My ensemble: The Stones River Chamber Players Live in Studio C on Nashville Public Radio

The Stones River Chamber Players:
Deanna Little - Flute, Andrea Dawson - Violin, William Yelverton - Guitar

If you haven't heard the Stones River Chamber Players, check out some of the soundfiles on our website.

We play stuff people like. Visceral and evocative music, not the standard Mozart & Beethoven (even though we do that too!). We play mostly fresh new music that draws influences from Folk, Jazz, Latin and World music. Some call it 'concert classical crossover music.'

Today on "Live in Studio C" we played music of German jazz guitarist and composer Günter Möll. Transition Man is a piece with rock, jazz and folk influences. Rarely performed and unpublished, we did the TN Premiere of this work on 11/19/07 at MTSU. We played it a bit slower than it should go, to be safe on live radio because this is a brand new piece for us.

The performance will be rebroadcast tonight - Tues Nov. 20, 2007 at 8:06 PM on Nashville Public Radio. WPLN 90.3 FM - Nashville, WHRS 91.7 - FM Cookeville, WTHL 91.5 FM - Tullahoma, and WPLN 1430 AM.

In case you miss it, you can listen to the live recording of the TN premiere of this piece on the SRCP website.



The great thing about playing on live radio is that we can wear jeans and take our shoes off!

Local Jack Daniels story makes CNN page 1

This local story was reported at the top of the CNN web page Thursday night under 'latest news.' Can you imagine $10,000 bottles of 100 yr old Jack being poured down the drain?


From WSMV via CNN:


Vintage Whisky May be Poured Down the Drain

POSTED: 3:04 pm CST November 15, 2007

NASHVILLE, Tenn - a sobering thought: Hundreds of bottles of Jack Daniel's whiskey, some of it almost 100 years old, may be unceremoniously poured down a drain because authorities suspect it was being sold by someone without a license. Officials seized 2,400 bottles late last month during warehouse raids in Nashville and Lynchburg, the southern Tennessee town where the whiskey is distilled."Punish the person, not the whiskey," said an outraged Kyle MacDonald, 28, a Jack Daniel's drinker from British Columbia who promotes the whiskey on his blog. "Jack never did anything wrong, and the whiskey itself is innocent."Investigators are also looking into whether some of the bottles had been stolen from the distillery. No one has been arrested.Authorities are still determining how much of the liquor will be disposed of, and how much can be sold at auction.Tennessee law requires officials to destroy whiskey that cannot be sold legally in the state, such as bottles designed for sale overseas and those with broken seals."We'd pour it out," said Danielle Elks, executive director of the Tennessee Alcoholic Beverage Commission. The estimated value of the liquor is $1 million, possibly driven up by the value of the antique bottles, which range from 3-liter bottles to half-pints.One seized bottle dates to 1914, with its seal unbroken. Elks said it is worth $10,000 on the collectors market. Investigators are looking into whether the liquor was being sold for the value of the bottles rather than the whiskey."Someone was making a great deal of profit," she said.Tennessee whiskeys age in charred white oak barrels, but the maturing process that gives them character mostly stops when it is bottled. A bottled whiskey can deteriorate over a long period of time, especially if it is opened or exposed to sunlight and heat.Christopher Carlsson, a spirits connoisseur and collector in Rochester, N.Y., said old vintages of whiskey in their original containers are highly prized."A lot of these bottles are priceless," he said. "It's like having a rare painting. It's heavily collected."The raids, prompted by a tip, were conducted at two warehouses and a home in Lynchburg, about 65 miles southeast of Nashville. Another raid was at a Nashville hotel room where drinks were being served and bottles were being sold.For now, the whiskey is being stored in a Nashville vault.Elks acknowledged that pouring out the whiskey would not be a happy hour for her."It'd kill me," she said.

Slight chance of severe storms today (11/14/07) across Mid TN

A good link for weather nuts and storm lovers is the convective outlook page from the Storm Prediction Center. They give probabilities of severe weather in given locations along with a text convective outlook. This weather jargon is unintelligible to most people as it is full of 'isms' and abbreviations.

Looks like this will be the last warm day for a while.

Convective outlook statement (11/14/07):

DAY 1 CONVECTIVE OUTLOOK
NWS STORM PREDICTION CENTER NORMAN OK
1021 AM CST WED NOV 14 2007

VALID 141630Z - 151200Z

...THERE IS A SLGT RISK OF SVR TSTMS FROM THE LOWER MS RIVER
VALLEY/MID SOUTH INTO THE TN RIVER VALLEY...

...MID SOUTH/LOWER MS RIVER VALLEY INTO THE TN VALLEY...
DEEPENING TROUGH ALOFT OVER THE CENTRAL U.S. WILL BECOME MORE
NEGATIVELY TILTED AND AMPLIFY AS IT ADVANCES ACROSS THE GREAT
LAKES/MS RIVER VALLEY DURING THE PERIOD.  THIS WILL OCCUR AS STRONG
MID/UPPER LEVEL JET DIVES SEWD ACROSS THE CENTRAL PLAINS.  AHEAD OF
AMPLIFYING TROUGH...LOWER AMPLITUDE SYSTEM IS BECOMING MORE DIFFUSE
AS IT MOVES TOWARDS THE CENTRAL APPALACHIANS THIS MORNING.  AT THE
SURFACE...STRONG COLD FRONT WILL CONTINUE MOVING RAPIDLY EWD ACROSS
THE GREAT LAKES AND SEWD INTO THE MID SOUTH/LOWER MS RIVER VALLEY
THIS AFTERNOON.  LAPSE RATES REMAIN RATHER WEAK ON MORNING
SOUNDINGS...AND WILL IMPROVE ONLY A LITTLE THROUGH THE DAY.
HOWEVER...SURFACE DEW POINTS IN THE MID 60S AND MILD NOVEMBER
AFTERNOON HIGHS SHOULD BOOST MLCAPE TO NEAR 1000 J/KG INTO THE LOWER
MS RIVER VALLEY/MID SOUTH REGION LATER THIS AFTERNOON.

DEEP ASCENT AHEAD OF APPROACHING MID/UPPER LEVEL TROUGH AND WITHIN
STRONG UPPER LEVEL DIFFLUENCE SHOULD INCREASE ELEVATED MOIST
CONVECTION THROUGH THE DAY FROM THE LOWER OH RIVER VALLEY INTO
MIDDLE TN/KY.  EFFECTIVE SHEAR REMAINS SUFFICIENT FOR SOME
ROTATION/PERSISTENCE TO THE STRONGER CORES AND THESE MAY YIELD HAIL
TODAY.  MORE ROBUST CONVECTION SHOULD AWAIT STRONGER HEATING AND
DEVELOP ALONG AND AHEAD OF THE COLD FRONT INTO SRN AR/NRN MS/WRN TN
DURING THE MID TO LATE AFTERNOON.  FORECAST SOUNDINGS ACROSS THIS
REGION INDICATE LOW AND DEEP LAYER SHEAR MORE THAN ADEQUATE FOR A
FEW SUPERCELLS OR SMALL LINES MOVING QUICKLY SEWD THROUGH THE EARLY
TO MID EVENING.  ISOLATED DAMAGING WINDS ALONG WITH SOME HAIL WILL
BE PRIMARY SEVERE THREATS.

Bald cypress trees in autumn at J. Percy Priest Lake

Some of my favorite trees to see in autumn are the bald cypress. These trees grow in TN primarily in ancient stream beds, often completely in the water. If I have a favorite color, this is it. The rust red-orange of these trees was stunning on a mostly cloudy Monday afternoon in November on the lake. It seems that the state is planting more of these trees, particularly on islands in Percy Priest Lake (which is the Stones River basin).

At one time, the biggest bald cypress tree east of the Mississippi lived in TN at Big Cypress Tree State Park in Greenfield, TN on the Obion River. The tree's diameter was 13 feet and its circumference was 40 feet. The tree lived to be 1,350 years old before lightning struck and killed the tree in 1976. The lightning knocked the top out of the tree and the tree smoldered for two weeks. Unfortunately, the tree is no longer standing.



J. Percy Priest Lake is not my favorite lake to visit due to it's over use, shallow depth and confusing channel. However, it was good to get out on the boat on a relatively quiet Monday afternoon. I did see other boaters, I think I may have been the only boater I saw who was not fishing. Anyway, got some decent guitar practicing in and some quiet time connecting with nature walking at Ponderosa Island. I'll be happy to claim it as part of Bill's TN Paradise.

The use of a GPS is indispensable on this lake where the navigation channel is often along the shoreline and not in the middle of the lake where you'd expect. Even with the GPS, I'm often hesitant to put the boat up on plane because it only takes a second to get off the channel into shallow water, and very often people fishing in small boats tend to sit in the center of the channel.

Bringing the plants in - TN's first frost

Here at Bill's TN Paradise, fall season presents a yearly task - bringing in the plants. 3 dozen or so tropical plants that usually line the pool, have to taken in to one of two sunrooms for the winter.

The upstairs sunroom, also known as 'the rain room,' is a favorite hangout spot during rainy weather due to the glass ceiling. Even on dark and rainy days, this room is always bright and cozy, thanks to the new gas fireplace.

The larger downstairs sunroom, where the cats live, also becomes a tropical paradise in winter. Equipped with hot tub, fireplace, and TV, it is an excellent place to spend time.

Plants always do better outside but it is nice to have them indoors for a few months every year.

Here we go again - Bigfoot photos from NW PA?

The question - is this a skinny bear or some unknown primate species?

Always interesting when such a story hits the MSM.

My vote is for the skinny bear. But you know, part of me wants to find Bigfoot.

Rick Jacobs said he took this photograph with a camera using an automatic motion sensor trigger in the Allegheny National Forest.

Now, I know this area. It is a huge wilderness area that extends beyond the half million acres of the Allegheny Forest north into NY and east into PA. Not saying there are apes living there, but it is a very remote area.

"We couldn't figure out what they were," Jacobs said of the images captured on Sept. 16. "I've been hunting for years and I've never seen anything like this."

But .... the PA Game Commission rains on our parade ... they have a more conventional opinion. Agency spokesman Jerry Feaser said conservation officers routinely trap bears to be tagged and often see animals that look like the photos.

"There is no question it is a bear with a severe case of mange," Feaser told The Bradford Era.

In this second photo, the animal is sniffing the bait on the ground and the arms certainly seem long and primate-like as is the bipedal stance.



Photos and more from the BFRO.

The rarest shampoo: Ice Blue - the last of the last

One of the rarities found here at Bill's TN Paradise, is my favorite shampoo, the Body Shop's "Ice Blue Revitalizing Shampoo."

This shampoo has not been in production since the 1990's. It was briefly reissued in '01 but only in limited quantities, and then discontinued shortly afterward. Despite this, I have been able to stock up with Ebay purchases from England, where occasionally, some of this shampoo appears for sale. I haven't seen any for sale for a few years or so now, except small amounts that sellers won't ship to the USA. So, this is it. The last of the last. Fortunately, this is a large size bottle that is 3/4 full. It could last years since I use it sparingly.

Have you ever had a favorite product suddenly discontinued?
It really sucks. Thankfully, I still have a few years supply of my favorite shampoo. The Body Shop company had really made some bad mistakes. I remember some wonderful products they had that have been discontinued, like the Dewberry shampoo and various other products. Fortunately, when there's a will, there is a way, and that way is Ebay.