Aggie87

What I don't like is the way Aaron isn't coming out and saying that he doesn't believe its a legitimate breaking of his record. Everyone respects Hank and what he accomplished and maybe there are a few Barry fans who would actually take it to heart if Aaron said "I believe he used steroids, he should be banned from the game and his statistics erased from the books". Hank probably subscribes to the "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all" school. If he DID say something along the lines of what you are proposing, it might just look like sour grapes on his part anyway. Even when it's most likely true. Aaron's not the person to say anything like that, nor should he be. IMO.

Interesting to me that Hank Aaron does not plan to have anything to do with any celebrations when (I hate saying "when") Bonds breaks his HR record. Aaron won't be in attendance if Bonds breaks record edit - for me, Hank Aaron will ALWAYS be the Home Run King. Classy gentleman through and through.

Broke down and ordered Tony Williams "Spring", Wayne Shorter "Supernova", and Kenny Drew "Talkin' and Walkin'". I am weak. Wasn't gonna do this, this time. edit - Just went back and caught the comment that the CP32's and CJ28's are McMaster editions. Wonder if I should cancel this order and just seek out domestic editions...

That Richard Elliott "After Dark" is still sitting there beckoning someone....

Has anybody seen Jim Rotondi before? He's playing here (yes, here!) on Thursday night with the local community college jazz band. I don't know if I can get there in time after my son's t-ball game Thursday evening, but might try.

Breaking News: Larry Birkhead is the father of Anna Nicole Smith's baby, a court in the Bahamas rules. Birkhead said he hopes to have custody soon. Birkhead: I'm the father NASSAU, Bahamas (CNN) -- Larry Birkhead says a Bahamian court declared he is the father of Anna Nicole Smith's baby daughter, Dannielynn. "I told you so," Birkhead said outside the court. A DNA test confirmed him as the father with 99.99 percent certainty, said Dr. Michael Baird, who performed the test. The court had ordered DNA testing to determine the father of the child, who has been at the center of a paternity dispute since she was born in a Bahamian hospital in September. The doctor who performed a DNA test for Birkhead, Smith's former boyfriend who insisted he fathered the baby, revealed the results to a closed session of a Bahamian court Tuesday. Birkhead, an entertainment reporter and photographer, said shortly after the baby's birth that he accompanied Smith to doctors' appointments until a "minor disagreement" took place while she was pregnant. But Smith publicly identified Howard K. Stern, her lawyer and live-in companion, as the baby's father and listed him as the father on the child's birth certificate. In September, Stern said on CNN's "Larry King Live" that he and Smith were confident he was the father, and "based on when the timing of when the baby was born, there really is no doubt in either of our minds." Her daughter stands to inherit millions of dollars from the estate of Smith's late husband, oil tycoon Howard Marshall II. Until her death, Smith was involved in a legal battle over the inheritance. After a protracted dispute over the burial of Smith's body, Stern and Birkhead began battling in Bahamian courts over the child, and a judge ordered that a swab be taken from the girl for DNA testing. Stern then asked the Bahamas' Court of Appeal to block release of those test results, arguing that the judge had misinterpreted the law and his order invaded the girl's privacy. Earlier this month, appellate judges questioned why Stern was raising legal claims after giving consent to the DNA swabbing. Stern was ordered to pay $10,000 in court costs for the abandoned appeal.

Happy Birthday Evan! (great name, it's also my son's name!)

Recent picture of my kids (though I had to shrink it pretty severely just to get the attachment to show here).

I have worse rhythm than Navin Johnson, so you'll never catch me clapping along like that!

Artis Gilmore was cool back in his day. And I liked Wille Anderson, too. Rod Strickland was a pretty good guard for the Spurs, despite his baggage.

PM Sent...

I just gave you a C-scale example, but you can keep going (both lower and higher): Playing significantly higher than a high C is difficult from a technical perspective (to me), and requires alot of work on your embouchure. Getting a consistent, solid tone at those levels is very tough. And getting MUSIC to come out of your horn at those higher registers is even more than just embouchure.

I played trumpet in high school (a LONG time ago). I believe a combination of valve positions (single and combinations) plus changing your embouchure will result in being able to play all possible pitches. Low C - no valves pressed C#/Db - 1,2,3 D - 1,3 D#/Eb - 2,3 E - 1,2 F - 1 F#/Gb - 2 G - no valves pressed G#/Ab - 2,3 A -1,2 A#/Bb - 1 B - 2 High C - no valves pressed You tighten your embouchure as you go up the scale, pitch by pitch.

As an FYI, Bruce Johnston has been posting lately on the SH forums, in case anyone is interested in some of his anecdotes, asking questions, etc.

I guess it was just a matter of time, but Billy Gillispie has just been hired by Kentucky. Alot of sad Aggie fans today (I got 3 text messages by 9 am about it). I think he'll do well at Kentucky though, he's solid, and probably wasn't going to last at A&M anyway - one of the bigger name hoops programs was going to get him. I hope A&M is able to maintain what has been built over the last 2-3 years. I'd hate to slip back to doormat status, which we were for the past 20 yrs. Good luck to Kentucky & Billy G!

reminder for tomorrow night's William Parker Quartet show in Austin! also coming up in Austin: 7 April - Yo La Tengo, at Stubb's (I'd LOVE to see these guys!!) 24 April - Ravi & Anoushka Shankar, at the Paramount Theater 27 April - The Thing with Joe McPhee, at the Victory Grill 4 May - Son Volt, at Stubb's 11 May - George Clinton, at Stubb's 17 May - Leo Kottke, w/Tom Rush, at the Paramount Theater 15 June - Norah Jones, at the Backyard 1 Sep - Trio Los Panchos, at the One World Theatre

Jim - THey'll be playing Austin's One World Theatre on Saturday, 1 September. Plenty of time to put it on your calendar!

Interesting subject... What's in a Name? Reuters Feb 23, 2006 LISBON - If Shakespeare wrote Portuguese birth certificates today, he might pen, "A Rosa by any other name is unacceptable." He might add that Magnolia smells sweet, but that Jasmine, or Jasmim in Portuguese, had best be some other name. If you're still flummoxed about what to call your baby, he might suggest a search under "nomes" at www.dgrn.mj.pt. Excluding obvious options, like Joao and Maria, the Ministry of Justice Web site details 39 pages of legally acceptable first names, from Aarao to Zuleica, and 41 pages of unacceptable ones. Lolita, Maradona and Mona Lisa are out, as are Guevara, Marx and Rosa Luxemburgo. Portuguese registrars have played this role for nearly a century, but now some have asked the Ministry of Justice for a new law that consigns name lists to history. Portugal is just the latest nation grappling with the increasing complexity of baby names. Globalisation, immigration, human rights and individualism have put pressure on nations with name laws to redefine the concept of "acceptable." The Portuguese proposal by the Association of Registrars of the Civil Register is part of a programme to cut or simplify burdensome procedures. The Ministry of Justice plans to act in the first half of 2006 on that programme. "We have proposed alterations in the law such that there can be freedom of choice as long as it isn't offensive to the idea of human dignity," said Maria de Lurdes Serrano, registrar at one of Lisbon's busiest registry offices. To parents from places with few restrictions on names, like the United States or Britain, such laws can seem odd. "It was so amazing to me to have to get permission to name my child," said Tanya O'Hara, an American who in 2004 gave birth to baby Liam in Portugal. "It doesn't make any sense." O'Hara had to get an embassy letter authenticating the name Liam, and make a certified translation of the document. Name Laws and Freedom Portugal is not alone in seeking to update name laws. In 2002, Norway replaced its list with a general standard that bans swear words, sex words, negative names and sicknesses. "I can tell you this is not easy at all," said Ivar Utne, a professor of modern Norwegian at the University of Bergen and the only linguist on the committee that drafted the new law. A Danish law, that takes effect on April 1, expands approved lists to include names from the United States, Europe and other countries, and allows parents to apply for unlisted names. The Swedish parliament has commissioned the government to overhaul its Personal Names Act of 1982. Spain has several name lists, corresponding to regional languages like Catalan and Basque. Registry offices in Germany have an "International Handbook of Forenames," updated in 2002. Argentina has broadened its lists to accept indigenous names. Even countries without explicit laws have implicitly acceptable names. U.S. census data shows 757 names cover 75 percent of the nation's 295 million people. Regulated or not, baby names can hurt, experts say. "What it does is handicap a kid who has to deal with it," said Albert Mehrabian, a University of California professor emeritus of psychology and author of "Baby Name Report Card: Beneficial and Harmful Baby Names." Some parents are capable of labours of lunacy. Portugal's reject list includes Ovnis. OVNI is Portuguese for UFO. Danish authorities nixed Monkey and Lucifer. Mehrabian knows of an American named Latrina. But even conventional names matter. Mehrabian found people respond differently to names; children with more attractive names are more popular; people with less attractive names fare worse in school and work. "I believe in freedom," he said. "But if (name regulation) has worked for Portugal for all these centuries, who knows?" Traditionally in Portugal, parish priests selected saints' names at baptism. The first name law, enacted by the fledgling republic in 1911, replaced priestly whim with a modern regulation that applied to all citizens. Modifications have allowed names from antiquity and allowed foreigners and non-Catholics to use names from their traditions, as long as they can prove they are authentic ones. A Portuguese proverb says, "A good name is better than riches." But good name laws can be tricky. Governments generally like to separate forenames from surnames and boys' names from girls'. There is also the legal swampland of "suitability." In Sweden, the name Twilight had to go to the Supreme Administrative Court before winning approval. Germany's name law generates so many unresolved questions that there are expert "name offices" in Wiesbaden and Leipzig. "I receive more than 3,000 questions about forenames every year," Gabriele Rodriguez, from the name office at the University of Leipzig, said in an e-mail. She provides expert opinions for registry offices and courts and says 40 percent of her queries from German parents are about American forenames. In Portugal, unresolved questions end up with Ivo Castro, a professor at the University of Lisbon. Castro uses onomastic dictionaries, Web sites and even phone listings to decide. Since he put approved names on the Justice Ministry's Web site, queries have fallen from around 250 a year to 50. "Sometimes I feel a lot of difficulty knowing how I can avoid being arbitrary," he said. "In those cases, the most prudent is to make a recommendation for authorisation."

Some of the European countries have traditionally had registries of names that were considered acceptable. I'm not sure if it has actually been law to have to select names from the registry or not though. Deviating from those names seems to be difficult. Here's a story from Germany in 2002: Couple try to name baby bin Laden September 5, 2002 Posted: 1:44 PM EDT (1744 GMT) BERLIN, Germany -- A Turkish couple living in Germany who want to call their child Osama bin Laden have been refused permission by German officials but are to appeal to a judge. Names can only be registered in Germany if they fulfil certain criteria. A name must clearly identify the child's gender and must not ridicule the child or be offensive. "Hitler" is banned as a name for that reason. Registrations officials in Cologne, where the young couple live, rejected the name because it would not be allowed in Turkey, a spokeswoman for the magistrates court now dealing with the case said on Thursday. "Another reason was the obvious association of the name with the terror attacks of September 11," she said. The German rules on babies' names also say that non-German parents must give their children names that are acceptable in their home country. However, registration officials do not have the power to ban the couple from using the name of the al Qaeda leader for their child and the case has been referred to a judge. The parents, both under 30, have been asked to make a statement to the judge, the spokeswoman said. She declined to comment on whether the couple had other children and what their names were. The United States blames al Qaeda and its leader, Saudi-born bin Laden, for the September 11 attacks.

Happy Birthday Lazaro!

Thanks for sharing, that's just too cool! Is it in playing condition right now? Do you/would you use it?

American kid's tv show host. According to Wikipedia, it ran from 1955 to 1984, alot longer than I'd realized.

I'd venture a guess that major college football coaches are paid more than the governor's in most states. I'm pretty sure both Mack Brown and Dennis Franchione (shudder) make quite a bit more than Gov Rick Perry does, here. Just follow the entertainment dollar.

They're both Nigerian... Sunny Ade is a major name in juju music, whereas Fela was an afrobeat guy. I'm not gonna be one to define the styles, but they're both good at what they do. Sunny Ade was never as political as Fela though. Wikipedia Entry edit - one of my former colleagues is Nigerian, about 50 yrs old, and loves Sunny Ade. He respected Fela, but Ade was music that the "people" listened to, when he was living back home.

I have (and like) their last, "Who is This America?" If you have that, is this comparable, or better? I also used to listen to a bit of Fela and also King Sunny Ade....need to find my old recordings.