This Month in Music-Related News

    I finally have upgraded my computer.  I had deleted or moved as much from my hard drive as I could, but I still didn't have enough available memory.  There was only thing left for me to do.  I had to delete the extra material from the GarageBand app to make enough room.  I literally and figuratively had to delete all of the extra bells and whistles from the app, both the secondary features not needed for the app and the additional music selections.  Anyway, that cleared enough room for the new OS.  I can always download those features again if I wanted them.  They're part of the free app.  But wouldn't you know.  There had been a patch that was released after I first tried to install the software, which didn't automatically install with the original system.  I didn't want to waste a second forty-five minutes, probably less, for the patch, so I'm waiting for some free time to do so.  I've been focused on so much that I had forgotten to update my countdown of the number one songs from my birthday week.  So, without further ado, here are the top twenty-five.

    

            25.  "Timber" Pitbull f Ke$ha

            24.  "Rock with You" Micheal Jackson

            23.  "Car Wash" Rose Royce

            22.  "Owner of a Lonely Heart" Yes

            21.  "Un-Break My Heart" Toni Braxton

            20.  "One Sweet Day" Mariah Carey and Boyz II Men

            19.  "Superstition" Stevie Wonder

            18.  "Need You Tonight" INXS

            17.  "... Baby One More Time" Britney Spears

            16.  "Low" Flo Rida f T-Pain

            15.  "Independent Women Part I" Destiny's Child

            14.  "drivers license" Olivia Rodrigo

            13.  "Locked out of Heaven" Bruno Mars

            12.  "Creep" TLC

            11.  "Sorry" Justin Bieber

            10.  "Le Freak" Chic

             9.   "Like a Virgin" Madonna

             8.   "Just Dance" Lady Gaga f Colby O'Davis

             7.   "We Found Love" Rihanna f Calvin Harris

             6.   "Down Under" Men at Work

             5.   "American Pie (Parts I and II)" Don McLean

             4.   "Tik Tok" Ke$ha

             3.   "Hey Ya" Outkast

             2.   "Uptown Funk!" Mark Ronson f Bruno Mars

             1.   "Shape of You" Ed Sheehan

    An honorable mention goes out to this year's song, "Easy on Me" by Adele.  If it had been listed, I would have put it around twenty-six/twenty-seven.  While it will be one of the biggest songs of this year, it is a little slower than I would've liked, hence its middling placement.  The best thing it had going for it was that it kept "We Don't Talk about Bruno" from reaching number one for just long enough so that it wasn't my birthday week any more.  I'm sorry, but I still don't think a song without much pop radio presence should reach number one.  I finally heard the last few line of it on the radio this past weekend, just before I had an elk herd sighting.  The final bit of music news I have is that my yearly puzzles based on song titles will be up soon.  Some years I'm early, other not so much.  However, sometime in March, the puzzle will be here.  Just be on the lookout for it.

The GOAT-est of all Time

     So, one of my neighbors now has a goat.  Actually, they have probably had it a few months now, but they now keep it in a location where I can more easily see it, after they burned off some of the brush on the hillside behind our homes and almost causing an out-of-control fire.  It is a fairly pretty white goat with black ears, I think.  I haven't been close enough to it since I first saw the animal to be entirely sure.  I actually see a lot of goats during an average day for me.  There are multiple spots to catch a sight of them on my way to and from work.  The first stop, after I leave of course, is less than five minutes away.  At Melvin, I pass a house where they have three or more cows (some of them were calves last year), a pony, and three or four goats.  I have seen the goats roaming in the church paring lot next door.  At least they don't get onto the road, like one of the cows did.  I have no idea how that could have happened, considering how far that is from their stable.  The next spot I regularly see goats would be on Indian Creek, near the far end.  There is the home with a rather large yard with a long stretch of hillside behind it.  They have three goats.  This isn't the first time they had them.  Years ago, they had another trio of goats, a family think since the original pair may have had a kid.  Those goats are no longer there, but this second batch is holding strong.  They even had their own shed to sleep in and keep away from the elements.  The final spot I regularly see goats is on a hillside along Robinson Creek, just before I get to a horse stable.  At the top of the hill, there is a pen for maybe a dozen pygmy goats.  Grey, white, black, and brown.  Sometimes, they are let out onto the lower hillside, which is where I first saw them.  Unlike the larger goats, these don't move around as much, at least when I get to see them.  Sure, I've seen goats at other spots along my route, but these are the best bets on a regular basis.  And now I have one just down the street.  Along with its guard goose.  Maybe a duck, which is more likely.  I don't want to get any closer to find out.  I sometimes hear it quack/honk, even before I knew it was there.  And the pig.  Pot-bellied.  I first saw it when it was still small enough to be carried about.  Now, it is about two to three feet long and stays in the same pen as the other two animals.  It is not as cute as the goat or the bird, but it might still be lovable.

Memories, All Alone on My MacBook

    So, late last month, either on a weekend or a snow day from work, I finally decided to upgrade the operating system for my computer.  Monterey came out in October, but I wanted to wait until a was sure there were no known major problems with it.  I was supposed to have done this earlier in January, but I kept putting it off.  Anyway, I was getting sick of the constant notifications, so I started the download.  I had over an hour of free time.  There was little worry of losing power or internet.  And I started the process.  The download may have actually took less than the hour suggested.  I all had left to do was click the icon to install.  Nothing happened.  Apparently, I didn't have enough memory storage left to complete the process.  To the best of my knowledge, the new system is supposed to overwrite the old one.  I thought that was what happened during the previous installs.  This time around, there wasn't enough.  I then began to come up with a plan on how to get more memory.  I deleted old documents and pictures that had old lived their usefulness.  I got rid of an old game that I never played anymore because the free trial had ended.  Still not enough.  I looked over the storage capacity to see what was taking up so much space.  Of course, documents were the majority.  I had papers from my classes, information and other peoples work I had commented on, as well as the Word versions of my own papers.  These were easily deleted.  [I'm pretty sure my originals are still safe.  Some of them were quite good and cold be used as bases for applications and other submissions.]. Next, old downloaded catalogs for my store.  All the most recent are gone.  However, most of the rest were PDFs of books I bought.  Hey, they were cheaper than having them printed and delivered.  Faster too. Theoretically, the website has a library feature that would allow me to download copies again if I lose the originals.  I'm a little scared to try just yet, but it is an option. The next biggest drain was called 'music creation.'  Yep, the Garage Band app that I have barely used needs tons of memory to store all of the beats and rhythms I might need.  Now, I could delete this app, if possible, to free up a huge chunk of memory.  It was pre-installed, so I'm unsure if I can delete it.  It's free on the App Store, so I could always get it back, if I even wanted to, but I don't know how it will work.  Even the Mail app is taking up some space.  Now, I almost always look at my email from the site, not from my Mac's connection to it. The only time it really mattered was when my account got taken down a few days due to the installation of new features.  However, the Mail app still collected all of my emails.  I now have hundreds of emails stored somewhere on my Mac, many of which I had already deleted from my account.  I even saw some from before I got my computer on here, ones I had thought I had already deleted years ago.  I've been trying to go though them, but it is a multi-step process to do so.  What's worse is that more get added every time I open the app, even accidentally. I've been looking into sending some things onto iCloud, but I am still trying to figure out how the process works and what would happen if I delete the original.  I've been looking into outside storage too, but I am so computer illiterate that I'm falling behind on that front.  Anyway, sometime before the month is out, I am hoping to finally get upgraded.  I'm never going to get my arrow cursor color changed to UK blue without it.  That's just one of the minor features that the upgrade provides.  

If a Groundhog Could Hog Ground

     The title is a riff on the famous tongue-twister involving the woodchuck, the alternative name for a groundhog.  I actually made my own version of it by substituting every instance of "wood" with "ground" and "chuck" with "hog."  I thought it was very clever, until I heard Stephen Colbert using it once on his talk show.  I should've have done something then, but there was no way of knowing if my version was an original creation.  Still, happy Groundhog's Day.  For all of you who don't know, Groundhog's Day is the modern day equivalent of an ancient holiday, Imbolc. [Note, the spelling for some of the words mentioned today can be quite fluid.  You might find alternative spellings and even terms for many of them.  If you think there might be a mistake in the post, it just might be that we are using different sources.  Bear with me.]. Imbolc was one of the ancient 'cross-quarter'  holidays celebrated by many cultures, notably the Celtics. While some faded into history, others survived in different forms.  Many were revived, in a more-or-less traditional form, by the Wiccan community in the twentieth century.  These holidays mark the 'turning of the wheel' of the year marking the transitions of the seasons.  Four marked the start of the seasons, on the equinox or solstice when they began.  The other four marked the mid-point of the season, when the season was at its strongest and the slow decline into the next one.  Imbolc is the midwinter point.  It was adapted into the slightly more familiar Candlemas.  Somehow, in America, the holiday also became attached to groundhogs as a way to see if the rest of winter would be strong or mild.  Whatever floats your boat.  Four other of the holidays have managed to hang on into modern times.  Next in the cycle is Ostara. the first day of spring, when life renews itself.  The name was changed to Easter and attached to Christianity's biggest holiday, as resurrection and renewal are very close to each other.  Next came Beltane, the middle of spring.  It has survived as May Day, although it is more celebrated by Socialists than the average public.  The next three holidays don't really have a modern equivalent, although each is marked in kind in some way, if not in importance.  Litha is the celebration of the first day of summer.  Not really that big of a deal anymore, unless you want to join the Druids at Stonehenge.  They celebrate the same holidays too.  The next one is Lughnassa, or midsummer.  Again, there is no modern reason to celebrate such a point, unless you are a fan of Shakespeare or have to do a report on one of his comedies. You can guess which one.  The final 'forgotten' holiday is Mabon, the first day of autumn.  This marked harvest time, which is still celebrated in a fashion in many agricultural communities.  The final two holidays are still celebrated, in many ways the way they were originally.  The first of these is Samhain, the mid-autumn holiday.  This holiday was at the point of the year when the living and the dead were closest to one another.  People would dress in costume to scare or entreat the dead.  If you haven't figured it out yet, this is the basis for Halloween.  Somehow, the older traditions managed a comeback all on their own without too much help.  The final holiday of the year is Yule, the first day of winter, the time of year when darkness was at its greatest.  Yet, it also marked the birth/rebirth of light.  It was so popular and hard to stop the celebration of it that Christianity chose to 'borrow' the holiday and turned it into Christmas.  Similar significance, but not too close.  This brings us back to the groundhog, a rodent that doesn't always start coming out this time of year, but when it does, it is usually looking for a mate.  Yeah, that really puts a new spin on the holiday.