Hooray for God!: Saturday Morning
Array I scored a free Honda toolkit and owners manual for my VLX last year from a kind lady who had extra ones lying around in her garage. Last week I got some small parts I needed for my rear fender side rail mounting for 5 from a guy who was customizing his bike and had no use for them. I’ll be replacing them with the popular and highly rated Metzeler ME880 Marathon tires before I ride to the Honda Hoot at Knoxville, TN. Costs about 00 for the front and 30 for the rear, with the dealer charging 0 per tire for mounting and balancing.
link
On a lazy Saturday afternoon, I sat at New Café and over a large Imperial on draught, watched the Ticos coming and going, darting in and out of buildings and ducking under overhangs, as it appears the rainy seasonâs rains have finally come (at least to San Jose).The rain brings out all types of entrepreneurs, particularly the street variety. Not long thereafter a cab driver mentioned something about Oscar Arias and I was able to understand with my weak knowledge of Spanish that Monday is his inauguration as âPresident of the Republic,â and preparations were well underway for this event (Arias also lives near Sabana Park apparently).As in most countries, Inauguration Day is a big event here. I swear, given all the holidays, that the post office is open an average of 3.5 days a week!A lot of dignitaries are coming to San Jose for the day including U.S. First Lady Laura Bush (apparently sheâs not staying at our B&B this time!), several U.S. Congressman, and most heads of state of Central American countries. Like the U.S., security is tight and several roads will be closed particularly around the stadium in Sabana Park where the actual swearing in will take place.Arias, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, is the first President reelected in 36 years and will take office again twenty years after his first term in office. While the political situation has generally stabilized in well-known trouble spots such as Nicaragua, El Salvador and Honduras, there is a growing leftist trend in Latin America, particularly embodied in Hugo Chavez, and Arias will need to decide where he stands in relation to other Latin countries, and in particular, the United States, as this movement grows.
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SIGUR RÃS - TAKK… Georg (Goggi) Holm, bassProducer: Sigur Rós & Ken Thomas/ Label: GeffenWriting about Sigur Rós is a strange task. may have transformed itself in my mind once I’ve witnessed the Sigur Rós concert experience.But how do I write about the music itself?It can’t really be song-based. While Sigur Rós does write songs, I can’t tell you the name of a single one of them. They rise and crest and crash in different places, but it’s one ocean, relaxing in its rhythm, enveloping the individual with its seemingly endless expanse, and as I swallow and drown, the gulp that first splashes into my lungs might as well be the exact same liquid that stifles my final breath.And other dramatic metaphors like that.For that reason, I find that Sigur Rós is not a band I put on lightly. Perhaps Sigur Rós does that in their own way–no perhaps, they most assuredly do–but it’s not my preferred way.My most common times for choosing to play Takk…, which would win out lately because it’s the most recent, are either when I am going to bed or when I am wandering through the city at night. Back when I wrote about One Dove in the very first entry of this series, I compared their music to walking around at 3 a.m., a metaphor that I did not disclose had come to me under those exact circumstances, so limited is my imagination at times. As the cacophony of drums and piano and the otherworldly whistle of voice come to their full climax, I feel that everything around me is going to shake and shatter and fall to the ground, opening up my vision of the sky so that when it drops back down again, to the quiet tickling of noise, I will see nothing but stars and space and the universe beyond.In simple terms, listening to Sigur Rós is a personal experience. Godspeed seems like an apt band to compare Sigur Rós to when it comes down to expectations, because Godspeed deals in a similar kind of ambient noise, another case where I wasn’t sure how it would translate live. These fears started to fade as Sigur Rós took the stage. It was that opening up again, exposing the sky, but this time more through external than internal means.Just as I suspected, in the live arena, Sigur Rós do expand with a string section, but the bulk of the music is made very conventionally: guitar, drums, bass, piano. Truthfully, though, the best effects were the unintentional ones, like when I looked to me left and saw Birgisson’s shadow cast over the wall, taking on the shape of the ornaments there, distorted to heights normally achieved by mythological giants.Was I lost in the music, though? Here Sigur Rós was at their most thunderous, as if invoking something, to raise something up. Us, perhaps?Cued by a big guitar sound, the veil was lowered again, Sigur Rós returned to their abstract images to play out the final song, the distance created again. I still have no greater revelations about Sigur Rós. Like a Sigur Rós album, each song rolling into the next, the names unimportant, each person another wave on the same continuous ocean.Sure, chances are I won’t believe this tomorrow when the warm fuzzy glow of the experience and the last vestiges of the post-concert whisky work their way out of system, but that’s for tomorrow to sort out, isn’t it?#52 #51 #50 #49 #48 #47 #46 #45 #44 #43 #42 #41 #40 #39 #38 #37 #36Reminder: As always, this post is full of links to Amazon. Current Soundtrack: Sigur Rós, VonCurrent Mood: cheerful golightly@confessions123.com * The Website * Live Journal Syndication * My Corporate-Owned Space * The Blog Roll * Can You Picture That?
link
Well I gave my blog a new, colorful, fun look! So, I just need to get serious and get busy!!I just got some new exercise programs that will hopefully be fun and various so I don’t get bored. I know I can’t do it on my own - I AM weak, but as I was reminded yesterday it is in my own weakness that God works wonders. 2 Corinthians 12:9 (WEB) So let the weakness begin! (Yes, I’m crazy!!!!)!!!!And my God has already said Dont you be afraid, for I am with you.
link
Here is the follow up story according to www.firstcoastnews.comRow Boat Sinks, Ending Trans-Atlantic BidBy HEIDI VOGTAssociated Press WriterDAKAR, Senegal (AP) –A New Yorker’s attempt to become the first black American to row solo across the Atlantic ended when his homemade boat sprung a leak hours after he left the coast of Africa Sunday.Victor Mooney radioed for help after his boat started taking on water, according to a press release on his Web site. He was rescued by the Senegalese navy, but the 24-foot craft he built for the journey sank into the ocean.The boat was made of what Mooney called marine grade plywood.Mooney - a 41-year-old college publicist who had been preparing for the trip for three years - could not immediately be reached for comment. Mooney said the boat and its supplies were worth more than 00,000, but he got most of his materials as in-kind donations.Mooney said he was traveling with three phone systems, three global positioning systems, solar panels, three water purifiers, an emergency life raft and tons of food.I have backup maybe three times over, he said before departing.
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Mama was an angry depressed Japanese housewife. It wasnât uncommon late at night to hear mama and papa going at it, dishes flying and furniture being tossed around. When he got off the boat, we would run up and give him a big hug, then he would grab mama and give her a big nasty âIâve missed youâ kiss, and then we would go home. Sometimes I wonder if thatâs what kept mama and papa going for so long. When sailors come home to their wives after long journeys, sometimes they forget about contraception and where babies come from. The fruits of my fatherâs lapse in judgment came in the form of Cassy and Emi. Anyway, the last two members of our family came ten and eleven years later than me. Mama was not the least bit happy about being pregnant, and I think she wanted to end both of her final two pregnancies, but papa wouldnât allow it. In his mind, he brought home the paycheck so he should be able to come home to a clean house and a meal sitting on the table. By the time I was old enough to really know anything about anything, mama was already into her routine of depressed late night insomnia and television viewing. This became a huge problem when Cassy and Emi came along. I canât count the number of times I came home to find a terd in the middle of my bedroom floor. I would come walking home from school and find Cassy playing at the park that was adjacent to our housing complex, no shoes, no diaper, naked from the waist down playing on the equipment. I knew I was Japanese because whenever I looked at mama I could see she was Japanese. I guess before we moved to Newton, I never really gave a lot of thought to my own ethnicity. I knew I was Japanese and I knew I was American, but beyond that I never really thought much of it. But, when youâre the new kid in a school of about 2000 and the only other minorities are the kid from that Chinese restaurant just off the interstate and maybe two black kids, all of a sudden race and ethnicity are at the forefront. But then, as I convinced the group of my identity, the ignorance and lack of intercultural experience started to shine through.âIf youâre Chinese then why arenât your eyes slanted?âThis of course was followed by raucous laughter.âIâm not Chinese, Iâm Japanese, you fuckinâ moron. Itâs not that I ever felt that I was in any danger or anything like that, but somehow when people found out I was half Japanese, it was like I became tainted in their eyes. Of course, there were those who didnât care, but everyone had some kind of comment. When I was a kid in Japan, no Japanese person would have ever referred to me as a âJapaneseâ, not even mama.
link
My hubby and I do not usually sleep the day away on a Saturday because we like to go out and get breakfast at our favorite breakfast place before a) band practice starts and/or b) they close the griddle and I can no longer get pancakes. Hooray for God that I get to have a husband that I love so much that I want to get out of bed early on a Saturday just to get to have breakfast with him before he has to leave!
link
Array I scored a free Honda toolkit and owners manual for my VLX last year from a kind lady who had extra ones lying around in her garage. Last week I got some small parts I needed for my rear fender side rail mounting for 5 from a guy who was customizing his bike and had no use for them. I’ll be replacing them with the popular and highly rated Metzeler ME880 Marathon tires before I ride to the Honda Hoot at Knoxville, TN. Costs about 00 for the front and 30 for the rear, with the dealer charging 0 per tire for mounting and balancing.
link
On a lazy Saturday afternoon, I sat at New Café and over a large Imperial on draught, watched the Ticos coming and going, darting in and out of buildings and ducking under overhangs, as it appears the rainy seasonâs rains have finally come (at least to San Jose).The rain brings out all types of entrepreneurs, particularly the street variety. Not long thereafter a cab driver mentioned something about Oscar Arias and I was able to understand with my weak knowledge of Spanish that Monday is his inauguration as âPresident of the Republic,â and preparations were well underway for this event (Arias also lives near Sabana Park apparently).As in most countries, Inauguration Day is a big event here. I swear, given all the holidays, that the post office is open an average of 3.5 days a week!A lot of dignitaries are coming to San Jose for the day including U.S. First Lady Laura Bush (apparently sheâs not staying at our B&B this time!), several U.S. Congressman, and most heads of state of Central American countries. Like the U.S., security is tight and several roads will be closed particularly around the stadium in Sabana Park where the actual swearing in will take place.Arias, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, is the first President reelected in 36 years and will take office again twenty years after his first term in office. While the political situation has generally stabilized in well-known trouble spots such as Nicaragua, El Salvador and Honduras, there is a growing leftist trend in Latin America, particularly embodied in Hugo Chavez, and Arias will need to decide where he stands in relation to other Latin countries, and in particular, the United States, as this movement grows.
link
SIGUR RÃS - TAKK… Georg (Goggi) Holm, bassProducer: Sigur Rós & Ken Thomas/ Label: GeffenWriting about Sigur Rós is a strange task. may have transformed itself in my mind once I’ve witnessed the Sigur Rós concert experience.But how do I write about the music itself?It can’t really be song-based. While Sigur Rós does write songs, I can’t tell you the name of a single one of them. They rise and crest and crash in different places, but it’s one ocean, relaxing in its rhythm, enveloping the individual with its seemingly endless expanse, and as I swallow and drown, the gulp that first splashes into my lungs might as well be the exact same liquid that stifles my final breath.And other dramatic metaphors like that.For that reason, I find that Sigur Rós is not a band I put on lightly. Perhaps Sigur Rós does that in their own way–no perhaps, they most assuredly do–but it’s not my preferred way.My most common times for choosing to play Takk…, which would win out lately because it’s the most recent, are either when I am going to bed or when I am wandering through the city at night. Back when I wrote about One Dove in the very first entry of this series, I compared their music to walking around at 3 a.m., a metaphor that I did not disclose had come to me under those exact circumstances, so limited is my imagination at times. As the cacophony of drums and piano and the otherworldly whistle of voice come to their full climax, I feel that everything around me is going to shake and shatter and fall to the ground, opening up my vision of the sky so that when it drops back down again, to the quiet tickling of noise, I will see nothing but stars and space and the universe beyond.In simple terms, listening to Sigur Rós is a personal experience. Godspeed seems like an apt band to compare Sigur Rós to when it comes down to expectations, because Godspeed deals in a similar kind of ambient noise, another case where I wasn’t sure how it would translate live. These fears started to fade as Sigur Rós took the stage. It was that opening up again, exposing the sky, but this time more through external than internal means.Just as I suspected, in the live arena, Sigur Rós do expand with a string section, but the bulk of the music is made very conventionally: guitar, drums, bass, piano. Truthfully, though, the best effects were the unintentional ones, like when I looked to me left and saw Birgisson’s shadow cast over the wall, taking on the shape of the ornaments there, distorted to heights normally achieved by mythological giants.Was I lost in the music, though? Here Sigur Rós was at their most thunderous, as if invoking something, to raise something up. Us, perhaps?Cued by a big guitar sound, the veil was lowered again, Sigur Rós returned to their abstract images to play out the final song, the distance created again. I still have no greater revelations about Sigur Rós. Like a Sigur Rós album, each song rolling into the next, the names unimportant, each person another wave on the same continuous ocean.Sure, chances are I won’t believe this tomorrow when the warm fuzzy glow of the experience and the last vestiges of the post-concert whisky work their way out of system, but that’s for tomorrow to sort out, isn’t it?#52 #51 #50 #49 #48 #47 #46 #45 #44 #43 #42 #41 #40 #39 #38 #37 #36Reminder: As always, this post is full of links to Amazon. Current Soundtrack: Sigur Rós, VonCurrent Mood: cheerful golightly@confessions123.com * The Website * Live Journal Syndication * My Corporate-Owned Space * The Blog Roll * Can You Picture That?
link
Well I gave my blog a new, colorful, fun look! So, I just need to get serious and get busy!!I just got some new exercise programs that will hopefully be fun and various so I don’t get bored. I know I can’t do it on my own - I AM weak, but as I was reminded yesterday it is in my own weakness that God works wonders. 2 Corinthians 12:9 (WEB) So let the weakness begin! (Yes, I’m crazy!!!!)!!!!And my God has already said Dont you be afraid, for I am with you.
link
Here is the follow up story according to www.firstcoastnews.comRow Boat Sinks, Ending Trans-Atlantic BidBy HEIDI VOGTAssociated Press WriterDAKAR, Senegal (AP) –A New Yorker’s attempt to become the first black American to row solo across the Atlantic ended when his homemade boat sprung a leak hours after he left the coast of Africa Sunday.Victor Mooney radioed for help after his boat started taking on water, according to a press release on his Web site. He was rescued by the Senegalese navy, but the 24-foot craft he built for the journey sank into the ocean.The boat was made of what Mooney called marine grade plywood.Mooney - a 41-year-old college publicist who had been preparing for the trip for three years - could not immediately be reached for comment. Mooney said the boat and its supplies were worth more than 00,000, but he got most of his materials as in-kind donations.Mooney said he was traveling with three phone systems, three global positioning systems, solar panels, three water purifiers, an emergency life raft and tons of food.I have backup maybe three times over, he said before departing.
link
Mama was an angry depressed Japanese housewife. It wasnât uncommon late at night to hear mama and papa going at it, dishes flying and furniture being tossed around. When he got off the boat, we would run up and give him a big hug, then he would grab mama and give her a big nasty âIâve missed youâ kiss, and then we would go home. Sometimes I wonder if thatâs what kept mama and papa going for so long. When sailors come home to their wives after long journeys, sometimes they forget about contraception and where babies come from. The fruits of my fatherâs lapse in judgment came in the form of Cassy and Emi. Anyway, the last two members of our family came ten and eleven years later than me. Mama was not the least bit happy about being pregnant, and I think she wanted to end both of her final two pregnancies, but papa wouldnât allow it. In his mind, he brought home the paycheck so he should be able to come home to a clean house and a meal sitting on the table. By the time I was old enough to really know anything about anything, mama was already into her routine of depressed late night insomnia and television viewing. This became a huge problem when Cassy and Emi came along. I canât count the number of times I came home to find a terd in the middle of my bedroom floor. I would come walking home from school and find Cassy playing at the park that was adjacent to our housing complex, no shoes, no diaper, naked from the waist down playing on the equipment. I knew I was Japanese because whenever I looked at mama I could see she was Japanese. I guess before we moved to Newton, I never really gave a lot of thought to my own ethnicity. I knew I was Japanese and I knew I was American, but beyond that I never really thought much of it. But, when youâre the new kid in a school of about 2000 and the only other minorities are the kid from that Chinese restaurant just off the interstate and maybe two black kids, all of a sudden race and ethnicity are at the forefront. But then, as I convinced the group of my identity, the ignorance and lack of intercultural experience started to shine through.âIf youâre Chinese then why arenât your eyes slanted?âThis of course was followed by raucous laughter.âIâm not Chinese, Iâm Japanese, you fuckinâ moron. Itâs not that I ever felt that I was in any danger or anything like that, but somehow when people found out I was half Japanese, it was like I became tainted in their eyes. Of course, there were those who didnât care, but everyone had some kind of comment. When I was a kid in Japan, no Japanese person would have ever referred to me as a âJapaneseâ, not even mama.
link
My hubby and I do not usually sleep the day away on a Saturday because we like to go out and get breakfast at our favorite breakfast place before a) band practice starts and/or b) they close the griddle and I can no longer get pancakes. Hooray for God that I get to have a husband that I love so much that I want to get out of bed early on a Saturday just to get to have breakfast with him before he has to leave!
link