4 Months Down, 8 To Go...

Boy, it's been a long night. It feels like it coulda been Christmas Eve. Twas about 2 a.m. and all through the town, there weren't too many people stirring, not even a clown.

No clue how many games of pool were played... nor how many pitchers of Alaskan IPA were downed. Glad I was that I was not driving, for an accident I might've gotten into, a good situation that would not have made.

When we walked out the doors and into the night, with the snow that was falling, this close to May, well, it was quite a sight!

Two days ago I thought listening to this would be incredibly out of place. By now there should be warm weather and flowers everywhere with trees all in green and Springtime in the air... that's sure not the case.

Here I am this morning, at the break of dawn. The sun is beginning to give a light blue glow to the sky, I watch out my window and I can't see my lawn!

It should be there, be there, be there it should. The snow's covered it up, it's cold, cold, cold and my stove needs more wood!

My coffee is made, but the stockings are not hung by the chimney with care. It's freakin' April, still got 8 months before St. Nicholas will be there!!

So go outside today, enjoy your warm weather. Ain't happenin' here, there'll be no game of ball that the kids in the schoolyard like to call tether.

This sillyness really has gotta come to an end. Whaddya want from me, I've been awake all night, my mind, it's starting to bend!

I'm purty sure today the white stuff will melt. I'll sleep away while the Mets lose again, booo's the team will hear, victory's something no one will have felt.

Some music it's now time for, time to Press Play. This weirdness is all done, how about some Christmas tunes for the start of the day?

Erich Kunzel Cincinnati Pops Orchestra Christmas With The Pops 1989-1990

320 kbps
	Cincinnati Pops Orchestra: Christmas With The Pops - Part 1 Cincinnati Pops Orchestra: Christmas With The Pops - Part 2

individual files with a are 192 kbps
	The First Noel
	Deck The Halls (with the May Festival Chorus)
	Winter Wonderland
	The Christmas Song (with Doc Severinsen)
	Holiday Favorites (with Children's Chorus) · Santa Claus Is Coming To Town · Here Comes Santa Claus · Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer · Frosty the Snowman, Jingle Bells
	White Christmas (with Rosemary Clooney)
	Carol of the Bells (with Bell Choir)
	O Tannenbaum
	Do You Hear What I Hear?
	Christmas Waltz (with Toni Tennille)
	Hark! The Herald Angels Sing
	Angels We Have Heard On High (with Bell Choir)
	God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen
	Go Tell It On The Mountain (with Sherrill Milnes)
	O Come, All Ye Faithful
	Walking In The Air from The Snowman (with Stephen Van Dyck)
	Sleigh Ride
	Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas (with Rosemary Clooney)
	O Holy Night (with the May Festival Chorus)
	Silent Night (with the May Festival Chorus)
· Bell Choir: First Presbyterian Church of Fort Thomas Bell Choir · Children's Chorus: Cincinnati School For Creative & Performing Arts Children's Chorus

Time to put up and decorate the tree yet?

Long day at work. There was call after call making it feel like a Saturday or a full moon. What is with people? The best call of the day had to be two brothers who got into all out brawl -- over video games. One of 'em threw the Playstation or Xbox or whatever the heck it was (Atari 2600 it was not, I know that) and practically popped his brother's eye right out of the socket. That didn't stop him from chasing his brother outside and beating him in the face with a lamp he carried with him. Nice. Video games, guys ... they're just video games. You'd a thunk for Dumb & Dumber the fate of the world rested on one of these idiots winning. They wouldn't shut up, they wouldn't let it go, and since they each needed to be seen by a doctor a second ambulance had to be called to take Fool #2 to the hospital. So the police babysat while my partner and I took Fool #1 in. Gotta love meth ... that's what they were probably on. I couldn't assume that then since there was no evidence ... but I wouldn't doubt it.

Yay, fun day. There are Tuesdays when there might be 3 calls in an entire 12-hour shift. Today it was just non-friggin'-stop making 12 hours seem more like 20. Oi!

A White Halloween and a White Thanksgiving...
most definitely a White Christmas ... and a White Easter, too...

now with some fresh snow from yesterday and temperatures remaining below freezing -- 12° now (-11 C) -- it's a Winter Wonderland outside and so tonight I'm in the mood for a little Christmas music. 'cause after all who says ya gotta listen to it only in December?! A new log has been thrown into the wood-burning stove, hot chocolate is made, time to relax, decompress, and just be.

Lorrie Morgan

Merry Christmas
From London

featuring The New
World Philharmonic

1993

My Favorite Things

A Christmas Festival (Medley) [with Tammy Wynette]

Jingle Bells/God Rest You Merry Gentlemen/Deck The Halls/ O Come, All Ye Faithful/Hark! The Herald Angels Sing/ Joy To The World/Silent Night/The First Noel

Little Snow Girl [with Andy Williams]

Up On Santa Claus Mountain

O Holy Night

Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!

Blue Snowfall [with Johnny Mathis]

Toyland

Sleigh Ride

Ave Maria

Take one Nashville country music singer, dress her in slaughtered animal fur, bring her to London, merry old England, and put her in front of a symphony orchestra and what do you get? Something that sounds more like Julie Andrews with an American southern accent than country yee haw. Labeling this as country is actually completely erroneous. Labeling it as classical, well, that seems to make more sense. What it really is in my opinion -- easy listening, like Frank Sinatra or Billie Holiday or someone along those lines. Ms. Morgan has definitely completely left behind everything that would make one think of country music.

For the most part I really like the songs layed down for this album. There's a very Christmasy feel here. One that I don't care for, but anyone who gushes over children might love it, Up On Santa Claus Mountain... it seems like it would fit right into some TV Christmas variety show special hosted by Bob Hope. The acted dialogue that the kids have is just so fake and lame. Like, gag me with a spoon. On the other hand, O Holy Night is as beautiful as they come. The same is true with the Silent Night part of the Christmas Festival Medley, actually pretty much the whole thing is so nice to listen to. Let It Snow! and Sleigh Ride are two more that are so traditionally Christmas sounding.

I'm not sure why this can be found in the 10¢ bargain bin. Overall it's a really good album that would be perfect when opening presents on Christmas morning.

	dload @ 256 kbps
	Lorrie Morgan - Christmas In London (1993)

mp3 download 320

Superbowl Week could only mean: time for Christmas Songs! Right?

I'm up way too early this morning. Completely missed the debate last night. That's too bad 'cause I wanted to laugh at Ron Paul. No, probably almost anything I'd have heard from him woulda just made me mad. I'm so politiced out anyway. Let's just elect a family of mice to run the country. They'd probably do just as good of a job, if not better, than any politicians or businessmen.

-54° (-48 C) in Fort Yukon yesterday. Man... that's like nuts. -40 we see occasionally in winter but it almost never hits -50+ here.

With the day off from work, we had a nice High Temp of -19° (-28 C.) I don't think I went outside at all. I know I didn't go anywhere... when it's that cold, when ya don't gotta, ya don't go nowhere! Simple.

Overnight it started snowing again. Won't accumulate much but lookin' out my front window at the snow falling in the lone streetlight about a football field away, tis quite a peaceful and almost Christmas-like scene.

So... how about some tunes to match this A.M....

	It's Christmas All Year!
	Volume 2

Charlotte Church

Dream A Dream

2000







Dream a Dream (Elysium) (Duet w/Billy Gilman)
O Come, All Ye Faithful
The Little Drummer Boy
Mary's Boy Child
Ding Dong! Merrily On High
Winter Wonderland
The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting On An Open Fire)
Hark! The Herald Angels Sing
The Coventry Carol (Lully Lullay)
Joy To The World
When A Child Is Born
What Child Is This? (Greensleeves)
God Rest Ye Merry, Gentleman
Draw Tua Bethlehem/Far Over Bethlehem
Ave Maria
Gabriel's Message
O Holy Night
Lo! How A Rose E'er Blooming
Silent Night

Me listening to music by a 14 year old girl? Yeah, uh, that's almost creepy. The thing is, if you did not know the girl singing on these songs was 14 when this album was recorded, you'd never imagine she was just a child of such a young age. Well, at least I never would. What an amazing voice she has! It's heavenly even. Being someone who does not listen to opera-style or this type of classical music, this was definitely different. Beautiful stuff, though.

Now I find it interesting that the little girl from Cardiff, Wales is now a 21 year old unmarried mom. Living with boyfriends since Age 16, she's had plenty of sex including the mistake pregnancy. Apparently salacious sex stories of young Charlotte have been sold to the slimy UK press by TWO former lovers. She's been in and out of the tabloids for mostly all the wrong reasons while hundreds of thousands of pounds have been paid and made... all because a little girl wasn't brought up properly. Did fame have something to do with it all? Probably. How special. And how sad.

	dload 256kbps
Charlotte Church - Dream A Dream (Part 1)
(Part 2) Charlotte Church - Dream A Dream

So... was E.T. an Illegal Alien?

· Hiking Time --- 2 hours 23 minutes

· Temperature: 28ºF (-2ºC)

· Trail Time in October -- 24 hours 6 minutes

____(starting Oct. 1)
· Weight Loss Goal -- 24 pounds (11 kg)
__________· So Far -- 7 lb.

7 pounds gone this month. Not bad but it was eight that I was hoping for. That means in November, with a day less than October, I've gotta do 9. Whew. All I've gotta do is lay OFF the ice cream and cheeseburgers... and not make any cookies. Or cannolis. An uphill battle but I did 7, I can do 9. Cooking with fresh ingredients and making ultra-healthy meals I do... almost every night but when I don't, that's when I really indulge. So I've gotta be more careful. Oh, and no popcorn? That means no movies and... and.... and no movies? Ugh.

Maybe I can do popcorn and not have to pass on a few of those cheeseburgers if I keep up with regular running and hikes like the one this morning.

Hit the trail, I did, just as the very first light was showing itself on the horizon. Each day that time is creeping ahead by minutes. Lately I hadn't even noticed that dawn's first light, on a morning without clouds, isn't until well after 8:00 a.m. In no time at all it'll be close to 9 a.m. and then first light will eventually creep all the way towards 10 in the morning. LOTS of darkness ahead.

In any case... it has been forever since I went out [for a hike] in the a.m. My hikes and runs, since getting back to this after my dang tibia fracture, they've been at the opposite end of the light of day. Straight through dusk is when I'm usually out there, right up until the sky is almost purely black. Today that's what it was when I started. But I turned around and came home no more than 4 minutes after getting out there.

False start.
Decided I needed some breakfast.
Mmmmm... pancakes!

Then off I was for a great hike on a relatively warm morning (for this time of year.) Same old trail, same old out and back but it was freedom and it was exercise. It was a time for some good music and a time for some good thinkin'. Same old trail, same old out and back but it sure beat being inside, sure beat sittin' gettin' fat, that's for sure!

Trail Tunes...

E.T.
The Extra-Terrestrial

Music From The Original
Motion Picture Soundtrack

Music By John Williams (1982)

[1996 Digitally Remixed,
Remastered And Expanded Edition]

Far From Home/E.T. Alone
Bait For E.T.
The Beginning Of A Friendship
Toys
"I'm Keeping Him"
E.T.'s Powers
E.T. And Elliott Get Drunk
Frogs
At Home
The Magic Of Halloween
Sending The Signal
Searching For E.T.
Invading Elliott's House
E.T. Is Dying
Losing E.T.
E.T. Is Alive!
Escape/Chase/Saying Goodbye
End Credits

I've said it before and I'll say it again, when it comes to classical music -- give me Mozart, Chopin, Tchaikovsky, etc? No way, José! Give me a film score composed and conducted by John Williams!! Those other guys I just can't get in to. I don't care how immensely genius they or their music might be considered to be. Just not my cup of tea. But a film score with a classical music kind of feel to it, I always seem to dig.

With E.T., John Williams weaves together non-stop drama, bringing the listener on nothing less than a ride full of ups, downs, and back up again with a few nearly scary twists and turns thrown in for good measure. Knowing the movie, I was able to recognize Unknowing, Discovery, Fright, Dark Times, Fun Times, Relief and Freedom.

Forgetting the movie even exists, the music here flows effortlessly along. These individual pieces -- beginning and ending, beginning and ending, over and over -- work as one giant composition. At times the beautiful orchestration is lush and loud enough to reverberate through your entire body. Other times you've almost got to bend your ear to listen, to hear the quiet instrumentation before Williams brings the music booming to life again. And through it all that same familiar E.T. theme emerges here and there to tie it all together.

I haven't heard each and every Williams film score but it would be a great guess that this is perhaps one of his best!

320 kbps dload right here
E.T. -- Part 1 ·· Part 2 -- E.T.

Also on the trail:
Rebecca St. James...

Here I Am
I Thank You Lord
Above All Things
True Love
We Don't Need It