This year, Jazzfest went by fast! It seems like the first Jazz weekend was yesterday, and now it’s all over! My mother got Brass Passes from one of her friends so me and my family were able to go pretty often. But during the last weekend, my father wasn’t here so he sorta missed out. Cowboy Mouth played the first Saturday, and that’s always good, but it sure was wet and muddy. They’re awesome live! Then there was Stevie Wonder… well, he pretty much sucked but I guess you can’t have everything. The food this year was excellent! I had all of my of favorites, except for crawfish monica. I looked everywhere for that dish but couldn’t find it. My dad knew where it was but he was in Philadelphia.
On the corner of Palmyra and Olympia is a small corner store which is under construction. It will soon open and what I find so fantastic about it is that they will sell Big Shot!!! I haven’t been able to fing any store in New Orleans since Katrina that sells this local soft drink, but now, I will be able to walk up the street and buy a can. Cha!! I can’t wait for it to open. ^_^
Last night at the Hornet’s arena, I went with my dad, and Adrastos and his wife Dr. A to a Rush concert. It was awesome!! The music was amazing, especially to have been performed by such a small band. The vocalist, Geddy Lee, has an.. um… I guess ‘interesting’ would be the word to describe his singing voice. Not that he has a bad one, it’s much better than mine. But it’s definitely interesting. And then Neil Peart, on drums, well, yah. God, that guy is amazing! Alex was great on guitar also. The lights were phenomenal, shooting out from all different angles of the arena, with tons of smoke and various displays of fire and explosions. We also had wonderful seating, being only two rows away from what would be the court. The three members of the band are supposed to be extremely bright, which for whatever reason, seems to be the usual case for people who, in their youth, were in the punk/goth clicks, or whatever they’re called now.
A week or so back, Saint Patrick’s Park in Mid City had its first movie night. They showed The Wizard of Oz and plan to show the following films on the following nights: A Street car named Desire on 5-16-08; Casablanca on 5-17-08; Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory on 5-31-08; Chitty-Chitty Bang-Bang on 6-7-08 and there are a couple more listed. There’s one on my birthday, the 7th of July, and another on one of my friend’s birthdays so we both want to have part of our parties there. Anyway, it’s free to go and they have food and drinks so next time they hold a movie, why not come?
(wow… i haven’t blogged in a long time) Over spring break, my family and I went up to Omaha, Nebraska. The reason was one: visiting family and two: my dad was having a punk rock band reunion. In case you don’t know, my father was in a punk rock band ‘back in the day’. Their name was Apathy and the band consisted of Seth Kirshman (singer), Mark Blackman (drummer), (my uncle) Jim Homan (guitarist), and my personal favorite, (my very own father) Michael Homan (bassist). The band was pretty well known and CDs were sold over seas. My brother and I were able to attend the concert and thought the whole thing was pretty cool. Although, it was sort of strange to see middle aged men jumping up and down and playing punk music on stage. But, being sort of into the whole punk thing myself, I enjoyed the whole event. My dad’s band was the best by far and you can see a video of the whole thing here:
This is a picture of the band on stage taken by my mom, Therese Fitzpatrick:
Another Photo: Here you can see the drummer. I love my dad’s hair in the pic.
For more vacation assignments, my dad told me to write a report on my opinion of organs. So here it is.
My favorite organs are bones because of all but one of the skeletons’ five major functions. The first of the five is Shape and Support, and those are useful for obvious reasons, unless you want to be a blob of skin and flesh. The second function is movement, which is also useful for obvious reasons. The third major function of skeleton is protection of the internal organs. I think that I can lump my reason for liking that with the other two functions. The 4th major function is making blood, and blood is useful for many reasons like circulation. Last and least is the fifth major function, which is that bones have the ability to store certain materials until the body needs them. It’s not that I don’t like this ability, just that I don’t find it as useful as I do the others.
My least favorite organ is skin. I don’t mind how it works, just that humans spend so much time thinking of it. People are always wondering if their skin looks alright, if they have acne, and buying so many cosmetics to improve your skin.
My dad thought that it would be a good idea if, for some math homework, I did a survey of houses on South Alexander and figured out percentages. Here are the results of my survey of S. Alexander, from the south at Ulloa to the North at Canal Street:
Total number of houses: 79
Demolished- 6 houses/ ≈7.5949%
Inhabited- 24 houses/ ≈30.3797%
Uninhabited- 55 houses/ ≈69.6202%
Being Rebuilt- 32 houses/ ≈40.5065%
FEMA Trailers- 2 trailers/ ≈2.5316%
I’m writing this report on Andrew Jackson because I’m trying to improve my grade in American Studies, and the anniversary of the Battle of New Orleans is coming up (January 8th).
Andrew Jackson was born on March 15, 1767. Although he was born in the North-South Carolina region, his exact birth location remains uncertain. He himself said that he was born in a cabin just inside South Carolina. Jackson was born weeks after his father’s death and was the youngest of three brothers. During the Revolutionary War, Jackson and his brother were caught, Jackson himself at age 13, and held as prisoners of war. Once, when Jackson simply refused to clean the boots of a British Officer, the Officer got angry and gave Jackson a scar using the Officer’s sword across Jackson’s face that he would carry for the rest of his life. His brother died of disease just weeks after he got out of prison. The rest of Jackson’s family died shortly after from war-related affairs.
In 1801, Andrew Jackson was made commander of the Tennessee militia. Jackson defeated the Red Stick Creeks at the battle of Horseshoe bend. The village being invaded by Jackson was well defended. It had one curving river on three sides and a giant mass of logs on the other. Jackson and his troops swam across the river and set fire to the village. Three years later, after the War of 1812 had begun, Jackson took part in the war at the Battle of New Orleans. Jackson’s troops marched to New Orleans for the oncoming battle for it was rumored that British troops were gathering in the region. General John Keane led the rather large invasion of British soldiers. Keane had his soldiers camp set directly below the city and was waiting for reinforcements to come before the battle. When Jackson heard of the location of the British fort, he sent his troops directly and immediately into battle. The ending result was over two-thousand British casualties and less than one-hundred American. This battle catapulted Jackson into governmental office in 1822 making him the seventh president of the United States of America. Many years later, in 1845, at the Hermatige, his largest farm, Andrew Jackson died of heart failure and chronic tuberculosis.
At my school it’s the end of the quarter and that means two things. First, Exams are randomly being thrown at us. Because of this our schedule is changing constantly, confusion is everywhere, people are so stressed that they seem to be at the point of exhaustion, and otherwise there just seems to be a catastrophic sense of evil and mayhem throughout the halls of our school. (I personally enjoy watching pitiful students running and screaming across the school, simply because I find it funny and the lack of pointless homework is also a definite bonus.) The second thing that it being the end of the quarter brings is that we are about to have a break!!! I’m happy because this specific break happens to be Christmas and we (my immediate family) are going to go to Omaha, Nebraska to visit family. Lets see… today is the 19th so there will be six days until Christmas. I guess it’s time to bring out my Christmas list. And here it is:
1) Amazon gift cards
2) Cosmetics (mascara, eyeliner, eye shadow, lipstick, and nail polish)
3) Wii Games (Boogie, Mario Galaxy, and any other game that you might think I like)
4) Coconuts and pineapple wearing santa hats
