Rockhoppers Presents Sound Xchange

Sound Xchange rocked Rockhoppers tonight. I'm not sure my hearing will ever be the same. Be sure and check out their webpage(s). Great show, nice video:

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Live music on Whidbey Island.

Guitars

As usual, new band, new guitars. Tonight Sound Exchange brought in a nice Ibanez electric guitar and another lovely Taylor guitar.

George brought this nice custom Ibanez. Pictures speak louder than words. George was a good guitarist, and this guitar sounded amazing, particularly since he wasn't using a separate guitar amp. The bands Yamaha sound system had a 'guitar' input, and George just plugged into that. Amazing.

Jason brought the Taylor guitar. It's a limited edition 414 CE. Sweet guitar -- Taylors always look so nice.

Guitars on Whidbey Island.

Open Mic 4/25/8

Trilogy, Neil, Russ Lamb, and many others. Great night! Here's the video:

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Live music on Whidbey Island.

Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day

We really enjoyed watching this fun period piece. Excellent script, great casting, lovely set design, solid acting, and tight editing, plus neat clothing (also lack of clothing). Frances McDormand and Amy Adams present a nice contrasting look at pre-World War 2 London, as the good times start to come to an end. No disrespect to Frances McDormand, but Amy Adams in particular is delightful. We also enjoyed her in Enchanted, it's nice to see her in another great film.

The film opens with Miss Pettigrew (Frances McDormand) losing another childcare job, becoming homeless, and fairly hopeless. She has a few chance encounters that foreshadow things to come. In desperation, she sneaks into a position with Delysia Lafosse (Amy Adams), that turns out to be not quite the childcare job she thought. Events soon take over rational decision-making, and thus she's borne into a complex, potentially disastrous situation. Delysia is a girl with a problem -- too many men. One to become a star, one to keep her in fur, and one to play piano. Okay, also play piano. Anyway, there's enough conflict to fill a Dear Abby column, and Miss Pettigrew signs on to solve it all. Somehow.

The cinematography is very good, although I got a little dizzy during the circular-panorama shots. I really liked the design of the movie -- I've always been a fan of art deco, and this film is filled with deco elements. This isn't an important or surprising film, but it's a nice happy romantic comedy, that actually delivers both laughs and romance. Definitely a solid Single Shot.

Movies on Whidbey Island.

The Neighborhood Egg Farm

As mentioned before, I grew up in the country. Our nearest neighbors had an egg farm. They were about 1/4 mile away, so it wasn't noisy, and I can't remember there ever being an odor problem. They were good neighbors, and we always had fresh eggs. I worked for some of those eggs, now and again. This was in the old days of egg farming, so the chickens lived in large, multi-floor barns, with lots of boxes built in for laying. Each large flock had the run of an entire floor of the barn, making that one coop. There was one rooster in each coop, apparently to induce the hens into greater fecunditiy.

Harvesting the eggs was interesting: I would grab a round, plastic-coated wire basket from a stack near the door, then slip into the coop and start walking up and down the aisles, checking each nesting box for eggs. Many of the boxes held glass eggs, which were used to encourage the hens to nest, so you had to be sure you were getting real eggs. Eggs that were damaged were set aside. Often the hen would be sitting on her nest, none too pleased with the prospect of some kid stealing her eggs. I'd have to shoo the chicken out of the nest, or try to reach under her and take the eggs one-by-one. The trick to stealing them was to keep your hand over the egg, because the hen would try and peck your hand when you pulled it out, and if she got the egg, you'd just wasted everyone's time.

Sometimes the eggs would be laid in odd places, like under, or on top of the nest box, or sometimes just randomly on the floor, particularly in a corner. Once all the eggs were collected (about two baskets from each coop), I'd take the eggs to the egg washing machine, which was really just an old wringer clothes washer, without the wringer.

Once the eggs were washed, it was time to candle and sort them. There was an ingenious machine that sorted the eggs. First stop was the candler, basically a light shined into the egg to see if the egg was fertilized, double-yolk, or otherwise odd. After that, each egg proceeded down the ramp, gracefully wobbling into the right bin as the appropriate gate opened based upon the eggs weight.

We liked double-yolk eggs, so I would bring home as many of those as I could. I enjoyed collecting eggs, despite having to fend off irate roosters, and the sometimes pungent smell and mess of the coops. I particularly liked watching the eggs being sorted, but then I've always been fascinated by complex machines. I have several friends who raise a small amount of chickens for personal use, and thinking about my past experiences with chickens makes me think maybe we should get some chickens. Now all I have to do is convince Rene -- wish me luck.

Eggs on Whidbey Island.

Comic Tuesday

Light on posting this week -- I'm out sick. I couldn't miss comic Tuesday though. Today's comic is an old favorite of mine. It's carried in most newspapers, but I read it online, in the artist's blog.

Dan Piraro, the author of the Bizarro comic, has his own blog, which provides an interesting look at his personal life. There's also secrets to be learned! Of course, he has a great website. Lot's of bizarre online content, woo-hoo! Those of you following this feature (comic Tuesday), know by now my love of the surreal, so it should come as no surprise that Bizarro is a favorite comic.

Comics on Whidbey Island.