YouTube - yanni-keys of imagination
this is the other yanni piece i really like. i have several of his cd's and there can be a sameness sound to them, but certain pieces really stand out.
Monday, March 03, 2008
Sunday, March 02, 2008
mothering day in the Uk and seven miles along the thames
today was their version of mother's day here in oxford and the rest of the UK. no effect on us other than there were more cars than usual going up and down binsey lane and getting in the way of my run. it is a small street and two cars have to be careful if they are going in opposite directions at the same time. actually, one has to stop or else. add a runner and it gets tight. the roads were orginally built for horses and carts and many have to be shared. wonder how that would work back home? my own little observation is that generally speaking the usa is a much more aggressive culture.
still, i got my 7 miles in with 20 pickups of 30-60 seconds. continued working the right leg and trying to run on two legs. nothing like getting older and it seems to be affecting my running and golf. but what are the choices? i go on.
pretty day and it warmed up a lot as i was out. many runners also running up and down the river. the crews were out again and they are always fun to watch. the sky was really blue and then about 3 miles into it the wind just really picked up-really! - and was in my face the next 3 miles. oh well, easier to run in the wind than golf in it.
after another 150 attempts to find a golf swing- some really nice 8 irons, but not much else- can you say snap hook? block? pull? you get the idea. still digging it out of the dirt. getting closer to france by now going sideways. btw- they do have really fertile soil here-would be great to have this in my garden at home rather than the good virginia clay i dig through.
time for a funny story- years ago around 1967 in early february i took viet nam jungle training at ft a.p. hill in virginia. talk about clay. mostly we learned how to get off a truck and attack and how to keep our distance from each other as we advanced, but we did a lot of fox hole digging. and we always used fake bullets to shoot at each other and a referee would run around yelling who was dead. we never wounded anyone. you lived or died in training.
but when guys ran out of fake bullets they would throw clay at the other side. and it hurt. the bullets were fake and never actually hit you, but clay dirt in cold february, would leave a mark. and lots of real fights always broke out. a good argument was that if you really ran out of bullets while the enemy advanced you would do whatever you could to stop them. in actuality i never dug a foxhole in nam, but i filled my share of sandbags to get behind.
i digress. the run went ok and the river was green today and there were all kinds of people fishing along the channel. a pretty country morning just minutes away from the hub bub of a city with 145,000 people.
later in the day after golf and gail done working we took a 3 mile walk around king george park and up the thames from the south. a pretty way to end the active part of the day. the rest is house junk and i won't bore the fans anymore.
4 days to be home and 150 days to be there for good. be careful what you wish for comes to mind every time i typed the number of days left. still, i look forward to my two digit midget days coming up in 51 days.
and it is time for baseball almost. what happened to zito? even in spring training teams don't usual get over 20 runs. how good will the red sox be this year? go phillies!
still, i got my 7 miles in with 20 pickups of 30-60 seconds. continued working the right leg and trying to run on two legs. nothing like getting older and it seems to be affecting my running and golf. but what are the choices? i go on.
pretty day and it warmed up a lot as i was out. many runners also running up and down the river. the crews were out again and they are always fun to watch. the sky was really blue and then about 3 miles into it the wind just really picked up-really! - and was in my face the next 3 miles. oh well, easier to run in the wind than golf in it.
after another 150 attempts to find a golf swing- some really nice 8 irons, but not much else- can you say snap hook? block? pull? you get the idea. still digging it out of the dirt. getting closer to france by now going sideways. btw- they do have really fertile soil here-would be great to have this in my garden at home rather than the good virginia clay i dig through.
time for a funny story- years ago around 1967 in early february i took viet nam jungle training at ft a.p. hill in virginia. talk about clay. mostly we learned how to get off a truck and attack and how to keep our distance from each other as we advanced, but we did a lot of fox hole digging. and we always used fake bullets to shoot at each other and a referee would run around yelling who was dead. we never wounded anyone. you lived or died in training.
but when guys ran out of fake bullets they would throw clay at the other side. and it hurt. the bullets were fake and never actually hit you, but clay dirt in cold february, would leave a mark. and lots of real fights always broke out. a good argument was that if you really ran out of bullets while the enemy advanced you would do whatever you could to stop them. in actuality i never dug a foxhole in nam, but i filled my share of sandbags to get behind.
i digress. the run went ok and the river was green today and there were all kinds of people fishing along the channel. a pretty country morning just minutes away from the hub bub of a city with 145,000 people.
later in the day after golf and gail done working we took a 3 mile walk around king george park and up the thames from the south. a pretty way to end the active part of the day. the rest is house junk and i won't bore the fans anymore.
4 days to be home and 150 days to be there for good. be careful what you wish for comes to mind every time i typed the number of days left. still, i look forward to my two digit midget days coming up in 51 days.
and it is time for baseball almost. what happened to zito? even in spring training teams don't usual get over 20 runs. how good will the red sox be this year? go phillies!
under the tuscan sun quotes
probably not the greatest movie in the world, but i loved it. touched a piece of my sentimental soul and didn't have a really stupid ending like most movies do to me. my
daughter reminded me of the movie the other day in an email we had going. some good lines from the movie left over from some i cut out. worth a dvd rental unless you only like rambo killing things.
memorable quotes for
Under the Tuscan Sun (2003)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Katherine: It's a nice little villa. Are you going to buy it?
Frances: The way my life is currently going, that would be a terrible idea.
Katherine: Terrible idea... Don't you just love those?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Frances: You're right - I got everything I asked for.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Frances: I'll hire the muscular descendants of Roman gods to do the heavy lifting.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Patti: Think of your inner voice.
Frances: Inner voice...”What the fuck am I doing on a gay tour of Tuscany?"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
German Woman: You greedy Americans. You think you're so entitled. You ruin everything.
Frances: A lot of us feel really badly about that.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Patti: Frances bought a house in Tuscany! And you're going to live there alone?
Frances: Well, I'm not there alone. I'm there with bugs.
Patti: Ew.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Frances: [in voiceover] Every day I watch for the old man with the flowers, and I wonder, was he born here? Did he love someone here? Did he lose someone here? He doesn't seem as curious about me, but that's all right. These days I'm something of a loner myself.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Frances: Do you know the most surprising thing about divorce? It doesn't actually kill you. Like a bullet to the heart or a head-on car wreck. It should. When someone you've promised to cherish till death do you part says "I never loved you," it should kill you instantly. You shouldn't have to wake up day after day after that, trying to understand how in the world you didn't know. The light just never went on, you know. I must have known, of course, but I was too scared to see the truth. Then fear just makes you so stupid.
Martini: No, it's not stupid, Signora Mayes. L'amore e cieco.
Frances: Oh, love is blind. Yeah, we have that saying too.
Martini: Everybody has that saying because it's true everywhere.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Frances: [voiceover] What is it about love that makes us so stupid?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Martini: Signora. Please stop being so sad. If you continue like this, I will be forced to make love to you. And I've never been unfaithful to my wife.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Frances: You're the one that made the "empty-shell person standing at the crossroads" speech.
Patti: Oh, yeah. That was me.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Patti: I refuse to screw up your love life.
Frances: Don't be ridiculous, Patti. You are my love life.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Frances: What are four walls, anyway? They are what they contain. The house protects the dreamer. Unthinkably good things can happen, even late in the game. It's such a surprise.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Frances: This is really bad, isn't it?
Patti: Well, it's not good. Unless you want to give your ass a facial.
Frances: That's a contradiction in terms.
Patti: i guess it would be more like an Ass-cail
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[at the Flag Festival]
Patti: These are straight men.
Frances: In tights. Waving Flags.
Patti: Fantastic.
Frances: Yeah.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Frances: I'd like to make an offer on the house. This is what I can pay, minus the work on the place, and a rental car to drive off a cliff when this all turns out to have been a terrible mistake.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Katherine: Regrets are a waste of time. They're the past crippling you in the present.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Frances: Do traffic lights mean anythng around here?
Marcello: Sure. Green light - avanti, avanti. Yellow light - decoration.
Frances: What about red light?
Marcello: Just a suggestion.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Katherine: Never lose your childish innocence. It's the most important thing.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Pawel: [after Frances finds him and Chiara on her bed] Frances, please! We have nowhere to be together!
Frances: And what does that make me? Saint Francesca, patron saint of horny teenagers?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Martini: Signora, between Austria and Italy, there is a section of the Alps called the Semmering. It is an impossibly steep, very high part of the mountains. They built a train track over these Alps to connect Vienna and Venice. They built these tracks even before there was a train in existence that could make the trip. They built it because they knew some day, the train would come.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Frances: [narrating] So I was now the owner of a villa whose lands it would take two oxen two days to plow. Owning neither an ox nor a plow, I'd have to take their word for that.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Patti: There's something strange about these trees. It's like they know.
Frances: And they know that we know that they know.
Patti: They're creepy. Creepy Italian trees. Of course, the baby's going to like them cause it's going to be a creepy Italian baby who goes around saying things like 'Ciao mama' and doing that weird backward hand wave thing. Life is strange.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Frances: What's your name?
Marcello: Marcello.
Frances: Of course it is.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Marcello: If you smash into something good, you should hold on until it's time to let go.
daughter reminded me of the movie the other day in an email we had going. some good lines from the movie left over from some i cut out. worth a dvd rental unless you only like rambo killing things.
memorable quotes for
Under the Tuscan Sun (2003)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Katherine: It's a nice little villa. Are you going to buy it?
Frances: The way my life is currently going, that would be a terrible idea.
Katherine: Terrible idea... Don't you just love those?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Frances: You're right - I got everything I asked for.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Frances: I'll hire the muscular descendants of Roman gods to do the heavy lifting.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Patti: Think of your inner voice.
Frances: Inner voice...”What the fuck am I doing on a gay tour of Tuscany?"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
German Woman: You greedy Americans. You think you're so entitled. You ruin everything.
Frances: A lot of us feel really badly about that.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Patti: Frances bought a house in Tuscany! And you're going to live there alone?
Frances: Well, I'm not there alone. I'm there with bugs.
Patti: Ew.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Frances: [in voiceover] Every day I watch for the old man with the flowers, and I wonder, was he born here? Did he love someone here? Did he lose someone here? He doesn't seem as curious about me, but that's all right. These days I'm something of a loner myself.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Frances: Do you know the most surprising thing about divorce? It doesn't actually kill you. Like a bullet to the heart or a head-on car wreck. It should. When someone you've promised to cherish till death do you part says "I never loved you," it should kill you instantly. You shouldn't have to wake up day after day after that, trying to understand how in the world you didn't know. The light just never went on, you know. I must have known, of course, but I was too scared to see the truth. Then fear just makes you so stupid.
Martini: No, it's not stupid, Signora Mayes. L'amore e cieco.
Frances: Oh, love is blind. Yeah, we have that saying too.
Martini: Everybody has that saying because it's true everywhere.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Frances: [voiceover] What is it about love that makes us so stupid?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Martini: Signora. Please stop being so sad. If you continue like this, I will be forced to make love to you. And I've never been unfaithful to my wife.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Frances: You're the one that made the "empty-shell person standing at the crossroads" speech.
Patti: Oh, yeah. That was me.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Patti: I refuse to screw up your love life.
Frances: Don't be ridiculous, Patti. You are my love life.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Frances: What are four walls, anyway? They are what they contain. The house protects the dreamer. Unthinkably good things can happen, even late in the game. It's such a surprise.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Frances: This is really bad, isn't it?
Patti: Well, it's not good. Unless you want to give your ass a facial.
Frances: That's a contradiction in terms.
Patti: i guess it would be more like an Ass-cail
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[at the Flag Festival]
Patti: These are straight men.
Frances: In tights. Waving Flags.
Patti: Fantastic.
Frances: Yeah.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Frances: I'd like to make an offer on the house. This is what I can pay, minus the work on the place, and a rental car to drive off a cliff when this all turns out to have been a terrible mistake.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Katherine: Regrets are a waste of time. They're the past crippling you in the present.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Frances: Do traffic lights mean anythng around here?
Marcello: Sure. Green light - avanti, avanti. Yellow light - decoration.
Frances: What about red light?
Marcello: Just a suggestion.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Katherine: Never lose your childish innocence. It's the most important thing.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Pawel: [after Frances finds him and Chiara on her bed] Frances, please! We have nowhere to be together!
Frances: And what does that make me? Saint Francesca, patron saint of horny teenagers?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Martini: Signora, between Austria and Italy, there is a section of the Alps called the Semmering. It is an impossibly steep, very high part of the mountains. They built a train track over these Alps to connect Vienna and Venice. They built these tracks even before there was a train in existence that could make the trip. They built it because they knew some day, the train would come.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Frances: [narrating] So I was now the owner of a villa whose lands it would take two oxen two days to plow. Owning neither an ox nor a plow, I'd have to take their word for that.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Patti: There's something strange about these trees. It's like they know.
Frances: And they know that we know that they know.
Patti: They're creepy. Creepy Italian trees. Of course, the baby's going to like them cause it's going to be a creepy Italian baby who goes around saying things like 'Ciao mama' and doing that weird backward hand wave thing. Life is strange.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Frances: What's your name?
Marcello: Marcello.
Frances: Of course it is.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Marcello: If you smash into something good, you should hold on until it's time to let go.
More Americans Are Giving Up Golf - New York Times
interesting article. wish i could just give it up myself, but not yet.
More Americans Are Giving Up Golf - New York Times
More Americans Are Giving Up Golf - New York Times
Saturday, March 01, 2008
quick run and a day in Bath
quick blog for now as it is late and i am just back from Bath, a town about 70 miles from here with a population of about 80,000.
got a decent 6 hours of sleep and was out the door running at 7am. did the usual run as it is the easiest route to run when i am in a hurry to get back and we needed to catch an early train. was somewhat surprised to see so many runners out so early, but it is nice that we are getting more daylight early, and the sun was coming up behind me as i headed up to the church and then over to the river. black water today and lots of swans and white geese out. did about 6 miles and headed home.
quick bowl of cereal and off we went. turns out the tracks were under repair and we had to take a train to didcot and then bus to swindon and then back on the train to bath. about 60 people were left waiting at the bus as there was no room amid the usual typically good planning of the best western railway. was fun watching the bus driver call in for backup, saying the crowd was really upset(at this point the crowd good naturedly started jeering) and was about to lynch him. funny. also funny later when he pulled off of the road to scream at people drinking on the back of the bus. by now it was 10:20am.
bath itself was a beautiful town with the most really old architecture and buildings still standing. even where we stopped for some tea and a "bun", the building was built in 1480 or so. i forget the exact date- really old will do. the recipe for the bun was 325 years old and found in a secret cupboard. pretty good with a chocolate topping. go figure.
we walked about 9-10 miles around town seeing many of the jane austin historical places as well as others. very pretty scenery along the river and the cliffs. really nice place to visit, but if we were to do it again, any day other than saturday might be better as to put it mildly, we were not the only ones with the idea of seeing Bath today. despite the cold and wind- wind- wind- get it?
repeated the same deal on the way home, train, bus, train and then walked back. a somewhat long day, but a worthwhile trip. more about it on another day.
stopped for potatoes and broccoli to make jacket potatoes at home. should be raining any moment according to BBC. and no word yet on the fate of the cat.
151 to go.
got a decent 6 hours of sleep and was out the door running at 7am. did the usual run as it is the easiest route to run when i am in a hurry to get back and we needed to catch an early train. was somewhat surprised to see so many runners out so early, but it is nice that we are getting more daylight early, and the sun was coming up behind me as i headed up to the church and then over to the river. black water today and lots of swans and white geese out. did about 6 miles and headed home.
quick bowl of cereal and off we went. turns out the tracks were under repair and we had to take a train to didcot and then bus to swindon and then back on the train to bath. about 60 people were left waiting at the bus as there was no room amid the usual typically good planning of the best western railway. was fun watching the bus driver call in for backup, saying the crowd was really upset(at this point the crowd good naturedly started jeering) and was about to lynch him. funny. also funny later when he pulled off of the road to scream at people drinking on the back of the bus. by now it was 10:20am.
bath itself was a beautiful town with the most really old architecture and buildings still standing. even where we stopped for some tea and a "bun", the building was built in 1480 or so. i forget the exact date- really old will do. the recipe for the bun was 325 years old and found in a secret cupboard. pretty good with a chocolate topping. go figure.
we walked about 9-10 miles around town seeing many of the jane austin historical places as well as others. very pretty scenery along the river and the cliffs. really nice place to visit, but if we were to do it again, any day other than saturday might be better as to put it mildly, we were not the only ones with the idea of seeing Bath today. despite the cold and wind- wind- wind- get it?
repeated the same deal on the way home, train, bus, train and then walked back. a somewhat long day, but a worthwhile trip. more about it on another day.
stopped for potatoes and broccoli to make jacket potatoes at home. should be raining any moment according to BBC. and no word yet on the fate of the cat.
151 to go.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
.jpg)
