It’s the season of band! Well. it seems like it anyhow. Last night, Isaac played in 2 separate concerts. First, the George Washington High School band played their final concert together as the 2015 band last night. Seniors are hitting the road so this was a nice opportunity for them to get together one last time as a group and play a killer concert.
GWHS Band
I think what made it especially nice was that it was outside and that the weather was perfect! We enjoyed their music as always and especially liked the opportunity for a little vitamin D!
Don’t look…it’s Dad
Like any good kid, Isaac refused to look up at his parents so I sort of had to sneak a few pics. Meh. I’m good with that. More excellent were the selections they played…of course, it was outside with my cell phone sitting on metal bleachers where kids played and adults shifted about so please excuse the extraneous noises:
After that concert, a number of the high school band members ran over to the middle school which was performing their annual arts showcase. The middle school jazz band director had arranged with a few former-middle-school-jazz-band-now-high-school-band members to return to perform in an alumni jazz band as part of the larger concert…and of course, they were great!
Tonight we celebrate the end of high school band season with a banquet. After that, we have one middle school band concert, a banquet and an end of the year trip. It’s been a little wild around our neck of the woods lately, but I am so proud of my kids in particular and the entire bands in which they both play as well!
I have mentioned many times that the kids are both very involved with band in their schools. Band means many things to different people but I never ceased to be amazed at how incredible these kids play and how truly kind and awesome the majority of our band kinds are.
Isaac at the GW Band concert
Isaac’s high school band played their spring concert this week at the Clay Center in Charleston. Truly, Charleston is fortunate to have such an amazing performance hall. And even more fortunate is that our high school has the opportunity to play in the same hall as the WV Symphony. It’s a high-class, beautiful location!
Isaac was principle chair for his instrument, the tenor sax. I am very proud as you might imagine. His band-mates all seem to be very driven and really respect their band director. He’s a serious man, and demands excellence from these kids and absolutely gets it. I think the kids very much respect him for helping them to see how great they can be. I am very pleased with his ability to inspire the band to play as he does. It’s clear he loves the music and the kids and that’s just perfect in my mind!
Cool pic outside the Clay Center…Venus (I think) in the night sky also
So friends, I know that these may take a bit to download, but if you find the time or the inclination, please enjoy the music from the George Washington High School Spring Concert – 2015!
Quite a title, I know, but that’s what it’s called in the beekeeping world. This weekend, I looked into my colonies and added honey supers as necessary in preparation for the honey flow which starts soon in WV. I mostly found good colonies with healthy queens, good worker build-up, plenty of eggs and larvae, etc. In one hive, I found a problem though.
Healthy honeybees on comb
Sometimes, when a hive loses its queen, the infertile female worker bees sort of change into queen-wannabees. Every hive needs a queen to survive as she is the one which controls the mood of the hive, ensures future bees and generally runs the show. When a colony goes queen-less, all of that falls apart. Something in a number of worker bees triggers and they begin to sort of convert into queen bees. These infertile bees are called laying workers. Their bodies begin producing eggs. Since the aren’t really queens though, they cannot fertilize the eggs and something is just not right about how they roll…they don’t know how to properly lay eggs like a real queen would.
A healthy brood pattern…can you find the queen in this pic? She’s there!
Instead of laying a single fertile egg in the center of each honeycomb, laying workers lay multiple eggs in the honeycomb, on the honeycomb walls, heck, sort of everywhere. If the eggs develop into anything, they would turn into male drone bees but in most cases, they are just junk and signal the end of a hive.
Multiple eggs in the honeycomb cells from laying workers..there should be single little white eggs in each cell
Some beekeepers used to say that they could save the non-laying workers by shaking all of the bees out of the hive at some distance, say 500 yards, from the original location. The idea was that, like a typical real laying queen, laying workers would not really fly and so would die where they were shaken out (queens can fly…when they breed in their first week or so after emerging from a queen cell and when they swarm…in both ). Non-laying bees would return to the hive where the beekeeper could install a new fertile queen.
A healthy queen…look for the longer body…this queen is darker than the surrounding workers
Research has shown that it doesn’t really work that way though…or not consistently. I prefer to shake the bees out and remove the actual hive from the location where it once stood. Any bees that return have to either transition into a nearby hive that will not tolerate laying workers or die where their old hive stood. It’s a harsh reality I suppose but the only viable solution in my yard. Sometimes it happens which is a drag, but I am pleased that I have a good number of healthy hives that will hopefully produce a lot of good honey…if the predicted frost tomorrow doesn’t kill all of the nectar-producing blooms!
Last weekend, Emily and I had the opportunity to see John Mellencamp in concert. Like about everyone who grew up in the 80s, we really enjoy his music and had great memories of the “glory days” in school when his music meant so much to us.
We stopped and actually had good BBQ…a rarity outside the South
We did a ricochet trip to Charlotte, NC…we basically drove in, heard the concert, spent the night and returned the next morning. Maybe it was a bit like our care-free time of growing up…or more likely my cheapskate kicking in so we didn’t have to pay for another night at a hotel.
A pig…eating pig
Anyhow, the concert was in a mid-sized arena…maybe 5-6k people attended. At first, we were the youngest people there which sort of surprised me. Soon enough though we were in a sea of people of all ages. Mellencamp is 63 and has been playing for a long time so I guess his music has appeal across many years though I am sure his most famous period was when I was a teenager.
Ready for the concert
John puts on a good old-fashioned rock-and-roll show. It’s not full of flames and lights and dancing all over stage, but it’s loud enough and his songs are just plain awesome! He mostly played his famous songs, Jack and Diane, Hurts So Good, Small Town, and Authority Song. Emily, not being a true fan apparently, had never heard of his absolute best song, Rain on the Scarecrow. I know it is probably not as well known as many of his others so I was surprised (and nearly brought to tears…except I don’t cry), when he fired up that song during the concert! It was fantastic!
With my sweetie…
On stage with him, he had a fantastic violinist and another musician who played “everything else” including piano, accordion and harmonica. It was sort of classic Mellencamp sounds but I guess I never really thought about what went into his music. I loved it!
Mellencamp stage
Unlike many current musicians, John Mellencamp sounded great live and pretty much exactly like he does on his produced versions (geez…I struggled with what to say there…cassettes, LPs, mp3s…he’s been around for it all!) I was a little surprised when he lit up a cigarette on stage, but I guess that’s an 80s throwback thing too maybe.
I almost forgot…the concert was opened by Carlene Carter which seemed like a huge surprise as she is most definitely in the style of her mother and grandmother…i.e. older style country. I really enjoyed her songs and singing as well, but it was a surprise. We later found out that she and John and working together on a project so it did make sense…her opening was a nice bonus!
Friends, if you are a child of the 80s and get the opportunity to hear John Mellencamp, buy some tickets and enjoy an fun evening! Sing as loud as you can and take your kids so they can be thoroughly embarrassed…but show them how rock and roll was meant to be done!
In town, there is a business called “Uncork and Create“. I’ll make up some of the history but mostly, it started as a place where an artist walks a group of people through doing a painting…everyone does the same painting with their own unique touches. Wine and snacks are welcome and it’s a fairly social gathering. They have since branched out from painting into all sorts of cooking/food classes.
Uncork and Create
Emily got me a gift certificate to go to one of their classes for Christmas. I am no cook, but I do like wine and sweets, so when I saw that they were offering a class on making chocolate truffles, I decided it was a perfect opportunity to give the place a try!
Truffle making supplies
My class was offered on Valentine’s Day so taking it was either a really good idea or a really bad idea. I figured that if I arrived home with a pile of homemade truffles for my Valentine, I would be off the hook.
Making truffles
They have a local chef prepare a few easy recipes and we dug in with ingredients and kitcheny tools and stuff needed to make our recipes. The chef was a fun woman who was easy going and clearly enjoyed what she was doing. She teased and played and taught us some tricks for proper chocolate coating. There were a number of ingredients she brought so we could customize our truffles also. Several couples attended so I was at the “singles table”. We all agreed to customize our truffles with Grand Marnier orange liqueur. We tasted it and decided it wasn’t flavorful enough so we added more…and more. Well, you get the idea.
Once the truffle ganache is mixed, we had to refrigerate it so it would set up…chef came to our table after a bit and asked us how much hooch we had added to our mix…it turns out our mix was slow to set up…ooops! It wasn’t that much was it?
The finished productMy doggie bag!
We finally got everything pulled together and made some really delicious truffles. I guess they aren’t as beautiful as I had hoped but for my first go at it, I was pleased. I had a lot of fun and really enjoyed my time at the event. I won’t be able to make these things too often though or I’ll either be three sheets to the wind or overweight!
We are pleased to introduce the newest driver in our house! Isaac passed his learner’s permit test yesterday. As soon as I got home from work, he bounced into the kitchen, license in hand. Of course, I knew he wanted to go drive. I suspect he had planned on my tossing him the keys and saying “let’s go.”
Although he has driven many times out at the executive deer stand, he had not driven at any real speed with opposing 2 ton hunks of rolling metal coming at him. Instead, I drove him to a nearby neighborhood with flat straight streets. He was a mix of excited and nervous…and so was I honestly.
He got into the driver’s seat and we went over the “make it go forward” checklist. Isaac tended to hug the white line as we drove house, cars, and mailboxes. Of course, he was still a little jerky with the gas pedal and the steering but he was very cautious and seemed to take it seriously enough to satisfy my nerves a little. I guess we drove for 40 minutes and had a lot of fun.
Probably my favorite part of the trip happened at the end of our drive. There is a church near our house where I asked Isaac to pull in so I could take us home. Our road is steep and windy and has a blind crest. We weren’t ready for that yet. Anyhow, we pulled into the parking lot and miscommunicated where we were going to park. Isaac got it between the parking lines so all was fine, but I suppose it looked funny to the older couple sitting in the car across the parking bumper from us. The look on their face was, at first, one of slight confusion with our antics. As soon as Isaac and I got out and switched seats, they got big goofy grins on their faces. It was obvious…we were practicing driving. In response to their big goofy grins, I grinned right back and nodded my head. I suspect they said a quick prayer for both me and them as, that night, a new driver was unleashed on the road!
Most people have touched a Rubik’s Cube at some point or another and most probably tossed it aside after awhile, the blocks approximately as disordered as when they received the cube. Of course, plenty of people know an algorithm to solve the cube and some can even do it behind their backs in a matter of seconds. I am not either of those…I can usually solve one side and part of another, but I have never solved one out-right…I don’t know the algorithm.
I remember when I went to the Knoxville World’s Fair in 1982…the Hungary Pavilion had a large Rubik’s cube as a major focal point of its display. I think 1982 was probably at the height of the Rubik’s cube craze, and it’s inventor, Ernő Rubik is Hungarian. I am pretty sure that’s about the time that I got my first cube. Some people knew the tricks to solve it, but I was 10 or so and without the Internet, there were no real shortcuts. Many of my friends had Rubik’s Cubes and none of us, as far as I know, ever solved them on our own when we were in school. A few people peeled the stickers to solve their cubes and a few people threw them in the river I suppose. Mrs. Donato, one of our elementary lunch ladies knew how to solve the cube so some kids let her solve them during lunch. I am sure my old cube is at my parents’ house somewhere, still unsolved.
Anyhow, back to now…Isaac and some of his buddies are into cool stuff…ciphering and figuring and, of course, puzzles and games and stuff like that. The other night, Isaac brought a Rubik’s Cube home to solve. One of his buddies learned one of the algorithms to solve it and Isaac was busy learning as well. Of course, being into things like that, he dedicated a fair amount of brain time to learning the tricks that night and can solve it on his own now. Honestly, as a kid stuck in 1982 (apparently), I was amazed that someone in my own house could solve the Rubik’s cube!
I am having a terrible time getting back into the swing of life after a really great holiday season. Winter is always tough for me to bother getting out of bed, and since this holiday seemed so fun this year, I guess I am a little more weird than normal this January.
Boo hoo…
So, what, you may ask, are we doing to occupy our time during the cold Winter months? My brother gave Isaac a new game for Christmas and we have been enjoying playing it of course! The game is called “The Settlers of Catan“. I have seen it before and sort of always figured it was a little more deep than I wanted in a board game…and by deep I mean I had no intent in playing a game that would take 17+ hours to play or required me to think super hard or that required me to keep the cats away from an elaborate board covered with important pieces. We just never bothered to look into it any further. On our fiasco trip to PA a few months ago, we ended up walking through a book store that had the games for sale. Since we were a somewhat captive audience, we read more about the game and thought it might be worth a go. When my brother gave Isaac the game, it seemed like perfect timing.
It seems a bit complicated at first read of the rules, but the idea really is pretty simple…build settlements (and later cities) using the basics of civilization building – wood, wool, bricks, ore and wheat. (As a side, this makes me think of the saying, “…with caffeine, nicotine, and kerosene, one can take over the world”) It’s a fun mix of Monopoly (but nowhere near as tedious), RISK (with a lot fewer moving pieces) and chess.
All 4 of us played several rounds of the basic map and we have just started making our own maps (it’s all very simple to lay out with the map tiles). We trash talk and make under the table deals. We laugh and fuss (and sometimes cuss) and actually talk with one another. It’s a great diversion from life and just challenging enough to be interesting, but fast enough and simple enough to be a fun evening-time game for 4 nerdy fantasy lovers.
If you are into board games and like fantasy (although it isn’t dwarf or elf-laden at all…it just feels fantasy-ish to me but I suppose I am imposing that on the game), give Settlers of Catan a try. It’s a little spendy, but it has revived our board game playing and has already made for several evenings of laughter and talking and fun!
I can’t believe that Isaac is another year older already! All parents say this I know, but I can’t believe he isn’t still the tiny little baby who had such a horrific start. It seems like yesterday we were learning to ride a bike and here he is about to drive a car! Although he has had some issues, he has grown into a fun and wonderful young man of whom I am so very proud!
Last night we heard his Christmas band concert, and it was a thing of beauty! He is the first chair tenor sax player in his concert band which makes me very proud. He loves to play his horn and with a band that can make music like they can, who wouldn’t love it?!
Anyhow, we celebrated Isaac’s birthday among family the other night and had a great time celebrating both Isaac and his uncle who share a birthday. It’s such a fun and wonderful time as they both get into the party and make it a lot of fun for everyone.
I think as much as anything, I was happy to see Isaac, both at his birthday party and at the band concert, just having fun and making people laugh. His name is Hebrew for laughter and he has always been one to make people comfortable and happy through his laughter and sense of humor. He is one of my true joys and I am so proud to be his father!
Points to anyone who can get inside my head to know where I got the reference for tone-arm cobra…
So, when I was a kid, probably about 8 years old, my parents got for me a Fisher-Price record player for Christmas. Honestly, I think it is probably the gift I remember more fondly than any other I received as a kid. You see, we had a great record collection in our house. It might not have been huge, but it was diverse and pretty interesting to an 8 year old. There was CCR, Conway Twitty, and Victory at Sea…Elvis, Dino, Jim Croce, and Hank Williams…all sorts of classical music sets and holiday lps as well. My Mom had a bunch of 45s from when she was a teenager that I loved. It was a bit of a wonderland to my brain!
So, when I got my own record player, you can imagine that I really owned that record player. I instantly became a little more sophisticated I guess. I could control what played and when. I could change records whenever I wanted and I could imagine a world that matched the music I played. At some point, I got a cassette recorder and started my own radio station with the records I played…”This is Little Warren on WWAR radio spinning another favorite, Hound Dog Man by Fabian…” I recorded all sorts of long shows…some rock, some classical, some country. I was a real DJ in my mind, recording my records and voice-overs onto cassette tape.
Jump forward 35 or so years and my parents brought a bunch of my old things they discovered as they cleaned out their attic…including my old record player and the 45s I loved as a kid! Just a few weeks after that, I found new-old records for sale for $0.15/each at the local library. It sort of just clicked, but I knew that my old (and now new-to-me) vinyl was calling my name, begging to be played once again!
I tried my old record player and it worked…sort of. I am no audiophile…in fact, I love the pops and clicks of a record player…but the old record player was just not going to cut it. I hemmed and hawed and finally found a few extra dollars and decide to buy a new Crosley Cruiser record player. Some folks online complained that the Crosley was a cheap player or that it sounded bad. I figured that my not-so-keen ear and my not-so-carefully-stored records would never know the difference and I was delighted to find that the Crosley played even better than I expected!
Awesome record I found…Alpine Holiday!
I fired up the old tone-arm cobra and spun the first record…Glen Miller’s greatest hits. We played some of the Ink Spots and than an oldie but a goodie – Alpine Holiday…that’s right, it is a record filled with Alpiney sounds of yodeling and oompas and the like. Abigail and I danced some and we made the record skip a few times. It was perfect! Sure, it’s a lot different than CD or mp3 music but it just has a different feel to it. Old records just sound right to me I guess. I don’t really want to be a kid again, but I loved remembering back to that time and I love hearing records I hadn’t heard in a long time!
So…the reference to tone-arm cobra…anyone read my mind? I am a M*A*S*H guy and Season 6 had an episode called “Your Hit Parade” where Radar plays a bunch of records the unit received (instead of medical supplies) as the staff patched up the mass of wounded troops. He had to stop playing at one point, telling his listeners about their request, “It’ll be coming to you as soon as I put a new fang on the old tone arm cobra.” I guess it’s funny but that episode stuck with me and I always call a record player “the old tone arm cobra”…weird, I know.
