Memorial Day 2017

Today, we honor the courageous men and women who dedicated their lives to serving our country.

Just start

“Start now. Start where you are. Start with fear. Start with pain. Start with doubt. Start with hands shaking. Start with voice trembling but start. Start and don’t stop. Start where you are, with what you have. Just... start.”

Reflecting

(Reflecting)--As I approach my twilight years, I am struck by the inevitability that the party must end soon. And one clear, cold morning after I'm gone, my loved ones will awaken in the warmth of their bedroom and be struck with the pain of learning that sometimes there isn't "anymore." No more hugs, no more special moments to celebrate, no more phone calls just to chat, no more "just one minute." Sometimes, what we care about the most gets all used up and goes away, never ...to return before we can say good-bye, or say "I love you." So while we have it, it's best we love it, care for it, fix it when it's broken and heal it when it's sick. This is true for marriage, and old cars, and children with bad report cards, and dogs with bad hips, and aging parents and grandparents. We keep them because they are worth it, and because we are worth it. Some things we keep, like a best friend who moved away or a son-in-law after a divorce. There are just some things that make us happy, no matter what. Life is important, like people we know who are special. And so, we keep them close! Suppose one morning you never wake up, do all your friends know how you really feel? The important thing is to let every one of your friends know your true feelings, even if you think they don't love you back.

Show us the way

Show us the way
during our dark times,
give us the strength
to work and wait
for our turns.

National Wine Day

It's National Wine Day: Get out and enjoy a glass of Walla Walla wine! Dunham Cellars and Sleight of Hand Cellars are a few of my favorites. "National Wine Day is celebrated annually on May 25. Each year, on this day, people enjoy a glass of their favorite wine with dinner, for dessert, with friends, at a restaurant, at home or at a wine-tasting event." http://www.dunhamcellars.com/  http://www.sofhcellars.com/ https://www.washingtonwine.org/ 

Floating in the blue

How sweet to be a cloud
Floating in the blue
A.A. Milne

Bob Dylan is 76 years old today

1. Bob Dylan is 76 years old today.
2. A musician, singer-songwriter, music producer, artist and writer, Dylan has been an influential figure in popular music and culture for more than five decades. He is often referred to as the Shakespeare of our times.
3. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly reluctant figurehead of social unrest.
4. ...
5. A number of Dylan's early songs, such as "Blowin' in the Wind" and "The Times They Are a-Changin'," became anthems for the U.S. civil rights and anti-war movements.
6. Leaving his initial base in the culture of folk music behind, Dylan's six-minute single, "Like a Rolling Stone," radically altered the parameters of popular music in 1965.
7. His recordings employing electric instruments attracted denunciation and criticism from others in the folk movement.
8. Dylan's lyrics have incorporated a variety of political, social, philosophical and literary influences. They defied existing pop music conventions and appealed hugely to the then burgeoning counterculture.
9. Initially inspired by the performance style of Little Richard, and the songwriting of Woody Guthrie, Robert Johnson and Hank Williams, Dylan has both amplified and personalized musical genres.
10. His recording career, spanning more than fifty years, has explored many of the traditions in American song — from folk, blues and country to gospel, rock and roll and rockabilly to English, Scottish and Irish folk music, embracing even jazz and swing.
11. Dylan performs with guitar, keyboards and harmonica. Backed by a changing line-up of musicians, he has toured steadily since the late 1980s on what has been dubbed the Never Ending Tour.
12. His accomplishments as a recording artist and performer have been central to his career, but his greatest contribution is generally considered to be his songwriting. In Oct. 13, 2016, the Nobel Prize committee announced it had awarded Dylan the Nobel Prize in Literature "for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition."
13. Since 1994, Dylan has published several books of drawings and paintings, and his work has been exhibited in major art galleries throughout the world.
14. As a songwriter and musician, Dylan has sold more than 100 million records worldwide.

Mahatma Gandhi

"You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty." - Mahatma Gandhi.

Be the light

Be the light
where ever you are
today, be extra kind.
Let this day not be about you.
For you are enough.

101 Businesses You Can Start With Less Than $100

Out of work? Not for long! 101 Businesses You Can Start With Less Than $100

https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/283723

Roasted onion dip by Rosana McPhee

Looking for a light lunch to dip into? @Rosana_McPhee's roasted onion dip is perfect w/ @PetersYard bites

Just in time for Walla Walla Sweets!

http://www.greatbritishchefs.com/recipes/roasted-onion-dip-recipe

http://www.sweetonions.org/

A dream is like a river

"You know
a dream is like a river
Ever changin' as it flows...
And a dreamer's just a vessel
That must follow where it goes..."

Adventure

"If adventure has a final and all-embracing motive, it is surely this: we go out because it is our nature to go out, to climb mountains, and to paddle rivers, to fly to the planets and plunge into the depths of the oceans... "

Chris Cornell

So sad to hear about the passing of Chris Cornell this morning. What an incredible talent and one of the greatest voices in rock music! My heart goes out to his friends, family and the Seattle music community. Here is a picture I took of Artis the Spoonman, outside the original Starbucks at Pike Place Market. I have met Artis many times through the years and had some very interesting conversations. I even met him backstage at Aerosmith! Nobody seemed to know who he was and was so happy when I walked up and said hi! So here me and Artis are standing in line to meet Aerosmith, just talking away. It was so awesome when Soundgarden came out with the song, "Spoonman". I was lucky enough to see Soundgarden once and have been to the Sound Garden at Warren G. Magnuson Park in Seattle. http://www.artisthespoonman.net/

Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress

I really enjoyed checking out the B-17 at the Olympia Airport this afternoon, so much history! Watched it take off then it flew over our heads. The Olympic Flight Museum is also worth visiting. http://www.olympicflightmuseum.com/index.php?as=index

Pike Place Market

The flowers in the market are just so beautiful this time of year, always worth a visit! http://www.pikeplacemarket.org/

Pink Floyd

The Florentine‏

Interesting story I thought I would share with you: Massimo Ricci was born into a deeply Florentine family, his ancestry going back centuries. The family name can be found on the base of the cathedral, where all the church’s donors were inscribed centuries ago. Florence runs through Ricci’s blood, as too does the city’s most emblematic building: the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore and its innovative, game-changing dome. http://www.theflorentine.net/art-culture/2017/05/massimo-ricci-man-who-cracked-the-duomo/

Mother's Day

"All that I am, or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother." - Abraham Lincoln

Truth

It's almost like the United States has no President - we are a rudderless ship heading for a major disaster. Good luck everyone! Okay, I didn't write this, Trump did on 19 Mar 2014. Who knew?

50 years ago today-Jimi Hendrix ~ Are You Experienced

https://vimeo.com/109988488

Led Zeppelin — Your Time Is Gonna Come

Joe Maphis

Joe Maphis, the country guitarist, was born 96 years ago today.
Born Otis W. Maphis, he was one of the flashiest country guitarists of the 1950s and 1960s.
He ...was known as The King of the Strings and was able to play many stringed instruments with great facility. His speciality was dazzling guitar virtuosity.

Maphis was born in Suffolk, Virginia. His first band was called the Maryland Rail Splitters and he also played in the local (Cumberland) Foggy Mountain Boys as well as The Sonnateers before hitting the road in 1939.
He played across Virginia until he landed a regular gig on the Old Dominion Barn Dance broadcast live on radio WRVA-AM and aired in 38 states.
In 1944, he went into the U.S. Army. His musical skills landed him a gig entertaining the troops around the world. Maphis was discharged from the Army in 1946. On his return to the states, he began playing on WLS radio in Chicago.
In the late 1940s, he returned to Richmond and the Old Dominion Barn Dance until the early 1950s. While in Virginia, he met singer/guitarist Rose Lee Schetrompf, his future wife. Maphis and Schetrompf, of Clear Spring, Md., were married in 1953.
Maphis' recording career took off after he was invited to come to Los Angeles in 1951 by Merle Travis. He made two LPs with Travis, recorded for countless country and pop stars and worked on many themes for television programs and movie soundtracks. Later based in Bakersfield, California, he rose to prominence with his own hits such as "Dim Lights, Thick Smoke (And Loud, Loud Music)" as well as playing with acts like Johnny Burnette, Doyle Holly, The Collins Kids, Wanda Jackson, Rose Maddox and Ricky Nelson.
"Dim Lights" has become a honky-tonk standard with numerous artists recording versions on the tune. Maphis discovered Barbara Mandrell in the early 1960s. Before launching her own career, Mandrell toured with Joe and Rose playing pedal steel.
Maphis's playing was an influence on such greats as Merle Travis, Jimmy Bryant and Chet Atkins. He was known for his use of a double-neck Mosrite guitar, specially built for him by Semie Moseley, which was a boon to Moseley's fledgling career as a guitar builder.
This guitar can be now viewed at the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville. It has two six-string necks, with the shorter neck tuned an octave higher than standard.
Maphis was a band member and featured soloist on Town Hall Party television broadcasts in southern California during the 1950s and a regular guest on the Jimmy Dean television show in the 1960s.
Joe and his wife Rose Lee performed on Austin City Limits in 1984.
Maphis was diagnosed with lung cancer in 1985. He died on June 27, 1986. His guitar hero was Mother Maybelle Carter, matriarch of the Carter Family. Maybelle's daughter, June Carter Cash, and June's husband, Johnny Cash, so ad mired Maphis' guitar playing that Maphis is buried in a Hendersonville, Tennessee cemetery next to Maybelle, her husband, Ezra Carter, and her daughter, Anita Carter.
The Cashes personally chose the spot, buried Maphis and covered his grave themselves.
Maphis' son, Jody Maphis, is also a musician. He has played drums or guitar for Earl Scruggs, Johnny Rodriguez, Johnny Cash, Gary Allan, Marty Stuart and many others.

Here Maphis performs the “Town Hall Boogie”

Shelby Earl

La Villa d'Este

It's #NationalEatWhatYouWantDay! If you could have any meal right now... What would it be? My answer: Spaghetti de fruits de mer .(seafood spaghetti) from La Villa d'Este in Nice, France. This was so huge it took me an hour to finish it!  http://villadeste-nice.com/ @villadestenice      

Childe Harold's Pilgrimage

“Are not the mountains, waves and skies, a part
Of me and of my soul, as I of them?”

Lord Byron, Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage

We the People

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. http://constitutionus.com/

America

"We must all hang together or most assuredly we shall all hang separately." ~ Ben Franklin

Hurdy Gurdy Man

Donovan is 71 years old today.
Born Donovan Phillips Leitch, he is a Scottish singer, songwriter and guitarist.
Initially labelled as an imitator of Bob Dylan,... he developed an eclectic and distinctive style that blended folk, jazz, pop, psychedelia and world music (notably calypso).

He has lived in Scotland, London, California and Ireland with his family.
Emerging from the British folk scene, Donovan shot to fame in the United Kingdom in early 1965 with a series of live performances on the pop TV series, Ready Steady Go!.
Having initially signed with Pye Records in 1965, he recorded a handful of singles and two albums in the folk music vein, but after signing a new contract with U.S. CBS/Epic Records his popularity spread to other countries.
After extricating himself from his original management contract, he began a long and successful collaboration with Mickie Most, one of the leading British independent record producers of the era.
He scored a string of hits in the United States, the UK, Australia and other countries.
His most successful singles in the 1960s included the early UK hits "Catch the Wind,” "Colours” and “The Universal Soldier” in 1965.
"Sunshine Superman" topped the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart, and "Mellow Yellow" reached U.S. #2 the following year, with "Hurdy Gurdy Man" reaching the Top 5 in both the U.S. and UK in 1968.
He was the first artist signed to CBS/Epic Records by Clive Davis, the then-new administrative vice president. Donovan and Most collaborated on a series of hit albums and singles between 1965 and 1970. He became a friend of leading pop musicians including Joan Baez, Brian Jones and The Beatles. He taught John Lennon a finger-picking guitar style in 1968.
Donovan's commercial fortunes waned after parting with Most in 1969, and he left the industry for a time.
Donovan continued to perform and record sporadically in the 1970s and 1980s. His musical style was scorned by critics, especially after the advent of punk rock.
He withdrew from performing and recording several times during his career, but he underwent a revival in the 1990s with the emergence of the rave scene in Britain.
In 1996, Donovan recorded the album, Sutras, with producer and long-time fan Rick Rubin. In 2004, came Beat Cafe, and, in late 2010, he released the double CD, Ritual Groove.

Freedom

"Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes."

Clair de Lune by Claude Debussy

Bryan Adams - Open Road

Led Zeppelin - Thank You

Autocracy

"Definition of autocracy
plural

autocracies

1. 1 :  the authority or rule of an autocrat
2. 2 :  government in which one person possesses unlimited power
3. 3 :  a community or state governed by autocracy"

Merriam-Webster

@MerriamWebster

French words

Little reminder:
Macaron is a French meringue-based confection.
Macron is a French president.
Macaroon is a soft coconut cookie.

Merci, French Words‏ @frenchwords                 

The Cove

The Cove in Seaside, Oregon. @VisitSeasideOR         @SeasideCCenter  http://www.seasideor.com/

A new day

We must let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the one that is waiting for us.