Evan made front page news!

Evan made front page news! (:

THURSDAY, JUNE 5, 2008
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N-J | Sean McNeil | BUY THIS PRINT Evan Ruffino, 13, hammers out the blues on his guitar. Evan has been playing guitar for about three years.

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June 05, 2008

Open mic night gets teens' adrenaline running

By SETH ROBBINS
Staff writer

DAYTONA BEACH -- While most teens click the plastic frets of games like "Guitar Hero," Evan Ruffino has honed his chops playing blues riffs on a cherry-red Fender Stratocaster he calls Sparky.

Ruffino, 13, first picked up a guitar when he was 10, but he never wailed in front of an audience until Tuesday night. Wearing a faded Doors T-shirt and talking about blues legend Robert Johnson, Ruffino had set the bar high.

"I was really nervous," he said, blond locks falling in front of his face. "My knees almost buckled."

He did not disappoint. The crowd chanted "encore" when he finished his first song.

"That got my adrenaline pumping," he said.

Ruffino from Port Orange was part of the first teen open mic night at the Hot Spot, a coffee shop on South Ridgewood Avenue. The event, which was put together by music promoter Phinesse Demps, was meant to give local teens a way to showcase their talents, and also a place to congregate away from the streets.

"I want to show our youth that they can earn a living through music and writing," said City Commissioner Dwayne Taylor, who sponsored the event. Taylor is also the author of a murder mystery novel called "Forced To Defend."

"If they start now, they have an even greater opportunity to reach their goals," he said.

Tayla Spivey, 14, recited her poetry to an audience for the first time. With her mom, she drove 45 minutes from Pierson to take part in the event.

"I felt nervous at first, but then it was cool," she said. "Everyone was very appreciative."

Dewoun Buchanan, who goes by the stage name "Young Prophecy," has been writing and reciting lyrics since the fourth grade. He was ridiculed at first for his passion, explaining to his friends that poetry can be more like hip-hop in its rhythm.

"A lot of kids in my neighborhood don't come to this kind of stuff," he said. But Buchanan, who lives next to the police station on Orange Avenue, hopes to change that.

"Some kids don't have an outlet," he said. "For me, I love the essence of poetry. Every time I perform, there is a spark."

Buchanan is part of the quartet "Love of the Spoken Word," which performs regularly at the Schnebly Recreation Center in Daytona Beach and tours throughout the Southeast. He has opened for the Rev. Al Sharpton, and his poetry takes on questions of spirituality like the poem he calls "Expiration Dates."

"We often choose things that are temporary," he said of the poem. "Things that just feel for the moment."

Meanwhile, Demps can hope the "Night of Poetry and Expression" won't have an expiration date -- he plans to hold one every month. And it has already produced its first rock star. Ruffino has been invited to play at the Bank & Blues Club on Main Street.

Though the teenager might need a note from his mom to get in.

seth.robbins@news-jrnl.com

Did You Know?

Sophisticated anti-establishment aficionados known as beatniks gathered in coffeehouses during the 1950s sipping java, listening to poetry performances and snapping their fingers, rather than clapping, in approval.

· The finger-snapping is said to have originated as a way to ease tensions between coffeehouse owners and local residents who didn't appreciate the noisy late-night applause.

· In some clubs, like the Gaslight in Greenwich Village, the heating systems were so antiquated that open ducts ran from the building's cellar, where the clubs were, directly into the apartments above.

· So the hip, laid-back response to performances by the likes of Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg might simply be attributed to club owners who never got around to soundproofing the basement.

SOURCE(S): Compiled by News Researcher Janice Cahill from The New York Times and St. Petersburg Times.

Front page news - newsjournalonline.com

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Flat Stanley

Flat Stanley.  Well, let me just lay him out here for you.  (literally)  (:

 

First off, here's how he arrived to me.  As you can see here, he was so scared to go through the mail that he decided to kiss his butt goodbye.

But shortly thereafter he started opening up to me.  He certainly is flexible.  I think he must do a lot of yoga.

Hello Stanley!

 

Pretty shortly after that we started putting him to work.

Here he is trying to help me with the thermostat on the Jacuzzi:

 

And here he is working on the lawnmower so we can use it at the old house:

 

And here he is ready to head over to the old house to start mowing:

 

And here he is changing the oil in Sara's Subaru:

 

And then working on the chainsaw.  He doesn't always pick the safest places to stand...

 

Of course then he saw the 4-wheeler and wanted to take that for a drive:

 

Then he decided to cuddle up with Shadow for a while:

 

Then it was back to work.  This time fixing the blades on the mower at the new house:

 

And then time to go mow the lawn at the new house!

 

After all that mowing we decided to give him a bit more of a vacation.  First off we let him hang out with the furbies.  He was a bit scared when they started to surround him, but this is only half of them so they left him a way out...

 

Then he went out on our front deck to admire the view.

 

Then it was time to take him out for a night on the town.

First off we took him out to Andy's Subs which is Mrs. Stockfield's Favorite place.

 

Then I stopped in quick to drop off a video and when I came out, he wanted to drive the Prius.  I'm not sure if Shadow was trying to stop him, or just drive herself...

 

After that we took him to Mrs. Stockfield's favorite ice cream place, or rather custard:

 

Then to finish off the evening we took him up to see the new wind turbines that are going up all around the area.

 

And then I figured I should take him out for a few last things yesterday.  So the next few are just views of the rolling hills all around in the morning:

 

Then we took a quick stop past which I am SOOO hoping I remembered correctly as Mrs. Stockfield's elementary school...

 

And then in the afternoon I took him up to see some of the cows.  That was interesting.  For some reason I thought I remembered the cows always running away and didn't think I'd get a good pic of them.  Well, must be these are used to getting fed, or just otherwise interested (I did go to one of the younger sections) since they saw me, then they saw Stanley and pretty much all came running over.  I didn't let Stanley get too close for fear they might try to lick him to death.  (:

And one last pic in front of some of the smaller calves.

Sat, Apr 26th Buffalo - Tifft Nature Preserve

Oh let's see....  Where did I leave off from Buffalo...  Ok, we're up to Sunday...

So we slept in a while (like 8 or 9 I think) at the Days Inn, then we made it down for some breakfast before that ended at 10.
Umm, oh then we had some fun with our room card...  Let's see if I can remember exactly...
Well, I had trouble the night before with my card, but Sara got in ok so we thought I just did something wrong.  Then it did it again later and I thought it was just flaky.  Well, after breakfast it got really bad and we couldn't get in.  Nicely there was a cleaning lady out there and she was surprised to see that her card didn't work either.  Then she called the front desk and then this other cleaning lady came by and she let us in our room.  The first cleaning lady just said to leave the crossbar open so the door wouldn't shut when we left.  No prob.
So we were hanging out in the room for a bit and I almost thought I heard something, but then it sounded so remote I figured it had to be the room next door or something.  Then a couple minutes later the phone rang and it was the front desk saying they had keys for us.  I told them not to worry, we were about to check out.  So...  Then a bit later we're heading out and I was ready to put the crossbar on the door to keep it open and the cleaning lady was out there as we were leaving and I forget exactly what she said to me, but I was a bit confused and I said "So do you want me to leave the door open?" And she said "No" then something like "as long as the cross bar is out".  I paused and then started to ask her to confirm which way she wanted the door left and she seemed to be in a hurry and just said something like "just go over there".  She didn't say it meanly, but she seemed to want me out of the way, so I left with the door allowed to shut.  I was about in the elevator by this time with Sara a bit behind trying to figure out what was going on as I vaguely heard the cleaning lady say "you shut the door".  Personally I didn't think much of it, I tried to do what she wanted, but she seemed to be in too much of a hurry to tell me what exactly it was she wanted and the only answer I specifically got was "no" so that's how I left it.  But Sara was trying to talk to her about how she had said no and, blah blah, I don't remember, but it ended up being just a touch bit bigger of a deal than it should have been.  (:

So, Sara had looked up this Tifft Nature Preserve and I still love GPS, cause the Prius knew just exactly where it was again.  Nice little place.  Interesting that as near as I can recall it was originally a boat/railroad shipping yard, then was closed and was used as a landfill and is now a real nature preserve.  One of the most active ones I've seen yet.  Short of being in a zoo where everything is FORCED to be in a certain place, I've never seen this much.  There was basically something moving around ever minute or two that we walked around.  Here's some pics...

This one is of some windmills near where the preserve is.  Sara wanted pics because she thinks these look ok as opposed to ones she's seen in Cohocton that are much bigger and scary looking.  She absolutely abhors those.



Here's a cute little painted turtle on the preserve.


Here's the Levi out of his native habitat.  (:


Here's a goose that Sara swore was looking for his wife because he had somehow lost her.


And a cute little snakey.


Can you see the deer?  She's right there!


Look just to the left of the feeder or house or whatever that thing is.  That's what we call Goose Butt.  There were a lot of Goose Butts that day as they dove down looking for fish.  (:


Here's the really scary goose.  She was sitting there right the edge of our path, sleeping.  This was taken right after Sara tried to gently wake her by telling her we were going past.  We only had like a couple feet to the left of her to get past.  She was hissing at us as we went past.  Quite scary!  (:


3 cute turtles out sunbathing!


Can you see the black butterfly kinda in the middle?  He's awfully hard to make out in there.  (:


Ohh, look it's a Levi with his lovely mate!  (:


And then of course Sara wanted to pet one of the geese before we left!


Ahh, here we are again.  Neat how I hadn't previously noticed my arm running through Sara's eyes.  (:




And after that?
Well...
We headed back up to the Mall and went to the Cheesecake Factory!!!  YUMM!!!  Well...  More or less...  We got there and it was quite busy.  They said 45 minute or more wait.  We decided to go for it, took the beeper and then went out and wandered the mall for like half an hour or so and as we were coming back near the Factory the buzzer went off.  That definitely is a yummy place and we definitely need to start bringing a cooler with us for leftovers!  I wanted to try some Tortilla thingy, but the waitress warned us that their dishes were quite large.  So I went for the *lunch* sized hawaiian pizza with a salad.  We also had some bread and I got some Mango Twist drink.  All VERY yummy and we were quite full by then, but of course we had to find room for the Cheesecake!  So I had their special one which was a chocolate pistachio something or other and Sara got the Godiva chocolate chocolate chocolate chocolate chocolate, whatever.  (:  They were both super yummy!!!  Though I think that was about the quickest my stomache has started changing it's mind on just how much room was in there.  I finished before the cheesecake and was thinking "yeah, I'm full, but I think I can fit in cheesecake without much issue".  Felt fine when I started in on it, but those last few bites were like all of a sudden "NO MORE ROOM DOWN HERE!"  But we made it through!  YUMMM!!!


And then after that we started to make our trip back home.  We didn't get very far before passing a nursery that Sara wanted to stop and take a look at.  Lots of pretty trees and what not.  Other than that, I think it was a pretty uneventful trip the rest of the way home!

Buffalo Zoo - April 25th

After we left the Botanical Gardens... Oh let's see... We went in search of food. Wouldn't have thought this would have been that big a deal. But to ME, Buffalo seems very industrialized or some such thing. There are plenty of little shops, but it seems difficult to find anything like an Applebees or what not short of heading all the way up to the Galleria Mall. So we found the zoo, but not the food yet, we wound around in some somewhat sketchy looking places, and we ended up at Harry's which is right down on the water. Not the nicest day out, but it was still nice to be out on the water with the birds catching fish and what not. We were a bit worried that we were a bit under-dressed, but it wasn't too bad. There was like a piano player and what not. It took our waiter a while to get around to getting our order, but after that it was a pretty good lunch. I got a burger and Sara got a Reuben. Ahem... Sara ordered A Reuben. Apparently at this place A Reuben means THREE BIG sandwiches. He said they don't tell the customers beforehand so that they can see their face. Weird. So Sara had one, and we hoped the the other two would make it to the Hotel or what not. We need to remember to keep a small cooler in the car for restaurant leftovers.

After that we headed back to the zoo. Lots of interesting animals to see...


First off were these playful bears. The black one is a Kodiak and the brown one is a Grizzly. They were playing just like Shadow does. Big mouths open and mock-biting each other and pawing at each other. It's an interesting site. That switch of looking at them and thinking "oh, they're so cute" and then their faces change and you think "Woah, that would be scary to meet up with. They might just rip you in half". (:






Next up was the polar bear. He just keep swimming under this rock ledge. Not really sure what he was doing under there...


Then this spectacled bear. Don't think I've ever seen one before. He looked a bit different. Not sure if it's just his markings or not, but he didn't look all that happy to be there...


Then a couple river otters.


Some tigers. I forget exactly what these were...


Then this guy. I don't recall exactly what sort of monkey or ape he was. We didn't realize he was there at first. We were just standing at the fence looking up at the other ones, then we heard something in the bushes and thought it was just another bird. Then we looked again and noticed him under there just picking stuff out of the dirt from our side of the fence.


And a hyena. He wasn't laughing.


Then just about at the end of our visit we were walking and came across these two big birds just walking along the normal human walking path. Seems odd that they would let them loose... Well as we came up to them they just hopped up into this pen which is the peacock pen. When they jumped in this guy just started give us a lovely display. Though he seemed to like to show us his backside and wiggle his butt more than show us his front, but he did show us a few times. Quite beautiful. (:


And then our last stop was the Giraffe house. It was REALLY busy in there so all we got was one blurry photo of them. But here we are outside in front of the giraffe statue. (: I'm not normally one for wearing a hat, but I didn't want to burn. I think I'm going to have to get used to it.