Storming Austin

Small concert venues rock. Small concert venues with dynamic performers who make you feel like you are at a big family party rock a lot. Case in point: last Saturday's Gaelic Storm concert at Threadgill's in Austin, TX.

If you think you're unfamiliar with Gaelic Storm, think again. Remember Titanic? Remember the rowdy party in steerage with the jig-able music? The fictional steerage band in Titanic was played by real band Gaelic Storm, and the band's live concert had a remarkably similar vibe to that cinematic party. Their music is a mix of classic Irish and orignal pieces, with a heavy emphasis on drinking songs. The Austin concert featured dancing and drinking and the crowd was small enough (while still filling the space) to make it feel like a backyard party.

I'd never been to Threadgill's before. It is a restaurant with an outdoor concert space which really is no bigger than a good sized backyard. Josh and I ate in the restaurant before the show. The stuffed jalapeños, black and blue Caesar salad, and blueberry cheesecake were all excellent. The chicken fried steak was ok, but if you are looking to sample an excellent example of this Texas classic, I recommend The Gristmill in Gruene.

I think I will probably go to Threadgills again. I know I will go to a Gaelic Storm concert again - at the earliest available opportunity. If you like good music and a good party, so will you.

For more pictures from the concert: http://www.flickr.com/photos/joshtrudell/sets/72157619740922812/

http://www.gaelicstorm.com/
http://www.threadgills.com/
http://www.gristmillrestaurant.com/

The Bed of a King - in Maui

My husband and I bought a timeshare in 2001, and I have to say we have been happy with the decision. We own one week in even numbered years at a resort in Orlando, FL - where we have never stayed. Since 2001 we have traded our week to visit St. John, USVI; Scottsdale, AZ; and cruise the Caribbean. Now, our tenth wedding anniversary is approaching, and, well, I was thinking of...Maui.

Trading a timeshare, if you aren't familiar, means depositing the week you own with the timeshare network, and then hoping that someone else deposits a week in a place you want to visit, at a time that you want to go. You can pick an exact resort that you want, or you can search for a general region, or you can pick your dates and see what is available then. If there are no matches for your criteria, then you can submit a request, and once something comes available, you get it.

Here's the tricky part. If something comes up that matches your search criteria, they will book and confirm your reservation without doublechecking with you that the match is a good one. So you have to make sure you specify your search well enough that you won't end up with something you don't want. They do allow you to limit to only resorts with certain amenities, like beach onsite (why would I go to Hawaii and not stay at a place with a beach?). You can tell the search program that you require a kitchen in your unit (this can actually make a vacation MUCH more relaxing). But you can't - and this is my sticking point - limit by available bed size.

My husband is a pretty big guy. I am not very big, but I am an expert sprawler. Also I toss and turn. At home, we have a king sized bed, and after 9 years with it, we don't do all that well in queen sized beds or smaller. Just like I am not going to travel all the way to Hawaii and NOT have easy access to a beach, I don't want to go for a relaxing week at the beach - and have trouble sleeping every night. Not if I can prevent it anyway.

So when I request a timeshare match, the only good option for me is to look at the directory of resorts in the area I want, and then do a little research to find out which ones offer king sized beds in their units. Then I can tell the search program to ONLY match me with these specific resorts. Which I did.

So, if you happen to own the week including Sept. 23, 2010 at either the Westin Ka'anapali Ocean Resort Villas or the Ka'anapali Beach Club, I think it would be really nifty of you to deposit that week with Interval International - go somewhere else for your 2010 vacation! I hear Orlando's nice.

Fun with Fotos

And this, ladies and gentlefolk, is why the little red-haired girl never went in much for blogging (or journaling or diary-keeping) in the past. I have a very short attention span. That said, after something of a hiatus, I am determined to get back in the saddle and complete my 23 things.

I did actually start to play with neat online photo thingies (technical term) awhile ago, but I never did blog about it. There is a cool site called http://www.befunky.com/ where you can turn digital photos into cartoon or drawing-like images. For example, here is a photo of my adorable niece, Linnea:

And here is the cartoon verson:

Neat, huh?

Flickring Away Part Deux

reading spot,
originally uploaded by little red-haired girl.

Since my other Flickr post was done using the Blogger template, I thought I would try to blog my own photo using the flickr "blog this photo" feature. This picture is of my patio reading spot, where I spend a good portion of my time off. If you want to see the rest of my photographic experiment, click on the picture to get to my photostream on Flickr.

Flickring Away Part One

So I finally did it. I took some pictures with a digital camera, set up a flickr account, and uploaded them. With a little help.

You see, I almost never use a camera, so other than this assignment, I have had no use for a flickr account of my own - although I have spent a fair amount of time on the site observing the pictures of others. It isn't that I am uninterested in having various events, people, and places in my life preserved in photographic form. It's just...well...here:

Pretty isn't it? My husband took that. If you're interested, you can see more of his fabulous photography at http://www.flickr.com/photos/joshtrudell/. With a photographer like that in the house, I've never felt the need to play around with a camera much. Always preferred being in front of the camera to behind it anyway.

Nonetheless, I took the camera out and played around with it some. Since I used my husband's fancy Sony DSLR-A350, the results are pretty much proof that it is the photographer, not the camera, that makes the picture.

Lovely

A commenter sent me a link to a blog, where I found a link for this video, which I just had to share. I'm really starting to appreciate the beauty of all this interconnectedness. You'll understand why if you watch the video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QVQSZA9zSk

Blogs, Blogs, Everywhere

So, at the urging of the 23 Things masters I have gone wandering in the blogosphere looking for library blogs of interest. Or failing that, just blogs of interest. I'm sort of a hard sell for blogs. I frequently feel behind on all the various media that I am already trying to keep up with, so anything that gets added to the stack had better deal with a topic that I am passionate about and it had better be entertaining. In a pinch, I'll settle for just entertaining.

Certainly I am passionate about libraries, but I am not passionate about every aspect of libraries, so blogs that focus on medical libraries or services for children just aren't going to hold my interest. My professional passion is readers' advisory, but I can only read so many book reviews before my head explodes, so a blog devoted exclusively to reviewing isn't going to make me a regular reader either.

I already frequent the readers' advisory blog run by Libraries Unlimited (the publishers who bring us the Genreflecting series), which can be found at http://www.readersadvisoronline.com/. This is great one-stop shopping for readers' advisory news. Readers get regular updates on newly released titles, book awards of all kinds, and discussions on a variety of readers' advisory topics. The posts are usually fairly short, and written with enough flair to keep me from getting bored.

While toodling around the Internet today, I discovered a nice little blog called A Chair, A Fireplace & A Tea Cozy. The blog seems to focus largely on YA lit, so I don't expect to become a regular reader - I'm sorry YA fans, I just don't have time to keep up with adult fiction and the teen stuff too - but I did enjoy the post about the current state of book reviewing and why we need it. If that is a topic that interests you at all, check it out: http://yzocaet.blogspot.com/2008/10/we-dont-need-no-stinking-book-reviews.html. Also, any blog that takes its name from a Buffy the Vampire Slayer quote gets points in my book.

I will mention one last site that isn't exactly a blog, but feels awfully similar. Award-winning author Orson Scott Card (best known for his 1985 novel Ender's Game) writes a regular column for his local newspaper in North Carolina called Uncle Orson Reviews Everything. He then posts that column on his website at http://www.hatrack.com/osc/reviews/everything/index.shtml. The column is true to the title, and he reviews everything from television shows to sock brands to, of course, books. Card isn't afraid to call 'em like he sees 'em, and even when you disagree with him his column/blog makes for entertaining reading.