Showing posts with label Bible Rock. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bible Rock. Show all posts

Saturday, 22 June 2024

The 100th S Blog Post

This is my 100th blog post. I started this blog “The S Blog” eight years ago. I decided to write a post giving some highlights from this blog and some new content based on the topics I cover.

I write about Sri Lanka on this blog as it’s an interest of mine and where I call home. Sri Lankan blog posts have covered economics, politics, history, photos and more. I’ve also shared ideas of my own that I think would improve Sri Lanka. I’ll include three Sri Lankan images I’ve taken below with a link to the blog post it’s from. The text comes from those blog posts.


Diverse Views of Sri Lanka - 16 January 2020

A view of Bible Rock from a distance, taken near Kadugannawa.


Kaleidoscopic Kandy - 23 January 2020

A view of the Kandy Lake.


Captivating Colombo - 30 January 2020

Buildings in Wellawatte.


We just looked at three different images from Sri Lanka which are regional, Kandy and Colombo. They show the unique look of each one and reflect Sri Lanka’s colourful nature. Wellawatte is where I was when I lived in Sri Lanka.


I’m a fan of classic rock music that uses piano. The singers I like the most are Elton John and Bob Seger. I’m going to embed my favourite Bob Seger song which is “Even Now”. It’s a piano-driven rock song from the 1980s. Bob provides a powerful melody and singing. It reached Number 12 in the US charts, but it unfortunately isn’t remembered as one of his classics. I hope it will someday be remembered that way. I consider it to be an incredible heartland rocker.



In December 2022, I wrote the article “Ten Great Elton John Songs by Ten Different Guitarists”. It’s the inverse of my article “Ten Great Bob Seger Songs by Ten Different Piano Players”. Elton John’s guitarist Davey Johnstone plays on songs in both these two articles. I have also written “Ten Great Jackson Browne Songs by Ten Different Piano Players” which featured Elton John as one of the piano players. Moving back to the Elton John article, the guitarists I featured are Davey Johnstone, Caleb Quaye, Tim Renwick, Steve Lukather, Richie Zito, Eric Clapton, Chris Rea, Rusty Anderson, B.B. King and Doyle Bramhall II. I thought I’d feature a leftover which wasn’t in the original article, being the song “Ballad of a Well Known Gun”.


Ballad of a Well-Known Gun - Caleb Quaye (1970)


Caleb Quaye plays all the guitars on this Elton John song including an acoustic guitar in the background. The song opens with Caleb’s guitar intro. Elton’s piano comes in and out before coming in fully for a full band sound. This rocker incorporates elements of country and blues. The backing vocals sound like a choir. There is a special percussion beat going on during the choruses. Elton’s piano and Caleb’s guitars play well with each other including the powerful guitar solo that comes around the halfway mark. Ballad of a Well Known Gun is a good example of an americana styled rock song written by Elton John and his lyricist Bernie Taupin.


When I did the retrospective post “The S Blog One Year On” in January 2017, I created a word cloud of the words used in my blog’s first year. I just created another word cloud for my blog. I suspect it is covering the last year plus my blog labels. This was created using the website WordArt.com.



The top ten words are Song, Sri, Piano, Rock, Lanka, Bob, Bill, Elton, Plays and Sing. This makes sense as I write about songs & Sri Lanka and I’m into piano rock music. Bob represents Bob Seger and Elton represents Elton John. Bill is referring to keyboardist Bill Payne who I’ve written about on this blog. I recently wrote an article about his keyboards for Bob Seger. While Elton so far hasn’t worked with Bill Payne, he thinks highly of Bill’s piano playing. Elton John and Bob Seger came together via Bill Payne on Bob’s song “Love’s the Last to Know” that features Bill Payne on piano and Elton’s guitarist Davey Johnstone on acoustic guitar.


One issue I’ve been having most of the time over the last year onwards is an enormous amount of fake traffic. Real traffic unfortunately got much less since I began this blog. As this is my 100th post, it’s difficult to get 100 views and when I reach it, fake traffic plays a big role in it. I would like to have the amount of fake traffic replaced by real traffic with getting at least 100 views being normal. I’ll give four less known blog posts of mine which I’d like to see get more exposure. The heading has their name/link and date with a brief description below.


Ten Great Electric Piano Rock Songs - 12 February 2022

My 75th blog post about ten rock songs I enjoy that feature electric piano. The artists featured are Blues Image, Traffic, Elton John, Bob Seger, Eagles, Billy Joel, Daryl Hall & John Oates, Christopher Cross, Toto and Bad English.


Elton John & Cat Stevens's Duet Honey Man - 29 October 2022

This is about “Honey Man”, a duet by English superstars Elton John & Cat Stevens recorded in 1970. This song was unreleased until 2001. I embed it in the post.


The Power of Bob Seger’s Singing - 22 November 2023

This article is giving my thoughts on the power of American rocker Bob Seger’s singing. I refer to some Bob Seger songs in it.


Five Export Diversification Options for Sri Lanka - 20 April 2024

I give five sectors I’m suggesting Sri Lanka diversity its exports into which are computers & electronics, visual effects for Hollywood, pianos & keyboards, vehicles and planes.


I’m pleased to reach 100 blog posts. I plan to continue writing about similar issues to what I’ve written before and hope to cover new ground in future posts.

Saturday, 17 December 2022

The Majesty of Sri Lanka

This blog post features a collection of photos of Sri Lanka I selected from the internet. I chose photos that depict the majesty of Sri Lanka. I give the relevant credit below the photos.


I’m starting off with an International Space Station photo from NASA showing Sri Lanka & India from space. This is an impressive view of Sri Lanka you don’t usually see.

"The island nation of Sri Lanka and the brightly-lit southern tip of India" by NASA Johnson is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.


A view of the Bible Rock mountain.

"Bible Rock, Sri Lanka" by ubuddhika88 is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.


A colourful Sri Lankan beach.

"Beachscape - Southern Coast, Sri Lanka" by whl.travel is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.


A look at the sea.

1392428 © Natalia Pavlova | Dreamstime.com


The Madu Ganga river. It has a strikingly good mix of blue and green.

Photo by Ravi Teja


Green Palm Trees.

ID 173278934 © Andrii Brodiahin | Dreamstime.com


The Royal Botanic Gardens, Peradeniya in Kandy.

"The Royal Botanical Garden Peradeniya Kandy Sri Lanka" by Mal B is licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0.


A view of Sri Lanka’s coast from above.

ID 40137647 © Digitalfestival | Dreamstime.com


Colombo’s buildings and trees by the Beira Lake.

ID 37716292 © Saman527 | Dreamstime.com


The Colombo buildings near the sea.

"Srilanka (colombo)" by kakeyzz---- is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.


The lighting effects of Colombo at night.

"Colombo Light Trails" by Nazly is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.


This is a colourful collection of photos featuring trees, mountains, beaches, rivers, gardens and buildings that give a glimpse into what Sri Lanka is like. If you enjoyed this, you might be interested in my previous blog post “Diverse Views of Sri Lanka” featuring photos I took of Sri Lanka.


Tuesday, 15 December 2020

Ten Virtual Scenic Sri Lankan Views

 

I decided to compile a list of ten virtual natural scenic views of Sri Lanka from Google Street View. If any of the Google Street View content does not load, you can view them by clicking the “View on Google Maps” button. For the blog post image, I am using one I took near Kadugannawa featuring Bible Rock at the start of this year. I featured a similar image in my blog post “Diverse Views of Sri Lanka”. The first place I’m featuring was taken nearby in Kadugannawa itself. 


Here’s green scenery taken on Kandy Road.


A bridge overlooking the Negombo Lagoon.

A view of the Maskeliya Reservoir.

A view of palm trees by a railway in Bentota.

A view of the Mahamodara Lake in Galle taken from a bridge.

A view of palm trees in Kodikamam near Jaffna.

A field in Polonnaruwa.

This is also in Polonnaruwa. It’s on Bund Road featuring a lake. 

This is Arugam Bay with the rock formation Crocodile Rock seen ahead. I like the name Crocodile Rock as it’s also a song by my favourite singer Elton John who was the subject of my previous blog post.

We’ll conclude this list with the town of Inginiyagala in the Uva Province.

Thursday, 16 January 2020

Diverse Views of Sri Lanka

This is the fourth anniversary of my blog, as I began it four years ago on this day on 16th January
2016. I like the fact that the fourth anniversary coincides with my 50th blog post. This 50th blog post
of mine deals with Sri Lanka which is the topic I feature the most on this blog. I was recently in Sri
Lanka and will be featuring photos of Sri Lanka in three sections, those being Colombo, Road Views
and Kandy.

Colombo
I’ll begin with a picture taken from the suburb of Wellawatte.

The following is a shot of a railway line by the beach, also in Wellawatte.

The Sysco LABS building.

A view of Beira Lake.
 

Independence Memorial Hall in Independence Square.

The park and walking path near Independence Square.

Taken from De Soysa Circus.

A few images of Colombo at night.


Road Views
The following three photos are taken on the Southern Expressway. The first image has an exit sign in kilometres which coincides with another blog post I’m working on, that being an article about how Sri Lanka switched to the metric system. This year marks the 50th anniversary of Sri Lanka’s decision the adopt the metric system. I thought I’d mention that as this is my 50th blog post.



A view of Bible Rock from a distance, taken near Kadugannawa.

Some Palm Trees.

A Sri Lankan petrol station on the Kandy Road.

A view from the Colombo Outer Circular Highway.

A small town close to Kandy.

A supermarket sign.

Trees and a hill.

Kandy
A view of Kandy Hills near Dodanwala.

Shops on Peradeniya Road.

Peradeniya Road at night.

A view of Kandy Lake.

Trees with a few buildings.

A road in Kandy.

Beautiful paddy fields in Gunnepana.

Kandy Hills.

So that was the photos I selected of Sri Lanka. I tried to showcase the diversity of Sri Lanka from the
places I went to on my recent trip home. Hope you enjoyed it.