A few days ago, I got an invitation to play at Archie's again. I said yes to that offer. So now I'm going to play at Archie's September 6, and October 4, both will be from 12:00 noon to 2:00. I have been gathering a set list for September, here is what I have so far, 1. Volcano - by Jimmy Buffett, 2. Redneck Riviera - by my uncle Allan Morton, 3. In The City - by Joe Walsh, 4. Summer of 69- by Bryan Adams, 5.Boats - by Kenny Chesney, 6. Son of a Son of a Son of a Sailor - by Jimmy Buffett, 7.Born To Be a Pirate - by Mike Mangum, 8. The Weight - by The Band, 9. Knee Deep - by Zac Brown, and 10. Take It Easy - by The Eagles. I am also thinking about going to the Osceola St. Cafe Open Mike Night every Monday. I just put everything together in That's Just The Way It Is and it is perfect. It is now ready for a public performance. Playing For Change is making a music video for a song called La Bamba and I am learning the song so that maybe I can be in the video. On the 26th, one of my friends and I are going to go see the St. Lucie Mets play against Charlotte. I wish that Fall was here right now, it is really hot and humid out there. Spring and Fall are my favorite seasons because it's not too hot and it's not too cold either. This weekend I am going to get the first Harry Potter book. I hope it has a really great storyline with cool plot twists in it. See you later. Bye.
My guitar teacher, David, gave me a book called This Is Your Brain On Music. It's written by a great musician and producer, Daniel J. Levitin. It's about why people like music so much and why some people have more abilities with music than others. For example, he did some experiments and one of them was to put people in an MRI, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, machine and played them some music. Then, he asked them to imagine hearing music. On the screen, parts of the brain lit up both times. In fact, the parts of the brain that lit up were so similar that they couldn't tell which one was when he played and which one was them imagining.
I'm also learning a song called The Way It Is by Bruce Hornsby. It's going pretty well. I have the first intro, the second intro, and the piano fill.
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.
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.
A few weeks ago, I wrote and recorded a song as my entry in the Zager Guitarscontest to win a free guitar. On June 31, they announced the winner of the guitar.
It was me!
The link to the song I wrote is here. The guitar will arrive soon and I will make a video with me unboxing it, testing the strings, and playing a song. Next week I will be going to the Sailfish Aviation Summer Camp, at the St. Lucie Airport in Ft. Pierce. My friend Alex might also get to go! Hopefully, if the weather's good, we will go flying.
I took some of my tip money from my last gig and bought The Simpsons Game for my Wii, and a new watch. This past week we have been getting some really awesome thunderstorms. The only one that didn't like it was my dog, Sam. He's so scared of thunder, that he hides in the smallest place he can find. Under my mom's desk. It was really blastin' out there, but yesterday was sunny. Hopefully today will be, too.
