A Bloy and his Blog

It was such a beautiful day today, I decided to head out with my camera and find some signs of Autumn.

read the rest of: Looking for Autumn

The lead story in yesterday’s paper was the devastating earthquake in Pakistan. Authorities are now predicting as many as 30,000 deaths as a result of the quake. The U.N. is reporting 2.5 million people in the affected area are homeless. Statistics of that magnitude are difficult for me to comprehend.

In the editorial section of that same paper were two opposing viewpoints on whether intelligent design should be taught in public schools, which caused me to wonder:

read the rest of: Disasters and intelligent design

It was almost unbelievable. There I was, in the Dane County Coliseum. Bruce Springsteen was playing one of his rock anthems, “Promised Land.” The 8,000 people in the place were sitting and so quiet you could hear a pin drop, were it not for the music emanating from the stage.

Of course the reason we were all so quiet, instead of singing along with our fists pumping in the air, was the intimate nature of last night’s concert. Billed as a solo acoustic show, Bruce alternated between playing guitar, piano, and even a pump organ on a few songs.

read the rest of: Bruce Springsteen, solo acoustic

At an appointment with my physical therapist yesterday, I was congratulated by her. She felt I had “graduated” and would not have to come any longer.

It’s been twelve weeks now since I broke my wrist and had the subsequent surgery. I have had regular “dates” with my therapist since the end of August. First twice a week, and for about the past month it was at once a week. As she pointed out yesterday, I’ve come a long way.

read the rest of: Graduation of the broken wrist

Today (where I live) the sun was shining and the temperature was in the low 60’s. I was lucky enough to have the day off and I got to thinking… this could be the last gasp of Indian Summer. I did have chores to do around the house, but they could wait. I decided to take a drive out to Governor Dodge State Park, which is about 40 miles west of my house.

read the rest of: Indian Summer or The road to Winter

Two paintings by my sister, Barbra Bloy, are now showing in an online exhibition called “Mandalas: Maps of Consciousness Order” at the Caladan Gallery.

For those of you unfamiliar with mandalas (and since the librarian in me is compelled to look things up), the Columbia Encyclopedia offers the following definition:

read the rest of: Mandalas by Barbra

A while ago I discovered pages in the albums I keep my concert ticket stubs in were turning yellow. Yes, I am a music geek — I save my concert ticket stubs. Acid-free, archival-quality albums were the fix for the problem, so I bought a few. As I was transferring the tickets into the new albums, I was reminded of all those excellent shows I’ve been to. Below are some thoughts on the best:

Sting - July 10, 1988
I’ve seen Sting in concert several times now, but he never tops this show. Probably for a number of reasons: He was promoting his best album, …Nothing Like The Sun, he had an excellent backing band, and my friends and I had great seats (6th row in a 20,000 seat amphitheater). Favorite song from the show: “Englishman In New York.”

read the rest of: Concert memories

I’ve been seriously neglecting my blog. To make it up to my loyal readers, here are a few interesting links courtesy of the Librarians’ Internet Index. Subtitled, “Information you can trust” , LII is a search engine featuring websites that are hand selected by librarians. Those wacky librarians, always doling out information…

• Darwin: American Museum of Natural History: It’s interesting to note that Darwin himself believed in creationism — until he visited the Galapagos Islands.
• How to take better holiday photos
• An American Christmas: Decade by Decade: Speaking of holidays, how did they celebrate Christmas back in the day?

read the rest of: Links from the Librarians’ Index

When I woke up this morning the temperature in Madison was -5 degrees (F), the coldest so far this season. After I noticed the sunlight beautifully illuminating the frost on my bedroom window I couldn’t resist getting out my camera.

Today on the public radio show, To the Best of Our Knowledge, they asked the question, “What do you regret in your life?”

After I graduated from high school, I stayed in my parents’ home and attended college at University of Wisconsin Milwaukee. I had considered attending the University in Madison, but decided against it. I didn’t realize it at the time, but looking back I think chose that path because it was the “safe” thing to do. I may have been a little scared of moving away from home. Sometimes I think I made the wrong decision and should have gone to school in Madison. By doing so I believe I would have gained a level of maturity sooner and would have broadened my horizons a little more than I did by staying in Milwaukee.

read the rest of: The path not taken