NYE 2014

TRY A NEW ONE ON: Out with the old, in with the new. In just a few blinks, 2014 will be history, and we'll be all about 2015. 

I liked this Tweet from @marktibbets today, "Happy new cultural gravitational orbital period enumeration of an iron cored oblate spheroid rock around a cosmic thermonuclear reactor!"

Yes - what he said!

CRITTER SITTER: We've been checking in on the welfare of three creatures for a family member. The menagerie includes a lizard, a fish, and a cat.

Thankfully, so far, everyone's still breathing on our watch. :)

BIRD BRAINED: We decided to get crafty this afternoon and try to make a couple of models from the kit "Beautiful Paper Birds" the kids received as a neat-o Christmas gift. 

Two things became apparent pretty quickly: This was not going to be easy. Or quick. But, as I pointed out to the kids, most amazing things are neither quick nor easy, but they're worth working for. And so, they soldiered on. 

During the process, one of the things we had to review was the difference between a mountain fold and a valley fold.

They didn't come close to finishing the bluebirds today, but that's OK. There's always tomorrow. And the next day. :)  

While they were working, Annabelle requested some inspirational music. CJ immediately suggested Paul McCartney & Wings' "Bluebird." Good idea, CJ!

Imagine our surprise when, at the end of the recorded-live video, Paul said, "See ya next time, Seattle!"

We also listened to "Blue Bird" by Ikimono Garaki. Entirely in Japanese, it was super upbeat and a fun listen.

And we also had to listen to good ol' Buffalo Springfield's "Bluebird." Love the banjo at the end. 

SPEAKING OF MUSIC: Last night we (gasp!) took a break from football and watched a couple of recorded-live concerts on Palladia.

The first was Nirvana, recorded on Halloween night at the Paramount theater in Seattle, 1991. THAT, my friends, was a flat out rock show. Wow. Just the three of them tearing it up. No wonder they changed the face of the music scene. "Smells Like Teen Spirit" never sounded better. Almost makes me miss my mosh pit days. ;)


Up next was the Flaming Lips performing Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon." The concert was recorded at the Hangout Festival in Alabama in 2012. While I would MUCH rather watch Pink Floyd perform that music, it was interesting to watch other artists' takes on it. IMHO, the Flaming Lips' presentation was overly art-school theatrical, trying too hard to be trippy. I don't think DSotM requires any kind of antics. The music *is* the show. Here's a link to a short promo the show: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7rDrVaNdLo#t=25

And I'm not gonna lie - I liked the Flaming Lips lots better before their lead singer, Wayne, (inexplicably) became BFFs with Miley Cyrus. I think they are bound by their mutual adoration of marijuana. 

NOTE CARDS:  We're still slogging away at guitar, without benefit of 'real' lessons. (Thank goodness for the magic of the Internet.)

Yesterday, as we were plugging through John Legend's "All of Me," it occurred to me that  it would be really nice to have a quick, easy to read visual representations of the chords required for that and any song. After sleeping on it, this morning I struck upon the idea of note cards with chord formations on them. I figured someone had done it before (they have) and searched online. However, I wasn't willing to buy said cards from anyone, so I started whipping up some of our own.

I started by making a blank guitar neck/fretboard. Then, I added the string names.  And then it was time to start plugging in finger positions and denoting open and unplayed (x) strings

I made multiples of each chord (for verses and the chorus), and printed them on cardstock. 

Then, it was simply a matter of arranging them in the order they're played in the song. 

There are a whole bunch more chords to go, but it's a good start!