Lomcevak

Last night I enjoyed a new experience and, well, it led to some rather unexpected results. I visited a karaoke bar!

Okay, go ahead, label me deprived or something. The fact is, it’s been more than a few years since I stopped hanging out in bars for the sake of just hanging out. The activity just doesn’t hold a whole lot of appeal for me. Sure, I did my share of it back in the day but I’ve usually got way better things to do with my time. So almost every time I find myself in that environment I learn something. And karaoke… I guess it’s a trend that just passed me by.

Here’s my basic interpretation of how it works. The establishment primes its customers with alcohol while playing loud music. I think it has to be loud so that everyone needs to shout to converse. It gets the voice primed. The alcohol serves as lubricant. Then they open the mike. The operator (or MC, I guess – what do you call the guy who guides the show?) sets up the songs and works the equipment. He seemed to have the ability to mix the song’s actual vocals back in so that more reserved participants would have a little help. Lyrics are displayed on strategically placed video monitors. Available songs could be chosen from a large binder – a couple of them, actually – that could be found on the bar. The night progressed and the lubricity rose, with mostly predictable results. A couple of people were actually pretty good. Most were not, but all were entertaining to one degree or another.

Before you ask, no, I didn’t take the mike at any point, which was probably a good thing for the other patrons. I must confess, though, before the night was over I did peruse the binder of songs. The lubrication, in the form of a few Coronas, was working as expected. Had I found some Zappa I might have given it a whirl. And that leads right into the unexpected results I mentioned earlier.

Time and time again I was surprised – astounded, actually – by song lyrics. Everything I knew was wrong! Top-40, metal, didn’t matter. Stuff I kind of thought I maybe sort of knew? Nope.

I’ll never listen to music the same way again.

There’s one tune, maybe some kind of rap, that I hear kinda regularly on the satellite station at the gym. It sounds to me like they’re chanting about making and eating some kind of soup. I guess I’m wrong about that one, too.

The Kelsey Charity Run on Father’s Day was a non-run, a wash, as it were.

At literally the last minute we headed over to Bridgewater for the usually-pleasant ride through Somerset County. Arriving a bit late, we were directed to park on the street leading down to the picnic area. That’s unusual, we usually fill the fields, and I thought it was just overflow due to lateness. But no, the fields were empty – waterlogged – and the street easily accommodated the bikes that showed.

A photographer from the local newspaper was shooting the line as I parked. I’m on the right alongside my Dyna, Pam’s in the background on my right (straightening her helmet-hair).

Street Parking Only

The myCentralJersey.com site has many other event photos as well as a short article.

It’s always fun being in others’ pictures, and this year we made it onto the official event Web site’s pictures. Pam and I are on the right, walking toward the camera looking at each other.

Walking the Vendor Line

So, while the ride itself never actually happened we had a good time eating, drinking and listening to the bands. With the wet Spring, we’ll take anything that doesn’t leave us soggy!

Let’s face it, there’s not much reason to hit the Jersey shore in the middle of the winter. But that’s exactly what I did the other day.

Since I had business nearby I decided to visit Asbury Park and see how preparation for the upcoming summer season was progressing. It wasn’t! I expected to see nothing but asses and elbows, but found a ghost town instead. The only action was in the old Paramount Theatre, where preparation for a Tom Jones show that evening was underway. The roadies paid us little mind as Pam and I wandered around. We wanted to have lunch but everything was closed. The town seems poised to lose yet another season and in this economy that just might spell doom. Too bad.

We continued south. I thought it might be fun to take the Jeep down the barrier island. I was surprised to see the Island Beach State Park was charging a five dollar entry fee. (“All year, every day,” the attendant confirmed.) It didn’t seem worth it to drop a fin simply to drive in and out so we circled back through Seaside Heights. The town was a flurry of activity, plenty of local contractors busily sprucing up for the season to come. We wandered the boardwalk a bit. It sure is a different place midwinter!

By then, I was out of time. I finished some business in Eatontown and continued back into the central part of the state. It was almost like returning to civilization. Almost.

OS/2

I was cleaning off my desk today, picking up some of the clutter and carting it down to the basement archives when I ran across this sheet of stickers that made me smile. It got me to thinking…

Some months back I was participating in a discussion of old operating systems and talk turned to OS/2. I decided then that it might be fun to try to install Warp in a VM for goofs. Back in the dark ages even though the bulk of the install was from CD you needed to boot the install from floppy. It took some searching to find an old laptop that still had a working floppy drive, but find one I did and soon had the required floppy images.

It didn’t matter. The install failed.

That was under VMware Server 1-point-something-or-other. I soon learned that VMware didn’t support loading OS/2.

Oh well, it could have been fun.

My body hurts. All over. Oh, it’s not a debilitating pain, and I’m not sick or injured. No, this is perfectly normal. You see, I joined a gym. And gaining strength comes with a nice side order of pain. So it’s good.

This story goes pretty far back, way back to when I traded working with my body for working with my brain. Even though I was young, the responsiveness and strength of my body, which I’d come to take for granted, had begun to fade. I tried to fight it. I tried exercise, even bought a weight set, but I didn’t have the self-discipline to make it work. Then, a new gym was opening right up the street and they sent around some promotional material. I went in to check it out. I remember being floored by the price tag, but ended up giving in to their hard-sell tactics. One aspect seemed to make sense: the significant cost would push me to work at it, rather than waste it. And it worked.

After about six months my wife joined me – another chunk of change every month – but work at it we did. We gained strength, our bodies changed, we stopped getting colds and stuff, and a whole host of other benefits. Three or four days a week, maybe three or more hours per session, had become our routine. Yeah, there was pain then, too, but we grew accustomed to it, even learned to enjoy it. We did this for years, moving to a better gym when the first one folded.

When Pam was pregnant with Damian she continued to lift – with her doctor’s blessing. “Your body will tell you when to stop,” he said. She continued with the machines and free weights until about two weeks before giving birth. Pretty incredible. (It’s worth noting that she was home from the hospital in less than 24 hours, too – a tribute to the amazing shape she was in.)

With a newborn in the house life was very, very different. Time – for *anything* – was immediately in seriously short supply. Did I mention the sleep deprivation? We tried to keep fitting the workouts in, but it just wasn’t happening. After some months of membership dues essentially thrown away we cut it loose.

In the years that followed I’ve made quite the number of starts at getting strong again. Despite the weights, leg machines and a top ‘o the line StairMaster climber, it simply hasn’t become habit.

So now, more than a decade and a half later, it’s time for a fresh start. I’m please to report getting past the extremely frustrating feeling of being unable to do even ten percent of what was once easy and routine. The every-other-day ritual is becoming normal, and feels damned good. Stuff hurts.

But it’s a good kind of hurt.

I’ve been a Frank Zappa fan since I encountered the Freak Out album back in the late sixties, and I’ve had the pleasure of seeing him live many, many times. Last Thursday night I saw the Zappa Plays Zappa show at the Blender Theatre in New York. You can read more about the ZPZ tours here.

YCFOSA card front

This was my first visit to the Blender. It’s small and intimate, capacity of maybe a few hundred, tops. The stage was tiny, too; Dweezil and the band really had to squeeze themselves in and there wasn’t a whole lot of space to move around. This tour was all about smaller venues, and that’s where the tour name came from: You Can’t Fit On Stage Anymore.

YCFOSA card back

Dweezil’s playing has really matured in recent years. His blistering guitar work was spot on. It’s reported that he’s put an incredible amount of effort into these concerts and it certainly shows. I was very pleased to see Ray White (of You Are What You Is, among other favorites) in the lineup. And Sheila Gonzalez, who I first saw on the earlier ZPZ DVDs, was nothing short of excellent. One song after another, they pumped out hit after hit nearly non-stop for almost three hours. The set list was a fantastic mix of stuff both ranging from Frank’s early work to the more recent. I was blown away by their rendition of Billy The Mountain – something that I’d never heard live before. The time just flew by!

Dweezil Zappa after the show, hangin' on stage talking with fans

After a generous three-song encore Dweezil hung by the stage talking with fans and signing stuff, smiling all the while. I joined the group and thanked him for his work, for bringing Frank’s music to us, and collected his autograph on the back of the card.

This show came with a couple of extras, too. About two-thirds through the show they drew a number and gave away a Hagstrom Super Swede guitar! The winner was pulled onto the stage to collect his prize. Dweezil asked, ”do you play the guitar?” “No, but I’m gonna learn!” “Well here, let me help you get started with your first lesson.” They plugged him in, cranked it up, showed him where to put his fingers and he banged around with the band for a minute or so. Oh, man, do I ever wish that I won that! I play a little, so it would have been a real treat – um, for me, definitely, but probably not for the audience. The other ‘extra’, which I haven’t downloaded yet, is a fully-mixed mp3 of the show. Can’t wait!

All in all, an excellent night of fantastic music. If you get the chance to attend one of the concerts of this tour I absolutely, positively recommend it.

We spent some time in Wildwood Crest, New Jersey this summer. It was soon apparent that the sheer number of rules and signs and warnings would make for some fun images.

The effort began in our suite and widened from there. The final image presents an opportunity to learn something about conservation, erosion, and the New Jersey shoreline.

Images are here. Have fun! (Oops – the broken link was fixed 11 September 2008. It’s working now.)

I’m afraid that the blog has suffered lately. Postings have just not been happening. Some might be thinking that this one has gone like the other personal blogs I’ve started in the past: left to die of neglect, interest lost.

Actually I’ve been merely recreating with the family. My son’s been off from school, naturally, but my wife’s taken a load of time off as well to de-stress and recreate. So I’ve dropped as much as I can in order to participate. And there’s quite a bit to do here in what’s arguably the densest area of the country!

Well, that’s behind us now, and it’s time to get back to work.

Have you had the chance to visit one of the world-famous New Jersey shore areas? Growing up in the state meant that the shore was always part of the summer routine. The sand and surf, the boardwalks, the rides, the food… there’s something for everyone.

Basically on a whim, my wife and son joined me for an afternoon in Point Pleasant, where we probably haven’t been for about a decade. Armed with a Ziplock of quarters – arcade fodder – from the change jar, we parked at the bottom end of the boardwalk and worked our way northward.

Point Pleasant emphasizes family-oriented diversions: mostly parents with young kids in tow, enjoying the kiddie rides, and slightly older kids, barely in their teens, cruising the boardwalk and arcades. Stretching the parental leash a little, this is sort of a ‘practice boardwalk’ for what’s to come. In a couple more years they’ll be hitting the beach with their friends as opposed to parents, and opting for towns like Belmar and Seaside…

Before we knew it we had reached the upper end of the boardwalk! We stopped for a couple of Snapples and discussed what to do next. We decided to move on to Seaside, about a dozen miles south.
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I spent some time throwing torches this evening. Scratch that. I mean not quite throwing torches. Or maybe the throwing was going okay, but the catching failed.

Oh, I’ve got plenty of excuses. Want to hear some? I’m getting over a cold. I just finished dinner. I’ve been slacking on my practice. My left wrist is a little sore. My mind was preoccupied with other stuff. That enough?

The doubles I started with were acceptable, I guess, but as dusk went to dark I couldn’t even get simple cascades to flow. Drop after drop after drop. I was glad the surface was asphalt – it doesn’t burn!

Well, there’s a bright side to everything. Despite a performance failure I didn’t set fire to myself or anything else!

No one can ignore the fact that fuel costs have risen dramatically in recent years. Gasoline, heating oil, even peripheral stuff that uses petroleum in manufacturing or transport, all has increased costs today. I feel it in the wallet just like everyone else. But I still had a ‘duh’ moment at the checkout register when I picked up a few cans of white gas to fuel my torches.

My stash of fuel had finally run dry. It’s been a while since I bought the stuff retail. Three years according to the database, almost to the day. In 2004 I paid $12 per gallon in 32 ounce cans at an Eastern Mountain Sports store.

I stood next to the display rack stacking a handful of cans into my right arm, mentally multiplying the shelf price of $10.95 per 32 ounce can, when it hit me! The shock was quickly followed by the realization that the increased cost makes perfect sense.

At least they were running some kind of sale. I got a few bucks off and, to my surprise, there was no sales tax either.

So what’s the metric for consumption, the equivalent of miles per gallon, for juggling torches? And in these days when everyone’s going ‘green’ has California outlawed fire juggling, labeling practitioners as horrible, vile polluters?

Unless you have the proper permit, it’s illegal to transport, possess or use fireworks in the state of New Jersey. But just across the Pennsylvania border there are several retail outlets that will gladly sell them to you. Check out Phantom Fireworks or Sky King Fireworks. Now, the odd thing about this is that, like New Jersey, Pennsylvania outlaws fireworks!

This leads to an interesting situation. Before you can enter the store you need to show identification proving that you are not a Pennsylvania resident. Pennsylvania residents are not allowed inside. Further, you need to affirm that your intent is to immediately remove your purchase from Pennsylvania and that you promise to comply with whatever laws are applicable to you. (No smoking inside, natch, and you have to leave your lighter and/or matches outside, too. Duh.)

New Jersey’s lawmakers, as can be expected, are not thrilled with the situation. The Pennsylvania retailers say, basically, ‘not our problem’.

Independence Day is right around the corner. Celebrate safely. Boom!