Heavenly

See Something, Say Something

From 9:00 AM to 11:00 AM today (all times local), protesters peacefully picketed outside of Planned Parenthood facilities across the country. (Got to love the alliteration, eh?) Count yourself fortunate if your local news media breathed a word of it. Just as usually happens with the massive annual March for Life rallies, both print and broadcast media outlets for the most part have got Planned Parenthood's back. Shocking, I know...

Thanks to the wonderful Mollie Hemingway for covering the protests all day today on her Twitter feed (@MZHemingway). She is on the side of the angels.

Just one of the dozens of photos she has posted this morning from all over the country...

One Reason I'm a Conservative

I don't ever want to be on the same side of any issue as this hateful, bigoted nitwit...

Because yes, of course Republicans kill black people for sport. What a tragedy of a human being you are, lady...

Things That Make Me Happy: Wideout Edition

Anyone who follows professional football is aware that last season my beloved Kansas City Chiefs went through all sixteen games (we missed the playoffs despite a 9-7 record) without a wide receiver catching a touchdown pass. Management took steps to address that problem in the off-season, releasing Dwayne Bowe and Donnie Avery, signing free agent Jeremy Maclin away from Philadelphia (and reuniting him with former Eagles coach Andy Reid), and drafting Chris Conley from the University of Georgia.

In their first home game of the preseason, Maclin caught a touchdown pass from Alex Smith, in a game the Chiefs hung on to win 14-13. It was a most welcome sight for this Chiefs fan, especially so since Maclin is a University of Missouri alumnus...

"Get used to this, Chiefs fans!"

I know it is just a preseason game, but Maclin did catch his TD pass against the Seahawks' first-string defense, one of the best units in the NFL last season. I doubt that I'll write much about the Chiefs until the start of the regular season, but this development seemed worth a mention...

Wild Kingdom Bed & Breakfast Update

All of my life critters of all kinds have found my voice non-threatening. When I was a young boy, I used to drive my mom crazy by talking squirrels in our yard into eating out of my hand (she was convinced they were all rabid). I've also been able to do the same thing over the years with chipmunks, deer, rabbits, feral cats, etc.

Just last Sunday, for instance, I went over to Holy Family Catholic Church on the west side of Council Bluffs to refill my holy water bottle (the tank at my home parish, St. Peter's, was empty), and as I walked along Avenue B toward the church I saw a squirrel in a tree. I wasn't in a hurry, so I stopped and talked to him for a bit. Instead of running away, he climbed down onto a low branch to get a closer look at me. If I had had some sort of treat to give him, I'm pretty sure I could have talked him into taking it.

It has been a bit different with the neighborhood birds, at least so far. When I go out to sit on my patio, I can sometimes get a couple of them to land on the thistle sock for a little while, and sometimes on the feeder, and when that happens they don't fly off when I talk to them, but it is still early enough in the process that they mostly just sit in the nearby trees and wait me out. Once in awhile one of the bolder ones will fly by and chirp at me, as if to tell me to go back inside so they can eat in peace. I don't take it personally.

As the fledglings struggle with their flying skills, every so often one of them will almost fly right into me as I sit in my deck chair before turning around and flying away (they also occasionally bonk into my glass patio door, but they're moving so slowly that no injuries have resulted).

I have learned that if I want to take any pictures of my guests while sitting out there, I need to use my Nexus 7 tablet rather than my Nikon Coolpix or my Moto X phone. With the Nexus 7 I am able to position the device in such a way that it only requires an almost imperceptible movement to get the shot. A couple of days ago, a finch landed on the patio railing and scrutinized me for quite awhile before grabbing a snack from the thistle sock. My voice didn't seem to bother him in the slightest. Progress.

"You know, you could really stand to lose a couple of pounds."

Thanks. I'll take it under advisement...

Say "Hello" to Veronica

One of the things about collecting is that every so often you stumble across something you have been pursuing just about the time you stop looking. I had wanted to add a guitar like Veronica to my collection ever since the first time I saw my hero Joe Bonamassa perform live (Stephens Auditorium at Iowa State University in Ames, March 5, 2011). At that time, one of Joe's concert guitars was a vintage Gibson Korina Flying V. I actually purchased a lithograph of him playing his...

My "Flying V" lithograph hanging in my classroom in Atlantic.

When I first started shopping for the less-expensive Epiphone version of this guitar, I didn't realize they were planning to put this particular model out of production. When they did, new ones disappeared from the stores and online retailers. That only left eBay, and the used ones I could find there were for one reason or another unappealing to me. After a couple of fruitless years looking, I gave up the search.

But, as I say, sometimes the way you find a thing is to stop looking for it. Not long after I had moved to Council Bluffs last summer I was on a website looking for something else when I happened to find a seller who had a like-new '58 Korina V for sale. Fortunately for me, I was able to afford her at the time, and so she joined my collection. She is by far the least expensive electric guitar I own, but she certainly doesn't look inexpensive. I think she's gorgeous...

Epiphone 1958 Korina Flying V Reissue

"Not going to mention how you pretend to be Joe when you play 'air guitar' with her?"

I think they know...

Until Next Time...

On May 4, 2009, just four days before his 32nd birthday, my hero Joe Bonamassa played the Royal Albert Hall in London, an evening he called "the greatest night of my life" at the time.

One of the extras on the DVD of the concert is Joe telling the story of how he began dreaming of playing at RAH after his father played him a record by Cream, and told him about the band's legendary final concert there almost nine years before Joe was even born. Joe was only 7 years old when he heard that record.

As you might imagine, after waiting for a quarter-century to achieve his dream, Joe absolutely killed it that night. Like so many of his fans, it was seeing the video of that performance that made me a fan for life. I have now had the pleasure of seeing Joe live six times, and hope to see more of his shows in the future. They've all been special in their own ways, but I shall never forget how electrifying it was to see him play for the first time, on that video. Today's send-off is the final song of the regular set from that concert (I wrote about the encore he played here). He's playing that vintage Gibson Flying V I mentioned up above, and it is a memorable performance indeed. I had never seen anyone use a theremin during a live show, for instance, and I was floored by what he did with it.

There's a moment near the end of the video, when you can see the look of sheer joy and pride of accomplishment on Joe's face as he raises the Flying V over his head while the audience roars its appreciation, that just gets me every time. Enjoy...