The American Library Association has this wonderful data on book banning. I won’t get on my soapbox about this but the charts are fascinating.

Read more…

Some Friday goodness. Such a cutie and luv the “Reponkeysive”. Enjoy.

And looking at this fine parmesan, mushroom, tomato pasta dish with garlic toast. I’m sure there’s a fancy name for this dish, I just don’t know it but I bet Graham would. Dinner looked fine so I ran to get my camera. Notice the garlic bread has already been nibbled—I’m hard pressed not snack on it first.

I realized how much fine food I’ve enjoy through the years because my wife is such a fine cook many times cooking from scratch. She has her own bread maker, pasta maker, and the like. Processed food isn’t to our taste because it often comes with so much seasoning including too much salt and sugar. And when we go to a friends house to eat, we’ll often bring something that I know I’ll be able to eat and enjoy. Is that bad of me.  ;o)

I would top this off with a healthy slice of pumpkin pie with a glass of milk. Suzy knows my favorite dishes and will even prepare food for me that she doesn’t like. So the next night Theo and I had swordfish while Suzy had chicken. Theo becomes my best friend when Suzy prepares fish for me. The rest of the time he mostly ignores me.  :o)

Suzy is in the throes of cleaning up her rental house for the next tenants. So far she has patched holes in the walls and is working on the locks. By the middle of October I would expect that she would have finished the following things:

1. Paint exterior of house. - done
2. Carpets vacuumed, cleaned, and as needed replaced. - done
3. House cleaned professionally. - done
4. Dishwasher replaced.
5. Counters resurfaced, Suzy has selected a brown, black speckled granite laminate.
6. Cabinets repaired in kitchen.
7. Broken lock on sliding door replaced.
8. Gutters rehung.
9. Shutters hung.
10. Some more doors hung.
11. Run the rest of the trash to the dump.

The three elephants in the china shop projects are, as I see it:

1. Reshingling the roof.
2. Resurfacing the driveway.
3. Dealing with the cherry tree out back.

Here are some pictures of completed projects:

And here are some indications of the work to be done:

Suzy has really done a lot of work so far. And the new tenants are excited to move in, probably in November. The nice thing is that Nate and Emily are moving in and are part of our extended family. They have a very good reputation for quality work. For example they helped Wendy and Aaron put crown molding in their home. Life is good.

I saw this on facebook today:

Picture Show: Fashion Week On The Streets With 'The Sartorialist' - Today marks the first day of New York Fashion Week. To celebrate, The Picture Show caught up with Scott Schuman, style blogger and photographer of 'The Sartorialist,' about street photography, his new book and this week's events.

It was a good read. And this is just a reminder to myself to read more of the Sartorialist this weekend. Looks fascinating. Can you imagine me wearing a shirt and tie like that? I can.  :o)

This cameraman has a keen eye and his commentary on the Glamour cover looks to be interesting too. When it comes to style, I’m just not trackin’. But I know what I like and will often get Suzy to help me track down an item that catches my eye. If we can’t find it, she will often create it for me. Now if only I could find that cool, retro hat from last night’s “Leverage” episode.

Having been an alto player all the way to college and eschewing Selmer because of their inherent intonation problems, it’s amazing to me that I’m not only playing this instrument but loving it. Whether I’m trying to sound like Boots Randolph or Lester Young, this is the horn to help me get there.

from http://bibliodyssey.com

I was just finishing my annual project to provide pictures for the annual Sax Calendar that Pete Hales puts together. Running a bit late, okay really late, I called upon my friend QuinnTheEskimo (eBay Musical Instrument Retailer). He recommended I take pictures of his alto Rothphone by Botalli. It probably is from the 1880s. But the pictures of such a skinny instrument don’t seem to be good enough for a calendar.

So he told me he had a Bass Ophicleide in C by Thomas Key from around the 1860s. That would give some nice perspective and is very pertinent to a sax calendar. Pete sez, “Pairing the Roth with the Oph, now that's a kewl idea. Additionally, Matt, the owner of the horns, said that the Oph is a C bass, which is essentially the horn that Adolphe Sax put a single-reed mouthpiece on and said, "Hmm. This sounds pretty decent. I wonder if I can improve it."

Unfortunately I lost all the pictures on one camera but fortunately I usually take pictures on at least two cameras if I am in a prepared situation. So here are some of the rest of the pictures.

These were more like concept pictures and the lighting isn’t the best, but Pete will probably do some magic post-processing to improve upon the pictures. Helen does that to most of her pictures on her Bassic Sax blog, maybe I should see what magic she can do with these shots.  :o)

You can see some more of my camera work on my Flickr photo site.

I have started using the Windows Live Calendar to track my off work activities. I use Microsoft Exchange and Outlook at work. With recent improvements I’m now eager to recommend the Live Calendar. Here’s how mine looks for the next 30 days.

Note that I’m tracking the five bands and combos that I participate in. I haven’t added the theater and symphony dates yet but that’s next. So instead of calling Suzy or waiting till I get home to see if we’re free, I now can access my calendar at any computer.

I have shared the particular calendars with the musicians in the various bands. So when they ask me when the next practice or gig is, I can point them to the calendar for that band. How cool is that?