Virginia Is For Families

Leona Lewis

I Will Be

03-i-will-be

I feel the tiredness that tells me it will only be a few moments after resting in the bed before the sleep train will pull out of the station.   It feels so good.  And here is a flower photo because it has been awhile and flowers are our friends.  I should appreciate them more.  Maybe have some growing here in this room.   But now. . .sleep.

And then it is morning again.  Just like that!  And so dependable.  Never once has it failed to arrive although, of course, people don’t make it through the night all the time.  I hope to be one of those someday.  Just let me drift off in a dream and not return.

Here is a photo that struck me as being sort of interesting this morning.  Apparently we are heading back to  botanical garden mode as far as photos are concerned.  We are leaving the tropics behind.  We are leaving poetry and writing behind too.  I hear the sighs of relief.   Where are we going?  Not sure yet.  This weekend there is an air show around here.  But it’s supposed to rain?  Saturday is not going to be a good day for the US Open I hear.  Last night they said something about it during the Andy Roddick match.  I went to bed as they began the fourth set.  Who won?

So it’s maybe not going to be a good weekend to be outside.   But we shall survive.  Maybe I will read and write about some really good authors and poets.  I strayed too far outside my comfort zone in those areas and need to retire for awhile.  Maybe watch Craig Ferguson for a few hours.  He is so hilarious.  He has more energy than all the other guys put together and he is so funny.  In my opinion anyway.  Everyone has their favorite.  Beth really likes Dave.  The guy who has been distributing meat and cheeses to the Tri-state area for how long?  I don’t get it.

When you have thousands of photos around you can always find a few that maybe can be dressed up and taken out in public. So here is a candidate for this Saturday afternoon. Soon to be Saturday evening (second photo below).

How are things going in your area this weekend? It seems rather low key around here. Perhaps everybody is saving up their energy for the upcoming Fourth of July weekend. That’s a pretty big one around this neck of the woods. Helena may not think so but that’s because she seems to be so attached to Great Britain.

Except when she is flying above it in an airplane. And even then she can’t resist diving out the door just to get back in a hurry. I’m kidding of course.

We went to a concert last night at an area shopping plaza. I was taking photos of the band The English Channel when I inadvertently pointed my camera at a building being constructed nearby. And wouldn’t you know it a large and very round security guard had to stick his face in my comfort zone to tell me about the policy of the stores.

You can’t take photos of the stores or the buildings. So much for celebrating freedom and the upcoming 4th. Perhaps somebody can explain that one to me. Here’s a photo of some of the band  and the crowd.  We enjoyed them a lot. And you can see from these photos that many fans were relaxing and enjoying them too.You can see some more photos of the band here on my Picasa Web Gallery.

Ramiele Malubay sang Hearts Alone. She was a little pitchy but did show an amazing amount of power for such a tiny person. And she is sick too. Not an inspiring performance and it may land her in the bottom three.

Jason Castro sang Fragile and looks more comfortable now that his guitar has returned. The accappella went smoothly. He’s cute but uninspiring for the past several weeks as Simon noted.

Syesha Mercado saing If I Were Your Woman and went beyond past performances with a mature, controlled and yet emotional performance. One of the best performances of the night and hopefully she will get a break tomorrow night.

Chikezie Eze sang If Only For One Night. It was a pretty good arrangement and his voice sounds really good. However it may not keep him out of the bottom three as some of the excitement from several weeks ago has gone away.

Brooke White sang Every Breath You Take and stumbled on the start. The arrangement was dull and she may end up in the bottom three tomorrow.

Michael Johns sang We Will Rock You /We Are The Champions and once again did a good job with a Freddy Mercury song. The back up singers didn’t do him any favors as they were off key. But he feels these songs and sounds great.

Carly Smithson sang Total Eclipse of the Heart. Great start and ending but was screaming a bit in the middle. She improved this week and left the passivity behind so she should stick around for another week. She just needs a great arrangement and a passionate attitude. And she needs to take notes when David Cook sings.

David Archuleta sang Make A Noise. We are not familiar with this tune and are not sure if we got the title right. He seems to choose songs with a message but maybe should just find a great arrangement. Not his best performance. He is being passed by several contestants as he seems to be coasting on his initial popularity.

Kristy Lee Cook sang God Bless the USA and turned in her best performance. Maybe she has tapped into the patriotic feelings out there. If so it was a very clever move as Simon noted. Credit goes to this young woman for remaining positive and working hard even though she is in the bottom three every week. She looks great and may be following the Kelly Pickler path to success as a country artist.

David Cook blew us away with his rendition of Billie Jean. He is very original and established himself as the person to beat in the competition. He has lost the cocky attitude and when he sings he is no longer looking down his nose at the audience. But the main thing is that he is an amazing talent and tonight turned in one of the best performances ever on AI.

Many of the contestants need to find good or even great arrangements at this point to stay in the competition. And they are always being urged to get out of their comfort zones. What many of them don’t seem to realize is that you can be in your comfort zone through part of the song and then make an effort to stretch yourself towards the end. Build the song to reveal something as you reach the end. Too many performances this week had a predictability about them. Everybody here can sing but none come close to David Cook as he slowly stretches a song to its outer limits in a satisfying way.

We take back what we said about no one in this class having the ability of Clarkson, Underwood or Sparks. David Cook may surpass them all. We really didn’t like him the first few weeks and his progress to date is amazing. Hopefully he will forget about the guitar and concentrate on movement and imaginative interpretation in the weeks to come. On his present course he can possibly take AI to places it has not been before when he is actually given time to sing an entire song.

We look forward to that with great interest.

I have been feeling strangely detached from Virginia Breeze for the past day or so. Hopefully that doesn’t mean the affair is over. It would be such a bother starting over again. Especially in this weather. My fingers are having a difficult time typing because they just walked in from the cold weather outside. It was 28 degrees this morning.

And last evening it snizzled. Isn’t that the term for snow and drizzle? It was a big disappointment because it definitely stopped the lunar eclipse party. Tonight we may try to go out and capture the full moon. It is so very bright in the cold, clear air.

But VB deserved a break from my ministrations and so it got one. Also I am trying to figure out how to use this theme I bought a few days ago. It is a news theme produced by Mr. Adii. And it is a pretty nice theme but very different from anything I have encountered to date. More on it later. I may have made a mistake. Perhaps I should have gone with Mr. Gardner who makes similar themes but appears to have a better support system. Sometimes I act impulsively and live to regret it.

Hopefully this is not one of those times. But we will see. Here is the link in case either of my paid readers would like to look at a theme with large holes in it during their breaks.

http://newslinkbriefs.com/

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I was thinking about starting a blog that would discuss the news in a fantasy driven way. And maybe just write posts two or three times per week instead of six times per day. For awhile I was not going to link it to VB. I was going to adopt a new identity that would be completely free of the past.

But that seemed stupid after awhile. Why go over the edge and become a raving schizophrenic at this late date? Beth wouldn’t know who had just come in the door. And I would be talking to myself more often and probably becoming more confused in the process. So I confess that this all has happened and there is a theme out there that is full of holes because nobody told me you had to deal with code to get it to work!

You have to go into the theme editor to change the freaking title! Am I the only person who didn’t know this? Or is it supposed to remain the PNT The Gazette Edition in homage to its creator? Why not just make things easy so when you drop in the name of your blog it appears where it is supposed to go?

So many questions. I should have remained in my comfort zone with Sparky and the three televisions and four computers. We could all watch American Idol tonight and be amazed by the new 17 year old singing sensation whose name is David! Jordin and David! That has a nice ring to it. Actually my enthusiasm proves that this is not a fascination on my part for young women!

No. Because I can be fascinated with young men too!

Wait a minute. That doesn’t sound right. But Beth understands in any case. Maybe she will go with me tonight after they are done with their cruel elimination process on AI. We can go take photos of the moon as it reflects in the cold waters of the lake at the U.

We will see.

UPdate:  This theme is gone.  What a waste of money.  Very little support and things you have to do that require much more skill than 99 percent of WP themes.

Overpriced and not great.  The print or font color  is not dark enough and difficult to read.  

 Save yourself some aggravation.  Go to Sadish and get an elegant them for much less money.