Venice Pictures

Sundae Study Break

Sundae Study Break, a set on Flickr.

Another experiment

As a follow up to a class I co-taught for science teachers, I created a Google Custom Search Engine as an experiment. It's very easy to do. Get a Google account, then add the web sites you want to search. You get to try out a search, then when you finish you get the code for adding the search engine to your blog or web site.

My custom search engine is called Best Music Sites (though I just picked some at random, really). You might ask what that has to do with birds? Well my first practice search was "Decemberists" and the first thing that popped up was a review of their newest cd, The Crane Wife. Ha ha!

Volare!

A co-worker sent me a link to check the number one song on the day you were born. It's fabulous.

So I checked mine and it was Honeycomb by Jimmie Rodgers. Kinda sweet.

Stanis's was Blue Moon by the Marcels.

Stanis checked Linus's and his was Volare. Volare means "to fly" in Italian. Boy is that ever appropriate for Linus. He flew, he soared, he loved life. And of course a couple of posts ago, I mentioned the weird bird sightings both Holly and I had after his death.

I Go Places

Tuesday night, July 17, was our NSAI chapter workshop meeting. (Aside: if you are a songwriter, NSAI is a fantastic organization that provides educational and networking opportunities.)

At our meetings, we usually have a short lesson about some aspect of songwriting. Then we critique the songs that people bring in on CD or perform live. The critiques are done in the spirit of helping our members improve their songs. And even if one should decide not to pay attention to any of the constructive criticism, it's always good to see something you've created through the eyes of others.

So Tuesday night, I performed "I Go Places" and got some good feedback regarding verse melody and the lyrical content of verse 2. Oh yeah, and Gary, whose critiques never fail to be insightful, said I always had a "unique perspective" in my songs. High praise, indeed.

But the best part of the meeting? When Maria Annunziata came up to me after the meeting was over with an origami bird she had just made. On one wing were the words "I Go Places" and on the other "Erin." How sweet was that? Best feedback ever.

Woodpecker and Spirit of Linus

I love living in an upstairs apartment because it's like a big tree house.

When I'm in the kitchen cooking, which is often, I'm basically looking in the trees around our house. There are often birds alighting on the branches.

In June, the week after Linus's death, I walked into my kitchen, which used to be a sleeping porch back when the house was first built. I heard a knocking sound and came into the kitchen and looked out the window and there was a woodpecker pecking on the window frame! He saw me looking at him and stopped mid-peck and just held it there. (See image below.) I didn't move, hoping he was gonna peck some more and I would see it close up. But finally I moved and he flew away. It was awesome though to see him close up, beak half-opened.

Pileated Woodpecker

I shared this story with Linus's widow, and she told me an equally amazing story. She was in their garage a few days after his death, looking at his tools, and a bird kept flying in and out of the garage as if to say "look at me." She said this went on for three days.

Linus your spirit will be with us until our days come to an end.

A Bird from England

Talked to Coastal Girl the other night and we reminisced about our time in the Peace Corps in Morocco. Summer of 1985. My apartment was kind of the Hotel Safi. People were always staying with me. There was this bird see, from England. (Yeah all my posts have to have birds in them.) Her name was Philippa. I didn't know her from Adam, but she was a friend of Chris's, an English bloke who for some reason had lived with me my first year in Morocco (don't remember the circumstances). We weren't involved, just buds. Philippa came to visit him that summer, and ended up staying at my apartment. Again, I don't remember the details.

Philippa is/was possibly the most sensual woman alive. Coastal Girl and I both have vivid memories of her. Funny that. I can't even remember the names of many of my fellow P.C. volunteers, but I can remember the name of one bird who I knew for 3 or 4 weeks 27 years ago. The mind's a funny thing.

Oh one thing I'm supposed to do in my techno explo is to post a link on my blog to an image from Flickr. So here's one tagged with "England" and "birds." I'm not sure it's real, but reality is overrated.