Thanks to my son Adam, and his girlfriend Alyssa, we were able to tear up an old single-sheet vinyl floor from a 150 square-foot kitchen, and replace it with a black-marble-looking “peel-and-stick” vinyl tile floor, in less than a day. Total cost was $210, and that included 3 sets of kneepads. Thanks guys! You’re the best!
In my group Cypress Creek Dixieland, Stan made some recordings of a recent rehearsal. Not ready to make any albums yet, but this will give you a flavor of what we are doing.
Enjoy!
My son had to do a History assignment using words from the following song on History.com.
http://www.history.com/topics/french-revolution/videos#the-french-revolution
He wasn’t able to decipher all the words by himself, but between my wife and I helped him most of it out (thanks to Pam E. on Facebook for the rest!). Here are the words:
The King of France was absolute
And the people all were destitute
And the year was seventeen and eighty-nine.
The Churches paid no income tax,
And neither did aristocrats,
And wars were costing money all the time.
But enlightenment, ideas
Had entered people’s ears
Like liberty, equality and brotherhood.
People starved and broke
Under feudalism’s yoke
No church or king was going to do them any good
There was such financial crisis,
The king had to take advice,
To try an old thing called the States-General government
The ‘éstates-general’ had three votes
The nobles, church and common folk
Two-to-one, the commons lose, it always went
The commons, in frustration said,
“We represent the nation,
and the nobles and the church must lose their privileges!”
The rich were scared for real,
When they stormed the Bastille,
And rebellions also broke out in the villages
At the palace in Versailles,
The king and queen were heard to sigh,
When the national assembly made a bill of rights,
Then the womens’ march embarrassed them,
And chased them in to Paris, and
The church and nobles lost their power overnight.
Arguments got hot,
Whether to keep the king or not,
Different groups saw different way to run the country best.
When the royal family tried
To flee the country in disguide,
They were busted and then put under house arrest.
All of Europe’s kings
Were terrified to hear these things,
So france was threatened on all sides by enemies,
When the other kings declared,
The King of France should be spared,
It made the King of France look worse to the revolutionaries.
They built a new machine,
The quick and painless guillotine,
They said it’s fairer than the King’s medieval torture rack.
They put it to a vote,
And then they dropped it on his throat,
And then every king across the world just had a heart attack!
They attacked from north and south,
They attacked from east and west,
Revolutionary France was in a despot state
And when the radical Marat,
Was killed politically, now that,
Was what it took for France’s outlook to degenerate
The new leader Robespierre
Said “enemies are everywhere”
And for a year, the guillotine was working endlessly.
And though he freed the slaves, it’s true,
Robespierre’s head came off too.
And France was run by more moderate Directory.
But the Directory was lame,
And France’s only good news came,
From their army down in Europe winning more and more.
And the man who made them win
Was General Napoleon
But when he came back home, he made himself the emperor.
Though it was a painful climb
To get from kings to modern times.
But the French revolution always paved the way.
Because the ideas that sparked the first,
Have never ever ever been reversed.
It was the biggest change that shaped our Western World today.
La Fin
http://southshore2.tbo.com/photoalbum/2011/jan/22/gasparilla-childrens-parade-2011/21/
The above picture is courtesy of TBO.com.
Update: January 30, 2011 – Three more (large) pictures below to the original post.
Here’s one for all the dummies who go all the way through the Nigerian 419 scam process, and still can’t see it coming a second time.
Dear citizenThis mail is been passed on to all USA citizen how has been involved in any kind of Nigeria scam , the Nigeria Governorment is trying to get thier name out of the world black list and have brought the proposal to that the desk of the USA embassy in Nigeria to the conpensate anybody( we are dealing strictly on US citizens) that was a victim of Nigeria scammer artist. If you in any way a victim do reply this mail and u will be asked some questions to prove its true beofore your compasation rights can get to you. note: If this mail was to and u are not US citizen can mail back and we will direct u on how to contact your embassy thanks
Regards usembassyconsultant10@yahoo.com THE DESK OF THE US AMBASSADOR TRRANCE P MCCULLEY
Oh, how I’d love to see who responds to them AGAIN!
I must have missed this in grade school. Now politics and business make perfect sense!
On Friday, September 24, we had our first performance at Crossroads United Methodist. It was also the first time we performance under the guidance of conductor Ken Watts. Our program included:
These pictures were sent in from a fan this morning. Thank you so much for your enthusiastic support.
Don’t forget to click on the “Concert Schedule” link above. We look forward to seeing you soon!
Wesley Chapel Wind Ensemble is a group of about 15 amateur musicians in the Wesley Chapel area of Florida (Northeast of Tampa). We have been playing locally since 2008. We started out small (a brass quartet), but have grown beyond that. The next stop is very likely a “concert band” style of group.
A married couple I know recently posted a Facebook status that contained an uncommonly strong-worded assertion:
There isn’t ANY support for the new Arizona law that isn’t based on racism.
This bothered me for several days, since I generally support the AZ law although it is quite incomplete, and of course, it has no effect in Florida, which is where I live. After mulling it over for a few days, I rose to the challenge and posted a series of replies. I am reposting it here.
It’s economics, pure and simple. Try this compare-and-contrast exercise of illegal Hispanic immigrants and IT “Guest Workers” on H1-B visas (mostly Indians). Both groups generally come here to pursue a better life for themselves. Both groups have very scary consequences hanging over their heads if they do “anything wrong”: expulsion from this country. Businesses make more profit from BOTH groups by paying them less than others are already here legally would make doing the work. Don’t forget that some of the people already here are of Hispanic and Indian descent, and often have green cards or citizenship. People with green cards and citizenship, regardless of race, are being negatively impacted as well. The only real difference is powers-that-be (business and politicians) keep this situation going in two different ways:
In Western Europe, the same thing is going on, except that their immigrants are Eastern Europeans, who, last time I checked, are ALSO white. The idea that this is racism alone is promoted only to keep you and I from realizing who is really doing the evil, and that is American executives who want to lower labor costs. Classic case of “Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.” That man is a white American, plays lots of golf, and takes millions of dollars for himself, and is happy for everyone else to blame each other instead of him.
Next Reply: If you want to accuse anyone of being racist, it is that white American executive who is SO SURE that Hispanics and Indians will play so well into his plan to continue carpet-bombing both labor markets. He must not think very well of them, expecting them to be so timid, servile, and predictable. As for me, I have many Hispanic and Indian friends. I have taught myself Spanish over the past 6 years or so, and love Hispanic culture so much that my house is taking on Mexican-looking design features and color schemes with every remodeling project I do. I love their food and their music. So much that even my wife (who happens to be of Latin descent) thinks I’m going overboard.
Next Reply: The Arizona law is mostly a cut-and-paste job from the already existing Federal immigration law, and it’s supporters simply want that law to be enforced by the state. The state enforcers can only enforce state law, so they had to do this in order to put it within their jurisdiction. It doesn’t address the real problem which is the desire of businesses for cheap labor. And even then, it only addresses the situation of being here illegally. It doesn’t address the damage that is being done through permissive guest-worker visas. So, at best, AZ’s new law is only a half-assed reaction. Arizona’s new law does not address the H1-B visa, which should have never been passed. The reason for that is the “labor shortage” it was supposed to address NEVER actually existed in the first place.