My Music: Five All-Time Favorite Rock Bands!

In my SC State University Radio Production class I am asking the students to write a blog post and produce an audio recording of their five or 10 favorites. Favorite what you ask? The theme is music so the task is to share their favorite singers, bands, musicians, guitar players, rappers, etc. So to give the students a better idea what I'm looking for I am putting this together. 

Click here to listen to my audio production that includes bits of music from each group and what I like so much about each. I'm not ranking them, which would be very difficult, but giving you my five favs.

My Favorite Rock Bands: 

SILVERSUN PICKUPS

I credit my wife Alesia for exposing me to this excellent group from California. She listens to Sirius XM's Alt Nation a lot in her car. I began to hear songs I REALLY liked by a group called Silversun Pickups that I had never heard of before. I have since heard so many of this band's songs that I like that on my Amazon Music tunes I have 17 Silversun Pickups songs. They have many, many songs that are so catchy and well composed with great vocals, guitar, drum and bass jams. Alesia and I saw Silversun Pickups in March 2020 in Asheville just before the world shut down due to the Covid pandemic. See my blog post on that awesome show!. 

Return of the Air Expo at Joint Base Charleston!

It was neat to be back at the Charleston Air Force Base on April 10 for the 2020 Air Expo. 

This is the first such open house event here since 2018. Check out my post from four years ago. 

Here we are pictured in front of a fierce A-10 Thunderbolt, better known as the Warthog. 

In the wars in Iraq, the A-10 gained fame as a tank killer. Armaments include the seven-barrel Gatling gun (or air cannon) seen just above Alesia’s lovely head. 

Charleston AFB is home to the massive
C-17 Globemaster. 

Air Expo visitors got to see fly-bys of the military transport workhorse. 

Early in the show, a C-17 flew by accompanied by a World War II transport plane. The size difference is something! 

Navy Blue Angels- 12 Best Photos

 

It was at the Charleston Air Force Base but it was these U.S. Navy jets that stole the show at the 2022 Air Expo. The famed Blue Angels were the headliners at Joint Base Charleston’s first public air show since 2018.

We were there last Sunday on a beautiful spring day. I will do a separate post on the other attractions but this one will feature a dozen of my photos of the high flying Blue Angels in their fast and furious  F-18 Super Hornets! 

In this first photograph the six pilots in their yellow helmets are ready to go. Enjoy the show. We did! 

Birds and Gators Galore in the ACE Basin

 

It was great to be back in the ACE Basin last Sunday!  It had been a while old friend! 

The destination was the Donnelley Wildlife Management Area down south a ways from Charleston. 

I came armed with the Canon SX70 DSLR I received for Christmas (thank you Alesia ❤️) and the hat my sister Ann gave me years ago that says, “Life is Simple: Eat, Sleep, Bird.” 

It turned out to be an excellent day for seeing a variety of birds out in the wild. Alligators too. 

We parked at the Donnelley entrance area to see if we could see any Wood Stork nests deep in the woods near there. The photo below shows a tree infused with Spanish moss next to Donnelley’s visitor’s center, which was closed on this day. 

Radio Commercial for My New Book!

I am very close to completing my new book (No. 5) and I have prepared a 30-second radio-style commercial to promote the Summer 2022 publication of "The Churchyards of Charleston: Stories From the Underground." 

This spot was produced as a demo for one of my classes at SC State University. The music I selected is from the free music site Incompetech. 

Click here to listen to the spot via Soundcloud.  

Earlier this year I did a blog post as I neared completion of the manuscript. Click here to learn more about my latest book. 

Below is a screen shot from Adobe Audition of the radio spot I produced. My voice is on channel 1 and the music is on channel 2. The music is titled "Burnt Spirit." I found it on the Incompetech website in the category called Eerie (of course!). 

UPDATE

My book came out in the fall of 2022. It looks great and reads great too! For more information, including how to order a copy, go to these sites: 

My Website

My Amazon Site

Back at Flowertown!

Back and better than ever! Canceled in 2020 and pushed to October last year, Summerville’s annual Flowertown Festival this year is back where it belongs for its 49th edition. 

The popular three day event is a right of spring passage (spring welcoming actually) here in the Lowcountry. Some 250,000 people are expected and the weather should be ideal as it was Friday when we were there. Sunny in the low 70s, not windy = perfect walking and shopping conditions! 

Bidding Farewell to the Bay!

Scenes like this will be missed! 

My parents’ home is (guess I should say "was") right on the Chesapeake Bay has always been a treat for this shutterbug.  The location is in what is called the Northern Neck part of the Commonwealth of Virginia near Kilmarnock and Wicomico Church. 

“Lifer” Bird Adds to Beach Visit Discoveries

 

We did not see what we went to try to see but this Sullivan’s Island visit turned out to be a day of surprises. 

I did not realize I had photographed a new bird for me, a “lifer” as birders call such an encounter. This beach bird is called the Forster’s Tern. I did not notice the forked tail until I loaded my pix to my iPad. 

Brilliant Baltimore Oriole Brightens an Already Sunny Winter Day

This past Sunday I was lucky to photograph a male Baltimore Oriole that was feeding and preening at my backyard feeders. With my new Canon SX70 I took all the photos I wanted then switched to video mode…

Here are several of my still shots. The first one was taken through a downstairs window. Then I rushed upstairs and quickly and quietly cranked open a bathroom window that looks down on the feeder, poked out my camera’s lens and fired away! 

Winter Birds 2022

There has been steady activity at the feeders and the pond so far in 2022. I will be adding more photos as the birds come around and my camera and I are at the ready. 

Baltimore Orioles (ladies first)