Tonight (Thur.) see ya on the town square bandshell stage in Clear Lake, close to the storied Surf Ballroom, for the kickoff to Clear Lake's 4th of July weekend celebration. We start at 7pm and play til 10:30 or 11:00 (depending on how long you can go) Saturday, we play a private party on a private lake at a private location, so if you don't have an invitation, you'll just have to wait until Sunday for our annual 4th of July show in Colby Park, 69th & School St., in Windsor Heights (suburban Des Moines) We play from 7pm til the fireworks. (about 10pm) Bring red, white, and blue CAKE! We'll have a BLAST!...
Next week, Saturday the 10th, marks our return to the ReMax Weekend Celebration in another Iowa Lakes town, Okoboji. See ya on the green space about 7pm...
Apparently, the entire Blue Band email sending program can be stopped by having one . (dot) in the wrong place! We're talkin' one simple . not an ! or a ? or even a # or *, just one little ol' . (that's a dot, not a period) The current mass emailing system was instituted in 2004 and now consists of what seems to be three different areas in the data base. There are the original 2004 email addresses, that do not include peoples' names, arranged alphabetically by address. That is followed by a section of email addresses (again without actual names) that have been added since 2004. And finally, a section that does include a person's first and last name along with their email address, which appears on the list arranged alphabetically by last name. (have ya got that?) After writing the note and hitting the send button, the note is sent, one by one, to everyone on the list. (currently about 500 addresses) After working it's way down to the part of the list that includes peoples names by alphabetical order, the program stopped when it barely got into the names starting with F. What I suspect happened is that when a certain Ms. F (yes, that's you Barb) asked to have her address changed, I edited the address from mschi.com to mschi.com. (yep, that's a . (dot) (not period) at the END of .com) and when the program saw that . (dot) after the .com it thought it was all over. So if you were on the alphabetical by last name part of the data list, after the letter F, you were not sent the note. So, I finally realized that there was one too many . in that address, I deleted the . and now regular delivery seems to be happening! So I'll be extra careful where I put my . from now on! Please keep me informed if you don't get the notes in weeks to come... (that's just a bunch of periods, not dots)...
I have spent the last two days in the company of my family in Chicago, honoring the passing of my uncle Wallace Busse. You may remember that I asked for your prayers and good wishes in April after Wallace decided to keep fighting the cancers that he had been fighting for eight years, without the chemo therapy and with the help of the hospice program. Propelled by good wishes of hundreds of friends and family, his fight lasted thru Father's Day and few days more. Wallace was honored in the Lutheran church that he had attended and served for 50 years, with his wife of 60 years, my aunt Dolores, by his side. Wallace was never an outspoken man. But when he spoke you had to listen because it was the voice of truth, driven by moral integrity and life experience, that was speaking to you. He was loved and respected by his children, his grandchildren, his nieces and nephews, his friends and coworkers. If we all aspire to the human qualities that Wallace exemplified, we can make this planet a better place to live. In situations like this, I am always reminded of the Reverend Gary Davis and his gospel/blues song Death Don't Have No Mercy In This World. Frankly, it makes me think too much. I think that I will try and take inspiration from Wallace and double my resolve to try and do the right thing as I pass thru my remaining years. Please help me along the way...
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