Tuesday, April 15, 2025

From the Marathon Archives...

100th Boston Marathon
April 15th, 1996 - Boston, Massachusetts

I was fortunate to run the 100th Boston Marathon today. 

It was my 10th marathon completed, in a time of 3:24:14.

Mile Markers as follow:
  •   5.0 -Miles -    45:05
  • 10.0 -Miles - 1:23:25
  • 15.0 -Miles - 2:02:28
  • 20.0 -Miles - 2:42:59
  • 25.0 -Miles - 3:22:35
  • 26.2 -Miles - 3:32:15


Blood Work for Annual Physical in early morning.

Shift at JMH.

Semi-Shift at TA.

Review with CWOps.

Covid Vaccine evening.

Monday, April 14, 2025

Beaver Pond Wildlife: Part 4 - Mid-Summer to Fall

Watched Part 4 today.  It is a wonderful video from RA at New England Forests.

According to the webstite, this film series spans a year's time at typical beaver ponds in New England. In this, Part 3, nesting season has wrapped up for most bird species near the pond, but there's plenty happening both above and below the pond's surface. 

PT early morning.

Yard Work on Patio with DL.

Condo Meeting during evening.

Sunday, April 13, 2025

Visit with my Mom in Williamstown.

Visit with Pop in Adams. 

Couple of images from River Street in North Adams.





Saturday, April 12, 2025

Guitar V

The Next Lesson Book I completed thoroughly was:

Mel Bay's Complete Modern Method for Modern Guitar, Book 1.

Had some spring snow today also:

Friday, April 11, 2025

DL's Birthday today!


Dentist check-up (all is well).

Thursday, April 10, 2025

Park Ranger Sees Two Sasquatch: The Appalachian Bigfoot Files

From Savoy Mountain State Forest in 1992, at the Tannery Falls Parking Area.

My sister sent me this video link, which certainly appears truthful "Bigfoot at Tannery Falls".  

JMH and TA during the morning to early afternoon.

Wednesday, April 9, 2025

Follow up appointment at my Podiatry Doctor.  Shockwave Ultra-Sound to follow.

Extracorporeal Shock Wave Therapy for right achilles.

Bank meeting at M&T in afternoon.

Tuesday, April 8, 2025

Attended High School baseball with K2 at the Hartford Yard Goats stadium.  

Brutally cold for baseball.

JMH in the morning.

Monday, April 7, 2025

Guitar IV

The Next Lesson Book I completed thoroughly was:

Nicola Mandorino's 120 Aprpeggios for Fingerstyle Guitar.

Sunday, April 6, 2025

Travel to north of Worcester, Massachusetts to meet with our nieces for lunch.

Stopped off at ICC to cement our Ireland Trip requirements, and  watched the end of Uconn Women's Basketball 2025 Championship game!

Saturday, April 5, 2025

Visit with my Mom and Pop today.

Stopped off to shout "Hello" to Teeter, our old parrot.

Finished the trip with a bit of time with my sister, wishing her a Happy Birthday!

Friday, April 4, 2025

Beaver Pond Wildlife: Part 3 - Early to Mid Summer

Watched Part 3 today.  It is a wonderful video from RA at New England Forests.

According to the webstite, this film series spans a year's time at typical beaver ponds in New England. In this, Part 3, nesting season has wrapped up for most bird species near the pond, but there's plenty happening both above and below the pond's surface. 

Also, finalized our tax returns in West Hartford (great news for us).

Haircut in the 'Locks.

Thursday, April 3, 2025

Guitar III

My on-going pathway of learning guitar...

The second Lesson Book I have completed thoroughly was:

Mel Bay's New Sounds for Electric Bass and Guitar by Roger Filberto.  

This was something I had learned long ago when I studied Bass Guitar during the summer I began High School.  

Originally completed from November 1977 through February 1978.  

Worked my way through this once again, but this time with the Guitar.


Shift at JMH & TA.

PT at LED late afternoon.

Wednesday, April 2, 2025

ArchaeoEd Podcast

Get ready to embark on a time-traveling adventure with the legendary archaeologist, Dr. Ed Barnhart!

Let's unearth the stories of the awe-inspiring civilizations of the Americas. These are the tales that only get a fleeting mention in western history books.


The ancient Nazca in Peru were a lot more than just people who scratched huge geo-glyphs into the desert. This episode tells their wider story.

Tuesday, April 1, 2025

Michael Hurley, singer-songwriter and 'Godfather of freak folk,' dies at 83.

"It is with a resounding sadness that the Hurley family announces the recent sudden passing of the inimitable Michael Hurley,” Hurley's family said in a statement to Rolling Stone. “The ‘Godfather of freak folk’ was for a prolific half-century the purveyor of an eccentric genius and compassionate wit. He alone was Snock. There is no other. Friends, family, and the music community deeply mourn his loss.”

Hurley, born in Pennsylvania, honed his cracked perspective on bluegrass, blues and folk in the Greenwich Village folk scene in New York in the '60s, after producer and folklorist Fred Ramsey picked him up on a hitchiking ramble. He released his debut album, 1964's "First Songs," on Folkways, the acclaimed home of Woody Guthrie and curator Harry Smith’s "Anthology of American Folk Music."

Hurley's talents were manifold — he designed and illustrated most of his charming hand-drawn album art, and learned a diversity of instruments including banjo and fiddle. His songs had a stark, strange quality that could be both beautiful (as on "Be Kind to Me" and "Valley of Tears") and surreal ("What Made My Hamburger Disappear?" or "You’re a Dog; Don’t Talk to Me"). He was a childhood friend of future Youngbloods singer Jesse Colin Young, who would champion Hurley's skewed vision by releasing 1971’s "Armchair Boogie" and 1972’s "Hi Fi Snock Uptown" on his Warner Bros. imprint Raccoon.

1976's "Have Moicy!" became an underground cult favorite, and his rapidly expanding catalog would grow to more than 30 LPs.  This collaboration with the Unholy Modal Rounders (a spin-off of the Holy Modal Rounders) and Jeffrey Frederick & The Clamtones, received much critical praise. Music critic Robert Christgau ranked it as his favorite album of the year.


Along the way, indie rockers and like-minded singer songwriters like Lucinda Williams and Cat Power (who hauntingly interpreted his single "Werewolf" on her classic 2003 LP "You Are Free") would champion his work. 

"Calling me an outsider artist … yes, I think it’s apt," he told the Guardian in 2021. "It’s taken me a long time to join the gang... I didn’t enjoy the process of applying for gigs, that determination to penetrate things, all this trouble you had to go through. I preferred playing parties. Little gatherings. Drinking with friends, hopping across the river.”

His song, "Hog of the Forsaken", was used in the closing credits for the pilot episode of the series and the closing of Deadwood: The Movie.

Discography

  • First Songs (1964) (Folkways)
  • Armchair Boogie (1971) (Raccoon/Warner Bros.)
  • Hi Fi Snock Uptown (1972) (Raccoon/Warner Bros.)
  • Have Moicy! (1975) credited to Michael Hurley/Unholy Modal Rounders/Clamtones (Rounder)
  • Long Journey (1976) (Rounder)
  • Snockgrass (1980) (Rounder)
  • Blue Navigator (1984) (Rooster)
  • Watertower (1988) (Fundamental)
  • Land Of Lofi And Redbirds (1988) (Bellemeade Phonics)
  • Excrusiasion '86 (1988) (Bellemeade Phonics)
  • Growlin' Bo Bo (1991) (Bellemeade Phonics)
  • The Woodbill Brothers (1992) (Bellemeade Phonics)
  • Wolfways (1994) (Veracity)
  • Parsnip Snips (1996) (Bellemeade Phonics)
  • Bellemeade Sessions (1997) (Blue Navigator)
  • Weatherhole (1999) (Field Recording Co.)
  • Live in Edinburgh (1999) (self-released CDr)
  • Blueberry Wine (2001) (Locust Music)
  • Sweetkorn (2002) (Trikont/Bellemeade Phonics)
  • Down in Dublin (2005) (Blue Navigator)
  • Ancestral Swamp (2007) (Gnomonsong)
  • Ida Con Snock (2009) (Gnomonsong)
  • Blue Hills (2010) (Mississippi Records)
  • First Songs (LP rerelease on Smithsonian, 2010)
  • Wildegeeses/South in Virginia 7" (Mississippi Records)
  • Back Home With Drifting Woods (Mississippi Records/Nero's Neptune Records)
  • Fatboy Spring (Mississippi Records)
  • Land of LoFi (2013) (Mississippi Records)
  • Bad Mr. Mike (2016) (Mississippi Records)
  • Redbirds at Folk City (2017) (Feeding Tube Records)
  • Living Ljubljana (2018) (Feeding Tube Records)
  • The Time of the Foxgloves (2021) (No Quarter)

Locally, I Unloaded fifty bails of Hay with my Pop at the Auction mid-morning, and another two pick-ups worth from other farmers dropping off hay,

Shift at JMH early.