On Such a Winter's Day

Train Show

If I can drag myself over there somehow, the Great Train Show will be at the Mid-America Center not far from where I live for the next couple of days.

I'm looking forward to attending for several reasons, not the least of them being able to gloat about it to my best friend Skip, who is also into model railroading.



If I'm lucky, perhaps I can find a reasonably-priced locomotive to add to my collection. It's pumpkin season, so maybe something like this...

MTH HO Scale GE C44-9W, aka "Dash 9"

...which passes by my apartment with great regularity these days, mostly hauling coal.

"Guys like you call them 'pumpkins' because of the color scheme?"

That would be correct, yes...

Encore Bore

After the spectacularly boring blowouts in the football games played on New Year's Eve, I was really hoping for some exciting games yesterday. Didn't happen.

It was wall-to-wall blowouts again, across the board: Tennessee beat Northwestern 45-6 in the Outback Bowl, Michigan beat Florida 41-7 in the Citrus Bowl, Ohio State beat Notre Dame 44-28 in the Fiesta Bowl (in a game that wasn't as close as the score indicated), and Mississippi beat Oklahoma State 48-20 in the Sugar Bowl (in another game that was more lopsided than even the 28-point margin would suggest).

This. All day.

And in the game of local interest here, Stanford led Iowa 21-0 within the first 10 minutes of the Rose Bowl, led 35-0 at halftime, and won the game 45-16 behind a record-setting performance from Heisman Trophy runner-up Christian McCaffrey, who is only a sophomore. It was McCaffrey's 75-yard catch-and-run for a TD on the game's first play from scrimmage that set the tone.


Within my state, I'm an Iowa State Cyclones fan, so this result didn't exactly break my heart, since it quieted the haughty Hawkeye fans in my vicinity. And it's worth noting that the two teams who met in the Big Ten Championship Game (Iowa and Michigan State) lost their bowls by a combined score of 83-15. That ought to quiet down the Big Ten boosters for at least a little while...

"How did my favorite college team do in its bowl game?"

Well, since they don't play football there...

Acutely Aware

From the delightful webcomic xkcd, by Randall Munroe, which you should read every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, as I do.

Until Next Time...

The weather here in the Bluffs has been in a deep freeze for more than a week, with
high temperatures well below freezing. A little bit of that sort of weather goes a long way with me. The coming of the New Year is also a reminder that Winter has only just gotten started (the first official day of the season was just two weeks ago).

Winter isn't all bad, of course. Among other things, it provided the inspiration for a wonderful selection in Antonio Vivaldi's famous collection of violin concertos known as The Four Seasons. "L'inverno (Winter)" is the concluding concerto of the work, suggestive perhaps of the human life cycle.

I first became acquainted with the German violin virtuoso Anne-Sophie Mutter when I was looking for violin music to use in a play I was directing in the spring of 2003. I found an enchanting recording of her playing a piece by Gabriel Fauré, and have been a fan ever since.

In 1984, Mutter released a recording of The Four Seasons made with the legendary Herbert von Karajan and the Vienna Philharmonic.



Conductor von Karajan had given Mutter her big break in 1976, inviting her to play publicly with the Berlin Philharmonic when she was just 13 years old.

Today's send-off is her exciting performance of the "Winter" concerto paired with a slideshow showcasing the harsh beauty of the season. Enjoy...