TV series that we still watch (on www.nbc.com).

We fell in love with the British version when it was broadcast on BBC America and think the US version is one of the few who has successfully made the transfer over, unlike Coupling or Fawlty Towers.

Season 5 comes out on DVD Sept 8th and Season 6 starts on September 17th!

To hold you over here's a tribute video to the old Styx song:

Crayola Doesn't Make A Color For Your Eyes

So I was listening to A Prarie Home Companion last week and this song totally got stuck in my head!
The singer plays patty-cake as a percussion line while she is singing.

Crayola Doesn't Make A Color For Your Eyes by Kristin Andreassen & Megan Downes



Crayola Doesn't Make A Color For Your Eyes, with Danny Knicely on a spectacular whistle solo!
Sunspot Concert Series at the Lyceum in Alexandria, VA, 06Jan07.



This is the version from A Prarie Home Companion that someone put behind a still picture of the singer, it's a little easier to understand the words on this video.

American Overture for Band

Here's another video from the Shorewood Concert Band's 2009 Fourth of July Concert.

Joseph Willcox Jenkins began composing short pieces while in elementary school. American Overture for Band was composed in 1955 while Jenkins served on the arranging staff of the United States Army Field Band and he dedicated the work to their conductor, Colonel Chester E. Whiting. Reminiscing about the piece, his first for band, Jenkins states, “I wanted to write something for our magnificent horn section, because I was tired of them having to play off-beats. That was the inspiration for the piece. I have to admit that I was also inspired somewhat by the last movement of the Bartók Concerto for Orchestra. I heard it on a Boston Symphony Orchestra broadcast as a teenager and it really impressed me. Some of the themes in American Overture remind me of that piece.”

SCB Goes To The Circus!

The fourth and final concert of the Shorewood Concert Band's 2009 season is coming this Thursday July 16th at 7 pm in Atwater Park.

Our salute to the Great American Circus will be filled with the sounds of circus bands and music about the circus including:

Entry of the Gladiators - Julius Fucik
The Billboard - John N. Klohr
William Tell Overture (Finale) - G. Rossini
Circus Bee - Henry Fillmore
Send in the Clowns - Stephen Sondheim
E Pluribus Unum - Fred Jewell
Lassus Trombone - Henry Fillmore
The Show Boy - Will Huff
The Walking Frog - Karl L. King
Bravura - C.E. Duble
The Big Circus March - Robert E. Foster
Barnum & Bailey’s Favorite Karl L. King

In honor of Lincoln's 200th birthday and the 100th Anniversary of the Lincoln Penny we are holding a penny drive to support the Shorewood Band Parents organization so please dig deep into the cushions of your couches, clean out your car’s coin holder and bring them to the concert!

Here's a number from our Fourth of July concert, Herman "Dodo" Hupfeld's 1931 novelty hit "When Yuba Plays the Rumba on the Tuba"

Stars & Stripes

The third concert of the 2009 Season is coming tomorrow July 4th at 6:30 pm at Atwater Park.

National Emblem - EE Bagley
You're A Grand Old Flag - George M Cohan
American Overture for Band - Joseph Willcox Jenkins
Music from Les Miserables - Alain Bouil and Claude-Michel Schonberg
When Yuba Plays the Rumba On The Tuba - Herman Hupfeld
Theme from Star Trek: The Motion Picture - Jerry Goldsmith
Summon The Heroes - John Williams
Bucky Badger - arranged by Wayne Becker
Armed Forces - The Pride of America! - arranged by Larry Clark and Greg Gilpin
America the Beautiful - Katharine Lee Bates and Samuel A. Ward
This Land Is Your Land - Woody Guthrie
I Am The Guard - Arthyr Fields
Highlights from Oklahoma - Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein
The Star and Stripes Forever - John Philip Sousa

Our last concert of the year will be Thursday July 16th at 7 pm.

Here's a couple of videos from the second concert:

Instant Concert by Harold L. Walters


The 2009 version of Beer Barrel Polka now with 4 Tubas!

Bandology

The second concert of the 2009 Season is coming this Thursday June 25th at 7pm at Atwater Park.

Bandology - Eric Osterling
Instant Concert - Harold L. Walters
Bombasto - O.R. Farrar
The Theme from Mannix - Lalo Schfrin
Feels So Good - Chuck Mangione
The Rail Splitter - F.C. Menges
Ceremonial Prelude - John Cacavas
The Cowboys - John Williams
Chicago Tribune March - W. Paris Chambers
Beer Barrel Polka - L. Brown, W.A. Timm, V. Zeman and J Vejvoda
British Masters Suite - Gustav Holst, Edward Elgar and Ralph Vaughan Williams
The Washington Post March - John Phillip Sousa

In honor of Lincoln's 200th birthday and the 100th Anniversary of the Lincoln Penny we are holding a penny drive to support the Shorewood Band Parents organization so please dig deep into the cushions of your couches, clean out your car’s coin holder and bring them to the concert.

The March of the Belgian Paratroopers from the June 13th, 2009 concert: