Yup, I’m coming back again

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airmiles, amazing, anticipation, arrangement, art, articles, attention, backups, baggage, baking, band, bars, blog, blogging, book, business, clay, cleaning, co-op, cooker, cornet, costco, craft, cutting, deep cove, Deep Cove Jazz Band, degree, donating, dream, editing, engineering, entertain, expire, exposé, family, flyers, friend, future, gig, gigs, glossary, graphics, gym, hair, health, hobby, horn, hunch, idea, index, indexing, influences, intentions, jazz, job, kitchenaid, lead, life, lives, living, malcolm, mechatronics, members, men, michelle, mixer, model, Mondays, money, moustache, Movember, music, musicians, Name Jazz Band, natural, ordered, overdue, Patricia, photoblogs, photography, photos, points, pot, priorities, priority, profession, projects, publish, publishing, purchased, redeem, rice, rice cooker, sale, sang, schedule, seniors, shaving, sing, singer, software, sorting, story, strained, technojungle, technology, u.s., valves, vocalist, voice, volunteer, wash, website, wife, woman, work, workflow, writing, yogurt

It would appear that I have been getting back to this blog less than twice a year and I feel it is time to come back and try to be a bit more regular. II have been writing, truly I have been writing everyday and some of that writing could have gone on this blog and some on the Technojungle blog. I write a little in the morning and a little at night. I can’t explain why I have not been blogging. I hope that may change with this entry.

The last update was pretty comprehensive. I continue mostly in and same directions.

Fir

My hair is now very long, over a foot in many places. However, would you believe it, I have no photos of my hair. I have been enjoying it, although I am surprised at how much comes out when I wash and brush it. I figured recently that, if I only lost ten strands per day, and that might just be a conservative guess, I could have lost 4000 strands since I started. I tried to imagine what that many strands of hair might look like. These thoughts had me thinking that I should get on with cutting it off and donating it before I have little to give. Still, I like having my hair and tending to it. If I cut it off, I might grow it again. Someone mentioned that November is Movember for men’s health and typically means growing and then shaving off a moustache. I think I had better get some photos of my hair before the end of next month.

Writing (& Book)

My book is still in editing mode, although I have not really worked much on it for a week or so, the longest and perhaps only break I have taken since getting on a schedule of writing and then editing the book. I’m not really sure when I will be ready. I might just have to bite the bullet, as they say. Although, I’m sure I could tighten it up. I may add a glossary. The idea of an index just got squashed as I read about what is an actual profession, craft and art called indexing. It could cost over a thousand dollars for this. I’ll hold off for now.

Music

I mentioned something about my dream cornet and that I was going to do a separate entry for this amazing event in my life. As you may have noticed, I did not get to it. I suppose what happened is that I had this cornet out to be fixed up and, in particular, have the valves redone back near where the horn was originally made during 1921 in the U.S. I did lots of before photos, but when it came back, I just got playing it and have not stopped. Well, that means that playing music and all my other projects have take priority. I am still planning to do the photos and then an exposé on the entire matter, so you can wait in deep anticipation for that.

I had mentioned that I was playing in a band to entertain seniors and that I had also started my own band, both giving me a long tiring, nevertheless exciting, blow on Mondays. The evening band, affectionately called the No Name Jazz Band, it still going along and we are improving. I am learning to lead and make-up the arrangement as I go. The Deep Cove Jazz Band was turned over to me, so now I have two bands. This band has been in need of rebuilding and I am happy to report that it looks like this is finally happening and we may, in a few weeks, be able to get back to doing gigs for seniors again.

I must say that it is certainly challenging to keep a band of volunteer musicians together. I am working on acquiring and maintaining a core group of members for each band and backups. It is also challenging to keep all the music in order. We had a long music sorting spree yesterday with the Deep Cove JB music. One other challenge that is working out well now is that I added a vocalist.

I was playing in a band and a woman came to sing. She only sang a few bars when she realized that she would not be available for the gig, so she left. However, I heard enough to form a hunch that she could be a jazz singer, so over the last few months she has been working at it and is a regular member or both bands. Yesterday she experienced what I experience on Mondays and nearly strained her voice.

I am playing a lot and getting better, although, I do find that I have limitations, which I may discuss another time.

Photography

I continue to do very little in this long time hobby area of my life. I still have intentions though. Since my photography seems to be on hold, so are my photoblogs, however, they too will get some attention one day.

Graphics

Turning to the area of graphics and publishing, I had an unfortunate experience. We were doing high-end flyers and then my friend decided to go another direction with his life and work. This left us, my wife and I, without this work. I had built up my workflow with the necessary software and suddenly there was no more work. I decided to take my little graphics business and hold it on the side until I am ready to publish my book. At the moment, I suppose, music and working on my book are the main priorities.

Baking

I have just come off of taking a break from baking. Our KitchenAid mixer stopped. My wife, somehow, managed to return it to Costco and then we began to wait for it to go on sale. Now it seems Costco is no longer carrying them. It may be that Costco is having KitchenAid develop a different model. In the meantime, we needed to use our Airmiles before they expire and my wife was looking on the Airmiles website for items to redeem our points on. Suddenly she said, “Is this what you are looking for?” Sure enough, it was the KitchenAid mixer and it was an even better model. It required points and money, but in the end, we came out $71 ahead. Next she found a fancy rice cooker with a natural clay removable pot. It makes yogurt and other things too. This she purchased entirely with points, so it was free. The item is back ordered, but the KitchenAid has arrived and is in use.

Family

We keep on muddling along. My wife Patricia is still working, as am I, both of us part-time. Michelle has another job at a gym and Malcolm is in the final legs of his Mechatronics engineering degree and is currently working at a co-op job. We are all fine and living, coming and going, under one roof.

The Future

As I realized when I was considering a name for my book, the future never arrives… at least not as expected and it always brings baggage. While my book states this about how technology influences our lives, it seems to be applicable in most areas of our lives.

I have somewhat promised that I would post some photos of my hair and post the story about my cornet and some photos. Before I do that, I think I would like to wash it. I have been playing for many months and it is long overdue for a cleaning.

As for further writing, there may be less here than other years, since I have the Technojungle blogfor all the technology related posts. On the other hand, I have plenty of music going on now and that may become a source for articles here.

Uncanny

Tags

accurate, animated, animation, apple, cbc, comic book, creepy, day6, marcel, marcel the shell, movie, podcast, presentation, programs, radio, realistic, The Adventures of Tintin, uncanny, uncanny valley, video, vinyl cafe, voice

I stumbled upon another great CBC Radio program. I am already addicted to The Vinyl Cafe (Apple’s best podcast of the year). This one, Day6 seems really interesting. There were a few topics, however, let me mention one. They were talking about the recently released movie called The Adventures of Tintin, a computer animated presentation of the famous comic book character from yeas gone by. The animation is so realistic that it seems creepy and this is what is not referred to as the Uncanny Valley.

Here is the explanation. One may create something that is 95 percent accurate or realistic and people will be fine with it, however, make it 96 percent and it becomes so real it is creepy or uncanny—it enters the Uncanny Valley. The percentages are for example only, I’m sure. Check out the refs below and be sure to watch the video of Marcel the Shell. It’s not the animation that is uncanny, it’s the voice. Now go explore! And check out the many other wonderful CBC programs and podcasts.

Refs for further reading & exploration:
Vinyl Cafe
Day6
Tintin

Music Notes

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1920s, 1950s, 20s, 30s, 40s, 60s, 70s, article, attention, audience, ‘Ol Man River, banjo, bible, blackface, blog, bluegrass, boats, burnt, charo, chet atkins, chicago, clever, clip, collector, contributors, converse, copy and paste, cork, culture, curling, danced, described, ecclesiastes, encounter, encourage, engage, entertainment, explore, famous, feeling, fiddle, flashy, folk, folk rewind, fortune, frills, fruitful, genre, gentile on my mind, genuine, geoff, geoff gibbons, glen campbell, goal, goodtime, goodtime music hour, greeted, guitar, harford, history, imitate, income, instrument, internet, jazz, john hartford, john sebsastian, judy collins, lady, laughter, learn, links, lounge, malaguena, mankind, minstral, mississippi, movies, music, musically, musician, new orleans, newgrass, o brother, organ, originally, participants, Paul Robson, pbs, performances, performing, pete seeger, piloting, playing, plywood, pop, popular, reader, recorded, reference, requests, research, rhythm, river, riverboats, roy clark, sang, showboat, shows, sixties, skits, smothers brothers, soaked, solos, song, sound, stage, steamboat, steering, stories, strings, substance, summer, swing, talent, talk, talking, the old washing machine song, tourists, towns, trumpet, tune, turn, TV, vancouver, vintage, voice, walkway, wallpaper, warmly, washing machine, wednesday, weekly, wheel, where art thou, wife, wing, write, writing, youth

Those who know me know I have quite an interest in music and the genre of most interest to me is vintage jazz and swing of the 1920s, 30s and 40s. I am not much of a musician, however, I did play the trumpet in my younger years and was a collector of the aforementioned recorded music. This background is enough for me to be able to converse with musicians whenever I can. I often make it a goal to engage a musician, particularly in a setting where they may be playing to a somewhat non-attentive crowd. Thus, my goal becomes to make sure they are not playing a ‘wallpaper job.’ This term was introduced to me by a trumpet player who was heading to a gig and called it a ‘wallpaper job,’ one where the audience is not paying much attention and they can play whatever they want.

Finding opportunities to talk about my true interest in jazz music do not present themselves often. These days, I find I must keep as in tune as I can with a few varieties of music. This can stretch me a bit and that, I suppose, is a good thing. Although I was not necessarily a follower of the popular music of my youth, it was surrounding me and I seem to have soaked some of it up. Actually, relative to the current pop music of today, the music of the 1950s, 60s and 70s seems to have more substance than I ever thought at the time.

I could write a whole blog on music, but, I have to start somewhere. Let me now relate to you my latest encounter with a musician. After curling last week, we went into the lounge to talk. A guitar and sound system was sitting in the corner and I knew it probably belonged to Geoff Gibbons. My wife and I used to go to 25 cent Wing Wednesday when Geoff was playing and I have spent quite a bit of time talking to Geoff. Sure enough, pretty soon he appeared and greeted me warmly. Then he asked, “Any requests?” Well nothing came to mind, so, I blurted out Malaguena. “Malagu… what?” came the response. I described seeing Roy Clark play it on TV many years ago. He agreed that Roy Clark was a really great player. The next thing that came into my mind was something I had seen on the PBS special John Sebastian’s Folk Rewind. It was a black and white clip with Judy Collins and Pete Seeger singing Seeger’s Turn, Turn, Turn, taken from Ecclesiastes in the Bible. We had still not found a song for Geoff to do, so, I went on to talk about the Glen Campbell Goodtime Music Hour from the late sixties. Glen had appeared on the Smothers Brothers show and took over from them one summer, ending up with his own show. Glen had another musician, John Hartford, on the show to add to the musical segments. The show contained music and skits. There would be a weekly guest and they would perform and then appear in skits that often ended up with the participants loosing it in laughter.

The show was musically unique by todays standards. The stage had a walkway that led to a central circle ( I am pretty sure there is a name for this, but, I can’t think of it at the moment) in the audience where Glen sat and played with his guests and John Hartford. John played guitar, banjo, fiddle and sometimes danced on a sheet of plywood to add extra rhythm to his solos. I always looked forward to the music in the circle because, well, it was great music without the frills. I looked particularly forward to the times when John Hartford played. There was something about him that made me understand that he was the genuine article for his music and a really great talent. A couple of times I heard him do a song called “The Old Washing Machine Song.” During the song he made sounds to imitate the new and old washing machine. Very clever, I thought.

Geoff said, he would do some Glen Campbell and then played Gentile On My Mind. To be honest, I did not remember John Hartford’s name that night, so, I went home and did a bit of research. I found Roy Clark doing Malaguena and other songs. I even found Charo doing it. I couldn’t remember ever knowing Charo played guitar. She sure bent the strings. Next, I found the clip of Judy and Pete doing Turn, Turn, Turn. Then, I turned to John Hartford, who added the ‘t’ in his last name on the advice of Chet Atkins (a really great guitar player who helped many musicians). I always wondered what happened to John.

Evidently, John Hartford wrote Gentile On My Mind which became a standard in the genre of pop music. Geoff just jumped right in and played it without music. It provided Hartford with some income so he could dedicate his life to his music. He spent decades piloting a steamboat up and down the Mississippi river, playing his bluegrass music. In later years he contributed to the movie O Brother, Where Art Thou? and created a new variant of bluegrass music called newgrass.

John Hartford is gone now, but, he truly left his mark on the history of music. The other musicians mentioned here also left their mark. While Geoff plays in a variety of places around the Vancouver area, he also writes music for movies.

This musical encounter with Geoff lead me to learn a lot. I sent Geoff some of what I learned and some links. I like sharing with musicians and if we can both learn something, the encounter becomes even more fruitful.

I guess there is a link here to my interest in jazz. The river boats on the Mississippi, carried early jazz and musicians up the river from New Orleans where they eventually landed in Chicago and their music became the Chicago Style of jazz.

I have met many dozens of musicians over the years, some famous and some who simply remain in the background staying true to their music, some who have done both, like John Hartford. The world is full of truly great musicians who, for by choice of otherwise, never attain fame or fortune, or have turned away from it.

Some of the Mississippi riverboats were quite large and put on shows. They were flashy with Minstrel shows, white entertainers dressed in blackface created from burnt cork. The banjo was an important instrument in these performances. A popular stage musical from the 1920s, Showboat, depicted a showboat that brought entertainment to towns along the river. I found a clip on the Internet with John Hartford steering a riverboat and talking and performing. The wheel was nearly as tall as he was. I got the feeling that he could tell a lot of stories. Anyway, the boat was full of tourists and there was a lady behind John who was playing ‘Ol Man River on an organ, a tune from Showboat. John explained that he never liked the tune and then imitated the low voice of the person who sang the song, a reference to Paul Robson, who originally sang it.

I found many other clips of John Hartford and I am glad I rediscovered him. Encounters with musicians like Geoff are times I value deeply. These musicians are important contributers to the culture of mankind.

When I thought about writing this I considered adding links to each reference, however, then I realized that, while valuable, some readers might click on each of them as they read. This would break up my writing. Thus, I encourage you, the reader, to use copy and paste to discover for yourself what I have learned. Now, go explore music!

Poodle doodles

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As you can see my blogging efforts dropped off a bit. Is this due to the winter doldrums of no holiday break? After all, this is the longest stretch of the year without a holiday. There are efforts at hand to add a family day, but, that is met with resistance from the business community. I’m not going to let this blog entry get carried off on the topic of adding a new holiday. Daylight Savings Time started last weekend and this weekend holds the first day of Spring, thus, it seem the stretch is over. My sister, however, finds that she gets SAD in the winter, that is ‘seasonal affect disorder’ and any disorder deserves special attention in search for a cure. So it is, that we have not had Christmas together for a few years as they are always vacationing in Hawaii. In the old days, Christmas morning often included a long distance telephone call, these days, it is Skype. Now, I am getting closer to the topic of this blog entry.

It seems that Hawaii at Christmas is not enough, now they are looking for property in Palm Springs and with just over a week away on the search, I was offered the doggie sitting chore. I guess this passes through a few candidates and my turn came up. “You can stay at the house and I will stock the fridge.” My wife agreed for me to take the job, even though it would mean the longest time we have been apart in our nearly 20-year marriage.

Whew, I finally got through the preliminaries for this blog, the balance is taken from my responses to my sister’s message ‘…checking in…’:

Check out the toe nails – pretty Tessie

HI Bob,

Hope all is well and Gryphie and Tessie weren’t too much trouble this weekend Everything okay? Are you finding what you need?

Let me know if you have any mysteries or dilemmas to be solved, otherwise, hope you have fun and give them a hug for us!

Paula
🙂
PS – Very sunny here, half of Vancouver is here!

I ended up getting sick again, not as bad as before, but enough to slow me down a bit Saturday night and all of yesterday. I’m not sure yet about today. I watched curling and movies and Le Mis 25th.

The first couple of days were a bit confusing as I figured out where everything was. I had to get out to work, so I was in a rush. Tessie piddled a couple of times, once at her food dish and the next day in the upper hall. Now there is a stain, because I could not find what to use to clean it up, so I did the best I could with soap and water. If you have something, I could try to get more of the stain out. Often it is hard to get Tessie up from sleeping, so on that day, I was rushing to go to work and I woke her up, but, she just rolled around rubbing her face, so I went to get the food ready. When I went back a few minutes later, she was standing in the hall with her mess. I took them to daycare, because I was going to be gone all day. On Saturday, I watched about half an hour of one of Malcolm’s soccer games at Ambleside and then took the doggies to run in the park. Gryph got a bit muddy, so I used a towel in the garage to wipe his feet.

Patti and Malcolm came for dinner on Friday and Saturday nights, so I have been making it through quite a bit of the food you left, but, will have to buy a few things like veggies, etc. today.

Thus, things seem to be in some sort of order, or whatever. At least we are all carrying on.

B

Just out for a trot at Ambleside

Hi

Don’t worry too much about the carpet… I will get the cleaners in when I get home… (the pet stain remover is in the closet in John’s bathroom, on the floor, across from the sink)…

For future reference… Tessie needs to go out as soon as you are going to leave the room I always carry her from the bed to the front door and make sure she has a pee before she comes in for breakfast… (remember she is OLD….)

Give Gryph and Tessie lots of hugs…..

Glad you had fun with Patti and Malcolm

Made it to the dog park at Ambleside and are now back getting ready to start dinner. Tessie is snoring somewhere across the room and Gryph is sprawled out at the bottom of the stairs.

When we went out, all the neighborhood poop was collected and deposited on newspaper at the foot of the driveway. Surely I did not miss that much poop. I don’t know who it was, but, I hope they are not angry.

I guess it’s more pasta tonight, so, I should start thinking about getting that ready. A feast is a brewin’ in my mind, I think.

That is upsetting, particularly because all our immediate neighbours are away – so don’t know who it might have been, can you be extra vigilant and not let them out on their own…

Enjoy pasta! Thanks for the update….

Tessie likes the beach

Hi,

Hope everything is okay?

Just wanted to remind you to check out the contents of the Freezer in the garage and also the freezer compartment in the fridge (their are some individually wrapped cheesecakes!)

Hope the puppies are curled up next to you… don’t forget to pet and talk to them!!!

These are lazy doggies! I have had Tessie out three time this morning and I think she has yet to do her morning little business. At least she can really eat, sometimes she goes for Gryph’s food when he is not interested. She eats all the soft food she can get. I guess it gives her energy for those occasional times she gets perky and darts off down the street. Yesterday, she stood in the the garden down the street, tilted her head a bit and looked at me as if to say, “come and get me, I dare ya,” or, “you can’t get me in here now, can ya?” I’m never really sure what is going on in her head.

We made it to Ambleside again the other day and to Lighthouse Park yesterday. Got back into the car just as the rain started. We were sure glad about that. When we were at Ambleside, we stopped to visit and the next thing I knew Tessie was high tailin’ it down the sea wall, back in the direction we had just come, trotting along side another fellow with exactly the same orange jacket as mine. What are the chances of that, only Tessie could find such an opportunity to get confused. I thought she would never stop and they were long gone so fast, I could hardly believe it! Gryphon goes to get muddy, Tessie just does her own thing, whatever that is and wherever she is. What a scallywag.

What time are you back on Saturday?

Oh well, it’s a dog’s life.

Gryphon likes the beach too!

Ha ha!
Sounds like you are learning all of Helen Keller’s tricks… She really can’t see or hear, but if she wanders off, try sending Gryphon to go get her you have to make it sound like a fun game)

Back late Friday night, I will email you the exact time

Thanks for update and have fun!

Tessie enjoys the scenery

I don’t completely buy what she is selling, I think she is more with it than she leads us to think. She just likes to be a rascal, a real handful at times. Sleeps all morning, won’t go out, makes me nervous that she might have another accident (see she sensitized me with fear by having two piddles already), gets out finally, then follows me around until we go out to the car for a walk, takes off down the street to poop in someone’s garden, gets back in the house, because I left the door open so I could get my stuff and set the alarm, won’t come back out, wants to play chase, I have to get the leash, finally we get to Ambleside and she runs everywhere, before pooping more and then deciding to settle down. Gryphon gets fed up with all the miss focused attention and decides to try an escape over the bank into the neighbor’s yard.

OLD, my foot, she still has lots of puppy in her and plenty of tricks up her paw sleeve.

Oh ya, I forgot, Gryphon is acting up too. On the way back to the car at Ambleside, I had them go by way of the beach, so that running on sand and gravel might clean some of the mud off his feet. He gets wrapped up with a gang of dogs on the beach, wades in the water (OK that helped wash his feet) and tried to drink the ocean. Then he saw a lady with one of those flinger thingies, throwing a ball for another dog, yup, Gryph stole the ball, found that it was squeaky, decided to keep it and take it back home in the car. The other dogs just looked wondering, ‘who is this snob stealing our ball?’ Everyone tried to get it from him and, of course, this was just more fun than he could think of by himself, then I got stern with him, he stopped, I grabbed him by the collar and another lady got the ball from him. Humf, no manners! The both of them!

Now give back that ball!

Ha ha ha Rodney Fangerfeild, you have to make them respect you!

 

 

 

A bit more…

 

 

Well! I decided that we really needed to get to the Capilano River Regional Park where I used to walk Kyla. I was able to park in the first small parking lot, where I always used to park. I hoped the doggies would be alright with the short walk along the path next to the road, there is a concrete barrier. Gryph seemed to know exactly where to go and jumped over the log into my favorite part of the park. I assisted Tessie and then we were there. What a place!! I sure have missed it. A few deep breaths and we were all invigorated.

So, we followed some paths on a slow stroll so as to let the pooches explore everything they could. So relaxing.

Then, it happened. I heard a voice asking me where the path leads. This lady had two black Irish-doodles (Irish Setter Poodle mix). Well, you never saw such fun. Gryphon ran and chased, and just played, jumping over logs and everything in the rainforest–a pretty rugged place. Tessie watched to make sure the games were safe, ref-ing as best she could. Gryph sure got tuckered. I promised we would go back tomorrow and both agreed it would be a great idea.