Author: Skip@RR

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Emotional election night

I suspect there were few dry eyes in America last night. I know mine weren’t. We saw history, some of it ending, and some just beginning. I’ll leave the political commentary to the other bloggers, however. If you are near my age, you have seen many changes in the way we consider race in the U.S. Sometimes the changes are slow to come, and sometimes they arrive in an instant. Last night that paradigm shift moment arrived via TV for me, with Charlie Gibson stating “We are ready to predict the winner….” The winner was all of us.

I enjoyed the Onion’s take on things. Click HERE. Warning, link contains ironic humor.

The music in the player is by Craig Padilla. It’s an excerpt from the song titled Vast Emotions. It’s one of my favorites from the 1996 CD Eye of the Storm. My emotions were vast indeed. The music reminds me that Obama has big job ahead. Let’s all wish him luck, because we’ll all need it.

Obama campaigns

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A News Cafe Birthday party

A News Cafe Anniversary
We attended last night’s one-year Birthday Party for Food for Thought / A News Cafe. It was a blast. Lots of people I hadn’t seen in quite a while, and very well attended considering the rainy weather.
Doni Chamberlin
I did one of those “stick out your arm with the digicam and take us both” shots here with hostess with the mostest Doni Greenberg. Big fun!
Phil
Write-in candidate for City Council, Philbert Fountain performs his magic with a Sharpie.
Jim Dyar Band in Redding The Jim Dyar band was really perfect for the gig. I was happy to see Marvin Allen there, on the left. He’s one of my very favorite Redding musicians. Truly a talent. I wish I could have spent more time just enjoying the band, but good food from Andrea of the Bakers Love blog, and lively conversation filled the room. I also wished I had brought a better camera.
A really fun moment for the night was meeting Craig and Erin Friedman of the Still Married band and blog, and realizing Craig and I knew one another from way back when. I’d been to their blog, but didn’t recognize him. Also I didn’t realize until the party that I knew Ann from Infinite Designs from years ago. It’s a small world. A world with excellent birthday parties, too.

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Beyond the Portal artwork arrives

Beyond the Portal cover
We received preliminary cover art for our new CD collaboration project on the Lotuspike label “Beyond the Portal“. I think it looks pretty fabulous. Very exciting! I can’t wait to have the production CD in hand. I have to share this artwork with you.
<Beyond the Portal Text
This is the follow up release to the earlier Path of Least Resistance by Craig Padilla and Zero Ohms. Here are 3 short snips from that project:
Craig and Zero were kind enough to invite me to participate on this next project, whose artwork you see here, due out soon. Stay tuned!

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More and more old Redding Photos

Mary A. saw the old photos I posted yesterday, and sent me a link to even more old Redding photos online at UC Davis. Check out this one of Swimming in the River Imagine swimming in the Sacramento River now. Brrr! Part of the Eastman Collection. 38 lineal feet of photographs. There are lot of other search terms that turn up interesting bits of bygone Redding. Anyway, you can search any keyword in the collection HERE.

Fire at the McConnell Arboretum in ReddingArboretum Fire 2008 Photo by Mary A. and used with permission (I hope)

I was going to post the swimming image itself here, which was donated to UC Davis in 1994, but they wanted $50 for a courtesy fee. Which is probably appropriate, but I don’t really have the budget for it right now. But even better, you can look all you want online for free. I called the Shasta Historical society about the photos I used from their site and they said it was probably OK as non-commercial use, but you should at least be a member, which is only $20. So now I’m a member. You might consider it too if you like looking at history, and think it should be preserved.

From their website: “Jervie Henry Eastman was born, July 20, 1880, in White Cloud, Michigan. His family moved to northern California in 1886. Continue reading “More and more old Redding Photos”

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New music widget

Old Redding

I found a new music widget, and thought I’d try it out. This is an unfinished pieced titled Cloud Study, I’ve been working on, and now posted on SoundCloud. Worth a listen perhaps while looking at old photos of Shasta County at the Shasta Historical Society’s website. They have hundreds of interesting old photos online, and you can lose a few hours just looking around there. It’s so great they keep these available. Anyway I hope you enjoy the music. This ambient piece veers into trancey electronica.

Old Redding photos
Old photos of our town remind us we have seen economic cycles come and go.
Old Redding images Photos used courtesy of Shasta Historical Society. Please consider joining us.

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Fire in the neighborhood again

Pfft. The power went out only for a second. Enough to reboot. Later the sirens came.
Wildfire in north Redding
We’re told it was woodpecker this time. Last time it was a flaming squirrel.
Wildfire in north Redding
With a light breeze at my back, I feel better about this. It’s not moving fast and it’s going the other way.
Wildfire in north Redding
A nervous neighbor gets the woodpecker story. Photos by Skip.

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Makeover


Blog in Redding
My blog gets a much needed makeover today. I’ve posted a Craig Padilla synth pop classic from 1996, The Gift, for your listening pleasure while you look over the new format. I hope you like it.
geese in Redding
Geese waterski on the Sacramento River in Redding, Fall of 2008, photo by Skip

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5000 views and counting

Since I’ve been posting my music, I thought I’d check on Craig’s YouTube channel to see how our music video was doing. We’ve had more than 5000 views as of today. There are several positive comments, which is rather like getting worldwide applause in slow motion. This was a live-in-the-studio performance of Stellar Nursery, and the music we recorded here ended up on our most recent CD, Analog Destination, released on the Groove Unlimited (Netherlands) label in May 2008. We split the video onto 4 parts to fit YouTube’s format better, and here is the first part:

If you click on the video directly, you can get to the other 3 parts of this song, and see some other Craig Padilla videos.

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Clemency

This musical fragment is tentatively titled Clemency. I grant you clemency herewith, and hope that you offer me the same, because I may need it someday. As may we all. Let’s keep this word handy in our lexicon. Mercy can sometimes be in short supply.

This musical sketch by Craig and me goes on for a little more than 13 minutes, in longwinded contrast to yesterday’s synth-pop piece. It’s not exactly ambient, but not melodic either. It floats somewhere in-between, and remains thus unfinished. Some of it “works” (in musical terms) for me, and some less so. It requires a bit more listening to see what we can learn and perhaps adjust. Or perhaps put it back in it’s box, out of sight and out of mind. If this sketch doesn’t “work” for you, I beseech your clemency. And offer mine. It is what it is. We were just looking for a spark of some sort.

You and I have been on a bit of a musical journey this week. I like the little Ovi music player widget very much. As I wrote on my music page, all work and no play makes us dull. So the old saying goes. Work and life are inextricably tied together when you do real estate for a living, and you can’t really separate your work from the rest of your life most of the time. That’s OK. But late at night, when at the controls of a musical instrument, I sometimes feel as though I’m not at work. As mentioned when I started posting music sketches earlier this week, your mileage may vary.
Flower near Sulphur creek in Redding />
Cosmos sulphureus (Yellow Cosmos) appropriately near Sulphur Creek -photo by Skip