Sorry for the long absence
Due to the pressures of life, my blogging activity has slowed to a virtual crawl, and I have even toyed with the idea of ceasing this blog altogether. I know, "joe don't do it, come down from the ledge" is what you are all thinking, right? We all have busy lives but rather than kill the blog altogether, I will just do what I can, and in the meatime try to get my arms around the different things competing for my time and occasionally comtribute to the dialogue.
Today is my wife's birthday. She is 41 and someone I greatly admire. It is especially cool that we have known eachother since we were 17 and been a couple since we were 18. That's 23 years for those of you counting. With each b-day its an opportunity to reflect on how unlikely an outcome that is and how God has had his hand on our relationship, kept us together, growing and thriving. Happy B-day Melanie from the kids and I.
Tahoe is one of the most beautiful places on earth. We just returned today from a 5 day campout with friends and family (other Solis sisters, bro-in-laws...the usual, etc). What a joyous time to be surrounded by all the natual beauty and have the excellent fellowship of all those great people. It was a grand time, perfect...except for Zach's illness, and someday it would be cool to have Walker with us again, as he was when he was a youngling. Volleyball, good food, hiking, biking, kayaking, kids you can't beat it. Melanie and I were commenting on how this bi-annual trip is our favorite vacation. Not that we have been everywhere, but she and I have seen some pretty cool places when she would travel with me on business and occasionally we have had the opportunity to go on real vacations like a cruise etc. But this one for all the reasons mentioned above is the best, and ironically the destination is on 2 hours away. What we can't figure out is why it doesn't dawn on us to go up there more often?
Melanie also made the obsevation as we were driving along hwy 89 looking at the lake that it's so majestic and such an amazing creation that when you try to take it in it leaves you with a strange longing in your spirit. Perhaps its a glimpse of the wonders of heaven and the longing is the understanding that there is indeed more, untold beauty awaiting us in God's presence.
Good bye for now.
-J
Rosalyn, you owe me $5
A hotly debated topic at this year's 4th of July party was the age of Nicole Kidman. This became a topic of discussion because last week Zach had made the comment that she is "hot", in spite of the fact that she is as old as his parents. I stated, only 1/2 confidently, that she was not as old as his parents to which Rosalyn Nunnink vehemently disagreed. Sorry Rosalyn, this time your old uncle Joe was right.
http://www.superiorpics.com/nicole_kidman/images/nicole005.jpghttp://www.tiscali.co.uk/entertainment/film/biographies/nicole_kidman_biog.html
Book Tag
Sadie, I am also responding to your book questions. I am not sure what it means to be tagged, so I cut and pasted your questions from Levi's blog as you suggested. I am sure there is some better way to do it...?
Q: How many books do you own?Answer: I am not sure but I would estimate a couple of hundred. Mostly some classic paperbacks, kids books, christian writings, some business books and some current fiction.
Q: Last book I bought?Answer: "The Goal" by Eliyahu Goldratt
Review: Informative business related book. The setting is a fictional factory and has lots of management science, philosophy and the like in it...I recommend it.
Q: Last book I read?Answer: "Winning" by Jack Welch
Review: I loved this book. If you're not aware JW is commonly considered the best CEO in American business in the last 20 years or so...(retired from GE).
I guess you can tell from my recent reading material where my head is at?
Q: Five books with special meaning to me?
Answer: How about
other than the Bible?
1) "Mere Christianity" by C.S. Lewis
A very easy read and beautifully articulated description of the logic underlying the Christian faith.
2) "I Claudius" by Robert Graves
A supurb piece of historical fiction about ancient Rome from the time of Augustus to Claudius "the god".
3) "Candid" by Voltaire
Really good read. Voltaire was a deist and he rolls out his philosophy through the characters.
4) "Good To Great" by Jim Collins
The best business related book I have encountered. Very inspirational. I recommend it even if you think you have just a passing interest in the subject.
5) "Lonesome Dove" series by Larry McMurtry
Great series...awesome characters!
-J
"Ridiculous" Revisited
For all of you who posted on my recent post here are some free downloads of some of the songs we discussed...No, John Mayer is not included...
Rock Bottom by UFOShine On You Crazy Diamond by Pink FloydJessica by the Allman Bros. BandFree Bird by Lynard SkynardWorking Man by RushCan't You Hear Me Knockin' by The StonesHere's what I looked like when I first listened to some of this music:
Coming Soon: www.glennba.com
More than anything else, this post is to retest my experiment of trying to incorporate images and links on my post. I thought, however, that I could take this opportunity to post some news about the GNBA. The consensus seems to be that a midnight tournament is not a swift idea. So, as an alternative, Melanie and I thought a 9pm-11pm or so could be more managable for those of you who don't love the game as much as me, and are stubbornly committed to your soft, conservative life-styles.
Additionally, culturezoo will be creating and launching a new GNBA website in the not too distant future. It's purpose will be to publically post the stats and profiles of all the players, record for posterity, the outcome of previous tournaments, blog about basketball, maybe even sponsor a fantasy league and post notices as to whether we will have our regular p/u games on Sundays and approximate start times....I'm very exited.
To wet your appetite here is the stats from the recent tourney:
| Players | Total Games Played | REBs | REBS | Total Pts. | Scoring |
| OF | DEF | Avg. | Avg. |
| Ryan | 6 | 10 | 37 | 7.8 | 108 | 18.0 |
| Sam | 4 | 6 | 23 | 7.3 | 51 | 12.8 |
| Jeff | 3 | 3 | 8 | 3.7 | 36 | 12.0 |
| Joe | 3 | 1 | 10 | 3.7 | 33 | 11.0 |
| Mark B. | 2 | 1 | 7 | 4.0 | 17 | 8.5 |
| Matt | 3 | 4 | 8 | 4.0 | 19 | 6.3 |
| Tim | 2 | 0 | 5 | 2.5 | 12 | 6.0 |
| Mark R. | 6 | 3 | 14 | 2.8 | 31 | 5.2 |
| Eric | 3 | 2 | 15 | 5.7 | 15 | 5.0 |
| Zach | 3 | 2 | 2 | 1.3 | 15 | 5.0 |
| David | 2 | 0 | 8 | 4.0 | 9 | 4.5 |
| Ashley | 3 | 5 | 1 | 2.0 | 13 | 4.3 |
| Lucas | 4 | 3 | 20 | 5.8 | 17 | 4.3 |
| Levi | 2 | 0 | 4 | 2.0 | 8 | 4.0 |
| Ben | 2 | 1 | 2 | 1.5 | 7 | 3.5 |
| Konrad | 6 | 1 | 11 | 2.0 | 18 | 3.0 |
| Trista | 4 | 2 | 5 | 1.8 | 12 | 3.0 |
| Aaron | 2 | 2 | 4 | 3.0 | 4 | 2.0 |
...and compliments of culturezoo, here is the new logo that will be featured prominantly on the new site:
Wanted: "HTML For Dummies"
Well, I sat down, recently armed with some basic HTML and a FTP site to post files and drafted a really cool post about the GlennBA. Alas, after several error messages I finally deleted it, and in my frustration forgot to save the post to a word.doc that I could conveniently retreive later. Oh well... this blog thing is quite a time committment, complete with a learning curve and everything. No wonder I wasn't even mentioned in the article.
I am committed however, to mastering some basic code so that my future posts are more graphical and therefore more interesting to my audience. (I realize as an experienced writer that I must keep the capacity of the audience in view, and I know that you all love pretty pictures to go along with tedious walls of text).
Speaking of tedious, I know the "Ridiculously Long Songs" got really old, but I do want to thank you all for conversing and posting so many comments..., it felt good to hit a home run. I also want to thank all of you for sticking with the standards I laid out in the "Blogger's Credo", I am pleased that this web log has not been a forum for anything other than dialogue among friends about subjects that for the most part are on the lighter side.
For you GlennBA-ers I am tentatively planning an end of the summer tournament for the Sunday before Labor Day. Please mark your calendars and let me know if that date works. I am also thinking about a Midnight tournament, maybe over the 4th of July weekend...who's in? I know if you're old, say 41 or so, this might be pushing it, but it might be a fun little tradition once a year in the middle of the summer....(note: very tentative, I haven't spoken to Me yet).
Speaking of Me, she won the Night Ranger sweepstakes. The song I was searching for with the rippin' solo was "Don't Tell Me You Love Me". Pretty cool track for an 80's hair band.
Ridiculously long songs, with ridiculously long guitar solos
A strange sub-genre of rock music that has yet to make a comeback from the '70s is the epic song with long guitar solo at the end. Many of these songs facinated me as a youth; I literally spent hours air-guitaring to the dynamic and self-indulgent wanderings of my kindred guitar-playing brethren. Unfortunately today's formulaic radio formats have made 10 + min. guitar solos unmarketable for the record companies, and therefore uncool, so the likelyhood of this ever making a comeback is remote. Don't give into the man! If you liked this musical phenomenon as I did, here is a short list of some of the more melodically verbose shredding favorites, ...and not so favorites.
- Free Bird, by: Lynard Skynard-A cliche' choice to be sure, but pretend like you never heard it before and you can't help but be impressed by their unbelievable dueling guitar synchronicity. Two and sometimes three guitars playing complimentary solos in harmony at breakneck speed.
- Rock Bottom, by UFO-Michael Schenker (brother of Rudy Schenker of the 70s-80s hair band The Scorpions), was an enigmatic guiatrist who played with UFO for one album and went on to form his own thing that never really flew. The guitar playing in this really adrenalized me when I was 16. Check-out "UFO Live" for the only version worth listening to.
- Shine On You Crazy Diamond, by Pink Floyd-This track doesn't fit the rest of the group because it features ridiculously long solos from everyone in the band including a guest sax player, but the guitar work is amazing. Gilmore at his best..., its kind of a dark alchemy of the blues and 70s art-rock.
- Green Grass and High Tides, by The Outlaws-Another Southern Rock entry..., I think the evolution was Lynard Skynard took off on the instrumental themes of the Allman Bros. when they wrote "Free Bird" and then every other Souther Rock band tried to create their "Free Bird".
- Grey Ghost, by The Henry Paul Band-This song was not only trying to be like "Free Bird" it was actually a tribute song about Lynard Skynard after the plane crash in '76.
I wanted to avoid Live tracks, since really long solos on live tracks aren't all that unusual and can't be considered a sub-genre, but two songs that deserve mention here because they literally provided the sound-track for my adolescence are:
- Do You Feel Like We Do, by Peter Framton-I knew all the "talk-box" guitar parts by heart. I couldn't play them, I could replicate them with my voice.
- Dazed and Confused, by Led Zeppelin-You know the one with the violin bow on the SRTS, very cool at the time. Years later however, I realize that Jimmy Page was highly overrated.
There are a couple of lame-o examples of this genre as well..., topping the list:
- Working Man, by Rush-This was before the became the New Age Philosophers of the Great White North, this was when they were simple trying to sound like Led Zeppelin and get a record deal.
- Highway Song, by Blackfoot-A sissy Southern Rockish attempt at another "Free Bird". Instead they ended up whining about how tough it is on the road being a pre-madonna rock star.
-J
The travails of a husband on Mother’s Day “week-end”
Due to early obligations at Church on Sundays, we in the Glenn home have begun to celebrate M-Day on the Saturday preceding, so that we (me and the kids) can prepare the obligatory breakfast of eggs, beacon, French-toast casserole, strawberries, etc and leisurely enjoy it.
This Saturday I had the misfortune of having to accompany Melanie to her favorite Nevada City storefront to purchase decorative plates for the 5’ vertical plate holder thing-a-bob I bought her for Mother’s Day. Why on earth, you might ask did you buy her this plate contraption?...Well in my endless pursuit of husbandly perfection, I strived this year for the “cute idea”. As it turned out it was a terrible idea. You ladies probably understand the abstract concept of a “cute idea”. A “cute idea” is when you take an object made to do one thing, and you creatively repurpose it for another use. My “cute idea” was that Melanie could use the plate holder thing, which had 4 spaces, to proudly display a portrait of each of her four kids, instead of plates. Calm down ladies, I know you are developing a crush on me right now. This was especially “cute” since it was M-Day and I incorporated the kid angle.
Upon presenting this present to Melanie, I discovered the idea was not so cute after all. First of all, she didn’t have four pictures or frames that would work, pictures of the kids in the kitchen was somehow not cool even if she did, and the plate thing was way too long for any of our wall space. To my dismay, I couldn’t return the item, due to the fact that I had spay painted it black the night before to “match” our other kitchen furnishings.
This all might sound pretty trivial, but it took a dramatic turn for the worse. Melanie in a generous attempt to redeem my ill advised gift and to prevent me from mowing the lawn on “Mother’s Saturday” had me take her to Nevada City to Country Collectibles to purchase some decorations to go on the rack. Predictably, some of the items under consideration were plates. After several minutes of resenting the very fact I was there, I began to become engaged in the process of selecting items, setting them on the rack, standing back and observing our choice, finding other items, etc, etc, etc. After 45 minutes and with the able assistance of a sales clerk and the owner (I think) we found 2 ceramic plates that were perfect compliments to our now exciting new furnishing. These were the only two plates of their kind in the store and featured hand-painted birds, “a matched set, but each one unique” as the sales lady described them. Finally the shopping experience was coming to a satisfying end as Melanie, the sales clerk, the owner of the shop, as well as myself all intuitively new that these items were perfect, well earned through the selection process of trial and error. To get one last unique perspective of finished product we had all created I said, somewhat under my breath, “maybe I should just lift it up to take a look….”
CRASH! BANG! CLANG!#%#&^^%(*(**….
Smashed right there in the middle of this quiet little store after all the effort. To make things worse, as the plates were flying off the rack in what seemed like slow-motion the elderly owner was lunging in a futile attempt to catch them in mid air. Oh, the humiliation. To make things worse, Melanie, terrified that I would make a scene, due to the fact that I didn’t appreciate being there to begin with, opted for an evil, frozen smile, in an attempt to relieve the tension of an unbelievably awkward moment, instead of openly criticizing me, which would have caused me to snap.
Alls well, that ends well. Surprisingly, the rack now hangs in my house…just not in the kitchen.
Got to go, I hung it crooked and need to go and fix it.
