Seersuckers, Sculptures and the Sculptor

Monday, March 31^st, 2015, 4:00 PM: I was sitting on my stool playing CountryRoads on my guitar, when, suddenly I heard a knock on the front door. My Lands'End Seersucker Suit had arrived. Earlier that month, I had been invited to a performance at the new Geoffrey Smith Gallery. It was a cocktail party, so, I had to get something a bit formal. My dad suggested a Seersucker suit, with a white shirt and black tie. My mom ordered the suit, while my dad and I got the shirt, tie, and dress shoes. The suit arrived, and I put it on to see if it would fit. It was a bit too big, so, dad and I went to Hometown Cleaners andTailors, and asked for it to be altered a little. The tailor, Miss Esther, was a very nice lady and very funny. 

 Tuesday, April 7^th, 2015, 5:15 PM: After a guitar lesson with JonathanCummings, dad and I went back to the tailor to retrieve the suit. It fit perfectly. We took it home, and mom took some pictures of me in the full suit, shirt, tie, and everything, and Rose, my Zager guitar. The next day, I practiced the set-list with just the jacket, to make sure I could still play with the long sleeves on the jacket. Everything was going great.

Thursday, April 9^th, 2015, 4:45 PM, Performance Day: I was getting ready to go perform, putting on my suit, putting Rose in her guitar case, and saying hi to mom. It was only a few yards from our house to the gallery, but, we took the van anyway. We got set up, and then, people came in. I started playing for half an hour, and then stopped. Then, Geoffrey gave a speech about his creations. He was the one that built the big sailfish in the fountain in the middle of downtown Stuart. I played for another half hour, and then, Dad went home with the guitar, and mom and I stayed. There were a couple kids there, and they made their own VIP for kids section in one of the rooms. One of the girls gave me a small box that said “You are a VIP. Please come to the room with the VIP sign.” I went in the room, talked with the kids, and went home. We had awesome rock star pizza, watched Mystery Science Theater 3000: Hobgoblins, and then I went to bed.

Three tunes from the performance:

Volcano

Southern Cross

Odds Are

Spaceship Models and New Performances

For Christmas I got a model of the Enterprise-E from Star Trek First Contact and Star Trek Nemesis and a model of the NSEA Protector from Galaxy Quest. The Protector was easy on building, in fact, I finished the building process before Christmas day was over. Enterprise-E, however, was a bit trickier for building because it had a lot of pieces in it. So far, Enterprise-E is the biggest model I have built, but that will change soon because I also have a visible V8 engine model that has over 300 pieces in it. Dad will have to help me on that one because it's a skill level 5, which means it's for experienced model builders.

Performance Alerts:

On March 1, I will be playing on Jensen Beach Blvd. for the Treasure Coast Marathon at 12:00. I will be playing near the end of the marathon, so a lot of people might be there. The race starts at 6:00 and ends at 1:00, starting and ending at the Indian Riverside park.

A few weeks ago, I played with Emi Sunshine at the Terra Fermata Tiki Bar. Emi is going to come back on Mothers Day and the owner of Terra Fermata, Ron Hart, wants me to open for her. More details on the performance will be presented as soon as I get it.

I'd like to express my appreciation to Jonathan Cummings for taking me under his wing and inviting me to perform regularly at the Crafted Keg on Tuesdays.  Thank you so much.

That's all for this week folks. I hope you enjoyed this blog post. I'll see y'all in the next post. B'bye.

By Fletcher Morton.

Guitars and Tiki Bars

Yay! I got my guitar that I won this Friday! It is a beautiful guitar. It's made of Mahogany wood, which gives it a nice bright and full sound. You can even see the wood grains on the polished body. I liked it so much that I named it Rose, after one of my favorite characters from Doctor Who. It also has a beautiful sound. It has lighter strings and is custom designed to make it easy to play. It's an awesome guitar for some of my favorite acoustic songs like Handy Man by James Taylor, Romeo and Juliet by Dire Straits, and Peaceful Easy Feeling by The Eagles. Thank you Mr. Zager and the folks at Zager Guitars.

Speaking of the guitar, she went for a test run at Archie's Seabreeze yesterday. I took Rose, Zoe (my Ibanez Artcore) and Kaylee (my little Martin) and I played for two hours. Thank you Miss Patty for giving me the opportunity to play at Archie's. I hope to see ya'll again. We didn't want to take Sam with us, so he spent the day at the Inn of the Dog getting a pawdicure and some puppy play time.

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Planes, Helicopters, and Airports, Oh My

This week, I went to pilot camp at the St. Lucie Airport with Sailfish Aviation and with my friend Alex! It was really great. We saw some DC-3s at a place called Missionary Flights.

On Tuesday, we learned about helicopter parts and how a helicopter operates in the air. There is a stick on the left side of each seat called the collective. The collective changes the pitch angle of all the main rotor blades collectively to increase and decrease lift. The cyclic is the "stick" between the pilot's legs. If the pilot pushes the cyclic forward, the rotor disk tilts forward, and the rotor produces a thrust vector in the forward direction. If the pilot pushes the cyclic to the right or left, the rotor disk tilts and produces thrust in that direction, causing the helicopter to roll right or left.
We also went to the control tower and learned what the controllers do.  The airport is equipped with a system that helps pilots land in poor visibility, meaning not able to see well outside because of weather, called the ILS, (Instrument Landing System.)

On Friday, the last day of camp, we went flying with an instructor named Dave. We flew out over the Atlantic for a bit, did a traffic pattern, and landed. Thank you Tom Bean and Sailfish Aviation for the cool aviation class.  

I also slept over at Alex's house for a couple of nights. It was really awesome. We played with LEGOs. For all of  you Doctor Who and LEGO fans, I believe LEGO is coming up with LEGO Doctor Who sets, and the new Doctor is coming August 23rd on BBC America!  Thank you Larisa for letting me stay with Alex for a few nights.

Boating Experience

My boating class went really well! I learned lots of things like how to tie the bowline, the clove hitch, and the cleat hitch. We also went on boat rides, which were really fun, especially when we went fast.

On Monday, we assembled at the main building, introduced ourselves, and met our instructor Captain Don. We went to the classroom. We got our textbooks and Captain Don gave us a 'Pirates Of The Caribbean' trivia quiz, for us to pick our boats. Then, we went in three groups to our boats. My group got the 'Sea Boss' with Captain Dave. We practiced docking at the Shrimpers docks, and I got to drive a few times and practiced docking.

On Tuesday, we studied a little bit out of the books. Then, we got to our boats. This time, we got the 'Yankee Doodle,' my favorite boat in the Chapman fleet. We practiced anchoring at Hell's Gate, a little spot of water that's good for anchoring. We got back ashore and had our lunch. After lunch, we went to the pool and watched one of the adult classes practice lifeboat boarding drills.

On Wednesday, we studied some more out of the books, and studied some knots. Next, we got our PFDs,(Personal Floatation Devices), and got on the 'Liberty.' We practiced steering the boat. Afterward, we went to the pool and had lots of fun.

On Thursday, we went to our boats and piloted them to the public dock at downtown Stuart, and went to Hoffman's Ice Cream. I got a vanilla chocolate mix, with mini M&Ms, Skittles, Gummy Bears, and Cinnamon Toast Crunches. Then, we went back and had lunch and studied. After that, we went to the pool. 

On Friday, we went on the big boats. We got 'No Tee Time,' which was very slow. Then, we figured out how flares work and what different types there were. Then, we got a test. After everyone was done, Captain Don told us who won. I passed the test! We got so excited that we went to the pool.

Thank you Captain Don and all the nice folks at the Chapman School of Seamanship for all the help you gave me! 

Boating Lessons With My Friend

Next week I am going to a boating summer camp at the Chapman School of Seamanship with a friend named Vincent. I hope to have a great time and have fun learning things like all of the correct knots on a boat line. Tomorrow is the first day, so it should be really fun and I hope it goes well. I have everything I need for it, a pair of deck shoes, some lunch, a bathing suit, and a bag with all of my boating items in it. Next week's post will be all about the experience.

New Strings and A Convenient Street Light

Fletcher recently tried out some new DR Strings Dragon Skin phosphor bronze strings on his Little Martin LX1E and they sound great!  They're hand made and coated with K3 Technology for improved performance and corrosion resistance.  He figured a Mark Knopfler / Dire Straits song was a good way to showcase their sweet tone, so we went down to the river walk in downtown Stuart, Florida, found a convenient street light and he played a little Romeo and Juliet.  We hope you enjoy the video.  Thanks for stopping by to take a listen!