From Saturday night's Zoo Bar celebration, that's Corrie's arm in the lower left-hand corner!
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Saturday, July 5, 2008
Your Blue isn't Patriotic Enough
I was determined to enjoy a slow-paced Fourth of July at home, which I did, although looking back it seems like a lot happened in one day. I started the morning with an 8:45 bike ride with Terence and Manjit; I thought 8:45 sounded like the crack of dawn on a day off, but I was back home before 11 with 20 more miles to log on my transcontinental trip. Then I baked a sweet potato pie while Corrie smoked pork.
After a stint of practicing my clarinet for tonight's Star Spangeled Spectacular concert at Antelope Park, (struggling to play for an hour without all of the muscles in my face giving out. I have no idea how I used to play 3, 4, 5, or 6 hours a day in college) Corrie and I made our great-tasting Star Spangled drinks. When I was mixing the blue layer, Corrie told me the blue wasn't patriotic enough, so I added more blue food coloring. After careful coaching, Corrie got the order of the layers right as well.
I also finished the long-awaited crocheted cat bed. I thought by crocheting, rather than sewing, the seams together I would get a nice-looking corner to everything. It looked nice on some edges, but trying to single crochet the arms and back onto the main piece was kind of difficult. It's not perfect, but hey, it's a couch for our cats.
Norman waited out the final couch assembly with a nap on the extra foam from what I put inside the couch.
Around dinnertime, I gave my dad a call to see how he was doing and to recall past July Fourths. When we were growing up, sparklers and snakes were the only legal things in Omaha (they might still be) so well ahead of the Fourth before the state troopers were keeping an eye out, we'd make a stop at Rockport on the way back from seeing relatives in Missouri. The parking lots of those two shops were always full of cars with Nebraska plates. My parents followed a pretty conservative budget for fireworks, so we usually got a nice assortment of fountains, sparklers, tanks, parachutes, snakes, and smoke bombs. We were never too interested in most of the stuff that just made noise. At some point, my dad had to start buying festival balls, which would make up the finale of our show every year. Despite very careful and stringent rules placed by my parents, we had one or two fires growing up. My dad only remembers the one time a stray firework caught the bushes on fire, but I think there was also another time when something caught on fire on the roof.
The day ended with me shutting all of the windows and trying to make all of the cats who were hiding under the bed (Norman and Todd) feel better. They were not fans of fireworks.
After a stint of practicing my clarinet for tonight's Star Spangeled Spectacular concert at Antelope Park, (struggling to play for an hour without all of the muscles in my face giving out. I have no idea how I used to play 3, 4, 5, or 6 hours a day in college) Corrie and I made our great-tasting Star Spangled drinks. When I was mixing the blue layer, Corrie told me the blue wasn't patriotic enough, so I added more blue food coloring. After careful coaching, Corrie got the order of the layers right as well.
I also finished the long-awaited crocheted cat bed. I thought by crocheting, rather than sewing, the seams together I would get a nice-looking corner to everything. It looked nice on some edges, but trying to single crochet the arms and back onto the main piece was kind of difficult. It's not perfect, but hey, it's a couch for our cats.
Norman waited out the final couch assembly with a nap on the extra foam from what I put inside the couch.
Around dinnertime, I gave my dad a call to see how he was doing and to recall past July Fourths. When we were growing up, sparklers and snakes were the only legal things in Omaha (they might still be) so well ahead of the Fourth before the state troopers were keeping an eye out, we'd make a stop at Rockport on the way back from seeing relatives in Missouri. The parking lots of those two shops were always full of cars with Nebraska plates. My parents followed a pretty conservative budget for fireworks, so we usually got a nice assortment of fountains, sparklers, tanks, parachutes, snakes, and smoke bombs. We were never too interested in most of the stuff that just made noise. At some point, my dad had to start buying festival balls, which would make up the finale of our show every year. Despite very careful and stringent rules placed by my parents, we had one or two fires growing up. My dad only remembers the one time a stray firework caught the bushes on fire, but I think there was also another time when something caught on fire on the roof.
The day ended with me shutting all of the windows and trying to make all of the cats who were hiding under the bed (Norman and Todd) feel better. They were not fans of fireworks.
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
Vote Early, Vote Often
My friend Zip's band, Sarah Benck and the Robbers, is in the running for a spot at this year's Lollapalooza! They entered the Last Band Standing Contest and made it through round 1 (top 100 bands by casted votes move on) and through round 2 (celebrity judges chose their favorite 20 bands) on to round 3, where they need to end up in the top 5 bands with the most votes cast. Those final 5 bands get to go to Chicago to compete live for 2 positions in the Lollapalooza show.
I've seen Sarah Benck and the Robbers (Zip is one of the robbers) perform several times at Lincoln's Zoo Bar. They're a tight group with a style that's a little hard to describe-it's a fusion of blues, rock, jazz, a little funk as well. Sarah has a heck of a voice, and she's a pretty good guitar player, too! They were just included in a writeup in Spin magazine about the Omaha music scene (see pg. 119) as well.
Here's a clip from YouTube, you can also learn more and listen to other tunes on their MySpace page:
So if you like what what you hear or you just want to do me a favor, cast your vote for Sarah Benck and the Robbers here. To prove you're real, they'll send you a follow-up link to click, so don't forget to do that part. You can vote once a day per e-mail account from now until July 13. Let's help put Sarah Benck and the Robbers on the national music scene!
I've seen Sarah Benck and the Robbers (Zip is one of the robbers) perform several times at Lincoln's Zoo Bar. They're a tight group with a style that's a little hard to describe-it's a fusion of blues, rock, jazz, a little funk as well. Sarah has a heck of a voice, and she's a pretty good guitar player, too! They were just included in a writeup in Spin magazine about the Omaha music scene (see pg. 119) as well.
Here's a clip from YouTube, you can also learn more and listen to other tunes on their MySpace page:
So if you like what what you hear or you just want to do me a favor, cast your vote for Sarah Benck and the Robbers here. To prove you're real, they'll send you a follow-up link to click, so don't forget to do that part. You can vote once a day per e-mail account from now until July 13. Let's help put Sarah Benck and the Robbers on the national music scene!
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