Chattanooga getaway

This past weekend wife and I took a little jaunt down to Chattanooga to see a good friend of ours, Ann Rabson perform at the Chattanooga Billiard Club. It's only a 2 1/2 hour drive from Nashville and a beautiful one at that. [I appologize for some of the pictures being out of line with their captions, but Blogger refuses to cooperate with my attempts to align them.]












We saw four award-winning singer/songwriters including Dalton Roberts,













Tom Horner,













EG Kight

and of course our friend Ann Rabson

Here they are together after the show.

Here are short bios of these fine performers:

Ann Rabson is a nine-time Blues Music Award nominee. She was inducted into the Boogie-Woogie Hall of Fame in 2003 in honor of her "lifelong dedication and contribution to the art of boogie-woogie piano." Ann has recorded 28 original songs among the tunes on her three solo CDs and her many albums with Saffire -- The Uppity Blues Women, the acoustic trio she co-founded in 1984. Her piano playing, expert guitar work and soulful vocals express the humor and pain of the blues.

Dalton Roberts picked up a guitar at the age of 13. His career took many turns, including one that led down the path of music. Besides being a musician and songwriter, this colorful Tennessean is a poet, philosopher and humorist. Dalton attributes his creativity to "taking good lines out of bad songs." He has written numerous songs and is a favorite in Chattanooga and beyond.

EG Kight, the "Georgia Songbird" is a five-time Blues Music Award nominee. Two of these nominations were for Song of the Year -- one for "Southern Comfort" and the other for "Nothing Ever Hurt Me." Koko Taylor recorded EG's "Fuel to Burn" on her Grammy-nominated album "Royal Blue." EG considers her writing a vital component of her artistry, sharing inspiration gathered from everyday life with the listener.

Tom Horner has played many roles in the music business. A singer, musician and songwriter, he is a two-time winner of Billboard Magazine's Annual Song Contest. He has collaborated many times with fellow songwriter EG Kight. The two artists received a 2004 Blues Music Award nomination for Song of the Year. Horner was the lead guitarist for Sweetwater during the early '80s. He continues to perform, record, produce and write with various artists in many music communities.

I studied with Ann in the early 1990s. I signed up for Blues Week, which is part of the Augusta Heritage Workshops, held in Elkins, WV. Ann was one of the piano teachers, and it quickly became evident that my skills and experiences put me on a par with the instructors instead of the students. So Ann and I became collaborators, jamming and trading stories.

It was past 2:30 a.m. when we finally returned to our motel. Sunday morning we slept late past the Comfort Inn's "free breakfast" time and took the scenic route home through Soddy Daisy and across scenic Rt. 111

and enjoyed a country breakfast at the Dunlap Restaurant in Dunlap, TN. Then we headed across Tennessee on Rt. 30 to Woodbury, where we had a milkshake at the McDonald's. Armed with sufficient nutrition, we continued westward to Murfreesboro where we picked up I-24 and finished the trip home to our patiently waiting cat Roger.

Memorial Weekend visit to Virginia

This is a re-posting of a previous story from a couple of weeks ago. I tried unsuccessfully for weeks to post pictures to that blog. However, for some unknown reason Blogger allowed me to post a few to this one for a little today while until it quit. Then I read on a Google discussion group that someone had luck with deleting cookies first. So I tried it, and it worked!

Wife and I drove to Northern VA over Memorial Day weekend (1500 miles round trip) for a very pleasant visit with some of my family and friends.

Roger the cat thinks it's playtime whenever the suitcase comes out.














Going up we took I-40 east to I-81 north up the Shenandoah Valley, then I-66 east to my son’s house. We left Nashville at 9:00 a.m. on Wednesday and arrived at my son’s place about 11:00 p.m. Long drive!



I-81 was blocked at Harrisonburg, so I took us up old Rt. 11 through the charming valley town and enjoyed roadside scenes like these.


















Thursday morning we visited Harper’s Ferry with wife’s cousin. Harper's Ferry is situated at the confluence of the Shenandoah and Potomac rivers. It served as the jumping-off point for early expeditions to the western frontier in colonial times and hosted manufacturing plants of various kinds, but the town has been destroyed many times by floods. A big group of school kids had just left when we arrived, and the rain had just stopped, so there were no crowds, and it was dry.



















We enjoyed a leisurely late lunch at Hilltop House, an old hotel that overlooks the town and river from a high bluff. Here's a view from our table.











Friday night we accompanied my son and a friend to see a band at a local club. Three of the five band members were friends of mine with whom I had played for many years prior to leaving the area for Nashville in 1998.













They asked me to sit in and play keyboards on a couple of numbers (“Dixie Chicken” and “Mustang Sally”).













The drummer’s wife was celebrating her birthday; so many other old friends whom I hadn’t seen in 8 years were there too.















We made it a 2-day trip on the way back. First we took Rt. 7 over the Blue Ridge














and across the Shenandoah Valley, where we saw an unusually colorful barn.














We caught I-81 north to I-68 and I-79 across the stunning mountains of northern West Virginia (see wifie's pretty feet on dashboard).















































and spent a delightful night in Barboursville, which is near the West Virginia border with Kentucky.

The next day we continued west to the Bluegrass Parkway across Kentucky. On our way we passed by the Keeneland Race Track














and a beautiful horse barn that must be part of Keeneland.














The Bluegrass Parkway took us to I-65 and then south to home again.

New car!

Two weeks ago we bought a new Scion xB!



































It drives like a sports car and gets 30 mpg. It's tiny on the outside but HUGE on the inside and has a killer stereo system. I had an after-market electronics shop hook up connecters so I can use my XM Satellite radio box in the car or plug it into my PC at work.

Blogger problems

Blogger won't let me post pictures. I have lots of pictures that should accompany my previous post (June 9).

When I try to upload a picture, Blogger lets me browse and choose, and then it presents me with the "Done" box, which usually indicates that the picture has uploaded successfully. But when I click "Done," nothing happens - the picture never shows up on my blog. I've tried this multiple times on many days but to no avail.

The Blogger help group has an extended discussion of this problem, but apparently Google has not yet been able to come up with a solution.

Oy vey!

When it rains

…it pours.

A lot has happened since my last post.

Wife and I drove to Northern VA over Memorial Day weekend (1500 miles round trip) for a very nice visit with some of my family and friends. Going up we took I-40 east to I-81 north up the Shenandoah Valley, then I-66 east to my son’s house. We left Nashville at 9:00 a.m. on Wednesday and arrived at my son’s place about 11:00 p.m. Long drive!

Thursday morning we visited Harper’s Ferry with wife’s cousin. A big group of school kids had just left when we arrived, and the rain had just stopped, so there were no crowds, and it was dry. We enjoyed a leisurely late lunch at Hilltop House, an old hotel that overlooks the town and river from a high bluff.

Friday morning we met with my financial advisor to plan for retirement (6 years away), spent the afternoon in Tyson’s Mall and later enjoyed a delightful dinner with my sister Mary. She was born mentally retarded, is now 56, lives in a beautiful group home and works in a sheltered workshop. Mary is fortunate to have been born in Fairfax County, which provides great social programs for folks like her. We took her to Outback for her favorite dinner, prime rib. My dear wife has forged a loving relationship with her, and as a result I am close to my sister for the first time in my life. Later that night we accompanied my son and a friend to see a band at a local club. Three of the five band members were friends of mine with whom I had played for many years prior to leaving the area for Nashville in 1998. Of course they asked me to sit in and play keyboards on a couple of numbers (“Dixie Chicken” and “Mustang Sally”). The drummer’s wife was celebrating her birthday; so many other old friends whom I hadn’t seen in 8 years were there too.

Saturday we drove with my son and his gf up to Fairfield, PA to visit my ex and her husband. This may sound weird, and I suppose it is. We were married 26 years and divorced 12 years ago. My wife is very supportive and has established a good relationship with my ex, which makes my life much easier.

We made it a 2-day trip on the way back. First we took Rt. 7 to I-81, then to I-68 and I-79 across the stunning mountains of northern West Virginia, spent a delightful night in Barboursville, then continued west to the Bluegrass Parkway across Kentucky, then to I-65 south and home again. The weather was perfect, the scenery was breathtaking and the car ran fine.

When we returned we discovered that lightning had struck a tree in our neighbor’s yard just at the edge of our driveway, spraying bark at a velocity so high it broke a window in our garage door and punched 3 holes in the siding. We also lost our CATV box, our cable modem and wireless router. Less than a week later, the following Saturday we got struck again; this time we lost our VCR plus our modem and router again. The next day when I started to plug the blender into an outlet in the kitchen, FIRE shot out of the outlet, and I could see that it continued burning behind the plate. I ran downstairs and flipped the breakers; luckily the fire didn’t catch inside the wall and burn our house down! The electrician said he’d never seen anything like it; apparently the electrical surge from the lightning strike fried the GFI electronics in the plug, disabling it from performing its protective duty.

That Saturday we also bought a new car, a 2006 Scion xB. Wife’s brother wants to buy her 1995 T-bird, so we needed to replace it. It’s very fuel efficient, inexpensive (as new cars go) and fun to drive! I would post a picture of it, but Blogger has been unable to post any pictures for the last couple of weeks.

So you can see that in my life, when it rains, it really pours. And sometimes lightning strikes.