Monday, May 31, 2004
It was a dark and stormy night . . .
No really, it was. A thin but intense line of severe thunderstorms abraded its way across the nations mid-section last night. We could hear it coming long before it hit as it rumbled along the cumberland plateau, through the Sequatchie Valley, and then over Signal Mountain where I live.I'm not really afraid of storms, but having been in a neighborhood destroying tornado at the home of my grandparents in Jonesboro Arkansas in 1972, I take tornado warnings seriously. The images of damage from that childhood storm are still vivid. I remember staring in awe at an entire roof of a home resting in the yard and driveway of another home a block behind us. The corner of the roof had skidded to a stop under the carport, wedging a truck up against the ceiling. The storm had pulled the roof off in one piece and thrown a block away like a frisbee. We were fortunate that only the windows and shingles were destroyed in my grandparents home.
Storm prediction is reasonably accurate these days so I keep an eye on news reports in case I need to rustle everyone into the basement. As last night's storm rolled over our house I heard nothing but thunder, rain and small tree limbs clanging as they landed on the roof of our sun-room. A quick survey of the yard this morning reveals no serious damage.
As the storm passed into the Chattanooga Valley they experienced quite a few downed trees in 50-mph winds and hail.
I was glad the severe weather held off for most of the weekend. I street performed Saturday and Sunday at the Tennessee Aquarium. It was great to be outside playing again and I got to try out my new portable hammer dulcimer which was a hit! I need a name for this thing, portable hammer dulcimer just doesn't do it for me. Any suggestions? Put them in the guest book please.
Thursday, May 27, 2004
Alfie Visit
Alfreda and I spent a few hours in my studio today putting the finishing touches on her new CD project. It is 54 minutes of exciting work and she only has to complete the artwork before it will be ready for pressing. Congratulations Alfie, you should be proud!It was great to finally meet Malcom, Alfreda's nephew. He's an polite and engaging young man with a great smile. He had a good time swimming while Alfreda and I worked.
High Stepping
My street performing season begins this weekend at the Tennessee Aquarium. For several years I've wanted to add a mobile element to my performance, if nothing else just to make it more interesting for me. I finally got around to completing my hammer dulcimer high stepper this week, and I'll use it this weekend.A high stepper is the contraption used to carry drums in a marching band. The system I ended up using is intended to carry a bass drum. It only took a little bit of configuring to make it work for any small hammer dulcimer that is equiped with a tripod mount. I've posted a short video that you can see by using the Photographs link.
Yesterday afternoon I met with my friends Brian and Sue to discuss our strategy for the upcoming Riverbend Challenge X-games style triathlon which we've entered as a team. Sue runs seven miles a day, Brian lifts weights and does yoga on a regular basis, and then there's me. Hopefully they'll be strong enough to carry me accross the finish line. I posted our team picture on the Photographs page.
Alfreda Gerald (alfredagerald.com) is coming to the studio today so we can get move a couple of projects a little closer to completion.
Wednesday, May 26, 2004
Photographs Page Working!
I spent many hours over several days last week trying to figure out why my Photographs page wasn't working correctly. With a little help from my friend Phillip Luckey we determined that the problem must be coming from my web host's computer, not my HTML. Sure enough, one quick email to Todd at serversanddomains.com and everything was back to normal. Thanks Todd. To anyone considering setting up a web site, or dissatisfied with your current service I strongly suggest serversanddomains.com Their service is tremendous!Hannah's Wedding
Hannah Pratt, who's been a hammer dulcimer student of mine for nearly a decade married her high school sweetheart, Jonathan, this past weekend. (use the Photographs link to see a few pictures)When Hannah was an early teen I used to tease her about playing for her wedding some day. She would of course blush and tell me to be quiet.
It was almost like watching my own daughter get married - just without the expense! The ceremony took place outdoors on Lookout Mountain near Cloudland Canyon, and yes it is as pretty as it sounds. The wedding was delayed about an hour thanks to a typical afternoon thunderstorm. We waited out the rain and it was a beautiful ceremony with the only water falling from the eyes of friends and family.
The thunderstorm that delayed the wedding also made it a muddy hike through the woods to the log cabin and tent where the reception would be held. Some folks rode a shuttle van and others just hiked up their pants legs and slogged on down. About a half an hour into the reception the sky grew really dark and the rain started again, this time with quite a bit of thunder and lighting. We had to pull down the sides of the tent and stay away from the poles. I think a few people were a little frightened but it made for a wedding and reception to remember.
I wish Hannah and Jonathan nothing but the best in their new life together. Now I've got to go and finish the HYmns CD that Hannah and I started last year!
Wednesday, May 19, 2004
New Google based discussion group
I've started a new hammer dulcimer discussion group and if you're invited to join in! Use the subscribe box at the top of this page.$#%&*#@# CSS Style sheets (I think)
I posted a bunch of pictures but something is buggy with my CSS and Dreamweaver and even though you can follow the links and see all the pics, not all the thumbnails are showing up. I have reposted the pics three times and all the necessary files are there. I think the miscommunication is happening within CSS somehow. I've wasted too much time this morning on this silly web stuff. I've go to go practice. So I'll work on it later.more blog entries
I just posted several more blog entries from the prior few days so be sure to scroll down the page.Morning Routine
It's time to play catch up again here in journal land.Rather than try and lump everything into one long update I'm going to postdate a few of the items so they line up with my calendar.
It is Wednesday morning and I'm looking out the window at grass in dire need of mowing. If I wait much longer it will need bailing. It is still wet from rain yesterday afternoon and, if I'm lucky, it will start raining again this morning to give me a good excuse for ignoring it one more day. The blue sky overhead doesn't seem to be cooperating though.
Today started they way every day does when I'm home: I walk out of the bedroom somewhere between 6:30 and 7am to the immediate sound of our cat Tiger Lilly. The moment the door opens she stretches, lets out a meow that is surely saying "I need attention now," and skitters into the kitchen. I generally tell her to let me start some coffee first which must seem to take a lifetime for her. By the time I'm pouring water into the coffee maker she's standing on her hind legs reaching up and tapping me on the leg with her claw-less front paws.
She generally belts out a couple more complaints as we walk toward the pantry door where I get her a morning cat treat. Almost on cue I hear a scratch down the hall where our dog, Hershey has awakened to the sound of the pantry door after sleeping in my daughter Missy's room.
Hershey has to make a quick trip outside in the morning which she usually accomplishes in 30 seconds or less and then reappears at the door smiling and expecting her morning dog treat. I know I'm anthropomorphizing, but she heads straight to the pantry door and looks confused if I don't ask her to do a couple of tricks and then give her the treat which she usually eats on her dog bed.
This morning Hershey and I headed to the living room where I plan to get some writing done before everyone else gets up - which is of course what I'm doing now. Hershey is in her designated chair, staring out the window, probably wondering when I'm going to mow.
Tuesday, May 18, 2004
video chatting
Randy Clepper, who's in Columbus Ohio, and I spent a couple of hours tonight and last night trying to get video chatting working over the internet. Our goal is to get this working partly for fun but also to make it easier for us to work on new Hammeron material. We're trying to get the bugs worked out before we spring it on Mark Wade, who is, well, less geeky than we are. Yeah, that was a nice way to put it.Randy's a PC guy, I'm a Mac guy and we've experimented with quite a few different chat clients and so far nothing and nothing has worked quite right. In the process last night Randy found one particular chat client that sounded promising for both formats. We both downloaded and registered the software while we chatted like normal people on the telephone. Neither one of us paid much attention to the name of the software which would have given us a hint that we were making a mistake.
I always use my real name rather than screen names when involved with the net. My theory is that I don't want to be anywhere or say anything where I would want to hide my identity. Anyway, in just a few minutes we found ourselves right in the middle of a place where we didn't want to be or be seen. There was my name posted for anyone else with this particular bizarre proclivity to invite for a chat.
My name being there was bad enough, Randy had chosen a screen name that had included the word hammeron. We had a pretty good laugh, got out of there pronto and deleted the software.
Recovering
I didn't touch an instrument today which is unusual. I'm anxious to complete our sun room project. Today's project involved filling, sanding, and painting the two posts that support the roof of the old part of the sun-room. Several months ago I cut the lumber which I used to wrap the posts. My plan was to wrap the 4x4's with 1x6 lumber mitered to give a clean corner which I would round off with hand sanding. I didn't take into account the fact that the 40 year old posts weren't quite "true" anymore and my exact miters didn't quite reach each other in a few places. This was really disappointing because it took a long time to rip all those edges on the table saw. The cheater way to do this would have been to cut the lumber to fit the 4x4's exactly, and then fill the corners with quarter round trim. But no, I wanted it done the way a craftsman would do it, which of course I'm not.Before giving up and just covering my miters with outside corner trim I decided to see if the labor intensive process of filling with wood putty and sanding would give me a smooth finish. It was after all going to be painted. Many hours later I had a sore shoulder and lungs full of sawdust but poles that look great. The corners are rounded and smooth as plastic. They're not perfect but you have to look closely to see that there's any fill work.
Monday, May 17, 2004
Roscoe Village
We successfully completed our trip to Dulcimer Days in Historic Roscoe Village, Coshocton, OH.Angie and I left last Wednesday morning for the 8 hour drive to Columbus, OH where we spent the night at the home of Randy and Dora Clepper. Randy, Mark Wade and I spent most of the day practicing songs which we would perform Saturday night.
Thursday night we headed to Roscoe Village where we stayed in the Village Inn. The canal town of Roscoe Village was at its peak in the mid 1800's and still captures the ancient charm today. Read more about it at www.roscoevillage.com.
I taught a couple of workshops Thursday and was surprised to see my friends Kathy and Glenn there from Indiana, Larry (one of Hannah's students) from Chattanooga, and Lesley, Pauline and Larry whom I met last year in Evart. Lesley is one of Mark Wade's students.
I made so many new friends that I'd miss someone if I started naming names. I can't journal about this trip without mentioning Adam Sutch. He's a great young player that I met, along with his family while teaching workshops. He's very talented and is playing a D600 that is almost as big as he is. I look for great things from the young player in the future.
Shortly after I finished the last workshop Thursday a heavy storm rolled through the village and knocked out power. It would not be restored to our part of the hotel until after 11pm. Randy Clepper had driven over from Columbus so we could practice a little more but it was hot and dark in the hotel so we played outside until darkness and mosquitoes drove us inside. By around 9pm some of the hotel had lights but no air conditioning so we found a large room had a 'hot' jam session with a bunch of other players.
On Saturday I taught another workshop, then judged the open dulcimer and vocal competitions. Saturday night included a concert in which I played a few numbers by myself before being joined by Randy and Mark. It's too bad Bob, the fourth member of Hammeron couldn't be there (he was in india). I felt like we put on a solid show and a rousing standing ovation made us feel great.
I also got to hear Katie Waldren and Candace Kreitlow perform together. They are fantastic! Check out their music at www.katiewaldren.com.
Sunday morning Angie and I had an early breakfast with Randy, Mark and his dad. (We do all we can to force Mark to get up early - it's good for him.) After breakfast I taught another workshop and judged the Mid-Eastern Regional Dulcimer Championships. The judging for these contests follows the same rules as judging for the National Championship in Winfield. I was sequestered along with the other judges in a tiny room where we listened to the contestants via headphones. We were given numbers rather than names for each participant and had to score the performances based on a 100 point scale including:
Arrangement - 40 pts.
Execution - 40 pts.
Show Value - 10 pts.
Overall Impression - 10 pts.
The performers were instructed not to speak and to present two songs in contrasting style. This was my first time to judge such a contest and it is a lot harder than I though it would be. I'll be kinder in thought and word to judges in the future. It all goes by so fast and moments after each contestant plays their last note there is someone there waiting to collect the tally sheets. This isn't how I like to listen to music.
I have now competed in as well as judged these contests and would like to devote a journal entry one day to the whole idea of contesting in music, which in a nutshell I find a little strange.
Sunday evening Angie and I drove as far as Charleston, WV before deciding to finish the trip on Monday.
Sunday, May 02, 2004
I will return after this brief message . . ..
OK, I know I sort of just disappeared for the past few weeks and I never did post the pictures I promised. This afternoon I started organizing shots that were taken the last few days of the tour. I'll get them posted as soon as I can. I have a brain full of topics to write about and hope I can resume nearly daily updates starting now.I arrived home from the Yanni tour with the worst chest and head cold I've ever had. The head congestion took a week to clear along with the associated aches and pains. I am still trying to get my chest clear. This nagging cough is getting old. I feel great though and I've restarted my regime of daily swimming and hiking when the weather permits. It has been raining most of the weekend here but the skies are starting to clear and Hershey, Angie and I along with my friend Bryan M, and his girlfriend Cassie are going to hike the Rainbow Lake trail and see what the waterfall looks like after two days rain. Yes, I'll get some pictures.
Being sick for a week put me behind on just about everything. It is hard to imagine the amount of things that need to be done immediately when you've been out of town for a couple of months. During that first week I'd wander downstairs to start a project and after a few minutes, crawl back into bed and dream that it would all just take care of itself. It doesn't. Two weeks later and I'm not really caught up yet, is anyone ever really? I can at least see manageable tasks that at which I can chip away a piece at a time.
I have to remember to look at this journal as something that I won't complete in a day either. There is really so much I'd like to write about everyday that I sometimes don't start for fear I won't finish.
Thanks to all who inquired as to where I've been for a few weeks. Even my own mother and sisters have been bugging me about updating the journal.
I have to go now, Angie is calling me at this very moment to come fix the kitchen sink which chose this very moment to start leaking. See how it goes!
Dan