Be sure to check out part 1 of this series.  Here are some more tips and tricks.

• While listening to music or pod casts via the iPod in the background and running another application, it’s such a hassle to exit that app, go back to iPod, change the selection or whatever you want, then go back to the other application, which you have to start over.  A great alternative is simply to double tap the home button while in the application.  An iPod control box pops up with next, previous, pause, play, and volume controls.

• When listening to music or pod casts with the Apple ear buds, we all know that pinching the clicker on the wire will pause and play.  Pinching the Read Full Article & Comments…

I saw a reference to this on a TV show a couple of nights ago, I’ve heard it said for years and I just did a web search and there are hundreds of web sites and blogs out there that assert the notion that opposable thumbs is what separates us humans from the rest of the animal kingdom.  This belief is actually the entire premise of some of the sites I saw.  One tuber like named satirical news source even has a story about opposable thumbs having recently evolved on the pectoral fins of dolphins, based on the idea that most of us accept as fact.

This is just one of the many many things out there that really bug me and I finally got around to saying so, because, well, I have nothing better to do at the moment.  How sad is that?  Anyway, there are lots of animals out there with opposable thumbs, some even have opposable toes as well.

Even if we were the only species with opposable thumbs, why is it that we think that that one thing is what would separate us from the rest of the animal kingdom?  Read Full Article & Comments…

I had heard about them and read about them, and the people taken in my them, but there’s something in the back of one’s head that questions things, until you experience it yourself.  Nigerians giving away free money to help them move large amounts of more money, foreign lotteries, and other frauds and pyramids.  Oh puh-lease, do people really fall for these things?

I started seeing a resurgence of reports of these silly scams recently and I wondered why I had never seen one in person.  No foreigner has ever requested me to help them move a million bucks.  What the hell?  What is it about me?  Aren’t I worthy enough to receive such offers?  I was beginning to feel a little neglected.

Well, I finally got one… yeeee haaaawww.  “Hello Dear” it started.  It seems that a 24 year old Sudanese orphan girl named Ariya Mohamed Atif is in bit of a pickle.  Sadly, her Read Full Article & Comments…

Day 5 – The weather in San Francisco had been cold and rainy and I was anxious to get on the road again.  I headed out, thinking the rest of California would be OK, weather wise.  I thought wrong.  I wanted to visit Yosemite National Park, but the road through the park is still closed for the winter and it’s socked in anyway.  So, I left the San Francisco Hostel at Fisherman’s Wharf and Fort Mason behind.  It’s a pretty neat hostel, all the except the bed.  Oh well.

I drove north, thinking I Read Full Article & Comments…

I had intended to sleep in a bit this morning considering I didn’t go to bed till 3:00am since I was up late writing about the concert.  But, this bed they have me in really sucks, there’s just not much cush in the mattress, so I was up at 8:00am and in the library on line.  Did emails and other stuff then watched a couple of TV shows on my PC.

John from Chicago sat down across the table from me and we chatted a bit.  He’s visiting trying to make a go of it here in San Fran.  Interviewing  for wait staff jobs.  We talked about music, Tim from last night and he told me about Alela Diane, I’ll have to check her out.  We talked about having peeps all around the world through traveling and hostelling, pretty cool.

About 1:00 I got cleaned up for a hike with Joy.  I don’t know why I bothered, it started raining.  It was in the 50s and very overcast; very much like home in the Pacific Northwest, but with palm trees.  Before I Read Full Article & Comments…

This is a follow up to my article from February (Tim O’Brien; the musician, not the author), when I “discovered” Tim.

My friend Joy and I went to see Tim O’Brien at the Freight & Salvage Coffee House in Berkley, CA tonight and it was fantastic.  Some of you know I just discovered Tim recently because I wondered who the vocal was on the first track of Steve Martin’s new banjo CD and I did some research and found more of his music and just loved it, I’ve since picked up most of his albums.

Tim is huge in Bluegrass, American Roots, Folk music and it’s beyond me how I never new of Tim before, but oh well.  Better late than never I reckon.  So, I checked out his tour schedule and Berkley was the closest he was getting to me, so a couple of days ago, I headed south from Lynden, WA, just south of the border, and arrived here in San Fran yesterday.  So, this post is for the Tim fans out there.

Tim came out on stage playing a fiddle tune I didn’t recognize.  I later shot a pic of his play list on the stage floor during the intermission and the first song listed said Huntin, not sure if that referred to Let’s Go Huntin.  He did deviate from the play list a bit during the show, so I don’t know.  It didn’t sound like Let’s Go Huntin though.

Next was one of my favs from Chameleon, Father Forgive Me.  In the middle, he stopped singing but kept playing the guitar and said “Folks, I know I’m way out tune but there’s not much I can do about it at the moment” and Read Full Article & Comments…