Junior's Christmas 2009 Was Delicious!

Junior's Christmas 2009 was delicious! It was nice to spend a couple days with family and good food. Being able to enjoy the holiday locally made it a little easier as well.

A couple weeks have passed since I posted my last blog entry. Sorry about that. Various things, including a lack of spare time, a lack of energy and minor-ish health problems, have kept me away from updating Junior's Eyes as much as I would have liked. That's actually been the case for a few months now.

My having the occasional flare-up of eczema hasn't been sadistically entertaining enough for God. Over the summer, the Lord decided to add wheat to the list of things I'm allergic to. Oh yeah, that's a big one. You wouldn't believe how many things that means giving up!

Keeping the steroid cream on hand, well on both hands actually, is rather expensive. The selection of gluten-free items at the grocery store is probably getting better these days, but it all costs four times as much as the regular versions. The whole idea behind my eating more sandwiches, meatless pasta and other wheat filled food items, was to save some money. Well, that plan didn't work out too well. Anyway ......

I suppose the good part about not being able to eat normal bread, most cookies and cake is that I get to eat more candy. With that in mind, my younger sister Cherie and her family (husband Joe and the boys) included a case of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups in the Christmas presents they brought up from Fairfax County, VA. I believe my exact words were "This is the best Christmas present I've ever gotten".

Kim is my other sister. She and her family (husband Steve and the girls), the Christmas hosts, live in Harford County, MD as our parents and I do. From that group, my daughter Chelsea and I were smothered in kisses. Get your mind out of the incestial gutter, thank you. Chocolate kisses, mounted on flourless peanut butter cookies. Oh yeah. I couldn't eat a lot of my favorite things, but it was still a tasty Christmas holiday.

Today's Tune: "Another World" By Brian May

Exoplanet image is from European Southern Observatory.

October 1st is an anniversary date for a couple major events in the history of Disney World, in Orlando, Florida, USA. The most popular amusement/theme park (Actually 4 theme parks and two water parks) and resort on the planet, Walt Disney's Disney World first opened to the public on October 1, 1971. The 1st of October became an important date again, when the Epcot theme park (Originally called EPCOT Center) area opened up on this day in 1982.

At the age of nine, I was lucky enough to visit the "Magic Kingdom" with my parents and two sisters a couple months after it opened up, during the Christmas holiday in December of 1971. I didn't make it back until I was grown up (At least physically) and had a daughter of my own. We were there to welcome the new Millennium. Now that was a special time. We of course spent time at Epcot during our stay, and it became my favorite place in Disney. It does give you enough atmosphere to almost make you feel like you are in the other countries that are represented there, even if you've actually been to those places before.

For this 'Today's Tune', we aren't going to match exactly the happy and playful feelings that would directly relate to memories of the subject matter above. We will have a song title that somewhat links to it though. I offer to you today, a song from within the solo works of Queen guitarist and songwriter Brian May. The tune is called "Another World".

Brian May - "Another World"
(Fan made video includes lyrics, part of another song.)

Today's Tune: "Cold As Ice" By Foreigner

Happy birthday to Dennis Elliott (59 years old), English drummer for the band Foreigner from 1976 to 1991. Elliott also played for and recorded albums with If and Ian Hunter. After retiring from the music business, he became a professional sculptor.

I remember running a snowball stand with my two sisters through the summer of 1977 and 1978. Naturally we had a radio playing during the work day. Foreigner released their first album 'Foreigner' just before the summer of '77. The second single from that album was titled "Cold As Ice", and must have been played a thousand times while we sweated our way through those two summers. I know listening to that song playing always cooled me off, so I thought it might help you cool off today. OK, that's a load of ol' ballocks in'it, but you can try it anyway. Maybe you'll have more luck.

Foreigner - "Cold As Ice"

Freddie's Birthday Is September 5th

Farrokh Bulsara, better known as singer, songwriter and musician Freddie Mercury, was born on September 5th, 1946 in Stone Town on Zanzibar, near the coast of mainland Tanzania. He and his family, of Parsi heritage, moved to London, England in 1964 due to the Zanzibar Revolution. Freddie died November 24th, 1991, just one day after publicly announcing that he had AIDS.

I often think of Freddie, and like many of his fans and loved ones, wonder what what would have been if he were still alive. I'm sure he would have created and performed much more amazing music. I get very sad when I think of him being gone. But it's mostly the beauty, energy and truly honest feeling he put into every bit of his music and his life, that often brings a tear to my eyes when I watch his videos and listen to the music.

Memories of Freddie and his music, whether with Queen or any of his solo or collaborative ventures, also puts me in a good mood many times. He still is my favorite singer. He was lead singer for my all time favorite band, Queen. I had a blast at the concerts, along with good friends and family (sisters - Kim and Cherie). It's incredible how this one person, whom I've never actually met, has been with me for some of the saddest and most joyous times of my life.

Thank you Freddie Mercury!

Queen - "The Show Must Go On"

Queen - "Too Much Love Will Kill You"

Queen - "These Are The Days Of Our Lives"