The WJE at Festival (Kudos Galore)

Posted on November 19, 2008 by Gandalfe

The Woodinville Jazz Ensemble flat out rocks! We spilt the mondo jazz band into the WJE and the Pacific Cascade Big Band last June and lookee what they are doing now (thanks Greg):

You can see two more clips at Greg’s YouTube Channel. I can attest, having sat in as a sub, that this band is a tough ride with very challenging charts, a big book to learn even with the inimitable Neil Proff as the director and lead alto sax. And they worked hard to get the songs for this festival ready. Maybe next year the PCBB will be ready to attend.

So many good bands and so little time. The WJE will next be at the Seattle Center House for the WinterFest 2008 gala on 13 December at 1:00 PM.

The PCBB has a concert coming up in December at Crossroads of Bellevue on the same day at 3 PM that I will highlight in a future post. It will be the first concert for this new project.

Posted in Jazz | Leave a comment

Devil Eyes and Big Teeth

Posted on November 18, 2008 by Gandalfe

Or how Amelia grew her adult teeth as a puppy.

Suzy and I were playing with our now six-month old puppy and we couldn’t believe her teeth. She has adult teeth in a puppies mouth. And they are sooo white. Now you see she’s been teething for over a month now; teething on the walls–yes with the resulting holes, teething on the furniture–that really hurts, and teething on her sissie Shelby and us for that matter. So I tried to capture a picture, no small task with a very frisky puppy.

DSCF1050  DSCF1052  DSCF1053

Note the devil eyes. I guess I couldda, shoudda used the anti-red eye setting. So how’d I get her to display her pearly whites you ask? Well, it would seem that Amelia luvs to play with the same cat toys I use for the cats. So this is her trying to get the toy, a feather in this case. The funny thing is that when she catches the toy, she must know how inherently weak it is as she immediately drops it so we can play some more.

DSCF1054

Not to be out done, I snapped Shelby who was watching us play. And she too displayed the ol’ devil eye thang. 

Posted in Pets, Playtime | Tagged | 9 Comments

Upcoming Review: Rock Band 2 for Xbox

Posted on November 15, 2008 by Gandalfe

Or how I spent my whole Christmas budget… oh well.

RB2

With all our grandkids and kids visiting this year I decided to spring for the newly released Rock Band 2. And then there was this way cool new drum set. So I had to get it. I’m holding out for the new bass guitar but I do have the new wireless guitar coming too.

RBdrumset

It is interesting to note that the new drum set has cymbals, is not as loud to the neighbors with your headset on, and has an improved bass drum pedal. I can just see little Nicky going to town on the drum set. And since he’s often sitting next to me, the thud, thud of him playing with his headsets are on should be a tad bit less annoying. (Oh, grandpa!)

Amber’s only 4 but she has been learning to play Rock Band too. They recently lost their Xbox and games but they can always visit us (about 3 miles away from their house) and play. That’s assuming your homework is done, Nicky.  ;o)

I don’t normally play, but if I get this Rock Band bass guitar, I think I’ll start sittin’ in. I always need to work on my rhythm, or lack thereof. And bass guitar is a fun instrument anyway. Remind me to tell you about the upright bass that I’m having customized for use in my music studio. Cheers.

RBbass

Posted in Games, Microsoft, Music | 4 Comments

Did You Know?

Posted on November 14, 2008 by Gandalfe

Fantastic video on the progression of information technology, researched by Karl Fisch, Scott McLeod, and Jeff Bronman.

I probably pointed to this over a year ago, but the stats keep growing. For the most part this is for my children and grandkids. The world is their oyster. It boggles my mind. I so enjoy the fruits of being able to access and befriend the whole world, but it is soooo large.

One of tricks I use to manage my friends on Facebook MySpace, and of course, Window’s Live is to periodically delete the inactive profiles of my friend lists. I try to keep my favoritest peoples and delete with abandon those who’s company, comments, or lack of comments I don’t appreciate. It isn’t about have the most friends; it’s about have the bestest friends. Be well.

Posted in Technology | 7 Comments

Sax Summit 2008 – I’m so there… NOT!

Posted on November 13, 2008 by Gandalfe

SaxSummit

Jeff Miller points out this opportunity to attend a Saxophone Summit 2008 with the comment, apparently they’re featuring "women sitting on piano benches holding sopranino and bass saxophones" this year.

IW Much as I’d like to attend, I think I’ll have to pass. There is just too much happening that makes that trip not very wise. The sponsor list looks very impressive though:

  • Eppelsheim Wind Instruments
  • International Woodwind Saxophones
  • Oleg Saxophone Products & Accessories
  • J’Elle Stainer Extreme Saxophones
  • North American Saxophone Alliance
  • Rico Reeds
  • Bari Saxophone Mouthpieces & Accessories
  • Musicians Credit Union
  • US Army Marine Band
  • Theo Wanne Mouthpieces
  • Local 47 Professional Musicians Union
  • Overture Magazine
  • Saxophone Journal
  • KJZZ 88.1 FM
  • JodyJazz

Ya gotta give them an A for effort. And the girl in the picture? She so reminds me of Suzy 35 years ago.  :o)

Posted in Saxophone | 4 Comments

Village of Joy: 50 Strange Buildings of the World

Posted on November 12, 2008 by Gandalfe

From the amazing, interesting, wonderful, weird, odd, and funny Village of Joy Web site we find a collection of very odd buildings. Some of these, such as the one pictured below must be difficult to live in.

CrookedHouse

Suzy has made custom curtains for semi-round windows, but doing so for some of these windows just boggle the mind. And you have to wonder want the sonic effects would be if you were practicing music in one of these rooms. Do some of the earlier played music phrase come around to mesh with the current ones you are playing. If you went around a crooked corner to fast, would you see yourself just going out of site just up ahead?

Posted in Architecture, Everyday Science | 8 Comments

Oddities and other sightings…

Posted on November 11, 2008 by Gandalfe

Heard the other day, "81% of the Republicans want to continue to back Sarah Palin going forward and maybe advance her as the presidential candidate in 2010. 100% of the democrats support this."  :o)

Quincy Just got done practicing a bit on soprano sax. I’m luvin’ Quincy Jones ‘Grace’ from his Basie and Beyond CD. This is so tasty that you should have two of these CDs. Neil purchased this chart for the PCBB and I look forward to playing it next year. The other song off the CD I’m practicing is ‘Lisette’ which has a nice sop solo on it too. There are some more goodness in a sweet solo piece for Mark and a very nice trumpet solo feature number. Good stuff.

redthong-753600 I was looking at Gerg’s upcoming gigs and feeling how lucky the guy is. Gary mentioned he only did 12 gigs this year. I only did seven. Gerg probably had seven gigs in two months on average. But I refuse to feel sorry for myself, I just turned down two more gigs with a USO band because I just don’t have the time to do them. See each gig includes at least one rehearsal and then lots of ramp up. My last gig with the Moonlight Swing Orchestra had three solos and two clarinet parts to prepare. All that time adds up. I don’t know how Gerg does it.

I was running through my FaceBook happens page and I noted that Kim threw a sheep at me. So I clicked to do something back using the Poke ’em app and it appeared to error out. The next day I got this from Kim, "FLUNG A THONG?!? My gosh Jim, how indecent! ;)" Whoah, how’d I do that? Good thing Kim is a good sport. Imagine if I’d done that to Barb? Man, would I be in trouble now.

My parting shot–this is my current status on my FaceBook profile, "Jim believes it was Goethe who said it is better to be like "whoah" than to be like "whatever."

Posted in Humor | 1 Comment

New Granddaughter update

Posted on November 9, 2008 by Gandalfe

We got a lovely email from Aaron and Wendy with pictures of our newest granddaughter, Addie. She had a court date to make the adoption final. And last month she was christened. Here are some of our favorite pictures:

Court Day 02  Glasses 02  Silly Face

First is the picture of the happy family at the courthouse. Then there is Addie with daddy’s glasses. Why do kids love glasses so much? And then there is Addie’s silly face. Note the octopus from here recent trip to Seattle and the Seattle Aquarium.

Temple Sealing 03  What's Up  Halloween

Addie cleans up pretty nice, wouldn’t you say?  :o)  Addie is teething and does that tongue thing that all of our kids did. And this year’s Halloween costume. I think Addie makes a cute Ewok.

Posted in Health and wellness, My World | 8 Comments

Facebook: I’m being naughty… again. ;o)

Posted on November 8, 2008 by Gandalfe

I saw this way cool picture on MySpace where different body parts were tagged with names of friends. Well actually they were just pictures of lips. So I ported that over to my Facebook and started doing it. I actually have two of my blog posse members as friends at Facebook and I added the braver of the two as I really don’t want to offend anyone.

Lips

There’s a lot to choose from including a vampire and the messy chocolate girl. Maybe I can find one of these for saxes and do one with all the friends who play sax on my profile. Note, that if you are not a member of Facebook, my links above will not work. Be well.

Posted in Too Spicy for some | 3 Comments

Expensive Eats: Maybe twice a year

Posted on November 7, 2008 by Gandalfe

Elaine send this interesting article about expensive food experiences.

Canlis

There are so many great places to spend your dining out dollars. But Suzy and I can normally be found at the Mom and Pop places with prices that are amazingly low for the quality food served. The American Cafe in Crossroads of Bellevue is an example. And I challenge you to find a better cup o’ chowder on the eastside.

But there is one place I keep meaning to go to but to date we’ve not been. It’s not Tulas, Jazz Alley, and the like–we’ve been there. It’s Bakes at Providence Point. The food is reported to be excellent and the jazz not to be missed. We’ll get there soon, just wait and see. Thanks for the ping Elaine.

Posted in Eating, Entertainment, Health and wellness, Hobbies | 8 Comments