Category: Life

A Not Good Day Brings Thoughts of “Send a Boat” and “Busted”

  By
Chris Knight

Ok so it’s not exactly Noah’s flood, but when I went to the basement this morning to exercise I discovered that the hot water heater had sprung a leak! Which meant moving boxes vacuuming up water, separating damaged from undamaged junk, and now I’m waiting on a friend to come look at it, to see what I need to do!

So as sit and wait for what I am sure will be bad news, I think I’ll listen to a little Chris Knight and the song that comes to mind ……”Send a Boat”

Ray Charles

Ok so now he’s come and gone and given me the bad news that it’s going to cost a lot more than I thought…..now the song that comes to mind…….Ray Charles ” Busted”!!!

Let’s see we can go on with the mix maybe “Born Under a Bad Sign”?? Who has the next one????

Maybe to feel better I’ll go back to reading “The Orphan Master’s Son” and think about how we don’t have it as bad as some people in North Korea!

Me, Myself and Family….. Eli’s Coming and Going! Oh My……..

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For her birthday this year, our daughter Elizabeth’s boyfriend Jimmy bought her a kitten, She originally wanted an all black cat, but when she went to the pet store she couldn’t pass up this cute little kitty…..

Eli

Elllie2

So Eli came home with her and eventually back to her apartment in Delaware. Eli had been fixed only a few days prior to Elizabeth adopting him and last week he developed a sore around one of the stitches and wouldn’t leave it alone. So Elizabeth took him to the Vet. On her way there Elizabeth had this premonition that the vet would tell her that Eli was actually a girl cat, This had happened to us years ago when Abigail and Lucy went to the vet and came home James and Fenwick!! It wasn’t long after arriving at the vet’s office that Elizabeth was informed by the technician that Eli appeared her to be a girl cat a fact that was shortly confirmed by the Vet!! So Eli became Ellie and to protect her from getting the sore infected she was given a cone, not one of those normal cone but an extra special fancy model……

Ellie and Cone

And now she is internet famous as her picture has made it to Reddit!

Our little kitten needed a cone. This is the smallest one they had.

This moornimy daughter found this in her Twitter feed……

This kitten loves his new rain coat! pic.twitter.com/BqB7JkSrwN

Ah, the world gets smaller and smaller!!

Christmas Tree Ornament

Speaking of Internet famous my wife’s handmade Christmas Ornaments like the one above should be famous, too! Check Out Her work at her Facebook Coventry Market Page here

Life’s Soundtrack – Running’s Easier with Blues from Lisa Mann’s Satisfied!!

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So I ran last night, but I didn’t write a post about the run. I ended up spending the evening  transferring my iTunes library from the desktop to my laptop, because I use the laptop more than the desktop now, while I watched the Phils lose, By the time I was ready to write, I was too tired! I think the trick is to write the post as soon after the run as possible!!

Anyway  I still am running a lot slower than I was in the  spring, but the run last night was the easiest since I’ve started up again. The proof of that is over the last two miles. Last Thursday the time for mile three was 10:47  and mile four was 11:34. Last night over the same course, mile three’s time was 10:24 and mile four’s was 10:50!! So there is improvement, no matter how small. The other good thing was that when I came home from work last night, I wanted to run, rather than feeling that know I should run- but !! I still feel like a slow jogger and not a runner yet!! There will hopefully come a time when I feel like I’m running and not plodding!

SatisfiedThe soundtrack for the run was Lisa Mann and her “Really Good Band’s new blues album Satisfied and I was more than Satisfied with the album and I think that her band is really good!!!

It didn’t take long for this album to hook me, on the first track “See you next Tuesday”,first there was Lisa’s vocal sounding really bluesy and then half way into the first song, what’s that I hear, oh boy, kick-ass organ and then a wailing guitar!!! The music stayed that way throughout the rest of the album, a great guitar riff here, a some organ or piano there, throw in some saxophone and harp’ and then a solid bass line and vocals that made it all hang together. And it hung together well through tracks like “Satisfied”, “Surrender to the Blues”, and two of my favorites “Till the Wheels Come Off” and “King of Black Coal”. Who am I kidding, I like them all!! Lisa Mann, who has been hidden away in the Pacific Northwest has earned a spot in my library, right along side musicians like Samantha Fish, JoAnne Shaw Taylor, and Laurie Morvan!!

Really good bandNow the folks in the Pacific Northwest have known about bassist Lisa and her band mates:  Jeff Knudson (Guitars, Backup Vocals, Co-Production), Michael Ballash (Drums, Backup Vocals and Bunny Wrangler??) and Brian Harris– (Keyboards, Organ and Backup Vocals) for a while now. In 2011, she and her Really Good Band represented the Cascade Blues Association (CBA) at the International Blues Challenge, where they made it to the semi-finals. From her website

.Lisa is a proud inductee into the Cascade Blues Association’s Hall of Fame after winning the Muddy Waters Award for Bass Player of the Year three times in a row. In Nov of 2012, Lisa took home the Muddy for Bass yet again, and to top that off, she took home Female Vocalist of the Year and her “Really Good Band” won Contemporary Blues Act of the Year.

Her latest CD, Satisfied, is currently the CBA’s choice for the Best Self-Produced CD competition through the Blues Foundation. Lisa also won the Portland Music Award for Outstanding Achievement in Blues in 2012. Read More

and if all that is not enough!

Lisa’s vocals appear on Canadian blues master Bill Johnson’s Juno Award nominated CD, Still Blue. (www.billjohnsonblues.com). She is also the voice of internationally acclaimed symphonic rock band Cry for Eden. (www.cryforeden.com)

Don’t some people just make you green with envy!! I listened to Cry for Eden’s album last night, a different genre and musical style and she nails the vocals on that album. too!! So check out Lisa Mann and her really good band!!! From the Blues Music Magazine Review of Satisfied!!

For the moment, Mann is mostly a Northwest regional secret, but I suspect that brighter days are within range for Mann, as she’s a talent to be reckoned with. With music that deserves to appear on North American radio charts, she should begin to receive an abundance of strong press reviews, and thus be in position to garner fans from coast to coast.

And I fully agree with that statement!!!  Here’s Lisa and the band tearing it up at the King of Beale competition in Memphis, TN. on Saturday, February 5, 2011!

Back to Williamsburg and – Stealing Faces from Michael Prescott

  By ,
Barrett Hall

So the last couple of days have been hectic. Wednesday was a travel day down to Williamsburg, Va. to take my daughter back to college. Yesterday was spent lugging her stuff up three flights of stairs to her room. Fortunately, it was not quite as hot this year as last, but it was still hot! In addition to taking stuff from the car we also had to go and get the stuff she left in storage in the attic (the 5th floor) of a dorm a couple of dorms over from hers. That excursion included carrying the refrigerator and a large box down the stairs because they were working on the elevator! Then after we got her moved in it was time to go to Target and get the final stuff that she needed and then to The Home Depot for the rug  and the air conditioner!  But everything is moved in and her room looks great! Today was the trip home with a side trip to a cemetery in Baltimore to find some children of a distance cousin on my wife’s family tree. That trip was unsuccessful but I’m sure she took some good pictures!

 

Stealing Faces - Michael Prescott

In the middle of  all that I finished Book 23 for 2011 Stealing Faces by Michael Prescott. From his webpage:

In May, 1999,Stealing Faces became the first Signet book to make its debut as a downloadable electronic book compatible with Gemstar eBook technology (formerly Rocket eBook). In mid-September of 1999, six months after the electronic premiere of Stealing Faces, a mass-market paperback edition was issued by Signet Books. It’s now in its fourth printing.

I purchased the book at the Kindle store for .99 cents and it was worth every penny of it.

About Stealing Faces

The book is a taunt psychological thriller. John Cray is a psychiatrist who is also a serial killer. Cray kidnaps women then sets them  loose in the desert, stalks them and when he catches them before he kills them he slices off their face and shows it to them!

But now the tables have been turned and Cray is being stalked by a woman. When Cray turns hunter and catches the women he finds that she is from his past and knows his secret……..now the question is can he control her and keep his secret

. The book unfolds like an onion and with the turn of each page another layer of the story is exposed and becomes more tense!   Overall I thought that the book lagged a little in the beginning but the pace certainly picked up as the storyline became a little clearer. I enjoyed all the characters and am certainly looking forward to my next Prescott book

Post Update: Since I wrote this posts Michael Prescott has has written two series. The first was the Abby Sinclair & Tess Macallum series .Abby Sinclair is a freelance security consultant who hunts stalkers, and Tess McCallumm is an FBI special agent, in Los Angeles , California. There are five books in the series

The second series is Bonnie Parker, PI. Obviously, Bonnie is a Private Eye. There are six books in the series. The first book Cold Around the Heart is currently free on Kindle Unlimited! I think it’s time to revisit the books of Michael Prescott!!

Author’s Book Gallery

About Michael Prescott

After twenty years in traditional publishing, novelist Michael Prescott found himself out of work in 2007, his career apparently over. On a whim, he began releasing his older titles and some new novels in ebook form. Much to his amazement, sales took off, and by 2011 he was one of the bestselling ebook writers in the United States, profiled in USA Today and sought after for interviews. To date he has sold roughly four million books (both print and digital).

His latest full-length thriller is TEARS FOR THE DEAD, the fifth entry in a continuing series that also features COLD AROUND THE HEART, BLOOD IN THE WATER, BAD TO THE BONE, and SKIN IN THE GAME. A complete list of his books can be found at Amazon Author Central’s Michael Prescott page. Please be aware that more than one writer uses the name “Michael Prescott,” and sometimes the works of these other writers show up in Amazon searches or on Amazon sales pages. If a given book is not listed at Author Central, it is the work of a different author. From Amazon

Michael Prescott – Amazon Page

 

Revisiting a Trip to the Princeton Record Exchange

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Revisiting a Trip to the Princeton Record Exchange

What stuck, what faded, and the thrill of the hunt

Back in [Year of Original Trip], my son Nick and I made a trip to the Princeton Record Exchange.
Nick had a gift certificate from his brother Andrew and some birthday cash from us.
We both came home with a boatload of CDs.
As usual, my picks fell into three categories:

  • Known and liked
  • Heard the name, not the music
  • Complete unknowns

Looking back now, years later, here’s what stuck with me and what didn’t.

🎵 Known and Liked (The Safe Bets)

  1. Mary Gauthier – Between Daylight and Dark
    A great songwriter with a gift for capturing the Southern sense of place.
    This one stuck—I still return to her songs, especially after rediscovering The Foundling.
  2. Jeffrey Foucault – Ghost Repeater (2006)
    Produced by Bo Ramsey, this album still hits.
    The title track became a quiet favorite over time.
  3. Grayson Capps – Wail & Ride
    I loved his storytelling and post-Katrina New Orleans vibe.
    “Can’t Find My Way” became one of the lasting tracks from this haul.
  4. Milt Jackson – The Harem (1991)
    At the time, I hadn’t spun it yet—but this lineup (Jimmy Heath, James Moody, Cedar Walton, Kenny Washington, Bob Cranshaw) is hard to beat.
    It ended up sticking as a late-night jazz favorite.
  5. Greg Trooper – Floating (2003)
    Greg has always been a favorite.
    I still smile thinking about “Muhammad Ali (The Meaning of Christmas)”—a track Steve Earle said he went home and learned after first hearing it.

🎧 Heard the Name, Not the Music

  1. Walter Parks – [Album Name, 2009]
    At the time, I was curious. His tremolo guitar and swampy Americana sounded promising.
    It didn’t become a rotation staple, but it was a pleasant surprise for a few months.
  2. Nawang Khechog – Karuna (1995)
    I bought this knowing her work with R. Carlos Nakai.
    Produced by Kitaro, it turned into a perfect work‑day ambient listen, even if it never became a personal classic.

🔍 The Unknowns

This is where crate‑digging is pure adventure.
Some of those unknowns were one‑and‑done spins; others quietly became hidden gems.
Looking back, these are the albums that faded from memory versus the ones that still pop up in my rotation.

🎵 Reflection

Trips like this remind me that music collecting is part treasure hunt, part memory bank.
Some albums become lifelong companions.
Others were just passing acquaintances—but even those had their moment.
Years later, I can trace these CDs back to that day with Nick at PREX, which makes them all part of my musical journey.

🌱 Roots and Leaves in music – some songs take root, others drift away.
Explore More Music Memories →

💿 Next Crate Safari Awaits!
Exploring thrift stores, record exchanges, and dusty shelves has its rewards.
Some albums become instant favorites, others are happy surprises along the way.
Browse More Crate Safaris →