Each day John and I receive a great many emails and phone calls reporting stories of interest to the bluegrass community. We write them up and report them here on The Bluegrass Blog. In addition to the news that is given to us though, we also regularly scour the back alleys of the internet looking for bluegrass stories that maybe we didn’t get a direct notification of.

In our searching we often run across stories that have little, or absolutely nothing, to do with bluegrass music, but give us a good little chuckle because of the use of a “bluegrass” word. I’ve saved a few of these headlines over the last couple weeks and thought it would be fun to share them with you.

Bluegrass Army Depot Passes International Inspection
Story: Army Ammo Depot in Kentucky

Grab Your Banjo and Head for the Hills
Story: Forest Fire Museum in Oregon

Boosting voltage levels will keep lights on for Banjo
Story: Injection molding facility in Indiana needs more voltage to plant

Flu Sickens The Bluegrass
Story: The Flu Bug makes its rounds in Kentucky

IBM Launches Project Bluegrass
Story: Integration of IBM’s Jazz platform with a 3D environment to facilitate collaboration.

IBM has a software development platform called Jazz. They are now launching this new program to encourage workers from various generations and locales to collaborate and learn from each other. Primarily using technologies such as a 3D collaboration interface reminiscent of Second Life, IBM’s goal for Project Bluegrass indicates that the project is aptly named.

While Project Bluegrass provides a workspace full of stimulation with instant messaging, presence awareness and project tasking that appeals to Generation Y, it also provides the ability to integrate these technologies with current IBM technology that Baby Boomers and Generation X are comfortable with.

That’s what Bluegrass music does. It combines innovation and a fast paced environment with tradition and thoughts of home. And a visit to IBMA will reveal the cross generational nature of the music. Beginning with IBM’s Jazz platform, and expanding to its Project Bluegrass, it seems apparent there is someone at IBM with some musical sense.