Memphis

The next few posts are going to deal with my recent trip up to Memphis to see my Mom. Actually it's not Memphis itself, but a small town about an hour and a half drive outside Memphis. The town is called Saulsbury. I was reading a little about it when I was up there this time, about five years ago the population of the town was 99 people. It's literally a one red light town. And I think probably about half the town is related to my Mom. This is where she grew up and when we drive down the road she'll point out to me what houses are new and who lived where when she was growing up.

I couldn't have asked for better weather. I drove up on Friday night, leaving my house around 2:30 so I could get there early enough to have the day free. When I left it was in the mid eighties, as I drove farther north I kept seeing the temperature drop until it was at 60! This was August, I sure wasn't expecting those temperatures. I actually had to turn the air conditioner off. It was getting down right cold.

All week the temperature was in the mid seventies and very nice. We had a little rain, but nothing too bad. Most of the time the rain was nice, a light sprinkle which helped to keep things cool.

We went to the Zoo, which I haven't been to since I was around ten. My Mom, sister, aunt and uncle all went. Very good time. I didn't realize that the Memphis Zoo had Pandas also. I've seen Pandas now at the New Orleans Zoo and the Washington Zoo and now can add Memphis to that.

The next day we went to visit Pickwick Dam and than drove over to Shiloh Military Park. It would be very easy to get lost in Shiloh, we drove around, turning first one way and than the other, I'm still not sure how I got back to the main road.

We also spent a day on Beale Street. This day it probably rained the worst. We walked around, went to the Peabody Hotel and saw the ducks. This was Elvis Week in Memphis so there were a lot of Elvis fans around. The rain was starting to get worse so we made a short day of it and didn't manage to get down to the river or Sun Studios. Just leave that for next time.

I really didn't want to leave, but needed to get back to take care of things at home. I needed to go to the Doctor (Again) for some tests to check on how some of the medicine they have me on is doing. It was a really good time.

Number One With A Bullet

According to this site the number one song on the day I was born was Paul Anka's "Lonley Boy."



Boy, do I feel old now.

Thursday Thirteen: 13 Biographies

It's been awhile since I did a Thursday Thirteen. I used to really like doing them, trying to think of what 13 things that would go together I was going to do every week. Well, sometimes life gets in the way of things, but I thought I'd give it a another go. I've compiled 13 biographies from my library. I've tried to make it a varied list, not 13 biographies of Presidents, or Rock Stars, but a little of all sorts of people that I have books on.

1) Red Hot Typewrite by Hugh Merrill: This is a biography of John D. MacDonald, the creator of the Travis McGee series and the writer of a lot of other great books. MacDonald is often overlooked as an important writer because he was writing original paperbacks back when if you had an important book it was published in hardback. Some of MacDonald's books are as good as anything you'll find out there.

2) The Five of Hearts by Patricia O'Toole: This is a group biography. When I read Gore Vidal's series of American novels and was introduced to Henry Adams and John Hay I wanted to read more. This book is about those two and their wives, Clover Adams and Clara Hay, and Clarence King. Henry Adams is the grandson of the Sixth President and John Hay was Lincoln's Secretary and later Secretary of State under Theodore Roosevelt. Very interesting people. The Five of Hearts was the name of their group that they coined.

3) In Memory Yet Green, The Autobiography of Isaac Asimov (1920-1954) by Isaac Asimov: This is the story of one of the great science fiction writers written by one of the great science fiction writers. This book is only half the tale and it looks like a doorstop. Isaac liked to write.


4) Shadow Man: The Life of Dasheil Hammett by Richard Layman: Hammett created Sam Spade and wrote "The Maltese Falcon."


5) Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton by Edward Rice: Burton the adventurer, not the actor. Burton lived from 1821 to 1890. He was one of the first Europeans to discover the source of the Nile. He traveled all over Africa and the Mid East, writing of his many adventures.

6) October Sky by Homer H. Hickam: This is one of my favorite books. It tells the story of how Hickman grew up in a small coal mine town to end up working for NASA.

7) First Man: The Life of Neil A. Armstrong by James R. Hansen: The life of the first man to walk on the moon. I bought this after just watching "From the Earth to the Moon" recently.
I know I listed two books about astronauts, but I could have listed 13.

8) The Man Called Cash by Steve Turner: The life of Johnny Cash. The only music book I included, though it was hard not to list more. Maybe next week a 13 of music biographies.

9) American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of Robert J. Oppenheimer by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin: Oppenheimer led the Manhattan Project that created the first atomic bombs. He later went on to oppose atomic weapons.

10) Wheels For the Road: Henry Ford, His Company, and A Century of Progress by Douglas Brinkley: Actually this is the second biography of Henry Ford I have. Why I don't know, I'm really not that big a fan of Ford, somehow I ended up with two books on him.

11) Pretty Boy by Micahel Wallis: A book about the life of the outlaw Pretty Boy Floyd.

12) Einstien by Walter Isaacson: I am fascinated by Albert Einstien.

13) The Last Days of Marilyn Monroe by Donald H. Wolfe: Another fascination of mine. My Mom made a comment about this while I was up in Tennessee, she doesn't understand what I see in Marilyn, she said she was before my time. But still...

I'm Back

Back from vacation and my Moms. Everything was good and Mom is doing good. I'll post more, with pictures.

Vacation Next Week

Starting tomorrow after work I am heading towards Memphis to visit my Mom. I haven't been up to see her since last summer, shortly after my Dad died. She did come down here for Christmas. I was supposed to go visit her right before I had my gall bladder surgery, but that kind of put a kink in the plans. So whenever I call her now she wants to know if I'm in the hospital again and can't come see her. I'm looking forward to getting up there. She has no internet connection up there so I'll be offline for at least part of the week. Hope everyone has a good week and I'll visit everyone when I come back.

Picture In Sidebar

I don't like pictures of me. I just never think I take a good picture. But I've finally went ahead and added one to my profile section in the sidebar. Me waiting to get into Jazz Fest from last year.

Needs Meme

I got this from Travis. It's a meme currently making the rounds. You type your first name with Needs following it in Goggle and list the first ten things that come up. Wow, I wasn't expecting that first one.

John needs.....

An Operation after Hooker bites penis.

13 bottles of water from the store. (I think I might need something a little stronger after the first item.)

A good nickname.

A Yoko.

Affirmative Action.

Help to find his late mother's ring.

A job.

Delivery Drivers.

Mitt.

An accoustical engineer.

Rare Beatles Tape Sold

A half hour tape of the Beatles talking and laughing while recording some early songs sold for $23,000. The tape also includes versions of "I Feel Fine," "I'm A Loser" and "Don't Put Me Down Like This." My question is this: can the buyer release this tape or did he buy it for his personal satsifaction?

Morgan Freeman In Accident

One of our best actors was in an accident the other day. Morgan Freeman was driving through Mississippi, probably to his home there, when his car drove off the road and flipped and he was seriously injured. He is at the hospital where the doctors say he is doing fine considering his injuries. Here's hoping that everything is fine and he comes home soon.

Breaking Dawn

The new book sensation is "Breaking Dawn" by Stephenie Meyers. It's about a teenage girl in love with a vampire and a werewolf. I honestly only learned of this series in the last few months. This is the fourth and final volume of the series. The book went on sale at midnight last Saturday and sold over 1 million copies. I really know just about nothing about this series, but am interested in all the excitement over the book. I'm glad to see kids continue to want to read so much after the Harry Potter excitement. Anyone out there read any of these books and can tell me how they are?

A Letter of Support From A McCain Fan

I have a "Obama '08" bumperstick on my car. Today when I went to my car I noticed a piece of paper stuck under the wiper blade. At first I thought it an ad for some local store as it is apt to happen, but I realized the paper was a piece of notebook paper with hand writing on it. Someone had left me a note. This is the note:

A Little Bragging

I just discovered that Amanda Shaw, the talented fiddle player and singer that I've talked about more than once on these pages has a quote from me from my Voices to hear site on her web page. Sorry I just have to brag a little, I've never had someone use anything of mine as a quote on their page before. Pretty cool if I do say so my self.

Orson Scott Card and Gay Marriage

This actually ties in with the idea of a lengthy post I've been meaning to write, and may still, about how you should react when a writer whose work you admire proves to be, shall we say less than sterling in other ways.

Orson Scott Card has always been a favorite writer of mine. His Ender series of stories are some of the best science fiction written I feel, but he recently wrote a column that can be found here that talks of the evils of gay marriage. He claims that the court decisions allowing gay marriage in California and Massachusetts is the end of democracy in America.

Should it matter what a writer believes? I know I will still enjoy his Ender books and a lot of his other work, but I fear there will always be a small part of me that thinks about this now.

More Comic Con

From CBR comes this pic of the line waiting to their badges so they could get into the con. This is from Wednesday, the preview night, which has the smallest crowds of the con.

The Best of the Runaways?

I was working on transferring more vinyl to my Ipod and was digitalizing "The Best of the Runaways." The Runaways were an all girl group from the mid seventies that played rock and roll. Two of it more well known members were Joan Jett and Lita Ford. I realized that this best of collection doesn't have "Cherry Bomb" on it. Now the Runaways were never a big band, they never had a hit single, but the one single that is probably most associated with them was "Cherry Bomb." And this collection doesn't have it. The other songs are good, but how can they call this a best of without "Cherry Bomb?" I'm sure it's tied up with some record deal or licensing deal, but still it kind of sucks that the song isn't on here.

CCR Reissued Again

Some of the best music ever made is coming back in Sept. The first Creedence Clearwater Revival albums are being re-released than, along with bonus material and new linear notes. These six albums, "Creedence Clearwater Revival," "Bayou Country," "Green River," "Willy & the Poor Boys," "Cosmo's Factory" and "Pendulum," form the core of some of the best rock and roll ever. And to imagine these six albums were released within a two year period, from 1968 to 1970. It's amazing to think of that, nowdays an artist has to take years and years to put out a new album and they'd be lucky that if half of it is even good. I have these albums originally on vinyl but will have to purchase the new cd versions.

Happy Birthday NASA

It was fifty years ago today that President Dwight Eisenhower signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act, officially establishing NASA.

Miley Number One

Miley Cyrus has the number one album in the country with her new album. It's her first album without Hannah Montana attached to it.

White and Keyes on Bond

Jack White of The White Stripes is working with Alicia Keyes on the theme song to the new James Bond movie. The song is titled "Another Way To Die." This is an interesting combination.

New Dylan

Oct 7 Columbia is releasing the eighth volume of Dylan's Bootleg series Tell Tale Signs. The two volume collection of rare and unreleased material will focus on the time frame from 1989 to the present. This is from the Oh Mercy album to his most recent one Modern Times. I'm fascinated by hearing what got left off the albums and some of the different versions of the songs that made it onto the albums. I'll be eagerly awaiting this one.