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In 1990 I wss living in Germany and for about $10 you could buy a 5-litre gravity-tap mini-keg of German bier. That was the most fantastic thing I'd ever seen. In 1993 I was deployed to MacDill Air Force Base, Flordia for three months, and what to my great surprise did I find on base? 5-litre gravity-tap mini-kegs of German bier. It was $25 but hey - this is really worth living for. I got the Warsteiner; my favorite. I drank it that day. Fast forward 12 years, and here I sit in St. Louis, Missouri, and what do I find in the grocery store for $12? You got it. I picked up the Warsteiner. I love German bier. I'm sure I'll sleep really good tonight.
I have over 4000 songs in my iTunes database, but have only really listened to a small percentage of them (yes, it can track that for you). So tonight, I'm going to start listening to my entire collection. Now, that doesn't mean that I haven't heard them before. In fact, I started with my most well-heard genre, the operas I imported the other night. Let's talk about opera a minute. You people whine and whine that CD's are too expensive. Have you ever priced opera? A good quality full recording is rare to find under $50. But there's oh so much more to consider. Let's say you decide on a piece you want to purchase. You have to consider the label, the conductor, the orchestra, the soprano, and the tenor. And yes, all five can and do very elusively intermix, so you have to put it together like a puzzle. For example. My favorite conductor is Herbert Von Karajan. He has conducted many, many orchestra's but is best known as principal conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic (in which he was appointed to in 1955 and retained until his death in 1989) which as it turns out pretty much by proxy, I prefer the Berlin Philharmonic - but I'll sometimes purchase them over Karajan with a different orchestra depending on which label it's on (see what I mean about complicated?), unless I'm looking for a specific soprano of course...you get the point anyway. My favorite two labels are Deutsche Grammaphon (who, coincidently records most of the Berlin Philharmonic) and Telarc. Why labels you ask? Their quality. I didn't learn this until 1990, in Germany. SSgt Randy Smith saw my Laserlight collection of Beethoven's Nine Symphony's and just shook his head. They were $3.99 each. He loaned me his $100 Beethoven set (which I later purchased in the UK) and threw my Laserlight collection in the trash!
Listen, I got to tell you. I'm in heaven. I haven't had this amount of beer, this good, in such a long time. I'm going to try to drink it all tonight. AND it's the weekend. I am so tired of not sleeping (admittedly I'm doing better in a queen bed in a cold room than I was in a military cot in an un-airconditioned data center) and I'm so glad I didn't have to press my clothes tonight for the day tomorrow or set my alarm for an hour and a half early so I'd be bright-eyed when speaking to the executives. I'm going to turn off Lotus Notes, turn off my phone, double-check that the A/C is on high, and drop into bed tonight, hopefully catching up on some sleep. I really feel bad for my wife, who was vommited upon at 0445 this morning by my youngest and hasn't slept through the night since I left. "Why are you not coming home this weekend again?" She asked. She is a wonderful, longsuffering woman and I respect her deeply.
[time passes...]
David Eatherly called and we chatted a good long time. I'm now using iTunes to make me a sleepytime mix of mostly New Age music to snooze by. I'm qwfully drunk and this is quite nice. Time for nite-nite...
I adore you all, my readership.
I have over 4000 songs in my iTunes database, but have only really listened to a small percentage of them (yes, it can track that for you). So tonight, I'm going to start listening to my entire collection. Now, that doesn't mean that I haven't heard them before. In fact, I started with my most well-heard genre, the operas I imported the other night. Let's talk about opera a minute. You people whine and whine that CD's are too expensive. Have you ever priced opera? A good quality full recording is rare to find under $50. But there's oh so much more to consider. Let's say you decide on a piece you want to purchase. You have to consider the label, the conductor, the orchestra, the soprano, and the tenor. And yes, all five can and do very elusively intermix, so you have to put it together like a puzzle. For example. My favorite conductor is Herbert Von Karajan. He has conducted many, many orchestra's but is best known as principal conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic (in which he was appointed to in 1955 and retained until his death in 1989) which as it turns out pretty much by proxy, I prefer the Berlin Philharmonic - but I'll sometimes purchase them over Karajan with a different orchestra depending on which label it's on (see what I mean about complicated?), unless I'm looking for a specific soprano of course...you get the point anyway. My favorite two labels are Deutsche Grammaphon (who, coincidently records most of the Berlin Philharmonic) and Telarc. Why labels you ask? Their quality. I didn't learn this until 1990, in Germany. SSgt Randy Smith saw my Laserlight collection of Beethoven's Nine Symphony's and just shook his head. They were $3.99 each. He loaned me his $100 Beethoven set (which I later purchased in the UK) and threw my Laserlight collection in the trash!
Listen, I got to tell you. I'm in heaven. I haven't had this amount of beer, this good, in such a long time. I'm going to try to drink it all tonight. AND it's the weekend. I am so tired of not sleeping (admittedly I'm doing better in a queen bed in a cold room than I was in a military cot in an un-airconditioned data center) and I'm so glad I didn't have to press my clothes tonight for the day tomorrow or set my alarm for an hour and a half early so I'd be bright-eyed when speaking to the executives. I'm going to turn off Lotus Notes, turn off my phone, double-check that the A/C is on high, and drop into bed tonight, hopefully catching up on some sleep. I really feel bad for my wife, who was vommited upon at 0445 this morning by my youngest and hasn't slept through the night since I left. "Why are you not coming home this weekend again?" She asked. She is a wonderful, longsuffering woman and I respect her deeply.
[time passes...]
David Eatherly called and we chatted a good long time. I'm now using iTunes to make me a sleepytime mix of mostly New Age music to snooze by. I'm qwfully drunk and this is quite nice. Time for nite-nite...
I adore you all, my readership.
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hope you daughter gets better.
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