This was a pretty good one that I had read before. The author was Peter Blauner and I’m pretty sure one of his other books had me up all night reading, so I’m looking forward to re-reading that one, too.
I’ve been trying to spend more time reading and less time wasting time on my phone. I think it’s paying off. I finished this one in about 2 weeks.
My rating: 3.5/5
I went to see blues legend Buddy Guy in Greensburg last night. It is his farewell tour (he’s 87 years old) so I figured it was a must-see show. And, it was! The opener, King Solomon Hicks, was pretty great, too, but he didn’t play with a full band–it was just him and a bass player. Pittsburgh legend Norman Nardini joined him for a song or two, which was cool.
There was one weird thing at the end of the show. During the last song, he called up some kid from the audience to play (he said something about meeting the kid’s grandparents the night before at dinner). The kid had his guitar with him and they set him up to play with the band. I thought I was going to get to see a child prodigy play, which would have been awesome. Instead, the kid sounded like he’d never picked up a guitar before. He played a couple of random notes on his untuned guitar and then Buddy Guy said, “let’s give him a hand”. It was so awkward. I don’t know if he choked or if his grandparents seriously underestimated his abilities. Or if the intent was not for him to play at all, and simply meet Buddy Guy. Hopefully, that won’t deter him from playing in the future. He still has time to be a child prodigy. In 15 years, I hope to hear a story about some new blues wizard who once played on stage with Buddy Guy when he was 10.
This was a movie about a massive cyberattack against the United States. Unfortunately, this occurred right before the young daughter character watched the last episode of Friends, which she wasn’t too happy about. Who would be? The ending was pretty good but left us hanging as to what happened. The movie consisted of the characters trying to figure out what happened. With all methods of communication being knocked out, they couldn’t get any real information. By the end, they figured out a hypothesis, but we didn’t learn if they were correct or what happened to society.
My rating: 3.5/5
I saw Brit Floyd for the 3rd time last night. As always, it was a great show! And you can’t beat going to a concert in town–leave the house 30 minutes before it starts and get home 15 minutes after it’s over. The show lasted 3 hours (but there was a 20-minute intermission in the middle).
I completed my first furniture flip last night. I took my old hope chest and made some updates.
I started by removing the top and refinishing it. It was pretty beaten up and still has a distressed look to it (despite sanding the original finish off), which is not what I was going for, but here we are.
I then removed the side handles and patched as many defects as I could on the chest part of things. I used mineral chalk paint from Dixie Belle Paint Company and topped it off with their wax. I’m pretty happy with how it turned out, but next time, I’m going to try their paint that has the topcoat built in and not do the waxing part. I must have used too much wax as I leave fingerprints on the chest every time I touch it. I guess I need to do some more buffing. I also had the brilliant idea to put a cedar liner in the bottom of the chest. What a pain that was! The stuff I bought at Home Depot was all warped and it made the job very difficult. I originally thought about lining the whole interior, but after the way the bottom went, that’s not going to happen. I’ll give it this much–it did smell really good. And, just for fun, I replaced the hinges and installed casters to make it easier to move around.
