Icewind's Ramblings

I didn’t sleep again last night so tonight I will be playing this piece several times I am sure as it takes me to a place where my mind will stop racing in the wind and allow me to a calm place. Here are two pieces of the same John Denver song, the first as originally performed with Mike Taylor as complimenting guitars.   It is just part of a suite of songs called “Season Suite” by John Denver, Mike Taylor & Dick Kniss consisting of: Summer Fall Winter Late Winter, Early Spring (When Everybody Goes to Mexico) Spring They are all beautiful music pieces & were released on the Rocky Mountain High album. Please take the time to listen to both versions as it will be a rewarding experience and we need those in these times . . . The next is the Lee Holdridge version with full orchestral arrangement performed both in a stage setting and also in the Rocky Mountains close to the Maroon Bells in Colorado just outside Aspen. It is a very beautiful piece with three ballerinas...

Remember back before the election during all of the campaigning and coverage of the presidential primaries how MSNBC was gushing all over Barack Obama? Well it is interesting now a year later to see how things have changed.  Its not the same now as reality sinks in.  Did you watch Obama's TelePrompTer reading last night?  What a mess we are in and a joke of a speech.  I couldn’t watch all of it because my bullshit meter kept going off and pegging the “get out your chest waders” because we are in deep shit.  He didn't read anything that was unexpected. Holding BP accountable.                        Yep we’ve heard that for 58 days now. We've been on the job from day 1.      Yep typical ‘no urgency’ gov’nment job. Clean up the Gulf Coast .                ...

It is sad to see so many child stars fall by the wayside. Over the years tragedy or misfortune has struck many of our favorite television child actors.  Oddly often times many if not all cast members find themselves in trouble or have abuse issues whether it is with alcohol or drugs.  Dana Plato died in 1999 and Gary Coleman died last week.  Of the three children on that show Todd Bridges is still around having his own troubles with cocaine addiction and altercations with his former dealer and a tenant which lead to legal troubles. One Day at a Time, Family Affair, Eight is Enough, and Family Ties all had kids who either died before maturity or old age or ran afoul and spent time behind bars . . . sadly not what their bright futures seemed as we watched week after week on the boob tube. Then we have the pathetic case of Lindsey Lohan who in the re-make of The Parent Trap looked so promising as an actress with a star on the rise . . . only to sink into depths of who ...

There are things that most of the HGTV type shows about remodeling never really touch on in their 40 to 60 minute shows.  Most of these shows (my wife watches, I don’t) seem to nicely wrap things up in the quick one episode.  What they forget to tell everyone is the little things that creep into daily life that slows down the process of getting things done. I have been involved in remodeling projects for many years now and things hardly progress in a nice linear flow on most projects, large or small.  There are the little disagreements between the parties on things like color, maybe how something should be torn out or what additional damage was discovered once the area was opened up.  In some residential projects between husband and wife it is that understanding, sometimes unspoken . . . for that plea to call in a professional to come in and complete the job.  These shows seem to wrap up everything in one quick segment.  Lost on the cutting room floo...

Happy Halloween everyone! As most of you know I have been working on a couple of projects here at the house leaving me little time to write so I wanted to post a couple of pictures of the first bathroom makeover.  I just finished for another night at 10:30 pm so I sat down with a glass of Beringer’s, a couple of Advil and that good tired feeling of accomplishment after progress today working on the master bathroom. But today I wanted to share some of the pictures from the previous work over two weekends.  This bathroom is the main full bath for the upstairs part of the house and is the one everyone uses all the time.  There was nothing about this room that really stood out but was painted when we moved in several years ago and my wife did a great job of decorating it, but it always seemed to lack something.  Here is a before picture which almost shows the bland flooring of linoleum which I hated.  The walls are a very pale yellow color and the light bar...

Or how my day started and continued . . . Sometimes the body takes over and reminds us that it controls more than we want or give it credit for on a blustery morning. I awoke at my normal 4:30 am time but did not feel so good so I lay there hoping the slight headache would quickly fade. It didn’t but for some unknown reason fell back asleep only to jolt up with a wicked ‘charley horse’ in my foot at 5:15 only to fall out of bed trying to get weight on my foot hoping the pain would ease and I could hobble my way to a shower. My headache was doing no better now and had increased so I grabbed a cup of Joe while I showered with the thought all would be better shortly. I didn’t shave (for about two weeks now) but wanted to and slowly started my day . . . out of sync and hurting. I left the house and headed out to Elmendorf Air Force Base to a project we are working on spending several hours out there delivering materials and checking on the progress of thin...