A&W Classic Car Show

We just got booked to play at the A&W Classic Car show in downtown Visalia. This should be a blast!

I love A&W rootbeer floats...hmmmmmm...goooood!

Mercury Blues Band
A&W Classic Car Show
Saturday Oct 15th, 2005
6PM-9PM

Fun Things To Do In An Elevator

1. Make race car noises when anyone gets on or off.
2. Blow your nose and offer to show the contents of your kleenex to other passengers.
3. Grimace painfully while smacking your forehead and muttering: "Shut up, all of you just shut UP!"
4. Whistle the first seven notes of "It's a Small World" incessantly.
5. Sell Girl Scout cookies.
6. On a long ride, sway side to side at the natural frequency of the elevator.
7. Shave.
8. Crack open your briefcase or purse, and while peering inside ask: "Got enough air in there?"
9. Offer name tags to everyone getting on the elevator. Wear yours upside-down.
10. Stand silent and motionless in the corner, facing the wall, without getting off.
11. When arriving at your floor, grunt and strain to yank the doors open, then act embarrassed when they open by themselves.
12. Lean over to another passenger and whisper: "Noogie patrol coming!"
13. Greet everyone getting on the elevator with a warm handshake and ask them to call you Admiral.
14. One word: Flatulence!
15. On the highest floor, hold the door open and demand that it stay open until you hear the penny you dropped down the shaft go "plink" at the bottom.

Follow the link for more ... http://winn.com/bs/elevator.html

Blues over yonder...

The Mercury Blues Band will be playing at the Riverview Resturant in Three Rivers this saturday night (Oct 1). Come on out and say hi!!

Fill 'er up please!

So, while I was working for Paramount Farms, I had access to free fuel at the plant. It was the total perk. Take that away, plus a 47 mile commute, and the recent change in gas prices and I ended up with a change in my budget.

Here's a YTD report from my MS Money account for what I've spent on fuel this year:

Jan - $43.80
Feb - $45.94
Mar - $46.13
Apr - $104.37
May - $70.15
Jun - $249.61
Jul - $336.18
Aug - $509.48
Sep - $364.11

YTD - $1769.77


OUCH!!

The Harvard Piano

I just bought an old piano for the townhouse! At the hall where our band practices at there was this old piano sitting for years. The folks from the hall asked if anyone was interested and I offered $200. They took the offer and $75 paid for the delivery. Here's a poster I found online from the company that made it back in the early 1900's. My piano looks just like the one in the poster:

Say What!

"I bought some batteries, but they weren't included."

Practice Night...whew!

Tuesday night was the weekly night for the blues band practice. Since Joseph, our drummer, also is part of The Brilliance we decided to leave the drum set up for a second practice.

We spent about an hour rehearsing past songs and another hour just focusing on a new song. I really like how it turned out. Tyler brought in a lot of great ideas. The song has a sweet melodic rock edge to it with lots of changes and tasteful mixed metered stuff.

I think our set is TOTALLY going to rock the stage out at Howies on Oct 22!

Fear This!

This goes out to a close friend who's dealing with fear regarding a big descision in her life:

"We often think that because we no longer see the monsters under the bed that we've somehow outgrown our fear as we got older. It's probably truer though that we've become MORE afraid, not less. Sure we've learned not to reach for that boiling pot of water, but when did we become afraid to explore the world around us?" [fearless choices]

Practice Session

Last night I practiced with Tyler and Joseph who are "The Brilliance". They're writing original material and last night was the first night I got to work with them.

They both have really good voices and harmonize very well together. We worked on three songs. The songs are a lot of fun to play and are quite catchy. The melodies were in my head for a while even after practice! I enjoyed the sessions because they gave me total creative control.

It was cool to come up with original bass lines that would hopefully work well with thier ideas. My approach at first was to experiement with lots of different intervals and walks to see what stuck. Then once I had a rough sketch I would remove notes until I had the essentials. After that I worked on smoothing out the notes and making the rythmns lock in with the drums. I was happy with the outcome.

We're preparing for gig at Howies Pizza in Visalia on October 22. It should be a blast! Come out and say hi!

E=MC^2

So...I've been working with my son on math. I've only tought him how to add numbers up to 5. "What's 2 + 3?" or "Whats 5 + 2". It was something he picked up really fast. In the very beginning he used his fingers to count. But soon after, and I mean soon, he didn't need his fingers.

Well now I'm challenging him with bigger numbers like "15 + 9" and "15 + 12". He'll say..."dad let me think". And just about every time he comes back in a few seconds with the right answer. Sometimes he's wrong...but not as often as he's right.

The think is, there' s no way he can memorize the answers or even use his fingers to add the numbers. So I've been asking him how he's doing it. His reply is simple, "I just think about it".

I'm hoping he'll teach me his secret!