The Sky is Crying

20 years ago today the guitarist I believe was the best to ever walk this earth was sadly killed in a helicopter crash following a concert at Alpine Valley in Wisconsin.
The man I'm talking about is Stevie Ray Vaughan and today the Sky is crying to his memory.



SRV is respected by many of the worlds top guitarists alive today, here are a few of them including Eric Clapton, BB King, Buddy Guy, Bonnie Rait, Robert Cray, Jimmy Vaughan, etc playing a tribute "SRV Shuffle"




Clapton, Guy, Cray and his brother Jimmy were the last to play with him on that fateful night 20 years ago. My favorite Stevie song is probably "Change It".

A couple of years ago I had the pleasure of visiting the SRV statue that as ben erected in his honour in Austin Texas.

How about a bit of Accoustic here is Stevie playing a 12 string accoustic guitar

Of course one thing I regret was seeing Stevie in concert but here is the next best thing (in two parts).



Stevie Ray Vaughan RIP

A new adventure & phone

My adventures are about to continue, I'm going to get back on track with my ambition to see all the worlds great cities. October I'm going to add Budapest to my list, booked a flight and hotel for 6 nights got a good hotel deal so am quite happy.
Apparently it is actually two cities seperated by the river Danube, I'm staying at the Pest side which seems to be where all the main shopping, restaurants, etc is. Buda across the water is quite hilly and as the castle among its historic sites. My hotel looks nice and in a good location, its called inn-side Kalvin house.
http://www.kalvinhouse.hu/house_eng.htm

I'm flying with easyjet from Luton on 6th October, its gonna be a adventure because I can't speak Hungarian so they better speak good english, lol. One thing for sure I'll feel rich when I get my money with the rate been over 300HUF to the £.

On another note I've treated myself to a new mobile phone, my old one was certainly showing its age.

One Year

For me today is a sad anniversary, its exactly one year since Jane passed away, I imagine its something I'll never fully get over but at the same time I know I've to keep looking forward.

Just felt I should share my sadness with my blog friends, must admit many of your words were greatly appreciated at the time.

Thinking back its strange how actual friends in real life shy away from talking to you when sad events happen, I'm sure I've been guilty of the same error of judgement myself in the past but now I have learned people who have lost someone close actually need to talk about it, well thats how I was anyway.

This morning I actually spoke to Janes Mum on the phone, we had a good chat, seemed the right thing to do.

A Big Jump

A few months ago I mentioned I had set myself targets with regards to national rankings with my TT. At the time I was rated No149 in the Veterans and stated my aim was to get into the top 100, thought it would be tough but its no good setting easy targets.

The following two ranking lists I moved up slightly, first to 146 and then to 144 so was sort of pleased. Well the new list as been issued and I'm delighted to say I'm up again and this time its a big jump, I've moved up 39 places to No105, just 5 short of my target.

Reckon this is due to my good performance at Hinkley in July where I managed to beat 5 players ranked above me. One word of caution is I'm certain to move down on the next list due to the fact the new season is starting and there will be bound to be some new players coming into the veteran ranks (over 40's). Also I'm not playing the first major ranking tournament of the season in september because I'm defending my over 50's title in the North/east yorkshire championships the same weekend. I have however entered the 2nd major ranking event at Wolverhampton at the start of October.

Still not got an initial ranking in the over 50's due to lack of events, this should change after Wolverhampton, I'm aiming for top 30 in this age group.

My IQ is 125 (or is it better) - thanks Sandii

Just reading the posts of my blog friends and Sandii had posted about IQ tests and posted a link to a free test site.

To be honest I've never done one before but what the hell I thought I'll give it a bash.

Well as you can see I scored 125, don't know if that is good. I will add I don't know how they calculate it but if they use time it takes you to complete in the equation reckon I should be better because I got a phone call in the middle of the test.


Free-IQTest.net - IQ Test

Of course you can all now have a go yourselves using the link.

Far Far Away - ok i want to travel

As most of you know I love travel its one of my passions along with Sport and music but its a while since I travelled totally solo and I need to build up confidence to do it again. Sure I went on a Singles holiday recently but that was different that was travelling with other singles and fun in its own right, I've actually another one booked to Spain in November.

So where should I go, I'm not a beach bum would rather visit a interesting city with plenty to see and do and if you can add some decent nightlife even better.

Think if I do go anywhere it will probably be in September for a long weekend somewhere in Europe. Not that I only want to see Europe I want to eventually visit every continent while I'm on this earth, there are cities I want to see and some holidays I want to do, reckon I'll start a list but if anyone as good ideas I'll maybe add them.

So here are a few of the european cities I want to visit that I've not yet been to :-
Berlin, Barcelona, Budapest, Vienna, Rome, Florence, Lisbon, Brussels, Rekyavik, Moscow, Madrid.

Have done Paris, Dublin, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Luxemburg, Hamburg, Valletta to mention a few.

Should I stay or should I go ?

For the last week or so I've had a sore ankle that hurts when I put my heel down, the good news is its improved significantly over the last couple of days. Obviously I've rested it best I can but now I've a decision to make, I'm entered in a TT tournament at Halifax over the weekend and its a case of Should I stay or should I go (just like the No1 hit by The Clash) -


I want to go I'll be honest but my head is telling me nno. If I'd been deciding two days ago I reckon it would be a definate No but yesterday was a big improvement and I thought it was more 50-50, today its even better 80-20 in favour of playing. Thing is even if I do play I could withdraw if it gets worse just got to be sensible, sometimes thats harder than it seems, lol.


On another note the Footie season starts tomoz and I'm really looking forward to it, my team Leeds United got promotion to the Championship and start with a home match against Derby County, its gonna be a tough season but we've a good young team and I reckon we are in with a shout of back to back promotions, even though the odds are against it.
Tomorrows match is on the TV at 5.15pm so must make sure I'm near a box for that, interesting fact is we have not lost our opening match of the season for 21 years, better than any other Club in England, so it'll be good to keep that going.

Happy Yorkshire Day to all my friends