Drop this Rambling quickly and then head for East Fork Lake (about 45 minutes away), cowbell in hand, to watch row Dinah row. It’s another weekend and another regatta.

Now, I first should open up ‘Chatgpt’ to have the system inform me which would be the quickest, easiest, simplest way to make the best morning coffee. Since it’s A.I. it’ll be easy to also include best ground, coffee type, water temperature, and method of brewing etc, all for the sake of coffee perfection.

If I’m not happy with the A.I.’s ensuing answer it wouldn’t be all too crazy for me to run over to White Castle with my thermos. Yes, we do have our own coffee; just thinking of alternatives.

Hi-Heels Sneakers – Tuesday evening it was “Jazz at Fountain Square”. This week it was the Michael Mavridoglou Quintet with an evening of ‘60s Jazz, Soul, and Gospel. So what did all this all translate into? As an example, they played ‘Hi-Heel Sneakers’ by Tommy Tucker written in 1964 – this number has been covered by folk such as Chuck Berry, Tina Turner, Stevie Wonder, Elvis, and Ramsey Lewis to name a few. It was a great evening.

5 of us, (two couples plus me) total strangers when we arrived, for two hours shared a table. And for that whole time had wonderful conversation alongside great music. Quite an evening. Here’s how Janis recorded ‘Hi-Heels’ with her band, Big Brother and the Holding Company – this definitely not a jazz rendition.

Also spotted on Fountain Square was this dog, a breed I’d never seen before. Talking with the owner, it turns out that it’s an Italian breed, a Cane Corso, and looks much like a Mastiff.

Climate Change – part one; 500,000 years ago – i.e. well before man, and when fossil fuels were still in the developmental stage, our area was massively affected by Climate Change, temperature and when accompanying glaciers reworked our landscape:

”We [Cincinnati area] are a Landslide Area, one of the top four in the nation.” ~ Laure Quinlivan former anchor for the local ABC affiliate news and filmmaker – “Living With Landslides”

Earl Pitts came out of the woodwork. Actually, he ‘musta’ happened on the scene because of the fact that our region is dead center in the world of racing and some of the guys were just ‘jawing’ around.

Days ago it was The Derby a little south of us. Then next weekend it’s the Indy 500 a little to the west, and all of this followed by a worldwide audience. So yes, these events are really hyped in these parts.

Anyway, I happened to record Earl‘s ‘take’ on it all, so have a listen:

A Canoe Life – At Vai’s Clark Montessori Highschool we attended their annual Festival. Marcia spotted, then went wild, and finally bought a bunch of raffle tickets, for a student made 13’ Canoe. We did not win.

Thursday evening she got a call. The gist of it was that the winner of the canoe took a pass, so another ticket was drawn. It was one of Marcia’s tickets! She had to yell (in delight) into a pillow so as not to scare the neighbors.

Yesterday afternoon we picked it up and it is gorgeous.

Art visited –. I promised a week ago that I’d fill in on his visit, so here’s more detail. Art was on business nearby and wanted to do brunch. He also wanted to make certain that Vaioleti would join our Brunch gathering at First Watch.

Now let’s go back in time. Vai was supposed to arrive in December 2008. In actuality she arrived August of 2008; she surely was a wee little micro-preemie.

At the time, Marcia and I were in Canada. Brother Art happened to be in Indianapolis for business. That next morning he drove to the ‘Nati and the ‘NICU‘ at Good Samaritan Hospital, there talked his way into the micro-preemie ward. He took a photograph of the 1-day old Vai and placed his Blackberry on the incubator as a size comparison. We’ve always loved that photograph.

Fast forward to last weekend.

Vai was surrounded by mom Adrianne, dad Tevita, and brother Vili as uncle Art pulled out of a bag a professionally mounted and framed copy of the picture he had taken that day. Mounted above the photo was the actual Blackberry which he had saved all this time. It’s stunning and an instant heirloom.

I saw a very emotional Vaioleti do some serious swallowing and give some serious hugs.

It was a beautiful moment!

Fin –

It’s common knowledge that Southwest Airlines has ‘grab-any-seat’ boarding (with a few exceptions). Now here’s a trick, for a mysterious ‘healing’ experience board in a wheelchair. It’s amazing how many people board a Southwest flight requiring a wheelchair and somehow get healed enroute, and walking off.

Cincinnati has the first pro Baseball team in MLB, The Reds. But immediately across the river we have the Florence Y’alls baseball team part of the Independent Frontier League. One of the crazy (but I love it) differences in that league is that any foul ball caught by a fan is an immediate out for the batter. Thought you’d want to know.

Last evening I listened to a live-stream of the opening performance of our May Festival’s 150th season; on my studio headphones – UNREAL! The Festival kicked off with Bach’s Manificat! Plus the premier of two commissioned works. The choral portion was by the voices of the local May Festival chorus, youth choir, and boys choir. I think I actually swooned. 

Just discovered that the ’fraddies’ and ‘nerdish’ at MIT have written and created a file which contains around 35,000 Japanese style 3-line Haiku’s – their subject? ……… each one written about the ‘killer’ luncheon meat we affectionally call “SPAM”! This Haiku came straight from the ‘can’:

SAS sent out
To destroy the SPAM missiles
Fear in Tel Aviv — Angus

Now my final coffee and a little breakfast all with my feet up. Mid morning, assuming the weather (i.e.rain) clears, it’ll be a drive to East Fork Lake to watch Dinah race in yet another regatta. Row Dinah Row!

Ciao. Stay strong, appreciate Life, and just so you know, the A.I. was not much help with brewing my morning coffee.

Keep on storming the castle. Pray for Peace.

Dirk