Renaissance Granddad

This Day in Philly Sports History – Game 6 of the 1980 NBA Championship!

So 1980 was probably the best year ever in Philadelphia sports history. all four of the major sports franchises went to their respective finals. The outcomes of three out of those four series were not what us fans wanted though. The Flyers lost to the New York Islanders, The Eagles lost to the Jim Plunkett led Oakland Raiders. The Phillies though did win the city a world championship in only their second appearance in the World Series!! Of course that’s two appearance in about a hundred years of existence!!! The Sixers led by Dr J., Bobby Jones and Maurice Cheeks and Andrew Toney played the Lakers in the finals. After beating Boston to chants of “Beat LA” the Sixers went down 3 games to 2 to the Kareem Abdul Jabbar led Lakers. But there was hope, Kareem had twisted his ankle and would be unable to play in Game 6 Philadelphia. LA didn’t even bring their champagne to Philly!! We thought we had it!! Back to LA tied…. Rookie Magic Johnson would have to play center! And all he did was rip the heart out of the city! Putting on a show, Johnson scored 42 points, grabbd 15 rebounds and dished out 7 assits on – MAY 16th 1980!! And we sports fans grieved again ! Read More

New Jazz from NJ Saxophonist Tom Tallitsch – Ride!! (Video)

So this morning I loaded up two new jazz albums on the iPhone to serve as the soundtrack for my trip to Trader Joe’s, and then proceeded to listen to neither of the albums!! What I did listen to on the way over was Ride the great new release from New Jersey resident Tom Tallitsch!! The album has been on the iPhone for a week or more now and the more I listen to it, the more I like it!! Read More

This Day in History -May 15, 1990 – Van Gogh Painting Sells, for What?? and 1702 – The Spanish Game of Thrones Begins!!

So on this day May 15, 1990 Vincent Van Gogh’s Portrait of Dr. Gachet sold at auction in New York for a mere 82.5 million dollars!! The portrait that sold was the first of two authenticated versions of the portrait that were painted by Van Gogh in June of 1890. Dr Paul Gachet took care of Van Gogh at Auers-sur-Oise during the final months of Van Gogh’s life. Both of the portraits depict Gachet sitting at a table with his head leaning on his right arm but they vary in color and style. Read More

The Old Runner Gets Going Again… with Music from Ontofield …Sleeping with Fractals!

So Tuesday was fairly hot here in New Jersey and then yesterday it cooled off a little, and the fair weather runner inside me said yes today is the day!!Checking Runmeter on the iPhone I see that with half the month gone this is my first run in May, My last run was April 28th, that sucks, I should be ashamed of myself! Anyway I did feel pretty good yesterday so I did some light yoga stretching and took off. I felt good through the first two miles and averaged 10:06 per mile, then I slowed down over the 3rd mile to 10:38 pace and held on over the last mile 11:11 pace! Overall, the pace was right at 10:30 which again for almost 63 years old ain’t too bad. The main problem getting two or three days a week in is that I work Friday and Saturday so I don’t really want to run on those days and then on Sunday I’m tired from the two previous nights and we’ve been going to Paulsboro to see Oliver, Andrew and Meaghan so I put off running and convince myself I’ll go Monday and then I put that off and end up with one day a week. I really need to look at and figure out a schedule so I can get three runs in a week!! Read More

Where the Characters in My Favorite Mystery Series Live and Work!!

Next Read?

This year so far has been a slow year for reading. I have spent much more time over the last several months listening to music than reading. I think that I will make it a goal to read at least two books, that are part of a series that I read, per month for the rest of the year. Maybe one can be new one from a series that I am current with, and the other an older book in a series that I am trying t catch up on! Read More

These Days in History – May 13-15th – The Civil War Battle of Resaca was fought!

Battle of Resaca, by Kurz and Allison, 1889.

Starting on May 13, 164 through May 15th The Battle of Resaca was fought as General William T. Sherman began his March to the Sea. When I first read the one sentence about this battle starting yesterday, I thought “Where the hell is Resaca?” I assumed it was somewhere in Georgia and probably in northeast Georgia as Sherman started his movements toward Atlanta. Read More

This Day in History – May 14, 1853 – Gail Borden applies for a patent for making condensed milk!

On May 14, 1853 Gail Borden applied for a patent for condensed milk. Now that makes sense, since the name everyone associates with condensed milk is Borden! But I must admit that I had no idea that the inventor of condensed milk was Gail Borden. Not only was Mr Borden an inventor but he was also a surveyor, cattleman, customs agent, newspaper editor, real estate salesman, and civic official!! As a surveyor Borden co-plotted the cities of Houston and Galveston in 1836. As a newspaper man along with his brother John he was a founder of the Telegraph and Texas Register which first appeared on October 10, 1835, days after the Texas Revolution began Their twenty-first issue was published on March 24.^[This contained the first list of names of Texans who died at the Battle of the Alamo Read More

Psychedelic/Space Rock from Canada’s Greylevel – Hypostatic Union

Again this weekend Thursday through Sunday was a blur….Thursday I worked both jobs from 8:30 am to 11:30 PM, then got back up to be on a site 30 minutes from my home at 8 am! I worked until 12:00 then ran around getting ready for a wedding, drove to Avalon NJ a one hour forty minute drive, went to a wedding on the beach, attended the reception and drove him arriving back home at 11 PM. Saturday was a few errands and then work again from 5:30 to 11:30! Sunday Mother’s Day found us at my son Andrew’s home at 10:30 am for brunch and then in the afternoon we babysat our grandson until around 6:00 or so… it was great but by the time we got home this 62 year-old’s butt was dragging…. I’ve listened to some music over this time span, but can’t get my brain in gear to write about it!! Anyway, while I was looking for some music the other day I saw on the related artist list Greylevel and it reminded me that I had listened to them and liked them so here’s my post about them…. and you even get some running info something which you haven’t been getting, because I have avoided running… but have to start again soon!! Read More

Yesterday in Music – May 10, 1935 – Julius Wechter leader of the Baja Marimba Band was born!!

How about a little musical analogy ——

The Rolling Stones are to The Beatles as

______________ are to Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass!

If you said The Baja Marimba Band!! You would be correct and probably old!! On this date in 1935 the leader of the Band Julius Wechter was born!! To explain the analogy The Beatles we re the clean-cut good guys and the Stones the bad boys. And Jules says this about the Baja Marimba Band’s relationship to Herb and the Brass! They were…. Read More