Wake County Record Breakers!

Graphic Credit:  Saint Ambrose Buzz

All around Wake County tomorrow, school kids will be getting some cardio.

They're going to attempt to break the World Record for Jump Roping!

I think it's pretty cool, everyone across the county uniting to make it into the record books.  I don't ever remember doing anything that fun or that cool when I was in elementary school.

You know what would really impress me, though?  If all the kids double-dutched!

Either way, though, good luck to all the kids in the Wake County school system tomorrow!


Alli

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Buddy Guy/Jonny Lang Review

Buddy Guy blew my mind last night at Raleigh's Progress Energy Center.  More on that in a bit...first, a little about Jonny Lang.

I first saw blues guitarist Jonny Lang when I walked into a San Diego club in 1997 to check out some live music.  He was - wait for it - 16 years old.

Lang's major label debut is an awesome blues album, kickstarted by the opener and title track, "Lie to Me".  That album was filled with 3 and 4 minute flamethrowers, which for years made up the feel of his live shows. Now that Lang has been touring with one of the greatest blues guitarists of all time since last year, he seems to have adapted his live style to mirror that of Buddy Guy.

Lang's set, as usual, was filled with some blistering solos that make it abundantly clear why he has the chops to embark on a co-headlining tour with a legend.  But it also moves much slower, with improvisational grooves making for a more traditional blues performance.  Unfortunately, while very enjoyable to watch, Lang sacrifices just a little too much tempo and has eliminated too many of his more radio-friendly tracks from the set (including his biggest hit, "Lie to Me").

I wouldn't mind having the energy of Buddy Guy when I'm 76 years old.  Opening his set with a full throttle version of "Damn Right I've Got The Blues", Guy showed out of the gate why he is Eric Clapton's (and many others) guitar hero.  Watching Guy is watching a master at work.  His stage presence was impressive, often stopping songs to make jokes, telling quick anecdotes about the songs ("I didn't write that one.  Muddy Waters wrote that one.  But I did write this one.") He's got plenty of tricks left up his sleeve, including switching hands to play the guitar upside down and rubbing it against his chest to create a washboard effect.  He mesmerizes the audience when he tells them to quiet down and purposely sings quietly off mic.

At 76, he's not going to let anyone wreck his mojo, including an apparently intoxicated woman at the back of Memorial Auditorium who kept screaming lines like "I love you Buddy!!" and "You know that's right!!" at the most inappropriate of times.  When she screamed out during an intimate story about not having running water until he was 17 years old, Guy looked straight back at her and said "Why don't you shut the ___ up?" to the delight of the rest of the crowd.

We can wish geniuses like Buddy Guy will go on forever - but in the meantime, we've got to take every opportunity to see them while they are still blowing our minds.

Foster
Radio 96.1

NC Auto Expo Review

Anything resembling white flakes falling from the sky usually paralyzes the citizens of the Triangle.  That's why it was pretty awesome to see a very large crowd at the North Carolina International Auto Expo on Saturday morning.

The show, which ran Thursday-Sunday, has turned into one of the premier family events in the area.  Kids love getting into the cars, pressing buttons, grabbing the wheel and pretending to drive, which is encouraged. The Amazing Spider Man was in the house on Saturday, which was - not surprisingly - a big hit.

In addition to the new model cars sprawling through two buildings, attendees could enjoy the classic cars - a show within itself filling up Dorton Arena.

DJ Collin Y joined me to co-host 6 rounds of Auto Jeopardy on the Curtis Media stage much to the delight of crowds of car lovers.

The NC International Auto Expo is great fun, especially at a time of year when the number of outdoor options are limited.  If you missed it this year, make sure you catch it in February 2014!

Foster

Radio 96.1

Surviving the Krispy Kreme Challenge

Today's blog comes courtesy of Kevin Magee of the Expion team, which ran the Krispy Kreme Challenge last Saturday.  The Krispy Kreme Challenge is a 5 mile run that requires participants to eat a dozen Krispy Kreme donuts at the halfway point.  

Kevin eating the 12th donut

Yet another Krispy Kreme Challenge is over. I've proudly completed 4 of these and can't really tell you where the pride comes from. People look at you funny when you tell them you pay money to run 2.5 miles, power through a dozen doughnuts, and somehow stumble back another 2.5 miles to complete the Challenge in under an hour. You do feel good knowing the race raises big money for NC Childrens Hospital and the atmosphere is sufficiently quirky with people of all ages costuming up to celebrate with 8000 people. 

I huddled up at the chilly start with 8 teammates from Expion knowing that only 2 of us were there to eat the dozen. Like any road race, the start is fast and the pace crazy, people were passing me until the first few hills evened things up a bit. Seeing the boxes and boxes of doughnuts at Krispy Kreme, you just know its on and somehow you have to catch your breath to eat. In past years, the first few were tasty. Not this year, for me at least. The first doughnuts were dense and sent immediate signal that this was going to be tough. My style is to squish 3 together into a doughnut sandwich and drink just enough water to get it down. Hard to explain what its like chewing doughnuts to eat them fast- until you do it. When I got to my last single doughnut- just hammered it in, sipped water, started running and then rinsed my mouth out and tried to get a running rhythm down.

Expion team's Jenny feeling triumphant

For whatever reason, I felt really good on my run back to the bell tower. I have no explanation for that and you just don't question.  I dodged 3 different people bending over and returning their doughnuts to the earth, never focused on that ,and finished in my personal best time of 47:14. I had the pride to know I beat everyone else on my team back to the start and kept the doughnuts down. How did I celebrate? With a massive nap about 2 hours later that I awoke from not knowing the day, time or where I was supposed to be. 

Already looking forward to next year. And I don't know why. 

Kevin

The entire Expion team

Foster's Second Flight Lesson

I may have an addiction to my new hobby, flying airplanes.  Honestly, I think I would have taken a lesson at Blue Line Aviation just to get this picture of me in the cockpit wearing the headset:

But really, after flying the plane during my first lesson, how could I not go back for more to see what would be next??

This is the Cessna I'm learning in and that's my instructor - Captain Mike.

In this lesson on a beautiful Saturday morning, I learned the pre-flight checklist.  I checked the exterior of the plane before flight, got weather info and wind speed to see how it would affect flying, and calculated the weight of the plane.

I taxied to the runway and took off like last time, but this time while in the air, we worked on steep turns.  As in 45 degrees.  You will feel some G force!!

When the tower told me to climb to 3,000 feet, I did that.  Descend to 2,000?  Did that too.  Turn to the south?  You bet.   Landing?  Not yet (Captain Mike handled that for now), but I have a feeling that's coming soon.  In the next lesson, we're going to fly to another airport, land and then fly back.

If you've ever thought about flying, you've got to check Blue Line out.  This is as cool as it gets.

Blue Line Aviation - 919-840-0064 and www.learntoflyraleigh.com

Foster
Radio 96.1