Blog-azic

Much has happened since my last post... First, Susan and I are engaged. It was quite unexpected for the both of us. After work one Friday (December the 20th), I was talking to Susan as she prepared to go out for dinner. I thought her eyes were mesmerizing, and the question just popped out of me! Second, we rescued a puppy that was found a stray by a few friends. His name is Benji, and he is a beagle mutt. He is now about 5 months old. Third, and finally, I have been doing a lot of traveling! Last week in Philly (CHOP upgrade) and this week to Maricopa, where I hope I can solve some ongoing and quite troubling problems. I've been troubleshooting this since Christmas eve!

Day hike near Ouray, CO - Wednesday, July 24, 2013 We scrambled, one after another, in file - if two can constitute a file. The hillside was shattered into pieces: bits of shale that crinkled like glass as I set down the point of my walking stick. Mine was smooth, chest high, relatively straight. But hers was short, and twisted at the top. "I want this one because it has character," she told me. I can say the same of you, my dear. So, we went up Bear Mine Trail. I was not expecting the steep ascent. Defiant pines stood, straight and tall; wicked, grotesque oaks sprawled. And the path! No, not a path, but only the idea of a path, a thin trickle of smoke. We clung to the mountain side, she leading me. Below us, a blue creek churned white over boulders. Across the gully, a sheer rock wall. Above, the sun beat down. My shirt soaked through. A deep longing from inside: too much coffee this morning. I was light headed and hungry. Soon we reached the old mine. The land...

I was reminded, just last weekend, what my birthday would bring to me. That is, thirty years! Time marches on. I can remember my mother's thirtieth birthday. I was young - perhaps, five or six. The party was thrown by Aunt Berda at her house in the poor section of the West Side. We arrived early, and shouted when my mom walked in the door. Surprise! These bottles also reminded me of my age. To think, one of my first bottles of wine - a brew of Elder and Lemon Balm - has returned to me.

An old bandmate linked to these photos on FB. I had almost forgotten this concert! It was the fall in 2007, a long, and hot autumn. Silo Circuit had asked me to play banjo, and this was one of my first, and truthfully few, shows. We shared the Union's stage with Beat the Devil and Meanz. Jonas Hart captured our image ...

I am not chris tomazic. I don't have his ears, his cochlea, his inferior colliculi, his cortical regions that are so finely tuned to frequency and cordance discrimination. I don't have his motor skills or his tactile sensitivity, which has allowed him to discriminate between pressing too hard and pressing too soft on a particular guitar string. I don't have his years of experience, his knowledge of the staff, or of audio technology. Most of all, I don't have his passion. I can't, won't, and before him, would never dream of playing the same song over and over, no less the same chord. So, here I am to you, not the Chris Tomazic. Not the talent, not the skill, and not the passion that was required to produce the song that you are about to hear. I like to think that I was possibly the inspiration, but that prestigious assignment more than likely belongs to the mountains, to the wind, to quantum physics. My involvement is no more than a mere coincidence of time ...

I returned to my southern home - pelted all the way through North Carolina by rain, rain, and more rain - to a singular surprise. I expected some standing water, having seen it before in heavy rain, but here was more than one mystery to solve ... In the first place, the water is terribly high - alarmingly high - and looking back upon the facts, I do assume that it was at an earlier time even higher. Secondly, that is no my car at the end of the drive! That car, in fact, belongs to some rental car company. That, I was told by the tow operator who picked it up late in the evening. I cannot say at what time the car was stuck. I took this picture at about 5 pm (on Sunday, June 30). The tower told me that all local tow companies had been called to tow cars from the University Mall earlier in the day. He then showed me the puddled water in this car's cabin. NOAA reports that nearly five inches of rain fell from Sunday morning to Monday morning. Indeed, a Rubbermaid near the back ...

One of the first spring flowers I saw, Spring Star Flower, went unidentified for a month or more.  I quickly identified this as Stichwort on a run through Adam's Tract (in Carrboro, NC). However, considering that there appear to be 10 petals instead of 5 deeply cleft petals, I am questioning my original analysis.  After extensive searching online, I confirmed that this fungus (growing on a Red Cedar) is a Cedar-Apple Rust, Gymnosporangiumnidus-avis.  Is this, perhaps, the true and elusive Stichwort?  This delicate herb of stream banks reminds me of Yellow Corydalis.  This sedge is prolific in the woods.