The often wrong and much reviled Seattle weather team promise us that our long and miserable winter is really over this time. Personally I would rather trust my weather beetle but at least we had one nice day. Here is the view of Seattle from Gasworks Park on the north shore of Lake Union...
Update, Mid-April, 2009:
This winter I took an honest assessment of my progress with the guitar. After what should have been a terrific but turned into a toxic experience at The Puget Sound Guitar Workshop last summer and after making my winter assessment, I have to realistically admit that I am never going to be a guitar player. Did somebody say "BANJO!" ? Yes. I did. Even though PSGW was a toxic experience for me I still met a lot of great people there and among the greatest were the banjo players. When I got home from that ill-fated camp I immediately went to Stu Herrick's music store, The Folkstore, and bought a banjo. I am going to give the banjo as many years and as much effort as I gave the guitar and see whare it takes me.
I just got back from Puget Sound Guitar Workshop. This is a three session, one week per session workshop which takes place in mid-summer. Teachers come in from all over the United States. There is not one among them who is not a professional level player. Students choose which classes they want to take and for a week we all learn new, cool stuff on the guitar, from Blues to Swing, Bluegrass and Flaminco it is all music, all the time. And all acoustic. There are several cabins where the teachers and students sleep. Also many campers pitch tents in one of the meadows. "Tent City" it's called. That is where I stayed. There were at least 20 tents in Tent City, along with two or three jamming "Gazebos" and Scott "Tanqueray" Katz's "Happy Hour" Hut. This is my third time at this camp, although not consecutively, and as always I met many great people and had hours of interesting conversation and music. My classes were amazing. I took Flip Breskins Guitar Bedrock class and Steve Baughman's right hand class. I have several months of new material to work on. Additionally, I have been recruited by the banjo players and the first thing I did after arriving home was to go to Stu's music store, The Folkstore over on Roosevelt and buy a banjo. After spending most of the past three years in voluntary seclusion, for me this marked the official end of my reclusive period and the begining of my re-entry into society. It was a great week, it could not have been a better beginning to my re-entry into the world.
Below is a slideshow of the student concert. I was in the darkened audience, near the back trying to adjust for stage lighting, so the picture quality is not super, but it does the job.
Also pictured (above) is the sunset from the ferry back to Seattle.
NOTE: If you click on the screen below as it's playing it will take you to the YouTube page and you can click on "WATCH IN HIGH QUALITY" which improves the resolution.
Aging Disgracefully.
Seattle has been changing rapidly since the 1980's but in the last ten years the pace of change has accelerated to a fever pitch. Almost gone is the Seattle of only twenty years ago. You can turn around three times blindfolded and point and be able to start your sentence with "Oh yeah, that used to be the..."
UPDATE I am shifting my focus to Olympia, the Capitol of Washington State
This winter I took an honest assessment of my progress with the guitar. After what should have been a terrific but turned into a toxic experience at The Puget Sound Guitar Workshop last summer and after making my winter assessment, I have to realistically admit that I am never going to be a guitar player. Did somebody say "BANJO!" ? Yes. I did. Even though PSGW was a toxic experience for me I still met a lot of great people there and among the greatest were the banjo players. When I got home from that ill-fated camp I immediately went to Stu Herrick's music store, The Folkstore, and bought a banjo. I am going to give the banjo as many years and as much effort as I gave the guitar and see whare it takes me.
