Christmas Time

Somehow it's just not the same as it was even a few short years ago.

Rudolph and Santa Looking Suspicious

More Good Music

I did some more checking and came up with another two videos to share. I only have two wishes on these. The first being that the focus were better, the second that it just be Evan playing these pieces...he can certainly carry them with no help.

Have A Listen

A super client and a pleasure to work for (this is not his home piano)!

A Visit to My Boulder

Today I took 'A' on a ride to Annisquam to show her my boulder.  I parked on the main road and we walked up the big hill to see it.  When I took the original photo, I hadn't the time to really look around.  'A' and I walked the area just around my boulder and as we turned to leave, this stunning view greeted us.

Annisquam Lighthouse

Someone picked a good boulder for me!

There is a huge area of trails that eventually lead down to Ipswich Bay.  When we have more time than we did today, and on another good weather day, we plan on doing more exploring.

Well, I Don't See Your Name On It!

Everyone should be given the gift of something that's nearly everlasting.  I found my gift yesterday.  It's real name is Squam Rock, but someone, sometime, decided that I should 'own' it.

Click to enlarge to see my name on it

Yep, folks, my name is on it.

Christmas Elegance

Despite the excessively cold weather 'A' and I decided to go for a walk this afternoon.  One of our favorite classy houses on Pleasant Street is tastefully adorned for Christmas.

Five and a half hours later and I'm still chilled.  I must say, add in the wind chill factor and brrrrrrrrr...

Nostalgia in Black, White, and a Gray House

My dad was an electrical engineer and that really showed at Christmas time.  This house is the first I lived in...for my first 3 years.  Dad's Christmas light display won him a plaque award in a decorating contest organized by the Haverhill newspaper.  In addition to all the multicolored lights and the two story foil Christmas tree, Rudolph's nose blinked red and Santa waved at passersby.  Well, Santa continually waved...even at nobody.  In those days the house was painted white.  With the old fashioned BIG bulb strings of lights, it was all brightly lit.  This was the first of many more Christmas displays of future years.

Coolidge Avenue, Haverhill, MA  1957

We moved to the neighboring town of Groveland and the tradition continued.  For several more Christmases, Santa, the reindeer, and the life-sized, three dimensional sleigh filled with foil wrapped gifts adorned our lawn.  After that was the life-sized barn, with all the participants...from Baby Jesus to the Wise Men...also large as life.  Our cat liked to sleep in the hay with Baby Jesus.  I don't think he minded...Jesus that is...the cat just assumed it was her territory.  There was the giant Christmas 'card' that filled the arch of the breezeway and Santa going down the chimney.  Santa in the chimney was a short lived display...only one year.  Dad liked a roaring fire!

Coolidge Avenue, Haverhill, MA 2010

So, that first house in Haverhill is still there and every once in a while we take a drive by.  Things change.  It's been vinyl sided in gray and the garage has been enlarged, driveway widened.  The bones of my folks first house are still there though, kept nice and neat.

It's Beginning to Feel Alot Like Winter

It looks a lot like it, too...minus snow...so far.

Mill Pond Without Ducks

Mill Pond has iced over and, by the foot prints and shoe slide marks, it looks like daring children temporarily replaced our duck friends.  I wonder if they will be skating there this weekend?  There are a dozen or so ducks left in the mostly unfrozen little pond in the meadow. That little pond is a bulge in the overflow stream from Mill Pond as it flows through the meadow toward the ocean.

Sometimes the harsh cold gray of winter weather can make everything want to lose color.

A Little This, A Little That

Because so much is going on all at the same time that I can't think of just one thing to write about.  With the arrival of THE holiday season, key work diminishes...although there is still some...and tuning work increases.  This year seems heavier in that regard.  The only problem is that I seem to be getting the dregs of tuning jobs, that quite possibly, the semi-retiring(?) other island tech doesn't want.  Maybe, maybe not.  And not all of it is lousy.  It's just that the ratio seems tipped that way this month.

I've started reading a new old book.  It's been in this family for 60 years, give or take a few.  I've just never read it.  The title you wonder?  Queen of the Flat Tops, written in 1942 by Stanley Johnston, a journalist aboard the USS Lexington from her exit from Pearl Harbor just days prior to the attack, to her sinking on May 8, 1942 in the Coral Sea Battle.  My dad served aboard the 'Lex'.  His battle station was sky forward.  He was one of the last of her crew to jump into the Coral Sea.  But that's a story for another time.

It's gotten quite cold here and our Rockport ponds are starting to ice over.  'A' and I continue to walk, several times each week, to Mill Pond to feed the multitude of ducks.  Our feeding trip a couple days ago was quite humorous.  Ducks don't ice skate very well!

Ducks on Ice

I'm still involved in trying to straighten out the matter mentioned (or rather not mentioned) several days ago.  Things have settled for a couple weeks.  Long term solutions haven't been addressed or decided or even deemed doable.  It'll take time to work through it all.

So for now I'm working through each day with a list of 'have to do today'.  If I finish the list each day, I feel good.  If I've accomplished a bit more than was even on the list, I'm happy.  I'm trying to set aside at least an hour each day that I can label as fun. 

Sometimes that's as easy as Ducks On Ice.

A Little Something...Different

Here But Mostly Distracted

I'm giving no explanation at the present time.  Some things have happened, family things a long way from here.  But they have come to rest at my feet.  Not really.  They have generated enough serious concern that I feel I must try to make things right.  The way someone would have intended things to be.  I'm hoping for a good solution.  It will never be a happy ending so it would be foolish to hope for that.  Anyway, it is taking a good deal of my time, but be assured that I still stop by and check in on every one of you.

And I'll still write here.  It might be brief stuff or just some pictures.  All depends.

The Baglady (another self-portrait)

When I haven't been working, or walking, or taking photographs, or shuttling 'A' to work, or being sick...yes, I had a terrible head cold all last week...I've been raking leaves.  We have huge oak trees lining our street.  Enormous.  And they create an enormous mess of leaves later in the season than any other.

Although I have declared the job FINISHED for this season, I know that there will be many more to rake up come Spring.  You see, several neighbors don't bother to rake and all it takes is a bit of wind and........

This season's bag count...and they are 39 gallon bags packed solidly...is 98.  Pictured are just a small portion of the total that I raked and bagged yesterday and today, 29 I think.  'A' and my mom will load the bags into mom's car and take them to the dump to empty in the lawn debris pile.

The Baglady

I'm sure glad that it's done for another year!  All pain killers, massages, and tickets to tropical vacation spots will be joyfully and gratefully accepted.  Nice comments welcome as well, but do make note of the preceding list of acceptable congratulatory items.

Within and Without

Not too much to say about this photo.  A very good friend and I have been pushing digital images around a bit. This photo of the loo has been converted from color to black and white.  It works much better with no color.

Three of Me at the Loo

It is also another self-portrait as I appear three times.

Every So Often

Our most recent 'fun' adventure happened last Sunday on our way home from the turkey farm.  We had made a slight (read very long) detour so that 'A' could stop at a Border's book store.  After that stop we became nutritionally ignorant...on purpose...and stopped at a favorite ice cream stand for dinner.  Everyone just has to eat ice cream for a meal once in a while, don't they?  We stopped at Cherry Farm Creamery for our treat.  By the time we finished there the sun was just beginning to do it's disappearing act in the western sky.  As we headed east the moon was visible.  A giant orb behind the leafless trees.  HUGE!  And full.  And a 'blue moon'. 

There are two definitions of a blue moon.  The first is when a full moon occurs twice in one month...the second full moon of the month is referred to as a blue moon.  The second definition is when there is a fourth full moon within a single season.  I think we fell under the second definition this time.

"Once in a blue moon."  Now you know.

While the moon was still low in the sky I wanted to take a picture.  But from where?  We were on a secondary road that parallels the highway.  There was no place available to pull over, no pretty scenery to add to the shot.  What to do?  Soon the moon would be too high in the night sky, it would be too dark.

I pulled in to a corporate office park area thinking I might be able to find at least one tree to frame my moon shot.  The first turn was into the parking lot of some high tech firm.  It was a gated drive, but no worries, the gate was raised and the guard shack unmanned.  To the consternation of the other two captive within the car, I pulled right in and drove to the eastern end of the parking lot.  There was a section of the lot with a few dozen cars parked.  Second shift, maybe?  From my spot on the far edge of the parking area I took the photo posted here.  Actually, I took three.  This is the best.

I turned the car around and headed back to the main drive.  Turned to head out the exit and found that the gate on that side was down.  Oops.  The others got nervous.  "What are you going to do?"

I pulled up near the gate, hoping that there was a sensor that would get that arm lifting to let me out.  No such luck.

The others got more vocal.  "I told you we shouldn't have come in here!"  "I bet they have cameras watching us!"  "The police will be here, I bet."

"Cool!  Then they can confiscate my camera, check out the digital images to find ducks, rainbows, a horse or two, and a couple roosters!"  "Oh, and I mustn't forget...the blue moon."  I backed out of the exit drive and drove the wrong way out the entrance.  Very quickly.  That gate was still open.

Just a little bit of fun even though no police showed up.  What's the worst thing that could have happened?

Meet Vinnie and Lou

Last Sunday we traveled north to visit some jailed birds.  Raymond's Turkey Farm is located in Methuen, MA, about an hour and a quarter from Rockport.  When I was growing up, we always bought our Thanksgiving turkey there.  In later years they opened a Christmas tree farm and that's where we chose ours for many years.  Anyway, this year my mom wanted to buy a turkey pie.  Not for Thanksgiving...we're having ham...but an individual serving pie for just any day.

As if an over an hour drive wasn't enough, little did we know that Haverhill was having it's holiday parade.  It's evidently a big one and trying to get around it added an extra 15 - 20 minutes to our drive.

It's been years since we've been to Raymond's, but nothing has changed other than the large flocks of turkeys are now out of sight way behind the store.  In sight though were this year's birds that had been granted a stay of execution.

We had to walk right by Vinnie and Lou to get into the store where my mom discovered that the individual, all white meat turkey pies were sold out.

Lou

Vinnie

 

 Then we had to get back home past the parade!

A Job I Would Never Apply For...

Short Changed...Again

Tomorrow is the Rockport PTO Holiday Fair and I will be a vendor.  It can take some doing to reserve a table at this fair.  It's fairly large and well-attended and some folks have been vendor-ing at it over a number of years.  The first year I had to settle for half a table just to get a 'foot in the door'.  Last year I got my reserve money in early and received an entire table...though not in the best of locations.

This year I was an early reserver once again.  I'm not much in the spirit of the season, but I've managed to boost myself into getting prepared..

Today was busy with work and meetings.  It was dark by the time I got to loading all my 'gear' into the Rav4 and hauling it all, and mom and 'A' and myself, up to the high school gymnasium to set up.  The email that I had received, and the confirmation card that arrived in the mail, said that my payment of $50 and my donation to the raffle of one handmade item ($10 in my case) reserved an 8 foot table.  Everyone's confirmations said the same thing.

There's a problem though.  The table that I am assigned is only 6 feet.  There are 12-6 foot tables.  There are at least 34-8 footers, probably more.  You better believe that I'll be mentioning this to the 'woman in charge', the woman who took my money, tomorrow (she kinda of disappeared tonight before I had a chance to air my grievance). 

I figure it this way.  $50 for an 8 foot table equals $6.25 per foot.  My 6 foot table should have only cost me $37.50. (Same for the others stuck with those 6-footers)  I am renting sales space and I should not have to pay a higher rate for that space than other vendors.

Did my ill-fortune end there?  Oh, of course not.  After I got back home and had some dinner I needed to go down to my workshop to glue on a set of keytops.  This client had reserved the last set of standard off-white keytops available.  The supplier no longer stocks them and this was the last set that I had.  I can still offer off-white, but in a more expensive set.  I got everything lined up ready to go and discovered that there was no A-A.  Now to some of you this doesn't mean anything.  Let me explain.  A-A is the first note at the left end of the keyboard.  It is a different shape than any other key and thus within the set of new keytops it is important to have that A-A  (as well as a C-C for the right end).  Still don't understand?  Well, I'll just say that an important part of the set was missing and I can't get any more.  Yep, short changed again. 

I did make it work.  I happened to have some spare off-white keytops accumulated from breaking up a set when a keytop got damaged and I needed a replacement.  However, there was no A-A (of course not).  I used a C-C (trust me it will be okay).  I'll have to trim it to look like A-A and then I'll remove the 'C-C' designation at the back end of the keytop.

My evening has made a cranky me.  Tomorrow better be a good one.

Of Holiday Music

Every year I am tempted to put in an order for a 'special' Christmas CD.  This year I finally did it. 'A' was looking for a specific CD, too.  Hers seems to be one of those hard to find items.  So we trekked to Gloucester Music in search of our odd requests.

When we arrived, I was thrilled to discover that the store has a resident cat.


His name is Pumpkin, but he prefers PK as it is more dignified.  A trait he has honed to perfection.  Of course I didn't have my camera with me and that meant a trip home and back to take some pictures of PK.  By the time we got back to the store, he had stopped prowling the bins of CDs and had settled into his countertop cardboard box for a nap.  You can probably notice that he was not overjoyed about being awakened for a photo session.  When I was done, I thanked him with some under-chin scratching and was rewarded with a chirp-like purr.

Today the owner of the store called to say that my CD had arrived.  What is it you wonder?  The Ventures' Christmas Album.  Think Hooked on Classics meets 50's Rock and Roll and then throw in all your childhood favorite Christmas songs.  You know, Rudolph and Frosty and Jingle Bells and more...

I used to have the LP.  I don't remember what year, but I think I was about 12 or 13 years old.  Played that thing every Christmas season until I no longer owned a record player (or later a turntable).  It's still as quirky and fun as it was back then.  Gotta get in the spirit!

Envelope Art...Again

For Veteran's Day...

With love from my Uncle Hughie who was killed on a B-17E training flight near Gowen Field, Idaho on April 3, 1942.

Untouristed

I've been having a hard time coming up with a post.  Oh, there have been lots of things going on.  Mostly they have been things that annoy me...like several stop-sign running idiots, or work.  There's been a cram-load of work.  Work stories bug people when they don't really care about what work someone does...so I'll spare you.

So staying on the positive side of things, as I would really rather do, I must comment that it has been delightful to walk about town without having to sidestep around tourists.  It's a love hate thing with the tourists.  Yep, gotta love 'em as they mean nice weather.  If it's sunny and warm and, most importantly, NOT winter, they are here in droves.  This time of year they thin out and that means cold, nasty weather has arrived with colder, nastier weather on the way for the next few months.  To me that is not a good thing.  I like warm and sunny.  Oh, we'll get our sunny days to be sure.  They just won't be toasty warm.

So that means what?  Can't seem to have the good without the annoyance.  At least that's my take on it.  There may be some of you out there that don't mind having to bundle up and brave the wind and ice, rain or snow.  I do.  I want no more than jeans and a t-shirt, thank you.  And I hate socks, too.

'A' and I walked today.  It was windy and chilly.  A cloudy day with the remnants of an off-shore storm.  I was surprised to see a tourist bus parked in town.  I bet they're sorry they dished out the bucks to stop at a dreary town where the majority of the tourist trap shops are closed during the week!

Anyway, we walked out 'the Neck' and out Tuna Wharf.  I looked across to T-Wharf and saw a tourist type taking a photo of...
you guessed it, Motif #1.  Supposedly the most photographed and painted building in the United States.  I waved from my vantage point just beyond "that red barn" as some not-so-informed tourists have been heard calling it.  Maybe she'll not notice me and email me around to all her relatives!  Guaranteed not too many of the tourist folk snap the view that I did today.  (see above)