Michigan Prairie Music

Christmas CD Sale

2009-11-28T00:12:00.000-08:00

It's been 11 months since my last post. Wow! It just seems like I'm posting more on Facebook now then here. Anyway, my Christmas CD is available for purchase online again at via Paypal. The cost is $10.00 per CD, with S/H $4.00. Listening samples are available on my YouTube account at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8CP6ra9ryY

Since my family is on a single income, I try not to use any of our monthly income to repair the Model T. The money from the CD sales will go to rebuild the front and rear end on the Model T. Last year it was the engine and transmission. The engine is rebuilt and the I'm in the process of rebuilding the tranny. My hope is that the car will be running by spring, 2010.

For us, riding in the Model T was part of our family's recreation. We'd take a quick drive to Starbucks or down to Fred Meyer; however, the greatest joy was taking Kaitlyn to the park in it every weekend. If it wasn't raining, we'd go for a drive. Both of us had a great time and it was a way that I could share the joy of antique cars with her.

If you interested in what's on the CD, below is the track listing. I hope to get sound clips up and running soon. Have a great December!

TRACK LISTING

Angels We Have Heard On High

We Three KingsO Christmas Tree

O Come, O Come, Emmanuel

Go Tell It On The Mountain

Away In A Manger

It Came Upon A Midnight Clear

I Heard the Bells On Christmas Day

I Wonder As I Wander

Of The Father’s Love Begotten

Silent Night

Lo, How a Rose E’re Blooming

The First Noel

January Update

2009-01-12T21:02:00.000-08:00

75 Christmas CD's sold - it truly surpassed my expectations. My uncle bought one for each family member, which was an incredible blessing.

I'm back to school and getting the kids ready for the next concert. The Wind Ensemble is progressing faster than I expected, working on Ralph Vaughan William's English Folk Song Suite.

I built four 1/144 scale models in December, which you can see on displayed on either model site:

North American P-64
Douglas B-26 (A-26) - painted to look like one that I saw on a trip to Missoula, MT
Douglas P-70 (A-20)
Bell XF-83 - a kit I made from scratch

I'm currently working on a few kits I started January, 2008 - maybe I'll get these finished sometimes this year. Hmmm....

Almost Fifty Christmas CD's Sold

2008-12-30T19:30:00.000-08:00

Well, I feel very blessed. Sales of my Christmas CD have gone real well. They're not going to knock Michael Jackson's Thriller album of of the charts for record sales, but they did better than I thought. I initially had thirty made up and those sold within the first two weeks, so I made another twenty. Out of the second run, I have five more left.

If you missed the chance at getting one or would like another, they're still available for purchase online at www.michiganprairiemusic.blogspot.com. The cost is $10.00 per CD, S/H $4.00 and you can pay through PayPal. First come, first serve, so please contact me first before you pay - I want to make sure that you get one. If the response is promising, I may do a third run after the first of the year; otherwise, it will just be these five.

I hope those of you that purchased the CD are enjoying listening to the holiday music. God bless and have a great New Year.

- Jim

Christmas CD done and selling

2008-12-07T23:41:00.000-08:00

It's been a long time coming...I finally put together a Christmas CD of solo piano arrangements that I've created. It's now available for purchase online at via Paypal. The cost is $10.00 per CD, with S/H $4.00. As it stands, I've sold fifteen at this season's first Jazz Disciple's concert.

Since my family is on a single income, I try not to use any of our monthly income to repair the Model T. The money from the CD sales will go to rebuild the engine - I hope by spring - just in time for Kaitlyn and I to resume our weekly trips to the park. For us, riding in the Model T has become part of our family's recreation. We'd take a quick drive to Starbucks or down to Fred Meyer; however, the greatest joy was taking Kaitlyn to the park in it every weekend. If it wasn't raining, we'd go for a drive. Both of us had a great time and it was a way that I could share the joy of antique cars with her. Even at age two, she got excited to ride in the "Mol T," as she called it.

If you interested in what's on the CD, below is the track listing. I hope to get sound clips up and running soon.

Have a great December!

TRACK LISTING

Angels We Have Heard On High
We Three Kings
O Christmas Tree
O Come, O Come, Emmanuel
Go Tell It On The Mountain
Away In A Manger
It Came Upon A Midnight Clear
I Heard the Bells On Christmas Day
I Wonder As I Wander
Of The Father’s Love Begotten
Silent Night
Lo, How a Rose E’re Blooming
The First Noel

New photo site

2008-11-23T22:33:00.000-08:00

Well, I added my plane photos and more figure kit photos to my Flickr account http://www.flickr.com/photos/30794229@N02/sets/ I joined Flickr to contact a fellow about a cereal toy that I had as a kid - he did buy the toy from me. :) I saw all of his toy photos and thought that I'd post my model pics there. I'm not sure which site I like better - Slide or Flickr. The jury's out - I may cancel one of them in the future...we'll see.

November Update

2008-11-15T22:45:00.000-08:00

Not much happened this week. Parent conferences on Thursday was the only excitement outside of model building. I had Tuesday off due to Veteran's day, so I decided to build the YF-7 Sea Dart - at 9:00 pm - on a school night, no less. It went amazingly fast and is almost done as I'm writing this post. I took step-by-step photos of this plane and posted them on the smallscalemodels Yahoo site as a tutorial for those just beginning to scratch-build planes. Since one has to be a member in order to see the photos, I also posted them on my Slide account.

2008-11-09T20:23:00.000-08:00

Another busy week. Piano juries were held on Monday for my piano class and the school's Veteran's Day assembly, which featured two numbers from my top choir and one from my top band.

I started a discussion on Amazon that has peaked a bit of interest. The discussion is asking what an individual's top five instrumental numbers are - pieces that have impacted his/her life personally. The link is http://www.amazon.com/tag/music/forum/ref=cm_cd_pg_oldest?%5Fencoding=UTF8&cdForum=Fx1YA4ZE83NG9MC&cdPage=1&cdSort=newest&cdThread=Tx1LDFUZX3WSIS1&displayType=tagsDetail

Other things...I finally got a few planes done that have been sitting on my shelf for the past year: North American F-107, North American F-1 Fury, and the McDonnell F-3 Demon. I'll take some photos and post them this week.

Only four more planes to go and the series is complete. It's been an insane journey that I began in high school with eight planes. I still have three of them in my collection - the rest, I either repainted or bought new to create better versions. The four that remain will have to be scratch-built as there aren't any companies nor individuals who make these rare "X" planes.

Now that they're done, I think it's time to clean the hobby room and get back to the Model T. Only God knows when the car will be running again. All it takes is money.

Busy week

2008-10-25T23:23:00.001-07:00

This was the first week in three years that I've gotten back into even thinking about playing piano at church. It's been a long time coming and a longer process of healing than I anticipated.

The jazz group I conduct, The Jazz Disciples, performed at the WA State Capitol building for Christian Heritage Week. Great performance, despite terrible acoustics. The building had a 6 second delay - I'm not kidding!

I joined http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SmallScaleModels/ this week. Hopefully, I'll make some connections to complete my 1/144 scale jet plane set. I began this set when I was in high school. I'm now forty years old and only five planes shy of a complete set.

Toto disbands

2008-09-18T22:22:00.000-07:00

Well, one of my favorite groups just recently disbanded. I'm bummed! I've always wanted to see them in concert and the chance of that now is out of the question. There's always hope - Asia, another one of my favs, recently regrouped to produce Phoenix. It seems that Toto always got the brunt of bad criticism by music reviewers and I've never understood why. All of the members could play circles around most of the artists out there on pop radio. I own all of their albums, so I have the advantage of a wider perspective than those who only know their radio hits. Their music was a combination of jazz/pop/rock elements - perhaps that's why the critics didn't like them.

2008-09-06T21:55:00.000-07:00

Well, I uploaded three "samples" that I created a year back. I borrowed my school's Yamaha Motif-7 keyboard and began experimenting with different sounds. It's funny how the tambre of certain instruments evoke melodies. Anyway, what came out of that session were these short pieces. Most were done spur of the moment with minimal rehearsal - I pressed record on the computer and that's what came out.

First post

2008-09-01T00:07:00.000-07:00

Well, here's my first post - my first blog. I've transferred most of my personal pics over from our family's homepage as my wife is moving from that to her own personal blog, which focuses on scrapbooking. The emphasis of the homepage is about our biggest blessing, our daughter, Kaitlyn. She came into our life on July 31, 2005. Her story is a touching one and one that's positively changed our life forever. If you'd like to read more of it, I've included it in the links. My wife's site is also listed there. As soon as I figure things out, I want to upload my own musical compositions, which is the purpose of this blog. In the meantime, uploading photos was the easiest thing to accomplish. I hope to see things improve as time goes along.