Thursday, January 23, 2020

Hanging out in Phoenix, AZ

Drove to Phoenix from the Gila Bend AFAF on Monday of this week, unloaded stuff from the URRV and did laundry at my Father-in-Law's place in Sun City, AZ

My FIL Richard continues to do well and has fully recovered from his open heart surgery from almost two years ago.

Weather was overcast and light rain.

I installed a set of cheap driving lights that I had delivered to my FIL's home that afternoon and we'll see how those do in actual usage.  I also unloaded Yagi, the Yamaha TW200 dualsport from the front mounted rack and parked her in a golf cart slot under covered parking.

Tuesday, January 21, I drove Uma, the URRV along with Fiona on the trailer down to Goodyear, AZ....a suburb of the Phoenix Metro Area and put her into open storage for the next month or so while I am back home in Centennial to attend to duties, appointments and chores as mentioned before.


Wednesday, January 22

My FIL Richard and I had breakfast at a hole in the wall "comfort food" diner a couple of miles from his home, called Brenda's.  Nice place, good food and service.

The main event of the day was my visit to the Musical Instrument Museum or MIM where my FIL volunteers time as a docent.  His status got me in free and I wandered about the exhibits again (I've been here once before, but apparently didn't blog about it.) but this time concentrated on mostly the European exhibits and photographing only instruments which "caught my eye", most had an animal of some sort involved.

A "fully involved" animal was the basis of this particular bagpipe

French Slide Trombone

Circa 1800.  Bass Horn
"The Serpent" was used to accompany choirs as
early as the sixteenth century


Mongol Shava
Shava (the deer) heralds new life and
brings fertility to people's herds

Yueqin (plucked lute)
The "moon" lute is popular in folk and opera ensembles
The bat represents good fortune

Dramnyen, another plucked lute

Pyeongyeong (litophone)
Blocks of Nephrite Jade are carved to produce
a certain tone/pitch upon being struck


Here's Richard, my FIL, manning his station near the front lobby by the guitar exhibits


No, it's not a hearing aid of days past....this one was designed to amplify the music for recordings.  It became popular with outdoor folk musicians.

Stroviol

In the street festival section, some of the costumes really caught my eye.  I wonder if these gave little kids nightmares even though they're supposed to scare away evil spirits instead.

Manuthone Costume, Sardinia, Italy
Worn in carnival parades, bells are used to
scare away evil spirits

Kukeri costume, Bulgaria
male dancers go from house to house 
to bring good luck and health to their neighbors.

Richard's shift ended and we drove back to his home in rush hour traffic but it wasn't too bad as we could use the HOV lane.  Like everywhere else, we in the HOV lane were the minority of the cager flood that is Phoenix rush hour.

Thursday, January 23

Not a very busy day, mostly errands done in company of Richard.

We did check out a "used tools" store that I'd spotted yesterday after we left the diner.  Got myself a wire stripper tool and three forceps for $6!  Forceps you ask?  They're great for accessing hard to reach places to grab some dropped item or to hold item in an ackward spot until you can secure it.

I packed most of my riding gear onto a borrowed suitcase and will be flying home to the cesspool that is the Metro Denver area.

12 comments:

Al Christensen said...

I really enjoyed the MIM. It expanded what I think music should sound like.

redlegsrides said...

Al Christensen, we’ll said!

redlegsrides said...

Damn autocorrect, I meant to say well said!

RichardM said...

MIM really is a cool museum...

Oz said...

That is one interesting museum. I really need to get out that way. Thanks for share the photos. I love a good unique attraction.

redlegsrides said...

You’re welcome Oz

Bluekat said...

Some really interesting and beautiful instruments. Although that bagpipe is almost disturbing. 😆

redlegsrides said...

It’s quite the museum Bluekat......as to the bagpipe, I believe animals are also involved in the Scottish ones

Bluekat said...

It’s not that the use of animals bother me, it’s that this one still sort of looks like the animal. 😳😂

CCjon said...

I knew it, I knew it, I knew it! The Scots invented the phrase "Just blow it out your............"

Glad to see Richard has recovered and doing well.

redlegsrides said...

CCjon, hah! Good one.

redlegsrides said...

Didn’t mean to imply anything negative Bluekat, I wondered if the bagpipe in question was played near the remaining herd and they thought?