thlapi

ISLAND OF THE MISFIT POINSETTIAS

I read an article recently about Amercan's favorite Christmas TV specials.  The most beloved televised holiday pageant turned out to be "A Charlie Brown Christmas" (1965).  If you remember, the central theme from that story was the redemption of the bedgragled Christmas tree. 

 Charlie Brown's tree was laughed at and derided... as was Charlie for picking it. 

On Black Friday, one of my store's big promotions was the 99 cent poinsettia.  They were little ones.  Most of them were somewhat stunted and bedragled, scraggily red and green weeds with more than a little yellow and brown too.  Customers were cherry picking the best of these holiday rejects on Friday; most of the carts I saw early in the day had a pot or three or six.  By Monday, the end of the sale, the pickings were slim. 

They looked like rack after rack of Charlie Brown's Christmas Trees. 
 
My heart went out to them. 

Okay, when they got marked down to 25 cents each, then my heart went out to them.  I bought four, specifically looking for the most scraggily looking ones. 
 
They now line the back of my computer desk.
 

I suddenly HAVE room on my computer desk due to replacing my deal desktop computer with the sleek laptop you see in the pics... 

HAPPY HOLIDAYS FROM THE ISLAND OF MISFIT POINSETTIAS!

I have started a new blog here on Blogspot to go with a new chapter in my life...

I invite you all to read:

http://leavingamerika.blogspot.com/

Day One of the Ukefest

I present to you highlights from the first day of the San Diego Ukulele Festival. As I mention in the commentary, it was an eclectic collection of musicians, a few of whom I have edited into this montage.

Be sure to watch to the end & hear Taimane Garnder. This weekend was my first exposure to Saturday’s headliner, and her performance was truly spine-tingling stuff.

Featuring: Taimane Gardner, Brittni Paiva, Ukulele Bartt, Derick Sebastian, Fred Thompson & Ukumania and Ercih Blasé and E-flat Trio.

San Diego 2012

I come to you today after flying back from a fantastic vacation in San Diego. I went there to attend the San Diego Ukulele Festival, of which I will have more to write about later. Tonight, set to the music of Julia Nunes on a CD I picked up from the artist herself, I bring to you the pre-show, wandering around the Ocean Beach & Point Loma area.

High Five!

And 'ere is m'share from the weekly Seasons of the Ukulele contest. This week, we were assigned to sing about coffee or tea.

9.10.12: Cats, Rain, Ukes and Football

I cleaned my apartment this morning. At 400 square feet, this is a pretty easy task. That took half an hour. What to do with the rest of my day off?

It rained last night and into this morning. First time it’s rained here in Seattle since early July. Yeah, we are rain city, but not so much in late summer. It’s supposed to be clear for the next week or two, but come October, we begin 9 months of gray and drizzle.  

The rain this morning really bothered my cat, Bliss. Over the last month or two, she has spent 23 hours and 45 minutes a day outside. At times, I’ve almost felt abandoned! She comes in to eat, maybe spends five minutes getting pet, and then voom!, she’s either back out the open window or begging me to open it. 

  This morning, she sat on the windowsill in front of the open window. Each drip falling was like a personal affront on her world. She stared out the window like she's lost her best friend. After ruminating and anthropomorphizing the emotions of my cat, what to do next? I had all day until Monday Night Football. 

Aha! Some family pictures. I gathered all my stringed instruments onto my bed and took pictures.
 

They are left to right:

• Fender accoustic guitar
• Nameless tourist soprano ukulele with “Hawaii” printed on it
• Lanikai baritone ukulele
• Lyon strat-clone electric guitar
• Nameless guitarlele picked up in grocery store parking lot
• Mainland soprano uke
• Oscar-Schmidt tenor ukulele
• Marshall accoustic guitar
• Wanguruwe, Hilo soprano uke

Another half an hour wasted. Hmm… Briefly entertained an idea where I would multi-track a video playing all nine of these instruments on the same song (that may still happen), made lunch and then took a nap.  

Waking up, I checked in at my company’s internal version of Facebook, a social networking site for my couple hundred thousand fellow employees. I posted this blog in the “Appliance Department” forum.  

Yeah, it’s sorta only relevant to people who sell home appliances for a living. 
 

I thought the juxtaposition of this ad with the FriendBurst logo on my homepage today was somewhat humorous…
 

Lastly, I made a random video. I haven’t been very prolific in video making this summer, but enough time has passed since I last made one of these, that I felt I could indulge in this semi-narcissitic taking advantage of my video editing software’s “auto create” function. Enjoy!
   
Now, to watch the Raiders and Chargers. I spent 8 years living in San Diego and 7 years living in Oakland… I have been both a Charger and a Raider fan in my life. I’m now a Seahawk fan. I have no idea who to root for!!! How was your day?

Feelin So Much Better I Could Cakewalk Into Town

As I’m sure is the same with many of my working class friends, we budget our expenses based upon a paycheck that comes every two weeks. The financial month is 28 days. The actual month is 31 days. Consequently, every so often, we get a “three paycheck month”… this is one of those for me. As of today, all my stringed instrument valuables are out of hock! Feels nice to have a Hell full of guitars and ukes again. 

Whilst I was waiting for my guitar to get out of the back, I spied a uke hanging on the wall. It was in absolutely NEW condition. Lanikai is respectable brand I had heard of. It came with a case!

“I’ll give you fifty bucks for it!”

That didn’t work. I ended up getting it for $65. No tax. 

   
I love it. It’s a beautiful uke. The case alone is worth $65.