I recently had the opportunity to go back home for the thanksgiving holiday, and while there I happened upon a great article pointed out to my by my father involving two things very close to my heart: Minnesota and apples.

The rise of the SweeTango apple is now on the radar. The season is somewhat short due to the apple harvest in MN as well as the local popularity of SweeTango apples, but the apples are making it out past state and regional borders into the nation and beyond.

I wish I could publish the link to the article, but the source (New Yorker Magazine) requires you to be a subscriber or to pay for access to the article. However, they do have a short video which summarizes the author's article, as well as showing his visit to Pepin Heights Orchard, one of the "big boys" for apple orchards in Minnesota. I've included a link to the video below in the "related link". It'll give you a good idea about the Next Big Thing (the official name of the tree/plant).

So I plan on editing this entry and adding more info on how I wrote this track and my influences which led to it, but for now I just wanted to get this up on the site.

The song is in the "related link" below. Give it a listen and see what you think. It's titled "Ubud".

Thankfully, I do have moderation in place here, otherwise we'd be submerged in spam comments for each posting. To anyone posting a genuine reply and having to wait until I get on and approve it, I apologize...however I do it for a very specific reason, and hopefully it's not too much of an imposition.

I do realize that I'm pretty infrequent posting here. Pro hockey is officially over, so there's not too much of interest sports-wise to me for a few months. Just keeping my head down and plugging away at work for now, as well as fishing and music stuff.

Speaking of music stuff, I plan on posting some of my finished stuff here, I will do so fairly soon...

So I'm pretty distracted right now watching the Sharks in the playoffs. I'm not as worried about playing Vancouver as I was when we were up to play Detroit, but they are also not a team to be taken lightly. Being down one game at the beginning of the series isn't all that bad, definitely not insurmountable. I've also been watching Boston and Tampa Bay, with TB surprising the hell out of me in their performance and abilities, as well as their first decisive win in Boston.

Anyway, I should hopefully have some more to post here soon, been up to a lot and should have some things to post as well as updating the site a bit.