Brad Sondahl's blog

Brad's Blog

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Dec. 5
I learned last night that my bass playing friend and longtime major musical collaborator has been diagnosed with serious cancer. I feel terrible for him, and bad for myself as well. We were just starting to get together to record with a third friend, happy dixieland style of old-time music...

Dec. 8
Our annual small lighted parade was tonight:

The high school choir was bigger and better than ever

Here's some hijinks with the Grinch

I didn't notice there were horses behind me in the parade till we went around the block the second time ( a feature of small parades) and noticed the road apples...

Here's our hand cart with candles and an angel and Christmas stockings, cobbled together as usual in a hour or so...14

Dec. 14
Winter set in with some snow, ice, and wind in the last week... I slipped on some ice and dislocated my right little finger, which led to taking a half week off of throwing pots. It wasn't as bad as the left finger dislocation I had last winter, and I have been able to continue glazing and loading and unloading kilns, just taking a break from throwing pots. I also managed to get a blood blister at the tip of my left middle finger from a wood sawing mishap, which makes guitar playing more challenging... Life is challenging...
The major event of the last week was learning that my bass playing friend has cancer and a poor prognosis. We've been playing together for nearly 15 years...

Dec. 17
I was watching Monday Night Football while making holiday cookies (pffefferneusse) and gift granola for my sons.. I texted one using the talk to text feature on my newish Iphone and it said I was making "Howard A" cookies. During the game the commentators reported a 38 year old tackle tackling a 39 year old quarterback (both apparently approaching the end of their careers), so I thought about my own play-by-play. "Sondahl is going for the Howard A cookies--at 65 does he still have what it takes? Will he remember that the pffefferneusse recipe on his web page is short one cup of flour (12 instead of 11) and will he go the extra mile and change it on his cooking page ? He's wrapped up the cookies, now he's going for the granola. No recipe there, just has to guess at how much honey and molasses and brown sugar to please the crowds... Will he remember how many times he's stirred and reset each timer for 8 minutes? Tune in next year as the questions will come up again..."

Dec 31
The past two evenings at sunset we noticed this effect we'd never seen before:

It was a little emphemeral like a rainbow, but there was a distinct shaft of light above the setting sun... In this case the sun was below the ridge. We had pretty solid overcast skies, but as usual, towards the west the clouds let up (it's semi-arid desert in that direction) so the sun shone under the cloud layer at sunset. A quick Google led to the source of this phenomenon: "sun pillar" caused by ice particles reflecting the sunlight. maybe it's a vertical version of sundogs, which appear at angles to the left and right of the sun...

books read

Atrocity Archives by Charles Stross Urban magic like The Dresden Files...

Track of the Cat by Nevada Ross--this first Anna Pidgeon mystery wandered into my little free library--glad to read it...

Rescued by David Rosenfelt. For dog lovers, he's got as good a thing going as Stephanie Plum...

Singularity Sky by Charles StrossThis guy's vocabulary is excellent mental floss but it occasionally gets in the way of smooth literature.. Still it has great vision and sympathetic if extraordinary characters...

Noir by Chris Moore Nice bending of genres with the zeitgeist of 1947 San Francisco as the flavor.