Grandkid Selfie

We've been having a wonderful time with our grandchildren on this trip and one of the first things we did together was take our regular selfie photo yesterday on Friday the day we arrived.

Joe Ide - Authors List

Joe Ide - Authors List. 5 books read from this noir crime fiction novelist. I enjoyed reading his books very much. The five books I've read were all part of the Isaiah "IQ" Quintabe series about a private detective who solves crimes the LAPD cannot or will not in a high crime neighborhood. An awesome collection of novels. There is another one in the series that came out in 2023 that I need to read. He also wrote a Philip Marlowe novel in 2022 that should be on my list.

Joe Ide books I've read:

• IQ, 2016 - Oct 2018
• Righteous, 2017 - Nov 2018
• Wrecked, 2018 - Dec 2018
• Hi Five, 2020 - Mar 2021
• Smoke, 2021 - Nov 2021

Nick Drake - Kitchen Listening

Nick Drake - Kitchen Listening. We listened to a set of Nick Drake albums from my collection today. It was very special hearing all of these albums together in one afternoon. They sounded great. He was such a wonderful singer/songwriter.

I first became aware of Nick Drake in the mid to late 70's from a friend who was very much into British folk music from the 60's and early 70's. He turned me on to a lot of incredible music including this artist although by that time he was already dead from a suicide overdose of antidepressants in 1974 at 26. One of the sad things about his life was his depression and stage fright. He only played a few live concerts and his albums were commercial failures at the time. They did become popular starting in the mid to late 1980's.

I learned a lot more about him a few years ago after reading Joe Boyd's memoir White Bicycles: Making Music in the 1960's which was published in 2006. I read it in 2022. He was Drake's album producer and mentor for the first two records.

The last album in the set is a  collection of outtakes and alternative versions of songs from the three albums he recorded in his lifetime.

• Five Leaves Left, 1969
• Bryter Layter, 1971
• Pink Moon, 1972
• Time of No Reply, 1987

Charles Dickens - Authors List

Charles Dickens - Authors List. I read 6 of his books and started with Great Expectations back in high school which is probably when everyone read him. That was the only one for a few more years and then I read it again in late 1970 while waiting for orders to ship out. Then over the next few years I read five more of his novels. Now that I think about it it's been over 50 years since I read any Dickens. I know we have a copy of Great Expectations on one of our bookshelves but if I do read something I think it will be Bleak House. 

Charles Dickens books I've read:

• Great Expectations, 1861 - Dec 1970
• A Tale of Two Cities, 1859 - Aug 1971
• David Copperfield, 1850 - Dec 1972
• The Old Curiosity Shop, 1841 - Apr 1973
• Hard Times, 1854 - Dec 1974
• Oliver Twist, 1838 - Nov 1975

Psychedelic Sitars - Kitchen Listening

Psychedelic Sitars - Kitchen Listening. The other day I was playing a group of Asian underground beat albums and today I moved on but kept the sitars. I have in my album collection several albums from the Electric Psychedelic Sitar Headswirlers series which consisted of 60's and 70's psychedelic rock bands from around the world using sitars. Most of the bands I'd never heard of but there were a few I had albums from or were in other compilations. For the most part though this was listening to unfamiliar music with a very distinct sound... sitars in a psychedelic setting. A little over three hours worth today.

The albums I have from the series are Volumes 1 & 2 and 4 & 5. Never got a hold of #3. There are at least 12 albums in the series. That's a lot of rockin' sitar. 

Some of the bands here that I was already familiar with... The Pretty Things, Oregon, The Flames, Pentangle, Shocking Blue, Lord Sitar, The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band, Blonde On Blonde, Tomorrow, Mandrake Memorial, People, Chocolate Watch Band, Lemon Pipers, Amboy Dukes, Folkswingers, Iron Butterfly, etc.

Ernest Hemingway - Authors List

Ernest Hemingway - Authors List. I read 5 books by Hemingway who when I was growing up was considered the classic American writer that everyone should read. 

I was 18 when I read The Old Man and the Sea. At that time I was a young man getting ready to go to sea. Over the years I read a few of his novels but I was never excited about his writings. However, he did have an interesting life working as a journalist and world traveler. He also sustained numerous very serious injuries throughout his career around the world which eventually led to his suicide. I think I would like to read a good biography of his life.

I also enjoyed some of the films made from his writings.

Ernest Hemingway books I've read:

• The Old Man and the Sea, 1952 - Oct 1970
• A Farewell to Arms, 1929 - Sep 1977
• To Have and To Have Not, 1937 - Aug 1980
• For Whom the Bell Tolls, 1940 - Dec 1985
• The Sun Also Rises, 1926 - Jul 2012

James Michener - Authors List

James Michener - Authors List. I read 7 books by this bestselling writer and the first one was Tales of the South Pacific followed by Hawaii but it was The Drifters that was my favorite of his novels. Maybe it was something about the hippies traveling together around the world. I especially liked the parts in Morocco. I had just left the Navy shortly before reading this one. I was still on board a ship when I read those first two novels about places in the Pacific. I also liked his novel about the space program. The last book of his I read was an historical novel about the Caribbean where I had spent a lot of time.

Mostly a 70's and 80's reading experience for me.

James Michener books I've read:

• Tales of the South Pacific, 1947 - Jul 1972
• Hawaii, 1959  - Aug 1973
• The Drifters, 1971 - Jul 1974
• Space, 1982 - Apr 1983
• Chesapeake, 1978 - Jul 1983
• Poland, 1983 - Feb 1984
• Caribbean, 1989 - Dec 1990

Asian Beats - Kitchen Listening

Kitchen Listening a little deeper into my album collection and into the various artists compilation section and in particular the Asian underground fusion dance club tracks although this set is mostly South Asian and Indian. These four albums formed an interesting listening experience and not our usual thing although I do have many more similar albums especially in the Rough Guide series and have used many of these tracks in mixes over the years but it's a whole other thing to listen to these albums as they were put together. Maybe some of them are next.

The various artists compilations albums today:

• Anokha: Talvin Singh Presents Soundz of the Asian Underground, 1997
• Asian Underground Vibes Vol. 1, 2012
• Eastern Sonics: Asian Underground Beats Vol. 2, 2012
• Asian Massive: A Six Degrees Compilation, 2002

Ankle Pain

Two nights ago I woke up around 1 am with some severe shooting pains in my left ankle. I was surprised and it was hard to get back to sleep. The pain was coming every couple of minutes and would flare up lasting several seconds. This seemed like it was part of my ongoing problem with my arthritic pinched nerve and hip problems but it was a new and different aspect of it. At one point a little later I laid in bed and looked up ankle pain problems on my tablet and did narrow down some of the pain issues to my current problems. This was just a new aspect of it and could probably only last a day or so. There were recommendations of icing the ankle which I did today. 

I've also focused more on my exercises and the need to strengthen my leg and hip muscles.

We were out for dinner last night at Coles and there were a few times sitting in the booth when my ankle started throbbing again but overall it wasn't too bad.

I am concerned with driving down to Philly next week to see Katie and the kids. I'm glad my leg problems have all been my left leg and not my driving right leg. If it was my right leg I would probably not want to do any long driving.

Update 5/10

The pain is gone. The angle feels fine now. Not sure what happened but I'm still doing some exercises to strengthen the foot.

El Collapso

An old expression that came up the other day... we would say El Collapso when one of the kids would have an end of the day meltdown. An emotional collapse. A breakdown. Happened all the time.

Coles w/ Val

This evening Becky and I went over to Val's house and picked her up to take her to dinner at Coles. We all had a very nice time and a wonderful dinner there as usual. We sat in a booth in the dining room rather than our usual booth in the bar area. Val had a cheese burger, Becky had a beef on weck and I had their clancy roast beef sandwich. Some of our favorites.

Going there tonight on this particular Thursday night was carefully selected once we decided to go to Coles this week. The reason was the Sabres-Canadiens hockey games this week. There was a game last night and there will be another one tomorrow night so to avoid the crazy crowds heading to this bar we decided to go tonight. It was actually a very quiet night for a Thursday which is usually busy. The server told us they were expecting a somewhat quiet night between to very busy game nights.

Well, Val had a great time and she really appreciated us contacting her and asking to go out to dinner with us. She said she had been stir-crazy lately and needed to go out. We picked her up at 5:30 and were sitting in our booth about 15 minutes later. We sat in our booth talking and enjoying our food until almost 7:30 pm. She really enjoyed looking at some of the grandkid photos on my phone particularly the recent ones of Autumn and Clara. Overall we had a great time and we will take her out to dinner again sometime in the near future.

S. M. Stirling - Authors List

S. M. Stirling - Authors List. I read 6 novels by this science fiction writer. I read them all during the summer and fall of 2016 starting with the time travel Nantucket series and then the loss of technology alternate universe Emberverse series of which I read the first 3 of the 10 books in the series. I guess that was enough.

S. M. Stirling books that I've read:

• Island in the Sea of Time, 1998 - Jun 2016
• Against the Tide of Years, 1999 - Jun 2016
• On the Oceans of Eternity, 2000 - Jul 2016
• Dies in the Fire, 2004 - Aug 2016
• The Protector's War, 2005 - Sep 2016
• A Meeting at Corvallis, 2006 - Oct 2016

Getting Vent Cleaning Estimate

Today we got an estimate from Reimer for cleaning our duct vents. We haven't had it done in probably 20 years and we really need it done bad as there is lots of dust in our vent system. So a technician from Reimer came by. I called them because we have an annual maintenance account with them and they recently added vent cleaning to their services. 

The tech Greg was very talkative and we had a nice time talking about the neighborhood since he grew up down the street and he also attended Canisius College during the time I worked there. We spent time in the basement looking at the vent system and how they would access everything. I was surprised that he didn't need to see any of the vents or returns throughout the house or ever knowing the number of them... there are 14. 

Reimer is coming by on June 15th to do the annual AC inspection and tune-up and said they could also do the vent cleaning on the same day. He showed me the estimate but later I needed to contact the company to get the written estimate which was $2,495.00 along with a $500 discount because of our membership so the total would be $2,169.56 with tax added. That seems a lot more than expected.

I went online and looked at other companies suggest vent cleaning cost for a house with 14 vents and returns and they were all significantly less... usually around $600 to $800. I will contact Stanley Steamer and get an estimate from them too. I think they were the ones who did the vent cleaning last time.

Reimer Annual Member

Andrzej Sapkowski - Authors List

Andrzej Sapkowski - Authors List. I read 7 books in this Polish author's The Witcher series starting with the Sword of Destiny in 2020. Actually I read all of these books in about a six month period. I usually don't read sword and sorcery novels but for some reason, maybe the onset of the Covid Pandemic, I dived into this fantasy series... and enjoyed the novels. There was also the first season of the TV series on Netflix at that time. I would watch that and two more seasons over the next few years but never had an urge to read any more of his books.

Andrzej Sapkowski books I've read:

• Sword of Destiny, 1992 - Mar 2020
• The Last Wish, 1993 - Apr 2020
• Blood of Elves, 1994 - May 2020
• The Time of Contempt, 1995 - Jun 2020
• Baptism of Fire, 1996 - Jul 2020
• The Tower of Swallows, 1997 - Sep 2020
• Lady of the Lake, 1999 - Oct 2020

Pendergast: The Beginning

Pendergast: The Beginning by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, 2026. This prequel origin story of Agent Pendergast was just published about three months ago and I was fortunate to be able to download an e-book copy from the library so quickly. The book was then so good that I read it in four day and just finished it. Having read so many novels in this Pendergast detective series it was fun to see how he got started with the FBI and his unique style of investigation. An incredible thriller.

I wrote about these writers in my Authors List series of post here and I had read 26 of their Preston & Child novels. This is number 27.

So Blue So Funky Soulful Grooves - Kitchen Listening

Kitchen Listening to a lot of soulful funky instrumental jazz over the past few days. Earlier in the week we played one of my favorite funky jazz compilations Blue Break Beats from Blue Note Records which I wrote about a few months ago. This time we played several albums over a couple of days. All soul jazz instrumentals and three of them featuring the Hammond organ.

It was great listening to all of this wonderful classic music.

Various Artist Compilations from my collection.

• Soulful Grooves: R&B Instrumental Classics Vol. 1, 1996
• Soulful Grooves: R&B Instrumental Classics Vol. 2, 1996
• So Blue So Funky: Heroes of the Hammond Vol. 1, 1991
• So Blue So Funky: Heroes of the Hammond Vol. 2, 1994
• Organ-Ized: An All-Star Tribute to the Hammond B3 Organ, 1999

Kim Stanley Robinson - Authors List

Kim Stanley Robinson - Authors List. I read 6 science fiction books by this author starting with the fantastic Mars Trilogy series depicting the gradual colonization and physical transformation of Mars over three novels.

Kim Stanley Robinson books I've read:

• Red Mars, 1992 - Jun 1999
• Green Mars, 1993 - Jul 1999
• Blue Mars, 1996 - Apr 2004
• 2312, 2012 - May 2013
• New York 2140, 2017 - Oct 2022
• The Ministry for the Future, 2020 - Apr 2025

Edgar Allen Poe - Authors List

Edgar Allen Poe - Authors List. 6 books. I guess we all read a little bit of Poe when we were in school. Then about 20 years after high school I got a little obsessed with him and read a few collections of his works.

I also liked all those films of his stories made in the early to mid 1960's. Saw them all at that neighborhood theater on the avenue around the corner. Also the earlier Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi films.

His stories in television and film.

Edgar Allan Poe collections I've read:

• The Tell-Tale Heart and Other Writings, 1843 - Oct 1988
• The Murders in the Rue Morgue: The Dupin Tales, 1844 - Nov 1988
• The Raven and Other Poems, 1845 - Apr 1989
• The Pit and the Pendulum and Other Stories, 1842 - Nov 1989
• The Fall of the House of Usher and Other Tales, 1960 - Sep 1990
• The Masque of the Red Death, 1842 - Nov 1991

Nick Hornby - Authors List

Nick Hornby - Authors List. I read 5 books from this wonderful British writer and also really liked the movies made from four of his books... especially High Fidelity and then the TV series in 2020 too. I was making lots of "mixed tape" CDs when I read that book and saw the movie in 2000. 

I also liked the novel and film About A Boy which I read and saw around the same time.

I should check out some of his later novels.

Nick Hornby books I've read:

• High Fidelity, 1995 - Sep 2000
• About A Boy, 2001 - Oct 2002
• Fever Pitch, 1992 - Jul 2007
• Juliet, Naked, 2009 - Jan 2011
• Funny Girl, 2014 - May 2015