Friday, November 28, 2008

First Video

The display is not fully complete, but enough to set it live, and take video. Here is "Siberian Sleigh Ride" by Trans-Siberian Orchestra.

Sunday, November 2, 2008

Got Some More Done

Got 3 more bushes done on Saturday. Got them done in between running tech for two plays. So as of 1:38 AM on Sunday, November 2, 2008:

Number of Christmas Lights Hung Today: 4,500
Number of Strobes Hung Today: 0
Number of Christmas Lights Up: 13,240
Number of Strobes Up: 32
Total Number of Lights Up: 13,272
Anticipated Number of Christmas Lights: 36,508
Anticipated Number of Strobes: 210
Anticipated Total Number of Lights: 36,718
Days Until Lightup: 25
Days Until Christmas: 53
Days Until Last Night For Lights: 59

Monday, October 27, 2008

And It Has Begun

The lights have started going up. I'm MUCH further ahead this year so far than I have ever been. There is a particular way that I usually do updates on blogs when I'm updating for Christmas display progress (though they are gone since the PC blogs went away, and then came back, and now I'm posting here instead).

As of Thursday, 10/23/08 (official start date)

Number of Christmas Lights Hung Today: 0
Number of Strobes Hung Today: 22
Number of Christmas Lights Up: 0
Number of Strobes Up: 22
Total Number of Lights Up: 22
Anticipated Number of Christmas Lights: 36, 508
Anticipated Number of Strobes: 210
Anticipated Total Number of Lights: 36,718

(there's more, but I'll put it at the official bottom of this post)


As of Saturday, 10/25/08:

Number of Christmas Lights Hung Today: 1,400
Number of Strobes Hung Today: 0
Number of Christmas Lights Up: 1,400
Number of Strobes Up: 22
Total Number of Lights Up: 1,422
Anticipated Number of Christmas Lights: 36,508
Anticipated Number of Strobes: 210
Anticipated Total Number of Lights: 36,718



As of Sunday, 10/26/08 (finally caught up):

Number of Christmas Lights Hung Today: 7,340
Number of Strobes Hung Today: 10
Number of Christmas Lights Up: 8,740
Number of Strobes Up: 32
Total Number of Lights Up: 8,772
Anticipated Number of Christmas Lights: 36,508
Anticipated Number of Strobes: 210
Anticipated Total Number of Lights: 36,718


As of 12:44 AM on Monday, October 27,2008:

Days Until Lightup: 31
Days Until Christmas: 59
Days Until Last Night For Lights: 65

Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Time Marches On

And it's the end of September, 2008. Posts will begin to look familiar from those of late last year. That's right. It's time for serious work to begin on Christmas lights.

As it stands right now, as of 1:27 AM on Tuesday, September 30, 2008:

Days Until Lights Start Going Up: 32

Days Until Lights On: 58

Days Until Christmas: 86

Last Night For Lights: 92

It won't be long. Oh, and last year there were 29,998 lights not including strobes. This year, I'm making damn sure that we top 30,000!

Friday, September 12, 2008

Something to Think About Today

Here's a nice quote to remember:

"Time lost can never be recovered, and this should be written in flaming letters everywhere."

Another thing to think about:

Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it.


I bring these two things up today for a reason. The quote at the top was spoken by Isaac Monroe Cline. Isaac was born in Tennessee, and passed away August 3, 1955 at the age of 93. Though he grew up on the farm, he became a meteorologist, and found his way to Galveston, Texas in the late 1800's. He was the one in charge there when on Saturday, September 8, 1900, a Category 4 Hurricane came roaring ashore just west of town. It started out a nice day. The ocean was large, but the sky was a beautiful shade. Even with warning of an impending storm, nobody left.

Right now, Friday, September 12, 2008, there is a very dangerous high-end Category 2 Hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico heading right for Galveston. At the very last minute, mandatory evacuations were issued for the island. We shall see how this turns out. We can only hope that it turns out better than 1900.

8,000 people were killed in the 1900 Hurricane. One of those killed was Isaac's wife, Cora. Isaac never remarried after that.

Saturday, September 6, 2008

And the Contest Results Are In

And the winner is...





Dad!


There's a reason he's smiling...he got the landfall point right!

Here I am, hanging my head, playing a sad song, because I lost.
Oh well. Off to bed for the night...it's been a long one. I'm going to Charleston to play music tomorrow! That will be fun. And I'll get to meet Joey's new baby girl.

Tropical Storm Hanna Makes Landfall

3:35 AM Saturday, September 6, 2008 now. Hanna has made landfall right on the SC/NC border. Here are radar grabs from landfall:


Time To Concede

It is 3:20 AM now, and though Hanna is not yet officially onshore, she is close enough for me to have to concede, and admit loss in the contest with dad on where she will make landfall. She is minutes away from landfalling, and is right at the SC/NC border.

Here are the graphics:

Wilmington:
Newport/Morehead City:
Wilmington Long Range:

A Snip From The 2:00 AM Advisory

AT 200 AM EDT...0600Z...THE CENTER OF TROPICAL STORM HANNA WASLOCATED JUST OFFSHORE NEAR LATITUDE 33.3 NORTH...LONGITUDE 78.8 WESTOR ABOUT 30 MILES...45 KM...SOUTH OF MYRTLE BEACH SOUTH CAROLINAAND ABOUT 60 MILES...95 KM...SOUTHWEST OF WILMINGTON NORTHCAROLINA.HANNA IS MOVING TOWARD THE NORTH-NORTHEAST NEAR 21 MPH...34 KM/HR. THIS MOTION IS EXPECTED TO CONTINUE DURING THE NEXT SEVERAL HOURSWITH A GRADUAL TURN TO THE NORTHEAST AND AN INCREASE IN FORWARDSPEED TODAY AND TOMORROW. ON THE FORECAST TRACK...THE CENTER OFHANNA WILL MAKE LANDFALL NEAR THE BORDER BETWEEN SOUTH CAROLINA ANDNORTH CAROLINA WITHIN THE NEXT COUPLE OF HOURS...THEN MOVE ACROSSEASTERN NORTH CAROLINA LATER THIS MORNING...ALONG THE MID-ATLANTICCOAST LATER TODAY AND TONIGHT....AND ALONG THE COAST OF THENORTHEASTERN UNITED STATES AND SOUTHEASTERN CANADA ON SUNDAY.



It appears as though Dad has won the contest. It will not be official until the center officially makes landfall, though.

1:30 AM Contest Update

Hello again. Tropical Storm Hanna continues to move. Thus, we will post another update to the Dad and Kenny Landfall contest. Since Hanna is continuing to move northward, another radar site has been added from the Morehead City area. It appears as though a very slight shift in movement has occured. Thus, it also appears that I may be in a bit of trouble contest-wise.


Charleston:

Wilmington:
Newport/Morehead:
Wilmington Long Range:

Another Hanna Update

It's time for another update. I've been watching the reports on WPDE news. About 10,000 people in Myrtle Beach are currently without power. There is a large tree down on 29th Avenue North. Also, several spots along the Grand Strand the surge (we just passed high tide, so it was even higher) has come up past the dunes and is flooding some of the lower areas of the back properties of hotels.

Another Update

Just received a phone call from my sister (she calls herself "Fondueprincess" for her blogging name) in Myrtle Beach. They just lost power down there.

The power has been flickering here for about the past 15 minutes, but so far we are still up and running.

Friday, September 5, 2008

Contest Update

OK. Here is the midnight update on how we are doing with the contest. Hanna continues to make her way toward the coast. Who's winning? So far, it's still up in the air. We'll find out more as the night progresses. Here are the current graphics depicting our landfall locations:


Charleston Map:
Wilmington Map:Wilmington Long Range:

No Upgrade

The 11:00 PM NHC advisory is in. No upgrade. We have a 70 mph Tropical Storm Hanna. She has a pressure of 978 mb. Wow! That is a LOW pressure for a Tropical Storm. They still have her moving north. She is moving more north now than she was earlier. Stand by for an update on the landfall contest.

The Contest is ON!

So dad and I were talking earlier tonight about the track and movement of Hanna. I was explaining to him that it was moving slightly west of due north, and further west than thought. I also told him that a couple of days ago, on my Facebook profile, I made a call for a landfall of a Hurricane between McClellanville and Georgetown. Dad is going with the NHC forecast of a SC/NC border or Brunswick County, NC landfall as a Tropical Storm.


We'll see. Here is a graphic of our thoughts and the current (as of this posting) center location:


More Radars

Want to track "Hurricane" Hanna through the Carolinas and beyond? Here are some local and long range radars that you can do that with. First I will post "Static Image" radars, then below them will be the animated radars. The long range only has animated available. I will post it at the top.

Click on the picture to get a larger image.

As Hanna moves north, I will post radars farther up the coast so her progress can be watched.

But for now...

Here's Hanna:

Wilmington Long Range Animated:






Inland Radars:


Robbins AFB, GA:


Static:


Animated:


Greer, SC:


Static:


Animated:


Columbia, SC:

Static:

Animated:


Raleigh/Durham, NC:

Static:

Animated:


Blacksburg, VA:

Static:
Animated:




Coastal Radars:

Charleston, SC:

Static:
Animated:



Wilmington, NC:

Static:

Animated:


Newport/Morehead, NC:

Static:
Animated:



Wakefield, VA:

Static:
Animated:

Hunters find a Hurricane

And just in time to MISS the 8:00 PM Advisory.

The Hurricane Hunters flying around in Hanna found a maximum surface sustained wind of 65 kts, which converts to 77.1 mph. This makes Hanna a Category 1 Hurricane. She will either be officially upgraded at the 11:00 PM advisory, or the NHC MIGHT issue a special advisory based on these findings. We will see.

Hanna in the Area

Here is a radar capture of Hanna in the Coastal Carolina area. She is currently a 70 MPH Tropical Storm on her way to landfall near the SC/NC border. She may still make it to minimal Category 1 Hurricane status before striking land. For reference, I'm located in Conway, SC, which is located inland up Highway 501 from Myrtle Beach, in Horry County.

Thursday, July 10, 2008

An Interesting Musical Mix

Have you ever heard a Mountain Dulcimer and a Saxophone played together?

I thought not.

I hadn't either, until May of 2007 (you guessed it, LEAF).



Expecting to spend the weekend in the tent alone (although with many friends very close by), I didn't expect to be playing as much music as I had hoped.

I ended up sharing the tent with a friend from Charleston (yep, it was Joey).

We were dancing one early afternoon, and had had enough, so we decided it was time to go play some music. We walked up to the tent, and I grabbed my dulcimer. Now very few things in life make me nervous, cute girls being the main culprit. But let me tell you, if you really want to see me melt into a puddle of shivering goo, whip out a saxophone.

That's just what Joey did. I expected him to pull out a drum, but instead, out came this large, brass, windblown contraption that sent fear unknown to man until that moment trembling through my body. It took a few minutes, but we worked up to where we knew where we were with each other key-wise. After figuring that out, I taught him how to play one of my favorite Old-Time tunes, a fun tune called "Sandy Boys." After that, he got me started on a Wild Asparagus tune called "Baghdad Gus," which I'm still working on perfecting to this day.

After a year of playing like this, we've decided it's time to hit the dance halls as a contra dance band. We'll be practicing as much as we can over the coming months, and if things go as we hope, we'll be starting to play dances toward the beginning of 2009, along with another friend of ours.

More on this story as it develops in the future. But I will say this...I'm not longer afraid of a saxophone. As a matter of fact, it's one of my favorite things to play with (along with Bart Saylor's Bouzouki).

See you at a dance hall soon.

Thursday, June 12, 2008

Something To Think About

A very astute observation that a co-worker made about a situation I found myself in after this past weekend (and it is correct on so many levels):

Ticks Suck

Thursday, June 5, 2008

LEAF 2008 (Spring)

OK, so I posted about it a while back. It's time for a report.


I left home about 11:00 Thursday, May 8, and headed up to Camp Rockmont, near Black Mountain, NC. This is located on Lake Eden, and is where the Lake Eden Arts Festival takes place.


I arrived up there around 5:00 and the wind it was a-blowin'! I was amazed. Last fall I set up the tent (a 10x13 monster compared to the 10x10 box that eventually flooded), in light drizzle. This time I set it up in winds sustained at about 15 (gusts up to 30). If I had to choose, I'd much rather set up in light rain and towel dry it when setup is complete than have to chase it across a field all afternoon!


But I did get it up, and got all the gear unloaded from the truck and tucked away not-so-neatly in the tent (who needs to be neat when you're camping).



Then it happened...











The skies opened up!






It dumped, and dumped, and dumped, and dumped, and dumped, and...(repeat ad nauseum).

So I got out the umbrella, and set off for the truck to go over to the Old Farmer's Ball.

The Old Farmer's Ball is the Thursday night contra dance that is held every week on the Warren Wilson College campus in the Bryson Gym.** This is where I first learned to contra dance in 2001, and though I don't get there very often (this was my first time in 3 years), I do love it there, and I have many good friends there. The caller that night was Beth Molaro, one of my favorites from my very beginnings of dancing, and the band was The Latter Day Lizards.

Back to the tent (still dumping, and dumping, and...well, you get the picture) for some sleep before the next morning.

I wake up (surprise...it's no longer dumping) to the feeling of something on my face. I open my eyes and notice that one of the rods that holds up the structure of the tent is leaning down periodically and brushing against my face. It was now...you guessed it...blowing, and blowing, and blowing, and blowing...

But it wouldn't stay that way all day. It only blew for about an hour after I woke up (about 9:00) and then the day gave way to excessive amounts of sun. Now most people who have been there recently have grown somewhat accustomed to rainy, cloudy LEAFs. So there were a few caught off guard with this anomally in the LEAFy weather department. As you've probably guessed since I brought it up, I was one of those that was caught off guard. By noon, I was well-done...cooked, fried, pretty much burned to a crisp. And this was only noon on Friday. I had the rest of Friday, and the rest of the weekend to go, and the entire event, almost, took place outside.

Around 11, my friend Joey from Charleston arrived with his crew. Joey, his girlfriend, and his guitar player's wife would be the people who were staying in my tent with me, and there were some others who camped in other tents very nearby.

4:30 came and up to the Brookside dance hall I ran. Had to catch the first dance of the day...Cis Hinkle with The Latter Day Lizards.

After that dance, I went outside for a bit to see if I could refry myself for an hour or so. Then it was back into Brookside for some swing with Big Sandy and his Fly Right Boys. Lots of fun there, and it gave way to the big contra dance of Friday night...Robert Cromartie with The Great Bear Trio.

Toward the end of the dance, people were reporting in the dance hall that it was raining outside. Lightning could occasionally be seen flashing through the skylights, and an occasional roll of thunder could be heard over the music and thundering feet in the building. The dance let out at around 12:15. The ground was wet. Over the mountain behind us, the sky was strobing with lightning. Over Lake Eden in front of us, it was the most clear, beautiful, star-lit sky that anyone could possibly ever dream of dreaming up. So the storm had passed. I went to the bathroom.




Then I came out and made a VERY startling discovery...




Even when it comes to meteorology, I do have the ability to occasionally be wrong.

This moment was one glaring example of that.

Looking over Lake Eden again, there was not a single star to be seen. The strobing effect was getting much more vivid, and the thunder claps from the storm were getting much louder and much closer. I realized, much to my disappointment, that the storm had not moved past and gone over the mountain, but was moving over the mountain and was about to dump its soul down upon the Lake Eden Arts Festival. I knew it was very close, and apparently moving quickly (starry sky to black death in the amount of time it takes a man to pee), so I started making my way briskly toward the campground, about 1/4 mile away.

But the gods would have none of it. I wasn't even completely down the woodchip path in front of Brookside when "WHOOSH." It was like I took a step and found myself under a waterfall. I was already half-drowned, and drowning more by the minute. But I had a long distance still to go. So I plodded along through the torrent, eventually making my way to the area of the Lakeside Stage, the main stage that is home to the biggest of the concerts at LEAF. The rain started to cover my glasses to the point where I could no longer see through them. This was getting dire. Up the hill I walked, struggling not to slide all the way back to the bottom with every step. And then the rain started flowing off my head and into my eyes. I made it up the hill alive, but the field atop would be a much more harrowing experience. The rainwater flowing into my eyes hurt. It burned. It clouded my vision beyond the cloudiness that already exists when I don't where glasses. So here I am walking in a deluge, through a field, filled with tents, which lay out an infinite number of trip lines. Only one of these several-hundred tents is mine. It's dark outside. And I'm literally walking blind.

Twenty minutes I wandered in the field. I walked slowly, trying to make my way onto the multi-purpose sport field they had set up for the frisbee throwers and other such people there. No such luck. I wandered instead to a point very near the parking area at the complete opposite end of the field (I know this because I could very vaguely make out headlights not-too-far in front of me...of the vehicular type). I turned left, and started down the edge of the campground. After a couple more minutes, I finally stumbled upon my tent. Upon entering, I (thankfully) found that Sarah (the guitar player's wife) had been the first back to the tent before it started raining, had zipped it up, and had gone to sleep. Joey, his girlfriend, and I, were all just getting back, and were all completely saturated and overly drowned (not really...we're all still very well alive, but we might as well have been as wet as we were). So we dried ourselves off in the darkness of the tent, changed into drier clothes, and went to bed for the night.




And it dumped, and dumped, and dumped, and dumped, and dumped...


And we woke up Saturday morning and it was so excessively bright with sunshine that one could hardly remember that there was even a hint of clouds the night before. So I set about once again refrying myself. I was bound and determined to see just how extra crispy this little chicken could get. Secret herbs and spices were being gathered in anticipation of great meals from "Kentucky Fried Kenny."

I didn't need much more sun. I had had enough of it already. So I went for a hike up the mountain, and got more sun. But it was well worth it. I had been on this mountain hiking before, but never had I gone as far as the crew pushed today. We went WAY up the mountain, about 3 times as far as I had gone in the past, and it was a strenuous climb. We were on the mountain most of the day. We got up to a rock face that situated itself so that it overlooked the town of Swannanoa along Highway 70 and the Swannanoa River, and sat there for about an hour. We enjoyed snacks, talked, laughed, took pictures. It was a great time. When we got back down, there was some time before the next dance (quite a bit of time), so I found myself with my friend Bart Saylor under the Lakeside Tent listening to an Irish band called Buille (pronounced Bwilluh). Three people, piano, guitar, and concertina. Buille is one of my new favorite bands, and I bought one of their CDs while there. Then it was off to burn some more.

Then night fell, and back up to Brookside I went. The night began with Cis Hinkle and The Great Bear Trio, and ended with Robert Cromartie and The Latter Day Lizards. GREAT dancing, and I danced every dance.

It did rain Saturday night, but it waited until after I was sound asleep to start. So no major dumping took place on my time. But Sunday was (finally, for I was about to set myself ablaze at this point) a VERY cloudy, foggy, drizzly, overcast day. I didn't do much today. Just walked around a bit, listened to a couple of bands. Did a couple of dances during the contra periods (same callers, same bands...Cis and Lizards, Robert and Bears), and I took some video of the dancing Sunday as well.

Taking down the tent was very easy...the wind picked up again as it was breakdown time, and there were some tents that went flying (I forgot to mention earlier that Friday morning, at least two tents were blown into the lake by the high winds). But we were packed up and on the road home by 5.

I pulled into the driveway at just after 11:00 PM on Sunday, May 11, Mothers Day. It was a great trip. Spring LEAF 2008 was a memory, and it was time to begin looking forward to Fall LEAF 2008 which is coming our way in October.

Here are some pictures that I took at LEAF this spring (most on Saturday during the hike) More pictures to come in a later post:






























**As of May 22, The Old Farmer's Ball is being held at Morris Pavilion at Warren Wilson College. On that date around 5:30 pm, about 1/3 of the roof of Bryson collapsed. The building has been condemned, and the north entrance to the college is being rerouted down the hill around where the nurses building is located.