And what did YOU do last week? This is what I did! I spent two hours on stage with these guys! What a thrill that was!

http://www.slimjimphantom.com/News.htm

 I got more photos to come, and I will post this one on here,. too, but I have been having some Windows XP Pro problems which may have been solved. Check out a product called PCRescue which you can buy from www.healthycomputerclub.com. It really seems to have done the job! Hooray!

Well, just a few more days until we head out for Green Bay for the 50s Rockfest. I'll probably be working either the autograph table or one of the merch tables, so I ought to see and get a chance to meet some of the performers. I am trying desperately to find my digital camera, which I thought was on the dining room table, but I can't find it! I see Christa Black and company are all set to tour with Michael W. Smith. Too bad they are not coming near me; I'd love to see them now that I know who Christa is! And she is getting to debut her new song. How cool is that?!

More later.

Hmmmm...has it been a week since I last posted? I guess so...the last post was on a Wednesday, and today is Wednesday...yup, it all fits!

 So we got back from D.C. at 12:45 this morning! Oy! I had to get up at 5 to get Ginny out, so I do very much feel like I have been hit by a semi! Ginny is gone all night, so I won't have to get up QUITE as early tomorrow. Thursday is my day for going out to breakfast, then I have a staff meeting for my part-time job, then I get to go help out at a concert featuring the O.C. (Orange County - California, ya know!!) Supertones. This is their farewell tour before they break up the band. I am always sad to see a really good band break up - but they are ready to move on to other things, and I affirm that.

 I got a heart-stopping call from my daughter who told me that she and my grandson were involved in a hit-and-run accident tonight. They are both all right, but the car is totalled. This joker shouldn't be hard to find - a bright yellow car with extensive damage to the front end - Oh, yeah, we'll get him. Because of where he pulled from, it's a sure bet he was drunk. She can probably nail the place he was drinking at, too. She said my grandson was as good as gold - he is an awesome young man - three years old in May. Thank you , Lord, for taking care of them.

In trying to put my computer system back together after my latest Windows XP Pro debacle, where I am rejecting all cookies and can't sign in to a lot of the sites where I am registered, no matter what settings I use, I at least was able to find a photo I took last year of our dear friend the Rev. Dr. Douglas W. Pieper of Southcentral Pennsylvania and America's Beloved Tenor, Daniel Rodriguez, formerly of the New York City Police Department, and currently a student of Placido Domingo.

These two gentlemen, one a basso profundo and the other a marvelous tenor, really hit it off, and discovered they have mutual friends in the Metropolitan Opera. ( I don't know ANYONE in the Metropolitan Opera! I mean, I know David Reed, and he is a pianist, and he is living in New York,  but he works in a law office, and it's just not the same!)

Anyhow, here is the photo:

It is very cool that Ginny is going to be recording a radio program this Friday. I don't know when it will be aired, but when I find out I will post it. It is one of those stations that you can listen to on-line, so even if you live in Junjamunji or Nucbuxtehude, you can hear it. I got her into it, as I will do, and trouper that she is, she agreed to go along with it. What an amazing person! She doesn't think so, but she is WRONG! Then Saturday we head for the nation's capital. No, not Nashville...Washington in the D of C. We will be back Tuesday. Ginny will be attending a conference while I will get a chance to play in Washington. We are doing a lot of traveling this year: Washington in March, Green Bay in April, San Francisco in May, Chicago in June, Australia (hopefully) in September, and somewhere else in late November, I think it's Dallas! I do love to travel and see the country. Sometimes I run into people I know or who know people I know. One of two things: either it's a small world or I'm being followed!

A remarkable twenty-two hours! I had no trouble getting to the retreat site and it was a wonderful program. I am very blessed that my senior pastor is a marvelous story-teller and really makes the personages from the Old Testament and New Testament come alive. We stayed in the Old Testament, examing the two creation stories from Genesis Chapter 1, and from Chapter 2 beginning with verse 4, noting their similarities and differences. Pastor John is a well-read bibilical scholar who has made many trips to the Middle East and knows whereof he speaks. We also looked at Abraham and Isaac, Jacob and Esau, Joseph and his brothers, Moses and Joshua - all in the space of four sessions. Really interesting material!! Now I discovered that our church is going to be sponsoring a trip to Israel next March. This will be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and Ginny and I are very seriously thinking about going.  That would be very exciting! We'll see.

I am having a good time with my TASCAM DP-01FX hard disc recorder. It's really fun to be able to record multiple track and blend them. Guitars and basses are scattered about the area as I use them on different tracks. I am not totally satisfied with some of the tracks and will probably re-record them. I have not yet figured out how to actually change or move something on a track without bothering the rest of the stuff on the track. I mean, the instructions are THERE, and they are in English, but I don't understand what they are telling me. It's like they left out a step or explanation.

I do have the capability of uploading the finished file to my computer and then burning a CD. The problem is, the recorder and computer are about 25-30 feet apart and it would be a major project to move either one of them closer. I got USB patch cables from Circuit City yesterday with the assurance that they would be long enough. Well, they aren't. Not even close. So I will have to go back there today. I must keep an eye on the clock, however, because I am supposed to go to a men's church retreat this evening at 6:00 p.m. and I won't be back until tomorrow. I don't know the way there so I will have to follow others; the story of my life!

So here we are again, aren't we! I had the pleasure last night of hearing Mark O'Connor and the Appalachia Waltz Trio. Mark is one of the trio, so there are two others besides him which would make them a duo...Oh, dear. Anyway, they did an excellent program of violin/viola/cello. Mark was here three years ago and had given my daughter a CD to play for her yet-to-be-born child. Well, that child will be three in May and is a real pistol. He also loves music. I wish we could have had him there last night to hear the trio, but it was quite a bit past his bedtime, and I can guarantee he would have been disruptive. Mark, besides being a dynamite musician, is a very nice man; a real class act. He seems genuinely appreciative of listeners' enjoying his playing, and can he play! Violin music or fiddle music, he is a master.

Now, this is just me again, I know, but.... ( as a wise man once said, "anything after the 'but' is 'bulldust,'" or something like that......)

I just visited a cyberfriend's website. At least I THINK we're cyberfriends. She has never really responded to any of the wonderful e-mails I have sent her by E-MAILING ME BACK! Of course, that is her choice and I respect her privacy and she doesn't really know me and I don't want to be a pest and ya-ya-ya...the usual disclaimers. I guess I'm just one of those people who enjoys hearing from friends. Thanks to those who do write to me..I appreciate it.

Howsome-ever:

Why don't people smile in photos anymore? It's like the 1890s again, when the glummer the face, the more wonderful the photo was supposed to be. Look at some of those poor kids in the daguerrotypes or old-fashioned photos in the oval frames hidden somewhere in the attic.  Miserable-looking people. Well, they're baaaack!  I guess the young women in the photo shoots are trying for a "come-hither" look. Well, believe me, it's more of a "go thither" look as far as I'm concerned. Somewhere, someone who has probably made lot of money doing this nonsense has come up with the idea that a pleasant face on a model somehow detracts from what clothes they are modeling! Wrong-O! To me, a sour expression ( and they are not blank; they are sour!!) means the clothes are uncomfortable. Not that I would look good in an A-line myself, but you get the idea.

Okay, that's my diatribe. Xanga is not responsible for the content.

I am having a lot of fun recording with my new DP-01FX hard disc recorder. Doing and re-doing eight tracks..adding...subtracting...tweaking...we'll see what results.

Hey, a great day! I spent a lot of it up at Ski Roundtop, a skiing, snowboarding and snow-tubing facility near our home. I was there helping with a remote broadcast of WTJL, the radio station where I do a lot of volunteer work. I saw some of my very dear friends who were there representing the station. It's a real blessing to get to work with a crew like that. My buddy Tim had me speak on the air and kept telling anybody who was listening to the radio that I was there and there was no charge to talk to me! You gotta love a guy like that, and I do!

I also got to see, hear and hobnob with one of my favorite entertainers, Steven Courtney and his new band. The audience was small, but that didn't faze Steven in the least; great show! Steven is very inventive and always does a great show. I am proud to know him. He is definitely a class act. Paul Wright and Superchic[k] are appearing in concert tonight and I would have liked to stay for that, but I get to go out and have dinner with Ginny instead. That's better.