Sheldon Brown's Journal
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September-October 2007
The Pirates of Penzance Sing Through
Tova and I went in to M.I.T. for another M.I.T.G.A.S.P. sing through. I had a great part in this one, Sergeant of Police, with a couple of good solos: When the Foeman Bears His Steel and A Policeman's Lot Is Not a Happy One. I feel that I acquitted myself OK, though I had to perform from a chair.Had a very scary fall on the way, though. I had parked just in front of M.I.T. and walked around to the back of the van, about to open the tailgate and haul out the scooter, when I toppled over. My head was inches from the sharp corner of the granite curbstone, which would almost certainly have cracked my skull...but my quick-thinking daughter got her hand out and caught my head just a couple of inches from the stone, so the only injury was to my calm and dignity (plus a little scrape on the forearm.) I'm sure glad Tova was there!
Book: The Man Who Dared The Lightning Thomas Fleming, 1971
It has long been my opinion that Benjamin Franklin was the greatest human being in history. This excellent biography only reinforces me in that belief. A very well done examination of the extraordinary life of this Founding Father, it starts up after he had already retired from his first career as printer/publisher (the Ted Turner of his day), and follows him through his successive post-retirement careers as scientist, civic citizen, politician, soldier, inventor, statesman and diplomat. Any one of these careers would have secured Franklin's name as one of the greats in history, but the mind-boggling succession of careers is unequalled.
Book: The Foreign Correspondent Alan Furst, 2006
My brother recommended Furst, and it was a good call. He evidently specializes in WW2 era spy novels. This on mainly involves an Italian journalist in Paris (and occasionally Berlin) in 1938-early '39. The protagonist, Carlo Weisz, English-educated native of Trieste, is a Reuters correspondent by day, editor of a clandestine anti-fascist Italian newspaper, smuggled and surreptitiously in Mussolini's Italy. This was a good read, Furst really gives the feel of the time and place. Highly recommended, and I'll be looking for more from this author.
Film: (DVD) Mrs. Warren's Profession G.B. Shaw, 1893 (Herbert Wise, 1972
This DVD is a BBC production of Shaw's play about hypocrisy and the difficulty of an independent woman making a living.Mrs. Warren is a high class prostitute, unbeknownst to her daughter, who has been brought up in a privileged upper-middle-class lifestyle. This play was horribly scandalous when it was written, and was banned until 1925. Pretty tame by 21st century standards, but it has the snappy dialogue you might expect from Shaw.
Drove in to Northeastern for a Faculty Art Exhibit, where Harriet had a couple of her watercolors on display.Tova has moved into her new apartment in Somerville, so the nest is again empty. I haven't seen her apartment yet, but it sounds nice. She's near Davis Square, so she will be able to commute to M.I.T. via the Red Line subway.
Film: (DVD) The Devil's Disciple G. B. Shaw, 1897 (David Jones IV)
Another BBC Shaw production, part of the same series as Mrs. Warren's Profession. Features Patrick Stewart (with shoulder-length hair!) as a New Hampshire clergyman in 1777. Shaw's knowledge of U.S. history is a bit vague, as he places General Burgoyne in New Hampshire hanging suspected rebels on the way to Saratoga. A pretty good production of a not so great play.
Film: (DVD) Citizen Ruth Alexander Payne, 1996
Laura Dern is fabulous as a white trash glue sniffer in search of an abortion. She becomes caught in the middle of a major P.R. struggle between anti-abortion and pro-choice activists. Some of the other characters are cardboard cut-out clichés, but this is a pretty good film all in all.
Film: (DVD) Master and Commander - The Far Side of the World Peter Weir, 2003
Technically the finest "age of fighting sail" film ever made. Visually flawless, based on the wonderful Patrick O'Brian novels. The special effects are flawless, acting great, writing...not so much.The Stephen Maturin character is not as well developed as one might wish. This is not the fault of Paul Bettany, who plays the role, but of the script. The script is also rather heavy handed at exposition from time to time, but that's probably inevitable in trying to bring O'Brian to a mass audience.
I've seen this before and own the two-DVD set, though this is the first time I've gotten around to watching the "special features" disc. The technology behind the special effects is pretty interesting.
45 Year High School Reunion
Harriet and I drove out to Marblehead for my 45th reunion, rubber chicken at the Tedesco Country Club.Pretty interesting experience. I didn't recognize anybody. Still it was nice to see so many old schoolmates (and I do mean old!)
Unfortunately, someone had hired a disc jockey to play horrible old rock 'n' roll music, making it very difficult to have conversations. This seems to be a persistent problem with reunions. I really would have liked to be able to speak to more of my classmates, but even with my new hearing aids, the high ambient noise level made it impossible without shouting into peoples' ears.
Film: (DVD) Joni Mitchell- Woman of Heart and Mind 2003
This is a very nice video biography of one of my very favorite people. I've had a crush on Joni Mitchell since the '60s, what an amazing talent!Quite a good job, with lots of wonderful archival footage. Highly recommended.
Film: (DVD) The Flying Scotsman Douglas Mackinnon, 2007
The story of Graeme Obree's track cycling career. Cycling fans will like this one.
Baclofen
I started on Baclofen today. This is a drug for the treatment of spasticity, but one that may have undesirable side effects: weakness, loss of energy.I'm starting on 5 mg 3 times a day, and I'm to up the dose to 10 x 3 in a week if no problems result.
So far it does seem to be helping a bit. I was actually able to cross my legs without needing to use my hands to lift the leg up over the opposite knee!
No side effects noticed so far.
Film: (DVD) Hope Springs Mark Herman, 2003
A pleasant romantic comedy. Colin Frith is an Englishman, jilted by Minnie Driver, who comes to escape his sorrow in the small New England town of Hope Springs, attracted simply by the name of the town. He meets Heather Graham and various triangulations ensue. I liked it.
Sea Chanteys at M.I.T.
Another enjoyable afternoon sitting in a circle and sharing maritime songs. My contributions this time:
- Die Forelle (The Trout) (Schubert)
- Passant Par Paris (French halliard chantey)
- Blood Red Roses
- The Wreck of the Athens Queen (Stan Rogers)
- The Colours (The Men They Couldn't Hang )
Film: (DVD) War of the Century-When Hitler fought Stalin Samuel West, 2005
Grim and grisly, this BBC production was a four-part miniseries. An amazing story of "The Great Patriotic War", the bloodiest military campaign in history.Oops!
Stumbling back to bed from the bathroom in the wee hours of the morning, I lost my balance, reached out and caught myself on a wooden shelf unit containing about 300 CDs. Unfortunately, the shelf unit was not screwed down, and was just above the staircase leading down to the first floor...and down it went!It made the most astonishing sound, possibly the loudest sound I've ever heard that didn't involve combustion or electricity. Many jewel cases bit the dust.
Interbike, Las Vegas
You can see my detailed report here. ...But let me tell you about my system for beating the casinos: The first time I was ever in a casino was when Interbike East was in Atlantic City, probably 1987, maybe '88. On that occasion, I played the nickel slots until I found that I was up on the house by a grand total of...thirty-five cents! I said to myself "That's it, I'm a winner!" put my winnings in my pocket and went back up to my room.Since then I've always been able to withstand the lure of the casinos, and they have never gotten another nickel from me. I'm still ahead of the "house!"
Yes, I know folks say I'm missing out on the fun, but when I walk through the casinos and look at the people mesmerized by the slots, they sure don't look to me as if they're having fun. Rather they look desperate and stressed, or dead eyed and affectless.
I have my vices, but gambling isn't one of them. I'm still a winner!
eBook: A Country Doctor Sarah Orne Jewett, 1884
Sarah Orne Jewett lived and wrote in Maine, in the latter part of the 19th century.This book is semi-autobiographical, the story of Nan Prince, an orphan fostered by the local doctor in a small New England town.
She is torn by the urge to follow in his footsteps, as she seems to have a calling to the profession of medicine, and the circumscribed role assigned to women of the era. Basically she must choose between being a doctor or becoming a wife and mother. In the society of her time and place, these are mutually exclusive options.
Jewett was not a doctor, but never married. She was fairly successful as a writer in her day, though her work subsequently went out of fashion. There is some speculation that she may have been a lesbian, but nobody alive knows for sure. Feminist critics have brought her work back from its undeserved obscurity.
In any case, this is quite a nice book, an intriguing look at bygone days in New England.
Film: (DVD) Avenue Montaigne (Fauteuils d'Orchestre) Danièl Thompson, 2006
Very nice French comedy with serious overtones. A young café waitress on the Champs Elyssées meets and interacts with three wealthy and successful, but unsatisfied people: An elderly art collector who is about to auction off his collection, a concert pianist who hates the stuffy world of the concert stage, and a successful TV soap actress who yearns to make serious films.I won't go into details of the plot, but will say that I enjoyed this film very much.
Film: (DVD) Spenser: Ceremony 1993
Another of the Spenser spinoffs of the TV series with Robert Urich and Avery Brooks. These are a lot of fun, mainly thanks to Robert B. Parker's snappy dialogue.I was a fan of the TV series, back in the day, lured into it by the Boston locations. The one thing that always gets me though, is that whenever Spenser arrives anywhere in his car (he doesn't have the cool old Mustang in this one) he finds two adjacent empty parking spaces right in front of the door he needs, so he doesn't even need to back in. Anybody who has driven in Boston knows how ridiculous this is.
Despite the unrealistic parking conditions, these are a lot of fun.
Sputnik is 50!
I still remember the thrill when the news came that space exploration had taken its first step. What a great day that was! I was 13 at the time.Interesting sidelight that I heard on the radio...the possibility that the U.S. government actually wanted the Soviets to be the first to orbit a satellite! The rationale is that if the U.S. did it first, the Soviets might complain that we were spying on their "airspace" but if they did it first it would establish the precedent that satellites can go everywhere.
Anyway, I never really bought into the Cold War "space race" stuff, I was just glad to see that humanity was taking the first steps to expanding beyond the Home Planet.
Scooter Hoist Repaired
I've been having trouble with the hoist that lifts my electric scooter in and out of my van. It's an old Harmar unit, and one of the wires that goes into the motor was frayed and intermittently shorting against the motor housing. I tried the local Harmar dealer, but they couldn't help me so I fired up Google Maps on my Treo and entered "electric motor repair" under nearby businesses.Google sent me to City Pump and Motor Service in North Cambridge. I drove over there and it felt like a trip back in time to the time of America's industrial greatness, when we actually knew hot to make and repair things.
I showed the problem to Mike and he took the motor apart on the spot and soldered a new wire onto the brush pigtail, got it all back together in an hour and a half while I waited. It was refreshing to deal with the kind of mechanic who actually knows how to fix things, rather than just ordering plug-in replacement parts. Count me as a highly satisfied customer of City Pump and Motor Service!
Film: (DVD) The Ice Harvest Harold Ramis, 2005
John Cusack and Billy Bob Thornton...how could you go wrong? Harold Ramis found a way.This is basically an attempt to create another Fargo, only without the Coen brothers at the helm it really doesn't work. Very disappointing.
October 5, 2007Concert: Jonathan Coulton at Johnny D's
Our whole nerdy family have been Jonathan Coulton fans since my son George turned us on to him. Tova found out about this show yesterday and invited us to join her there. Harriet and I accepted with alacrity!Johnny D's is a favorite venue, though the last time I was there was seven years ago with George to hear Leon Rosselson. Too bad George is out in grad school in Madison, he would have loved this show as much as the rest of us did.
The opening act was Paul and Storm, a hilarious nerd-folk duo who also performed as backup vocals for a few of Jonathan Coulton's numbers later on.
I particularly liked their first two songs: Opening Band and Your Town.
I've always imagined Jonathan Coulton as some nerd recording songs in the privacy of his bedroom, didn't expect too much from as a live performer. I was pleasantly surprised at his stage show, it was very entertaining indeed. The high point was the last song of the set, and my favorite Coulton song: Re: Your Brains. Johnny D's was packed with rabid Coulton fans and they sang along in the chorus with much gusto.
Book: The Sword of Attila: A Novel of the Last Years of Rome Michæl Curtis Ford, 2004
I'm a sucker for historical novels, and particularly those dealing with ancient Rome, so this was a treat.Not much is actually known about Attila and his Huns, which gives Ford a decent amount of room for his excellent imagination. The novel mostly seemed highly plausible, from what I know of history (aside from a minor anachronism: reference to a "syphlitic whore" early on. My understanding is that syphilis was unknown in Europe until Columbus's crew brought back with them in 1492.)
In any case, this is highly recommended for fans of the genre.
Film: (DVD) Spenser: Pale Kings and Princes ****
Went swimming at the J.C.C. for the first time (I just joined last week.) Did some water walking and bouncing, and swam 4 laps: two of breast stroke, two on my back. One of the laps on my back was elementary back stroke, t'other was flutter-back scull.Strangely, I was able to do a reasonable flutter kick on my back, but I am absolutely unable to do a flutter kick on my stomach! I tried it with a kick-board and also holding on to the side of the pool, but I just couldn't make my legs move in that direction! Fortunately, the frog kick still works OK for me.
My forearms were really feeling it in the breast stroke, but now that I've been home for a while, I feel it more in my biceps. A good workout, in any case.
Concert: "Brattleboro to Boston, In Search of The King: The Vermont-Boston Traditional Music Connection"
This concert at Club Passim in Harvard Square was a foretaste of the Boston Celtic Music Festival (BCMFest) scheduled for January 11 & 12 of next year. It featured three great folk duos: Becky Tracy & Keith Murphy, Matt & Shannon Heaton, and Lissa Schneckenburger & Corey DiMario.This was a great show! Mostly the women were the soloists and the men accompanists. Lissa and Becky are very fine fiddlers, and Lissa also sings quite well. (I performed with Lissa in the 1995 Christmas Revels , but back then she was just a fiddler.)
Shannon is an amazing flutist/recorder player, and a fantastic singer as well. I had heard her and Matt last year at a house concert. It was a real treat to hear them again.
The menfolk all play various guitar-like instruments, though Corey's specialty is the double bass.
In the last part of the concert, all 6 got together on the small Passim stage. It really was a great concert, and I can hardly wait for BCMFest!
Here are a couple of videos:
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The Blackbird |
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There are still photos and more YouTube videos...Click Here!
Film: (DVD) Philadelphia Jonathan Demme, 1993
The first big-time movie to tackle AIDS. Fine performance from Tom Hanks and his make up artist, but not a fun film.
Concert: Boston Symphony Orchestra Gandolfi: The Garden of Cosmic Speculation; Poulenc: Concerto for Organ, Timpani, and Strings; Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 6, Pathétique. Robert Spano, cond., Simon Preston, Organ.
Harriet was out of town this week , so I took John Allen along. The Gandolfi piece was entertaining, included lots of quotes from music history.The Poulenc is an old favorite of mine, though this is the first time I've heard it live. It was a treat to hear the Symphony Hall organ.
Fine performance of the Pathétique. The audience clapped after the third movement, as usual.
This was the first Symphony concert I've been to with my new hearing aids. They worked fine, though the standard "music" program made the strings sound a bit harsh. I selected my custom "singing" program and that worked quite well.
Sea Chanteys at M.I.T.
Another enjoyable afternoon sitting in a circle and sharing maritime songs. My contributions this time:
- I Stole the Prince From Gilbert & Sullivan's The Condoliers
- I Shipped, d'ye See, In a Revenue Sloop From Gilbert & Sullivan's Ruddigore
- The Wreck of the Athens Queen (Stan Rogers)
- Fogarty's Cove (Stan Rogers)
Film: (DVD) Sailor of the King Roy Boulting, 1953
I saw this film with my father when it was initially released. It made a big impression on 9-year-old me. Based on C.S.Forester's Brown on Resolution (a.k.a. Single Handed), it's a WWII story of the Royal Navy hunting a German heavy cruiser in the Pacific. One of the British light cruisers wings the German vessel with a torpedo, before being sunk by the German's heavy guns. A survivor from the British vessel is rescued by the Germans. When the German ship anchors in a secluded cove on Resolution Island (Galapagos group) the British sailor steals a rifle and a rubber boat and goes ashore on the desert island. He then snipes at the crews trying to repair the torpedo damage, and manages to delay the repairs long enough for the rest of the British cruiser squadron to come along and sink the German cruiser.It's actually not all that great a film, though I really loved it when I was 9.
It stars Jeffrey Hunter, more famous as the captain in the original Star Trek pilot
Harriet's back from her week in Arizona, took a lot of cool photos. Some of them are here.I missed her a lot, it's great to have here back.
Speaking of photos, I finally got around to putting up some of the photos I made in England and Cornwall back in June, 2004. You can see some of them interspersed with descriptive text on my May-June 2004 Journal page , or you can see a more comprehensive index page with lots more of the photos at https://www.sheldonbrown.com/org/england-2004
Film: (DVD) Cars John Lasseter, 2006
Another fun animated feature from Pixar. We liked it!
Film: (DVD) Hopalong Cassidy 1942
When I was a kid, maybe 7-9, Hopalong Cassidy was one of my three favorite TV shows, along with Captain Video and Howdy Doody. (I'm one of the oldest people who can not remember not having a TV in the house...my father was a noted electronics engineer, employed by General Electric and we lived in Schenectady when GE's first regular telecasts were starting on WRGB. The first TV I vaguely remember was probably 4 feet tall, two feet wide, and had a 3 inch screen. Later I mainly remember the 17" model that my father built from a kit. He was very proud of it, so proud that he never built a cabinet for it, it was just a bare chassis in the living room. I recall he showed me a place around the edge of the picture tube where you could touch it and get a mild electric shock. There was also another place, farther inside where you could touch it and get knocked on your ass by many, many volts!)I recall my dad had scorn for Hoppy, mainly for the way he handled his revolvers. Seemed like he could shoot forever and never have to reload, but the thing that really got dad's goat was the way he would point the six-shooter straight up, then swing it down forcefully to a generally horizontal position, firing just as the barrel got level...sort of as if he was using the motion of his hand to give extra speed to the bullet.
Anyway, this didn't bother me back in the early '50s when I was a fan.
I found a Hopalong Cassidy disc on Netflix and thought it would be fun to see it again. Indeed it was! Actually these are better than I expected--not a lot better, but still fun to watch, if only for their campiness.
The Border Patrol episode features George (Superman) Reeves as a Mexican hidalgo, and a very young William Holden in a minor role.
eBook The Polish Officer Alan Furst, 2001
I enjoyed The Foreign Correspondent so much that I bought another Furst novel, and I maybe liked this one even more. Set in the early days of WWII, the eponymous protagonist is a Polish army captain, primarily a cartographer in the pre-war period. As the book opens, the Nazis are about to descend on Warsaw, and he is detailed to spirit away Poland's gold reserves to relative safety in England by way of Bulgaria. Later, he serves in Paris with the Maquis, and then with Soviet partizans in the Ukraine. Highly recommended, and thanks, again to my brother for turning me on to Furst.
The Red Sox Win the World Series!
I'm afraid I'm a fair-weather baseball fan. Didn't watch any of the games 'til the ALCS, but as a loyal Bostonian, I have been enjoying the Red Sox triumph.A couple of negative things though...I don't normally watch real-time TV, so I'm not normally exposed to so many commercials. I enjoy some of the well-made commercials---once or twice, but the constant repetition of them really grates. There were a couple of very funny Chevy commercials, one with a bank robbery scenario, another with a runner crashing into a parked car. These were very well produced, and hilarious for the first two or three times, but after seeing each of them a dozen or more times, they really start to pall. Then there was the horrible Taco Bell commercial about the "three rules." That was obnoxious the first time, and grew increasingly irritating with each subsequent viewing. I'm a big fan of Mexican food, even Mexican fast food, but this ad actually made it less likely that I would make a stop at Taco Bell!
While I'm grousing, here's another peeve: Used to be traditional to sing Take Me Out to the Ball Game" during the 7th inning stretch. Since 9/11, this tradition has been replaced by God Bless America. That's really a bummer to me, I have never liked that song, and it seems to me that allowing the religious terrorists to cause this intrusion of religion into the National Pastime represents an actual victory for the terrorists. I say, bring back the traditional song, or at least get rid of that one. Harumpfff!
Film: (DVD) Hopalong Cassidy - Fool's Gold
Another classic "B" western, with a wildly improbable plot. It's been fun revisiting my boyhood hero, but I couldn't find the time to watch the other episodes on this disc.
Film: (DVD) Jefferson Ken Burns, 1996
A good biopic, as one would expect from Burns. The sound track featured MacPherson's Lament ad nauseam.
| Books reviewed on this page: | ||
|---|---|---|
| The Man Who Dared the Lightning | Thomas Fleming | 9/3/07 |
| The Sword of Attila: A Novel of the Last Years of Rome | Michæl Curtis Ford | 10/6/07 |
| The Foreign Correspondent | Alan Furst | 9/5/07 |
| The Polish Officer | Alan Furst | 10/27/07 |
| A Country Doctor | Sarah Orne Jewett | 9/29/07 |
| Films reviewed on this page: | ||
|---|---|---|
| Cars | October 22, 2007 | |
| Citizen Ruth | September 10, 2007 | |
| The Devil's Disciple | September 9, 2007 | |
| The Flying Scotsman | September 19, 2007 | |
| Hopalong Cassidy | October 27, 2007 | |
| Hope Springs | September 22, 2007 | |
| The Ice Harvest | October 4, 2007 | |
| Jefferson | October 30, 2007 | |
| Joni Mitchell-Woman of Heart and Mind | September 16, 2007 | |
| Master and Commander - The Far Side of the World | September 13, 2007 | |
| Mrs. Warren's Profession | September 6, 2007 | |
| Philadelphia | October 12, 2007 | |
| Sailor of the King | October 17, 2007 | |
| Spenser: Ceremony | October 3, 2007 | |
| War of the Century-When Hitler fought Stalin | September 23, 2007 | |
| Music reviewed on this page: | ||
|---|---|---|
| October 14, 2007 | M.I.T. Chantey Sing | |
| October 13, 2007 | B.S.O., Robert Spano, Simon Preston | Gandolfi, Poulenc, Tchaikovsky |
| October 8, 2007 | Becky Tracy & Keith Murphy, Matt & Shannon Heaton, Lissa Schneckenburger & Corey DiMario. | BCMFest Preview at Passim |
| September 23, 2007 | M.I.T. Chantey Sing | |
| September 5, 2007 | Jonathan Coulton | at Johnny D's in Somerville |
| September 1, 2007 | M.I.T.G.A.S.P | Gilbert & Sullivan: The Pirates of Penzance Sing Through |
| Plays: | ||
|---|---|---|
| November 29, 2002 | Lorraine Bracco | The Graduate |
| November 23, 2001 | Helen Mirren, Ian McKelln | The Dance of Death-August Strindberg |
| September 30, 2000 | Tova/Black Box Theatre, Cornell University | The Maids-Jean Genet |
| May 30, 2000 | Kelsey Grammer/Colonial Theatre | Macbeth |
| May 26, 2000 | The Huntington Theatre Co. | King Hedley II |
| September 3, 1999 | The Publick Theatre | Nine |
| August 21, 1999 | Orange Tree Theatre, Ithaca, N.Y. | Sonata |
| August 13, 1999 | Firehouse Theatre, Ithaca, N.Y. | Sister Mary Ignatius Explains it All For You |
| May 22-29 | Newton South/North High Schools | Richard III |
| December 18, 1998 | Newton North High School | The Bone Violin, May F lies |
| November 12, 1998 | Newton North High School | To Kill a Mockingbird |
| Travels: | |
|---|---|
| November 21-24, 2007 | Plantation, Florida |
| September 25-28, 2007 | Las Vegas, Nevada |
| August 18-25, 2007 | Truro, Cape Cod, Massachusetts |
| November 22-26, 2006 | Plantation, Florida |
| September 25-28, 2006 | Las Vegas (Interbike) |
| June 10-20, 2006 | Santa Cruz, California |
| May 5-7, 2006 | Aurora, Indiana |
| November 23, 2005 | Plantation, Florida |
| September 26-29, 2005 | Interbike, Las Vegas, Nevada |
| August 26-28, 2005 | 'Bentride 2005, Bath, N.Y. |
| July 21-24, 2005 | Family Reunion, Saratoga Springs, N.Y. |
| April 29, 2005 | Cirque de Cyclisme, Greensboro, N.C. |
| February 16, 2005 | Indianapolis |
| November 24, 2004 | Plantation, Florida |
| October 8, 2004 | Santa Cruz, California |
| October 4, 2004 | Las Vegas, Nevada |
| June 8, 2004 | France, England |
| December 22, 2003 | Halifax, Nova Scotia |
| November 27, 2003 | Florida |
| October 31, 2003 | Potomac, Maryland |
| October 10, 2003 | Las Vegas, Nevada |
| September 21, 2003 | New York, N.Y. |
| November 27-30, 2002 | New York, N.Y. |
| October 8-13, 2002 | Evanston, Illinois |
| October 4-8, 2002 | Las Vegas, Nevada |
| July 3-9, 2002 | Canso, Nova Scotia |
| May 24-27, 2002 | Long Island, New York |
| November 21-24, 2001 | New York City |
| October 16-19, 2001 | Cape Cod, Massachusetts |
| September 29-October 3, 2001 | Las Vegas, Nevada (Interbike Show) |
| June 16-23, 2001 | Nags Head, North Carolina |
| October 5-14, 2000 | Evanston, Illinois |
| September 30-October 2, 2000 | Ithaca, New York |
| June 22-25, 2000 | Urbanna, Virginia |
| October 7-13, 1999 | Chicago/Evanston, Illinois |
| August 19-28, 1999 | Ithaca, New York |
| August 12-13, 1999 | Ithaca, New York |
| July 23-25, 1999 | Bridgeton, Maine |
| November 25-28, 1998 | Fort Lauderdale, Florida |
| 1988-89 | France, England |
| 1980 | Yucatan, Mexico |
| 1975 | England, Belgium, Yugoslavia, Turkey |
Last Updated: by Harriet Fell