Music of the day

本地爵士台KCSM成朝播黃金年代作品

Wynton Kelly: I Want A Little Girl

Milt Jackson: Ruby
Miles Davis: Just Squeeze Me
Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers: Along Came Betty
Bobby Hutcherson: Bouquet
John Coltrane: I Want To Talk About You


好多ballad，正呀！

Spring Break Trip

This has become a yearly tradition, like it or not. Babysitting the kids at home because they have no school is no fun (which I'm doing right now) That's why we try to take a trip during the break. We downsized from going to HK for a week in 09 and 00 to So Cal for 4 days in 01. This year we further downsized to Central Cal for 2 days. We almost had to cancel it because Maddy had a low fever in the few days prior but she seemed to be up for the trip and it turned out to be a fun and relaxing trip (and Maddy recovered during the trip!)

The first stop was Monterey. We had a seafood lunch at the Old Fishermen's Wharf. I haven't been to Monterey in years (I did go to the nearby Laguna Seca for the world's top motorcycle race MotoGP last year) and forgot whether I have been to its Fishermen's Wharf (old or new) before. (BTW, our minivan reached 66666 miles two days after our other car reached 33333. Of course I drove 66 mph for that mile :)

Next we visited Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. Lots of old memory to share with the kids. The most interesting one: a scoop of ice cream at Thrifty costed only $0.39 during our college days (well, according to an elder alum, it was even less: $0.25 at his time!) Now it costs $1.69 thanks to inflation (and the need to maximize profit for shareholders?) And the drug store was brought by Rite Aid. Then we headed to the Splash cafe in Pismo Beach for seafood again! We couldn't have enough clam chowder :D And we spent our night there.

The kids woke up even earlier than the days they went to school! So we checked out early and drove to Solvang, the most Danish place outside of Denmark, an hour away. It's perfect time for breakfast when we arrived at the famous Paula's Pancake House (and it filled up a while after we were there) We loved the Danish pancakes, which were thinner and tasted less filling than the traditional (American?) buttermilk pancakes. Of course, we gotta have some Danish pastries! Fortunately it was a "walking-friendly" city so we spent most of our time walking around the few blocks of downtown, including the Hans Christian Andersen Museum. Andersen was the author of The Ugly Duckling, The Emperor's New Clothes, The Little Mermaid and The Princess and the Pea. We even rented a surrey bike (the two-frontwheel-two-backwheel type popular in Hong Kong) for an hour (costed US$25. I bet it's much cheaper in HK) and burned off some of the calories from the pastries :D Solvang was a really cozy little town and worthwhile to visit. We left after lunch and slowly drove back home.

Link to pictures

And just like last Spring Break, I spent some time on road biking. This time I did a 73 mile loop to Pacific coast in preparation for the Sea Otter Gran Fondo, a 96 mile ride, at the end of this month. Man, what a ride: long, windy and steep. It's a few miles longer than the longest I've ever riden (I did 65 miles for Levi Leipheimer's Gran Fondo last October) and it's also the toughest: 2 long climbs and a few shorter ones. I started by going up Page Mill to Skyline, the 1st long climb, then went down West Alpine to Pescadero Creek Road, which had a short climb before a long downhill and then flat to Pescadero. From there I took Stage Road, which had a few short climbs to Highway 1. It's a short but scary downhill because the wind blew so hard and I felt the bike wobbly. Not to mention cars drove by really fast. (BTW, it's the third time I was on Hwy 1 and saw the Pacific Ocean this week) Finally, it's the ultimate long climb: Tunitas Creek Road. The whole road was ~9 mile long and became steep 3 mile into it. The next 3 miles was especially hard. It just seemed never ending and my leg muscle gave it all it had. Finally I reached Skyline but there's still ~2 miles until the summit. Then it's the familiar La Honda downhill ride to Woodside and Palo Alto. I could barely walk when I'm home. The bottom was sore too. To be honest: it's not that fun but it's not for nothing though: I think I'm ready for Sea Otter.

祖兒 @ Peppermill

認識我的朋友可能有點奇怪，我竟然會去看流行歌手演唱會。其實雖然我很少玩流行音樂，卻是幾個歌手及組合（呼之欲出！）的fans（暗地𥚃也練了不少Beatles），十幾年前看過周慧敏在美生堂的演唱會，及早幾年在牛宮看Twins，都記憶猶新。事實上，爵士樂手吸收當代流行曲原素幾近指定動作，舊的jazz standards大都是那時的流行曲不在話下，十幾年前Herbie Hancock就有一張全改編流行曲的New Standards，近期我常聽Stanley Jordan玩Katy Perry的I Kiss A Girl 雖然如此，我對香港樂壇還是十分脫節，容祖兒的CD在家中勉強找到三隻，但她及Twins之後紅起來的歌手我是完全陌生。這次她在Reno的Peppermill賭場開演唱會，是我第一次看她。除了演唱會外，今次Reno之旅也有很多其他第一次:由Bay area至Reno大約三四小時車程，我並不常去，對上一次起碼是十五六年前的事。沿途經過的Lake Tahoe也去得不多，只是去年特地去過滑雪，但路況極佳，全無積雪阻道。今次在Auburn附近看到貨車雪鍊檢查站的告示，再加上電話地圖指原應尚餘二小時的路程還有五小時才能完成，心知不妙（並極期望是地圖軟件有bug）除了數年前在Toronto，今次是我自UWisc畢業後少有的雪地行車經歷，而要在車軚上雪鍊則是首次（記得多年前和姐姐打算出trip時買過一次，卻沒有用上，現在已經不知放在何處）幸好以前有朋友教路：現在雪鍊可以臨時在路邊買，加上安裝費，合共$80。上了雪鍊只能以30mph慢駛，那還是best case scenario，有一段是介乎完全停頓及5mph之間，亦有些路段因為黑暗加上雪不停打在擋風玻璃導致能見度甚低，兼且路面濕滑，很多車即使可以行得更快也沒有，我算比較大膽，在此情況爬了幾次頭。我們的xB就此度過33333這個里程碑，當時速度為33mph，成個dashboard都是3。過了Truckee之後下山一段，雪鍊令解除，可能因為太晚，路邊已沒有拆鍊服務員。駛了一會我們見有一個highway exit，路肩頗寬兼有强猛街燈照射，當機立斷駛到街燈之下自行拆鍊。我們全無拆鍊經驗，唯有刨刨說明書，還原裝鍊的步驟後，再駛前駛後扭左扭右，拉拉扯扯了幾次才「符碌」把雪鍊拆下，居然完整無缺。拆鍊後全速前進，合計用了八個小時才到Peppermill，路上除了聽了三十幾首祖兒的歌，還聽過七十幾首其他中文歌，十幾首中樂，也算是一項紀錄！原定在演唱會開始前兩小時到達，足夠吃晚餐有餘，變成比開場遲了一個半小時才到（據代客泊車說，主辦單位有鑑於路況已特別推遲半小時才開場）入場時應是勁歌熱舞環節尾聲，但也聽到四首歌；然後是「encore」，祖兒唱了大概六七首歌，

包括一首自己彈結他伴奏（那支Taylor結他當然是好東西，她的open chord也彈得有板有眼），也有我至愛的「逃避你」

逃避你　卻又期待我可跟你做情人
而用情的心可天昏地暗
逃避你　愛是遙又遠得很
而我始終不敢靠近
還是不相信能和你合襯

如共你從沒開始　不會有終結
誰人在意　情在我心的深處不可以停止

還以為太舊的歌她不會唱。雖然遲了，我們也看了一個小時她的演出，十分欣賞祖兒演出認真投入及高水準的演唱，絕對不是交行貨唱夠鐘走人那種。

最後想提的是演出場地所在的Peppermill賭場，老實說，如果不是祖兒在那裡開演唱會，很難想像會踏足該處（祖兒為它帶來不少客人！）因為地點不是Reno最旺地帶，我以前從未聽過此酒店。不過房間以至餐廳食物(早上九點去等buffet開始:)質素不俗，而且比起LV便宜不少，也算相當滿意。我去poker room玩兩手，竟然也贏了一個pot，算是交得最少學費的一次。

總括來說，雖然miss了一小時祖兒的演唱會，有點遺憾；這次過雪山也算是畢生難忘的奇妙經歷（當然，這個和唐唐在梳化的奇妙一刻完全是兩回事）