Category: Music

Jun 16, 2011

Happy Birthday IBM.

Today IBM celebrated its 100 year birthday.  And I’ve been there for 20 of them (!).  All of the IBM sites held centennial celebrations.  At the Austin town hall meeting we were treated to a live performance of the original IBM rally song “Ever Onward”  – from the days when companies had rally songs 🙂

Monte and 4 other IBMers performed.  Nice job guys.

After work we headed out to the lake to step the mast (yay!).   Hard to believe we took the rig down just about 8 months ago.  Wow.   We had lots of great help from Marty, Joe, Kurt, Robert and Wiz.   We backed Dancer out of its slip and used the halyards from Prelude and Allegro to raise the mast up into the air over Kurt’s slip.  Then we moved Cupholder under the mast and lowered it into place.  It was over in no time!  I do love being on B-dock, we can do anything we set our minds to 🙂     Here is a shot of the mast being hoisted:

Mast raising.

Next, bending on the sail and then going for a SAIL!

Mar 8, 2011

Happy 1st blogoversary!

Today is the 1 year anniversary of my starting this blog.   To mark the occasion, I made a collage using all 365 of the moments that I’ve posted here.

I can recall taking each one.   🙂

I started this in early March last year, in time to capture the signs of Spring, and into the Summer as things began to warm up and as we spend so much time on the lake… then through the changes in Fall and Winter when we spend more of our time on projects and playing with friends on land.  I’ve come full circle, and am looking forward all the moments from the coming year.

Happy Mardi Gras!   and  HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Lori and to Mary!

Mar 7, 2011

Day #365!!!

Today’s post makes the 365th moment that I have shared with you.  This is a shot of one of the geraniums I planted yesterday that I took today during a break between conference calls.

I’m very pleased that I have stuck with this post-a-photo-per-day-for-a-year project.  There were some days that I found it difficult to see something worth sharing.   But I have to say that most days I looked forward to toting my camera around with me, and was usually pleased to find a moment that was either a photo that I liked or at least made for a nice story to share.

Wow, a year.   365 moments.   It goes by fast.

I look forward to keeping my blog going.  I don’t know that I will be posting something every day, but I am definitely looking forward to posting more moments worth sharing.

A colleague of mine passed away over the weekend after a fight with cancer.  He was only 51.

I can only hope that you all have many more years left on this earth to share with your friends and family.   But since we never know when our time will be up, we have to take the time to enjoy and be thankful for each and every day that we get to spend with them.   I have done that for a year.   And I hope to from here on out…

Dec 25, 2010

Bells will be ringing.

Merry Christmas!!!

This song has been going through my head so I thought I’d share it with you…The Eagles cover of Charles Brown’s Please Come Home for Christmas…no video on this youtube link, just audio.

Nov 30, 2010

Pretty

It’s that time of year – my Christmas music book has made it’s way to the top of the music stand.

And it is open to this song.   I really love playing this one.   But, in looking at this just now, I realize that it’s not really a Christmas carol.  Or maybe it is, because it’s basically about Mary, who was front and center on the big day.

Here’s a youtubelink if you would like to enjoy it.   Note that I know I will never be able to play it like this… I don’t even have a big-kid music book.  But a girl can dream, right?

 

 

Nov 5, 2010

Wheel-y cool

Friday!

We bought last minute tickets to see the 40th anniversary show that Asleep at the Wheel played at the Long Center tonight.   The show was put on in partnership with the Austin Lyric Opera.   The stage setting was for the La Traviatta show that is starting tomorrow night, but it made for a cool backdrop.   When Ray Benson opened the show he said they’d turn the grand old opera into the grand ole opry for the night.

They played for almost 4 hours!

They kept bringing onstage more and more musicians that had played with the band over the years – they had 4 horns, 4 or 5 pedal steel, 2 pianos, 6 fiddles, …    Lots of great old swing sound.

Towards the end, Willie came out and played with the Wheel.

It was a great way to kick off the weekend.

This is a shot across Town Lake taken from the Long Center.

Austin skyline.

Oct 19, 2010

Side 2

Tuesday night.  I’ve got my first batch of lentil soup of the season on the stove.  Monte was playing the piano and now has queued up the vinyl.

Dave Brubeck, Greatest Hits, Side 2.  Old school.

Life is good.

Sep 8, 2010

Albert & Gage

Tonight is Julie’s last night in town.   We went downtown for some music.   I heard Christine Albert was playing at Artz Rib House, so we went there to catch her show.  Turns out her husband Chris Gage was filling in for one of her other musicians so we were treated to Albert & Gage.  We really enjoyed the show — they’re one of my favorites.

After that we hit the Broken Spoke, cruised around South Congress and ended up on Sixth Street again before heading home.

Aug 29, 2010

KUT

Spent the day trying to make headway on the work-front.  I had the local public radio station, KUT FM 90.5, playing in the background to keep me company.   An Austin staple — lots of great, homegrown music and regular radio programs.  Check out their live stream here.

Aug 10, 2010

Oh Danny boy

Even though it sits right next to the chair in my office, it’s been a long time since I’ve picked up and played my guitar.  I took a few minutes today to tune it, and play a few songs.

Today is my Dad’s birthday.   He would have turned 80 today.   Well, actually, August 10th is the day we thought was his birthday for the first 70 or so years of his life.    Some discovery of paperwork a few years back  indicated his birthday was really August 4th.  But having been born in a rural Ireland county back in the day, there might have been a delay in his birth actually being recorded.

ANYway.   This is the day I still think of as his birthday.   And so, whereever you are Dad, slainte!

P.s. I played Danny Boy for you.  Hope you enjoyed it.

May 5, 2010

Tick tock

You know the song “Time Passages” by Al Stewart?   For some reason it’s been playing in my head for the last day or two.     I’ve been on conference calls all morning.    And it’s still playing!    So, when I went to the kitchen to forage for some lunch, I caught a glimpse of the clock and the pendulum and well, thought I’d get a shot of this to go with the song in my head.

If you’d like to hear it, too, here is a youtube link.

….years go falling in the fading light, ooooh, time passages……do-do-di-do…..

Apr 12, 2010

Loading tunes

Well, suffice to say that some days provide more exciting moments than others.   Today is Monday.   Kind of a dreary one.    I took a moment this morning to load up some new ammunition for the next iPod wars opportunity that presents itself.

Apr 4, 2010

Old Rugged Cross

Happy Easter!  We had another great weekend.   This one was spent working on the yard.    Lots of brush and yard bags at the curb to show for it.   We’ll be sore tomorrow, I’m sure.

One of Monte’s dad’s favorite songs to sing was The Old Rugged Cross.  He sat down to play that and a few other tunes for Easter from his Broadman hymnal.   Very nice.