Lou Gehrig Charles

He's Always the Stranger to Me.

Our town has set limits on trick-or-treating hours; it's either 4-7 or 3:30 -7 which kind of splits the difference. Half of it is in daylight and the other half darkness, plus or minus obviously depending on cloud cover. But I usually get just a few stragglers after it gets dark. I get home from work about 4:45 PM and I suspect I miss a lot of kids that come by while I'm not home yet.

I bought three bags of candy, but only gave out less than 1.5..... I gave two pieces to each kid so I could do the math as to how many kids that adds up to. The remaining bag I brought into the office this morning where the secretaries will gobble it up in no time. I have a new cat at home and I fully expected him to hide under the couch as soon as people started ringing the doorbell. Not so; he sat on the couch totally unfazed by the commotion. But he is an old cat (14) so maybe he knows the doorbell is harmless.

I think a lot of people bought those cameras (Fuji Instax specifically) and quickly realized how expensive the film would be if they wanted to take a lot of pictures. I tend to think Fuji put all their eggs into the Instax basket, even going so far as to discontinue their B&W film and (later) their color print film, only to contract out their manufacture to Ilford and Kodak respectively, while meanwhile greatly expanding production of Instax film and cameras. And that is a bubble just waiting to burst. Fuji still makes color slide film, but it is perpetually out of stock everywhere and super expensive now. Many observers are wondering if they've already shut down the slide film factory and might just be selling off what's left from cold storage.

I wonder if a genuine Gibson Les Paul still costs $600?

My parents didn't even believe in the notion of choosing a career that you love. I wanted to be a locomotive engineer.... That was much too "blue collar" for them so they made me go to engineering school. "Regular" engineering, not trains! LOL. If I had told them I wanted to study and play music full time they probably would have disowned me.

Apparently it is a faux pas of the highest order.

Don't forget the all-important fragrance of the new roll of film when you open the plastic canister for the first time. I need to find a way to duplicate it and make film-scented air fresheners for my car!

I have the opposite situation. I live on a T intersection but it's on the top of the "T". I can look out the window and see kids coming down the perpendicular street but they reach the corner and turn left or right but for some reason almost never come across to our side. I bet the house across the street gets five times the number of visitors than we do.

By the way kudos to the O.P. for the cool forum avatar picture..... I don't know who had it first; probably him, because I had something else there for a long time. Like they say, great minds think alike!

I've seen people bring on-board bulky items such as acoustic guitars and place them in the overhead bins, so I'm almost certain a 61-key would fit too assuming it isn't in an oversized or super puffy case. Certain airports are notorious for attracting a clientele which stretches the carry-on regulations (I'm looking at you, MCO). But I don't think I'd try it flying to an unknown destination I'd never been to, in something that might be smaller than, say, a 737.

TWO strings? What is the other string for?

Is EC on the list at all or am I just not seeing him all of a sudden? I don't see Roy Clark or Glenn Campbell or Buck Dharma or Gary Moore or Gary Richrath either or any other number of players I could think of in about twenty seconds...

The old beginner's trick of labelling the keys with a Sharpie will fix that right up now won't it!

I find it interesting if not amusing that in all these news releases, the Pentax representatives keep referring to it as a "manual-winding film camera". Is the tactile feel (of the winding) as much a part of the experience as anything else? I suppose maybe, in a way, for some people maybe it is. I guess a motor-driven camera isn't cool any longer. I'll have to get rid of my N90S. On another forum, a few years ago some folks were suggesting Leica needs to build a manually ratchetting digital rangefinder. They already have a digital that shoots B&W only.... But this could take it to a whole new level. Crank the lever to "reset" the shutter before taking the next picture! And for even more film credibility, it could have a knob on the top you have to crank every 36 exposures before you can take any more pictures. The Leica faithful will snatch them up!

I know, don't remind me! LOL It was a schoolnight so I would have had to make up a story why I was going out (and returning so late). I'm sure tickets were still reasonable in those days but I wasn't exactly flush with cash.

+2 I turned down a chance to see Prince with opening act The Time at the Peoria Civic Center.... This was before Purple Rain so he was a big star already but the biggest was yet to come! I just didn't have the money to go.

A friend asked me if I wanted to see the Grateful Dead.... Not being a fan, I said no. He wasn't a fan either so neither of us went. A month later, Jerry Garcia was dead. The show we didn't go to was his last!

Not mine either. I don't put it on anything..... I'm sure it isn't, but to me it always seems like a fake man-made tomato paste. When I was a kid I called it "Soylent Red" which is kind of funny and macabre at the same time.

And one other thing.... Ketchup does not belong on a hot dog!

Chicago is known for it's deep-dish pizza but growing up we were always a thin pizza family. That deep dish stuff is just too much cheese! But I do like the cornbread crust...

LOL That would be me! I'll be over here hiding behind the two-tier keyboard stand if anyone needs me. One of the things that eventually drew me into playing with others is because I am so quiet otherwise. But I draw the line at singing.

Similarly, my brother went to U. of Michigan and he considering taking Saxophone classes after taking them all through school starting way back in about 5th grade. He eventually decided not to do it, though, once he learned the primary goal of the program was to generate a new crop of musicians every year for the school's marching band. On the one hand, being in the marching band at a Big 10 school would be a pretty good plum on the resume of a career musician, but he wasn't going into music as a career, so he didn't do it. He's got my dad's old acoustic guitar now.... Maybe I can convince him to sign up for lessons at GC or School of Rock! Cheaper than a new Miata.

Our town has a School of Rock franchise and there are just over a hundred kids there. If I had to guess I'd say about 60 of them are guitar students, so it's still a super popular instrument with the kids. Either that or maybe their parents push them into guitar so they don't have to buy a piano for the house ! It's also noteworthy that most of the singers are girls for whatever reason.

I'm 1964..... And late in the year. Depending on whose definition you choose to believe, I could be a Boomer, or an "X". Emotionally, I'm still about 17.