Throat singing is popular amongst Mongolians and peoples of Mongolian descent (such as Kazakhs, Tuvans, Buryats, Tatars, and a slew of other Asiatic ethnic groups in Russia and former Soviet Republics).

You have to see this. Things to look for in the video: "LENIN" in Cyrillic on a sign on a statue, a plaque dedicated to Yul Brynner being "born here"- (Vladivostok, Russia that is)-



This guy ( Kongar-ol Ondar) is also featured jamming with Bela Fleck and the Flecktones on their DVD Live at the Quick

In other news... you probably already know this by now... the dude I voted for to be President was actually elected 44th President of the USA this past Tuesday....

Dear Mr. Krinkle,

You all have probably grown weary of my tireless pimping of Flight of the Conchords. Anyway, here goes some more. I HAD to post this on my journal.


FOTC's Bret and Jemaine travelled to Austin, TX to perform at the annual festival South By Southwest (SXSW). They made a really cool documentary that aired on TV in New Zealand. The first ten minutes of this documentary are available on YOUTUBE. What better way to hang out in state's capital than with these two Kiwis?!?


I hope to find this somewhere on DVD...bootleg perhaps?
I want to watch the rest of it but cannot find it on YOUTUBE!!!!

::sigh::

Dear Mr. Krinkle,

It's that time of the year again!
As you may be aware, September 15 - October 15 is "Hispanic Heritage" month! Although it technically spans two months so it coincides with Independence Day celebrations in several Latin American countries, it is a special time for us to celebrate the contributions of Hispanic Americans to our society.

I am the PowerPoint master at my school and make a "morning announcements" PowerPoint that is placed on the school's shared drive. Folks open it in the morning each day and share it with their students.

Since it's that time of the year again I decided to put a picture of a famous Hispanic-American and a quote. Here was today's Hispanic person/quote:



It has to start somewhere. It has to start sometime. What better place than here? What better time than now?

-Zach De La Rocha
Political Activist


If anyone reading my journal knows of any more famous Hispanic Americans and have a quote that goes with them by all means share. I'm planning on having one a day until the 15th.

Now on to something completely different...

I must have missed this. The Chinese launched three people into space aboard the Shenzhou 7 spacecraft last Thursday. They are called Taikonauts. The lady on the local news pronounced it "Taco"-nauts. I thought that was funny. The chinese are now planning sending men to the Moon. Perhaps now we will have the competition we need to launch our own Space Program foward....

Dear Mr. Krinkle,

I saw the most AWESOME film from Netflix. It stars Jemaine Clement (of Flight of the Conchords) and was directed by Taika Waititi (Maori director from New Zealand - Maoris are the indigenous peoples of NZ and are closely related to Hawaiians). I highly recommend seeing the film. The humor is very deadpan and uniquely New Zealand-ish with subliminal Maori culture thrown in for good measure. Anyway, I highly recommend seeing this film! Simply put it's Napoleon Dynamite in New Zealand! If you've ever been bullied in high school and dream of training for a mission to take revenge on those who tormented you, then this is definitely for you. I feel like I'm pimping a children's book on Reading Rainbow or something. Anyway CHECK IT OUT. Chicks will dig it too because it's also a dorky romantic comedy. But you don't have to take my word for it...



BAH-Duh-Duh!


p.s. My Eagle Scout Roll of Honor book arrived! I found Robb and Sean in it as well as myself. Hooray!

Dear Mr. Krinkle,

It appears that Spring ISD extended our impromptu vacation one more day... They must really be having trouble getting power and water back to all the schools...

Anyway, Robin's website is back up. It contains beautiful pictures of my nephew and of their travels.

http://web.mac.com/erlanandrobin/Site/Blog/Blog.html

I'm all alone today. Michelle had to go back to work :(

Mr. Krinkle,

I've been off all last week and also today. The "time off" was extended for Spring ISD because of lingering power outages all around the Spring area.

Michelle has also been off all last week and will go back to work tomorrow as well.

Even though there was a hurricane, the time off from work has been nice. Michelle and I took full advantage of this, and we went to see Body Worlds 2 at the Houston Museum of Natural Science. This traveling exhibit showcases real human bodies mummified by a process called Plastination! It was pretty freaky at times. They were all created by a creepy German dude named Dr. Gunther von Hagens! We weren't allowed to take pictures in the actual exhibit, but we did get postcards of some of the "bodies" we saw plus a rabbit! I scanned them for your enjoyment.

The Ponderer


Click the cut to see the rest our visit!
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Dear Mr. Krinkle,

Due to Hurricane Ike's ravages, I'm off from work until Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. I can only imagine the damage that Spring took since it was directly in the path of the Eye and the Eye Wall. I wrote a letter to my family to let them know I'm okay. I've copied and pasted it here:

Just letting everyone know we are all right. We have power, internet, phone, and cable now. All of those services had been coming in and out for extended periods of time.

The Hurricane in one word: SCARY

I usually feel safe indoors during the rainstorms in Houston. This hurricane was a different story. All through the night the wind would whistle and moan through any miniscule cracks around the front door and the garage door. The wailing sounded ghostly on top of the loud wind gusts that were constant throughout the night. I prayed that our wood panels would hold on the back windows. Each time they were ripped off by the wind made us more and more nervous. We thought for sure the windows would break and wind would rush in and it would be chaos! Fortunately that didn't happen.

Well anyway, in the end we fared much better than the rest of town. All our trees are up. We lost only one board from our fence while many folks lost their entire fence! Our neighbor across the street's tree fell down. Still, most of the city is without power. Even around us all the traffic lights are out- not even flashing red. Just out completely. Galveston is virtually destroyed and they aren't allowing people back in until they clean it up. There's no power, sewage, phones, or anything. Seabrook is pretty bad and Kemah boardwalk was completely underwater. FEMA trucks are being set up to distribute MRE's and ice.

We spent the better part of yesterday at Michelle's grandma's house which suffered severe damage. No power, power lines are strewn in her back yard, and the meter was completely ripped off the by the storm and has yet to be found. I helped Michelle's dad chop up a 50 foot pine tree that had fallen in her driveway, completely blocking the view of her house from the street.

Anyway, I hope all is well with everybody,

Russell

Dear Mr. Krinkle,

Michelle took some pictures of damage caused by Ike around town. We went to her Abuela's house and helped chop up a large pine tree that had fallen in her driveway. Check out the slide show below to see that and other damage caused by Ike. Click on "view all images" for a better view.

Dear Mr. Krinkle,

Hurricane Ike came last night. It brought 80+ mph wind and rain. The wind caused an eerie howling sound all night long as it penetrated the cracks around the front door and the garage door. It sounded like a wailing banshee or something. Pretty scary. The boards we put up on the windows were all blown down. I thought for sure the windows would be next, but fortunately that didn't happen. The power went off for several hours and then came back on for about an hour or so. Then it went off again and didn't come back on until morning.

Michelle's family (Dad, Stepmom, little sister, brother, and Grandma Abuela) were evacuated from Clear Lake and stayed with us.

It's still stormy outside. It is still a category one right now.

Here's a video that I took this morning to survey some of the damage. Not much happened to my house except for the boards being torn off.

The neighbor across the street has a tree down.

Anyone evacuating for Ike? Just curious.

I just heard its path shifted a bit north of Brownsville, but the storm is so huge we'll still feel its effects way up here...

I'm just thinking back to Rita and its crazy evacuation and not really ready to do that again...

Dear Mr. Krinkle,

I've become a weatherchannel.com junkie.

It appears Hurricane Ike recently tore across Cuba and will enter the Gulf soon.

They were saying it may hit Louisiana, but now the predictions are more along the lines of Texas!

Well shall see in the coming days if we will get whopped by a hurricane...

Dear Krinkle,

Yesterday I hung out with Robb Zipp and Sean Riley. Robb.... how do you make names clickable to zip over to their LiveJournal? You do it all the time but I never figured it out :/


First we hit up Southern Star Brewery, a microbrewery in Conroe, TX...



Click the cut to view the rest of the outting pics!
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Dear Mr. Krinkle,

I'm off work and chilling at my heezy.

Hurricane Gustav is currently or soon shall be making landfall in Louisiana.

We've been watching the weather channel to see if the 'cane changes paths and heads for us or something.

So far it seems to be threatening Louisiana.

New Orleans was completely evacuated and is being patrolled by hummers and cops.

Michelle and I saw several cars with Louisiana plates yesterday. They'll probably be more of them coming as the storm reeks havoc!

Anyway, the skies appear clear and nice here. We'll probably have Korina and Solomon over. Michelle is going to cook all day today and make our diet meals.

Yay.

Well that it for now!

Dear Mr. Krinkle,

Yesterday Sean Riley and his parents, Robb Zipp, Michelle, Korina, Solomon, me, Dad, and Drea visited the local microbrewery Saint Arnold and sampled several of their varieties of beer.




Want more? Click it!
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It really was a nice visit. I enjoyed it all.

The first day of school with kids is tomorrow. Ready or not here they come....

Here's what we saw:

SUMPERJAM!
Les Claypool w/ Gogol Bordello and Kirk Hammet (from Metallica)! This was most definitely my favorite jam. They did Tom Waits covers...



Here's the "big namers" we saw:
Les Claypool
Gogol Bordello
Metallica - Sol saw the entire show, Russ split early to get up front for the Superjam.
Pearl Jam - We almost saw the whole show until Eddie Vedder indirectly dissed Texas. We were outta there after that.
Allison Krauss w/ Robert Plant - Awesome. Robert Plant of Zeppelin can sing some serious bluegrass. Did a mellow bluegrass version of a Zeppelin song. Did that "Down in the River to Pray" song.
Jack Johnson - Awesome jam. Eddie Vedder came out and jammed with Jack
Chris Rock - funny.
Bela Fleck w/ Edgar Meyer, Sam Bush, Jerry Douglas, Bryan Sutton, Luke Bulla - this was my second favorite jam. Edgar Meyer is one of my bass heros and it was awesome seeing him live with Bela.
Ben Folds - awesome. I was tired from the heat and walking so I took a nap on the grass while he jammed.
Willie Nelson - seeing this country/western icon was awesome. I was not aware his music was so bluesy.
B.B. King - it was really cool seeing this blues icon due a couple songs.
Widespread Panic - Sol and I got up front in the pit for this show. There was a tortilla fight before the show. I hadn't ever seen these guys before so it was a treat to see them up close.
Phil Lesh & Friends - saw a little bit of this show, but we were exhausted so opted to go back to camp for some shuteye

We also saw these folks:
Vampire Weekend - they sang songs about states in New England. Very contemporary.
Grupo Fantasmo - latin band from Austin.
Lez Zeppelin - all girl zeppelin cover band.

Solomon saw:
The Swell Season - ask him how they were!
Death Cab for Cutie - ditto!

Also we saw two films:
Electric Apricot (jam band scene paraody in the tradition of Spinal Tap) by Les Claypool
Throw Down Your Heart (documentary about Fleck's trip to Africa to jam with African musicians on their indigenous instruments, and find the origins of the banjo in Gambia) by Bela Fleck
Both films had a Q&A session afterwards with Claypool and Fleck, respectively. I filmed both! I'm naughty!

Got Les Claypool to say "FLAN!" as he signed my Apricot poster.
Bela Fleck signed my BANJO!

I have thousands of videos and pics that I will try to post here and YouTube in the next couple of days...

Mr. Krinkle,

I'm in D.C. at my sister's apartment. We've been helping take care of little Solomon. He is certainly a cutie. I've gotten to hold him and play with him a lot. It is strange to think that I am now an uncle! Robin and Erlan are currently at the doctor's office because Solomon may have an eye infection. Michelle and I are here and just finished washing the cats! We may go out sightseeing or we may just be bums. We'll be going out tonight with Dad and Drea to see some music.

Yesterday we went to the Holocaust Museum, and briefly went to the National Gallery of Art. We stopped by the Eastern Market and got some Uncle Brutha's hot sauce. The store is going to close soon, so we thought we'd better stock up. Fortunately, they'll still be selling the sauce online.

Well that is it for now. I'll be home on the 10th in the evening. The next morning Solomon (not my cousin, my friend) and I are going to take off for BONNAROO!!!!!!! We'll be back on the 16th.

Well talk to everybody later.

Mark Kistler's Mural...



posted by "Commander" Mark Kistler himself!

He has a YouTube account a posts free drawing lessons! I also found several old school Secret City episodes from the 80's.... ah the memories came back in tidal waves!

God bless YouTube....


Oh yeah and get this... Mark Kistler still does art lessons! They are BASED OUT OF HOUSTON, TX no less! I found this out at his website: http://www.draw3d.com

If only I had children and/or was still a child myself!!!!

Dear Mr. Krinkle,

You (Les Claypool) are jamming with Eugene Hutz (Gogol Bordello) and the guitarist of Metallica at Bonnaroo?!? You are covering Tom Waits songs?!??

::packing bags for Bonnaroo::

Here's the article...

http://pop.pressdemocrat.com/default.asp?item=2199079&pop