Share about your home town or where you living now!

[jadegil6]

The Bastrop Fire started September 4, 2011, and is still burning. It is now 70% contained. To date it has killed 6 people, burned over 35,000 acres (one acre is approximately one-half hectare), and has totally destroyed more than 1,500 homes.
It is thought that the fire may have started by tree limbs touching electrical power lines, and causing them to spark.
Central Texas has been in a severe drought for the past year, and all of the trees and vegetation are dry and brittle.
Presently, there are over 600 firefighters battling this fire, most of whom are volunteers.

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[Edwin]

Thank you for the photos, Michael! The devestation is just unbelievable!

[jadegil6]

Not all of the news from around here (Austin, Texas) is as bad as that of the fire. The Austin City Limits (ACL) Music Festival starts tomorrow on Friday, and runs for 3 days, and has eight stages. The line up includes these groups, plus about 100 more bands:

Stevie Wonder • Arcade Fire • Coldplay • Kanye West •
My Morning Jacket • Manu Chao La Ventura • Fleet Foxes • Loading...Alison Krauss & Union Station • Nas & Damian "Jr Gong" Marley •
Cee Lo •
Bright Eyes • Social Distortion • Empire Of The Sun • Cut Copy • Ray LaMontagne •
Santigold • Pretty Lights • TV On The Radio • Skrillex • Big Boi • Randy Newman •
Iron & Wine • Ryan Bingham & The Dead Horses •
Broken Social Scene • Chromeo • Death From Above 1979 •
Cold War Kids • The Airborne Toxic Event • Elbow
If you wish to see and listen to some of the music, then YouTube has two channels of livestreaming.
To see the schedule that they will offer, then you can go to this URL:
http://www.youtube.com/aclfestival

The times displayed on the livecast website are in US Central Time, and that is 13 hours behind Philippine time. So a performance for Coldplay scheduled for Friday at 8:30 PM in Texas will actually be on Saturday at 9:30 AM in the Philippines.

[Edwin]

Yes, because of time zones and daylight savings time, our time difference between us and the Philippines is different. 8:30 a.m. our time is 11:30 p.m. in the Philippines as long as we are still day light savings time. So we are 15 hours different than the Philippines, but you are 2 hours later than we are, so you are closer to the Philippine's time zone.

Years ago we used to watch Austin City Limit's music on a television show each week, and we enjoyed it very much!

[jadegil6]

Yes, that is still a television show, and is on once a week, and has been on tv for 30 years. About 6 months ago they moved it into a new auditorium/studio in the W Hotel in downtown Austin. Before that, it had been recorded on the Univeristy of Texas campus. It is the same organization that is putting on this Music Festival. The first show on tv was with Willie Nelson, and he was also the first performer in their new location. He is an Austinite. He moved here after he couldn't make a name for himself in Nashville.
I watched 5 hours of the ACL Festival online today through that YouTube link. Reminded me of when I used to go to those big outdoor concerts.

[Edwin]

Yes, I remember those outdoor viewing of Austin City Limits, and it is interesting that it has moved from the University of Texas Campus to down town Hotel. Thanks for that information, Michael. I remember Willie Nelson on several shows, and even though I don't remember the individual performers from those television shows long ago, I know I watched him a number of times from there. I think you are correct in that he did try in Nashville. At one time, and I can't remember the show right off hand, but I remember seeing him in suit, white shirt, and a tie, with a very short hair cut. It seemed so strange to see him that way, and that is not the Willie Nelson we know! That is a bit of nostalgia, huh? Thanks for sharing and bringing back old memories!

[Smiley]

I love the Austin City Limits series. Totally a class act. Some of the best acts anywhere have shown up on that stage.

[Edwin]

We live on what is known as the South Half of the Colville Indian Reservation. Some of the people who live here will say, "I live on the Rez. I have been told that people who have lived most of their lives here, including me, off and on, have their own accent and pattern of speech. We for the most part talk slower and more precise. If they would have had speech therapy when I was in school they would have put me in it, because I talk different from many people. My speech is slow, and I have an accent that would make you think I was from Canada, or the Eastern USA. I did live for 5 years in Canada, but I have never been to the East Coast USA. The Indians around here have their own lingo. The say, "Ain't it," when they are agreeing with someone. When leaving they will say, "Later," then they will disappear. They will do the same thing while talking on the phone, as in saying "Later," instead of goodbye, or they might not say any goodbye just hang up. They will also say, "I will be back in a minute," but what they mean is I might be back in an hour, or maybe even next week. They have a saying "Indian time is anytime!" And literally they live by that. They might be a half hour early, or they might be a half hour late. I taught at a number of schools in my 10 years of teaching, and the only school I ever had to clock into was an Indian school, and the reason for that was that there were so many Indians working there that had no concept of what being on time meant that they used a clock in to try to help these Indian workers understand what being on time meant.

I hope no one thinks I am putting Indians down, because I am not. I am merely describing what they are like and what there mode of operation is. I am part Indian, not many generations removed from a full blood grandmother, but I am not part of this tribe where I live. I am Cherokee. We live in the middle of nowhere literally. We have 3 towns about an hour's drive away. One of the towns, Okanogan, has a few Indians, but not many. They have more Mexicans now than Indians. The other town is Omak, and at least half of that town is comprised of Indians. The other town one hour away is Nespelem, and it is about 99 percent Indians. I taught in that elementary school also, but it is a public school rather than an Indian school, although at least 95 percent or more of the children are Indians. The school I taught at where I had to clock in was Paschal Sherman Indian School, now owned and operated by the Indian Tribe. It was a Catholic boarding school for many years until the 1970s when the Tribe took it over. The past students have been suing the Catholic Church, and some Catholic Priests, alledging sexual abuse, which is really sad for all involved I think. I will be happy when all of that is out of the way so that people can forget about that history and move on. The Catholic Church still has a very strong connection with the school. I have sat in Church with classrooms of the kids who were attending, Easter or Christmas celebrations. I have also shared in officiating at funerals with the Catholic Like I say, lots of fond memories, and the one Catholic Father that I worked with, Father Jake Peterson, I really liked him a lot, admired him, and looked up to him. I believe with all my heart that he was a true man of God.

[Edwin]

Now, I have described the towns, the people, their ways in my above post, and now I am going to tell a little about what this place is like where we live. We have a neighbor 2 miles to our East. We had a neighbor about 2.5 miles to our South East, but he died of cancer. His mother and my grandmother were identical twins. My brother lives 2 miles South West of here. My mother's brother lived just across the fence from that, but he and his family all died including a cousin my age. A younger cousin operates the place, but he doesn't live there. We have neighbors about 3 miles to our West. My mother's older sister used to live right across the fence from that, but they are all dead and gone. We have neighbors who live about 8 miles right directly towards town. Then we have other neighbors who live about 12 miles the other direction towards a town to our South West. There are people who live about 4 miles from here towards Nespelem, and those are all the people who live on this hill. Our kids live 600 feet from our house on 40 acres of my Great Grandfather's homestead. At one time there were so many people who lived on this hill that they have school houses every quarter of a mile. What happened is that in the early 1900s the US Government opened this reservation up for homesteading, and many white people homesteaded, usually having someone live every quarter of a mile. The grass was tall and they had good rains during those years. Then a drought came, and people started going broke. Their land went for taxes. If you could pay the taxes, you could have the land. My relatives emassed a lot of property that way. My grandmother was Indian, but the rest of them were white people. That is how white people have come to own property on the Indian Reservation. Many Indians tried to reverse that by passing restrictive laws against white people, and they also tried to buy a lot of the land back, but they didn't accomplish much, and now it is back to what it was before with a mixture of Indian land, and White man's land, and a mixture of Whites and Indians. When I was young and growing up there were twice as many people on this hill as there is now, and that was only a fraction of the number of people who used to live here years ago. It makes me feel sad when I see buildings deteriorating, and people moving away for dying, but Carol tells me that is part of life, and I shouldn't feel sad about it, but I do because it is just like your home is changing and for the worst. But the Bible tells us that all these things are going to pass away with a fervent heat, and probably with a loud bang as well. God is going to create a new heaven and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness. My trombones, my accordion, my pianos, our daughter's guitar that I am claiming for now, as well as everything else that I value is going to pass away, and something much better is going to come, and we are going to live in God's presence forever. "But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him."

[crisipicada]

We will be experiencing rainy days, this month as I heard the news this morning. So, we are quite worried because landslide might happen again. The newscaster reminded us to be alert and careful about the upcoming rainy days.