A Marriage of Mind and Sinew

Yeah Baby!
How sweet it is...
Katie and I went skiing yesterday, well I ski, she boards, to use the vernacular.
It was warm up at the pass, No new snow for quite a while, but hey, we went and had a great time! The snow was kind of slushy, I liked it actually, very forgiving, a bit slow, but we had a sweet time. I think it was the third run of the evening when I was watching Katie board and she "got it!" It was uplifting to watch her. She was shredding snow! Not feathering her way down the mountain, but shredding! She knew she had it too! It is so awesome when the mind and the body finally meet up together. You have been working on some physical thing, your minds eye sees what it wants to do, but the motor skills haven't caught up yet. THEN BAM! All of a sudden, there it is! A sweet marrying of the two! I was elated, and if I was elated, she must have been ecstatic!
I think she was, because the smile on her face, and the bright lights of her eyes told the whole story, but it was great to hear her discuss it. She brought it up too, that made it even sweeter, that she recognized the fact of it!
Another serendipity of the event is that I can now ski while taking her up to the pass. I get to get a work out now too!
ALL IS GOOD!

Tired Tuesday/Magic session

Sleep, the eternal generator is eluding me again lately...
Sleeping a few hours in the morning and waking up. Only to need to rest in the evening before going to work. This is messing up my lifestyle pattern. Perpetuating a weird kind of sleep no sleep pattern.This is making me crazy, along with trying to function at work and home and getting in some work outs... I am feeling tired most of the time lately. Maybe it's the coming change in the weather?
I hope so, I would like to get back to a "normal" wake and sleep cycle.
Tuesday night I drove over to Gary's home looking forward to a magic session. Mark Jensen was supposed to join us but he had to bail for reasons of fatigue. So it was just I and Gary. We had a mostly discussion sort of session. Talking about getting gigs, and what works, and doesn't work performing close up magic vs. platform or stage magic. Gary has a nice paying gig coming up in May and we discussed some of the stuff I perform that he might be able to incorporate into his close up routine. He is interested in some new material as this is the fourth engagement with this particular venue.
I shared with Gary a nice card effect called mind reader. I haven't performed it in awhile, but something he was sharing with me sparked a memory so I went ahead and shared it with him. His reaction was quite astonishing. I blew his mind! it was really unexpected on my part that he would be so blown away, quite gratifying really. It was wonderful to bring out the little kid in Gary. He liked it so much that he immediately wanted me to "do it" for his wife Jean. This is the fourth time I have been to Gary's home working with him magically. This is the first time I have performed any "magic" for his wife Jean. Being the wife of a magician, she has seen a lot of magic over the years. It was fun to perform for her. She enjoyed the trick immensely. She too was blown away. It was fun to watch Gary as I was performing because he now knew what was coming, and some of my "antics" during the effect were now comical to him. Because this is a mind reader effect, and Jean thoroughly enjoyed it, I offered to do one more for her. She readily agreed and I performed the Zingone 12 card mental problem for her. It too stunned them both. Sometimes I forget how powerful magic can be. Jean said that she had that feeling of wanting to run away.
My new camera arrived today as well! it is an award for 30 years of service at Boeing. Nowadays, instead of getting a pre ordained wrist watch, they now have an online catalogue for you to choose from. Since my old camera is now dead, it was a no brainer to pick out a nice Canon PowerShot A570is digital camera!
So, you should be seeing more photo's on here again soon!

What's New?

Been some time since posting here...
Last Friday Joan and I joined Dale and Jean at McCormick & Schmicks on Lake Union for dinner. We had a great time and the food was good too. Dale and Jean are celebrating their 25th wedding anniversary this month!
Monday, Son Ryan and some friends of his came to our place for dinner. They had just finished snow shoeing up near Mt. Rainier. It is a place called Paradise.
You can see why from the picture.
The boys all wanted me to do magic because Ryan had informed them that I do magic. After dinner I entertained them with about six effects.
It was a good time!

Tuesday night I enjoyed the company of Mark Jenkins and Gary McKibben for a magic sesion at Gary's place. We worked on sponge balls and Slydini Silks. Mark forgot his silks and Gary couldn't find his. So, Tim Flynn had to use his for demonstration purposes. We worked on the various knots and how to upset them. We spent some time watching Jim Cellini perform Slydini silks via dvd. Very nice!
Gary was kind enough to share his wonderful sponge ball routine with us again, this time I videod it and will be putting it on dvd soon.
I learned a new ring and string trick from Charlie the juggling clown earlier in the month so I shared it with the guys. Mark really liked it.
Wednesday Katie and I drove up the pass and she snow boarded while I skied. I heard there was a lunar eclipse. The night sky was too cloudy and we weren't able to see it, too bad because with the extra elevation of being up in the mountains, it would have been spectacular. We had a great time and Katie went up on the biggest hill available. The Express chair lift. It was really nice. And the nice thing is now I can ski more because she is rapidly improving!
Our chair lift died while we were on it. We sat there for about 15-20 minutes. Luckily the wind had died down or it would have been a cold wait. They got the chair running again, but by now it was fairly late so we made it our last "run," and headed home. Hot tub is really nice after skiing!
Thursday our bible study group started up again. Am looking forward to it. Growth in Christ and my walk with God is my goal. Spiritual growth and becoming more Christ like! OY! I have a long way to go.
Friday evening we had a couple of people over for dinner and to teach the Young man some magic. His name is Mickey and he was interested in the magical art last year and kind of lost desire for awhile. Maybe he just got busy and got side tracked. Been there myself! We worked on cups & balls, sponge balls, some coin stuff and a few other things.
So, here I am at work on Saturday night rolling into Sunday morning. The time is getting short for my trip to North Carolina. Three weeks to go and I don't have it all together yet. Got some ideas and am thinking a lot!
Last Saturday was my 30th anniversary at Boeing. I get some kind of an award for this. I get to choose it out of an online catalog. Well, Since my camera broke recently. That is what I chose, should arrive any day. Hopefully before going to N. Carolina!

No Waaaaaayy...

Star date: Saturday, February 16th 2008...
30 years ago today was my first day working for Boeing! OH MY, OH MY! How the time does fly.
I remember that first day and a supervisor, Dick Gleason, showing me around this gigantic warehouse. It was a building called the 4-63 building. It was enormous. Now it is just a memory as it has been torn down along with many other buildings.
I hired in as a store keeper, grade 0. Now I am a Motive Equipment operator grade 8.
In 1978 my starting pay was $6.01 an hour, today it is $30.81 an hour.
I was embarrassed to be employed at Boeing as it was a stones throw from my Alma Matter, Renton High School. I figured I'd work there about five years. Along the way things have changed, I got married,(27 years this March!) had three children and the benefits of dental and medical insurance for our children have a way of locking you into your job.
I played a lot of sports through the Boeing receation dept. Softball in my early twenties and basketball as well. Later at about age 34, I went out and played three seasons of hard ball. I made the All Star team and had the wonderful opportunity to play in Cheney Stadium. The minor league ballpark of the Tacoma Rainiers!
I don't know what the future holds for me at Boeing. The Renton plant is slowly vanishing. Maybe someday I will have to go to work in Everett at the Boeing plant there.
I am 48 as I type, I will be 49 next month. I haven't really thought much about retiring. Katie is only 14 and is planning to go to college. She wants to be a vetrinarian. That is an eight year degree. That would mean working til I'm 60 at least, another 12 years.
I guess we'll just see what the future holds. No worries!
Boeing has been good to me and my family. We put one son through college and another joined the Marines.
Life is good!

Finally Open...

Snoqualmie Pass that is. The pass has been closed to travellers East and West bound for about eight days, with intermittent openings. Too much snow, avalanche control and basically just wet and sloggy going. Two weeks we missed going up. Thursday was touch and go and finally GO! The pass opened at about 10 A.M. We left home at 3pm and were skiing and snowboarding by about 4:30! Nice new snow, and it was awesome. My son Ryan came up about 5:30 with a work associate. We skied on some nice runs. Not used to skiing in powder, very different but quite enjoyable, especially if you fall. Nice and soft! Oh yes, I fell, only takes a momentary lapse in concentration and WHAM! Down you go!
We had a blast and we got home around 9:30 cuz Katie has school the next day. I had to go to work by 11.


Katie and I on the chair lift!


Katie, Ryan & Me!

No Pics..

The battery compartment door on my digital camera is broken. It won't latch shut, I have tried taping it, but the spring tension from the batteries keeps forcing it open, that is one reason I haven't blogged much of late. I like to post pics (a picture is worth a thousand words) when I blog.
A new camera is only about two hundred bucks, but my old one works well if I could just get some decent tape to stick tightly and hold the door down, ARRGH!

Blast From The Past, sort of...

December 13th 2007, I did a double header magic show in Olympia, see blog post with that date, Someone asked if there were any photos.
Finally someone sent me some, so...
Enjoy, I did!

Vanishing Bandanna...Squishy, Squishy!!!

And, with hope and a prayer!!!
WOW! Look at all those eager hands!


Check out the cups! See anything unusual?!

Ha Ha.... Nothing here, where'd it go?!


Here they are, they returned to their cups!

See anything in the bag?
Please, pull the bag inside out!

For A Thunderous Round of Applause!

What A Show!

Jimmy Durante used to say, "Wow, What a show!"
I got up early today and yes, I did my work out! Shoulders and legs and some 10 minutes on the Recumbant bike...
Packed up my wife and daughter and drove North to Everett.
Smoke and Mirrors. The 2008 edition put on by the Lynnwood Magic Club. This is an anuual event that is a fund raiser for The Burned Children Recovery Foundation!(www.burnchildrenrecovery.org)
It was held in the Historic Everett Theatre.
My magical friend Roger Needham asked me several days ago if I would help out by doing "walk around magic" before the show and during intermission.
I replied in the affirmative! I hadn't really ever done this, and felt like it is a great chance to get in some work and see how my "small" magic plays!
It plays pretty good! I enjoyed myself, I mainly did the Hot Rod, Crazy mans hand cuffs and a super card trick by John Cornelius called, Marked For Life. Marked For Life slayed people, I was astonished at how well it went over. Guess I needed to get out and put it in front of some people. The verb, WOW, comes to mind! I guess Roger got into a little hot water asking me to help out because I'm not a member of the Lynnwood Ring of Fire. Oh well, Better him, than me! Haha... I tried to bail him out by joining right then and there, I mean c'mon, it's only 15.00 bucks a year.

The show was great! Not from a technical stand point, although there were some wonderful magical moments, but rather from an entertainment point of view. The audience was greatly entertained. laughter and applause, and ooh's and aah's were constantly being heard.
My 14 year old daughter really didn't want to go, we made her! that's right, us meany's made her. She wanted to stay home and do homework, big assignment coming up. Well, we put our collective feet down and dragged her with us!
I peaked over at her during Don Brisbanes' wonderful newspaper act and saw her smiling and laughing! Sweet! Don's act was really cool. Not really magic, but greatly entertaining. Wish I could describe it. Scissors, newspaper, cuts and tears, paper hats, and paper dolls and moons and stars and, well it was quite entertaining.
The show actually opened with a fellow named Magic Joe. He did a nice dove act and multiplying balls and a nice card revelaton with a spectator.
Philemon followed that with a Rubicks cube/Die box trick, it was pretty good in Philemons darkly humurous sort of way, actually he carried it off nicely!
Charlie the juggling clown was my favorite performer. I thought he stole the show actually. Really good stage presence and a bit of audience participation. Spinning plates on sticks, juggling balls and all kinds of great slapstick humor with magic as well.
Jeff Dial, I was a little disappointed in his performance, I saw Jeff last year at Day of Magic. He performed superbly that day doing Whit Haydn's linking rings.
I think he was introducing something new tonight. It was o.k. but lots of flaws, maybe they were intentional? I saw myself a little in him, dropping a silk and getting a bit flustered...
Steve the Pretty Good closed out the show and did a marvelous job. He has come a long way. Nice Zombie ball routine to start his act, a sort of Zig Zag girl in a box effect. After that Steve got pretty comedic. He asked if we would like to see a dove effect, but he could never quite get a dove to appear, a rubber chicken, several eggs, but no dove, ending with the miraculous appearance of a live rabbit!
One other act, the M.C. Trickery. A spoof about M.C. Hammer done to rap music and patter. Two guys and it was quite nicely done and entertained everyone.
The MC's of the Magick Happens Troop of Zinger and his two young lady assistants, maybe his daughters(?). One was VERY pregnant, they did a good job MC ing the event. Did some comedy and some magic.
All in all, I enjoyed the evening, even though it was over a hundred miles round trip! ;)

In The Company Of Greatness!

My wife is Great! Yep, no doubt about it! Besides, I know she slips in to read this blog now and then. Hi honey!
Katie was at a friends til late so Joan and I mosied on over to Druidsglen Golf Course and dined at their restaurant. She had a two for one coupon! Sweet!
Later I went to Gary McKibbens home for a small session on sponge ball magic. Mark Jensen arrived and it was really good to see him. It's been about a year and a half or so...
Gary's sponge ball routine and chops that go with it are top notch. He is really fun to watch perform. Why? Because he is having fun doing it. He has performed with them basically all his life and it shows. He has a love affair with them. Amazing. I hope to be that good someday soon.
Many magicians pooh pooh the sponge balls, too bad, in the hands of a master like Gary, they are really something special!
Gary has developed a sweet Misers Dream routine. Right on. It is good to see him still growing magically at 58!
Looking forward to picking his brains in the coming months...
Stay tuned!