John’s Musings

6/10/2006

Bristlecone Pine

Filed under: General, Music — John @ 10:22 am

Wow!  After looking, and hoping forever that Bryan Bowers would release his new CD and maybe just maybe include Bristlecone Pine on it, I discovered today that it is now out.   Not only is the new CD out, but it is titled “Bristlecone Pine”.   I have already placed my order and am looking forward to its arrival.    Checking the track list I discovered that it also contains another song that he performs that haunts me from time to time.    He performed it the first year that Dave and I went to see him in Warrenville. The song is titled “Soul of man”.  I posted a rough part of the chorus on here in one of my posts immeditaly following Daves passing.  It is one that Bryan always encourages everyone to sing along to on the chorus, and of course Dave and I always did.   It will be nice to have it to listen to even if it will always seem to me that it is missing a voice.

Bryan Bowers - Bristlecone Pine

I highly reccomend anyone who enjoys any folk music of any kind to check this and Bryans other albums out, he is an incredible Hutoharpist, Stoyteller, and all around great entertainer.

His new and greatly improved website is at:

http://bryanbowers.com/

6/9/2006

Prairie Home Companion

Filed under: General — John @ 9:24 pm

After work tonight I went to the movies with Christopher, and Zack after some debate we decided to see Prairie Home Companion.   WOW!  I’m glad we did.   It was a GREAT movie.  Zack, who had never heard of the radio show at all seeme dot enjoy it.  I loved it.   Kevin Kline did a great job I thoght, and Meryl Streep and Lilly Tomlin were brilliant together.

I’m not going to say much more, but this is definitly a movie I woudl LOVE to get the whole group together to go see it.   I personally coudl watch it at least 2 more times.

I know everyones schedules are getting tight with BAPA and all, but anyone interested in trying for a group movie night?

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Filed under: On the Road — John @ 9:00 pm

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Uncanny…

Filed under: Work Stories — John @ 4:09 pm

So, there hasn’t been more than 5 or 6 peopel in the library all day.  I walk out to the desk to talk and waste some time for the end of the day on a friday in between semesters.

While I was out there for no more than 15 minutes…

I helped four patrons in person,  and took two phone calls…

I don’t get it.

6/8/2006

X-Men 3

Filed under: General — John @ 7:58 am

Karl and I went and saw X-Men 3 last night. Like others warned me, if you know any of the pre-existing story lines, get ready to have your brain scrambled…

Alsom make sure you stay all the way through all the end credits. After the final credit rolls there is one additional scene that was foreshadowed VERY early on in the movie.

Overall it was enjoyable, especially for the special effects. Thank you Weta. I did find myself leaving the movie pretty confused though. I have a suspiscion that there was some turnover in the writers during this script because there seemed to be a number of  inconsistancies…

6/7/2006

Clarification

Filed under: General, Work Stories — John @ 6:57 pm

In my previous post I wrote a letter to Death telling him to take a holiday.   The reason for the post was that I discovered today that one of my co-workers, and someone I consider a friend was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.  From what I have been told, it is fairly far along and there is nothing that can be done.  My uncle died from the same type of cancer many years ago and through the worst of it he stayed here in our house. Because of that I have a pretty good idea what will happen with this co-worker and I just don’t want to think about it.  They have asked for no phone calls, or visitors. Cards are ok, and I do intend to send him one.  I’m not exactly sure what kind of a card one sends in this case… I am leaning towards something with a bit of a biting sense of humor, as that fits him well.

I swear he used to come up to the library just to give us a hard time. :-)    Of course I gave it right back to him too.   That was the way it worked…  He would come up to fix a problem, make some comment about me trying to make more work for him, I’d kid him back about someone having to keep him employed, and then we would both laugh over it. He would then tell a story or two about his family, his past, or whatever was on his mind in local politics, then go on about doing whatever he was supposed to be doing.

He was just another of those bright spots in the day that kept people from getting to serious.  He will definitly be missed.

Take a holiday would ya!!!

Filed under: General, Work Stories — John @ 1:48 pm

Dear Death,

Please take a holiday.  I would really rather not see you around any more of my friends and co-workers for quite a long time.

Thank you,

John

Something Rotten

Filed under: General — John @ 11:03 am

Ok, just in case anyone tries to send me mail to home, somethign has goen wonky with my domain. and all mail sent to the house gets bounced saying wohelrshome.net doesnt exist.

I have contacted the DNS peopel and asked tehm to look into it.  Until that time thgouh Things are going to be a bit strange I suspect.

If anyone tried to email me, send to my work email address for now…   that address is

j\/\/ohlers  at \/\/aubonsee.edu

(note, the above is spelled out using slashes to avoid more spam…)

Port Washington Pirate Fest – Part 3

Filed under: General, Music, Renaissance — John @ 6:45 am

After disembarking from the ship I met up with Carl, Julie, Jen, Heidi, Bob, and Jenn. I also met up again with Dave’s parents. (I had been speaking with Lin, and Jerry at the 1st Bounding Main show of the day before I got onboard the ship.) We then all sat and watched Bounding Main’s next performance together. It was a good show as usuall, full of all sorts of sillyness that just really draws in the audience. After the show we all began wandering through the festival. The rest of that day for me was spent hopping from show to show, and wandering around talking with Heidi, and Jen, or Maggie and her fieancee Dave.

At one point I decided to get some water, and a brat for lunch. At faire, or any other festival liek this I always pay for small dollar amout items using the Sacagawea or Susan B. Anthony coins. Doing so always seems to add a touch more fun to the day. Saturday was no exception. Apparently people in Port Washington do not get out much. My lunch bill came to $5.50. I handed the girl six gold coins. She held them in her hand staring at them as if I had just handed her a handful of marbles. She picked each one up, one by one, examined them, turned them over, looked at them more, stared at me, looked at the coins again, stared at me, then finally she turned to a co-worker and said, “How do I make change for these?” It was all I could do to keep from laughing. The co-worker informed her that they were indeed the same as a regular dollar bill and it would still be fifty cents change. I walked away to the condiments table where I proceded to laugh my ass off.
As the day drew closer to an end we found Carl and Julie again and finished off the day all of us together. By this time Carl was now the color of a radioactive tomato in spots. Poor guy. We all decided to get dinner after the fest and so Jen suggested “Pasta Shoppe”, her favorite resturaunt in the area. We invited Bounding Main, and then to kill time until the reservations were ready we decided to walk out to the lighthouse. That didn’t exactly work out as planned, we took the path on one of the breakwalls; a path we had thought joined with the path to the light house, it didn’t.
Path
So we turned around and
headed back all the way commenting on our new status as lemmings.

By the time we got back we were within a half an hours time for the dinner reservations, and Jen wanted to change out of her garb. I had planned on doing the same, but my car was on the opposite end of the park from where we were and so I decided to not worry about it. When we showed up at the resturaunt they seemed rather perplexed at our, ok Heidi, and I’s, appearance. You could definitly tell that they don’t get many people in there in any form of costume. Jen took over the womans restroom to change, and before she was done had a line formed. Rather than continue to annoy the people inside the resturaunt while waiting for Bounding Main to show, and our table to be ready, we moved back outside to a seating area in front of the Pasta Shoppe.
As we sat and waited the local got ever more restless, and every few cars that drove by had someone in them who would roll down their window and shout “ARRRRRRRR” at us. We ignored them for the most part and continued to talk, and wait for Bounding Main and our reservations.

More later…

6/6/2006

The loonies are out…

Filed under: General, Work Stories — John @ 2:35 pm

We just had our excitement for the day…  A “patron”, was just removed from the campus by security for… well… inapropriate behavior…

Oh I can’t wait to see the paperwork and meetings  on this one…

In honor of the date… 06-06-06

Filed under: General — John @ 8:12 am

Normally I don’t post stuff like this on here, but I figure since its 06-06-06 why not. Granted I read NO significance into this arbitray number pattern, but these gave me a little chuckle and I thoguht I’d share.

Here are some numbers you may not have known the significance of:

670 – Approximate number of the Beast
DCLXVI – Roman numeral of the Beast
666.0000000 – Number of the High Precision Beast
665.9999954 – Number of the Pentium Beast
0.666 – Number of the Millibeast
/666 – Beast Common Denominator
666 x sq. rt (-1) – Imaginary number of the Beast
1010011010 – Binary of the Beast
1-666 – Area code of the Beast
00666 – Zip code of the Beast
1-900-666-0666 – Live Beasts! Call Now! Only $6.66/minute. (Must be over 18)
$665.95 – Retail price of the Beast
$710.36 – Price of the Beast plus 6.66% state sales tax
$769.95 – Price of the Beast with all accessories and replacement soul
$606.66 – Price of the Beast at Wal-Mart
$566.66 – Price of the Beast at Costco
Phillips 666 – Gasoline of the Beast
Route 666 – Way of the Beast
666 F – Oven temperature for roast Beast
666k – Retirement plan of the Beast
666 mg – Recommended Daily Allowance of Beast
6.66 % – 5 year CD interest rate at First Beast of Hell National Bank ($666 minimum deposit)
6-6-6.xls – Spreadsheet of the Beast
Word 6.66 – Word Processor of the Beast
666i – BMW of the Beast
DSM-666 (revised) – Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the Beast
668 – Next-door neighbor of the Beast

Port Washington Pirate Fest – Part 2

Filed under: General, Music, Renaissance — John @ 6:02 am

Where was I? Oh yes onboard the Windy II.

After sailing for what seemed all to short of a time, we headed back towards land to start the pirate invasion. As we began to approache Cap’n bob order the Jolly roger to be lowered enough that it would be hidden behind the sails.

Cap'n Bob gives an order

As we approached the Port Washington Light house we were greeted by a group of kids shouting “Welcome to Port Washington”. Very cute. Myself and a number of the other garbed folks made it a point to keep to the side of the ship closest to land just for the visual for the people on the shore. (ok, that or we just wanted to see what was going on… :-) )
As we got closer the Garrison fired off a cannon blast at us, a warning shot we were told. At that point Cap’n Bob order everyone to return to thier seats and the “battle” began. We shouted, we cheered, we jeered, and in general did our best to make enough racket that we could be heard on land. One thing that will stick in my mind for a long time was the incredible sound and feeling of the cannon fire. Onboard the ship every cannon shot

Boom!

fired at us was picked up by the sails and reverberated through all of the rigging with a near slow motion twang. The kids around me were all certain that each shot has just barely missed them. “DAD! It just ziped right by my head!!!” “I felt that one go by!!!” I didn’t break the illusion and just quietly smiled to myself. Ahh the joys and innocence of youth.

When we pulled along side of the dock we all did our best impressions of Pirates and jeered and hurled insults, breandished weapons, and generaly did our best to put on a good show. During that time I noticed Jen, Heidi, Carl and Julie all watching the ship dock. Heidi took a few shots of me onboard, and I think Carl did as well. I can’t wait to see them.

After we docked everyone made their way off the ship and out into the festival itself. I’ll cover that in yet another post, but for now I need to shower and get ready for work.

6/4/2006

Port Washington Pirate Fest – Part 1

Filed under: General, Music, Renaissance — John @ 11:05 pm

This weekend I attended the 2nd annual “Port Washington Pirate Festival”.   I have to say, I was impressed, and I had a really good time.  For it’s second year it has grown a lot from what was described to me last year.  There was a decent merchant area, lots of music (WOOHOOO), and the area near the dock included a number of military camps including Bristols own Guild of St Micheal.  What Pirate fest woudl be complete without ships of course, so they had the tall ship “Windy II” offering cruises.
(more…)

I am on my way

Filed under: On the Road — John @ 7:26 pm

I am on my way home from pirate fest. I had a great time overall. Spent time with Daves parents yesterday. More to follow.

6/2/2006

I’m late… I’m late… For a Very Important date… or am I?

Filed under: The Duh! File — John @ 3:45 pm

The more I deal with banks, the more I wonder if it is a requirement for them to be STUPID when technology is involved.

A few months back I switched banks to another bank, the new bank has handeled our mortgage , etc for years with out any problems, and other peopel I know have had no problems with them.   Great!

Yesterday I was informed that they were considering putting a bad mark on my credit report because the loan payment has been late for the past three months.  Huh? Late?   What?  The payment is due on the 15th, I have the payment setup using their banking sstem to automatically pay on the 1st of every month. How could it possibly be late…   In a panic I double checked all of my e-payment options, and re-downloaded all my statements and checked and every one of them was correct as far as I could tell.   Today after speaking with the bank I find myself questioning the sanity of programmers in financial institutions.

It turns out that when a payment is due the 15th of the month, I can not pay it electronicaly until after the 5th of the month.   If you pay your payment to early, the system will automatically assume (key word there) that your payment is not really the normal payment, and in their reality it is actually an additional payment.  So, It seems that I have been paying extra on the principal of the loan only to turn around and not make the monthly payment.   So I am making an additional payment on a non existant primary payment only to have the additional payment end up taking the place of the unpaid primary payment.  Confused yet?  I know I am…
So, the simple solution is.. that on the 7th of this month, I need to change the automatic bill payment fromthe 1st of the month to the 6th of the month so that on July 6th the payment will be made and counted as a payment NOt as an additional payment to a non existant payment…   If I change the payment date now… then June 6th, I will truely make an additional payment for the month and well thats not really in my plans…

Now supposedly the bank has gone and corrected the records and removed any fines or black marks from their system, they also supposedly have not sent anything on the credit report agency yet.  I don’t beleive that and will have to request a copy to be sure…

The moral of the story I guess is don’t trust computers, banks, and electronic payments…

6/1/2006

A Mighty and Hearty Pirate Arrrrr…

Filed under: General — John @ 2:03 pm

I just got ahold of the people in the know, paid my money, and I will now be onboard ship during the pirate invasion at the Port Washington Pirate fest. What a cool opportunity! Hmm… hope my ears can stand the cannon fire… Perhaps I will get some earplugs just in case…

Oh and while at St Louis this past weekend I picked up this to go with my garb… When in rome, err… port washington…

Pistol

I swear he is the size of a VW bug…

Filed under: General, Work Stories — John @ 9:10 am

Today I returned back to work from my 9 days of vacation. To be honest, I’m glad to be back. It will keep me from goign insane at home.

As I walked up the sidewalk towards my building I noticed off to one side of me a giant mound in the grass. The mound seemed to have a head sticking out of it. Well, I don’t see a lot of mounds with heads so I thoguht it was curious.  I looked a little closer and was surprised to find that it was a giant snapping turtle. Fortunatly I had the camera with and was able to get close enough to get a few pictures of him with out scaring him to badly, and also without loosing a limb.

Snapping Turtle

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