Tuesday Musings

THRIFTY: Today, we popped into a suburban Goodwill for a short treasure hunt. As always, we checked out the vinyl records they had on hand.

It was the usual (STACKS of Glenn Miller, Kenny Rogers, Neil Diamond, and Barbra Streisand, to name a few 'regulars' in the record bins). I did find one "gem" that made me laugh out loud. ...

I immediately thought the album would make the "best" present for a White Elephant gift exchange at Christmastime. Surely anyone would be overjoyed upon opening it!

CJ found a semi-famous record that you don't usually find at Goodwill. I'll have him tell you more about it.

In 1973, Mike Oldfield, a then-19-year-old English man, composed and recorded Tubular Bells, an album composed of two (mostly) instrumental songs (each of which take up one side each of the album). After a part of Tubular Bells was sampled in the 1973 film The Exorcist, sales of the album skyrocketed, and it hit #1 on the UK album chart.

Today, I got the album at a nearby thrift store, for $1.99. Though it had some scratches, I was able to play it in its entirety.

Musically, Tubular Bells is rather dated to the 1970s. This is probably a consequence of prog-rock falling out of fashion in the wake of more commercial genres such as new wave, as well as less commercial genres such as punk rock. The album features a wide array of instrumentation, nearly all performed by Mike Oldfield. I enjoyed Tubular Bells, but parts of it felt "empty" compositionally, for lack of a better word.

Here's a photo of the album's back, where the instruments are listed.

AWAY: It's a littler quieter than usual around here. Annabelle is away for a couple of days, attending eighth grade camp, at Camp Seymour, near Gig Harbor on the Kitsap Peninsula.

Monday morning, she caught a ride to camp with one of the chaperones. Her schedule for yesterday was as follows: 

Out in the outback for Sack Lunch followed by an afternoon of High Ropes and Dual-Zip
4:45 Walk back in to camp, and move-in to cabins.
5:30 Everyone line up outside the dining hall and take the "FOOD WASTE CHALLENGE!!!"
5:45 DINNER/CHECK IN
7:15 Evening Canoeing led by a Seymour Naturalist
8:30 Return to cabins for Skit practice & cabin time supervised by the Cabin Leaders
Skit practice, camp flags, camp games
10:00 LIGHTS OUT!!! GOOD NIGHT!!!

Here was her schedule for today (Tuesday) ...

7:55  Everyone line up outside the dining hall
8:00 BREAKFAST 9:05 Meet on the stairs outside the Dining Hall
9:10 CLASS 3: Sustainable Systems
10:30 CLASS 4: Ornithology 
11:45 Everyone walk together to the ball court. 
11:50 Wash hands for lunch with your cabin groups in the dining hall or shower house
12:00 Line up outside the dining hall
12:05 LUNCH 
1:10 Meet on the stairs outside the Dining Hall
1:15 CLASS 5: Beach Ecology
2:35 CLASS 6: Skit Planning in cabins supervised by the Cabin Leaders and Teachers
Self portrait
3:50 Meet on the stairs outside the Dining Hall
4:00  Class 7: Orienteering
5:15 Meet on the stairs outside the Dining Hall to regroup. Once cabin leaders have all of their campers, return to cabins to wash hands for dinner.
5:40 Everyone line up outside the dining hall
5:45 DINNER/CHECK IN     
7:15 Skit Night Campfire led by the School Adults
8:00 Archery led by a Seymour Naturalist
9:00 Return to cabins. Start packing up for tomorrow’s departure!
Camp bracelets, camp t-shirts, camp games
10:00 LIGHTS OUT!!

So it looks like they keep them plenty busy. Too bad the weather isn't a little nicer. At least she won't come home sunburned, though! 

Here's a video about the camp.

IT'S A WRAP: This morning, CJ and I headed over to Birthday Dreams' headquarters. We usually have a cake on board when we do that, but this time, we were answering a call for volunteers to wrap presents.

Neither CJ nor I consider ourselves particularly gifted at wrapping presents, so I was kind of relieved when we were given a stack of gifts for a 1 year old's birthday. I figured a 1 year old would be pretty forgiving about the quality of the wrap job. ;)

Birthday Dreams had lots of cute paper to choose from, and we spent about a half hour wrapping, until there were no more presents to wrap (because a bunch of volunteers answered the call for help).