Florida holiday

Some photos from my trip to Florida to visit my parents in the Villages and the Rezvanis in St. Pete.

Ft. Desoto beach

Roya and Yesenia

With mom and Roya

Xmas dinner

Dad in his chair

Dali Museum at night

St. Pete

Rezvani Sisters

Strolling in St. Pete ... dolphin

Xmas Eve

An exceptionally cold Christmas eve and morning in upstate NY.   Snow showers and temperatures in the single numbers.   Warm inside for the traditional lobster dinner.

Yelverton clan

4 generations

Susquehanna River

Aten flag - holiday decoration

I like the Aten flag. It'll be my holiday decoration this year. It seems to fit nicely above my front porch.

Aten is the sun disk in ancient Egyptian mythology.

Ancient Egyptian religion deifies the sun. It is likely that much of Christianity and other religions have been based on the ancient Egyptian religion. (see video below)

There are not many things more important in this world than the sun. Life would not exist without it. One super big gulp of coronal mass ejecta from the sun could exterminate life on earth at any time.

I'm not a sun worshipper, but it's easy to see why ancient cultures did worship the sun. To me, the Aten flag is decorative art piece, not a religious symbol.

The flag looks awesome back lit at night.

This 'hippie pagan symbol' should definitely confuse the local rednecks....

“The Christian religion is a parody on the worship of the sun, in which they put a man called Christ in the place of the sun, and pay him the adoration originally payed to the sun.”

― Thomas Paine - author, revolutionary, inventor, intellectual, and a Founding Father of the United States.

Valentines Day event - Monteagle Winery

Valentines Day event

Free wine tasting, chocolate and classical guitar.

As a tune up recital for my upcoming concert tour, I'll be playing a concert on Saturday at 6 pm at the Monteagle Winery. (Details of the concert tour and sound clips at my Myspace page).

Here's the promotional blurb:

Dear friends,

Please join us at the Monteagle Winery on Saturday, Feb. 14 for free wine tasting, chocolate and classical guitar. MTSU Music Faculty William Yelverton will be performing a 6:00 pm classical guitar and lute concert. The Monteagle Winery is about 90 minutes from Nashville, or an hour from Murfreesboro on I-24 East, exit 134. Turn left toward Sewanee and the Winery will be less than a mile on your right.

The Monteagle Winery is now under the ownership of MTSU 's Dr. Tony Johnston, master winemaker. If you like wonderful fruity wines, chocolate and classical guitar, please join us on Valentines Day. The very diverse and entertaining concert program will contain guitar and lute music from the Renaissance and Baroque, as well as Spanish Flamenco and Brazilian jazz. Come and enjoy for free.

William Yelverton will also be playing the same program at Blair School of Music's Turner Recital Hall in Nashville on Wed. February 25 at 8:00 pm. The Blair School of Music is located on 2400 Blakemore Ave.

MLK's Dream

Listening to Soledad O'Brien's tearful interview of Andrew Young on CNN where he recounts the last speech, the last morning, and the assassination of Dr. King was quite moving. I hope I can get the video up soon.

This MLK Day seems so extra special with the inauguration of our first African-American President, Barack Obama coming tomorrow. Politics aside, it just makes me feel so good, proud and hopeful to be an American again.

It was the Nashville Christian Leadership Conference (NCLC), an affiliate of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Southern Christian Leadership Conference that took on the task to organize black college students from Fisk and elsewhere to stage sit-ins to desegregate downtown Nashville. Under the the direction of Reverend Kelly Miller Smith, NCLC president and pastor of First Colored Baptist Church on Eighth Avenue, early in 1959, the NCLC began a movement to desegregate by targeting lunch counters at Greyhound bus terminals, Grant's variety store, Walgreen's drugstore, Cain-Sloan's and Harvey's department stores.

Read more on this remarkable history of the Nashville sit-ins.



I'd really like to think that we've come a long way since those days and I am absolutely euphoric over tomorrow's inauguration, truly a step toward fulfilling MLK's dream.

Rest easy Dr. King.

The Moon Room

My upstairs sunroom has a glass ceiling and it becomes a 'moon room' on these nights of the brilliant full moon.
(click pictures to enlarge)

The white moonlight gives this room full of tropical plants an ethereal glow when the lights are off at night. It was really ethereal watching the snow come down last night and then see the moon break through the clouds directly overhead.

This is also a great 'rain room.'

In fact I like it best in this room when the sun is not shining.

Next to the little gas fireplace in this room, I'll be drinking lots of Assam tea and practicing guitar for my upcoming concert season.

This is a great room to practice in. I learned two Rodrigo concertos in this room. I like it especially at night and when it rains. A great room to watch lightning from as well.

Why I need an SUV

I found a way to take both my motorcycle and my boat. With a front hitch receiver fitted with auxiliary driving lights I can carry my bike in front and tow my boat behind.

I'll be taking my motorcycle to the NC side of the Smokies, staying on my boat for a week at Fontana Lake, hiking and exploring the wilderness of the NC mountains on my dualsport Kawasaki Super Sherpa. The beauty I've seen on that bike, the places I've been! Fontana is truly the finest lake I've ever seen in these United States, and a great area for dualsport cycling. This is what summer adventures are for, getting out on the water, in the wilderness, and connecting with nature.

I never use my Ford Expedition to commute, only for transporting lots of people, my motorcycle or my boat. I got this truck in 2002 with 65,000 miles on it and 6 yrs later, it has only 91,000. I usually commute to work on my motorcycle, and use my Honda Civic to go to the store and around town.



I think it's really wasteful to be driving a truck like a Ford Expedition around town for routine commuting. It's crazy! I really do feel sorry for those who use a big SUV for daily commuting, especially those that have a long daily commute to work. Fortunately, I barely work (5 months off), barely commute (2 miles to work) and often drive a cycle that gets 90 miles per gallon. When I'm out on a concert tour, I get a state vehicle to drive. My gas expenses are minimal, except when I take the boat out for a week... to NC.

The Family of All-Stars

I am truly lucky to be a part of a family of all-star athletes and performing artist/ teachers. It was good to visit home for the holiday and see my family, despite the depressing upstate NY weather. Allow me to brag a bit ...

I got a chance to see my brother's son Kris practice polevaulting at SUNY Binghamton. Here he is going over 16 feet.



This is a family tradition. Kris's dad, my brother Tom was a 2 time NY State Highschool Polevault Champion and record holder. He was the first highschool vaulter in NY to clear 16'. He was recruited to MTSU in 1980 by Coach Dean Hayes. Tom's MTSU polevault record still stands today at 16'1" - a record that has lasted 27 years. The longevity of this record speaks to the fact that those successful in the complex sport of polevaulting are quite rare. It takes speed, strength, gymnastic ability, technique, and courage.

Here is a photo of brother Tom flying high, wearing the MTSU Blue Raider uniform with the ceiling of MTSU's Murphy Center in the background.

I was never as successful as Tom in track as shoulder injuries cut my polevaulting career short, but I did manage to win a few sectional Gold medals in sprinting and sprint relays (indoor 60, 4x200), and a Silver in the long jump. I had a pretty good start in the sprints. Here's a photo of one of my high school 100 races a few steps after the starting gun.


My new goals for running are overall health and I continue to run today, not sprints but 5k races.

I credit these abilities to good genes. My dad was a stand out athlete, polevault record holder and all-conference semi-pro football player in the EFL.

My mom is a renown dance teacher and choreographer. Her students have performed prominent roles on Broadway, appeared in major Hollywood movies, Vegas shows, ballet companies, etc... Tom's daughter Kari is a very talented singer and dancer. Tom plays guitar and both he and his wife Debbie are good singers.

Me, I play a little guitar too. But... you oughta hear my students play - Matt, Silviu, and Salome.