Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Memory Flash - "Every Breath You Take"

So, apparently from reading this site, you are familiar with the fact that music is an important part of our family. Most of us associate music with the good and bad times in our lives. On occasion, a song comes on the radio and I just rock to the song. Sometimes though, it sparks a memory.

Today was one such day where listening to a song, a flashback happened and I thought I would share.

The song "Every Breath You Take" by the Police was playing on Jack FM. All of a sudden I had a flash back to when I was 10 years old. We had a step-father that was an avid bowler. He played in winter leagues all the time. This particular memory happened at a bowling alley, Delton Lanes to be exact.

Anyway, while Stan would bowl, us kids pretty much had the run of the place. We wouldn't sit and watch bowling (boooooriiinngggg) so we would run around, play video games, and munch on whatever we could buy with the money we begged off mom (usually fries or candy.)

At Delton, they had a room with a bunch of pool tables. This was our playground for the most part. If people were playing pool, we generally stayed away but if no one was over there, fun times were to be had. Sometimes the lights were off which made it even more fun to play a game of hide-and-seek or something similar. Mostly it was Tracy and I but occasionally, there were other kids who suffered from the same lack of wanting to watch as their parents bowled.

So, just wanted to share. Those times were always fun. As kids, we could find ways to entertain ourselves. Especially when there were other kids our age to hang out with.

Its funny how different things will spark a memory.

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Quick Blog - Song of the Day - August 26, 2008

I started a Chinese class today. It is going to be tough, but what foreign language isn't tough to learn. It was fun and the instructor is a little Chinese woman and she is pretty dang funny. I'll let you know how it is going here and there.

So for the Song of the Day today I'm going to pick a good one from Garth Brooks. The song, Friends in Low Places. If you haven't heard this song, you are either completely against country music, and I know there are a few out there like that, or you have been on a distant planet. If it is the latter, let me know, I have questions. That is one of his best songs. If you don't like country music, this one is worth a listening to because it is pretty good. It's not available on iTunes, but if you go to Walmart they have all sorts of Garth music in a box set.

Monday, August 25, 2008

Song of the Day - August 25 2008

Today has been a Monday for sure. I'm usually a pretty big fan of this first work day in the week, but today has been a bust. The reason I say that is that I usually use music to get me out of the crap of these types of days. Today that has been difficult, why you ask, because all I'm getting on the shuffle is the slow songs in the library. Like right now One More Night by Phil Collins is playing, not the SotD by the way, and that's how it's been all day. Slow song after slow song, hard to get in a rhythm that isn't going to put me to sleep with this slow stuff playing all day, so here goes, the random SotD selection by hitting next until something hits that...ohhh string. BTW, the song on now is Arthur's Theme by Christopher Cross, see what I mean.

Here is the next few songs that play in order:
Breakaway - Kelly Clarkson: great song, could be a song of the day, but again slow
Orinoco Flow - Enya: wow, this song is actually the most upbeat song I think I've heard all day. Good song, not SotD quality for today.
Walking After Midnight - Garth Brooks: This is some of his old stuff and that isn't always the most exciting song. This song is too twangy to ever be the SotD.
Adagio sostenuto from "Moonlight Sonata" - Dubravka Tomsic: Snoozer, it is getting rid of the headache a little.
Eensie Weensie Spider - Inside Out: Good song, fun beat, we may have a winner. If you haven't heard of Inside Out, they are a local acapella group similar to Voice Male. They do a lot of LDS music that is a lot of fun to listen to. This song is just a hip-hop version of the childrens favorite. Let's try one more.
The Dance - Garth Brooks: This is one of Garth's best songs. Older but not twangy. It has a great meaning behind it too.

I could go on all day but I'll spare you all the details and give you a SotD, after about 10 or so clicks through the library I've landed on a good one. Today's song of the Day is a classic. Yellow Submarine by none other than The Beatles. You can't this actual song off iTunes but there are a lot of covers for there. Hopefully tomorrow will be a better day.

Just so you know the song that is playing now, is Questions by Jack Johnson. I'm going to need to restart the cycle and hope for more upbeat songs.

Serious topic... Sorry T.

So, Tracy tries to keep this blog on the lighter side and limit the serious topics but I just can't resist. There is a topic that I think needs to be addressed. It has been something that has been going on since the 80's but may have been sparked from previous times. I'm talking about the Cola Wars.

Now, I know there are many differing opinions on which is better, Pepsi or Coke. Unfortunately, many people are under the impression that they are on equal footing in quality. While they both technically qualify as colas, Pepsi by far is much better than Coke.

I know that previous statement may create a bunch of arguments, and that is fine. Those that like Coke are entitled to their own opinion. Me, I like to stick with the facts and the fact is that Pepsi is better in quality and taste far above that of Coke. So, those of you still under the delusion that Coke is better than Pepsi, should really think about seeking professional help.

While the facts may be painful, they can be consoled by an ice cold Pepsi from your local convenience store.

The New Season Approaches

Good morning reader...I've decided to compile a list of my favorite shows and give you the heads up on when the new season starts for each so here it goes.


  • NBC

    • Chuck - Monday, September 29th @ 7

    • Life - Monday, September 29th @ 9

    • The Office - Thursday, September 25th @ 8 (hour long episode)

    • A new show called Cursoe that looks pretty good, October 17 (I don't know what time it's at but it's a 2 hour premire)



  • Fox

    • Bones - Wednesday, September 3rd @ 7

    • House - Tuesday, September 16 @ 7




So there you have it. Those are the shows that I like and will either watch or DVR them so I can stay up to date. Have a great day.

Friday, August 22, 2008

Song of the Day - August 22, 2008

So I've decided to keep track of the Song of the Day in my iTunes library so that I will maybe have a reminder to do it. Ok...on to why you, Chels, are reading, to see what the song of the day is. Today's is a short song in that it is only 2 minutes and 15 seconds long. It took a while for me to buy this song because I didn't want to pay a buck for a 2 minute song. Well this one is pretty good so I finally did it.

Today's Song of the Day is The Way I Am by Ingrid Michaelson. It's a pretty catchy tune. She did a little remix for this song it's pretty cool as well. Here is the video from the remix on the Bob and Tom Show...

Thursday, August 21, 2008

Song of the Day - August 21, 2008

I decided that it was time to bring back one of my favorite things in blogging and that is the Song of the Day. While I know that this will be sporadic and more like song of the every other day or song of the week/month/year, bear with me. Work is really hectic right now and I stay busy all day for the most part and when I'm not totally busy on work, I'm thinking about what I need to do next because of the size of the task in front of me. That is a story for another day, the story for now is the Song of the Day.

So for the Song of the Day today, I'm going to have to go with one that I just bought off iTunes that was finally made available, well iTunes say it was available since Feb. of this year, but I didn't find it until last week. The song is Step by Step by Eddie Rabbitt. I made mention of it in my I Love Music entry from last Thursday. I'm still trying to put my finger on why I like this song so much, but it's a good old song. So if you have an extra dollar lying around in your iTunes account, dl it and enjoy.

Deciding to Blog

So I am sitting here late on a Thursday night watching my wife's computer run through a virus scan and so I decided it was a good time to blog. She's been having all these pop ups happen here and there through out the day. I found a weird looking entry in the processes of the computer and found where they were in the Windows directory structure. I thought I had it all cleaned and then today it happened all over again, so I'm sitting here trying something different. Computers can be touchy things.

There are a few things that I started to do, but seemed to get interrupted or just decided not to do those and finally blogging won out.

The full scan on the computer is almost done and so I will be heading to bed soon. But until then, I will sit and write in this blog. Actually, I think I'm done for now. I think that my readership has gone way, way down, from like 4 people to 1 which is a pretty significant cut in readership. If I was a newspaper I'd be shut down, lucky for all 1 of you, I get to keep writing. One of these days I may even say something worthwhile. And I should emphasize the one of these days a little more...basically don't hold your breath.

Thursday, August 14, 2008

I Love Music

So I really love to listen to music and I get in moods for certain songs. That's why I love iTunes as well. So when I get in the mood for a certain song that I want to hear I head to iTunes to see if it is available to buy if I don't already own it. I own a good selection of music. Some of the songs aren't always there. For example, I like the Beach Boys album Still Crusin'. It is a cool album and I had it on cassette tape a long time ago. I started searching for it quite a while ago and then found it on iTunes when they made it available. That was a while ago. I also love songs that remind me of the good times of my past. One of those songs is called Step by Step by Eddie Rabbitt.

Let me give you some background...when I was younger my mom bought this killer stereo system. It had these nice speakers that had a reset button on the back so you could crank it up pretty loud and if it got to be too much, before the speaker would blow it would flick this reset switch and would turn off the speaker. You would simply have to hit the reset button, turn the stereo down just a notch and then you were back to jammin' to your favorite tunes. It was awesome. I guess not completely awesome because my mom would take advantage of this with Whitney Houston early Saturday mornings, like when we were all trying to sleep in. Whitney Houston is not fun to wake up to, horrible nightmares. Anyway, we'd get playin' in the front yard with this radio turned way up so that the neighbors could jam a little too and we'd just have a good time. We'd go in to change tapes and then keep going with our good ol time. A couple of the groups we would listen too were Air Supply, Whitney, Eddie Rabbitt, Alan Parsons Project, and Pablo Cruise once in a while. And there were a couple other ones that I can't remember. But all in all it was a good time. I think that is the reason that I love music so much because of what I can remember from my past, a lot of it had to do with good music and fun. B and Nic, if you can remember any of the groups we used to listen to, let me know.