I’ve gone from “We’re all in this together” To #Snangry @ericfisher

The first couple rounds of ridiculous snow I was all like-

“Yeah,  we’re all in this together,  there’s no sense in complaining because everybody’s dealing with it”

And now I’m just plain #Snangry.
First hearing the term used on Twitter by CBS meteorologist Eric Fisher a couple of days ago,  but now completely filled with #Snanger. 

It’s a real thing for sure.  When you’re completely fed up with the relentless white stuff and can’t get past it,  you’re #Snangry
I wonder if there’s someone I can talk to about it,  because I just can’t get past it.  Perhaps there’s a #Snanger management group that meets in the basement of a local church or something.  IF ANYONE KNOWS OF SUCH A GROUP PLEASE LET ME KNOW.  CAN’T SEEM TO SHAKE THIS ON MY OWN.

Bob Cooper Is The Bomb!

B.C. Trucking & Excavating was kind enough to push back the snow pile at the end of our mothers driveway tonight after I spotted him clearing a nearby neighbors property. Mom’s carport was recently blocked with a giant mound of snow that was simply to big for a regular plow to move. If your in need of similar snow removal call Bob Cooper @ 1-978-375-3147

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Bob Thank you so much for your service tonight! Mom is super happy to have her car back under cover for the winter!

Monarch Butterflies in the News

Monarch Butterflies Goleta Santa Barbara California ©Kim Smith 2015

Monarch Butterflies Goleta Santa Barbara California

Thanks to the Dalpiaz Family and to Passages for forwarding several of the links!

U.S. Government Pledges 3.2 Million Dollars To Save Monarch

40 Years Ago the World ‘Discovered’ Mexico’s Monarch Habitat — Today Its Survival Is at Stake

More monarch butterflies in Mexico, but numbers still low

Journey North

PopulationEstimate_graphic

How Butterflies Self-Medicate

 

Live From The Parking lot of Good Harbor Beach

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The National Guard is in full swing removing snow from city streets caravaning dump trucks filled with snow to the parking lot of Good Harbor Beach. If you have been out and about town today you clearly could see how hard these crews are working to clear the snow before this weekends storm…Kudos to all involved in this enormous project!

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Live From Main Street with Ladder One

Gloucester Fire Dept. is currently clearing snow and ice from the rooftops of downtown Gloucester buildings along Main Street. Earlier this afternoon while walking to get lunch at Passports with daughter Amanda I noticed the giant icicles hanging off the roof directly above the narrow shoveled paths along Main Street’s sidewalks, and quickly directed my daughter to cross to the other side of the street, fairing one would break away. I’m happy to see the fire dept. is addressing the problem before someone gets hurt .

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March is going to be a great month of incredible concerts at Rockport Music

FREE COMMUNITY EVENTS

On Sunday, March 1 at 3 pm, Dr. Elizabeth Seitz, faculty member of Boston Conservatory, will provide a free lecture on The Many Faces of Arnold Schoenberg.  A controversial figure in the history of Western music, Schoenberg is still one of the most influential and intriguing musicians of the last century. In this lecture/recital, Dr. Elizabeth Seitz will explore the three different stylistic periods of Schoenberg. We will follow his growth as a composer from his lush post-Romantic language, through his atonal period, and then discuss how Serialism works. Each period will have a live performance component, as well as open discussion and questions with the audience.  Free, no tickets required.

CONCERTS

On Friday, March 6 at 8 pm, Justin Townes Earle will bring his genre-busting style of folk music to the Shalin Liu Performance Center. In the past five years, Justin Townes Earle has emerged as a genre-busting acclaimed singer-songwriter, infusing country, blues, folk and indie rock into his vintage Americana sound. As the son of beloved country folk rabble-rouser Steve Earle, Justin (his middle name Townes is in honor his father’s mentor and friend, the great Townes Van Zandt) had large musical shoes to fill, but after five critically-adored records and an ever-growing legion of fans, it’s safe to say he’s done that.

On the strength of his stellar album Midnight at the Movies, Earle won an Americana Music Award for Best Emerging Artist in 2009, and then returned two years later to win Song of the Year for the title track of Harlem River Blues. Of late, Earle has veered from the hillbilly shuffles of his earlier records, incorporating a tinge of Memphis soul in 2012’s Nothing’s Gonna Change the Way You Feel About Me Know.  In 2013, he signed with Vagrant Records and released Single Mothers, and in January this year, released its compendium record Absent Fathers. Gill Landry will open the show.  Tickets: $28-$46

On Saturday, March 7 at 8 pm, the Billy Childs All-Star Quartet will perform at the Shalin Liu Performance Center. A tremendous jazz pianist and 2015 Grammy Award winner, Billy Childs plays and composes in a unique style that borrows heavily from the classical world, but still manages to be wholly his own.  A three time Grammy winner as well as a 2009 Guggenheim fellow and a recent recipient of the esteemed Doris Duke Performance Award, Childs has been playing professionally since the 70’s. His first big break came when asked to tour with trombone legend J.J. Johnson. He became a fixture in Freddie Hubbard’s band in the late 70’s and 80’s, making a name for himself as a remarkable sideman and accompanist. A composition major at USC, Childs eventually began gaining acclaim for his writing and arranging, receiving commissions from Esa-Pekka Salonen and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Leonard Slatkin, the Los Angeles Master Chorale, The Kronos Quartet, the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, and the American Brass Quintet, among others. He has also arranged for mainstream pop artists such as Sting, Chris Botti, Gladys Knight, and Michael Bublé.  His own recording career began in the late 80’s under the Windham Hill label. He has now released ten studio records, the most recent being a Laura Nyro tribute called Map to the Treasure, which featured guest appearances from Renee Fleming, Dianne Reeves and Alison Krauss among others.   The All Music Guide hails him “a superb player and underrated writer.”  Tickets: $39-$58

On Sunday, March 8 at 5 pm, the Hot Club of Cowtown, expertly combines the dusty stomp of Western swing with hot gypsy jazz.  This Austin-based trio has crafted a unique and infectious hybrid that playfully blurs musical boundaries.  Fiddler Elana James, guitarist Whit Smith and bassist Jake Erwin have been conjuring the spirit of both Bob Wills and jazz manouche legend Django Reinhardt for close to fifteen years and show no sign of slowing down.  Since their first recording in 1998, Hot Club of Cowtown found an almost immediate and dedicated following, the band’s joyous musical alchemy filling dancefloors at first throughout Texas and eventually across the country and the world. Their repertoire covers an understandably large spectrum with little-heard vintage Western swing tunes mixing in with gypsy jazz and pre-war pop standards, as well as a burgeoning stable of catchy originals. They’ve released ten acclaimed records, including 2013’s Rendezvous in Rhythm.   Tickets: $28-$46

On Tuesday, March 10, at 8 pm, Danú, one of Ireland’s most cherished Irish folk bands and among the leaders of the new traditionalist movement in Celtic music, will thrill the audience with their instrumental virtuosity and powerfully emotive ballads at the Shalin Liu Performance Center.   Based in the city of Waterford (Dungarvan Co.), the talented septet (along with kindred spirits like Lúnasa and Dervish) has successfully brought Celtic music back to its earthy, traditional roots while keeping a modern, youthful sensibility. The band has released seven records since forming in 1994, and has been voted Best Overall Traditional Act by Dublin‘s magazine Irish Music, as well as getting voted Best Traditional Group twice in the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards. Tickets:  $28-$46

Saturday, March 14 at 8 pm, two-time Grammy nominee and legendary acoustic guitarist Leo Kottke will perform at the Shalin Liu Performance Center.  Known for his signature fingerpicking style drawing from blues, jazz and folk music and his syncopated, polyphonic melodies, Kottke is widely recognized as a master of his instrument and has collaborated on records with legends such as John Fahey, Chet Atkins and Lyle Lovett.  After Kottke’s 1971 major-label debut album Mudlark, he became somewhat uneasily categorized in the singer/songwriter vein, despite his own wishes to remain an instrumental performer. Still, Kottke flourished throughout the 1970’s with albums like Greenhouse, My Feet Are Smiling, and Chewing Pine.  In 2002, Kottke’s collaboration with Phish bassist Mike Gordon, on the album Clone, caught audiences’ attention and the collaboration continued with an island music inspired album entitled Sixty Six Steps. Tickets: $39-$58

On Sunday, March 15 at 5 pm, Maceo Parker stands among the legends of funk, forging the first half of his stellar career as a sideman for the genre’s forefathers James Brown and George Clinton.  From being an essential voice in Brown’s horn section to helping steer George Clinton and Parliament’s Mothership Connection to platinum status, his soulful saxophone playing and vocals are firmly rooted in funk music history.  As a soloist and bandleader for the last two decades, he has created his own musical juggernaut, highlighted by the smashing success of the live record Life on Planet Groove.  In recent years Maceo has brought his seminal sound to collaborations with Ray Charles, Ani Difranco, James Taylor, Dave Matthews Band, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Prince.  In 2012, he received the Les Victoires du Jazz in Paris: a Lifetime Achievement Award for his contribution to music, as well as an Icon Award at the North Sea Jazz Festival.  Tickets: $80, $70, $50

On Sunday, March 22 at 3 pm, the American Brass Quintet—Kevin Cobb and Louis Hanzlik, trumpet, Eric Reed, horn, Michael Powell, tenor trombone, and John Rojak, bass trombone—performs at the Shalin Liu Performance Center.  A groundbreaking ensemble that has been at the vanguard of brass chamber music since its founding in 1960, the American Brass Quintet has forged a powerful legacy that cannot be overstated. The ABQ has premiered works by Jan Bach, William Bolcom, Elliott Carter, Jacob Druckman, Gunther Schuller, and Virgil Thomson, among many others.

The Quintet has been in residence at The Juilliard School since 1987 and at the Aspen Music Festival since 1970. Last year, the ABQ was given Chamber Music America’s highest honor, the Richard J. Bogomolny National Service Award for significant and lasting contributions to the field. Newsweek hails the Quintet as “the high priests of brass.”  The program includes Thomas Morley’s Elizabethan Ayres, Stephen Foster’s Suite from “The social Orchestra,Maurer’s Five Pieces, Josquin des Prés’s Chansons, and Joan Tower’s Copperwave.  A Pre-Concert Talk is free and open to all ticketholders at 2 pm. Tickets: $25-$39

On Thursday, March 26 at 8 pm, the pioneering Nitty Gritty Dirt Band performs at the Shalin Liu Performance Center.  This Band has crafted a musical legacy that has spawned an entire genre of music, influencing a generation of country-rock bands in its over 45 year history. Their 1970’s album Uncle Charlie and His Dog Teddy included their first major hit, a cover of Jerry Jeff Walker’s “Mr. Bojangles.”  In 1972, the band made their official leap into country music, releasing a triple-album Will the Circle Be Unbroken that featured many of Nashville’s living legends, including Maybelle Carter, Roy Acuff, Earl Scruggs and Doc Watson among others. The now-iconic record has since become a landmark country-rock album, setting the stage for bands like The Eagles and Alabama, who gratefully followed in their wake. Later notable releases included Stars and Stripes Forever (1974) and An American Dream (1979).  The band has had some line-up changes, but is now made up of a quartet, including guitarist Jeff Hanna, Jimmie Fadden, Bob Carpenter and John McEuen. They’re most recent record (and 33rd release) Speed of Life hearkens back to their freewheeling, live-in-studio acoustic albums for their 70’s heyday.    Tickets: $55-$85

 

On Sunday, March 29 at 3 pm, the Brattle Street Chamber Players performs in the Community Connections series at the Shalin Liu Performance Center.  The fourteen-member Brattle Street Chamber Players has quickly developed into one of Harvard’s most exciting musical chamber ensembles. A conductorless string chamber orchestra, Brattle has brought an intimate and dynamic approach to a broad-ranging repertoire of standard, seldom performed and newly composed music for strings since its founding in 1998. They have garnered rave reviews and a reputation for premiering works by Harvard undergraduates and collaborated with ensembles including the Harvard-Radcliffe Chorus, the Harvard-Radcliffe Collegium Musicum, the Harvard University Choir and the Harlem Boys Choir. Tickets: $15-$20

Dave Sag’s Blues Party This Thursday with J.B. Amero, David Brown and Dave Mattacks 8:30pm 2.12.2015

dave sags 2.12.2015

 

Dave says,

This Thursday! The magnificent reappearance of that Maestro of musical mayhem….Mr. J.B. Amero. Soaked in a strong solution of Merle Haggard and held up by a strong belt of scotch, this cat has the ability to make you spill a tear into your beer without dropping a stitch of laughter, or angst.
More so than most, he really brings this town together,as he has done for many years, despite the fact that his bell-bottoms no longer fit like they used to. He doesn’t need ’em anymore! We’re also  dragging in Mr. Dave Brown,goo-tarist xtroidinaire and Dave Mattacks, pendulumatic pacemaker to make it all happen.  A very special night! I do hope to see you all there, cuz like Dave Brown says: We’re nothing without you!

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40 Railroad Avenue
Gloucester, MA 01930
(978) 283-9732

http://www.therhumbline.com/

Live From Atlantic Road ” The Back Shore”

Areas Of Gloucester’s Back Shore is Down to One Lane … Please Drive Carefully. Crazy to think another storm is coming this weekend. In all my yesrs traveling on this road I never remember not being able to see the ocean and definetly dont remember Atlantic Road being a one way!. .

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Drifting

SnowDrift5582wmYesterday (2/10/15) after the snow ended, I asked the Pigeon Cove shovelers if they’d seen any drifts as big as ours. No, they thought the drift in front of the garage was the worst. Fortunately, no path or walkway goes thru it. Again, they dug us out and now we have each other’s phone numbers and emails. Heike called to ask if I needed my gallery shoveled out, but I didn’t know the condition of the sidewalk. She works down the street.

 

Nichole’s Picks of the Week: February Vacation

Many kiddos are on vacation this coming week so I’m throwing out some extra suggestions to the universe in case you have some extra downtime.

The possibilities are endless and this list is not meant to be comprehensive…just some of my favorite choices!

Pick #1:  

The New England Boat Show!

The boat show runs from February 14th-22nd at the the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center!  Children 15 and under are FREE and adults are only $16.  Actually, for a limited time, adults are only $13.  It’s a good idea to purchase tix online as the line to buy tickets can get long at times.

My boys LOVED the car show….I can only imagine the mayhem that will ensue when we unleash them at the boat show.

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Pick #2:

Slope Fest!  Lawn on the D February 20th-22nd

This event sounds like a blast!  Tubing, music, food trucks, frost ice bar, winter sports exhibition, family friendly activities, and much more!  This could easily become quite the staycation.  Book an inexpensive room and make a little getaway out of it!

Winter on D’s Slope Fest, a three-day wintertime festival offering city-dwellers an urban escape featuring a two-story-high snow slope for tubing, downhill winter sport exhibitions on the slope, a custom-designed illuminated bar carved out of ice by Boston’s Frost Ice Bar, activities for families and the young at heart, a hot Latin dance party and more!

With over five feet of snow blanketing The Lawn, Winter on D’s Slope Fest offers Bostonians the chance to tube down a 70-foot-long slope made of fresh snowy powder – without heading to the mountains. You can leave your snow tubes at home as they will be provided by the MCCA, but make sure to buy a ticket* to ensure that you get a chance to slide down the snowiest hill in Boston! The slope will also be the location for an hour-long sport exhibition featuring the SnowRiders, a team of experienced skiers and snowboarders, who will be twisting and turning in the air to show off their hottest moves on and off the slope**.

Once you’ve had your fill of tubing, grab a hot beverage or choose from local wine and beer selections from the ice bar provided by Boston’s Frost Ice Bar, the world’s largest permanent indoor ice bar in the U.S. Order a special drink to pair it with your favorite menu item from one of the many food trucks that will be on-site for Slope Fest.

Watch Latin dance performances by MetaMovements and even learn the latest dance steps before trying them out yourself during a Latin dance party that will take place before Friday’s Slope Fest downhill winter sport exhibition.

If that isn’t enough, Slope Fest will also feature fun family friendly activities, music from DJ Frankie White, fire pits on The Lawn and more (think snowy selfie photo opps)!

Pick #3
Salem’s So Sweet  This event is still going on so if you didn’t make it last weekend…you still have time.  Chocolate and ice sculptures…sounds like you can’t go wrong!

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Pick #4 
Pinkalicious! The Musical

PINKALICIOUS: The Musical
February 14 at 2 pm
February 15 at 2 pm and 4 pm
February 18, 19, and 20 at 2 pm
February 21 at 2 pm and 4 pm
February 22 at 2 pm

Back by popular demand! One of the biggest hits with BCT audiences, PINKALICIOUS returns for a limited run in our 2015 season. This pinktastic musical features everyone’s favorite pink princess, Pinkalicious, along with her brother Peter and her adoring parents! Learn why it’s so important to eat your green vegetables! A pinkerrific time will be had by all!  Single Tickets Now On Sale!  All Performances of PINKALICIOUS at the Cambridge YMCA, 820 Mass. Ave, Cambridge

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Pick #5

Dave and Buster’s

I’m not typically an arcade fan, but my boys love it here and I actually usually have a pretty good time too!  We’ve been to the Providence and the Braintree locations.  We eat a decent lunch, play a ton of games, the boys run around like crazy scoring tickets, and then cash them in for some silly little prize.

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Pick #6
The Mary Baker Eddy Library has February Vacation activities.

The Mapparium is really cool to see while you’re there!

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Pick #7
The Museum of Fine Arts

As with other museums, the MFA will be hosting February Vacation activities for children and their families!  Check out their program of events.

 

Pick #8
Maritime Gloucester!

One of our favorite summer places of all, Maritime Gloucester will be having some great February Vacation activities!

Be sure to click on the link to discover just what they’ll be offering!

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Pick #9
Eurostoves

Eurostoves in Beverly is offering kids’ cooking classes most days during vacation week, but they are filling up QUICK!

Check out their class schedule and call ASAP if you’re interested!

 

Pick #10
The Wenham Museum

The 6th Annual Lego Train 

by The New England Lego Users Group 

February 14 – 15

Learn more…

February Vacation Fun 

Legopalooza 

February 16 – 18

Train Time D IY Maker Studio 

February 16 – 20

Learn more…

               

Train Time 18: Farm to Table By Train

                                                                     

 

Open through February 22 

Learn more…

 

Pick #11

So, I know that you all know to go to the New England Aquarium, but right now I’m particularly excited about the Humpback Whales 3D IMAX Movie!

 

Brunch Valentines Cruise Aboard The Beauport Princess

@BeauportHotel: Want a unique Valentine’s Day experience? How about a brunch cruise on the Beauport Princess. http://www.nshoremag.com/Calendar/index.php/name/Valentines-Brunch-Cruise/event/8254/ http://twitter.com/BeauportHotel/status/565831239031328768/photo/1
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