Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

Happy Holidays to everyone.

I am just about ready for Christmas. Christmas Eve night Jack and I are going to my parents house for a holiday gathering with the Archers. That should be fun but it is also just a primer for the blitzkrieg that is Christmas Day.

Jack and I will wake up early Christmas Morning and open our presents. Then we will drive over to my parents house and exchange presents with them and my brother since my sister is in Florida for Christmas. Then we will drive over to my grandparents house for Christmas morning breakfast and presents. Then we will drive over to Jack's parents house to do presents over there, have Christmas Dinner, and see my nephews. Then we will drive to my cousin Karen's house for the Butler family Christmas gathering. Then we will drive home and probably fall asleep very quickly.

I am probably going up to Paradise with Jackie's dad and my brother in-law, Ryan this Tuesday morning. Jackie will be coming up on Thursday evening. Sass and Terrie are supposed to come up with the boys on Friday night. I am taking my scanner, shortwave radio, and a microcassette recorder. I tell you this as if you care what I take up with me.

I hope everyone has an awesome Christmas.

Update

I just wanted to let everyone know that I have updated my main webpage - https://home.comcast.net/~sonicworkshop/

I've completed my album "A Thread Of Light In The Cloak Of Darkness". I have the album, in it's entirety available for download at my download page - http://www.soundlift.com/band/music.php?id=102893

I have to stop typing now. I just bit into a pepperoni and sausage Hot Pocket and sausage juice squirted all over me.

I think this picture is funny. 

Getting Ready For Christmas

I apologize for the lack of postings lately. It's just that I am lazy.

I have been getting my shopping done. I've got some pretty cool gifts this year. I am not really a good gift buyer. I tend to forget all of the things that I hear people say about things they want or need throughout the year. I think I have some good ones this year.

Our computer has problems the end result of which means that very soon we will have to wipe everything off of it and re-format the hard drive, then re-install everything. This is going to suck so bad. I have been gathering all of our pictures together to burn onto CD so we don't lose them. Personally I will lose a lot of the music that I have been working on in the "Cakewalk" program. I am currently mixing alot of the unfinished music in an effort to transfer it to CD in hopes of possibly re-transfering it over to the fixed computer so I can complete it. I don't know how well this will work and I am going to have to accept the fact that I may lose a lot of music.

Thanksgiving was a blast. We spent the morning at my wonderful parents house. My brother and sister were there. My grandparents came by later. Later in the day we went to Jackie's parents house. Jack's dad had to work so he left early which sucked. I had a lot of fun wrestling with my nephews though. Dinner at both homes was awesome.

I will be updating my homepage very soon. I have completed the "A Thread Of Light In The Cloak Of Darkness" album. I am coming up with some song titles then I will post them on the Homepage. I will also post the album in it's entirety on my music download page.

I recently discovered "Audioblogger" http://audioblogger.com/ . This site will allow me to call a phone number and record audio blog posts which will be immediately posted onto this very blog page. I think this will be very good for when I'm really drunk and I feel like addressing you all with my thoughts on subjects of various interests. It may also be fun when I sing Karaoke to hold out my phone when I sing and record it for all of you to listen to. Stay tuned for some audio postings.

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving people. Jack and I are going to my parents house this morning to watch the Thanksgiving day parade. We will eat a little bit over there before we go to Jack's Mom and Dad's house for dinner. It should be a stellar day. All you crazy mofo's be careful driving today in Deathstorm 2005.

Saturday Morning

It is Saturday morning. It is good.

There is a new web address for my music download page. The new address is

http://www.soundlift.com/jeffarcher for those of you who want to hear the terrible noises that I produce. The site I am working through changed their name from IC Music Media to Soundlift so they changed all the page addresses as well. I am finally starting to feel somewhat normal again after two weeks of being sick. Last weekend I watched 12 episodes of "What's Happening" back to back. I am thinking of going to the cider mill today. Jackie has a dentist appointment so I may go to the mill for some pumpkin and buttermilk doughnuts. Aren't you glad that you took time out of your busy day to read this blogpage today?

I took this picture in Kuster cemetery in the middle of the night. This pink mist showed up in about five different pictures I took at Kuster that evening. I can't think of a rational explaination as to the origin of the mist. This picture and the one below this go with the "Ghosts Of Anchor Bay" discussion in the "Recovering" post below.

My brother -in law, Ryan took this picture of a random headstone in Arlington cemetery. It wasn't a foggy night and the white mist captured in this shot is unexplainable. 

Recovering

I am in recovery. I got laid off from my life destroying construction job Monday. I have had a bad cold since then. I was supposed to give blood yesterday at the pipefitters school but I couldn't since I am sick. Today is the first day that I feel somewhat normal although I am far from 100%

Jackie leaves today for her Lapeer scrapbook weekend. This means that my bachelor weekend begins. If all goes as planned I will be making some music with Rob Scheys, making some music with myself, and perhaps making some music with House Music. All in all I am hoping for a thoroughly musical weekend as I haven't had the energy to do anything musically for about two months.

Halloween was a good time. It was great to see my nephews Brendan and Aaron. Brendan was Spiderman and Aaron was Superman. Jackie's mom got pizza for us. I was really tired and working a lot so I didn't get to put together my Halloween presentation that I wanted to this year. My presentation consisted of me playing Black Sabbath songs backwards to the trick or treating children while yelling at them in a Satan voice produced by one of my guitar pedals while hiding. It was going to be awesome. Perhaps I will try it next year.

I recently bought a book called "Ghosts Of Anchor Bay". It is written by Debi Chestnut and Linda Sparkman and as the title suggests it focuses on hauntings and paranormal activity in the Anchor Bay area. I emailed Debi Chestnut about a couple of the houses mentioned in her book. I also mentioned in my email some pictures that I have taken in which "unexplained" things have appeared. She wanted me to email some of these pictures to her so I sent her some pics that I took at Kuster cemetery in Lenox Twsp. in which an unexplainable pink mist appeared in some of the shots. I sent her a couple other "ghostly" pictures that I have taken at other locations as well as a picture that was taken by my brother-in law Ryan at Arlington cemetery. I include both the pictures of the Kuster pink mist and Ryan's Arlington white mist above this post.

I have been listening for "numbers" stations on my shortwave radio lately. "Numbers" stations are basically frequencies whose transmissions consist of a voice repeating a series of numbers over and over. It is generally believed that these "numbers" transmissions are coded messages for spies in other countries. The transmissions originate in and are directed at many countries so it is hard to identify the nationality of the transmissions other than by the accent of the "numbers" voice. I have never heard a "numbers" station but I have read alot about them and Jackie's father, Norm told me about them as well.

Looking out my window I see a beautiful, cloudy, gloomy autumn morning so I am going outside to play.

One And A Half Feet In The Grave

I am slowly dying.

I know people work the hours that I am working all the time but I just don't see how they do it. The physical deterioration of my body has progressed to the point where feeling as if I died two weeks ago feels normal. On the plus side the money is nice especially with Christmas coming up soon.

Mine and Jack's third anniversary was October 12th. She got me an ELO CD box set, A Bob Dylan CD and DVD and a new copy of The Band's "The Last Waltz" CD box set. She is the best and I love her with all of my heart.

Jackie has some cool Halloween themes posted on her site right now. Check it out.

Jackie and I heard the pirate station WMPR on the shotrwave radio the other day.

I was having some problems with uploading Mp3's to my download page but I got everything sorted out so I will probably upload the next ten tracks from "A Beautiful Morning" onto the download page tommorrow afternoon.

Hello

I've been working 10 hour shifts down at the Marathon refinery. I am a "service" technician which means I go out to various commerical heating and air conditioning units that are not working and attempt to troubleshoot those problems and then fix them. Since I was laid off and "service" has been slow I have been placed at the Martathon job which is "construction". I am not a "construction" pipefitter and I do not know much about it so it pretty much sucks.

I have this weekend off and then I will be working 10 or 12 hours a day, 7 days a week for the next 30 - 45 days. Now as far as I can see there is two ways to look at this.

10 or 12 hours a day, 7 days a week = a lot of money. or,

10 or 12 hours a day, 7 days a week = A complete physical breakdown of my body.


In lighter news, Jack and I have had a couple more people walk through our condo to check it out but we still haven't gotten any bids on it yet. Below is my "Golden Rule" concerning condominium purchasing.

Never, Never, Ever Under Any Circumstances Buy A Condominium.

I won't go into my reasoning for giving you this advice because it would take far too much space on this blog and all of you would fall asleep before you finished reading about the things that suck ass about living in a condo that you own.

The only exception to my "Golden Rule" would be if you are old and you cannot physically take care of a yard or shovel snow, ect. Then it is probably a pretty good deal.


I continue my study of Leonardo Da Vinci. I have started to read "Leonardo Da Vinci" by Sherwin B. Nuland. I have found that whenever an individual reads several biographical texts of a particular person, that individual is bound to find differences in the stated facts between the texts. I first encountered this problem when I started my study of the Jazz saxophonist John Coltrane. I bought about 5 different Coltrane biographies in the span of 4 months or so and when reading these book it sometimes seemed as if the 5 books were about 4 different people. In the case of Da Vinci I can somewhat understand the problems of the varying stated factual occurrences of his life as he was dead by 1519 but with the Coltrane books it seemed that it was plain laziness on the part of certain authors.

I have updated my music download page with the next 10 songs from "A Beautiful Morning". Check it out if you like insane guitar jams.

I'm done writing.

Back To The Real World

I guess I didn't do too well on my pledge to update this blog every other day or so. Oh Well.

Jack and I have been back from the U.P. for a week now. We really wish that we were still up there. We had alot of fun. When we got back we both started new jobs. I started a temporary job in St. Clair Shores that should last another week or so. Jackie started working at the DTE Royal Oak service center since they shut down the Lapeer customer service station where she was working.

There are some pictures of the "Good Old Days" beer tent trip on my main website.

I haven't been writing or recording at all lately. I played with "House Music" last night for the first time in a couple of months.

My study of Leonardo Da Vinci continues.

I'm sorry I really thought I had more to write.

Paradise Pt.2

I meant to write yesterday but I forgot. By the way you can check out the "Northern Estate" where Jackie and I are spending time this week by clicking HERE.

Sunday night Jackie and I watched "Rome" on HBO. I had heard there was a lot of nudity in the show but I didn't think there was, too bad. I thought it was a really good show and we saw the first two episodes. Unfortunately we don't have HBO at home so those are the only two episodes that we will see until it comes out on DVD.

Yesterday Jack and I went to Sault St. Marie. I bought another book on Leonardo Da Vinci and a "Recording" magazine. We also went to the "Dollar Tree" where we struggled in vain to find a copy of "Gamera vs. Monster X" on DVD. Norm and Sass bought it while they were up here and we watched it. It is one of the greatest films in the history of cinema. While in the Soo we ate at Clyde's hamburger place. Both Jack's parents and her Aunt and Uncle told us that we had to check out Clyde's for their big burger. Well they weren't kidding. We split the hamburger between us because it was really big. Good stuff.

We also visited with Jack's Aunt Barb and Uncle Dennis for a while last night. It was nice to relax a little and talk with them. They also have a beautiful place up here. You can check out their website by clicking HERE.

We watched "Rome: Engineering An Empire" last night on the history channel. While Jackie has always been interested in ancient Rome for it's political power struggles, I have always been interested in it's inventions and engineering feats. The show on the History Channel centered on the design and construction of the aquaducts, the Coliseum, the Parthenon, and other structures.

I tried all weekend to receive a pirate broadcast on the shortwave radio. I figured that Labor Day weekend would be a great time to hear a pirate but I heard nothing. Damn Pirates.

I mentioned that I had brought my Martin acoustic guitar up here. Yesterday Jackie and I sat by the creek and I played old country songs while she read. It was really nice.

Tonight we are going to sit on the beach, look at the stars, and drink some alcohol.

Paradise

I am writing this, sitting about 35 feet away from Whitefish Bay on Lake Superior.

Jack and I are up in Paradise for a week. We came up Friday evening. Norm and Sass were up here but they left this morning. Jack's Uncle Dennis and Aunt Barb are up here for a couple days as well.

Me and Jack are looking forward to a week of R&R. We don't plan on doing too much up here other than a trip to St. Sault Marie and the occasional aimless drive around the area. I brought up my Martin acoustic guitar, my shortwave radio, the XM radio, and books on Leonardo Da Vinci. Jackie brought up some books and she plans on putting some puzzles together.

Yesterday we basically hung out with Norm and Sass. We got ice cream uptown but there wasn't much of a selection left. Last night we hung out on the backporch and looked at the water and stars.

Also I wanted to let everyone know that Ozzy, the Archer family dog for the last 16 years passed away last week. I wanted to bring up a picture of Ozzy to post on this page but I forgot. Ozzy was the best dog that anyone could have and he will be missed. He rocked hard.

I will try to write more tommorrow but we have a big day planned of sitting on our asses.

Norm and Joe On The Silver Screen

Hey Everyone, I wanted to let you all know that my brother in-law Norm and Jackie's cousin Joe have made a movie. They sent me the trailer to post up on my websites to get the word out. It looks really good. Check out the trailer for their movie by clicking here.

Joe Miller's Ghostly Images, Nick Hydel and more.

Hey Y'all,

I thought I would make an attempt at updating this blog every other day or so like people are supposed to. We'll see how long this lasts.

A couple of months ago Jackie's cousin Joe Miller had a photograph that he took of his sister Anne Hull's house posted on the "Coast To Coast A.M." website. "Coast To Coast" is pretty much Mine and Jack's favorite radio show. The show tends to center on the paranormal, mysterious, and unexplained which, after music and art of course, are my main interests . The picture contained some ghostly images that are pretty convincing. It was a pretty substantial feat to have a picture posted on the "Coast To Coast" website as people submit hundreds of photos a day. I don't know why I didn't post this before but here it is. People in the know will recognize Joe as "Nick Hydel" from the "An Evening With Nick Hydel" audio that was posted on my main website about a year ago. Here is the link to Joe's picture on the "Coast To Coast" website.

Speaking of "Nick Hydel" I think it's time for Nick to start making some more appearances on my website. Maybe we can create a "Nick's Corner" type of thing where he can interview different people about various topics. What do you think Nick? Richmond's "Good Old Days" celebration is coming up so it might be a good time to dust off the old microcassette recorder.

You can check out Joe and his wife Alida's website here.

You can check out the Hull Family Blogspot here.

I can't think of anything else to write. Stay Gold people, Stay Gold.

Finally An Update Pt. 2

Hello everybody. I am finally getting around to another update. I know blogs are supposed to be updated daily or somewhere near daily but this has proved to be an impossible task for me as of late. A lot has been going on so let me clue you in as to what has been happening.

Jackie and I got back from "The Northern Estate" last night. We had a good time and just relaxed for the most part. We arrived there on Thursday evening. Jack's parents Norm and Sass came up on Friday night. On Saturday night we went over to Jack's Uncle Dennis and Aunt Barb's house down the road. A lot of Jack's cousins were there and I won't name them all as I am bound to forget someone and I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings but they are all great people and it was good to see them. I didn't take any of my usual "toys" with me such as musical instruments, shortwave radio, ect. but I did get a chance to listen to my XM radio on the way up there.

I got laid off from my job two Friday's ago. This is probably a good thing since I now have more time to clean and straighten up the condo being that it is up for sale. We have had quite a few people come through the condo to look at it since it has been up on the market and it is very encouraging. Hopefully we can sell it in the not so distant future and we can concentrate on buying a house.

Now that I am laid off I will have to wait for a little while before I can buy the Paia P9700S modular synthesizer kit that I wrote about last time. I am really looking forward to getting it and putting it all together. I really like getting projects like that and soldering everything together and learning about the electronics involved. It will be alot of fun to be able to sit down with the finished modular synthesizer and experiment.

I have been studying and reading a lot about Leonardo Da Vinci lately. To me Da Vinci has always been the Patron Saint of Creativity. It is amazing to me that someone could be so prolific and productive in so many areas and I have always loved his art. My favorite artist though is still Hieronymous Bosch. I would love to know where he got his visions from. There is nothing to compare to his paintings. I have included some Da Vinci and Bosch painting below for you all to view.

I updated both my main webpage and my download page today. I posted the first ten tracks from "A Beautiful Morning" on the download page. Enough about this music shit. This blog is for other things.

This is probably my favorite of Leonardo Da Vinci's paintings "The Virgin Of The Rocks". 

This is Leonardo Da Vinci's "St Jerome". 

This is "Hell", the right panel of Hieronymous Bosch's "Haywain". 

Hieronymous Bosch's "Death And The Miser". 

This is the center panel of Hieronymous Bosch's "The Temptation Of Saint Anthony". 

This is the PAIA modular synthesizer kit as it is sent to you. 

This is the top view of the modular synthesizer in it's case. 

This is part of what I would be assembling If I bought the PAIA modular synthesizer kit. 

Finally An Update

I know it's been a long time since I updated the sites. Being that it is Summer Jackie and I have been pretty busy. There have been other times when I could have updated but I'm lazy.

I have been getting into electronics again. My parents bought me a RIAA compensated phono preamp kit from a company called PAIA. Basically it is a module that I can plug my record player into and then run it into the computer. This way I can transfer all of my old beloved records onto CD. I am considering buying PAIA's analogue modular synthesizer package. It is a lot of money and I'd have to assemble the whole thing myself but when it is done I would have a modular synthesizer to play with.

Jackie and her parents bought me XM radio for my birthday. It is the coolest. I have been checking out all of the channels. Coast To Coast A.M. is played on one of the channels for 8 hours every night. My favorite channel is probably "Hank's Place" which plays 50's and 60's country music. You can also listen to the XM over your computer if you are a subscriber. Jackie likes listening to it while she's online.

That's all I can think of right now.

Lafatastock

Lafatastock took place in Evart, Michigan this past weekend. "House Music" played some beautiful music on some beautiful land. I have written about the music end of the weekend as well as posted some pics of the band, instruments, ect. on my main website.

Joe Lafata's father owns 180 acres of heaven up in Evart. Joe and Tom Saari headed up last Tuesday. I drove up on Thursday afternoon and we had a great evening out by the fire. Joe showed me around the land. We had some classic music blasting out over the woods including House Music, Sabbath, Zeppelin, Sly and The Family Stone, The Band, King Crimson, and Pink Floyd, among others.

Joe took the time to show me some cool abandoned structures on and around the land. As most of you who read this know I am an abandoned structure freak so I dug the old shack tour. I got some pictures of some of these posted below.

Otto Taylor, Jeff Hargis, and Paul Gagnier all came up on Saturday afternoon. Paulie brought his dirtbike and telescope. I felt bad for him because he really didn't get to use them. I brought my shortwave radio up there as well but I didn't really use it that much either. Paul told me he just got a shortwave radio. He is also interested in the paranormal as am I. I turned him onto Art Bell and he has been digging Art's show. Paulie has taken some really good ghost pictures as well.

It was a great, relaxing time and I had a lot of fun. It is nice to be able to sit with friends who you have known for years that you communicate with not only through speech but through music as well. The only souvenir I got was the ten million mosquito bites I received over the weekend but it was worth it. The drive is only about 3 hours for me so it is a nice long country drive but just like when Jack and I go up to the Northern Estate it is really hard coming home and adjusting to day to day suburban life. After spending time up north like that it's hard to not come home and immediately start writing country songs.

This building sits back in the woods of the Lafata property. 

This is a look inside of the red building.  

The old shack back in the woods. This was way too unsafe to go inside. I would love to know how long it has been abandoned. 

This is a side view of the old shack. 

These doll parts used to be nailed to the trees surrounding the old shack in some "Blair Witch" type of display. 

Tom's omelette in all of its glory. 

Paulie G. relaxing in the back of his pickup truck. 

Happy 4th

I hope everyone had a good extended holiday weekend. I am finally almost 100% recovered from the jawbone infection incident of 2005. I had a lot of rest this weekend and of course my beautiful and awesome wife took great care of me as always. Also thank you Terrie, for your kind thoughts and your Take 5 tribute.

I watched the Live 8 concerts Saturday. I was mainly trying to catch The Who's and the reunited Pink Floyd's performances. They did not broadcast much of The Who's performance but from what I did see I have no choice but to draw the conclusion that they should really hang it up. Townshend looked old as hell but he jumped around like a kid and was very energetic. Roger Daltrey looked old as hell and it seemed as if he couldn't move. He just stood in one spot slightly crouched over. I know some people will read this and will be absolutely shocked that I could ever write anything negative about The Who. The Who were always my all time favorite rock band (at least until I discovered The Band) and I could never disparage them but let's not kid ourselves. This is not The Who. It's two old guys who used to be in The Who.

Pink Floyd by contrast were awesome. They are also old as hell but at least they don't still tour. I never thought I would see Dave Gilmour and Roger Waters occupying the same stage ever again. They sounded excellent. I have always thought that David Gilmour and George Harrison were the two "classiest" guitarists I have ever heard and Gilmour's guitar playing was flawless. Waters's basslines were just as good and I loved every minute of it.

Also, after seeing her at Live 8 I now think Joss Stone is the Hottest white girl in all of the land besides my wife of course.

Saturday night I heard my first ever shortwave pirate broadcast. I was scanning around the North American pirate frequency of 6,925 khz when I heard "Stairway To Heaven" playing. I did some fine tuning and I got it sounding pretty good. After the song had ended the announcement was made that I was listening to "Undercover Radio", broadcasting from "the middle of nowhere". The guy doing the broacast said he was going to end the show with "Free Bird" but instead played "Slow Ride" by Foghat. I was really amped to hear a pirate station. I have been trying to hear one since I first got into shortwave listening.

We celebrated my birthday at my parent's house yesterday with them and my grandparents. Jack and I had a really good time. My mom made her homemade pizza which I dearly love. I recieved a Guiness t-shirt, Guiness 4 pack, lemonade maker, and the complete series collection of the TV show "Chef" on DVD from my parents. My grandparents bought me a really cool biography of Leonardo Da Vinci. Da Vinci is the supreme embodiment of the ultimate creative individual.

Last night was my first night out in a while. I went to Joe Lafata's house to do some overdubbing of guitar tracks to this past Friday's "House Music" session which I missed due to the root canal. I laid down about 5 or 6 of the craziest, most twisted guitar tracks that I have ever produced. It was a very productive session. Joe bought me a cool guitar t-shirt for my birthday.

After Joe's I headed over to Scott Lozon's. Rob Armitage was there as well. I gave each of them a copy of "A Beautiful Morning" and we shot the shit for awhile. Always good to see them. Have a great week.

The House Of Pain

I just got home from recieving an emergency root canal on my lower right molar. I have spent the better half of the last three days in a hell of a lot of pain. I had a dentist appointment tommorrow at 9:00 a.m. but I couldn't wait that long. My molar was infected and the infection spread throughout my jawbone eventually causing severe pain in my mouth and also to my inner ear on the right side. I figured I would write a quick blog update before the novacain wears off.

Somewhere there are a bunch of Take 5 candy bars silently laughing.

Another Lovely Summer Day

It's really hot out. I mean damn hot. I was working on the roof of the American Axle plant in Hamtramck like I always do and I thought that I had died and went to Hell.

Jack and I went to her cousin Denny and his wife Jen's house Saturday for their son Matthew's birthday party. It was cool to see everyone and they had some great food. Denny has built a home theater in his basement and it rocks extremely hard. He also has two of the most comfortable couches in that basement that my ass has ever had the pleasure of sitting on.

After Denny and Jen's we went to my cousin Tom's house for a graduation party for his son and my other cousin Tim's two daughters. They had good food as well. We didn't stay very long since I had to be back at American Axle at 6:00 A.M. Sunday morning.

Jack and I went out to dinner at Texas Roadhouse last night for Father's day with Norm and Sass. Norm, Terrie, Brendan, and Aaron were also there. I had country fried steak and it was good.

I am really hoping I get the time off of work I requested. I am supposed to go up to Joe Lafata's cabin up by Ludington on the weekend of July 9th. If I do go Joe, Tommy, and I are going to do some recording. As much of a pain in the ass it is dragging a bunch of recording equiptment up north with me it is a really good feeling to know it's all there, ready to capture any magic (or lack of) that may occur. It should be a good time.

Jennifer Wilbanks: "The Runaway Bride". 

The Runaway Bride

All of you have seen pictures of the "Runaway Bride" by now i'm sure. What the hell is wrong with her eyes? Is she about to be hit by a bus or something? I mean DAMN!

Work Floyd

I have been working 12 hours a day, 7 days a week for what seems like a long time although it has probably only been a week or so. I will be on this 7-12's schedule for awhile working down at the American Axle plant in Hamtramck on their rooftop air conditioners. Due to this constant working I probably will not be updating this blog much for a little while. I will try to update when I get a chance but lately I pretty much get up, work, shower, eat, and go to bed.

Pink Floyd and Roger Waters re-united? It's true. Click the link below for the details.

http://www.brain-damage.co.uk/

Download Update and More

I have updated my music download page with the last piece from "The Paradise Tapes - Volume 1" and a "mixed bag" of other songs.

We had a good "House Music" session last night. The lineup was Tommy, Nancy, and Danielle on vox, Joe on keyboards, Paulie G on drums, and Tim Kas and myself on guitar. I played bass for the last jam of the evening.

I have a Spooky Garcia session tonight. Should be a classic.

Another Weekend In Paradise

I hope everyone's Memorial Day weekend went well. As I wrote before Jackie, Aaron and I went up to The Northern Estate in Paradise for the holiday. We had a good time although we did more relaxing than anything.

Saturday we took Aaron to see the OK Corral which is a highlight of any visit to the Paradise area. We also went to the Point to see the lighthouse and to visit the giftshop where I bought yet another book of ghost stories and Jackie bought a Whitefish Point baseball hat and shirt set. For dinner Saturday night we took Aaron to the Bear Butt bar in Eckerton.

Sunday we mainly relaxed although we did go to the Yukon for lunch. Aaron and Jackie took advantage of the quiet to get some sleep while I devised a couple of new recording equiptment configurations for an upcoming musical collaboration with a certain someone from my musical past.

I had my shortwave radio with me and I received a couple of stations up there that I don't usually get down here. I logged my first ever reception of Radio Cairo Egypt, a station that has been high on my "must hear" list for a long time. I also received Radio Japan with amazing clarity. I will never again take any kind of trip without bringing a shortwave radio.

On Sunday afternoon while we were out on our Yukon run we stopped at an abandoned cottage that Jackie and I discovered about two years ago while exploring the area. I had always wanted to check out the inside of it but never got around to it. When we pulled up we noticed that the front door had been broken open so we decided to check out the inside. Upon entering and smelling that familiar "abandoned house" smell we noticed that someone had bolted a steering wheel from a car to the living room wall. I guess kids who had explored the inside in the past could have bolted the steering wheel to the wall but I really don't think so. Who would take the time to do something like that? Why would someone do that? Whoever bolted it to the wall made sure they found a stud to bolt it to. It was very solid with absolutely no movement of the wheel. My guess is that the original owners of the cottage placed it there. But why? I have explored probably close to 50 abandoned houses in my lifetime but I have never seen anything like that in one.

All in all it was a good weekend. Even better was the fact that didn't have to mess with loading and unloading recording equiptment and instruments. Other than working out the aforementioned recording equiptment schematics I didn't think about music at all which was nice.

I post below some of the "abandoned cottage" pictures.

This is the abandoned cottage that Jackie, Aaron and I explored while up in Paradise this weekend. 

Inside the abandoned cottage. 

The bathroom of the abandoned cottage. 

Inside of the cottage we found this steering wheel bolted to the wall. Why this was is anybody's guess. It looks like it was done by the original owners of the cottage. 

A closeup of the steering wheel afixed to the wall. 

Happy Holiday

Happy Memorial Day everyone. Enjoy some hamburgers and hot dogs but if you are eating the weiners be careful that you dont take too much and choke on them.

Preparing For The Holiday

Jackie, Aaron, and myself are going up north to the Northern Estate for the holiday weekend. I am so looking forward to getting up there. There are a couple things that we want to show Aaron but other than that we will just be relaxing. He has been up there before so he has seen a lot of what the area has to offer but we will be showing him some of our favorite spots such as the OK Corral and the creepy cemetary on Wildcat Road. I initially thought that I would bring some recording equiptment or instruments up with us but I have decided against it. It is just more stuff to bring up and to worry about when packing. Today I have to start getting some music together for the ride up. I usually stick to the 1920's and 30's country blues that I love so much.

Speaking of which. Does anybody out there reading this have any favorite albums to listen to while taking longer drives? Long drive music?

The Weekend

Twas a good weekend. I did my "House Music" thing Friday night.

Yesterday was my grandparents 80th birthday party at my parents house. Both Jack and I had a really good time. You couldn't ask for more cooperative weather. My aunt and uncle came in from Seattle and my other aunt and uncle were in from Grand Rapids. There was a ton of great food there as well as my dad grilled pork tenderloin, hot dogs, stadium kielbasa, and hamburgers. There was a ton of fruit dips, chips, pasta salad, cheesy potatoes, ect. as well. Jack and I got the cake from the same woman who made our wedding cake.

I have been getting into the shortwave radio again lately. This morning I heard a couple new stations for the first time. I heard Ecuador HCJB on 12,005 khz and Radio Korea Intl. broadcast from South Korea on 9,650 khz. Shortwave radio rocks.

This is the ARP 2500. It came out in 1970 and it is the synthesizer that I want the most.