Summer storm!

What a great photo from last night's storm! Thanks to Dennis Smiley for the great shot!

Wednesday's Forgotten Oldie...

Today's tune is "Fever" by the McCoys. The McCoys were a sometimes four, sometimes five-man rock band from Indiana that had two top-ten hits in 1965, "Hang on Sloopy" which went to number one, and the follow-up "Fever" which went to number seven. The song "Fever" was published in 1956 and originally recorded by Little Willie John, whose version of "Fever" was a number one hit for three weeks on the R&B chart, and also as an early Rock'n'Roll song peaking at number twenty-four. In 1958, Peggy Lee's cover version was even more popular, peaking at number eight on the US pop charts. It's interesting that Peggy Lee's signature song was actually beat by the McCoys' version in chart position as well as sales. Despite similarities to "Sloopy", "Fever" is an excellent song. It's sung by a young Rick Derringer, who went on to sing and play lead guitar for both Johnny and Edgar Winter as well as Steely Dan.

Much cooler today!

Sunny and 71 today... wow. After four days that gave our sweat glands their best exercise in many months, what a relief! But hot weather is due back this weekend, so here's my hint for the day... get plenty of "Ice-Cold-Ice". Not the warm stuff, the ice-cold stuff. Not melty ice, the ice-cold stuff! Hilarious.

And the GPS says...

Turn Left (of course).

Did you know...

That each line on a red solo cup is a measurement? I never knew that, so let's have a party! Happy Friday!

Wednesday Forgotten Oldie...

The Leaves were an American garage band formed in California in 1963. Their biggest hit was the song "Hey Joe", which was a hit in 1966. Theirs is the earliest release of this song. "Hey Joe" became a rock standard, covered by the Byrds, the Cryan Shames, Jimi Hendrix and many other bands in the late 60's. The Leaves released a few singles as well as three albums, but never achieved great success and broke up in 1967. Jim Pons, a Leaves founder, joined another group which did make it big... the Turtles. But "Hey Joe" made a huge mark on the 60's, it seemed like every band from coast to coast did the song on stage, and it's influence was strong enough that the song was included in a garage rock compilation called "Nuggets" in the 70's. The song is truly a great example of American rock of the British invasion era.

Ghost at Goose?

We camp a lot! We even have a full time camp-site at Goose Island and spend as much time as possible there. And we have a lot of campfires usually shared with groups of friends. And I take lots of pictures. My Sony Cybershot takes great shots at night, especially around the fire. On Sunday the 27th I took the picture below. Out of hundreds of night photos, I've never had one like this before. There was no smoke from the fire and nobody near me was smoking, and yet this photo appears to have a smokey face... plus the very next photo of this group taken seconds later, was clear. What do you think it is?