Still Summer Stones Run

So today is Day 2 of the Democratic National Convention.

I'm so happy that 16.something million dollars of taxpayer money is being used to fund something that is absolutely NOT needed.

The same is (will be) true for the Republican Convention.

Gifts, Cash Bonuses Allowed at Conventions -- on Taxpayers' Tab

"up to $20,000 in public money can be used at each convention to purchase gifts for staff and volunteers of up to $150 each.

Ain't that swell?!

At least Congress is doing something for us... they did make July "National Watermelon Month."

2:05 p.m. -- 90° F, way sunny, way warm, hot really, not pleasant.

Tuesday Afternoon Run: 16 minutes 47 seconds

- 3:02

XXXXXXXXXXXX ·Aug? :: +21 sec· XXXXXXXXXX

August: 2 hours 18 min July: 2 hours 11 min June: 1 hour 47 min May: 4 hours 46 min

Twas a dumb, dumb thing to run during the hottest part of the day. Twas dumb only because it was just so friggin' exhausting. The heat zapped the energy from me and didn't allow me to run as long as I would have liked (20 minutes.) I also had to run in two parts again.

Part One -- 12 minutes even... well, 12:02 actually. Really easy going the first two songs but soon after that I started getting tired and it was a bit of a challenge to finish up. I could have quit, wanted to about 20 times, but my End Cue was just a short time away. I just concentrated times 50 on reaching my goal and while 12 minutes seemed like it would never arrive, I finally got there.

Intermission: I had turned around about midway through Part One and arrived back at my frozen (and quickly thawing) Gatorade ... yet again, yet again, yet again (for hot, hot weather) the same old story. Sat in the shade, sipped, rested, eventually began to hike down the trail.

Part Two -- one more song, 4:45, went pretty easily and I could have even run longer.

Overall: not bad but I should have gone out in the morning when it was only warm and not hot. Only problem with the morning is there are parts of the trail with long grass/weeds and with all the dew in the morning (i.e. Morning Dew) my shoes and socks woulda been soaked. Ahh well, maybe I'll just have to put up with that now and again.

Running tunes...
	The Rolling Stones Beggar's Banquet 1968
Sympathy For The Devil No Expectations Dear Doctor Parachute Woman Jigsaw Puzzle Street Fighting Man Prodigal Son Stray Cat Blues Factory Girl Salt Of The Earth

A classic album? One of the top 50 albums of all time or something like that? Since the record was released, only two songs truly survived the decades, each becoming a classic and a Stones staple -- Street Fighting Man and Sympathy For The Devil. Everything else is, well, just eh, I think. I mean, it ain't bad... just eh. And since my opinion is the only one that matters, ever, then I hereby declare this to only be the 210th Greatest Album Of All Time.

128 kbps dload @ The Roadhouse

320 kbps mp3 download

"Sympathy For The Devil" ~ December 11, 1968
from: The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus
not released until 1996

Nice makeup, Mick. You look pretty.

AK Melting? Say It Ain't So, Pedro!

For the first day in April in Alaska, nowhere in the whole territory is known to have had a high temperature below 0° F (about -18 C.)
Looks like Spring has sprung.

Here the snow and ice is melting away. SHORTS weather, baby! I did a lot of sleeping yesterday (to be well-rested to work the night shift) but when I was awake -- SHORTS, baby! So sweet. Temps were well into the 40's and as high as 50 (about 10 Celsius) for a little while.

The bad news is everything's melting ... and then freezing into a fun layer of ice at night when the temp drops below freezing again. When this happens it makes for an extra Motor Vehicle Accident or two everyday. This morning I worked two crashes involving people rushing on their way to work, people who didn't see the ice when they were driving too fast. To be fair, when ice is involved, sometimes it doesn't take going over the speed limit for an accident to happen ... they just happen and are often quite unavoidable unless you just stay home and don't drive anywhere... but in general every dillhole speeds and interestingly, that's when most crashes occur. Hmmm..... less speeding = less accidents and less deaths in motor vehicle collisions?!? Really?!? (Yet people keep speeding... oh, and then there's the cell phone factor... joyyy.)

Anyway... I had my first overnight shift in quite awhile. Not starting work until 9 p.m. (or 1 o'clock in the morning Eastern Time) gave me the perfect opportunity last night before work to watch the Mets game with the Free Preview of MLB Extra Innings ... but whoop-di-freakin'-do...

Mets suck.

They went from this...

to this...

Not good. Pretty darn nice outing for Johan Santana on Opening Day. But then the day after Pedro was (very) shaky to start, had a nice 1-2-3 inning in the 3rd, retired the 1st batter in the 4th on a groundout but left the game after only 3 and a third innings pitched -- injured.

Mets bats had a nice 4th inning but they blew it in the end. The worst part is they blew it to the crappiest team there is.

2 games done and in the books ... 160 to go. How long will Martinez be out? Couple months? Perhaps Grandpa Pedro should just retire? Not looking good for the Mets. Very difficult to not worry. Every single freakin' game this season has been like a battle to make it to the Playoffs -- and there've only been two games so far!!! UGH!!!! I can't take this.

But I did get a run in this morning. About an hour ago, right after my shift was over at 9, I changed and headed straight to the Rec Center at the University and hit the track for the 1st time in April... I got 'er done (it must be said with a Larry The Cable Guy kinda sound or else it just doesn't have the right effect.)

Now I've got the whole day free! Unfortunately that means a whole bunch of sleep -- going to night shifts for a couple weeks, I don't know why I agreed to that. Won't mess with my runs but it's gonna mess with my sleep schedule, that's for sure. Ahh well, just so long as I'm awake this afternoon to watch the Mets lose again. (Just have no faith in them. Gonna take a LOT to have it restored.)

And double unfortunately...

...at...

Champions League Quarterfinal Liverpool at Arsenal This is gonna be a good game, excuse me, a good match.

I don't really care who wins, just a great game to watch, football is. American football ain't bad but here in America, soccer blows. Well, our national team's okay to watch but Major League Soccer? Eh. But European soccer, excuse me, football, now that's some good sport. Is that okay to say? Some good sport? Man Utd. whooped AS Roma yesterday... not as fun to watch because Man Utd. is so dominating... but today's match should be a good one!

Plus, thanks to the free preview on MLB Extra Innings, the Cubs are on... plus Tigers and the Red Sox in a little while.

Man, I hate to spend so much time planted inside watching television but lotsa good stuff to watch!

Wednesday Morning Run: 18 minutes 47 seconds

+4 sec · indoors ·

XXXXXXXX+++++++ 00 sec +++++++XXXXXXXX

Run Time March: 3 hours 57 minutes February: 3 hours 11 minutes January: 2 hours 56 minutes

Running in April is underway!

Goal: MUST surpass March's total running time!!!
(Hopefully by at least a half hour.)

Nothing much to say. Just 'cause it's a new month, not much is really that different. Picked up right where I left off a few days ago.

I've got a feeling that so many of these runs at roughly the very same time, they're allowing myself to build better stamina? Ummm... well, what's happening is for many runs now it's been fairly easy for me. Unfortunately it's not easy like walking to the garage ... but no major difficulty lately. I'll take that as a good thing!



Running tunes from
the album of the day...

The Rolling Stones

Black And Blue

recorded mostly throughout 1975;
released in April 1976

320 kbps mp3 download




Hot Stuff
Hand of Fate
Cherry Oh Baby
Memory Motel
Hey Negrita
Melody
Fool To Cry
Crazy Mama

I don't often listen to the Stones but maybe I oughta little more often. This album's got some pretty cool material on it.

My guess was Hot Stuff would have been the first single that would have gone up the charts at the time but nope. Fool To Cry made it to #10 in America. The album itself hit #1 and stayed there for a bunch of weeks. Now, charts and awards, they mean basically jack-diddly-squat to me, but they can help tell the story of commercial success and so sometimes I mention that crap. My favorite tune on here is an example of why this album was apparently criticized because there seems to be an emphasis on jamming.

Why in the hell is that a bad thing?!?! Above all the other songs, even Memory Motel which clocks in at 7 plus minutes, Hey Negrita has a really cool jamming feel to it. The Grateful Dead could've definitely done this as a 12 minute 1st Set closer. So sweet that woulda been!! The way two guitars work in tandem with each other -- so perfectly Jerry and Bobby!!! I wonder if this woulda been cool for Vince to sing... or at least awesome for him or Brent to wail away a time or two on keys. Maybe better for Bobby on vocals with spots for him to do his classic screamage. And Mickey & Billy just doin' whatever they'd like on drums to fill in such a great sound. Ahhhh....

Anyway, Billy Preston adds piano here (as well as on Hand of Fate and Melody) and Ronnie Wood is on lead guitar ... which is funny 'cause I always thought Keith Richards was a lead guitarist. The song gets goin' so nicely and all I want is for it to keep jamming longer than 5 measly minutes but it quickly comes to an end. Too bad.

There's a true Grateful Dead connection with this album, sort of -- musician Nicky Hopkins, who played with the Jerry Garcia Band over the last 5 months of 1975, he lays down piano and organ on two tracks.

A couple other tunes worth mentioning -- Cherry Oh Baby... reggae... eh, I'm not too big on that sound for the Stones. Hot Stuff on the other hand -- pretty cool stuff. This one features Harvey Mandel on guitar. There's a rhythm to it that's almost insanely repetitive but the guitar layering is sweet and gives it a mildly jammy feel here. And Crazy Mama to finish the album, along with Hand Of Fate, both perhaps two of the better songs here, well, that's what methinks.

Some minor gems but overall not a classic album in the sense that, you know, Michael Jackson's Thriller is, or anything by Hall & Oates ... but a groovy mid-70's Stones listen, that's for sure.

(And I think I'm gonna be givin' me Hey Negrita another listen!)

128 kbps dload @ Waldill

The Wight Stuff?

As a deadicated Deadhead, it would make sense to Press Play on perhaps some Jerry Garcia Band today, afterall it is his birthday, or would be. I've been pretty tired and kind of out of it seemingly all day long from the time I woke up right until this midnight hour. Really I can celebrate Jerry any day of the year, I do every time I listen to him whether it's one of his side projects or the Dead. So I went with something else tonight. Was somewhat of a mistake...

The Rolling Stones
Isle of Wight Festival - June 10, 2007
Seaclose Park, Newport, England

Start Me Up
You Got Me Rocking
Rough Justice
Love In Vain (w/guest Paolo Nutini)
Can You Hear Me Knocking
Ain't Too Proud To Bed (w/Amy Winehouse)
Tumbling Dice
I Wanna Hold You
Slipping Away
Miss You
(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction
Honky Tonk Woman
Sympathy For The Devil
Brown Sugar
encore: Jumpin' Jack Flash

Ahhh, summer in the UK and time once again for the sixth annual Isle of Wight Festival. It's been hugely popular since its revival in 2002, a year that saw only 8,000 attendees, growing steadily to the over 60,000 at this years 3-day event. When people purchased their tickets all the way the heck back in February, no one even knew the Stones would be headlining. Still this little wing ding sold out in like four days, it did. And with acts like Keane, The Fratellis, Wolfmother, and Snow Patrol (I've never even heard any of them!) the crowd would probably mostly be children, almost, kids who weren't even born when the Stones were on like their 230th studio album circa Waiting On A Friend-Start Me Up-Tattoo You days. When it was announced the Stones would be playing, I wonder how many went, "The Rolling who? Aren't they fossilized by now?" They should be considering they formed as a band sometime during the reign of Queen Victoria... and if memory serves me right, Mick & the boys were even invited to plat at the 50th anniversary of the Queen's ascension to the throne in 1887.

In any case... here they are back in a festival setting for the first time since Knebworth in 1976 -- 31 years! And they get a great reception! A lot of people probably shelled out plenty of quid for a ticket just to see the Stones. But was it worth it? It might be time for these relics to retire. They have backup singers and a horn & rhythm section numbering a total of 9 people. That makes 13 on stage putting together these songs. I'm about cringing at that. The Police, while not nearly as old, can do the same, probably, or at least just about, with THREE. The Stones need 13. If it was just the four guys -- Mick, Keith Richards, Ronnie Wood on rhythm guitar and Charlie Watts on drums -- plus maybe a guy on bass, playing in a small club, 350-400 people max. capacity, I'd seriously consider layin' down a few hundred bucks to see that!!! I like the Stones but this big band thing doesn't appeal to me. Half the time you can hardly hear Keith 'cause he's essentially one of two rhythm guitar players while the backup band fills in the sound. Sometimes he really did shine and some of these songs -- including a nearly 10 minute(!!) Can You Hear Me Knocking -- were great to hear!!! Just not ideal. The crowd doesn't help the recording at all. A few times it's like listening to group karaoke. Ugh.

Don't clap along, don't chat while the band is playing, don't scream out "Wooooooooooooo!!!" and for goodness sakes -- DON'T SING ALONG! Please. I know, I know, but that might interupt your good time. Listen, what you may not realize is someone close to you might be recording the concert. Why mess that up? Maybe one day you'll wanna hear the show you were at and when you go back and hear people WOOOOing and talking and singing and clapping, you might think, "That recording just stinks." Well, duh.

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