Meanderings

My muse Jamaicia Pond

I guess that it is time for an update.

We are in the middle of the annual mid winter melt. I have been waiting for this for a few weeks. It usually happens in late January but it isn’t unusual for it to take place in February. It is generally about a week of unseasonably warm weather in the middle of the winter deep freez. This one has been relatively mild, with temps getting into the 50’s but it has been long lived the results being that the majority of the snow has melted. The 2 and 3 foot high snow banks along the sidewalks have vanished in a matter of a couple of days, and features in the yard, unseen for months have reappeared. Of course with the melt come the downside, not to be negative here, but what remains after al the snow melts is not a pretty sight especially after a cold and snowy winter like we have had. Like long gone glaciers, the receding snow banks leave a layer of dirt, sand and other debris in their wake. I don’t know which is worst to look at the dirt blackened snow banks or the layer of dirt and trash on the sidewalks and street. I am happy to see the snow gone though, and the slightly warmer weather in a relief as well. Now the furnace doesn’t run nearly constantly, waking me in the middle of the night each time it turns on. The cold and snow will most likely be back but for now I am not complaining. Spring is just a few weeks away. Ok more like 5 weeks, but it is light when I leave work in the evenings these days, that too is a good sign.

For the most part we have just sort of been hunkered down and getting thru the winter for the last couple weeks. The boy of course seems to take most of our attention and energy. Being 13 as he is, there is sort of a constant level of ‘tude that he gives us. He is doing pretty well in school, although it seems like he can’t quite keep up his grades in all subjects at once. Generally he is a B student; that seems to be as much work, as he wants to put into his studies in spite of our chiding and coaxing. At the same time inevitably on subject will get lost in the shuffle and his grades will drop for a while. We push in that and something else then falls behind. As it is we have added more guitar lessons for him. A neighbor is jazz and rock musician and teaches on the side. The boy has been saying that he is bored with playing classical guitar, and he is in jazz band which has opened up other styles and elements of playing for him, so adding this lesson seemed like the thing to do. It is only $20 for an hour lesson, and after the first one last Sunday the boy came away saying that his fingers hurt, but he had learned some good stuff. You would think that we were trying to turn him into a musician or something.

Both Mrs. and the boy are big Sci-Fi fans; I am too, but not quite to the degree that they are. We have all 10 seasons of Stargate on DVD, and a few seasons of Stargate Atlantis as well. The latest acquisition is the first couple of seasons of Babylon 5 a series that was on the air in the mid 90’s. I was never that fond of that particular series, the writing is stilted and the acting is wooden, or is it the other way around? The only interesting characters and decent actors are the ones who play the aliens. They have a tendency to over act, but that is more interesting than watching the stage timber that play the earthlings. Anyway, mother and the boy have been devouring the episodes. Fortunately or not, they don’t play well in the DVD player connected to the TV, so they have been playing them on their respective laptops. That last few nights as I have sat down at my desk in the evening I can hear the audio tracks from both of their computers as they play the DVD’s. I just turn up the iTunes on my own computer to drown them out, while they bliss out on Babylon.

I have been thinking lately about starting another blog about music, or just start blogging here. Like I barely have time to write here, huh? Since I was a lad of 10 or 11 and got my first crystal radio, I have been listening to and collecting music. My tastes are definitely not mainstream, and might best be described as eclectic. There are any number of artists and performers who interest me, and It might be interesting to write about what draws me to them and sharing that. I have been exploring how to share music through the blog. We will see how that develops..

The latest progress on the construction.