22 December 2014

Digital or Vinyl?



Last Christmas, I got the Mrs a record player. When I say The Mrs, I mean us. After 23 years, all presents, except jewelry, are joint presents. 

I can't tell you how much joy this little contraption has brought into our house. We now sit in our living room...TOGETHER...talking about music, listening to RECORDS. Now I know what you're thinking. Together? Aren't you guys always together?...Well, yes..of course, but like any married couple, we do our own things. I'm always up in my office and Kelly is tucked away somewhere reading a book, covered in hot bags of herbs. The record player brought us back to living room and its really nice.



The record player came in the  mail and I plugged it in....no fuss, no muss I got it all hooked up and when Kelly got home we marveled at the nostalgia and settled down to listen to a record.

We did it every night for the first week...and any night that we got new records in the mail.



It's fantastic. Sure we have the music on our iTunes, but there is something about a record. They only last 3 or 4 songs, then one of us inevitably, jokingly says "uggghhh, go flip the record!" or "uggghhh this record player sucks!". 


Can I tell the difference in sound between Digital and Vinyl? Is there a big difference in quality?

Nope. Don't know. Not even a clue. Can't tell. No idea.

What I do know is that I like sitting in the living room with my wife...listening to records.

19 December 2014

Rise and Shine

At 8am this morning I was on the phone with my father....I walked into my bedroom and discovered my wife still in bed, apparently abusing the snooze function on her alarm and making herself late for work in the process.

I asked my father to hold on for a second, leaned over my wife and said "rise and shine".

Then it happened.

I was holding the phone down by my leg but I could hear it....the morning nightmare from my youth...my father was singing at the top of his lungs:

"Rise and shine
And give God the glory, glory
Rise and shine
And give God the glory, glory
Rise and shine
And give God the glory, glory
Children of the Lord"

I am a morning person....now....but when I was a kid, I hated getting out of bed. My father would come upstairs, turn the lights on, pull the sheets off the bed all while singing that damn song, every verse, as loud as he could...clapping and dancing like a crazy person. My brother and I had awoken in Hell and my father was a demon from whichever circle it is that they torture children.



"The Lord said to Noah: there's gonna be a floody, floody
The Lord said to Noah: there's gonna be a floody, floody
Get those children out of the muddy, muddy
Children of the Lord"



So this morning, when I heard him singing it again, it sent shivers down my spine.....then I put him on speaker phone.

My wife was up and on her feet before he finished the second verse. Apparently her mom had used the same technique.

Now of course, I was actually thrilled to hear my father singing, as he is in a nursing home and can get depressed from time to time,....but over the course of the rest of our morning call, he burst out into that song at least four more times. I finally had to ask him to stop.

He said ok....and sang it again.