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MobyD's Page
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- Hometown:
- Portland, Oregon
- Relationship Status:
- Single
- About Me:
- Using StumbleUpon, I discovered LiveIreland during what turned out to be Klara McDonnell's last Wednesday show, and have been hooked ever since. Other than listening to LI, I like reading science fiction, photography, traveling when I can afford it. Although I'm more of an enthusiastic music listener, I have played around with the bowed psaltery, the Appalachian dulcimer, tin whistle, and harmonica for fun.
My real name is Richard Wales, and for many years my nickname was Dick, but phone jobs convinced me to give that up and go with Rick. Knowing I was known as Dick Wales makes it easy to understand the online name Moby or MobyD.
My ancestors are from Scotland on my father's side - from Ayreshire, I believe, emigrating in the 1700s. Some years ago I met Tony Cuiffe's wife Katherine at a Burns Night. Her maiden last name is Wales, and she's from Ayreshire. She'd heard someone say the Waleses might have originally been from Lithuania!
My mother's side, the Billings, came over from Taunton, England before the Revolutionary War. I never found out if there's any relation to the person Billings, MT is named for.
I helped run a coffeehouse in a church basement - Northern Lights in Fitchburg, MA from 1976 to 1989. I also hosted a couple of folk shows on public radio station WICN in Worcester, MA from 1985 to 1991. The shows took on an increasing Celtic flavor as time went on. At various times the Saturday show I co-hosted preceded "A Prairie Home Companion" and later "The Thistle & Shamrock."
I relocated from Massachusetts to Oregon in the summer of 2000. I do not miss New England winters one bit. Winters in Portland are rainy, but you don't have to shovel rain!
- Website:
- http://havepun-willtravel.com/
- Favorite Music:
- Irish including Altan, Enya, Clannad, DeDannon, Bothy Band; Scottish including Alasdair Fraser, Silly Wizard, Ossian, Battlefield Band, Tannahill Weavers; English including Brass Monkey, Steeleye Span, Fairport Convention, Albion Band, Pentangle, Maddy Prior; other Celtic artists including, of course, Loreena McKennitt - the list keeps expanding. I've got a number of Squidoo lenses (it's what they call web pages) about Celtic music - see http://www.squidoo.com/CelticMusic-Lenses and there's a Celtic music section on my Have Pun Will Travel website. I'm an Amazon Associate, so if you order stuff from the lenses or the website, with the latter being my preference, I'll make a little bit of money and it won't cost you anything extra.
- Favorite TV Shows:
- I don't watch much TV these days, although I have been a fan of "The X-Files" and the unfortunately short-lived "Firefly" which I discovered in DVD form.
Radio includes Fiona Ritchie's "The Thistle & Shamrock" on NPR, and on the internet, LiveIreland, of course!
- Currently Reading? (Books Magazines etc)
- "Sunstorm" by Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter after reading their "Time's Eye." Also, I'm a big fan of Spider Robinson, Allen Steele, John Varley, and Anne McCaffrey
- Favourite Place?
- Oregon coast, Mt. St. Helens, Renaissance Faires, and I'll always remember the Old Songs Festival outside Albany, NY
At Home
MobyD's Blog
New Lens for The Chieftains
I've finally made a Squidoo lens for The Chieftains. I kept putting it off because I know they've got a ton of CDs out there and there always seemed to be other artists I wanted to build lenses for. Then I got involved in creating web pages at my own Have Pun Will Travel website - see my last post for more information about that.
Yesterday I got caught up on making pages for my website that r… Continue
Posted on June 30th, 2008 at 1:46am —
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New Website Pages from Lenses
Rather than create more Squidoo lenses, lately I've been taking the info from the Celtic Music lenses and making web pages at HavePun-WillTravel.com. 22 of the lenses are for artists, CDs, Thistle & Shamrock and of course LiveIreland.com. The 23rd lens, which I made to guide people to the others, isn't much use on the website, so I wrote an… Continue
Posted on June 26th, 2008 at 5:51am —
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Twittering
I've signed up for Twitter, the social networking site where you can post what they call "tweets" - short messages of 140 characters or less about what you're doing. People can sign up to follow your tweets if they like, just as you can follow others.
I imagine some people spend a lot of time posting tweets. Seems like it would be something teens would get into so their friends can follow their every move. I'll be using it now and then. One reason I signed up is so I can put out brief messages… Continue
Posted on June 12th, 2008 at 3:14am —
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Clannad, De Dannan and Grada - New Squidoo Lenses
Over the past few days I've added three new lenses to my Squidoo set of Celtic Music lenses. There are now 18 lenses for artists and groups, plus one for The Thistle & Shamrock, LiveIreland.com, and the Celtic Music Lenses lens which lists all the others.
I was a bit surprised that there wasn't more extensive in… Continue
Posted on May 28th, 2008 at 12:07am —
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New Squidoo Lens for Planxty
If I'd set out to do the Celtic Music lenses in any kind of order, the lens for Planxty might've been among the first. The four original members, Christy Moore, Donal Lunny, Andy Irvine and Liam O'Flynn will be familiar to anyone with much interest in Irish music They helped popularize the bouzouki, a Greek instrument introduced to Irish music by Johnny Moynihan. Moynihan was a member of the group Sweeney's Men when he introduced it, and l… Continue
Posted on May 20th, 2008 at 3:11am —
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~Shawn McCoy
Thanks for the invitation of being among your friends list..!
As I can read, we share lots of common taste in term of music...!
I remember a great evening, years ago... with the Great June Tabor singing with a pianist... ah....
Have a great day..!
wwm
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