Fort Atlantic - Let Your Heart Hold Fast Official Lyric Video

This song is so good that I really am loathe to tell you that I heard it first as the background music to the proposal scene on an episode of How I Met Your Mother.



Whew!!

That is really a weight off my shoulders.

It's good to let it out.



But do take a moment and listen.

This is good stuff.

The Avett Brothers - Down With The Shine (Live on Letterman)

A friend of mine (Hi Sharon!)  told me about these guys a long, long time ago.

I listened but without having a particular feeling about them until I saw this song.

And now I can admit that she was right and I was wrong.

There.

It's done.

Let it go man.

Walking with ghosts in snow

Walking in the snow this evening
I could feel my father's ghost
treading lightly behind.

Funny how the stillness
will echo your thoughts.

My father left me 2 things outside of a name:
A worn copy of Brave Men
and a lighter from his days in service.
One to light the darkness
and another to steel the heart
on these cold days of ice and snow.

And on this walk,
I wonder how he could've been so wise
as to know all the things I would ever need.

I wish I looked good in hats.  Dang shame!

http://www.nickfouquet.com/#!nick-fouquet-collection/cee5

A Certain Savior Faire

Already it's hard to tell

where the scars stop or start, 

on these boots.
Where they are most worn.

The first cuts began 

in the hills of San Francisco,

along the tracks of the trolley cars

and the fog shrouded piers

bustling with seals and tourists.

Down thru the Bowery bars

and the still, SoHo evenings 

just after the towers.

Flying thru the Krog St. Tunnel

and on into Oakland Cemetery,

up the Avenue of Giants,

and finally slipping in the rain

on Rue de Louce.

And the soles that began

in love, finally fall for it again

as I retrace these many routes

these broken boots have carried me.

taken from wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Waterloo

The Battle of Waterloo was fought on Sunday, 18 June 1815, near Waterloo in present-day Belgium, then part of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands. An Imperial French army under the command ofEmperor Napoleon was defeated by the armies of the Seventh Coalition, comprising an Anglo-allied army under the command of the Duke of Wellington combined with a Prussian army under the command of Gebhard von Blücher. It was the culminating battle of the Waterloo Campaign and Napoleon's last. The defeat at Waterloo ended his rule as Emperor of the French, marking the end of his Hundred Days return from exile.

Upon Napoleon's return to power in March 1815, many states that had opposed him formed the Seventh Coalition and began to mobilise armies. Two large forces under Wellington and Blücher assembled close to the north-eastern border of France. Napoleon chose to attack in the hope of destroying them before they could join in a coordinated invasion of France with other members of the coalition. The decisive engagement of this three-day Waterloo Campaign (16–19 June 1815) occurred at the Battle of Waterloo. According to Wellington, the battle was "the nearest-run thing you ever saw in your life".[6]

Napoleon delayed giving battle until noon on 18 June to allow the ground to dry. Wellington's army, positioned across the Brussels road on the Mont-Saint-Jean escarpment, withstood repeated attacks by the French, until, in the evening, the Prussians arrived in force and broke through Napoleon's right flank. At that moment, Wellington's Anglo-allied army counter-attacked and drove the French army in disorder from the field. Pursuing coalition forces entered France and restored King Louis XVIII to the French throne. Napoleon abdicated, surrendered to the British, and was exiled to Saint Helena, where he died in 1821.

The battlefield is in present-day Belgium, about 8 miles (13 km) south by south-east of Brussels, and about 1 mile (1.6 km) from the town of Waterloo. The site of the battlefield is today dominated by a large monument, the Lion's Mound. As this mound was constructed from earth taken from the battlefield itself, the contemporary topography of the part of the battlefield around the mound has not been preserved.

_______________________________________________________________________________

The link below is to a short video from BBC News about restoration projects currently being done at the site of The Battle of Waterloo.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-25619341

_______________________________________________________________________________

I mention these facts because

A.)  I am in France. 

B.)  History is nifty.

C.)  When Napoleon escaped exile on the island Elba, it was here in Golfe Juan that he landed and began his trek to Paris and eventually, met his fate at Waterloo.

I was out walking this morning and saw a small sign on the side of a cafe, just across from the beach, that announces - 

The Latest Entry

.....in which your intrepid reporter is duped into waiting at JFK by no less than 3 Delta employees who insist that "that lil' storm won't keep you in New York", followed immediately by me waiting in Atlanta to take off, waiting to land in New York, waiting to de-plane in New York, wandering aimlessly around JFK until security begins to take a keen interest while my flight time is moved back 3 times and then finally somebody just throws an "ish" on the proposed flight time (as in 11ish), followed by 8 hours in the air, which is followed by circling Nice like a confused Canadian goose until we are so low on fuel that we land in Italy, and begin a protracted wait on the tarmac while Delta, Pisa Airport, French and Italian Immigration, and a veritable encyclopedia of random policing agencies debate what to do with my co-travelers and I, only narrowly missing "give z'em to ze Germans" and ending up at Hotel Galilei in Pisa.

I must be living right.
Good thing I got that tattoo of St. Michael the Archangel defeating satan before I left.
No telling what trouble I would've ended up in without it.