3552 Water, music

Tuesday, June 19, 2012

"When you're in jail, a good friend will be trying to bail you out. A best friend

will be in the cell next to you saying, 'Damn, that was fun'."

-- Groucho Marx --

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My phone rang during the dance class last night.  It was a township automated red alert call, saying that the water was contaminated, and we should boil water used to wash dishes etc. and drink bottled water or boiled water until further notice.  A few minutes later Daughter called with the same message, with the additional info that several people had been hospitalized.

I bought some bottled water on the way home.  The store was full of people also buying water.

When I got home I found an email from the township with a link to further info.  They suspect that the contamination occurred from damage to a pipe during construction.

Now, here's the good part.  Right there in the township notice, they say that "the contamination was detected in a water sample taken Friday, June 15."  Note that the alert didn't go out until Monday evening.  People were showing up at the ER over the weekend.  I'm surprised that they admitted a delay.  How does someone break a pipe and not know it?  That leaves them open to a lawsuit claiming that "they should have known - why take samples if you're going to be so blasé about them?"

Gee, thanks anyway for eventually letting us know....

At risk are "infants, toddlers, the elderly, and people with compromised immune systems". 

Given that the Nugget had been drinking it, and given that I drink at least 3 quarts of the stuff a day, I guess I'm not so very elderly, and our letting Nugget eat mud pies and whatever she finds on the floor is good for her immune system.

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I've been reading through old posts, dating from late 2005 or so, and adding labels so I can find stuff.  I found some posts about some of my musical interests. I do love me some drumline action.

This is an Amy/Navy drum battle.  I'm not positive which is which - I suspect the guys on the right are Navy - but the guys on the left won hands down as far as I'm concerned. (Odd that they are not as precise as college drumlines. The guy on the far left is the only one with "the stoic posture".  And why are the guys in the back masked?  Weird.)

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFRikZ2Mwao]

I also love bagpipe, uillean pipe, bodhran, and hammered dulcimer.  The old post at http://thesilkentouch.blogspot.com/2007/07/1349-another-passion.html has videos of them.

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I've been disturbed by people who don't know the difference between "lose" and "loose".  Now there's a new one that I'm seeing more and more often:  "break" and "brake".   Even so-called professional writers are screwing that up.  The mental image I get when someone writes "break the car" is, I suspect, not what the writer intended.  "She slammed on the breaks" is a mind-blanker.  I get no image.
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1345 Drum Lines

Monday, July 2, 2007

[If you're looking at a feed and don't see imbedded videos, click on the post title.]

I was watching a Metcafe video linked by another blogger, and when it finished, this was offered: http://www.metacafe.com/watch/699860/awesome_drummers/. Thrilling! (I haven't been able to figure out how to imbed it, sorry. )

It reminded me that I haven't been to a Drum & Bugle Corps competition in ages. There's one at the stadium in Kingston every summer, and the past few years, well, since Jay got sick, I've missed it. I just wasn't paying attention.

I love drum and bugle corps, especially the drum line. I love to hear them, and to watch them. Its a passion of mine. And here's why:

That was the Blue Devils, of Concord, CA, one of the top corps, in rehearsal. The sound! The precision! The Rockettes have nothing on these kids.

The next is the Cavaliers, from Illinois, warming up before competition.

Doesn't that thrill you to your very toes? My heart beats faster watching them. When the competitions are in Kingston, you find this sort of thing happening in parks, parking lots, and on lawns all over The Stockade all afternoon of "the day".

An evening I will remember as one of the best of my life was at a D&B competition. It was just before Jay got ill. He had something to do that evening, so I went alone. I was in the lower seating in the stadium, and a man came with two very young children, which he seated next to me, in about the only two seats left. He strongly cautioned them that they were to stay there, not to move, "I'll be just up there", and seemed concerned about leaving them alone. So as he as leaving to go to his own seat, I offered to trade seats with him. He gratefully accepted, and ... I found myself sitting in the middle of the alumni of the (long defunct) Kingston D&B corps!

At first they seemed a bit disconcerted to find a tiny white lady in their midst, but when I started asking questions, they were happy to have a receptive pupil. I learned sooooo much about what looks hard but is actually easy, what looks easy but is very difficult and why, what gathers points. All the technical stuff to appreciate, "Now, watch this! No, not the snares, watch the left! Woooo! Did you see that!" The guys on either side of me lifted me up high when the crowd stood, so I could see. I had an absolutely wonderful time.

They talked about how much the corps had done for them. That if it hadn't been for the discipline and pride they got from the corps, they wouldn't be where they were today. Every one of them had some kind of college degree, several owned their own successful businesses, a few were programmers with The Company. That if it hadn't been for the corps, they'd probably still be on the streets kicking stones, and that with all the problems Kingston had with midtown youth, the city was missing a bet by not resurrecting the corps.

I pointed out that they, themselves, were in a position to make a difference. The mayor was interested in things that would improve the city. Maybe they could get the Chamber of Commerce interested. All they really needed was a director and funding. By the end of the evening, they were taking about sources of funding.

I'm almost ashamed to say that I don't know if Kingston now has a corps. But I do know that shortly after that evening, Highland started a corps, and Port Ewen started a senior corps (you "age out" of the regular corps fairly early. Despite what it looks like on these videos, these are KIDS!), and I wonder if "my" drum line buddies were involved.

The following is a video from that very night! I found it entirely by chance. This is the Brigadiers, of Syracuse, NY, 1997.


The next competition in Kingston will be August 11th, 7:30 pm, at Deitz stadium. I'll be there. The lineup so far doesn't look exciting - where are the Phantom Regiment? The Cadets of Bergen County? The Bluecoats? The Cavaliers? The Brigadiers? All the national winners?

Regardless, I'll be there.
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