Tag Archives: ROR

It’s been a long time since the last post – Sorry! We’ve been just so very busy.
The trip to visit family in Michigan (lawns and lawnmowers was a constant theme) was a good one.

Dad and Sue are good and everyone seems to be doing well.

We had a family gathering picnic at a quiet little lake:

We caught the fireworks:

It was very pleasant weather the first week or so, had a full on thunder and lighting storm which helped keep the temps down, then of course the last several days were 95 degrees with a 85% humidity!!! How can anyone live like that? Wiped me out totally.

The flight home was a bit strained, perhaps I will talk about that at a later time.

And when we got back to California, it had been in the 100s for a week and basically still is (2 weeks later). We have been working at the house as much as we can. I have half of the kitchen/dining/living room plywood sub floor wood filled in the nail holes and seams, I have bought the (ugh) oil based paint with polyurethane in it to paint it. So I need to finish the wood filling, sand, vac, and then paint..on a day that doesn’t get over 90 degrees! (This is a long hard job and have working at it for weeks.)

Any way, once it is painted, it is a washable surface! and I can start moving in the flea market furniture I bought last month and finding homes for things..and start the moving out of the ‘town-house-office’ scenario.

I have also spent a few hours trying to decipher both DirecTV and DishTV services, and Starband and DirecTWay… geez what a mess, but I think I will go with Dish for TV and use my current ISP on the funky phone lines at the house for awhile. If internet is too painfully slow I will look into one of the Satellite ISP’s then.

Me and Russel at the Fair parade in Michigan:

Yesterday was our 10th anniversary (15 years together).. we spent the day in Eureka to get out of the heat and shopped and ate and saw a great movie: Batman Returns.. check this one out, I liked it better than any of the past Batman movies, it was just full of great acting and story line.

And now, it’s getting ready to Reggae on the River time… next Thursday – Sunday.

I think we will go out to the house tonight and stay there until Sunday, next week will be full of Reggae and trips in and out the land, so this week end I hope to make great progress on my projects and Russel has been cutting and splitting wood for next season, and has lots more to do. Once I am at the land I never want to come into town. Once we have some entertainment like Dish TV and my computer there, well coming to town will be errand day and laundry and shopping and that’s about it.

Gotta go jump in Linda’s pool..it’s over 95 in the house in town right now.

Reggae (ROTR) is upon us again!

Last year I talked about 2003 Reggae on the River after the fact.

It seems like every year it gets longer, this year the ‘real’ music starts at Noon on Friday, instead of 4pm. So? That means vendors, especially food vendors should be up and running by Noon Friday….BUT.. from Friday morn at 6am-till Noon is the ‘Crunch” time when all the ticket holders who want to camp on the river bar flood the gates to get a good spot.

Building a city in the middle of no where is a lot of work for sure. This event pays a lot of non-prophets yearly budget to operate.

Town of Garberville mostly, and Redway, are flooded with people today and tomorrow, it’s a zoo out there. When 15000 people descend upon our little world! It’s sort of fun to watch, but I don’t like being out there as much as I used too.

Reggae is attracting a different crowd than in the early years (this is year 21). Of course there still are plenty of hippies, but also these other beings college kids, because they have the money, who don’t really practice peace-love-irie vibes…but come to drink a lot of beer and smoke a lot and be obnoxious. Kind of ruins it to have a bunch of them near you under the parachute, or any where really. And they smoke cigarettes more than ever before.

Ok, enough bitching, I will go, on Friday this time for some good roots music, and probably miss most of Saturday with its putrid hip hop, and then mellow with the sunday roots … more later …maybe better pictures this year too!

Reggae on the River 2003

I spent a bit of time validating all my templates and tweaking the new background color. Was ready to upload some reggae pictures when I realized none were very good at ‘capturing’ what reggae was all about, so they will have to wait until i have my photoblog up.

[edited to add: Kim Sallaway Photo Archive ]

Reggae on the River-aerial 2003 - Photo by Kim Sallaway

Reggae on the River -Unity-Photo by Kim Sallaway

A few thoughts about this years reggae, considering I have only missed 3 out of the last 20, was that this years crowd was a lot of what appeared to be ‘college kids’ with lots of money, not into the hippie, tie-dye, rasta, dead-head apparel which is usually predominate there. They also smoked more tobacco at this years event than I have seen at Reggae in a very long time. They also didn’t seem to care if they were polluting someone else’s air space with it, with a few exceptions who left the ‘parachute area’ when asked.

The weather was very different, as generally speaking a 90 degree temp is considered cool, this year it was maybe 80 on Friday, cloudy with RAIN showers and cool on Saturday until finally on Sunday the sun appeared and the temps rose to high 80’s…. which is my preferred way of experiencing the event.

Notice i am not talking of the bands so much? Well Sunday’s lineup was great roots reggae, but Saturdays with a few exceptions, was some sort of hip-hop, rap stuff where the lyrics leave ya wondering if these people know any words besides F*** and M*****F***** and Suck My D*** and Slap My B****!!!

ome one said I am getting ‘old’ and my response was that even when I was young i wanted music to SAY something. I use the F word plenty, i am no prude, and often my language leaves something to be desired, so that is not the issue here. If you haven’t heard this type of ‘music’ you can’t begin to understand what i am talking about.

Any way, I saw people I haven’t seen in a year, some in 15 years, and met a new friend…. a local KMUD news-reporter. They were making a DVD of this years 20th Anniversary of Reggae..
it should be interesting to see just what they include on it.

Mateel Aikido, Russel’s Aikido school always puts up a booth to sell burritos at Reggae, as many of the non-profits do here, to raise money for the year.

Mateel Aikido's burrito booth Reggae on the River 2003

Russel Wisby with student Ruby at Reggae on the River 2003

Too Hot to Think

Too hot to post, sit here or even be…
110 today… it’s still ’98 degrees in the shade’ ala Third World who will be at Reggae on the River this coming weekend.

Up and out early tomorrow to go south to Petaluma to see Bruce Cockburn!!
🙂 🙂 🙂

Lots of Little Things

Today is Russel and my anniversary, have i mentioned him yet? We have been married 8 years and living together for 12.
I got really lucky when I found him, or we found each other, however you like to look at those things. I met him when i was 42, i had never been married or had any kids, and didn’t really think that would ever be part of my life.
He is kind, considerate, funny, compassionate, generous, truthful, honest, loving, caring and committed…..and a 3rd degree (Sandan) in Aikido. More on that later.
We are happy, content, and going the long distance.

Soon we will leave for brunch at the Woodrose Cafe, the best breakfast place ever.

In other news:

I am still trying to learn how to use Canon G3 with no flash in a small club venue. I hope i get at least a couple of decent shots. I also hope having the camera doesn’t distract me too much from enjoying Bruce Cockburn (in 2 days at the Mystic!).

So i am gearing up for Bruce Cockburn, and Russel is gearing up for Reggae on the River in a whole different way, because the Aikido school does a food booth there selling burritos. (This was before the reggae wars and the split- again too bad all the old archives are gone!)
I will make a long post soon about Reggae, several actually as it is one huge event, 3 days of music and a mini-city built onsite. It is exhausting to work and play there.

Working on the CockburnProject

I just finished posting up a new front page at the CockburnProject. (It was this page.
Took most of the day…and it is hot (100) and humid, which it usually isn’t, here today.
I am melted and fried.

Bruce Cockburn will be in Petaluma, Ca at the Mystic Theater (July 29, 2003) next week.
So I have one week to try and learn how to take good digital shots with no flash in the small venue at the concert!

Needless to say, any more improvements in MT here or setting up my photolog will be put on hold until after Bruce and after Reggae On The River which is August 1-2-3!!! More on that a bit later.

On My Beat

Living in the hills of southern Humboldt