Weekend Round-Up

It has been a somewhat successful, pretty laid-back weekend around here. First of all, I am pretty much up to speed with this new laptop computer I got at Staples a week ago.
The 17 inch diagonal picture is a step up from our other laptop, and there are some other cool features. One being the web cam and mic which allows us to stare at our son 100 miles away and talk to him while he stares back and talks to us. It is funny how, after a while doing this, the stares go sort of blank.
But it is a nifty feature, and as we were playing Apples to Apples while we had him in on the web conference, I could sneak him a peak at my cards and he could advise me on which one he would play, as in "third one from the left".

Last night it was another musical trip down memory lane for us. Linda and I have widely divergent musical tastes, but there is some common ground, and one such area is the music of Chad and Jeremy, folk-pop-rock troubadors from the 60's. We drove over to the historic and wonderfully preserved Ritz Theater in downtown Tiffin to catch their show last night, and they delivered. Both are accomplished musicians as well as singers/songwriters. During the course of the show, Chad played guitar, piano, mandolin, and a little kazoo during the encore. Jeremy stuck to guitar, and held up the rhythm strumming. They took a couple hours to run through their back catalog, play some of their early influences, and cover some other folks' work (they did Homeward Bound, which Paul Simon had originally "given" to them to use when he was living in England). They also played a handful of songs from their last two Columbia releases, which I especially liked, "Of Cabbages and Kings" and "The Ark". Good stuff.
I did the fan boy thing and hung around for autographs on the poster that came with the CD, a re-working of much of their better-known anthology. I have listened to (and claimed as part of my life) a lot of music over the years. Chad and Jeremy were not a huge, huge influence, but they were right in there during the magical late 60s era, and it was great to hear those 67-year-old voices sound just like they did on vinyl in nineteen-67! A pretty special couple of hours
That brings the Weekend Up-Date to today, and I can point to two accomplishments. First, the band pulled off a reggae-inflected song at church this morning ("Shut de Do' - Keep Out the Devil"), and it was seemingly enjoyed by the congregants.

Second, we have fish from our fish pond that winter over in an aquarium in our basement. Believe, me, if they were in the pond over the past couple of weeks, they would be fish-sicles by now. Anyway, even with a filter, the water in the aquarium was getting a bit too scuzzy, so I changed the water and cleaned out their home. Here are a couple shot of our guys and gals (and we know we have both, because we keep getting little ones!)

"Ok, this time, Goldie, go out long about ten yards and buttonhook and I'll hit you"

Obviously, I've been messin' with this cool, free photo program I downloaded.
It's called "Photoscape". It's pretty cool.

Hope your weekend is going well and yes, Margaret, I am still thinking about the letter T and will issue a full list one of these days (I don't have a huge fondness for Tuesdays or Thursdays, especially.. this is not easy!)