Today I took a trip to the top of Mt. Tamalpais or as they call it here, Mt. Tam. I have been up there before and wanted to see it again.
A View from Mt. Tam
It is a great view from up there. From the top of Mt. Tam I could see all of Marin County, the Bay, the City and the Richmond and Bay Bridge.
I then took a different road down the mountain.
I wanted to see Alpine Lake again.
It was so quiet and peaceful there. I walked a trail I had not taken before. The trail took me over a small but nice bridge.
The trail lead me to a waterfall which feeds the lake. It was not a big waterfall but a bunch of small ones falling over the rocks.
The trail kept going but decided to head back since it was getting late. One of the sights I saw on the walk back was some plants peeking out of the water.
Before leaving the lake I did enjoy the moon hovering over the trees. It was a great sight.
A friend of mine sent me this link in December. Every so often I go to the link to fly the guy around. I fly him passed certain objects to see them interact him.
Enjoy!
One of my friends sent me this and I still can not stop laughing.
Do you ever feel like doing this to someone?
Just watch this over and over....
it makes you "feel" so much better....
I have just added The Daily Changing Page. This is a page with stuff that changes every day. For now it includes: Weird Fact of the Day, the comic "The Joke's On You" and the current weather where I live. You can click on the image to take you to a page so you can check the weather in your area. The link will always be in the left column under "Let's Talk About Me for a Minute."
Enjoy!
Here are this week's Tonight Show Headlines.
Headlines
This one is just funny.
This evening I went to the Davidson Middle School Steel Pan Concert. They were really good. The concert consisted of a beginning group, intermediate group and advanced group. The advanced group even played an original pan tune by Boogsie Sharpe (no relation but I used to get teased about that at Cal State when I played in the Steel Drum Orchestra). Other tunes they performed that were arranged for pan were La Bamba, In the Still of the Night, Oye Como Va and a couple by Dave Beery from Cal State Long Beach, Sir Duke and Low Rider. The pan groups have been at Davidson for 19 years and was founded and is still directed by Char Lusk. During the 19 years they have had famous pan arrangers from Trinidad write pieces specifically for the groups. Among them were Ray Holman and Boogsie Sharpe (there it is again). Boogsie had even played in a concert with the students. Char has also been in contact with Michael Carney, the director of the Steel Drum Orchestra at Cal State Long Beach, and his fellow pan players and arrangers Dave Beery and Chris Wablich. The students have a rare opportunity to play pan in a middle school and the concert in the gym was packed with supporters.
Richard Biggs passed away on Saturday May 22, 2004. He was known for playing Dr. Stephen Franklin on the incredible science fiction TV show Babylon 5.
Here is an article about him:
Richard Biggs
Here is a sound file of him from Babylon 5:
Richard Biggs from Babyon 5
So the last few days I have gone to one concert after another. A friend of mine calls it business research. I went to hear the Terra Linda High School concert band and jazz band concert on Wednesday. They were pretty good for a high school. It was only an hour concert. The most notable piece was Cielo De Oro by Strommen played by the concert band which had a really cool Latin percussion part. I also went to hear their orchestra on Thursday. Also pretty good for a high school. The most notable piece and my favorite on the concert was the concerto for 4 violins by Vivaldi. Both concerts were only an hour.
The weekend concerts I went to were at the College of Marin, which is a community college. The orchestra concert was on Saturday. First on the concert was Brahms' 1st symphony. It was just as I remember it, bor-ing. The best part of that piece is the introduction in the 1st movement. The orchestra played it ok. It was as if the piece was just above the orchestra's playing ability, especially some of the woodwind players. After intermission was Symphonic Sketches: Jubilee and Noel by George Chadwick. Very romantic period sounding. They seemed to play that piece better for some reason, though the piece itself was nothing special. The last piece on the concert was Fanfare and Ode for choir and orchestra by Stan Kraczek, who is the choir director at the college who is retiring. It was nice to hear the choir and orchestra together. In the program notes it said, "This piece is 'pedestrian' - in the most literal sense - the march theme really makes the audience walk with it..." The piece was pedestrian compositionally. It was predictable and just sat there. Nothing really special to it either. I went to these concerts to hear what a high school and college level ensembles sound like since I had not heard ensembles at this level in awhile. As for the orchestra concert, as my brother would say "those were 2 hours I would like to have back." Here is something funny. In the orchestra personnel part of the program it has violin 1, violin 2 and viola, which is fine but then there is violoncello and bass violin. First of all make a decision whether to use the technical or the slang. If you are going to call is a bass violin then call the other one cello. If you are going to call it violoncello then call the other one double bass. If you really what to be accurate, the bass violin is not a low version of the violin but the low version of the viol family. The viol was over shadowed by the violin a few centuries ago because it had the ability to play louder. I just got a kick out of that in the program, especially for a college.
Sunday was the College of Marin Symphonic Band Concert. It is a community band. They sounded pretty good. Much better than the orchestra in playing ability. This concert had a nice variety. The concert included:
Holst's Second Suite - which is not played as often as his First Suite. I personally like the First Suite better but the Second is good too.
Komm Susser Tod (Come Sweet Death) - a transcription of a Bach choral. Bach always sounds good transcribed for concert band. It makes the concert band sound like a big organ.
The Rite of Spring - an arrangement by Lauren Keiser. Pretty good and the band did a decent job. After hearing that piece I was thinking that there really are not that many concert band pieces that would be considered masterpieces. A lot of typical cookie cutter fluff (rhythmic fast stuff with a lot of snare drum to a slow melody/accompaniment section then repeat back the rhythmic fast section and end). But at least the concert bands play more music by people still alive unlike orchestras which consistently play music by dead people. I think that the orchestra world and the concert band world should take lesson from each other, more new orchestra pieces played and more masterpieces being written for concert band.
On Sunday night, I was invited to a Styx concert which was held in Marysville (ya I know, sounds similar and no I have not heard yet). Marysville is north of Sacramento. Nelson and Peter Frampton played first. If you can not put your finger on who Styx is, they are one of the power rock bands of the 70's and 80's and have a sound like Journey. Among their famous songs were Come Sail Way and Lady It was a great concert. They sounded good. They have an awesome keyboard player who played the "Maple Leaf Rag" by Scott Joplin during the concert. They had a lot of energy and were pretty funny when they talked to the audience. It was cool sitting under the stars with my favorite moon phase up (the crescent moon) listening to a rocken concert.
Since I happen to be on a Star Trek kick I thought this was funny. Click on the link.
If Dr. Seuss wrote for Star Trek: The Next Generation
Here are this week's Tonight Show Headlines.
Headlines
This one just made me laugh.
Click on the link. This is really funny.
Top 10 Things I Hate About Star Trek
I usually do not get into politics since they generally hurt me rather than help me but since someone thought it was better to help another country than helping ourselves it has hurt me and people I know personally. I am not talking about the solders in the war, I am talking about the money. What people do not realize is that helping them hurts us. The government is saying they do not have enough money and will have to cut stuff. Well the 1st thing they cut is education. Now I hear people say "kids these days are not that smart." Hum I wonder why? Cutting education also cuts teachers. I know people trying to get a gig in education and can not because of the lack of openings. There is a lack of openings because there is not enough money to hire more teachers but we seem to have a lot of money to throw over seas.
Click on the link below to a web site to see how much money we could have used for education instead of sticking our nose into other people's business. Now the argument is that they needed our help. Well THE UNITED STATES NEEDS HELP! I think we should help ourselves before deciding to help other countries.
Today I decided to take a walk along the Corte Madera River that I can see from my apartment. I took the trail that follows the river to the College of Marin. That hike is about a mile walk one way. Great scenery while enjoying the outside air.
Here is a sample of what I saw.
Yesterday I was invited to dinner and concert in the city of Cotati which is north of Marin County. The restaurant was Sweet Lou's Trattoria. The decor of this place is original, whacked and a lot of fun. For an example, inside the men's bathroom has a pair of congas you can play, as well as a scuba mask on the wall, flippers attached to the legs of the sink and a cymbal on the wall. The women's bathroom has an electric organ. The food was great. As an appetizer we had pesto fries which were really good. I had angel hair pasta which includes fresh chopped tomatoes, garlic, basil and olive oil. My friend happens to know the family who owns and runs the restaurant. So with that connection came special treatment. Before the band started playing , we moved from our dinner table to a nice soft couch directly in front of the band that was reserved just for us.
The Winard Harper Sextet was incredible. Great musicians. The music was jazz with a shot of African Drumming mixed in. The leader and drummer is Winard Harper. He made the drums sound like a musical instrument instead of something that keeps time and makes noise during the solos. He enhanced the solos of the other players without putting attention to himself. That only happened when he soloed which was unique, fun and musical. Other member of the band are Patrick Rickman on trumpet, Brian Horton on sax, Jeb Patton on piano, Ameen Saleem on bass and Alioune Faye on djembe. There set had a nice variety from straight jazz playing Corner Pocket to a tune shifting seamlessly from jazz, latin and rock flavor. They also played a tune beginning with the bafalon, an African marimba, and djembe. They were having fun and being silly while really listening to each other and playing as one. I even got all of their autographs. What a great evening.
Here are this week's Tonight Show Headlines.
Headlines
This one just made me laugh.
The adventure today began with a short 1/2 mile hike to the Point Bonita Lighthouse.
During the hike, the trail led me into a tunnel cut through the rock.
The trail ended at the Point Bonita Lighthouse with its original second order Fresnel lens still in the tower and is still in operation.
To get to the lighthouse I walked over a suspension bridge in which only 5 people can walk across it at a time.
The Point Bonita Lighthouse.
The lighthouse is now automated using this light bulb.
The Point Bonita coast line.
A view of San Francisco and the Golden Gate Bridge from Point Bonita.
Point Bonita and the lighthouse.
I then drove over the Richmond Bridge to east bay to get to Point San Pablo.
Out into the bay from Point San Pablo is the East Brother Lighthouse.
The lighthouse is currently a bed and breakfast and the proceeds go to preserve the station. For more info about these 2 lighthouses click on these links.
Point Bonita lighthouse
East Brother Lighthouse