Check out tracks from our new CD:

"Changin' My Mind" which was recently released which is available for purchse here and is also now available on iTunes
along with our first CD: "Back Home Again"

Also Check out tracks from Bruce Emery and David McKnifght's new CD:

"Windy and Warm" which ItstheMusic produced and was recently released.
This CD is now available from Skeptical Guitarist Publications

Enjoy your visit... Many Thanks!

-- Bill, Robert, Joe & David.

ItstheMusic NEWS!

JULY 26, 2008
How I spent my 53rd Birthday
- Tahoe Rim Trail 100mile / 50 mile / 50K Endurance Run

This weekend it's time for apple pie picked fresh from our tree and ice cream: If you don't ike apple.. well there's not much hope for you in any case. But there is peach pie as well. All this and more on the 53rd anniversary of my birth and only a week late. At least when I was 3 months old I could cry and get things in a little more timely fashion. But perhaps the better option would have been through sheer cuteness.

...This is me.. cuteness as defined in October of 1955. Whatever happened to it?

I don't know...

Last weekend was my birthday weekend and we were in the thin air of Lake Tahoe for the Tahoe Rim Trail 50 Mile Endurance Run. There were people simultaneously running the 100 miler (although they started at 5 AM) and then there were those of us running the 50K as well as the 50 miler starting at 6 AM. The 50 miler was enough for me this year.

There were 113 out of 144 starters who finished the 50M... I was 17th and the first old-fart to cross the line from the "over 50" crowd. Of the 111 people who started the 100 Mile race (who finished the next day) only 64 finished (53%). This was a slightly tougher version of course, which was two of the loops we did for the 50 mile course: Tahoe Rim Trail 2008 Results

The elevation - distance chart below shows how much time we spent above 8000 ft. We maxed out at 9000 feet just below the Snow Valley Peak summit 7 miles from the finish...

Surprisingly the altitude didn't bother me. The hills weren't all that tough. There were just a lot of them. I did have a drinking problem during the race. I had brought a Camelback backpack since I didn't know the course I wanted to carry enough supplies with me so as not to run out between aid stations. Well that worked out well since and aid station was missing a the half-way point between Tunnel Creek aid and Mt Rose - the hilly 9 mile section that spends all it's time uphill and above 8000 feet. I had enough water but many people didn't.

Luckily they got that aid station in by the time I returned from Mt Rose. It was hotter then and the extra water was very welcome. SOmething I did learn was it is quite difficult and perhaps unsafe to drink out of a Camelback at high altitude. You have to suck the water out of the bladder and to do so you stop breathing. When I did even for just a few seconds I got extremely light headedand nearly fell over a couple times. Not good. Water bottles next time. The kind you squeeze the water out.

Al in all I had a really good run. The downhill from Mt Rode turn around was extremely welcome. I did manage to get into trouble once after just 15 minutes earlier pulled myself out of a slump by taking 3 extra Salt Caps when I started feeling a bit low. I felt the same and thought it must be the heat since I just took salt and I couldn't possibly need more so soon. Well I did and I was quite nauseaus by the time I pulled into the Hobart ROad aid station at mile 40. It took about 12 minutes there and 6 more slat caps to get me straigtened out enough so I could go on. Not too bad. But three more S-Caps 15 minutes earlier would have helped prevent such a porblem. I have to learn if you need salt then take it. I thought I had all this figured out. GUess not.

So I had a good day overall.

I did manage to beat my much more talented, faster, younger, lighter, runner friend, Mark Tanaka, for the first time ever! For some reason the altitude makes him quite sick. I had caught him at about half way through the race a couple miles before the Mt. Rose aid station turn around at 26 miles. He was one of the people who had run out of water a ways back. I was about to offer him some when I realised I was out too. Oh well.

Mark usually is in the top 3 or 4 finishers in most "lowland" races. I don't do too bad but being bigger and heavier, the hilliier races usually put more distnace between me and Mark. Last fall I came in 3rd.. only 10 minutes behind him at Rio Del Lago 100 miler - a much flatter faster race than last weekend's Tahoe Rim Trail 100 - a reall bugger of a course as you can see..

Mark had also run the Tahoe Rim Trail 100 mile race for the firsttime two years ago and just made the 35 hour cut-off. So he really has trouble at altitude. So he has dropped down to doing the 50 miler the past two years.

I finished in 10:29 which I was pretty happy with considering the altitude and the 9,894 feet of climbing (and descent) you do for the 50 miles. The only tougher 50 miler I've done was the Diablo 50 which has about 14,000 feet of climbing.

I sat and had which they handed me after the race. A nice Stout which taseted great. That is always a good sign when I can drink a beer after a tough run. means I'm not too far oof from feeling decent and normal.

I was curious how I did, so Debbie and I went to get food check on the race results and grab my camera to take some finish line pictures which I like to do when I'm feeling well enough after a race. We went up to the awards area and could find no results posted for either the 50K or 50 miler. Nor could we find anyone who knew the results. So we grabbed a burrito and a soda and the camera bag out of the car and ate. About an hour later we went back to the finish line and Mark had just come in looking much better than I saw him earlier in the day.

He had been in for about 10 minutes and was definintely feeling better at the 7000 ft of the start / finish line.

I had hoped Debbie would have remembered the camera and got one or two of me finishing, but not this year. So now we ahd the camera and she could take some of us at the finish line. This is Mark and me. I'm the one on the right (in case you couldn't tell from the earlier picture af me above)...

Later he felt obliged to bow to the victor in our friendly competition. It was his idea - believe me!

We spent the rest of the weekend in South Lake Tahoe and had a great dinner at Villa Roma and then knocked around the lake for a while the next day before diving back to Livermore.

We were going to ride the Tahoe Queen but rain looked emminent. So we just tooled around the shops in South Lake Tahoe and I found a great new pair of trail running shoes! Montrail Streaks!

We did get rained on and even so it was a beautiful day and a nice get away. - and good training for the upcomgin fall races...........

Next year the 100 miler... maybe.

June 25, 2008
Over 800 Wildfires in Northern Ca Sparked by June 21st Lightning Storm!

All week the air has been filled with smoke from the over 800 wildfires sparked by a freak lightning storm on Saturday June 21st. They recorded over 3200 lightning strikes. The air quality has been extremely bad all week. So bad that the Western Sates 100 Mile Endurance Run has been cancelled for the first time in its 35 year history. Runners from all over the world are due to arrive for the race which will no be held. Looks like I won't be pacing this year either.

The air cleared up a bit last night with a welcome westerly evening breeze and so Deb and I went up to Del Valle for a walk at sunset. Even though the air was better there was still abundant smoke in the air which you could still smell and see, which made for a spectacular sunset.

Here are some pictures I took.

June 9 - June 13, 2008
Yosemite Trip

First Day at Camp	Yosemite Falls Hike	Drive to Glacier Point
Valley Tour	Lower Falls	Diana's Pictures

March 16 - May 13, 2008

Home Rennovation Project - Livermore CA

Photo Gallery

Two months of being torn up was not as easy as it might seem... The main part of bumping out the entryway of the house and adding space to the office / studio took a month. We replaced all the old orignasl single pane aluminum fram windows with Marvin INtegrity double paned windows. Added inulation in the attic and stucco's the rest of the from of the house and garage which was originally a plywood facad. The "remodel" of the living room - which involved raising the ceiling and dressing out the roof trusses took anotherr month! PLASTER Dust, dust, dust, everywhere on everything every day we came home! We finally have our house back and the old living room is a new "family" room.