Old Time Music-My Records

I like music, always have and always will. I grew up before IPODs and MP3's and all the modern ways of getting music. I still remember going down to the record store and buying albums and 45's. Well, recently I went out and bought me a record player. Something that I wanted for a while and since I still have about 200 records from my high school days it was a great investment. It is great to have something to listen to while cleaning the house or just relaxing. Also to me the old albums sound much better than MP3 or computer files:

My record player

And going to share a few of the albums I have kept over the years:

Midnight Madness-Night Ranger

1984-Van Halen

Alpha-Asia

Bad-Michael Jackson

Sgt.Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band-The Beatles. Considered the greatest record ever made

GTR-GTR. One of my favorites-an 80's supergroup founded by Steve Howe and Steve Hackett

I found out I own a lot of soundtracks:

Absolute Beginners. Great music, horrible movie

Some Kind of Wonderful

Fast Times at Ridgemont High-A classic movie and a classic soundtrack

And I own some odd-ball stuff:

Don Ho Greatest Hits-Don Ho. Got to have it

For the 1961 season

And some socially moving ones:

Sun City-Protesting Apartheid in South Africa

We Are The World-USA for Africa. One of the cool tracks on this album is "Tears Are Not Enough" by Northern Lights, which was Canadian version of USA for Africa

And my favorite:

Do They Know It's Christmas-Band Aid. Still love it to this day.

There is a little glimpse into what I listen to.  Anything I posted you like?

Who knows I might post some more albums I own at a future date?

MMM-Rosamunde Sausage Grill

If you know me then you know I like a good sausage product. I was walking in Oakland on the way to a book shop when I passed this place called Rosamunde Sausage Grill. It looked interesting. I went and got my books and went in. It was more than interesting but good. It is now my favorite place to get a sausage product:

The inside of Rosamunde Sausage Grill

They have many different sausages: from the standard knockwursts, Louisiana hot links to the vegan Italian and all parts inbetween:

Their menu

Sausages waiting to be cooked

The man doing his magic

The result: Knockwurst with beef chili and grilled onions.-It was yummy

Any place that has a jar of pickles 

Rosamunde Sausage Grill is good and I will be looking to head there whenever I am in Downtown Oakland.

Hanging out at the University of Washington

The University is a great place to walk around and knowing me I usually head straight to look the sports facilities for their teams. The Washington Huskies play in the PAC-12. Here is a look at where some of their major teams play (Note: I could not take pics of Husky Stadium as they are doing a lot of construction work and will be reopening it in time for the 2013 football season):

The first stop is Alaksa Airlines Arena (or HecRec), the home of Husky Basketball:

The front of Alaska Airlines Arena

Marv Harshman Court

A view of the inside of Alaska Airlines Arena

Next up is softball:

Husky Softball Stadium

Baseball:

Husky Ballpark

Looking from the first base line

I guess two Cy Youngs in the majors gets your jersey retired in college

Besides hitting the sports facilities, I did walk around the campus:

The Library

Love all the trees on campus

Go Huskies

Gerberding Hall rising from the trees

Students strolling to classes

Statue of George Washington that is on campus

The University of Washington is a beautiful place. I wish that I could have spent more time walking around the campus.

Cal Day 2013

I am taking a break from the Seattle stuff to present something that I went to yesterday (4-20-13). It  was Cal Day. It is an event at the University of California at Berkeley when the University opens their doors and shows off what it has. It was great as I was able to take my teen-age son and show him what Cal has to offer. Even if he does not go to Cal, he has an idea what college has to offer both in fields of study and other areas of college life:

People walking around the different booths along Sather Lane

A little entertainment 

Gumby was there

Got to love the Blue and Gold Gummy Bears

My 15-year-old son bought this hat. Interesting

Mugs done by Nathan Ring in the art studio at Cal

A Cal student group

Liquid Nitrogen at the Physics table

The Design Engineers swing

Loved this piece of baseball art at the Art Major table

The Antlers doing a sound check before their concert in Memorial Glide

Cal Day was really cool and educational for both my son and I. It is a little look at college. The one thing I really liked was that they had professors from some of different majors telling people what will be expected of them once they hit college.

Icon of Science Fiction at EMP

Besides music EMP had a section called Icons of Science Fiction which was really cool. I enjoy seeing things like this. Also, they had a section for horror movies which was pretty cool, even though I am not a horror movie fan. What surprised me was that out of the 100 greatest horror movies they had listed, I had seen 35 of them. Anyway, here is what I saw:

Robbie the Robot from Forbidden Planet

Captain Kirk's captain's chair with Trebbles

Yoda's pendent and walking stick from Star Wars Episode V and VI

Rifle used in Men in Black

Imperial Dalek from Dr.Who in 1988

Gill mask from 1956's Creature from the Black Lagoon

Jack Torrance ax from the 1980's The Shining

Xeno morph alien from 1979's Alien

Scavenger Demon from 2005's Constantine

This was a cool bonus to see at EMP. Loved it.