Some Things Never Change

It was Wendy's birthday today and Kathy had baked her a cake. One of the grandchildren asked to lick the bowl that the frosting had been in. Two more of the grands had to join in on the fun. I can remember loving to do this when I was growing up.

MUSIC & PIANO -- I HAVE A SHORT CIRCUIT

Making the decision to take piano lessons was not a difficult one since I had wanted to play the piano for years, and I knew it was now or never. Karen, my piano teacher, explained to me that learning to read music and play the piano was going to be a difficult task since it was similar to learning a language from another country. I will have to agree with her that learning music is very difficult, but that is only one part of the equation. The entire process is very complex and goes something like this -- your eyes must see the notes on two different lines at the same time (treble & bass clef) sending this information to your brain where a couple of things take place 1. Your brain must recognize the music notes your eyes are seeing, process that information and hopefully store it for later use 2. Your brain has to process this information in a split second and send signals down your arms to the tips of your fingers at which time your fingers must strike the correct key making a sound. In order to play the piano all of the above must take place hundreds of times a minute without any short circuits and that is where my problems lies -- I have a short circuit somewhere between the sheet of music and my fingers which I suspect is in the gray matter between my ears.

GREAT WEEKEND!!!

Saturday started out early with a trip to Sams Club to pick up some items we were running short on - mainly a box of York Peppermint Patties. Kathy tells me each little York peppermint goodie only has 40 calories and they are made of dark chocolate so therefore they have to be healthy, and if you only eat six at a time the total calorie count is only 240 - not bad for all that sweet stuff.

Next it was off to the Bard Yard Flea Market (poor mans mall) to return a tape deck that I had purchased a couple of weeks ago that was not working. There is a frame shop at the flea market that I purchase prints and moulding from to use at our frame shop and while I was there I had to conduct a little business with them also. If you ever have trouble finding something you want at regular stores you might want to try the flea market - they have any and every thing.

Saturday afternoon we went to Kyndall's (granddaughter) gymnastic competition in Lexington. I tell you that girl is built for gymnastics and she is getting better and better each time she performs. I am so proud of her! **Videos Included**

SUNDAY WAS AWESOME! We got to take three of our grandchildren to Sunday school and they really enjoyed themselves plus they must have paid attention since they were able to tell us about the Bible stories that they had heard. Other than accepting Jesus as their personal savior there is not anything in a child's life (or adult) anymore important than being in Sunday school on a regular basis. Children are like little sponges and in Sunday school they are able to soak up much needed spiritual information that will remain with them for life.

The Deacon's meeting Sunday night was like a topping on a dessert and a true blessing to me. It is just a wonderful thing being in a room of 30+ men sharing with each other and praying for each other. There is a lot of good men at Northside and I am just glad to be a part of such a loving body of believers.

GOD is GOOD!

Preparation For Tomorrows Blizzard in Columbia, SC

Columbia and Lexington, SC absolutely goes crazy when there is a chance of snow. The weather people are calling for maybe a dusting of snow here tomorrow, but as I write this schools are already canceling classes for tomorrow and several business have already said they will be closed tomorrow. Wow it is 47 degrees outside right now and there is no snow in sight, but there are already a ton of cancellations - go figure.

I had to go to WalMart today to pick up a couple of items and the grocery part was packed. I did not put two and two together until later, but people were there stocking up for the big up coming dusting tomorrow.

I will have to admit that it would be nice to see some snow here since we very seldom get any of the white stuff here in the midlands. So everyone put another log on the fire - get all cozy and watch our government waste millions of dollars tomorrow on a big party.

Birthday Party

Our grandson Tristan turned 8 years old today and there was a big party at the bowling alley in his honor. He had lots of his little friends there and they really had a good time bowling, screaming, eating and of course the most important thing "opening presents"! They had things in the gutters to keep the balls on the lane -- boy I sure wish they had those when I was bowling in the league. All of our grandchildren sure are growing up in a hurry.

Evolution of My Recorded Music

I never did get involved with the 8-track music because of the poor quality, and maybe it was a little before my time. :) My music collection started with 33 rpm and 78 rpm LP records, and over several years my music library became a nice collection of my favorite music. I also kept updating my equipment so I could get the best quality that was possible. It finally dawned on me that the newest and greatest music storage device was the cassette tape, which was probably several years after the cassette really became popular -- I normally am a little slow where new technology is concerned.

Now the evolution process begins with the transfer of my music from records to cassette tapes which takes a lot of money to update to the proper equipment and bunches of time to transfer the music.

I am now set for years of music enjoyment listening to all my favorite songs on the most modern of music storage devices. Then one day I happened to catch part of a conversation about "Music on a CD" which was Greek to me. After a couple of years I realized that the "CD" was really the way to go -- I told you earlier that I was slow.

Since there wasn't a way to transfer my cassette music to CD I just started purchasing music on CD, and after spending a lot of money on new equipment I am back in the music business again.

I just discovered that there was equipment available to transfer cassette music to my computer and then burn the music to a CD. After spending some money on this equipment I am now in the process of making CDs with all of my old cassette music on them. I also had been introduced to the MP3 player recently so I am putting some of this music on one of those also.

I will now have my music (or some of it) on cassette, CD , MP3 player, 3 different computers, USB storage devices and smart phone. I hope there is not anymore music storage devices on the market that I have not heard about or that may be in the development stages -- because I just don't have the room to store anymore music storage devices.

BUSY WEEK

This week sure has been a busy one so far. Somehow when I was off work for two weeks the paper work did not stop and that created a lot of catch up work along with my day to day chores. We have to take inventory twice a year (July and January) so that little project also created some extra work this week. It is hard to believe that a little frame shop can have 20K worth of inventory, but all the moulding, mats, glass, fastners, prints, and finished inventory adds up in a hurry. I guess I had better get busy selling some of the inventory.

I have to go by the hospital today when I get off work to see my good friend Bob Marshall who is having a heart procedure done this morning. Please pray for a sucessful procedure and a quick recovery. Bob and I call each other cousins because his birth mother was a Wells and lived in Canton, NC where I had a lot of kin people. It also seems at times that we are both full of bull!

Sometime this week I have to pick up my deer sausage and that is a 1 1/2 hour trip -- oh well maybe I should not have shot "Bambi".

Kathy's mother has been visiting with us since New Years Day and we will have to take her back to Hendersonville this coming Friday. I know that she will be glad to leave since I had a big list of chores for her to do while visiting -- I did not see any reason for her to just sit around and get bored. :)

One of our Grandsons (Tristan) will turn 8 this coming Saturday and we will be going to a birthday party that afternoon. -- WOW all the grands are growing up in a hurry!

Maybe on the 7th day I can rest like it was intended for man to do. That would be great!!