New Year's Eve Day 2011

Enjoyed 36 baskets of frisbee or disc golf today! Weather was in the mid 40s, cloudy in the morning and lots of sun in the afternoon. Great day to be throwing discs!

Came across this well edited video of disc golf in Tulsa, OK.

Lots of fine syncing the music with disc shots!

May 2012 be best year for everyone yet!

Maria Popova and Brainpickings.oth

I was reading an interview in Mother Jones today with Maria Popova and her blog brainpickings.org which really intrigued me. It answered some questions I had about this whole blogging experience. Mainly what it answered was that whether or not I should blog about one topic or many. As I read the interview the thought came to mind that I shouldn't be so concerned about having a tight focus to my blog as life is too complex and too varied to tightly focus. Maria talks about curatorial journalism and, to put it into my terms, it's a form of journalism that journals interesting subjects, articles, etc., into one space. It seems to me to be a very individual and, perhaps, best approach towards this blog of mine as I find many different and diverse subjects and things interesting. One such subject is book art and a short PBS vid on book art, Off Book, was one of brainpickings.org's articles.

Donald In Mathmagic Land

Today is the first time I ever heard of this.
Where was this video when I was in grade school struggling with math?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oT_Bxgah9zc

Hang it all!

Probably never get writing on this blog in every day like I'd like. Just got to be happy with what I can post and keep trying to get better.

A friend, Lisa Davis, shared her blog with me. Didn't know she tied flys! A great read!! http://strip-n-twitch.blogspot.com/

Been on to the Pogues lately.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mn18kl29F6w&feature=related

There's not enough hours in a day or days in a life to do all one wants to do!
I shouldn't be bored, eh?

Thoughts

It's been too long and I haven't built this discipline of writing something every day.

Katie Henderson learns a fiddle tune a day and posts a video of it to a blog (http://newtuneaday.blogspot.com/) and YouTube. Awesome fiddler and talent!

Raking leaves to the curb for the city to pick put me to thinking about how we've managed to pollute our atmosphere so much that folks have breathing disorders and other maladies related to that. Now, because of that a part of fall, the smell of burning leaves, is banned in some communities. Also, with the noise made by leaf blowers, those that are too loud cause some communities to create a ban on them, too. Leaf blower manufacturers are responding to that by building blowers that stay under a certain decibel level. That's a good thing.

Sunday, October 2, 2011

A week ago Saturday night The Hangfire Stringband played a barndance for Homewood E-Free's Church's Fall Festival. This takes place annually at the Urick Farm in Illinois. It's a great evening with very enthusiastic dancers dancing barndances in the Urick's barn that was built back in the 1800s. The clip shows about two or three minutes of the dancers dancing a Virginia Reel. It's such a long set - this reel lasted about 20 minutes - that it spilled outside the barn! What a kick! Thanks to Kathy Rexroat for videotaping this.

The Hangfire Stringband consists of Pat Walke on 5-string banjo, Mike Mumm on autoharp, jew's harp, and dance calls, and I'm fiddling. We played Forky (Forked) Deer for this reel. Couldn't find my way to another tune.

Saturday, Sept 24, 2011

Arrived home from Delaware early Friday afternoon. Had the Audio book, Life, by Keith Richards. Quite a work! Renewed an interest in The Rolling Stones. A definite worthwhile read/listen that provides an incredible insight into the world of Rock 'n' Roll through this citizen of the world's life.

Tuesday Sept. 20, 2011

Visited an Atlantic Ocean beach today. Watching the surf crashing on the shore is addictive.

September 18th, 2011

Cloudy weather out here in Delaware today. Recorded about four tunes in Garageband for Josh. Got to start doing more of that at home. Make myself learn the software. Being able to record with a metronome and listen back to the recording really makes practicing more exciting, challenging and humbling.

Saturday, September 17, 2011

In Frederica, DE visitng Josh and Brandye. Weather is cloudy and drizzly. Fall came to Delaware on Thursday afternoon. Prior to that the temps were in the 80s. Now in the 70s. Very pleasant temperatures but the drizzle not conducive to sightseeing. Not so bad though as it does afford one the ability to sit and do nothing but enjoy each other's company, draw, paint, play music, read, etc. Pretty relaxed time.

Yesterday afternoon went to UDel and spent the afternoon in the printmaking lab where Josh had monitor duties to provide student's assistance as needed. Made a series of four prints based (from memory) on the photo to the side of Wild Cat Creek. Plans are for it to be a mixed media in nature when completed. Quite a lot of fun as I've never explored screenprinting. (Image shown above is the raw print.)

Kath drew a feather using graphite. It appears to be a hawk or turkey feather. She placed a nice drop shadow to it. (Image shown above.) She does very nice work. Hopefully, she'll do much more.

What if...

...nobody voted in an election?

Is there a default back to the incumbent office holder?

Summer's Departure

Lows were in the 50s, I'm guessing, as the temp here was 60 at 7:15 in the morning. Took Jacques and walked a mile at the park and gave him a chance to clean out his system and get smells. Looks to be a beautiful day and week to come. Green acorns falling all around. Time to plant some greens soon for fall harvest. Hope to get a cold frame together to extend the growing season. First really good rain we've had in a while took place yesterday.

Getting At It...

Not being one for making resolutions at New Year's I am making an attempt to build a new discipline of blogging on a daily basis. This is the result of browsing through a magazine called Artful Blogging and, specifically, an article about a blogging artist Pam Carriker.

With that, and other article inspirations, I'm making an attempt to start a daily practice of not just blogging but practicing art. Today's art is a YouTube recording of a fiddle tune, Mississippi Palisades, by Chirps Smith that was the January Tune of the Month for the Taterbugmando mandolin online community, a community of mandolin enthusiasts interested in learning new tunes with the group moderated by Mike Compton.

Again, it's been awhile...

Formerly, this blog was titled, "Joe's IDT 516 Journal." Having graduated with a Masters of Science degree in Instructional Design and Technology, this title is no longer appropriate.

Speaking with a friend I've not seen in awhile, a visit to Borders and perusing a magazine, Artful Blogging, put me in a mood to start blogging. More importantly, to stick with it this time as a personal goal. It may contain more than just brief words. Hopefully, there will be such things as digital or scanned artwork, photos, and music.