We just returned  to the city last night from the cottage and we made it in time to watch the Canada Day fireworks display at Ontario place from our condo balcony which is situated so we can watch them without having to go outside and brave the crowds.  We had a great time at the lake with the grand kids and their parents, who came up a few days later, and we managed to put in the water system and fill the bird feeders along with swimming and  having some much needed relaxing time. I brought up my Baby Taylor and played some songs for the kids.  One of the girls, Caitlin, caught a nice 3 pound walleye right off the dock and I had to help remove the hook and set it free. There were bear sighting at a nearby relatives cottage so we went and checked out for damage and everything was Ok. 
  Next weekend we are off to see Pete Seeger at Hugh's Room then it is back to the cottage for a few more days and then a House Filk and then off to Confluence to see our friends Lord Landless, a wonderful filk group from Germany!!!! There is also rumours that a good British friend of mine might be there. In August we are off to see my brother in Winnipeg who is recovering in hospital after a stroke. We will also get in some time with Dave C and the Bhigg Housians and my friends back in Winterpeg and take in the Heather Dale Concert..

current mood: rejuvenated

Just thought I would post a short report on our trip to Chicago and Duckon. What a fantastic time we had and Jan and her team put on a wonderful filk track . This has to be one of the best non-filk conventions we have ever attended. Lots of old and new friends, great music, we made blinkies and had an overall fun time. Friday started with opening ceremonies which included Ookla the Mok doing a hillarious panel/concert called Hi I'm a Mac/Acoustic and Hi I'm a PC/Electric and a birds of prey demonstration.  Next we ran off to make a Blinkie which is a kind of a ritual at Duckon. Sue picked the most complicated and difficult kits to make which was a 5x7 35 LED programmable one and we sat down and started assembling our kits and soldering the components. Sue had hers finished before me and they plugged in batteries and hers worked right off. Mine was not so lucky and a few of my solder joints had to be repaired before I finally had success. Saturday morning I was on two panels "Home Studios" with Jeff Bonhoff and Mike Whitaker and  "Care and Feeding of things with Strings"  with Gary Hanak, D.Gunderson and M.Whitaker. Next it was off to my friend Phillip Mills excellent concert where I provide backing on guitar and mandolin on a couple of songs. After this we went to Jeff Bohnhoff's Parody Writing Workshop which was very informative and then it was off to Gary Hanak's Concert a filker I had never met before and he did an amazing concert and I enjoyed him very much. Next it was off to the main stage for a concert by Ookla the Mok who did a mix of their material along with some songs from their up and coming children's CD. We especially liked "Go To Bed" and have sang it to our grandkids. Next up were the Guests of Honour Jeff and Maya Bohnhoff who did a fantastic concert with a mix of their classics and new material.  Up next  was our "Stone Dragons" Concert spot at 9:00pm and we had a good turnout for our only 2nd concert ever and we did an hour of our own songs plus some favourites of ours by others. Next was the art auction followed by Toyboat Concert culminating in Jeff Bohnhoff and Mike Whitaker joining them on stage to rock out. We finished the evening off with late night filking where we were joined by Riverfolk and many others. Sunday was a slighty more relaxing day with Mike Whitaker's concert and it was great to see and hear my Brit friend again and I enjoyed his concert very much. Next up were my old friends Riverfolk from Minneapolis and I found myself singing along with most of their stuff and I especially enjoyed one I had not heard before I think it was called "Camping by the Sun". We enjoyed the Dead Duck and we ordered in pizza and played music to the wee hours. It was cool to play along with my friend Andy Anda again and he is a wonderful musician. 
  Life is back to normal now for a while and we have 4 concerts coming up this summer to go to; Tip Splinter Reunion Concert, Pete Seeger,
Andy Irvine and Dougie Maclean. It is amazing I get to see so many of my all time favourites all in one year. Sue and I have decided we can afford to go to Confluence this year and see our friends "Lord Landless" from Germany who  are the music guests and who are fantastic. Everyone will be in for a treat. 
   That is all for now

current mood: happy

Hi Everyone,
  Well the wedding and convention are over and we are now Mr. & Mrs. Jeffers!!!!!  Everything went well and it was the most amazing wedding with lots of our friends and family, Fairies with wings, Unicorns, live piping by my friend Al, a special wedding song from Dave and all your smiling faces. Sue was the most beautiful bride in the costume she made and together we said our vows in a fairy tale like setting. We forgive all those who took part in re-decorating our room and hanging a sign on our car!!!  We are not one's to pay people back ;-]  Thank you also to all those who took so many wonderful pictures. After the wedding we hosted Marilissa and David from England along with my best man Dave C and we all had a wonderful relaxing time. Marilissa and Dave caught the street car in front of our Condo door and explored downtown Toronto and Dave and I did some recording in my studio. One night we got together with Heather Dale and Ben and their significant others for Chineese food. Dave C is now off in his home town of Port Dover visiting with his family and we leave tomorrow for our honeymoon in Tahiti !!!!  13 days of relaxing in the sun and crusing French Polynesia and the Cook Islands. We have also planned some shore excursions where we will be taken on a catamaran to a uninhabited island where we will be dropped off to relax in the ocean and on the beach. Thank you again to all of you for being there for us and to the ConCom for allowing us the opportunity to share this time with everyone. We are both truely blessed to have each other and so many loving firends from all over the world. We hope to see many of you again in the future especially all our friends over seas.

current mood: happy

FKO is approaching very soon and the wedding is in it's final planning stages. Sue is still busy making her costume and it is looking beautiful.
We are looking forward so much to seeing all of you who are coming and partaking of our special moment together at 7:00 pm on Friday at the Con. Feel free to wear a costume if you have one.  We had both never planned on getting married again but the forces of love, music and nature have brought us together. It is stacking up to be an amazing convention and I am looking forward to hearing and meeting the Bedlam Bards from Texas for the first time along with Vixy and Tony, Heather Dale and my adopted sisters Urban Tapestry ;-) As it turns out, my friend and former band mate Al, from Curraugh will be flying in along with Dave so there will be a reunion of this group as such and maybe we will play at some of the late night filks. Hope everyone has a safe trip here to Toronto and we send you all Big Hugs.

Tom and Sue

Sue and I were both deeply saddened to hear the sad news of Greg's passing. I met Greg many times at conventions and he always had a smiling face and kind words. He was a big fan of Dandelion Wine's music and told me on many occasions. He truely loved filk music and the filk community and we will all miss him so very much. Hugs and condolences to his family.

Tom

Sue and I just returned last night from a fun time in Troy Michigan at Confusion. We were joined by a fairly large Toronto contingent. The music guest this year was Throwing Toasters (Grant Baciocco) from California and he has been classified as a stand up comic with a guitar and I enjoyed his music and comedy very much. Friday night featured a concert by The Great Luke Ski and two theme filks "The Stars our Destination" and "Music of Middle Earth" which were well attended and a lot of fun. Saturday was a full day starting with a panel I was on called "Strange Music, Strange Instruments and the Filkers who Love Them". I brought along my Spanish Laud plus an African Thumb Harp and the rest of the panelists (Peter, Jane and Peggi) also had an array of unique instruments. The panel was well attended and it was great to see the audience join in and talk about thier unusual instruments. Peter's Lego Dulcimer still amazes me!!  Sue and ran off to see an astronomical slide show after this hosted by Bill Higgins which we enjoyed very much and then we checked out the Dealer's and Art rooms. I fell in love with an adorable wolf puppet who I have named "Link" and he is now living in Canada with us ;-) The rest of the day was filled with Concerts by Peter Alway, Tom Smith, Luke Ski, Throwing Toasters, Eloise Mason and Bill Roper and yours truly.  I chose to do a mix of original cuts from the new DW CD scheduled for release later this year along with a brand new song "Tiny Stars". Sunday I attended a Comedy Song Workshop featuring Tom Smith, Luke Ski and Grant Baciocco which was fantastic and it made me wish I could write a funny song and I guess the closest I have written is "Gone Filkin" of course there is the "Where is your Heart Debbie-O" song :-D We finished off with some later afternoon filking which we called the "Toronto House Filk" since everyone there was from Toronto except for Peter Alway. The drive home was fun with Jane and Phil and we missed the snow squall that hit northern parts of Toronto and cause a 100 car pile up on the 400 freeway. Today we are just relaxing and cleaning up and unpacking and I will be doing some more recording. 

current mood: lazy

Well this was Sue and my 2nd Christmas together and it was fantastic. Last year we had just driven across Canada together from my previous home in Winnipeg to my new home in Toronto and we arrived in a snow storm and it was my first time driving on a freeway in a blizzard with everything I own  in my SUV with no vision out my back window :-\ This year was a lot less stressful and we were able to spend time shopping and decorating the Condo and spending time with friends and family. This year we had a Condo full of people with the 4 grandkids,  Sue's daughters and their husbands and significant others. Christmas morning was spent opening up stockings and gifts and watching the kids go crazy with their presents. The first gift I received was what I thought was a DVD but on closer inspection was a Wii game. Sue said "Oh gee am I ever dumb, I thought it was a DVD". At this point I was more than a little suspicious and the next gift proved I was right as it was a Wii Game system. Now we are the most popular people around and maybe someday I will get to play it :-D Christmas Day was also spent in our Condo swimming pool and hot tub and that was fun and the kids got to work off some pent up energy. We then retired back to the Condo for a delicious Turkey Dinner. Later in the evening we watched the new Harry Potter movie.
  Sue and I picked up a bug after Christmas and we were busy taking cold medicine and coughing on each other. As a result we passed on the music party and get together at Judith's after Christmas and we both felt bad about that. We have now pretty well recovered and are off to a Music/New Years Party at Phil and Jane's this afternoon which will be a lot of fun. Next weekend Ken and Peggi are dropping over and hopefully I will have my recording studio working since Ken has been helping me work the bugs out. It may be a problem with my firewire card.
  Well that's about all for now and I hope everyone had a nice holiday and Hugs to everyone and all the best and lots of love and music in the New Year.

current mood: grateful

Hi everyone!

We are finally getting around to posting our Filk Continental con report and life has finally seemed to settle down a lot since getting back from Germany. We have posted some pictures on my Flicker site http://www.flickr.com/photos/30674963@N00/sets/72157602529617332/ , showing the fun we had at the con and our beautiful tour of Germany. Thanks to Anke and Franklin and Molly and family and we would also like to thank Ju and Bear for their hospitality and showing us a wonderful time. We would also like to thank all the con com for inviting Dandelion Wine as guests and for taking such good care of us. This was a time we will cherish in memories of new friends made and old friends met. OK, enough of the schmaltzy stuff!

Here is the con report:

current mood: happy