My friend and fellow planetarium musician Jim Combs plays in the Atlanta area (mostly) as Sensitive Chaos. He also plays in collaboration with other folks, and leads the music festival there, City Skies. If you’ve been enjoying some of Craig Padilla and my music posted here, you will probably also enjoy Sensitive Chaos. You can buy music and CDs at the website, but even better, you can sample very long pieces at no cost at the secret webpage. Shh. Its a secret webpage. There’s more than 13 hours of recordings available there. You can drop some money in the digital tip jar too, just like listening at a venue. Check it out. Add some nice longform MP3 tracks to your iPod, at whatever you’d like to pay (think starving artist). Thanks Jim! Play on.
What do you see in the sky at night?
You see time. This recently released 18 minute video from TED is thought provoking. Awe provoking, really.
TED has lots of thought provoking information from smart people. Worth a lengthy surf to their site if you haven’t seen some of what takes place there. It’s always encouraging to see smart people.
Mortgage modification
Mortgages are often very difficult to understand. If you’re going to be applying for a mortgage, it’s important that you know how to get the best option for you because otherwise, you’ll struggle to pay for it. If you don’t have any credit history, then you will find it very hard to find a good rate so you should look at credit cards for people with no credit so you are able to build a score that will get you a score that will give you a mortgage you can afford. If you accept a mortgage that you won’t be able to support financially then you may lose your house. Luckily, there are steps you can take to improve your financial situation if you are currently struggling, like a mortgage modification. If you are interested in learning more about mortgage modifications for first time home buyers your preferred mortgage broker may be able to help.
A mortgage modification is where a troubled homeowner can renegotiate the terms of their mortgage to make it affordable. I have been dismayed to see so many scams recently appear to take advantage of the people who are in mortgage trouble, preying on the most vulnerable. Here’s a link to the only legitimate site I know, Making homes Affordable. Never pay anyone for this free information.
Avoid the many scam artists we see popping up. I hope this helps somebody.
If you’re currently purchasing a new home and want to find a lender for a mortgage loan, SoFi can help with this and make the process a less stressful one – https://www.sofi.com/home-loans/mortgage/.
Our kids will thank us.
A tale of two species
I’ve been thinking all week about that poor guy who was trampled to death by WalMartians last Friday. A Black Friday to mark in our memory. Stomped to death by his fellow man, in a hurry to get some cheap Chinese shit; what have we become? Contrast that act of humanity to this recent video of a dog risking it’s life to save its friend on a busy freeway.
Dog Risks Life To Save Injured Friend – Watch more Entertainment
Planetary conjunction
Okay this might not look like much here, but it was visually stunning yesterday evening just after sunset. The crescent Moon, lined up near Venus and Jupiter. I got out my camera and tried to capture the majesty, without much success.
Here’s the moon using the 200mm lens on my real estate camera. The conjunction was pretty spectacular in real life, but if you missed it, you’ll just have to use your imagination, perhaps. Using my telescope, you could plainly see several moons of Jupiter lined up in the same plane as the Earth’s Moon. And Luna herself was amazing with the light giving sharp detail to the massive craters. It was a nice evening for stargazing. I bought this 4″ Meade Newtonian reflecting telescope from an unemployed mortgage broker for $50 (no joke). Too bad I can’t hook the camera up to it (yet).
Appropriate to the setting, we have a rare live recording from the Schreder Planetarium of Craig Padilla’s Night Rain, originally from the album Eye of the Storm. This was recorded under the stars, under the dome a few years back. This 7 minute piece features a pyrotechnic guitar solo by Al Mires, now proprietor of Palo Cedro’s Music Max music store (Remember to shop locally folks). And Craig plays acoustic electric guitar here, no less. I think this recording was released only as a cassette prior to this, so I hope you enjoy it.
Looks like we’re having ham…
Happy Thanksgiving! Plus, link to a good post for today
I have so much to be grateful about, it wouldn’t even fit into a day. Nevertheless we are celebrating at home with friends and family, and Karry’s usual “Martha Stewart on steroids” dinner. Love it all.
If you make the rounds of local blogs, you’ve probably seen this recent post. But if not, I will bring this to your attention for today, as it follows the spirit. My friend and fellow Realtor Lara Wells Osborn wrote a thought-provoking post over at Food For Thought. It’s one of those rare pieces that stays with you long after reading. Lara is one of my favorite fellow agents. She and her husband have several cute kids too, which added poignancy to her excellent prose. That, along with the fact that she has established herself as a marketer of luxury homes, and has done very well with that high-end market segment. She’s just a good person to be around, and people sense that sort of thing. You should read her post if you didn’t already, and the link is HERE.
Thanks for writing, Lara. And a Happy and thoughtful Thanksgiving to all!
Diestlehorst bones by Skip
Redneck fire detector
Solar Fields
This video showed up in my e-mail the other day. I don’t know if it’s authorized, but it’s nice. It says the music was recorded Freitag (German for Friday) Nov 14. Solar Fields is a European music artist with whom I have a slender connection. Craig Padilla and I were invited to appear on a compilation CD from 2002 called the Fahrenheit Project on the French label Ultimae. Craig and I submitted a track from Beyond Beta, and Solar Fields contributed a track called Outlined surfaces. Since then I have followed the music vicariously, and find that we are very much in the same vibe. I see that the Fahrenheit Project #1 is now out of print, and that’s a shame. It was a very tasty compilation. The Ultimae label is run by Vince and Sunshine from Lyons, France, self described “panoramic people” in their newsletters. I hope we meet someday. Terrific people, great music, all across the sea. It’s always surprising to me that we seem to have a fan base in Europe.
I see their website has a review among several of the Fahrenheit compilation, in which our ambient beatless track is described as “not dreadful.” Ouch! Hee hee. I guess it could be worse.