Ordinary Days are Piling Up

Sarasota, FL      High:   86     Low:   53

We have eight days left here in Sarasota......We've done just about most things we wanted to do...Hard to believe we have been here almost a full five months! WOW! Where did the time go? We missed seeing a polo match, the season ended in early April. We'll catch that next time...

Sparky spent the morning playing pickleball. It's getting harder to find people down at the courts! We're getting desperate for warm bodies to play, so this morning, Sparky offered to chase balls for a bit for a fellow practicing his killer serves until somebody else showed up. Eventually, we had three sets of couples playing doubles going, so that was great. Eldy missed the Siesta Key college beach volleyball tournament this past weekend. Well, phooey! He thought Sparky deliberately didn't mention it, :-) but nope! Sparky just didn't see info about it until after the fact.

Laundry today.....Sparky signed up for a beading class later this week..She's gonna give that leather wrap bracelet another chance...She wants to make one similar to this:

We went to Jazz Jam at Ocean Blues in downtown Sarasota, one last time this week....Every Monday night at the Ocean Blues Club on Hillview Street from 8:00-11:00, a great group of musicians get together and jam! Usually new singers and drummers show up, and other musicians, so the mix is never quite the same. It's fun, the music is great, and they have good food besides. Can't beat that combination! Both the entertainers and the owner, Scott, are so friendly and welcoming to everyone who visits the club. Scott even reads our blog!

Sparky got the pizza...It's m-m-m-m-m-good! Eldy had pretzels...fresh and delicious! Our favorite guys were there.....Shane Chalke, the trumpet player....He was having valve trouble with his trumpet tonight...So he came and plopped it right down on our table, chatted with us while he lubricated the valves and he was good to go again...We talked about North Carolina, where he's from, Eldy's job making trumpets and trombones, Sarasota culture (there's a TON of it here), and lots of other things....

He is ONE fine trumpet player!

Ocean Blues is such a cool bar and grill! We love the atmosphere....It's cozy...The low lighting is conducive to listening to great music--jazz or blues...

They have entertainment just about every night of the week....

Oh, wait a minute! That's the pretty impressive beer list! Here's the entertainment list...Did Sparky say they have music every night of the week? Yeah, baby!

Our favorite guitarist is usually there on Monday nights--Steve Arvey....He had a PURPLE guitar tonight. He broke a string, so here he comes to our table, plops down the guitar and fixes it right in front of us. "How many guitars do you have, Steve?"  "Oh, probably about 30. I could buy a house if I sold all my guitars!"

Nice guitar! He said he bought this purple guitar back in the day when he played with a band with a bunch of girls, and everything had to be purple. Sparky can't remember the name of the band, but it was a funny one!

Steve did a great job playing tonight, and always gets excited when a new talent shows up at the Jam Sessions who is really really good. A woman by the name of "Nancy", showed up and did she have some vocal chops! Steve's expression when she started belting out a song, was one of pure joy, that's how good she was!

Some more great players were there and are usually there every Monday...Steve Rolland on trumpet, Ed Kinder on keyboards and sax, Brian Post on drums, and man, Bryan did a fantastic job on a song that we heard as we were heading out the door. He sounded a LOT like Louis Armstrong! But it was getting late, and we needed to get home. We'll be back next Monday night, Sparky is sure!

Eldo's 65th Birthday Bash

Sarasota, FL      High:  87    Low:   69

It would be fun to say Eldo got a little wild and crazy on his 65th birthday, but in actuality, it was a quiet one....We went out to breakfast this morning at the Broken Egg, 'cuz they give you a free breakfast on your birthday. In all the times we've been there, the well known ESPN announcer, Dick Vitale, has shown up AFTER we have left, or wasn't scheduled to be there, or was busy announcing during basketball seasons. Today, on Eldy's 65th birthday, we pull in the parking lot behind a Mercedes convertible. It was Dick Vitale! If you are a sports fanatic, you might have wanted to shake his hand or get an autograph, or purchase one of his books to support a search for a cure for pediatric cancer. He was pushing hard for us to make a starting bid at 100.00 for an autographed basketball, which looked pretty cool, but we had to politely decline this time....Sparky is so NOT into sports that she has no clue who the guys are on each side of Dick, and until she came to Sarasota, she had never heard of Dick Vitale. (Sorry, Dick!) Eldy got to shake his hand, so the day was off to a nice start....

Off to Palmetto to see replicas of the Nina and the Pinta, the famous historical ships Columbus had on his expedition to sail to the Americas.  If you paid 8.00, you could go on board. Sparky and Eldy chose to look on from afar....The ships were side by side in the harbor. Hard to imagine over 100 men crammed on each one of these little ships coming across the Atlantic Ocean...Seeing these things up close and personal bring history so much closer to home and much more real-- a true testament to the courageous spirit of early explorers.

Checked out Coquina Beach on Anna Maria Island, a beautiful beach and very crowded today with families out on a  Sunday picnic and beach outing.....Off to dinner at Barnacle Bill's early diner dinner special--11.99 for steak, mashed potatoes and a beautiful mixed greens salad...Where's the cake, you ask? We didn't do dessert this evening...We were too full! Eldy was happy with his birthday dinner, he's not really a cake person....And finally, we headed over to Floribbean, in downtown Sarasota, another nice club where a 17 piece jazz band was playing, the Jazz Band Project--Shane Chalke, one of our favorite trumpet players told us about it, and he was there. It was great!

A wonderful way to end the birthday boy's day, and to top it off, when he got home, Steve Arvey, our favorite acoustic/blues guitarist, sent Eldy a YouTube video of him singing "Happy Birthday" from Ocean Blues!  It's been a great day!

Thanks for all the birthday wishes, Eldy says!

A Special Night

Sarasota, FL       High:  85     Low:  69

It's heating up around here....can't imagine what summer must be like! Thank goodness, there is a breeze often as the evening winds down, cooling things off.

Last night we went to Ocean Blues supper club, our favorite music venue in Sarasota to hear Ocean's 11. It's an 11 piece Big Band jazz band that has a couple of our favorite trumpet players, Shane Chalke and Steve Rolland, and our favorite drummer, Brian Post. The club opens up the doors on one side of the club totally open to the street so they can fit the whole band in.

We've gotten to know these guys in the band a lot better since we've been visiting Ocean Blues, they are so great about coming out between sets and talking to the customers. They know that Eldy made trumpets and horns for 43 years, so they appreciate his efforts and work. As a matter of fact, Eldy worked SEVEN DAYS A WEEK for 30 YEARS before being able to cut back his schedule to let others take more of the work load. He was the supervisor, so he had to put in the hours to keep the department going, it was a really small, family owned company.

Last night something really special happened, on the eve of his 65th birthday...The drummer, Brian Post, dedicated a song to Eldy....Eldy was so surprised! The name of the tune we don't remember, but it was a wonderful gesture and almost brought Eldy to tears. He turned to Sparky and said, "That just kind of makes it all worthwhile, all those years of work, to see these guys play these horns and hear this wonderful music." It was sort of like a thank you from the fellas, for all the sacrifices he made while working to raise his family.....

What capped it off and REALLY made it extra special, was Steve Rolland played a pocket trumpet during Eldy's dedicated song.

This is a little teeny trumpet that is sort of a novelty but still sounds cool. Steve said they made them during Prohibition so musicians could sneak them into joints where music wasn't supposed to be allowed. Eldy hadn't seen a pocket trumpet, what his department called a "piccolo" trumpet, in over 30 years. That just made the song even more special!

It wasn't super crowded this early in the evening, so there was room to get a nice table and see the band. You can bring your family into the club to eat and hear the music on one side of the club. Sparky spotted a dad with his son, acquainting him with how to use a cell phone for fun. Ah, times have changed, haven't they?

We had fun, the music was fabulous, and every Saturday night for a few more weeks, you can hear Ocean's 11 at the Ocean Blues Club on Hillview Street  if you are in Sarasota, from 7-9 PM. Don't miss them! Great bar food and great music just about every night of the week. Blues Jam is every Sunday, Monday nights are Jazz Jam nights and plenty of other great musicians and bands are playing the nights in between. Eldy won't forget this night for a long time!

Jazz Jammin' at Ocean Blue

Sarasota, FL       High:        Low:

Got up this morning and there's a TORNADO watch for Sarasota. You're kidding me, right?  Nope! That same bad boy storm that hit Texas with snow is coming our way. But the worst of it is to the north of Sarasota, so we'll probably just get a ton of rain. Which is good, because they sure need it here....In the three months we've been here, it has hardly rained at all. Eldy is supposed to go see a baseball game today with Vic, of Travelin' in the Big EZ, but hopefully, the storms will pass through before the ball game starts.

Photos today are from Sparky's iphone. She REALLY needs to start carrying the SLR everywhere. No clue how to adjust the reddish tinges on the color photos from her little point and shoot. Tried the white balance settings and none available for that particular club lighting with the halogen bulbs. Tried filters, tried compensating for the color cast, but nothing worked. So we have a little mix of black and white and color photos today.....

Last night was Jazz Jam night at Ocean Blues, and once again, the place rocked with some of the best jazz players in Sarasota. Steve Arvey, Shane Chalke, and special guest Koko Ray were there along with some other top notch folks but we didn't catch their names. Picture a cozy supper club, an attentive friendly, funny bartender, the lights dialed down low, lots of wood, long bar tables to be able to sit and watch the musicians up front and a bottle of Miles Davis Bitches' Brew. The label is an actual Miles Davis album considered to be one of the most revolutionary jazz albums of its time. It wasn't ours, Shane had it brought out so we had fun trying to take artistic photos of it. :-) Where's that big ole honkin' SLR when you need it!?

Sparky and Eldy are starting to get to know some of the regular musicians, and really enjoying talking to them about their music and their careers. Eldy talked to the drummer, Brian, for quite a while. Brian, the drummer, used to play with Tom Rush, a well known folk singer. He talked to Shane Chalke, the trumpeter, about his buffing career at Blessings in Elkhart. Shane had a BEAUTIFUL silver trumpet with beautiful engravings on it, that was specially made for him in Oregon. Shane has been playing for 45 years. Sparky guessed he started about the age of 10. Yes, he did...He was fantastic!

Koko Ray, rocked the house with his saxophone and flute playing skills. A couple of times during the night, he played TWO saxophones at the same time! WOW! Koko was a big dude with a big sound, and did he make that sax sing! He reminded Sparky of the beatnik generation.....Remember them?

Boy, the trombone player was rockin' with his playing--that big slide moving up and down and all around, he really got into it, body and all!

We love Jazz Jam Mondays at Ocean Blues....Sarasota is rated very highly for its jazz venues, considering its size population. No shortage of talent here!  We'll be back to Ocean Blues again, that's for sure! On Saturday nights, they have Oceans 11, a band of 11 jazz musicians. We'll be checking them out...stay tuned...heh, heheh.....