Category: Life

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God History Life Music Radio

Saturday Night Retro

It’s the music of my life – and Life. There’s the life that I used to know prior to the Summer of 2006, and then there’s the Life (always capitalized) of today. The soundtrack of today sounds far different than that of yesteryear. The soundtrack of today is inspired by the center of my heart and soul – my Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. The soundtrack of yesteryear was inspired by the world around me – a world that told me what to do, where to do it, when to do it, and how to do it. That era may be long gone – a distant memory – but it is certainly not forgotten. That era existed, and then it died.

This week’s featured song is what I refer to as a ‘Melbourne song’. It was part of the soundtrack of my life back during the wild and crazy Spring of 1993 in Melbourne Florida. A lot of good came out of that era. This blog is an offspring of the original MANx CAT BBS (dial-up bulletin board system) that was created back then. This song kept me dancing into the night. It’s AB Logic featuring singer Marianne and rapper K-Swing. Here’s their long-running International dance smash entitled “The Hitman” !

Let’s kick it:

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Blogging Career Driving Holidays Life Travel Weather

Tuesday Night Grab Bag O’ Thoughts

1.  THIS is the momentous 100TH edition of the ‘Tuesday Night Grab Bag O’ Thoughts’. That’s 96 editions here on WordPress over the past 23 months – and 4 editions before that on the MySpace incarnation of this here blog. This week also marks the end of the 2ND full year of ‘Grab Bag’ editions. Next week we begin Year 3. Thank You so very much for checking out this blog on a regular basis – and for helping to make the ‘Tuesday Night Grab Bag O’ Thoughts’ the flagship weekly series of this blog. It’s the blog of my Life.

MEMORIES –> Check out the very first edition of the ‘Tuesday Night Grab Bag O’ Thoughts’ from Tuesday October 16TH 2007.

2.  Well I ‘tweased‘ about this late yesterday afternoon, but now I’m not so sure about it. I’m referring to some cooler and dryer air that should be approaching us late this week into this upcoming weekend. Or will it ?  My amateur weather forecast now differs slightly from that of the National Weather Service. My ‘spaghetti models’ now struggle to pull the powerful cold front all the way through the southeast coast of Florida. If my forecast is correct then it won’t get nearly as cool and dry as it could otherwise. I do believe that Saturday and Sunday will be our coolest two days in a row since last May with Sunday morning being noticeably cooler. Expect Sunday morning temperatures in the upper-40s near Tallahassee, upper-50s near Orlando, mid-60s near Naples, and close to 70° here in Homestead.

3.  You know what was really cool about the very start of my recent holiday weekend road trip ?  On Saturday morning as I walked down to my car to kick it all off I glanced up at the sky and I saw a really nice hot air balloon up there looking down at my neighbourhood. When I saw that I just knew that the time was right to declare the start of my short little vacation. As I began driving northbound the hot air balloon drifted westbound over Redland.

4.  My 415.5-mile road trip was a smash hit – a successful dry run to a much longer road trip that I shall embark on in less than 38 days. I’ll be driving about 7 times that distance round-trip over the course of 10 days when I drive to and from the Dallas Texas area to visit my family for the Thanksgiving holiday. It will be the longest road trip of my entire Life – but not by a whole lot actually. I drove up to the Washington D.C. area a bunch of times when my family still lived up there (prior to about 13 years ago).

FACTOID –> My 415.5-mile road trip was completely toll-free courtesy of Krome Avenue, Tamiami Trail, and I-75.

5.  Please don’t misinterpret one of my comments from one of my blog posts from yesterday. While I have fallen in love with the greater Naples area, and I do plan to eventually move there sometime in the future that will not happen anytime soon. I’m thinking long-range here. I have a wonderful job over at the air base in Homestead. I’m a 25-year Federal Government employee, and although that’s a lot of years with the system I can’t retire anytime soon. Now that does not necessarily mean that I plan to wait until I can retire before I move to Naples – or even buy a home over there. I’m still many years away from such a concept, but I do believe that I will eventually become a resident of Naples or the surrounding area. I will also become a more frequent visitor of the area.

Categories
History Home Life Music People Radio

The Major’s Friday Night Disco Party

Flashback to the Spring of 1977. I’m 9-years-old – getting ready to turn 10-years-old, and I’m hangin’ out with my friends down by the creek at the bottom end of Red Wing Lane in Lanham Maryland. One side of the creek I ruled. I was in charge. The territory was known as ‘Chris Day Valley’, and it stretched for as far as my imagination would allow. On the other side of the creek my friends ruled, and their territory was known as ‘Wolf Pack State’. Our two territories neighboured each other, and we were friendly nations. See – even back then I was mastering geographic boundaries !

As I was compiling the paragraph above (and wandering around on the web) I believe that I may have discovered two friends of mine (simultaneously) from that neighbourhood and that time period. I’m gonna try to connect with both of them. I see their pictures (avatars) online, and they look very much as I remember them from over 30 years ago. One of them lived in the last house on the street right before the creek and the two ‘territories’. The other lived in a house just behind mine, and he was one of my first good buddy friends.

Playing on the radio back in the old neighbourhood up and down Red Wing Lane was a lot of Disco music. ABBA (from Sweden) weren’t really a Disco act, but they got with the times when they had to. The result was their only # 1 smash stateside and perhaps their most memorable anthem of the era. It’s “Dancing Queen” !  RE-LIVE !

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Blogging History Life Music Radio

Saturday Night Retro

You can’t schedule Life. Life happens. Some of it you expect. Some of it comes from beyond sight and theory. I had fully expected to continue a previously-scheduled 10-week romp through the decade that was the 1990s here on the ‘Retro’. The goal was to reach 1999 on the Saturday before Thanksgiving. That won’t happen because 1992 has been delayed until perhaps next Saturday night. I’m flashing back this week nearly 38 years ago to the start of 1972, and it’s all because of a song.

So there I was on a random day this past week minding my own business working at my desk at work when a song came on a coworker’s radio. I could barely hear it, but during those 3 minutes that it was on it was the loudest thing in my mind. It was as loud as a speeding locomotive. It cut through me and took me back to a mysterious time and era that I had previously forgotten. A time when I was a wondering 4-year-old kid exploring the world around me from inside of a moving car. I was mentally and emotionally transported back to that time.

It’s crazy how a single song can be so powerful as to totally consume you in the moment. It brought tears to my eyes, and even tonight as I post this and hear it again it gives me the chills over and over again.

I often wonder if today’s hit songs on the radio will remind me of the good and the not so good times of my Life today some 10, 25, or 40 years from now. A little over a month ago I was at cruising speed enjoying Life, bragging about it, and planning it out weeks, months, and even years from now. Unfortunately the other end of my Life was suddenly imploding in an irreversible manner. There I was looking too far into the future while I was neglecting the foundation of the Life of the now. Life happened. You can’t schedule Life.