ComfyBumpy

Spent my afternoon putting together a ComfyBumpy bedrail... fun, wow. Turn up the stereo. It turned out to be not as bad as it initially looked although I still needed to check the YouTube instruction video. It's hard to remember life without the ability to quickly check an instruction video for almost anything that needs to be done.

So what's a ComfyBumpy? It's a guard rail for a bed. Henry has graduated to a real bed when he comes to visit because his new sister has dibs on the portable crib. Now three year old Henry sleeps in Sean's old bed but we needed to make sure he didn't fall out and thus the ComfyBumpy.

16 Big Hits

I loved to listen to Motown music when I was a teenager... still do. I started buying their singles very early in high school around 1965. I had a large stack of singles in a very short time. The music of that time was focused on the 45 rpm single although I was buying some albums by 1966. I probably stopped buying singles in 1967 and was completely converted to regular albums.

There was an interim period when I was getting Motown albums that were collections of singles. They released a 16 Big Hits album each year and I would go out and get it.

Vol. 4 came out in 1965, Vol. 5 in 1966, and Vol. 7 in 1967. That was it for me and I was just getting mostly albums in 1968 although I did get a few singles that were on obscure labels but no more Motown singles or collection of singles.

I Don't Want To - Decade 3

Decade 3 - Set 24 - I Don't Want To Go To
2 hours 27 minutes

1. (I Don't Want To Go To) Chelsea - Elvis Costello, 1978
2. King's Lead Hat - Brian Eno, 1977
3. Promises - Buzzcocks, 1979
4. Vampire Rock - Fabulous Poodles, 1979
5. Walk On By - The Stranglers, 1978
6. Let's Talk About Girls - The Undertones, 1979
7. She's Got Everything - The Romantics, 1980
8. Needles And Pins - The Ramones, 1978
9. Glad All Over - The Rezillos, 1978
10. Denis - Blondie, 1978
11. So You Want To Be A Rock 'n' Roll Star - Patti Smith, 1979
12. Go Your Own Way - Fleetwood Mac, 1977
13. So Long Baby Goodbye - The Blasters, 1981
14. I Knew The Bride (When She Used To Rock & Roll) - Dave Edmunds, 1977
15. Surrender - Cheap Trick, 1978
16. Don't Bring Me Down - Electric Light Orchestra, 1979
17. Little Thing Called Love - Neil Young, 1982
18. I Look For Love - John Hiatt, 1982
19. Don't Worry Baby - Los Lobos, 1984
20. Blue Jean - David Bowie, 1984
21. Family Man - Hall & Oates, 1982
22. Hot In The City - Billy Idol, 1982
23. The Bed's Too Big Without You - The Police, 1979
24. I.G.Y. - Donald Fagen, 1982
25. Sultans Of Swing - Dire Straits, 1978
26. Steppin' Out - Joe Jackson, 1982
27. What Do You Want From Life - The Tubes, 1978
28. Step Right Up - Tom Waits, 1976
29. Minute By Minute - The Doobie Brothers, 1978
30. Baker Street - Gerry Rafferty, 1978
31. How Cruel - Joan Armatrading, 1979
32. Laughing - R.E.M., 1983
33. Another Nail In My Heart - Squeeze, 1980
34. Three Minute Hero - The Selecter, 1980
35. Gravity - Pylon, 1980
36. The Lebanon - The Human League, 1984
37. Everybody Wants To Rule The World - Tears For Fears, 1985
38. Bad - U2, 1984

Gerber Life

I was a Gerber baby. I ate a lot of Gerber baby cereal growing up and long after I got my baby teeth. With so many younger brothers and sisters I also loved to eat that Gerber baby cereal for breakfast throughout my early childhood. I vividly remember those different color boxes of that cereal and the taste. We all sat there eating Gerber cereal.

The image of that baby has also been indelibly embedded into my brain. Not just from the cereal box but all those little jars of baby food too.

So it is not surprising that Gerber would branch off into life insurance for this generation and use that baby logo. Yes, I have Gerber Life Insurance. Every month I see that baby in my mail box. 

Apparently the Gerber Life Insurance is a part of a large financial conglomerate that has licensed the baby logo from Nestle Corp which owns the baby food company. This has been going on since 1967.

Readings 2000

The 35 books I read in 2000 including 20 novels and 15 works of nonfiction. 

An interesting collection of novels. The first four on the list are some of my favorite novels. I discovered Ender's Game and read a sequel. I also went back and read the Isaac Asimov's Foundation Trilogy for the third time. That's something I don't do very often. Read some other science fiction novels by Bruce Sterling, Michael Crighton, Connie Willis, Linda Nagata and an interesting Mary Doria Russell. One more by Anne Rice too. I tried a new Dune sequel by Frank Herbert's son but I don't think I will continue with any more of them.

1. High Fidelity - Nick Hornby, 1995
2. The Risk Pool - Richard Russo, 1988
3. Cold Mountain - Charles Frazier, 1997
4. Waiting - Ha Jin, 1999
5. The Island of the Colorblind - Oliver Sacks, 1996
6. The All-True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton - Jane Smiley, 1998
7. The Dylanist: A Novel - Brian Morton, 1991
8. Gone For Soldiers - Jeff Shaara, 2000
9. Ender's Game - Orson Scott Card, 1985
10. Foundation - Isaac Asimov, 1951
11. The Sparrow - Mary Doria Russell, 1996
12. Distraction - Bruce Sterling, 1998
13. Foundation and Empire - Isaac Asimov, 1952
14. Timeline - Michael Crichton, 1999
15. Doomeday Book - Connie Willis, 1992
16. Pandora - Anne Rice, 1998
17. Xenocide - Orson Scott Card, 1991
18. Vast - Linda Nagata, 1998
19. Second Foundation - Isaac Asimov, 1953
20. House Atreides - Brian Herbert, 1999

Most of the nonfiction books were history along with some politics, science and music.

I really enjoyed George Martin's book on the making of the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper album and the book on the making of the Oxford English Dictionary was fascinating as was the book of the flu pandemic of 1918.

1. The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark - Carl Sagan, 1995
2. With a Little Help From My Friends: The Making of Sgt. Pepper - George Martin, 1994
3. The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary - Simon Winchester, 1998
4. Something New Under the Sun: An Environmental History of the Twentieth Century World - John Robert McNeill, 2000
5. Crucible of War: The Seven Year's War and the Fate of Empire in British North America, 1754-1766 - Fred Anderson, 2000
6. Mutual Contempt: Lyndon Johnson, Robert Kennedy, and the Feud that Defined a Decade - Jeff Shesol, 1997
7. The Approaching Fury: Voices of the Storm - Stephen Oates, 1997
8. Blind Man's Bluff: The Untold Story of American Submarine Espionage - Sherry Sontag, 1998
9. Galileo's Daughter: A Historical Memoir of Science, Faith and Love - Dava Sobel, 1999
10. The Fifty-Year War: Conflict and Strategy in the Cold War - Norman Friedman, 2000
11. Flu: The Story of the Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918 and the Search for the Virus That Caused It - Gina Kolata, 1999
12. The Cousin's War: Religion, Politics and the Triumph of Anglo-America - Kevin Phillips, 1999
13. Russia's War - A History of the Soviet Effort, 1941-1945 - Richard Overy, 1997

Some Velvet Morning When I'm Straight - a mix

Songs 1991
 A collection of songs released in 1991. 

This mix will soon be part of an 8 hour expanded mega mix of music from that year in my collection.

1. Lydia Lunch & Rowland Howard - Some Velvet Morning (Shotgun Wedding)
2. Everything But The Girl - Love Is Strange (Worldwide)
3. Bongwater - Kisses Sweeter Than Wine (The Power Of Pussy)
4. This Mortal Coil - You And Your Sister (Blood)
5. Rickie Lee Jones - Up From The Skies (Pop Pop)
6. John Wesley Harding - Crystal Blue Persuasion (The Name Above The Title)
7. World Party - Happiness Is A Warm Gun (Thank You World)
8. U2 - Mysterious Ways (Achtung Baby)
9. Beat Happening - Left Behind (Dreamy)
10. Sting - All This Time (The Soul Cages)
11. The Magnetic Fields - Smoke Signals (Distant Plastic Trees)
12. Gang Of Four - Satellite (Mall)
13. Robbie Robertson - Night Parade (Storyville)
14. Richard Thompson - 1952 Vincent Black Lightning (Rumour & Sigh)
15. John Prine - All The Best (The Missing Years)
16. Sam Phillips - Private Storm (Cruel Inventions)
17. Robyn Hitchcock - She Doesn't Exist (Perspex Island)
18. Sarah McLachlan - I Will Not Forget You (Solace)

The The

Vinyl Spins: One of my favorite albums from 1983. Soul Mining by The The.