Finally, a break in the weather

Topless (Jeep) days have returned! Less than a couple of weeks ago it was hitting 100 F here, and now we are in the 70s and low 80s.

Lots of new music for my listening pleasure, courtesy of eMusic, and my Big Star collection is almost complete. I still have a lot of Celtic stuff to download, and I have found enough classical and Latin guitar works for now. Now the 1GB card on my Rio is not enough; I wonder if it will handle the new 2GB cards?

Political observation of the day: we need 2 or 3 more viable parties, that way no one has a majority, just as it was in the early days of our country. This two party thing is looking more like Animal Farm all the time...

Ciao!

Mark

Rita and Me...

I have blogged our Rita experience here.

Back after a long leave

Wow! I had not realized how long it had been since I posted. Many things have happened in the last 6 months, yet many things have remained the same. In two weeks we celebrate Labor Day, which means, on the Third Coast, that we only have 6 more weeks of summer...

Back in the saddle again...

After having the flu...yuck! Three days on my back with a body temp 1.5 to 4.1 degrees above normal. No thanks! Next year, its the flu shot for me!


The Deck
The one and only deck I have ever designed and built, photogaphed here during a bright summer day on the Third Coast. 

Good food, cool evening breeze, good conversation, and good company make for a great meal. That is what my wife and I enjoyed tonight as the kids were busy with their own things. We ate on the deck, my first and last as a designer and builder, and watched a full moon peek through the branches of our pine tree, trying to find out what we were doing. Viata-i buna.

a good night's sleep...

...is rarer this days, with the activity in all corners of my life, but I am learning that Poor Richard was right: EARLY to bed, early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise. OK, I think the latter two attributes were purely for meter and rhyme, but forcing myself to go to bed early makes me feel better in the morning. What a thunder-boomer of an epiphany...yeah, yeah, I'm just too old to push the midnight oil as long as I used to do.

On other notes (no pun intended), Carcassi's Study in A Major is coming along. There are three distinct sections, and they are now memorized. Now I will work on putting them together with the appropriate repeats and dynamics. I need to get back to his Study in A Minor, which is at about the same learning point as well. I think I will add Aguado or a piece by Sor next. My skill levels are not sufficient to tackle any of Tarrega's classics.

The weekend after next I will teach on Jesus and the woman at the well. This was a rich encounter holding many lessons within itself...

the rain continues to fall...

Water, water everywhere! 

The bayous are filling, large puddles everywhere, the ground completely saturated. The weather man says only one more day, then colder weather comes a'calling. Oh well, no topless days for the Jeep on the near horizon, but March is not far away.

Tonight, I watch Kentucky-Florida, and do no extra work. The 2-3 hours in the evening I have been logging takes a toll, eventually. What a fool I would be to work hard and not take the time to enjoy its fruits!

Sinaia, Romania

Walking the streets of Sinaia, Romania in the early Spring of 2004. 

I took this photo with my cell phone while in the ski resort town of Sinaia, Romania, along the Prahova River valley. It was a beautiful day, and the sun and sky were nice, also.

The skies are clearing...

After days and days of rain, it looks like the skies on the Third Coast are clearing. The bayous can now drain a bit, Patterson Road's flooding can subside, and my 'country road in the city' will be restored to my commute...


Patterson Road flooded

The vividness that will be restored in the skies today will not be as great as the vividness revealed in reading and studying Mark 1:40-45 (and the synoptic passages) in the original Greek. The English language seems so 'flat' by comparison, but then again, so is modern Greek. Such things happen to lanquages so long in use and especially those used by so many.

Capricho Arabe seems so out of reach right now; I need to focus on memorizing and sharpening the Carcassi pieces, anyway. Focus, focus, focus...hey, what's that over there?!?!?

;-)