May 27th, 2016 (Happy Birthday, Tippy!)

Madainn mhath! (Did you know the Scots have a Gaelic of their own? I didn’t .. this is a “Good Morning” that might here in Scotland!!!)

All the politicians are heading to CA. Bernie has been visiting pretty regularly but this week Mr. Bill came to promote his wife and “The Donald” has showed up as well. I think Mr. Bill is aging in reverse. He is lighter on his feet and has a lot more insight and energy than Hillary probably deserves. Bernie is keeping it going in hopes of reactivating the Democrats with some substantially different planks in the party platform going into November. It seems as if he can’t beat the system of super delegates and all then he going to settle for leveraging more diversity in the party’s position even if he has to take it all the way to the convention floor. It is messy but with the popular vote split so evenly and the mere fact that someone like Trump could make it this far says something very profound and at least Bernie is smart enough to see it. Both parties would do well to reflect more of what the voters want for the country and less of what their own goals. I hope we achieve a huge turnout at the polls.

This week I learned some stuff:
• I created a new “Accidental Red Chicken Curry” this week that my grandkids loved big time. I really liked it too. So I captured what a did in a recipe.
• Been crazy busy with SDWS stuff this week. Kind of fun, learning some new HTML tricks and other stuff but learning seems more painful than before and slower:)

Website Update
• Week number 2 for the “New” Vocabulary quiz!
• Added the, “Accidental Red Chicken Curry with Pineapple Rice”
• Finally got rid of all the ‘hacker” entries on the UTJ site. These people have been populating bogus “replies” to many of the UJT’s blog posts. Still haven’t figured out the why yet.

Painting Update:
• Starting to unpack some stuff, still haven’t found all my paints, pencils and other stuff yet. BJ is taking advanced art classes and is doing this really cool colored pencil drawing of a combination of Jesus and the Mona Lisa – its much better in person that hearing about the concept of “Jesus Lisa”. I will try to get a picture of it for you all.

Writing Update:
• Working again on finishing the edit.

Weird-Stuff-O-Meter:
• We finally had our first official “Meatless Monday” the food was good but both Jess and Darrian were gone so now board games or anything like that.

Music Update:
It seems at least some folks are confused about how this section of the update works. I present 6 songs each week for you all to “taste” and when the week is up those songs are replaced by the new songs. If you go back into your email to a previous UJT Update and click on the 3rd song on the list, it will sound exactly like the 3rd song on this week’s list. I present this tasting with the hopes that you will like something and go searching for it in such a way that the artists, record companies and the universe all get their fair share of your hard earned booty. Any other links that you see here are forever links (like the YouTube stuff or other static links) and usually will work after any given week. I am sorry for the confusion. As always, I try to make the music very special for you every week:

• Carl Verheyen Band – All You Need Is Love — This is another cut from my newly found old favorite. This one is another tasty instrumental. Its an impressive cover of the old Beatles standard from their “Road Divided” album.
• Bob Marley and The Whalers – Stir It Up — One of those famous reggae sweet tunes and always seems to sound better on warm days with something cool to drink in your hand. A good tune to listen to as we sneak up on summertime.
• Bob Schneider – Madeline — While I was cruising through the Bobs in my library, I stumbled across this bluesy tune from Mr. Schneider’s, most excellent, “Lonelyland” album. I really like how spacey this thing gets after the refrain and just builds and builds. So sweet!
• Dave Mason/Traffic – You Can All Join In — From the Vinyl!!! This has always been one of my favorite Dave/Traffic songs. I think it was such a cool hippy concept ..all joining in .. making something richer and sweeter. It feels that way to me every time I sing along.. “Here’s a little song you can all join in with ..”
• Eagle Eye Cherry/Santana – Wishing It Was – From the Vinyl!!! This is a deep cut from Carlos’ great “Supernatural” compilation. This is just great players playing tight music… enjoy!
• Eric Clapton – My Father’s Eyes — From the Vinyl!!! Eric never actually met his father who passed away in 1985. His autobiography was a good read. In this song, he tried to draw the parallel between his father’s eyes that he never saw and his 4year old son, Conor whose eyes he would see no more after the tragedy that claimed his life. Eric, who never thought he could sing very well, won a grammy for Best Male Vocal for this song in 1998. I always enjoyed the song. I hope you do too.
• Nickelback – Someday — From the Vinyl!!! This song was one of the first tunes I heard by these Canadian boys. I am not sure what it is that people don’t seem to like about this band but I have always enjoyed their music.
• Venice – She’s Always A Woman — Another cut from their, “Brunch Buffett. This one is a cover of one of my favorite Billy Joel tunes from 1977. Billy wrote this one for his first wife who took over his management and was able to dig him out of a number of bad deals. This is beautiful song sung beautifully.

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