Tuesday, April 30, 2013

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?

Wednesday, April 24, 2013

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.

Tuesday, April 23, 2013

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.

Sunday, April 21, 2013

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.

Wednesday, April 17, 2013

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.