Is There Anybody Out There?

Hokey smokes!  This thing's still around!  Let's dust it off and post once in a while for crying out loud.

More to come.

IAF II

The International Accordion Festival was just that. This is the second time we'd been to this fest - 2+ days of music featuring the accordion. Some solo - some group. Everything from jazzy to folk to rock to tex-mex and on. There was even a hard-core polka band. Acts DID come from across the US and beyond - San Francisco, Quebec, New Orleans, Arizona, New York City, Argentina, Italy, the Canary Islands. Relaxed atmosphere, multiple stages, and free of charge. Accordions ranged from button boxes to piano style to concertinas. Some of the fun is watching the artists learn new things from each other in some of the workshops.

Lori and I signed up to volunteer at the event and ran the merchadise booth on Sunday evening. We hope to be even more involved next year. In fact, this would have been the third year in a row that we had gone, but Lori's grandpa passed away a few days before the event last year, so we cancelled the trip.

I was able to see all the acts and while most were very good Yves Lambert and Chango Spasiuk were two standouts. Lambert is like the godfather of Quebecois folk music - to me it came across as similar to creole. On most songs, one or both of his fiddlers kept the beat (no drums) with their feet on miked boards. Sort of looked like they were tap dancing while sitting down.

Chango Spasiuk and his group from Argentina played a more romantic style of music - very passionate with mood and time changes throughout some of the songs.

Best of all was seeing Santiago Jimenez, Jr. and his band - "National Treasure" as Lori put it.

The festival takes place in an arts village/historical site called La Villita, part of which is on San Antonio's Riverwalk. One of the stages features a stage on one side of the river and the tiered seating up a small hill on the other side. Not only do people walking along the river get a front row view of the stage, the boats (and ducks) are regularly paddling on through.

The picture is Santiago Jimenez and his group on Friday night from across the river (and high up). More pictures in part III.

San Antonio

Attended the 7th Annual International Accordion Festival a few weeks ago - had a blast! Checked out the Alamo and the Riverwalk and listened to some great music. Saw some friends and made some new ones. And shopped for Webkins charms (sigh). A gift shop across from the Alamo had some.






The flower and fountain shots are from Hemisfair Park - a space developed for the 1968 World's Fair and recently remodeled. It houses a tower, complete with restarant at the top and several museums, fountains, parks, and more.


Other that plane delays on the trip home and a badly scraped knee from a tumble while jogging one morning, it was a great trip. An early highlight was dinner the first night at Biga On The Banks. Saturday morning there was even a sidewalk chalk drawing art event a few blocks away. Some pretty cool stuff.

More on the music and artists in part II...

Danish Puffy Pancakes Return

Heading to San Antonio, TX and the International Accordion Festival tomorrow morning. More to follow on that - with pictures, I hope.

Big news around town, though, is Saturday, November 3rd is Aebleskiver day at Redeemer! Get your camp stoves and knitting needles ready - See you there...

Accordion Hero II is in stores!

Click Here to take you to what I'm sure will be the best game ever! I can't believe it's here already - I haven't even mastered the first version! Better get squeezin'...

Baseball's Best Slider Doesn't Steal Bases

I heard about this a while back, but with the busy summer haven't gotten around to posting it yet. Last year the concessions for the Gateway Grizzlies introduced Baseball's Best Burger - the one with a Krispy Kreme doughnut for a bun. This year it's Baseball's Best Slider - a battered and deep fried White Castle Cheeseburger with cheese sauce for dipping available on the side. I've GOT to work a trip there into the schedule next year. Click here for a link to the club's site.

Tulsa Law

From Chuck Shepherd's News Of The Weird:

1996 -- In March, two convicted rapists, Allan Wayne McLaurin and Darron Bennalford Anderson, were re-sentenced by a jury in Tulsa, Okla., after an appeals court said the original sentences totaling 6,475 years were based on faulty jury instructions. This time, the jury said the crimes were worth an additional 260 centuries in prison a total of 21,250 years to McLaurin and 11,250 to Anderson. (Two weeks later, the same Oklahoma appeals court upheld a 1994 sentence, for the man who raped a 3-year-old girl, of 30,000 years. The only dissenting judge said he would have ordered the six 5,000-year sentences to be served concurrently instead of consecutively.)