Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Roadtrip

On Wed way to early I'll be heading east till Nov 6th so I doubt I'll be putting up any nuggets of wisdom till then but one never knows.Still might take the train to NYC or if I can talk a friend in Rochester who worked at Babes with me and whose parents live in Wellfleet take a quick trip out to the Cape.

Friday, October 10, 2008

Save the Barns

Reading the Rochester paper tonight I saw another Barn lost outside the city this time by a young lady who drove her car into it in the wee hours and somehow both her car and the Barn burned.She escaped but was charged with DWI.This Barn was out by Mendon Ponds Park one of Monroe Countys park system and it's a very large and beautiful park with rolling terrain and a rich glacial history of eskers and kettle drum ponds.In high school my parents house was above the far south end of Powder Mill Park which is about 5 miles away from Mendon Ponds.In the mid 70's when we ruled the area both parks were our high schools territory and the parks were seperated mostly by miles of country roads made for driving between.Pittsford was pretty much the last suburb south of Rochester in those days and so we were on the edge of well to do burb with country and the two parks were our playground.These were the days when 18 was the legal drinking age so add that to the drug culture of the time and we had a lot of fun.One early fall night in junior year several of us were in a friends dads medical supply van which was a ford with a Uhaul type back end.This one though was open from cab to storage area and we were over at Mendon Ponds and decided to put a picnic table from there in the back of the van.We did and were sitting at the table with the back door up playing cards ,drinking beer and smoking doobs when our friend decided we should drive over to Powder Mill and see what was going on.So off we went with the table and the party back door up over to the other park where a park ranger dude fell in behind us and when we pulled up in Shady Rest he asked us what the heck we were doing with a park oicnic table in the truck.We told him we had driven over from another park but since he had found us halfway through his park told us to quit telling him BS and get that damm table out of the truck and put it on the lawn before he called the police.So we did and I kept thinking late that fall when they rounded up all the tables before winter and stored them by the park office somebody from Mendon Ponds was going to call Powder Mill and say it's the strangest thing but our count shows we're missing a table from spring and the Powder Mill guy would say that's funny cause we have an extra table and the story would start of the migrating picnic table between parks.Of course the grounds guys who worked in both parks at the time were bigger heads than we were so they might not have actually counted but when you visit the parks these days it's like the secret police are watching your every move.You need a permit to do just about anything but drive through in your car and I like to think we caused that.

Wednesday, October 8, 2008

Beach Cruiser

After riding a few beach cruisers at a bike store in Santa Monica last week I have a jones now to buy one and it's amazing how cool beach cruisers have advanced in the past ten years.I have my mountain bike but the new beach cruisers are easy to pedal and there are some really nice designs.There are even stretch,three speeds and low riders.I saw a few I liked online under two hundred including this nice pale yellow with light brown seat, mfr. forgotten right now but when I went to this bike store they had the Nirve Paul Frank Helicopter pictured below for 340.00 and I almost bought one yesterday but decided to wait till I get back from my trip.The Helicopter looks even cooler than the pic.

Nirve Paul Frank Helicopter Beach Cruiser

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

World Light

Well I couldn't hold off on the Halldor Laxness novel till flight time and picked it up a few nights ago.Like the other two novels of his I have read this one is hard to describe as so far it's all over the place as to what kind of book it's going to turn out to be but like the other two it's saga like in the telling and for me so far a delight albeit a strange one.No matter what Laxness is a wonderful story teller no matter how odd the folks in it are and in old Iceland they were odd indeed.The sly humor in light of the incredible poverty is one of his gifts.That something like a scrap of paper to write on is a luxury is something hard to comprehend.Dave(Nnyhav) if you are out there have you read this one?It seems to wander a bit more than Independent People and Icelands Bell but I'm in a 130 pages of about 600 and beginning to think this might be my favorite so far though in Independent People you sort of knew what things were about right away as to the story and this one just seems like it will ramble till the end.As for the Russian book of horror stories I liked it fine till the last one a short novel"The Double" by Dostoevsky which I haven't finished.It just seems out of place here and it also seems like the whole story could have been a longish short story instead of a short novel.It reminds me a bit of Peter Taylor for years writing those great collections of classic American South short stories and finally winning a major award for his novel"A Summons to Memphis" which is basically one of his short stories made far to long and not nearly as good as his wonderful stories.In other things after being 67 on Saturday it was 96 today and more of the same on Wed before it drops to the mid 70's again.This weather plays havoc trying to shake a little cold.I may post again before next Wed but then I'll be back east till Nov 6th so doubt I'll be posting here while on the road.I still might make it down to NYCity by train or perhaps a short trip out to Truro depending on what happens but usually once I land in Rochester in the fall and park myself at some friends Finger Lakes cottage or one on a little bay off Lake Ontario out towards Syracuse along with time in Rochester I wind up doing very little except enjoying the countryside and it's gifts natural and manmade.

Sunday, October 5, 2008

Turntable

Tonight I dusted off my turntable which I had not used in a good four years and found it still worked.I did it because I was moving some of the 1000 or so LP'S I still have many of which I don't have on CD.The first one I played was an Eric Anderson LP with "Time Runs Like a Freight Train" on it.Then I found"On the Road to Freedom" a 73 album by Alvin Lee and Myron LeFevre(sp).Lee being the Ten Years After frontman that has a great song on it called"So Sad" by Hari Georgeson with this great slide guitar which I knew right away was George Harrison but several friends did not(blame it on pot).I even played my original Dark Side of the Moon LP and it still sounds pretty good.I almost like some of the scratchy sounds of some of my well played LP'S and some I'm sure have never been put on CD.I wonder if McKendree Spring is on CD.

Friday, October 3, 2008

Can I call you Joe?

Well after being 100 on Wed today I had to close windows for the first time since May and Sat is forecast as 65 and maybe some light rain but it will be the low grey sky that one gets along coastal L.A..That said I lost my voice yelling tonight during the Sox-Angels game until J.D. Drew came up big-time!.After that I was bemused because the local Fox station at 11 cut into the Simpsons rerun to run extra on the Simpson verdict.Like a black guy in front of an all white Nevada jury ever had a chance.There you go Joe,bringing up the past again...or whatever she said doggone it.I'm expecting Gabby Hayes to pop up in her family tree or at least the guy who recited Authentic Frontier Gibberish in Blazing Saddles.Dumb and Dumber doesn't begin to describe McCain/Palin.