May 4th, 2017

Tere hommikust !! (“Good Morning” to you all in Estonian.)

I made a terrible mistake this week. I was doing some maintenance on my pond, messed up the chemistry and killed all my koi. I feel terrible – I am officially a mass murderer:(

This week I learned some stuff:

• I learned that in spite of my track record, I just might not be as dumb as I thought. I took one of those silly history quizzes on Facebook. It turned out to be a 130 questions about historical figures and I got all but one correct. Who knew I knew ?? (to be honest many were kind of obvious).
• I also learned that well maintained high quality musical instruments and amps do not fair well in terms of price on the secondary market. I could find no local music shop that would take my gear on a consignment basis and when I found out what prices second hand gear was fetching, I understood. I could have gone the whole Craig’s list route but frankly was not looking forward to those kinds of interactions, even if I could have gotten more for my stuff. So I whined and said goodbye to some gear I thought I would die being able to play but could no longer stand to watch gathering dust. I just hope that anyone who buys it will find the joy that I did when I could. And So It Goes..

Website Update
• Second week for the new Vocabulary Quiz
• This week I also added the lyrics for “A Perfect Time of Day” by Howie Day and “Cowboy in the Jungle ” by Jimmy Buffett for your sing-a-long pleasure.

Writing and Painting Update:
• I started another painting this week. This one is of a pretty sunset I caught one afternoon over San Diego

Weird-Stuff-O-Meter:
• This week I saw road rage up close and personal. I made a left hand turn with the turn signal light and moved into the middle lane after my turn. It was completely normal, used my signals and looked before I changed lanes to make sure it was clear. Some idiot came up next to me and started screaming at me, asking if I was messing with him. I ignored him but he was crazy… gesturing and swerving around. Then he got to the next light and went around the cars that were waiting to turn right and turned right in front of a car turing left from the oncoming lanes… almost causing an accident.

Music Update:
This week’s UJT Radio selections feature some new people for me that I wanted to share with you:
• Bob Schneider — Moon Song — This is another cut from his great “Lonelyland” album. This one is a very cool acoustic samba rhythm thing. Makes me smile.
• Howie Day — Perfect Time of Day — This is a great song about a strange subject….I think it kind of describes that last moment we get to have in this life.
• Billy McLaughlin — Hurricane Bob — This is another special instrumental featuring Billy’s unique style.
• Blitzen Trapper — Furr — These guys are just soon good!!! This is the title cut from their 2008 release.
• U2 — Dangerous — Another great tune from these boys.
• Led Zeppelin — Babe I’m Gonna Leave You — I love listening to this one again. This is a cut from the very first Zeppelin album. I was dating a girl name Yolanda and she would get very animated when this song came up on the 8 Track:)
• Van Halen — Jump — This will probably always be my favorite Van Halen song. Eddie was at his peek as was David Lee Roth… Although I heard he was trying to work with Axel Rose and that might be interesting.
• Jimmy Buffett — Cowboy in the Jungle — Cousin Jimmy doing it as only he can. This one comes from the sensitive side and always makes me smile. This is a deeper cut from his Son of Sailor album.

That’s it… Do the best you can; Laugh every chance you get; And always remember … The best is yet to come!

As always, thank you for being my friend!

James
Under the Jacaranda Tree URL: http://www.jfmccann.com