Just before meeting friends for a early dinner in Plymouth I walked around the center and snapped a few shots. Beautiful warm day to be down by the water!
Month: July 2019
Rockin’ to the Jukebox
This morning while trying to get ahead on a little housework, I decided to rock out to our jukebox, and figured I’d give a little history of it. It’s not one of the super expensive famous Wurlitzer’s but it gets the job done. We actually found this one Craigslist (this was during a period when I was searching for random things for a man cave – it’s also how we obtained a Foosball table, air hockey table, and an authentic full size Ms. Pacman arcade machine). Anyways, this guy in Braintree wanted to part with it, so we got it. In getting it home we actually had to get movers to move it because it weighs so much – all that mechanical workings are pretty heavy – also due to the nature of the innards they had to be very careful not to jostle it too much because it would be cranky.
It only holds 200 45 RPM LPs. Part of what we like to do is search bargain bins or antique stores once in a while to pick up some. It’s a crap shoot on the quality because a scratched record can ruin the experience, but overall we’ve been pretty lucky, and they’re actually pretty cheap. There’s a antique place in New Hampshire down the road from where we’ve done baby goat yoga that has never let us down in selection or quality. And yes, an iPod or some such can hold thousands of songs but we like the nostalgia of actually having a real jukebox. It’s always fun having friends over that can dance along it front of it with us. Most of our selections are from the 80s, but we also have 70s and older stuff. Every so often, in a need of change, I’ll swap out some records and their labels with new songs, although that is a bit of a pain.
It has an electronic selector – you just type the number that corresponds to the number on the song you want to play (I created all the labels myself – there’s an awesome free website where you type in your stuff and customize the look and then you can print them out, cut them to size, and insert them). There’s a mini-computer in this one that supposedly keeps track of what songs were played the most, etc. but I could never figure out how it actually works – I don’t think it’s connected but it has nothing to do with the actual playing of the songs. Speaking of, when I have the top open, it’s kinda cool to actually see the robot arm select the record you’ve chosen, grab it, and place it on the turntable. Then the needle comes over and places itself on the disc, and the tunes start flowing from the speakers, which are VERY LOUD if turned all the way up.
Hopefully, it will never need service, because most of folks who actually know how to repair these things are in their 80s or no longer working!
Bay Pointe Lunch
Appetizers from today’s lunching excursion. I wanted the large pretzel and the Ladydoc wanted the Shrimp Cocktail. Of course we shared from each others and then proceeded to enjoy our entrΓ©es. We wanted to have lunch by the water, so some early thoughts were maybe Gloucester or Scituate, but we thought the traffic may be problematic, so we settled on Quincy. Seems like it was the right decision to me!
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Carillon Fourth
For a about a half and hour I took a trip over to the town hall that has a carillon in it’s tower and they were giving a tour of the machine. I’d actually seen it before in 2015 but I wanted to check it out again. Basically you go up an elevator to the 3rd floor, and then climb this iron staircase that winds around the tower until you get to the very top, and that’s where this instrument is. It’s historic and you can read more about it here as they do a better job describing it than I could.
Even though it was over 90 degrees today and the tower is not air conditioned or anything, it didn’t feel too stifling in there today. The instrument is pretty physical to work with, as the musicians basically appear to have to pound down on the rods and stomp their feet on the pedals to ring the larger bells. I glanced over at the sheet music they were playing and these compositions had a lot of notes so the playing is pretty demanding.
For supper tonight I ended up grilling some Angus burgers, chicken and corn. Came out really good – I hope I can replicate how good the burgers came out for next time. We also went to JC Penny earlier in the day to get some ideas for bedroom blinds. I realized I had never been inside a JC Penny in my entire life until today.
Foxboro Fireworks 2019
Last night, LD decided it might be nice to see the fireworks show happening over Gillette Stadium (where the Patriots play) in honor of July 4th. We’d gone before and it’s usually a pretty good time and it was a beautiful night so we went. At first I was apprehensive figuring the crowd might be annoying but I’m glad I relented because it really wasn’t bad at all.
Things that make me go Hmmm (Part I)
I never see Dodge K cars around on the roads or anywhere else really anymore. My grandfather had one of those. It was pretty much an old man car. Have they all been destroyed?
Question: Why does sour cream have an expiration date on it?
Why is it that if you have a candle lit, and you have a plain potato chip in hand, and hover the chip over the flame for a second or two so it turns black from the heat, and then smell that, it smells just like popcorn. Try it.
I remember awaking from a dream that I had insomnia and couldn’t sleep. In the dream! While I’m really sleeping! That was whack.
Things that all people can agree on: Pizza and Music. I’ve never heard of anyone saying they don’t like pizza or music. So there. Random things that pop into my head.
If the show “Hoarders” was in 3D it would be awesome. Just saying.
If Jimmy cracks corn, and nobody cares, then why does he keep doing it? We were discussing this with our other couple friends a while back, but now I forgot what conclusions we came to.
Ever notice you can turn any movie into a Broadway production just by adding an exclamation point on the end? Terminator! Better Off Dead! An Officer and a Gentleman!
When do oldies stop being oldies? Like, when you put on an oldies station and they play music from the 50s, well, when does that stop getting played and then it’d be music from a different decade? Or will they just always play 50s music and call it oldies? I seem to be having a hard time wording this but do y’all know what I’m getting at? Sham-a-lama-ding-dang.
Why is it that flies seem to have no problem flying into a door of the house that was opened for a second, but can’t seem to fly out of the house the same way? Maddening. These are the things that I think about.
Also, while watching Wheel of Fortune like old couples do, Vanna doesn’t appear to be necessary anymore since the letters are electronic now and no spinning of tiles is needed, so why is she still there? Eye candy? She still taps the letters to show them but when contestants solve the puzzle all letters appear without her touching them. .