Wednesday, November 28, 2007

wedding video

a 'short' wedding video...beats the other 2 hour play by play one



Monday, November 26, 2007

nyc

yeah, yeah, yeah. i know, i know...another trip to new york, photos of the same things for everyone to look @...again. but i don't really care, so sit back, relax and i'll type on.

i've heard before of this service called the china town bus, a bus that goes from washington dc's china town to new york city's china town for $20 oneway....

$20 x 2 = $40 x 2 = $80 for both holly and i, a deal really hard to beat.

we bought last minute tickets on friday to ride up and back on the bus the following day, they have buses running all day long back and forth plus a bunch of companies do it so there is no shortage. we got up early saturday morning to drive into dc to catch our 7:30 bus, this went well however an eager chinese girl was trying to woo us onto her bus with her bus company.

the thing thats great about riding up on a bus other than the deal on the price is that you're not having to worry about petrol, tolls or parking when you get there. holly and i spent our ride up watching 'grey's anatomy' on holly's ipod, a quick nap and we were there before we knew it. we pre-arranged our drop off point to be @ penn station so we'd be close to time square to catch an afternoon show. however the problem we had was alot of shows weren't running because of a stage hand strike which made it hard to find a broadway show that we'd want to spend the money on. we decided on an off-broadway show called 'the perfect crime' which worked in well with our budget as did the slice of pizza we ate before the show, it was in a smaller theatre but still just as good. the theatre wasn't full so the attendant said we could all move up, so we did, in fact we sat in the front row which made the show all the more interesting.

after the show we made our way downtown to china town where we shopped and looked around and found holly a knock off brand name purse, i ended up buying gloves and a woollen hat because it was cold. we perused up to little italy where we had dinner at a restaurant there (it was nice to get out of the cold and warm up for a little while). after dinner and a connoli from a stand on the street (apparently the best in the world) we still had time so we went back up to time square now dark to see the lights.

the subway back to china town to catch our bus home was interesting as i didn't want to make eye contact with the 4 guys singing 'in the jungle'
for tips on our ride or the guy who proclaimed to us all how he didn't have a place to sleep last night and needed $22 for a room for the night. he stopped at my seat cause i had my nose stuck in a map of the subway, he asked if i needed help cause he knew everything about the trains. i said no and then no again when he asked for money saying 'i only have australian dollars'. that settled that as he walked off, it's not that i couldn't have put coins in his empty starbuck cup but i really didn't think he was legitimate.

the bus ride home which was due to leave @ 11pm left @ 10:20pm? and i don't why. anywayz avoiding another lady trying to get us to take her bus back to dc, we got on this time not nearly half full. this meant we got a row to ourselves to sleep. we arrived back sometiome around 2:30am and were back in our bed @ 4am...slept til 12:30 :)



Wednesday, November 14, 2007

yamaha cp 70b

this may not mean a whole lot to the 3 people that read this but i'd like to write about it non the less.


once upon a time i played this piano 'thing' at a church, this piano literally had me @ hello. it was a piano with real strings and real hammers but it was also able to be folded up into 2 portable road cases and transported.

this would give the piano player who loved the feel of a real piano a similar action of a real piano with the added ability to take it with them on the road. this instrument has pickups under each string and output jacks so you can plug it in to your PA system for amplification. the making of this portable grand ceased in the mid 80's so it's hard to find, when you do find one you're kinda @ the mercy of the seller to set the price cause you know it may be a long time before you see one of these for sale again.

since playing that one at that church many years ago i've kept on looking for them 4 sale but the rare times i've seen them i have never been in a position to buy. i saw one being sold on-line right around the time i was buying my house and thought it'd be nice to buy it but it didn't seem like a wise decision at the time. however i kept the information and rang this guy last week...as it turns out he hadn't sold it and a few days later i went and bought it.

it's hard to explain exactly what it is so i'll let the pictures which aren't of my piano but the same model speak for themselves. the piano itself is part of the road case, i was amazed @ how it all disassembled, quite amazing. if you want to read more click on the link to your right (yamaha cp70b).





Wednesday, November 7, 2007

eighty five, feelin' alive

nanna mac my last living grandparent who is 85 came to visit us this last week. in all her years she has never left australia which made this trip a big deal for her and those who know her 'positive' outlook on life. if you were to ask me if she was the get busy living person or the get busy dying person, i'd say she's the one getting busy dying, and that's just who she is. and who am i to say which one she should be, i'm not the one who is 85.

i should mention that my uncle bill and auntie ruth are the reason this trip is happening, because of their initiative and persistence they somehow convinced nanna to travel around the world with them.

from adelaide to brisbane to la and chicago followed by florida to see my brother matt and then to me here in dc. i was impressed to see her on the other side of the world seeing she is mostly dependent on a walking frame and mobility is a problem. i picked her up and to my surprise because of my wrong turn out of regan national airport we took our first tour of dc earlier than i'd planned. she was somewhat impressed with holly's and my new house but the stairs did create a bit of a challenge but with a a little help from her friends we got her up to the middle level where we spent thursday evening hanging out together.

friday we went back into dc for our now official tour. if nanna was to hate her walking frame then she would really hate being pushed around all day by me in a wheel chair. i could see us doing it no other way, if we were to cover the ground we wanted to then we needed to put her on wheels. we saw the FDR memorial to the lincoln memorial/korean/vietnam, on to the white house nanna refusing to have her photo taken @ each land mark. we circled the george washington monument as we had been indirectly all day and finally made it back to the car before our 3 hour park ran out.

saturday we pretty much did the opposite of the day previous, instead of heading towards the city we headed into the country. we drove skyline drive down in shenandoah national park, this of course worked out well as she didn't have to get out of the car to see the view. plus we saved $15 on admission because of nanna's disability pass, she was happy that she was able to help out saying "at least i'm good for something".

sunday we went to church which nanna later said that was her favorite part of her visit to dc. after church we were in the car eating pizza on our way to mt. vernon, the home of george washington. we had the joy of pushing her around again as it would of been to much for her to walk. we were restricted in getting up to the 2nd level in the mansion in the wheel chair although it wasn't big deal not taking nanna up there. on his farm like property we saw his house, his gardens and his grave.

monday we did some minor shopping as they were flying out later that night. we went to dinner @ craker barrel the old southern style restaurant which was fun. nanna insisted on paying however i beat her to the register and took care of the bill.

nanna mentioned several times on the trip "this is the perfect end to the perfect day" as we'd sit around playing scrabble and eating something nice sipping coffee. it was sad to see them go, a little piece of adelaide came to visit, then like most things had to leave again. i'm proud of her for having the courage to do this trip. well done nanna.