Madison pictures

UPDATE: I fixed the links to the photos so they show up. I moved things around on Photobucket and broke the links.

So since I got my camera phone I have been trying to take a few pictures. I don't think they are very good, but my friend Kim wanted me to blog this photo. It was taken across the street from the Wisconsin State capitol building. I tried taking pictures from different angles and distances. I like this one the best because of the clouds above the capitol building.


I thought this one would work out better than it did. I was trying to get a photo of the top of the capitol building. I don't have a zoom feature on my phone's camera, so this is what I got. The clouds make it hard to see the building. I think the leaves look pretty. I like how you can see the Orpheum theater sign. The Orpheum Theater is mostly a movie theater with 2 screens. However there are often live concerts there as well. Many years ago the Orpheum sign was lighted. The owners are trying to raise the money to restore the sign. I think that would be very cool.

Wow, I went to a concert!

Back on June 9th I went to a bar called Mr. Roberts to see a local band called Trinity James and Big Bad. I learned about them on Myspace. Then I saw them on a local music TV show called the Urban Theater. They've been compared to Bon Jovi and John Mellencamp. They play what I call good old fashioned rock n roll. I really liked it. There were probably 3 or 4 songs I hadn't heard before, but they were all great! The lyrics are catchy and Trinity has a great voice. I'm sure he's been told plenty of times that he sounds like Jon Bon Jovi. (He even has a Superman logo tattoo like Jon Bon Jovi!) I loved that "Keep on keepin' on" song, "Last True Believers in Rock N Roll" that was new to me, "Racing Through the Night," and "Life Ain't Easy Part 2." I finally figured out that Part 2 is the song I like from the Myspace page! I added it as my profile song on Myspace for a while. Cheesy? Yes I know!

I sat near the back of the bar, just cause I was by myself and it was getting crowded. The place is pretty small actually. An older lady named Denise said hi and asked if I was enjoying everything. I said I was. Then a few minutes later she told me that I wanted to go up front and dance with the other young ladies! There were about 5 or 6 of them all wearing cute summery dresses dancing near the front or next to the bar. (One of them, probably somebody's girlfriend, came around with a tip jar asking for donations since there was no cover charge. That was sweet of her.) It was a bit easier for me to hear everything clearly near the back. I couldn't understand Trinity as well closer up.

I may also be "too old." Ha, as in "If it's too loud, you're too old!"

Anyway, I shrugged Denise off, but she grabbed my hand and led me closer. It was almost the end of the show anyway, so I stood there and moved to the music a bit. It was kind of funny that at the end of the show a guy sitting at the bar tapped me on the arm and said he was Trinity's dad and recognized me from Myspace. I introduced myself and said that I enjoyed the show. I guess Trinity's dad is on Myspace, too. Just shows ya what a small world Myspace is! Trinity's dad was pretty handsome. He did NOT look like he was old enough to have a son in his 20s. (I don't know how old Trinity is. I'm guessing 25 at the most.)

Trinity seems like a nice guy. He's pretty cute, too. I like his curls! After the show I noticed that he went "commando" and was wearing sorta low rise jeans. When he squated down to put something in his guitar case I saw a bit of his butt crack. OMG! Plumber's butt! Oops!

I ran into him at a coffee shop downtown several weeks ago. I saw him in passing and thought "That guy looks like Trinity James." So I said hi and it was him, obviously. He mentioned he was moving to Nashville. He also asked me if I knew a guy named Darren. I said I knew a guy named Darin, but I don't think we were talking about the same guy! Later on that day I saw a guy at another sidewalk café wearing a Trinity James & Big Bad t-shirt. He was all over the place that day! Naturally I left Trinity a comment on Myspace that afternoon.

On the 9th before the show I said hi to Trinity and asked him when he was moving to Nashville. I think he said the end of July. I asked if he had a day job lined up, he said no. Wow, that's brave. I've heard that Nashville has a huge music scene, but I assume that it's slow going to build a reputation there. I guess when you're one of the "last true believers in rock n roll" ya gotta take risks and go for the bigger & better stuff! I told him I wanted a CD, and he made sure I got one by the end of the night. It's a live CD called "Raw Dogs." They played 4 out of the 5 songs from the CD at the show. I'm sure I'll be listening to it a lot. I definitely enjoyed the show. I hope he comes back to Madison to play more shows in the near future!

Geek is the color for fall..

I just realized I haven't put a video on my blog in a long time! I also haven't written anything in a long time! There, I just did! I like Jason Mraz. He has a great voice. This song has a great beat, and I can dance to it. (Yes, that's an American Bandstand reference!) I like this video because he's sharing the headphones with people on the street, mostly women, and they're having fun dancing around to the music! He's also wearing a pink t-shirt, pink flip flops and handing out pink cotton candy! The song is about how you shouldn't underestimate the geeky guy because he could be the love of your life!

I think that most people who listen to Jason Mraz fall in love with his voice. I first heard his song "Wordplay" a few years ago. I really liked it because of the lyric "I'm the wizard of oohs and ahhs and fa-la-las. Yeah the Mr. A to Z they say I'm all about the Wordplay" I don't even remember where I first heard it. He seems like the kind of performer that would get played on Triple M radio, but I can't be sure. And then somewhere I saw the video for "You & I Both" which stuck in my head because he was wearing a fedora and was dancing in a bank like it was a musical. I didn't particularly remember the song, just the video. I mixed "Wordplay" and that video up until I asked a question at Yahoo Answers. Now I have it all straight in my head. I have watched his videos on YouTube, added him as a friend on Myspace and added two songs on to my Project Playlist (see below.) I've fallen in love with his voice! I should go buy his CDs sometime, too!

Generations

My Grandmother is dying. She was put in a hospital on Sunday or Monday and then transferred to the nursing home yesterday. She has some kind of tumor on her liver that could start pressing on her aorta or lungs. I visited her today. She's so frail. She's 84 years old. She had a total of 9 children. She outlived 4 of her adult children. Two of them died before their first birthdays. Six of them are gone, geez! My uncle Don, uncle Ron and my mother are the only ones of grandma's children left.

My cousin Laura gave me a ride to see Grandma. I haven't kept in contact with most of my cousins. Laura told me about parenting problems with her son James, daughter June Marie and having to babysit for June Marie's daughter Kayla. I have a little idea about my cousin Laura going through relationship problems with her ex-husband and growing up in an alcoholic family. I don't know much of the story, though. There are layers of problems in my family. Laura's mother, my aunt Marilyn, died of cancer several years ago. I think seeing my Grandma in such frail condition reminded Laura of her mother. It's hard on all of us.

Even though my Grandma is weak, she's definitely still herself. She couldn't talk very loud, but she asked if I have found a job yet. My cousin Megan was there as well. Megan, Laura and I talked while Grandma sort of rested. Grandma said that we cousins should get together more often, and she can't rest because we're talking! One of the attendants offered us beverages. I had some coffee. Grandma wanted to know when I started drinking coffee! Then she wanted to make sure I didn't spill it and got the coffee cup back to the attendants. That's how she is!

I don't think my Grandma is going to be around much longer. It's probably a matter of days. I am going to miss her because she did so much for my mom and I over the years! I heard Father Larry Richards say in a lecture on Relevant radio that "you gotta tell the people that you love that you love them!" So I held my Grandma's bony hand, I could see her veins through her skin, and told her that I love her and very much appreciate her generosity throughout the years. I will miss her!

With regard to my cousin Laura's family life, all I know is I've been extremely blessed. My Grandpa White had alcohol problems. He died before I was born and my Grandma remarried my step-grandpa Klein. He may have been abusive to my Grandma. I'm not sure. Laura's mother was an alcoholic, too. Grandpa Klein abused Laura and her sister Shirley. Then later on he abused me. As I mentioned, Laura had relationship problems with her ex-husband. Now June has relationship problems with her boyfriend. See the layers of problems in my family? I've been extremely blessed because my mom didn't abuse alcohol. I don't think the abuse at the hands of Grandpa Klein had much impact on my life. My relationship with my mother has been pretty good. And I am very grateful to God for my Grandma's help for my mother and I.

UPDATE: My Grandma died on April 7th, two days after I saw her last. I think my aunt Dorothy was with her when she died. She was cremated. We had a memorial service for her in Waterloo on April 21st. My cousin Laura gave me a ride. My aunt Dorothy did a great job searching through all of Grandma's photos of her children from when they were little. There were also several photos of the grandkids, including me! I don't remember a lot of the photos I was in. I also got to meet my little cousins Kayla and Austin. Kayla is Laura's grandchild. I guess that makes her a 3rd cousin to me? I dunno. She's 3 years old. Austin is my cousin Darrell's son. (So Austin is my 2nd cousin.) I think he's 10 months old. He's a charmer! I'm going to miss my Grandma a lot. She did a lot for my mom and I!

Project Playlist songs

Ok, I guess being unemployed has it's benefits! I have prepared a kick ass Project Playlist collection of songs! I do love me some 80s hard rock! I also threw in some songs from the 90s, just a bit of R&B and Goth. I thought it may not work properly. It seems to be working right! Yay!

the powers of a my computer

I found this silly post from "Blog-o-Matic." I am in the mood to post nonsense. As I mentioned before work is quite boring. You can tell this is randomly generated because of the phrase "the powers of a my computer." The letter a is out of place! That's why I decided to post it because it's weird. It bugs me that I can't underline a couple words below and make it look like the original page. Oh well...

On Links

What would you say if I told you that we all ought to join together to love who we live with. How is this related to Links, you ask. Fair enough. OK. It was back in 2000 I had a house nearby the woods. OK. So... My point is... But something felt awkward. I collided with the powers of a my computer, broken and gray. Which is fine by me yet...

Read more...

Date: 2007-02-07 19:20:06 Permalink Comments (0)

Current Mood: bored

I think I posted one of these randomly generated negative posts before. I found it through The Apathetic Online Journal Entry Generator. The only thing that bugs me is that the background colors and little frowny face don't show up! This is so appropriate for me now because work is pretty boring! The other call center is taking the calls and there's nothing to do. I had two calls in about an hour. Ugh!

Such is life
I haven't gotten much done today, but so it goes. I've more or less been doing nothing to speak of. Maybe tomorrow. I can't be bothered with anything. I've just been letting everything pass me by recently, but it's not important.

Current Mood: bored

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Orange dreamsicles!

Here is another beautiful photo of some frozen oranges in California. It's from this MSNBC (AP) article about the cold snap in California destroying a large part of the citrus and other crops. I think the article says something about the trees being irrigated by spraying them. Obviously that's what creates the "orange dreamsicles." I assume the icicles from the irrigation water would damage the plants faster. It also mentions that Governor Schwarzenegger asked the federal government for disaster relief money. It's going to be harder to get oranges, orange juice, etc. What a depressing thing!

The temperature is dropping here. I do not like the cold. I will be very happy when it gets a little warmer. I'm not very happy when it's very hot, either. What I'd really like to do is just get some sleep. It's particularly appealing to sleep when I am at work with back to back calls! During the week 9-5 pm the call volume is very mellow. There is a new call center taking a lot of our calls. After 5 pm and on Saturday we get slammed! *Sigh* It all stinks, really.

A Linguist's Poem

I found this poem on my friend Kristin's Xanga. I like it! It seems fitting that she would like it as well. She spent time in Japan teaching adult conversational English classes! I wish I knew what the original poem looked like because I don't know how the stanzas were set up. At any rate, it definitely shows how confusing English must be for foreigners!
P.S. I don't know what Kristin's Xanga address is. So I linked to her Myspace page.


Hints on Pronunciation for Foreigners

I take it you already know
Of tough and bough and cough and dough?

Others may stumble but not you
On hiccough, thorough, laugh and through.

Well done! And now you wish, perhaps,
To learn of less familiar traps?
Beware of heard, a dreadful word
That looks like beard and sounds like bird

And dead: it's said like bed, not bead—
For goodness sake, don't call it deed.

Watch out for meat and great and threat
(they rhyme with suite, and straight and debt.)

A moth is not a moth in mother
Nor both in bother, broth in brother,
And here is not a match for there
Nor dear and fear for bear and pear,

And then there's dose and rose and lose
Just look them up – and goose and choose,

And cork and work and card and ward,
And font and front, and word and sword,

And do and go and thwart and cart –
Come, come, I've hardly made a start!

A dreadful language? Man alive!
I'd mastered it when I was five!

T.S.W.

(from a letter published in the London Sunday Times, 1/3/65)