All posts filed under: Random DJB Thoughts

Acoustic Music Old and New

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Airline travel has its occasional benefits. Earlier this week I had a trip to Boston booked on Jet Blue Airlines.  When I sat down in the seat, I glanced at the arm rest and thought, “Hot dog – Jet Blue is the airline with free XM radio!”  I whipped out my ear buds and settled in for 90 minutes of the XM station Bluegrass Junction. I love to listen to my own iPod playlist, but it also great fun to settle in to an airline seat or a rental car to catch XM radio’s bluegrass station.  Every time that happens I always end up hearing some great new music, and my Boston trip was no exception. On one leg of the trip, the station was featuring one of its staples:  a program entitled Track By Track where the DJ plays a full album by a featured artist who provides commentary along the way.  This week’s show featured the new Compass Records album Somewhere South of Crazy by the Southern songbird Dale Ann Bradley. Now I’ve …

Lowering the ole’ blood pressure

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We’ve had a great deal of focus on doctors and health in our family over the past two months.  I’ll spare you the details.  But in recent weeks, I’ve taken to wondering if I should ask the doctors taking care of my wife to give me a blood pressure test while they’re handy. The knowledge that Candice was the focus of these visits kept me from going that far, but I have taken to sticking my arm into the testing machine at the local pharmacy, just to keep tabs. Blood pressure isn’t something I’ve had to worry about very much.  When I go in for physicals, the nurse will generally take my blood pressure, look at me, and say something like, “You’ve got terrific blood pressure.”  While not the picture of health, I’ve always been pleased I could rely on that number to turn out right where it should be. Candice, however, has begun to worry about my stress levels…adding to my worries that she’s now worrying.  And when I took a test at Rite …

World Series Game - October 25, 2019

Church of baseball: Part three

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This post…to follow-on the last two and last evening’s crazy night of baseball…will be even shorter. Joe Posnanski wrote one of the best columns about last evening’s games, baseball and life, that I’ve read in a long time.  Do yourself a favor — pull up a chair and read it.* It begins with this thought: “Baseball, like life, revolves around anticlimax. That, in many ways, is the beauty of it. I realize that’s a hard thing to explain to someone who doesn’t love baseball. No, more than hard, it’s an impossible thing to explain, because many people want sports to be more than life. They follow sports to jolt them out of the steady rhythms of the shriek of alarm clocks, the monotony of morning meetings, the rush to get the kids to soccer practice by 4 p.m. They want sports to be bigger than life. What’s the point, otherwise? There is nothing in baseball as jarring as a blind-side hit, as jaw-dropping as a perfect alley-oop, as tense and heart-pounding as a breakaway. And …

Church of Baseball – Part Two

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The River Styx and one chance in 278 million.  Baseball writers are amazing, but they go to a whole ‘nother level when you have nights like last evening. The baseball gods must have loved my last post, because we were all rewarded with the most improbable and dramatic final day of the season.  It was so incredible even Bud Selig couldn’t screw it up.  Three of the four games critical to the wild card races in each league were on our local cable system – conveniently located on channels 41, 42, and 43.  The only one we couldn’t watch was the least dramatic:  the Cards drubbing of the Astros.  But for five delicious hours, Candice and I sat by the television, switching between games almost on a pitch-by-pitch basis in the last two hours, to watch the monumental collapse of not one, but two proud franchises (Boston and Atlanta), and the incredible comeback of the Tampa Bay Rays from too many near-death experiences to count. Baseball writers will opine about this evening for some time …

The Church of Baseball

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“I believe in the Church of Baseball.” So begins Annie Savoy’s opening monologue in the movie Bull Durham.  And after going through all the religions she has tried, comparing baseball to sex, and talking about bad trades (“Who can forget Frank Robinson for Milt Pappas for God’s sake”) she ends up with: It’s a long season and you gotta trust. I’ve tried ’em all, I really have, and the only church that truly feeds the soul, day in, day out, is the Church of Baseball. Today I needed the Church of Baseball, and it didn’t fail me.  Oh, I did get up and go to the 8 a.m. service at my other church…especially since we were meeting our new rector after an interminable period of transition.  But I’ll freely admit that I went to the cathedral at Nationals Park today to feed the soul. The Nationals have been on a tear.  Heading in to the home finale, they had won 11 of 14, including sweeps on the road of the Mets and the Phillies.  Tom …

So How Did Your Summer Go?

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Shortly after Memorial Day I wrote a post entitled Got Plans for the Summer? where I outlined ten things I hoped to accomplish during the Summer of 2011.  Well, Labor Day is here – and we’ve reached the moment of reckoning. While I was not a perfect ten-for-ten, I can explain. 1.  Play more music with friends – It is bad when you come up short right out of the box, but this was one item where I failed miserably.  We had a very busy summer, and this one just got away from me.  Luckily, playing music with friends isn’t bound by season…so I’ll try and schedule some fall play dates. 2.  Summer in New England – Technically, this was completed.  I did spend two days in Portland, Maine in early June and I’ve just spent 8 days in New England…but it wasn’t the vacation we planned.  To cut to the chase, Candice fell when we came here to Providence to drop Andrew off at school and she’s been in the hospital this week dealing …

Say Something Nice

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Greater Greater Washington is one of the best blogs in – and about – the DC region.  Andrew turned me on to them as he became interested in urban studies, and I check them out every day because I know they’ll have something smart to say.  Topics can range from why Amtrak tickets cost more than the Bolt and Mega bus services, to issues around design, planning, and historic preservation. Yesterday, GGW founder David Alpert posted a video and short piece entitled Ask, and people will say something nice.  As Alpert notes, little touches can make a difference in how people feel about urban spaces.  This little touch is from New York City, and it reminded me of our experience last March (see photo below) as we chanced upon a piano player in Greenwich Village.  The video is a fun way to spend three minutes of your time and  I’ve reposted it below.  Enjoy. More to come… DJB

The (Musical) Circle Never Ends

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This is a post about music.  But it begins with swimming. Earlier this summer, I wrote that I was going to savor the last swim team season.  And I did just that, up to and including adding an extra meet onto the calendar to watch Andrew and his relay mates set a new team record in the All-Star meet.  We were thrilled he got to compete in that best-of-the-best meet in a hotbed of swimming! But this past Saturday got off to a great start, helped by the fact that I didn’t have to be at the pool at 7 a.m. for the first time this summer! So here are a few remembrances from a nice summer weekend that kept bringing thoughts (and connections) back to music. Candice and I were at the local farmer’s market on Saturday, looking to get some great Evensong Farm eggs from our friend Julie.  (Quick aside:  I didn’t realize how tasteless store-bought eggs are until we missed our Evensong eggs for six straight weeks!)  Julie’s father is bluegrass bass …

Our gator era ends

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If you just want to watch Andrew singing the National Anthem, cut straight to the video at the end of the post. For those still with me, I promise I won’t be long (or maudlin).  But this week we’re wrapping up our time as Gator swim team members and parents, and it really is the end of an era in our family. Last Saturday was the final home meet of the season as well as “senior day” — so Andrew and Claire were recognized on multiple occasions.  A few pictures from the halftime ceremony can be found at the end of the video — although we look pretty wiped out in them.  (Quick aside:  Candice just yelled down, “Oh no, you put those pictures on there!”  Yep.  They were part of the video which was prepared by another parent.) Then this past Wednesday, we all went over to the home of the team rep for a party honoring “departing parents.”  Just glad it wasn’t “departed parents!”  It was great fun, and we were recognized for …

Passages 2

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Two weeks ago I wrote that life has a way of reminding us of the passages that await.  Over the past four days – in the midst of Claire’s beach week to celebrate graduation, travel, and planning for summer fun – life reminded us again of how fragile it really is. Reach out and tell a family member you love them.  Connect with a friend today. On Wednesday, Claire called as I was preparing to head to Tucson, to let me know that three friends in her class had been hit by an automobile while crossing the street at the beach.  Two were banged up with cuts and bruises, while the third had multiple fractures and was airlifted to a larger regional hospital, where she underwent surgery.  Everyone will be okay, but the impact one second can have on life was clear. The worse news came yesterday:  a call at dinner saying that a colleague and friend, who once worked as my executive assistant, had passed away unexpectedly after  complications from surgery.  Susan was 38 …