North Lamasery

Hello again

2009-10-19T00:31:00.001-07:00

Sunday, October 19 2009
24:22

It's been pretty clear to me that having a journal is a useful thing, if for no other reason that it provides a better memory than my own, for certain things.

Yesterday was busy - sitting, breakfast, rehearsal for me and HC meeting part one for MB. Then, I went home and worked on some things while MB had HC meeting part 2. We traded places, me at CG's this time for a course prep meeting. The wheels are definitely in motion there. Finally home together around 4, just enough time to get ready to go to my Dad's for birthday celebrations (late for C and early for me). MB had been putting the finishing touches on another yummy b-day cake - this time, alternating layers of orange and purple, with bifurcated frosting of likewise colors. "red velvet" cake and cream cheese frosting. Yum! Dinner was good, nephew Charlie was cute and fairly well-behaved. We got home around 10 I think?

Today not as busy - slept in a bit, then we met w/ "our" judge, at the Northgate Starbucks! We're both totally happy with this guy, he's perfect. So we talked with him for an hour or so. Then, to the U Village to do some shopping. MB got a desk chair and rug, I got an ottoman. Stopped off at home, then to the Theo factory to get some chocolate - for gift baskets. Next, to Queen Anne and a fabric store for some ribbon. Then a stop home, and to the video store and dinner at Peccolino's. Delicious. Very full. Home, some puttering around, a brief mini-nap, and dessert and a movie (Elizabeth: The Golden Age). Now it's late and time for sleep.

Hasta la semana despues proximo

2009-04-02T14:43:00.000-07:00

Thursday, April 2 2009
14:32

Packing and otherwise getting ready for Cabo. Yay!

Something got me thinking about an old diary post today. It wasn't quite as weird as I'd worried it was. Anyway, an old friend that I met up with again online a few months ago seems to have disappeared. OK.

Looking at those diary posts from two years ago. . .was it really two years ago? Seems recent on one hand, and a thousand years ago on the other. I think I was actually out of my mind, for the better part of 4 months. Life was frequently unbearable. I really feel like I now have a direct sense of what life is probably like for some people most of the time. They tend to be artists. I'm glad to be here now.

Meanwhile. . .packing. Cleaning out the backpack, had a bunch of junk from our Denver trip in it. Including a postcard, unwritten: Greetings from Coloradio, with a very perky looking golden marmot. On the back: "A friendly marmot among the wildflowers seems to be an official greeter in the Colorado Rockies". Missed 'em, dang.

MB has a busy day today, she's currently off meeting with her jeweler partner. In not too long, we head to FAAC for the TTA show. Home fairly late from that, and then we fly out tomorrow. We get back Saturday night, then have Easter brunch Sunday morning, then (you guessed it) a special one-off TTA performance type thing (benefit for Yoga Behind Bars) at FAAC Sunday night.

I think I used a "March -> Lion" title last year?

2009-03-09T00:05:00.000-07:00

Sunday, March 8 2009
23:45

Last weekend: MB's longtime friend Kelly came to visit. We headed to the airport after the show Thursday night to get her. Her plane was delayed, so we had time to go out for pizza and drinks first. Friday, she and MB spent the day together, then they went ballroom dancing while I worked late - girls night out! I did get to go out for pizza dinner with some coworkers though. Saturday, after rehearsal MB and I had some time in the afternoon, then we all went to Kate's wine bar, Verve, in Columbia City. Great place! We met up with some of Kelly's old friends there, and had dinner and lots of good wine. When Kate heard about MB's birthday she bought her dessert and some dessert wine flights on the house. Yum! It's a really relaxed place - we spent about three and a half hours there. Tobin showed up later on, which wasn't too surprising, so we got to say hi to him too.

Sunday - MB took Kelly to the airport (she rented a car for the weekend, that's how they got around Friday night) while I slept in. Then, mostly work - house work, finances, etc. Later on we headed over to TM's to watch BSG. Another doozy of an episode. But. . .where are they going? how will they get there? oi.

A busy week at work, with much going on.

This weekend. . .working late again Friday, fighting some fires. A very good open circle on Saturday, and then another 3 hours of rehearsal after that. Then a quick stop home, and I drove up to the Mukelteo ferry, where I met MB. She'd gotten a ride there from a classmate. We caught the 5PM ferry to Whidbey, and drove to Langley. We stopped at the first restaurant we saw there - the Edgecliff grill? I think it was called. The food was OK, my burger was good, MB's fish and chips was, well, different. Then, it was over to the WICA to see The Vagina Monologues. What a riot. MB's aforementioned classmate's wife was in the show, which is how we ended up there. Anyway, it was hilarious. Afterward we went to a local Bistro with them for some food and drinks (MB had a soda craving so got a Coke, I got a glass of red wine that made me wish I'd gotten a Coke). We spent about an hour there, then headed home. Oh, meanwhile, it snowed. It snowed/hailed on the drive to the ferry, then while we were having dinner. Crazy weather. Thunder and lightning around Ballard, apparently. So on the way home we went through some areas that still had quite a bit on the landscape, but the roads were clear. Home around midnight I think. Lost an hour of sleep! bleargh.

Today - slept in. Made pancakes and eggs for breakfast, which turned out great. MB went to yoga while I worked for a while, played bass, listened to music, and fiddled with recording software. Then, back over to TM's for BSG episode number "only two more after this one". Same as last week - Oi, but where? how? we'll see I guess. More absolutely delicious carrot/potato soup thanks to TM. It's so good. After that, somehow we ended up watching Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels. That's a really good movie. I still think Snatch is better, but that's good stuff. Finally, MB and I hit the grocery store on the way home, now we're back and the day is about done.

P.S. oh yeah, how could I forget - Michael Gira was in the audience on Thursday night! yow.

MB Day 2009

2009-02-26T00:09:00.001-08:00

Wednesday, February 25 2009
23:53

Had a great day celebrating MB's birthday yesterday. We got up early, which wasn't so fun, but then went to Senor Moose for breakfast. yum! I had sopes con huevos, MB got huevos rancheros. Then, we were a bit ahead of schedule, so we walked around Ballard a bit. The weather was dreary, but we managed. We went into an eyeglasses place and tried on a bunch of glasses. I found a few that I thought were good on me. . .can't remember the brand though. Something Danish. Anyway, from there we headed to the Pacific Science Center, to see the "Lucy" exhibit. Wow! More than half of the exhibit is really about the history of Ethiopia. That was good, though not as exciting as the end where they actually have the fossilized bones from "Lucy" - 3.18 million years old! And a life-size re-creation, etc. They mentioned a few offshoots from the human family tree I'd never heard of - one of the skulls, something pre-Neanderthal and found first in Germany, was really quite freaky looking. I'm really glad we got to see that exhibit. Being a Tuesday, we were surrounded by droves of school children, but that wasn't too bad.

After that, we went to the University Village to do some shopping. MB needed some new shoes and a new watch. Success on the watch front, but not shoes. I got some socks too! hah. We had smoothies, and checked out a few other stores while we were there. Again, too bad the weather sucked, but we still had a good time. From there we headed back towards Fremont, stopping briefly at what a coworker calls "the hippy drum store" in Wallingford. They have a bunch of random percussion there. Anyway, our next destination was the Theo chocolate factory! We took the tour, which was great. The factory was pretty quiet by this time of day (4), so not much activity. It's so cool though that this place exists and is doing so well. I learned quite a bit about chocolate, too!

Next, it was up to Phinney to have dinner at Carmelita. Excellent. We got a bottle of wine, and split the cheese plate and a salad. MB had a polenta and squash dish, I had carrot gnocchi. Both yummy. We split the "duo of ice cream sandwiches" for dessert. That, alone, was disappointing. Really not very good. But overall a very nice dinner. We couldn't quite remember all that we'd done on "MB Day" last year, besides the Zoo. We thought maybe we'd eaten at Carmelita, but that was on 3/14 according to my diary. Survey says. . . looks like it was just brunch at the Hi-Life, then the zoo. After that, grocery shopping and watching the Oscars. Well, this year was better!

Speaking of which, after dinner we went to RCV and rented Charlie Wilson's War and Little Miss Sunshine. We watched both, in that order. CWW was very good - I'm a sucker for Aaron Sorkin's style. Overall, it was a bit of a love/hate, given the subject. Also, the "re-created" war footage (mixed with actual archive footage) was just so incredibly clunky and pointless and cheesy. . .I don't know what the hell they were thinking? But the rest was good. LMS was hilarious. I'm glad I finally saw that.

We had some nice weather last week, but it's pretty gray and wet and windy now. At least it's not dark at 4 PM any more.

February is almost over. And so is today.

Food and Movies and TV and stuff

2009-02-01T22:49:00.000-08:00

Sunday, February 01, 2009
22:39

A packed weekend. Friday night: out to Habesha with MB for Ehtiopian food (yummy!) and belly dancing (a duo, each with very different styles). Home pretty late from that.

Saturday: rehearsal from 10 to 1. MB did HC stuff until 3; during that time I took a photo to the A&F shop to get it laminated, did some laundry, put my bike on the newly-installed bike rack in the garage (yay!), and had lunch. Picked up MB, and we headed to a tango lesson in the U District. That was very good, a wonderful teacher. Then back to this neighborhood, for a pho dinner, and then over to TM's to watch The Player. That movie is about as dark and cynical as it gets. And soooo good. Had some snacks and drinks there, then home to bed. I had a really bad headache for some reason. Thankfully, that was gone by this morning.

Today - slept in a bit while MB went to yoga. Then, a quick breakfast and out the door for haircut appointments on Cap Hill. I got a lot of hair cut off, MB got a color and style. On Will's suggestion, we stopped by In the Bowl for lunch - yum! All vegan pan-asian fare. Quick and decently priced. We got the taro spring rolls and green curry w/ tofu. The soy-meat stuff they do is apparently really excellent. I wish a place like that was closer to either work or home. From there, over the hill to JC's house for a Super Bowl party. That was good - they have a really great little house, I like it a lot. Watched the game with them and other folks from work - it was a great game. Started off a little one-sided, but stayed very interesting right up until the end. At which point we hit the road back to Ballard, to watch BSG at TM's. Wow, an intense episode. Had some wonderful spicy carrot / sweet-potato soup there and a few cookies. Then back home to wrap up the weekend, and now, to bed.

(2^11)-39

2009-01-19T23:27:00.001-08:00

Monday, January 19 2009
23:18

Had a condo association meeting today to talk with "the lawyer" about a lawsuit. Whee. Been fiddling with hard drives and raid controllers at work, and lately prototyping some algorithms related to a re-do from the ground up of one significant and well-aged chunk of the system.

Christmas was good. Got stuck in the snow on my way to my Dad's, got out but then had to park at the store down the street. Later we moved my car up to a residential street. Dad's 4wd subaru performed heroically. Thankfully no flight delays to Colorado the next day - spent a very enjoyable few days w/ MB's family there. Got to go up to the top of Pike's Peak, and walk around a few other beautiful places (Garden of the Gods).

Had a NYE party here again this year. Lower-key event, not as many folks this time. Very good though. No hangover the next day, as an added bonus.

TTA rehearsals are ramping up again. For the most part, we're back in the saddle without many gaps or issues. I'm learning some different bits of Scorched Air, they are fun but/and mind-bending.

Got a new camera - the LX3, 2nd successor to the old one. I'm excited, I'm sure I'll be wanting more zoom but it looks like it's far superior in image quality, and an F2.0 lens in a compact is really sweet. The card reader in my computer is borked right now though. . .ugh.

Probably more to say, but I'm sleepy. Oh, the first new episode of BSG. . .wow. Theories abound.

Fluffy white stuff

2008-12-17T11:59:00.001-08:00

Sunday, December 14 2008
16:53

Snow!! It snowed last night. MB and I went to a cookie exchange party at D&Ds. It was pretty fun. I think I knew about half the folks there. Good food and wine too. Out cookies came out pretty well. "by the box" oatmeal cookies w/ curry powder instead of cinnamon, white chocolate chips, and then made into sandwich cookies using orange-vanilla cream cheese frosting. Yum! Lots of work though. It didn't help that I accidentally made twice as much dough as I wanted to (tripling the recipe instead of 1.5-ing it). So that took a lot of time on Friday night. The other cookies brought were mixed - some actually kinda icky, some pretty tasty.

It was just beginning to snow as we headed up there - the hills of Newcastle. I figured we were pretty crazy to go, given that it was supposed to snow then freeze, and they're on a hill, and I have not-snow-friendly tires on my car (they are all-season, but just barely). Anyway, we left just before 12 and made it home OK. Went very slowly down the hill, no sliding, then it was mostly bare roads until home. It was snowing pretty hard around the 90/5 interchange, then there was an accident on 5 going under the convention center, so traffic was backed up a bit there.

The plan for tonight is to go to TM's new place and review the first part of BG season IV, as the next episode will be in just a couple weeks. Not sure when that is happening though. . .need to call and find out. Ah, he left a message while I was playing bass. Said activity has yielded a blister covering my entire middle finger, as it always does. Fun though. MB zilled along to YYZ for a bit before heading off to yoga.

Work-wise. . .got my hands on some of those SSDs. They will not work for my purposes. They just don't stand up to being written to constantly. Really bummed about that. Talked to some folks at X about it, but didn't really get anything useful. Basically - I was using a benchmark tool to measure random write performance, and after writing the entire drive once or twice, perf went down the tubes. They can supposedly "fix themselves", but not if your access pattern is more or less the same as the benchmark activity. You can hard-erase the drive to start over, but what good is that in production use. Bleargh.

Just ordered some xmas gifts online. Still have more shopping to do, though.

Post Turkey

2008-11-30T22:37:00.001-08:00

Sunday, November 30, 2008
22:21

A very fine Thanksgiving weekend! Spent a good portion of the day at Dad's. Hadn't seen step-brother D for what, years? And had never met his wife or seen their new kiddo. It was that group, me and MB, Dad and Sue, and Carrie and family. A good day. Had some time to hang out and talk w/ Dad before dinner. Dinner was delicious. We left around 7-something? and headed back to Ballard, then went over to Howard and Diana's for a bit. TM and Chris and Meleah were there too. Everybody was completely stuffed (us included - they offered us some cheesecake and I've never found cheesecake that unappealing in my life). Had a fun couple hours hanging out there. H&D's cat Jupiter is under the weather - it stopped eating, they are nursing it back to health; it still looks fairly ragged. Doesn't have much of a sense of balance. It climbed (down, from the back of the sofa, very slowly) into my lap, which was cute, but we left shortly thereafter.

Friday - worked from home. Used the wiki to write up some musings about SSDs etc. That was really useful as a few nebulous ideas about how to make use of them came into clearer focus, and turned out to be non-starters. So, needs more thinking. A good idea came to me this morning while I was sleeping in. Friday night was a quiet night in, we had leftovers, then talked about some things with MB.

Slept until noon on Saturday. . .went to Java Bean for brunch with MB. We then hit the road for the Science Center - the primary goal being to see the Lucy exhibit. Well, it was sold out, so we just got tickets for the regular stuff. Which was good. I went there a lot as a kid. Some of the same stuff is there, and some of that is still interesting, some not. The butterfly house is wonderful. That was worth the price of admission, no sweat. MB and I also got to do the giant human-hamster water-wheel thingy! heh. By the time we were done there it was dark, and we drove across the bridge to Bellevue to do some shopping. MB was looking for some specific bits at the container store, and then I tried in vain to get some things at Home Depot - a programmable line-voltage thermostat (only one model stocked, not the one I wanted), and some grout (couldn't get less than a 10-pound bag of black grout - I just need to touch up a 6" seam!). Then back to Ballard, and a very yummy dinner at Lombardi's. MB had smoked-salmon pesto ravioli, and it was kind of an epiphany for me. I'm not much of a fan of smoked salmon, but it was so perfect in that dish, wow.

Another fairly lazy day today. We went to the farmer's market - will be going back next week to actually buy some gifts. Stopped at Sonic Boom on the way back to pick up the last two DCD remasters. Did some online xmas shopping, mostly successful. Ate leftovers, did some house cleaning. Walked to RCV and rented Sideways which was really good. Now, journalizing.

November

2008-11-23T18:19:00.000-08:00

Sunday, November 23 2008
17:52

Almost a month since my last entry. . .where to begin. Moving backwards might be the easiest. It's been a lazy Sunday for the most part. I replaced the left headlight in my car today. Now that I have all the quirks in that process figured out, it's almost easy. The last headlights, headlights of wonderment and brightness they might be called, lasted a paltry 5 months! What crap. So, back to some "lower rung" lights this time. MB is currently off at yoga. I spent some more time comparing SACD to CD today - first fighting with WMP to get it to actually burn a disc using the ripped WAV files from the hybrid SACD that would be used (A Mozart clarinet concerto). Anyway, once that was done, very interesting. There is a definite difference, on that recording, between the straight-to-SACD and the other formats. (The SACD layer has each track twice: once straight to SACD, once from analog tape to SACD; the CD layer has each track twice as well: once as an SACD to CD transfer, once from analog tape to CD). Took me a minute to realize that there was a channel flip between the two layers! ugh. Anyway, once that was sorted. . .the native SACD track sounded best to me. The clarinet had more coherency and definition. This might be due to a bit of a frequency emphasis in the presence region, but if I assume that the EQ was the same between masters, then I could ascribe that to higher data rate. I couldn't compare SACD-to-CD and tape-to-CD directly, but I didn't notice much difference compared to the SACD. Doing a disc flip, and listening to the SACD-to-CD on both players, I couldn't discern any difference. The Marantz and Rotel CD players are pretty indistinguishable from one another, to me. (The Oppo DVD/SACD player sounds noticeably more two-dimensional than either).

Spent a couple hours today fruitlessly trying to get a better-quailty audio file from my Triangulation MIDI file. Sonar refuses to even interface w/ the Windows MIDI system on the new box, but that wouldn't sound good anyway. I downloaded a Bosendorfer virtual piano / VST plugin, but despite success from the Import tool, it doesn't show up in Sonar. So, that ends that. Maybe I should just go for recording it via guitar, the next time I have an entire spare weekend. . .

Last night: watched Clue with MB. She'd never seen it before. . .what a fun flick. Very silly. It's really held up - everything about it (except for Mr. Boddy's dialog sync, I wonder if they used someone else's voice entirely??) holds up over time.

Had a great time at the L4D release party at the Garage Friday night. Lots of people, open bar, good times. Played "shuffleboard" once w/ CC and her boyfriend, and AF - weird stuff. I'm not very good at it. Bowled a lot - including the best game of my life, a 151. I kinda got a 165 later, but that includes an assist from a coworker who bowled a strike for me when we thought it was his frame. My approach that seems to work is: just throw the ball straight down the lane. Even if I'm trying to pick up a single pin off to the side: don't try to hit it, just throw the ball down the lane. It usually hit it. Anyway, I had lots of fun and got home after 1. Missed MB, who was in Portland at a conference, though.

She also missed the show Thursday - we were short her, and Travis. It went OK, was kind of a funky show but not as bad for me as some have been recently. A very small audience. Our promotion engine isn't working, it seems.

Monday night: L4D release. The Steam group went out for some before-hand dinner and drinks for a bit during the afternoon, the the switches were flipped and buttons pressed at 9 PM upstairs. Everything went really well. This might have been the first release where we didn't have any major issues (whether in Steam or in the game) to iron out the night of (or yet, really). Spent lots of time in subsequent days playing with random folks on Public. For the most part, lots of fun.

On the 15th MB and I hosted a Hellboys release / listening party for TomR, who was in town on business. That was good - lots of people. We heard the album -- which has absolutely awesome cover art -- four or five times. The party went from 7 until a bit after midnight. I was a bit worried that it would be a crazy kid-fest like the election-night party at Dean's, but only one kid was brought and he's a pretty mellow (and interesting) guy.

Let's see. . .mentioned already going to Dean's for election night. . .that was a good night! all the adults were biting their fingernails, but very hopeful and excited, the kids all picked up on that and were just tearing around the house like crazy. It was such a relief once it looked pretty clear Obama would win, then almost surreal as McCain conceded.

Going to Dad's for turkey day. . .last I heard, David was going to whip up a gourmet meal, but now it sounds like he's just doing the mashed potatoes? Oh well, I was looking forward to his cooking. MB and I are bringing the wine.

I need to get busy with some Xmas shopping. . .the folks have declared "don't get us anything!" so that people can save money - which is very nice, and I'm tempted to say the same, but I think it's too late. I definitely have to get Carrie something nice, as I missed her birthday.

In random news, I'm looking forward to getting my hands on some of those new Intel SSDs. . .I think hard disk drives' days are numbered, for sure. I'll guess that, in two years, most home PCs on the market will have SSDs in them, and two years after that, the HDD market will be pretty much dead -- or, at least, most of the market will be for replacement disks for places like Google that have zillions of them, and dozens failing per day.

Grog

2008-10-26T23:10:00.000-07:00

Sunday, October 26 2008
23:00

MB and I had dinner at the Hi-Life. . .I got the harvest empenadas which were really, really good. Then, forgetting how gigantic it is, I got the hazelnut/strawberry shortcake for dessert. I'm totally stuffed now. Last night we went to Chaiyo, on BR's recommendation. Not bad. Warrants further visits, though it's way up in Northgate.

The big news this week was MB getting in a car accident. Physically, she's more or less unharmed. Otherwise, it was very rough. The car is toast, it is now gone for good. Of all the ways for a Subaru and a garbage truck to meet at 35 miles per hour in the middle of an intersetion, it could have been much worse. I'm very glad she's not hurt.

The officer on the scene assigned blame to MB. She also wrote down the completely and totally wrong make and model of car on the citation. She wrote the license number down wrong, then looked that up in the computer, and put down "2006 Audi A4, commercial vehicle, owned by [some people from Sammamish]". Now, I realize not everyone knows the difference between a 1995 Subaru Legacy and a 2006 Audi A4, but it was pretty easy to read the "Subaru" and "Legacy" badges on the back of the car!! So I wondered how the officer's judgement about blame could really be trusted.

In other news. . .in an astonishingly out-to-lunch move, the director of the place where TTA performs scheduled a dance rehearsal for the upstairs room during our pre-show rehearsal. Because, somehow, he didn't get the message from last season that the sound of thundering stomps on the ceiling, bits of which would fall to the floor, rattling the light fixtures, just doesn't make for a very good pre-show acoustic music rehearsal condition. Jax nearly went ballistic; the rest of us were merely pissed. Curt called NM and did a little explaining.

Meanwhile, work is exciting in many ways. Lots going on around there. Not all of it fun.

2 Days Later

2008-10-22T22:41:00.001-07:00

Wednesday, October 22, 2008
22:36

Waiting for MB to get back from her editing class. It was nice and sunny, if cold, today. Got to take MB to the auto shop to pick up her car as I was driving to work this morning, she called right as I was heading out the door, that was nice. We were both in cheerful moods. That reminds me, my car needs work, I should go schedule that now.

Spent a lot of today fighting with installing Win2k3 on a machine I'd had to wipe in order to use all the disk space on, a slight understanding about an order that happened right as I was leaving town week before last. Oh well.

I should also probably practice a little guitar tonight. Meanwhile, this Abunadh Scotch is really tasty. . .

Home again

2008-10-21T00:52:00.001-07:00

Monday, October 20 2008
Seattle, WA
24:38

Got home Saturday afternoon. The completing events - cleanup, packing, departures, were very smooth and pleasant on Saturday morning. MB and I offerred to drive Danielle up to Ballard and let her rest at MB's place, then drive her to the airport - she had a late night flight, and IA's plan was to let her sit at the airport all day. Along the way, we ended up getting volunteered to host CP and PL at her place too. We got them all situated there, then went back to my place and took a nap / relaxed for a few hours. We met up with the 3 again at 6 for dinner at Sam's Sushi. That was good. We were all still pretty tired I think. We took Danielle to the airport, ChrisP came along for the ride. Then we went home. ChrisP had a schedule to take the bus around midnight to the airport, as his flight was at 6 AM. I guess it worked, he is back on the East coast now. PL spent the night at MB's.

Sunday, slept in. Had brunch at Besalu. Sooooo good, that place. Indulged. News from PL, Curt was showing him around town (his flight was late Sunday night). Lounged around the house - MB dozed while I finished up A Scanner Darkly. Went grocery shopping. Got the keys from Peter before he headed out to the airport. Had baked potatoes for dinner, and got to bed pretty early.

Back to work today. Still generally a bit tired, but not too bad. MB got a bug so was feeling icky but coping with it well. Full team meeting at Bob and Jax's - lots of good observations and feedback. Then, 20 minutes of TTA rehearsal because hey, we have another show on Thursday. Back home, did some financial work and email stuff, then typing up my hand-written entries from the course. Very sleepy now! and I still have to edit my posts. Hope I can hit the sack by 1:00 - MB went to sleep at 12.

Raft Island - Friday

2008-10-21T00:50:00.000-07:00

Friday, October 17 2008
ASC+RC, RI, WA
11:41

Just had a finance meeting w/ CG and the other CG. Checks written for expenses and facility. Lunch soon. I am the timekeeper for today, whacking the bell on the half-hour.

The show was great. Terrifying beforehand - the sound was impossible.

Only somewhat chaotic. Lots of guitarists - 19 - 24 in the whole team from the course. MB passe don her House Manager role to AA, who did well. DW, SBC, others catered dinner - PB+J, apples, brownies. Yummy. Danielle made the brownies, but forgot the flour. They were like half-congealed chocolate lava. Wonderful, if daunting. The complete opposite of the ones I made the other day. She seems to be completely loving this course, being here, what is happening. A very positive presence.

We got to "sleep in" yesterday and today - 7:45 sitting instead of 7:00. Both those nights, up until 1 AM plus. When we got back last night, MB/DW/SBC put out some chips, dip, and brownies for us. Pretty quick completion meeting then relaxed time with the snacks. MB and I stood outside and watched the deer eat for a bit.

Patrick S. just departed. Some leakage today. Talked to Doug about Cormac McCarthy, Coen Brothers movies, Philip K. Dick, etc. AA talked about various nasty hand injuries he's sustained (crushed, impaled, etc).

Raft Island - Wednesday

2008-10-21T00:47:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, October 15 2008
All Saints Camp and Retreat Center, Raft Island, WA
16:53

We're doing pauses on the half-hour during the course. It was on the hour until yesterday.

The weather has been from chilly to cold. Some sun, some clouds. A little rain, just a sprinkle, on Monday.

The performance team has been posted. It's everybody but Anthony, Jacob, and GregM.

We had a good meeting looking at roles and concerns for the "tour".

I've nicknamed X "Mr. Noisypants" - he has nylon pants that make incessant swishy sounds when he fidgets, which is often. Y's nickname is "Enemy of Silence". Mr. Self-Loathing, also. There is never a cendence, ending, quiet moment, etc without a twitch from Y. Every mistake he makes is tragic in his own mind. Z is also pretty bad about the twitching after pieces end, I've noticed.

Lost Pedro have performed quite a lot, also Zesty Enterprise. MB performed w/ 3 or 4 groups - playing Asturias, Growing Circle,

17:00 - pause

and Askesis, three times. Victor organized that. I played twice - lead once, bass the other time. Didn't know the bass as I should have, oops. I missed the re-entrance.

BR is back today, not sure for how long. Through dinner, probably.

Ian had an issue during TTA perf team rehearsal before tea. A knot in his back? while SBC was working. Excruciating, from the look of it. Tears were streaming.

DanielleW is the only "kitchen team" person here, meaning the only one who signed up solely for that part of the course. Also, the only one not to play any guitar (SBC even played at a few circles).

One of my roommates drives me completely nuts, making incredible, vast amounts of noise both when going to bed (after everyone else) and when getting up in the morning (before everyone else).

I had strange dreams on Monday night - I kept "waking up", but was somewhere else. Different people, different situations. In one, I was one of a small group of colonists on Mars. I comforted myself, about not being able to sleep, by remembering "hey, I need to remember that I am, actually, on the planet Mars!". Weird!

Good break time now. Also, got some spare time after lunch, so sang in the women's shower room for a bit. "Body Beat" at 5:45. These are good. Tiring, often, but good. 3 so far. Was sore for two days after the first one (jumping and squatting).

Going to shave now.

Raft Island - Monday

2008-10-21T00:46:00.000-07:00

Monday, October 13 2008
All Saints Camp and Retreat Center, Raft Island, WA
23:15

Not journalized much here. Great course so far. Yesterday was epic. I was super tired. Today, much better. Though sore - Tony had us doing lots of jumping and squatting during "Body Beat".

Just had a good full circle. Jax led whizzing. Impressive. Lots of fun. Broke my pick in two places.

Not a large course - 25 total, with some comings and goings. Peter L arrived today. Hank maybe tomorrow or Wednesday. Ray P. leaves Wednesday AM.

A little tough but not too bad so far being "apart" yet nearby MB.

Have worked dessert (last night) and dinner tonight. Was Head Chef for dessert, working with Ian: brownies. They turned out dry and dull. Like there was too much flour, but that was the recipe. Hmm. ChrisG was HC tonight, TM on the team too. Black beans and rice with lime - great.

In this room: Lance H, Doug E, Rob R, me, Peter L. Bob was here Saturday night.

We've done two Skirts - one last night, one tonight. Good. BillR was here for that tonight (and for dinner Saturday night).

There are some deer that live around here. They came by in the afternoon to munch on apples (there are several in the field) and grass. They don't seem to frightened of people, just wary.

Well, to bed now.

Regress

2008-10-09T10:35:00.001-07:00

Samala | United States
Originally uploaded by PALIN POLITICAL POSTER PROJECT

19 days

2008-09-21T15:57:00.001-07:00

Sunday, September 21st 2008
15:36

I was about to write about how the good weather is all over, but it's looking nice and sunny outside right now. It was super gray and dark and drizzly, if not very cold, the past three days or so.

Let's see. . .just had brunch with my Dad and Sue and MB, that was good. Sr. Moose was insanely crowded, and the Hi-Life had a line too, so we went to the Austin Cantina. Not bad. Then I showed the folks my place, as they hadn't been here for over a year, then we sat and visited for a while. Talked about politics and the world as we usually do when we get together. The rest of the day should be fairly relaxed for me, I think. MB has a guitar thing for a couple hours tonight, but that's all that's on the schedule.

We made soup yesterday - curry squash apple. An MB family recipe. That was fun. We haven't really had much of it yet, just a few tastes along the way. I'm getting hungry again so I might have some soon. It's pretty tasty. Last night, a small outing to a good pub in Wedgewood for Bob's 51st birthday. Nice company and atmosphere there. Rehearsal was good, we met at Curt's because there was something going on at FAAC that preempted us.

The first show of the new season was Thursday night. It was very good. I felt like I played better than I usually do, we played Cultivating the Beat and that went well, and there were 23 people inthe audience so most of the seats were occupied. The only really weird bit was a woman sitting behind me, drawing sketches in her notebook of the players! Drawing is one thing, but the incessant "sshhht sshhht sshhht" of the pencil was ridiculous. She just had absolutely no idea that she was making noise, apparently. It was audible to players on the other side of the circle during otherwise silent moments. And she was just staring at whoever she was drawing. So, we need to somehow add a house rule - no sketching, please? ugh.

Last weekend. . .went to game night at D&D's Saturday night. That was good, a large-ish crowd and we had lots of fun. Sunday morning, went with MB to join the crew doing some cleanup at FAAC. We cleaned the performance space, and also put some work into the kitchen and the green room. Then we had pho for lunch, which was really yummy as always. MB went to a "salon" (of the living-room-discussion variety) while I chilled at home and bought some CDs. She brought back yummy ice cream on the way home!

The weekend before that. . .MB's friend / old roommate Eddie was in town. On Friday we (just me and MB) went to a tango thing. That was interesting! we actually went out and "danced" for a song or two, then mostly watched the other folks (most of whom are from the same school). One of the guys introduced himself and asked MB to dance, that was good she had some fun dancing with somebody who knew what he was doing! Before hand we had some time to kill so we went to an Italian place nearby, and had dessert and some drinks. MB got wine, I had some grappa which was pretty tasty.

On Saturday, we hung out with Eddie as his flight had been cancelled. We got some sushi, then watched Gross Pointe Blank. Sunday we went to the mall, searching for a new gig shirt for me. No luck - it's not easy to find a simple, well-made, good-fitting black shirt with long sleeves, no pockets, and no collar. MB got some new unmentionables at the VS though. Then we had dinner at Lombardi's, that was good.

Whatember

2008-09-02T23:02:00.001-07:00

Tuesday, September 2 2008
22:32

Well, the weather is back to something more closely resembling summer in Seattle. Not hot by any means, but fairly nice.

Had a very good weekend. Got to sleep in on Saturday while MB did guitar things. Then, we went on a bike ride. Down the road a few blocks, then onto the Burke-Gilman. I'd never ridden the part between here and Gasworks before. It's some of the best. The stretch along the canal in Fremont is awesome. It was totally beautiful. The weather was a little chilly but that wasn't much of a problem. We rode to University Village, with a couple stops along the way. There, we got some green tea smoothies that were pretty good, and hung out for a bit watching people. Then we rode back. All in all, 8 or 9 miles I think, at a pretty leisurely pace. We had dinner at Kabul, which was very good. Lots of yogurt, garlic, mint, garlic, and yogurt involved. The veggies were great and we also had some sort of homemade ravioli-type thing. Blackberry ice cream for dessert.

Sunday was another lazy morning for me, MB off to yoga. Later we went down to Golden Gardens. I'd never been there before - I'd pictured something a bit different. It was relatively crowded but not a zoo or anything, given the mostly nice (but chilly again) weather, on Labor Day weekend. We walked the beach a bit, looking at the seaweed washed up (there was a ton of it in the water right at the shore) and dead crabs, and the ducks on the pond. We walked the other direction down to the pier, where a few guys were fishing. One caught some sort of small fish. Hoping that the sunny weather would hold, I drove to Alki. It was still nice when we got there. MB was impressed by the city view. We walked for a bit, but it was pretty cold, so we just took the slow drive around the point. I remembered that one of the Chow Foods places was neaby - Endoline Joe's - so we stopped there for dinner. That was pretty good. They didn't have many vegetarian options but what they did have was tasty. Oh, well the split pea soup with ham that I got didn't quite count. I had a coconut hot fudge sundae for dessert, MB had a fruit tart. Then we came home, and watched Dune. I'd talked enough about it, MB had to see what it was all about. The movie has plenty of flaws and quirks, but a lot going for it as well. I stopped it about every 10 or 15 minutes to explain who the people were and what was going on - there's just so much left out of the actual movie.

Monday, worked from home in the morning. MB spent some time making her signature spanikopita thingies and mac and cheese. We did some housework. Then, over to Travis and Igor's for Chris's birthday party. Had a very good time. Lots of good company, food, and drink. I brought a bottle of 1937 colheita port that I bought on a whim - it didn't cost as much as something that old should, and that was because it was just OK. Interesting though. We left there around 9:30 I think, came home and finished up the household chores before heading to bed.

Today - work as usual. Getting back into practicing guitar, fell a little bit behind with my tasks here, during the break. Of the three new pieces, I've got one "learnt" but needing practice, another I've probably got about 1/3rd memorized, and the third I spent some time with tonight re-learning as the parts changed (but they're much easier in the new arrangement). Thursday is our first rehearsal for the new season.

Back in drearyweatherland

2008-08-27T22:37:00.001-07:00

Wednesday, August 27 2008
Seattle, WA
22:25 PDT

Just typed up my few trip journal entries. The weather here has been pretty gray and rainy so far since we got back (on Saturday night).

The rest of the trip was still great. Thursday MB and I went on a little drive to the Alligator River wildlife refuge. It was nice, though we didn't see much wildlife. Just lots of birds (great blue heron, great egret, turkey buzzards, a red cockaded woodpecker, a prothonotary warbler) and a cottonmouth in the water. Forgot to mention Tuesday's dinner - veggie chili made by Ian. Super delicious. Thursday night, we had to work hard to find a place that would seat 12 people without hours waiting. Ended up at a so-so looking place that had great food. Spent some more time in the water on Fridy - my cheapo board was starting to break in half by this point. A nice day though. Joy, Ian and Benjamin left mid-day. The rest of us went out for dinner, to a place that was not bad, for the most part. Then, mini golf. At the most unimaginative mini-golf course on the planet. We got by on enthusiasm for the first few holes, but then it was like "wow, another one that goes uphill and curves a little bit". On the third hole, I got a crazy hole-in-one, and while jumping up and down in celebration, I landed wrong in my flip-flops and torqued my toes. Soon enough, my left big toe was all swollen up and I was limping around. I was worried I busted it, but it stopped swelling and didn't turn colors, so no emergency care was needed. I was limping for the next few days (still am, slightly) though - a bad sprain. Anyway, back to the ranch after that and we watched some more Olympics and packed up.

Saturday morning was clean-up, I felt a bit less than useful in my gimpy state however. Then, we all bugged out at 9:30 AM. MB and I got stuck in traffic, once again, and got to Norfolk airport around 1:30. So that gave us a few hours to sit and read before our flight. The flights were OK, no trouble, and CF picked us up at the airport. I was very happy that my luggage didn't get lost, as I'd forgotten to take my house/car keys out of my suitcase before handing it over.

Sunday was a pretty relaxed day. Took MB out to the Hi Life for dinner, which was delicious. Hello Ballard.

Got a haircut yesterday morning. A bit too short. Oh well.

Trip Journal 3

2008-08-27T22:23:00.001-07:00

Wednesday, August 20 2008
South Nags Head, NC
22:15 EDT

Ah, stuffed. Went to a great seafood restaurant for dinner. Fried green tomatoes, fried okra, blackened yellowfin tuna. Key lime pie. Now, more Olympics. Bolt won the 200.

Got an early start in the water after breakfast. Nice, less seaweed. Low waves though. Laid on the sand for a bit with MB, then came in and had lunch on the porch. Very nice. Windy again. Went back out again after that - wow! big waves, lots of them in all different directions. Fun, to a degree. Couldn't really keep ahead of them. Came in, showered, and took a nap w/ Mb. Missed John and Serena leaving, they had a 9 PM flight. We went for a walk on the beach - very nice! Saw some jellyfish (3 to 4") dead on the beach. Found a lilttle puffer fish, stranded on shore. Still alive! It looked like a little toad, 3" long, with no legs. I picked it up and put it in the water. It washed up again a ways ahead of us - there was a family looking at it when we got there. They did the same, and it washed up again. Oh well, not the day for that little fish.

it's very windy still, so nice and cool. it was freezing in the restaurant - ugh!

Trip Journal 2

2008-08-27T22:22:00.002-07:00

Tuesday, August 19 2008
South Nags Head, NC
23:45 EDT

Watching the Olympics. Hot today. AC is on now. Lots of seaweed in the water (sea grass, actually), and little waves. Saw two big (football-sized) jellyfish - pink - in the water with me. Beautiful, but freaky. Got a bigger board at the Food Lion last night. Much better, need bigger waves now.

Went to Jockey's Ridge dunes - huge sand dunes. Very cool. Ran down the big, steep one twice. fun! on the edge of control.

Awesome moon rise tonight - very orange, nearly full.

Trip Journal 1

2008-08-27T22:22:00.001-07:00

Monday, August 18 2008
South Nags Head, North Carolina
18:30 EDT

Ah. Wonderful. The house sits right on the beach, less than 50 feet from the water. As far as rental houses go, it’s not bad. People here: Me, MB, Mariss, Kelly, Kari, Mike, Michelle, Joy, Ian, Benjamin, John, Serena.

The beach is great, soft tan sand. Some big waves, few rocks.

The trip down was long. Red-eye flights, then lots of traffic from Norfolk to here.

Saw the Orville and Wilbur Wright museum / memorial. Excellent. Amazing, what they did. The talk that the ranger gave in the museum was surprisingly interesting and entertaining.

The first night, we had dinner at the Dunes restaurant, an OK seafood place. We got a strange table that was, more or less, in the gift shop. The food was fresh and prepared fairly well. After that, MB and I spent some time in the hot tub – it’s very nice.

Sunday, we got up around 10, had some cereal and coffee. Then hit the water around 11. They have some dinky foam boogie boards here. OK, not great. Got a few good rides in. Mariss is pretty good at body surfing.

MB and I walked North up the beach. Lots of people. Not exactly crowded, but lots. Later we sat on the snd, watching the birds. I called Dad and asked about them – mostly sandpipers, plus some sort of black-faced gull, and common grackles. The pipers run around near the surf, poking around in the sand as the water recedes, running away as it comes back in. We saw one nab something, then when it was done pecking at it, got up to see what it was – a big (inch-long) "bug", like a pill bug, maybe an "isopod" according to MB [later, looked them up - they are "sand crabs", actually crabs that lack pincers, sometimes called "sand fleas" because they look a lot like a gigantic flea].

Before that, we made a sand castle. It was just a big mound for a while, then I had na idea to make Mt. St. Helens. It came out pretty good. Joy and Benjamin helped a little, Benjamin dumping water and sand in random places, not bad for a 2-year old. Ian cooked dinner - penne with feta and zucchini, plus a fritata of sorts. Very good. Good local red wine, too. Watched the Olympics with lots of the bunch - 100m final (w), gymnastics events.

Monday: fairly similar so far. MB and I walked South this time ("that way", being right facing the water, still feels North to me [my compass turned around mid-week]). A very cool sight: w/ each wave, as the water receeded, thousands of the sand crabs moving with the water, going in and out of the sand. Tons of them. As large and as many of them as there were, they were almost invisible as they moved with the water. You had to sort of believe they were there, then ahh! wow. And you don't even notice them if you stand in the surf. More time in the water, overall, today. Tomorrow I may try to get a better board. BBQ is the plan for dinner tonight.

CCW

2008-08-06T00:39:00.000-07:00

Tuesday, August 6 2008
24:16

Just found www.fueleconomy.gov. . .interesting, but buggy. Though some of what I thought were bugs, turns out to be: not many diesel cars were sold in the US in MY 07 or 08, I guess because of the fact that our diesel wasn't good enough yet. The VW Jetta SportWagen TDI looks interesting. I've been wondering, if a TDI-based hybrid makes any sense. Or at least some sort of diesel hybrid. I also wonder: would the gain in mileage I'd get from a new car offset the (environmental) cost of building said car? Seems like it wouldn't, at least not in 5 or 10 years.

Stupendous weather today. I was inside for most of it, but still . . .

A good weekend last weekend. Friday night, MB and I had dinner with Tizzy at, uh, I forgot the name, the Neopolitan pizza place. Ah, Tutta Bella. It was good, but super noisy. Anyway, it was good to see her and catch up on things. Saturday we had a TTA photoshoot in the morning, then a bit of a prep meeting for the upcoming course. Then, a fairly lo-key day.

Sunday, MB and I made a big road trip around the Olympic Peninsula. Beginning with the 8:40 Edmonds/Kingston ferry, and ending with us back home at 1:15 AM, having gone in a big counterclockwise loop. We went up to Hurricane Ridge – which was awesome, I'd never been up there before. Lots of deer around. Stunning views. A bit brisk and windy, but mostly sunny. Not terribly crowded. Some of the road was unpaved though, which was exciting (dirt road, no guardrails, downhill, steep drop-off – second gear, nice and easy. . . ).

After that we had lunch at a Mexican place in Port Angeles – splitting the fish tacos. Not bad. Then, back on the road and around the horn, driving up the Hoh river valley to the rain forest. That was good, I think the best weather I've ever seen there (sunny and 70s). It wasn't quite as "wow, cool" as I remembered it, but that might just be because I've been there four times now. We did take the Spruce trail, which I hadn't done recently, that was mostly not terribly exciting actually. No wildlife, save for some little birds and a few ground squirrels.

Next, to Ruby Beach. Which is just such a wonderful place. We lucked out and got there at low tide, so we got to see the zillions of stars and anemones in the pools and on the rocks. A bald eagle flew by once. It was overcast, as it has been every single time I've been to the Washington coast. Windy too, and chilly, but somehow that was all just right and it was really nice.

Then, a long slog back around to Olympia and up I-5 to home. With a stop at the Hoquiam Denny's for a late night dinner (via the breakfast menu). Which wasn't too bad, actually.

I think, having done the one-day OP circumnavigation three times now, I could probably live with never doing it again. At least, when I'm driving. There wasn't a lot of traffic, and in some sections almost none which was very nice. There were annoying "clumps" of cars, where it seemed like 3 or 4 were backed up behind a slow car, but they would never, ever pass them. So, eventually I had to pass 3 or 4 cars at once, ugh.

Bye Bye July

2008-07-28T00:26:00.000-07:00

Sunday, July 27 2008
24:09

Let's see. . .last show was good, a big turnout and very enthusiastic. Pizza and drinks afterward's at CG's. Then a completion meeting at bobandjax's Tuesday night. A considerably less-bleak outlook in several ways than the same time after last season.

Friday, stopped by my friendly neighborhood gastroenterologist's to have a camera stuck down my throat. They gave me some good knockout juice, because I don't remember any of it. Maybe they faked it! Anyway, the report was fairly good, they did have to do the expando thing on a stricture, but overall I think it looked pretty good. I was mostly sleepy / headachy / heartburny for the rest of the day after that, MB did a good job taking care of me while still doing work and a yoga class in the evening.

Saturday – slept in, then went and bought a bike. They'd sold the XL version of the one I liked best, I tried out some others but that was still the winner, so it's on order, should be here in a couple weeks. Forgot to call the other cycle place and tell them to keep the deposit I put on that bike. Then I mostly puttered around the house while MB was off at part 2 of 3 of the yoga class weekend. After she got back, we went to an Ethiopian restaurant downtown-ish, to see/hear some of MB's friends from the local bellydance crowd, a dancer plus a 4-piece live band. The band was great! really, really impressive. I think the woman playing dumbek and riq was the most impressive. The food there was absolutely delicious, and really cheap too. We figured the cost on the veggie sampler was per person, but it was the total! Anyway, that was fun (MB got up and danced for a bit) and then we got home around 11:30 and went to bed.

Today – slept in again, MB off to part 3 of 3. I spent the day inside again, listening to music and doing some shopping online. Oh, bought a new computer yesterday – it should be here late this week or early next week? It was $$ but it will be so nice to have a nice, clean, fast computer again. And QUIET. God, why did I buy such a noisy computer last time. I also splurged for a 24" monitor. Anyway, today I ordered some powered studio monitors, nothing too fancy but they'll let me listen to mixes on something other than headphones. When MB came back, we worked up a quick, tight-schedule plan to do both things we wanted to do tonight – check out a wacky brass/marching band from Providence that were playing in Fremont, and go see The Dark Knight. We figured we'd go to the venue and see one or two songs from the band, but as we were finding parking we saw them trouping along the streets, so we parked and then chased after them. MB called an old friend of hers from RI that knew one of the women in the band, and then between songs, ran up to her w/ the phone and said "Say hi to Judith!". I think she was a bit taken aback at first but it was a pretty cool moment. Anyway, then we hotfooted it back to the car and over to the U District to see the Batman movie. Which was great. I think I'd still like to go see it on IMAX, though it looks like I have all of August to do that. Anyway, after that, back here and getting ready for bed and such.

Yesterday and today, I've begun working on Shostakovich's Prelude 22 in g minor. What a wacky piece of music. My part will be every 6th note of the melody, eventually, but I'm taking the tack right now of just learning all the notes.

ahh

2008-07-20T23:02:00.000-07:00

Sunday, July 20 2008
22:39

The weather turned a bit cooler / cloudier this week, though with quit a bit of sun still. This weekend was gorgeous. Today: slept in, put some new strings on the main bass, and played for a bit, getting the expected big old blister on my RH middle finger. After MB got back from a bellydance thing at the Seattle Center, we headed out to see Hellboy II. Pretty good. Funny. After that we walked around the U-District for a bit, finally finding a good looking Thai restaurant. Nothing special, but not bad. I've always thought that was a pretty shitty neighborhood (meaning the area right around 45th and the Ave) – yes there's all kinds of great stuff there, but it's just nasty and dirty.

We stopped at HD on the way back to get some caulking and spackle – the former to fix the dislocated shower drain cover, and the latter to fix the dent we put in the wall when moving my couch back last weekend. Both processes had some hitches – the silicone was actually white, not clear, so it looks fairly ratty through the drain; the touch-up paint I have for my walls (which, I'm pretty sure, are the same as those in the hallway) was too light a shade, so the hall wall actually looks worse now. Hopefully the builders can help out with that. After that, some guitar practice, working on Cultivating the Beat, and the symmetric-scale arpeggios that Jaxie brought back from Spain.

Yesterday – rehearsal, though for the first hour Jax showed us the aforementioned bits and pieces, that was fun. Also, before that, some playing upstairs in the great hall. Sounds awesome, but it will be a whole new can of worms for us, hearing-wise. After rehearsal, I came back here and went to the bike shop across the street. I rode two of the more "comfortable" road bikes, and then one of the new "comfort" hybrids. The first bike was just too long; the second a better fit. Both of those were wonderfully quick, and light. But, I got a crick in my neck after about 25 minutes on the local roads. As soon as I sat on the hybrid, two things were apparent: 1. this is much more fun, and 2. this is soooo much better than my old hybrid. Lighter, and it's actually comfortable given the upright position, whereas before it was just sort of a "worst of both worlds". This bike shop is also really great, they were very helpful and attentive, turns out it was the owner that was helping me. So, I was going to go back to Greg's today and ride the Sequoia, just because, then eyeball some of the Trek and Specialized hybrids, then probably come back here and buy this one (a Cannondale). But, the local shop was closed today, and I ended up doing other things, so I think I'll just go to this place some time this week and get the one I liked. It's also about half the price of the road bikes.

Oh, so after that I got a new casserole pot for the kitchen so that MB could make some family-recipe mac & cheese, and helped her with that and her new signature "soy sausage spanakopita". Then we went over to Travgor's for Travis' birthday party. That was good, fairly low key, but good. A few folks came out of the woodwork to stop by. The mac & cheese didn't quite turn out as it was supposed to, but it was good, and there was lots of other good food, also had some wine, some pepper vodka, and some yummy Scotch that Travis got. Eventually those of us left settled in to watch the copy of Pale Rider that TM got. Awesome movie, it's so good. MB and I came home around 12:30.

Friday night – went down to Georgetown to see some friends of MB's from Boston play. They were pretty good, kinda kooky. Turns out the venue was the same little art gallery that Elektrochakra played at last summer. After that, we booked back up to Fremont to see one of Igor's bands, Supermodelumberjack, play at ToST (another venue that EC played at last year, huh). That was good, and we got out of there also just after midnight.

Next up: last show tomorrow. We expect the turnout to be somewhere between "a full house" and "ohmygod what are we going to do". Should be fun.

hot hot hot

2008-07-13T23:05:00.000-07:00

Sunday, July 13 2008
22:54

I have a new hardwood floor. The replacement isn't quite done, but it's just touch-up work. The crew this time seemed to know what they were doing, which is very good. And the lumber is much higher quality, I think. So, so far I'm pretty happy.

It was hot today! after a lazy morning, and then breakfast of cereal and leftover apple pie, MB and I went to Greg's Greenlake to look at a bike for me. It was a pretty crappy experience. The sales guy was working too many folks simultaneously, and would neglect us for 10 minute stretches. In the end, I put down $20 so they would assemble the bike I wanted to try, in my size. So next weekend I'll go check that. I'm leaning towards a real "road bike", no more hybrids. It'll take some getting used to, but I think it'll be better in the long run.

Yesterday: gig at Good Shepherd. It was a long, hot day (rehearsal from 10-1 at Travgor's, then we met at GS at 4 to soundcheck and rehearse, had a one-hour break at 6, then the show at 8, and out of there by 10), but a good show. Not a large audience. Their "regulars" were all at a party, apparently. In the end, it was a fun performance for some of us but not for others, and it was a heck of a lot of work put into a one-off thing that wasn't actually a TTA performance.

Last week was entirely warm/hot and sunny. Glorious. The forecast is good for this week too!

The new floor event involved disassembling / moving everything that was on the hardwood – the sofa, stereo, tv rug, chairs, and media shelf. That took a few hours last Sat & Sunday (Curt helped move the heavy stuff on Sunday), we were able to store the big items in the empty apt. next door. Then, spent a few hours today moving things back in (me and MB undertaking it ourselves this time), and re-assembling. Did some slight rearranging in the process, it's better now I think.

Flickr is busted – no uploading happening right now, it seems. At least, not for me – via the app or the web. Hmm, others are uploading. Guess it's just a broken shard.

heeeet

2008-06-29T23:21:00.001-07:00

Sunday, June 29, 2008
23:09

Ah, summer at last! Sunny and hot this weekend. Yesterday after rehearsal, did the necessary task of replacing the headlight in my car. Somewhat of a pain, but I didn't waste nearly as much time figuring out all the broken little fastener bits like last time. Then had a relaxed afternoon, until picking up MB and KH at the ferry terminal – they'd gone over to Bainbridge for a few hours. It was pretty busy along the waterfront, so getting there and back took almost an hour! Later, out to dinner, KH's treat. Went to Lombardi's down the street. It was excellent. I can't quite remember, but I think the first/last time MB and I went there it was so-so. Everything was wonderful this time. I got chicken saltimbocca, which was great and the side veggies were done deliciously. MB had a seared ahi salad, and HK the halibut which she raved about. MB got peaches w/ ricotta for dessert, KH the panna cotta, and I got white chocolate gelato w/ balsamic-marinated strawberries! it was so good. And lots of it, almost too much. Anyway, it was good and interesting to meet KH.

Today, up fairly early to drive them to the airport – MB is in NH this week for work, KH going back to CT. Then a pretty lazy mid-day, listening to music and watching car videos on youtube etc. Then, over to Travgor's for a BBQ. The Lost Pedro gig on MI was pretty dreary apparently. But the BBQ was good. Perfect weather, and they have the perfect backyard for it. I imagine we'll all be back there on Friday! Not a late night given that it was Sunday, so I got back here around 10. MB's flights were delayed, so she just arrived in NH about 30 minutes ago – ugh! She'll have a rough morning tomorrow.

Picked up a little more sunburn this weekend probably, between walking to the auto parts store about a mile away, and the BBQ today.

Supposed to be hot tomorrow! Hope that it's as cool in the performance space as usual, relatively.

We began learning the Shostakovich prelude yesterday – rearranged now for 2 bass (left hand) players and 6 circulators (RH). The ACE folks were insane to do it with 4 circulators (it's all 8ths in 3/4 time)! I'm pretty excited to be working on this and CtB.

Longest day

2008-06-22T23:41:00.001-07:00

Sunday, June 22, 2008
23:12

A good weekend. Friday, had a belated Father's Day dinner. C&A brought homemade blackberry pie, MB and I brought fixin's for dinner – spinach salad with walnuts, gorgonzola, and grapes; curried lentil soup; and squash ravioli. Mmm! It all turned out very yummy. We got to visit with C&A and my nephew for a couple hours while making/eating dinner, then they had to hit the road. Then we stayed a bit to chat with Dad and Sue.

Saturday was a "day off", no TTA rehearsal or anything. So I got to go to the solstice fair / parade, something I'd never done. I dropped MB off at the parade-prep place at 10, then went and found a parking spot near Gasworks. I walked back to the center of Fremont, where the crowd was getting ever-thicker, and got some coffee at Peet's. The line was very long but the seating upstairs was all free, so I got a nice comfy seat near the window and read No Country For Old Men for about an hour. Then I walked west through the fair area for a while, and once the parade looked like it was near starting I started walking east again. The route was pretty thickly lined with parade-watchers. I got a sandwich and ate that sitting outside – it was overcast but fairly warm. Then watched the first few floats go by – the 2nd had a really good, funky band on it with a horn section and everything. I have no idea who they were. Several of the floats were preceeded by a few topless, body-painted young women.

I figured it'd work best if I was near the parade endpoint eventually, so I made my way back towards Gasworks. Eventually finding a spot where I had a pretty good view of the street. MB and the belly dance troupe came by pretty soon after that. I tried to get some pictures, but I had to hold the camera up to get them and they didn't really turn out. Then I started heading west again, following them – but, there was nowhere to go. There was no room on that side of the street. Eventually I had to cross the parade route, mixing in with a bunch of people dressed in red going around hugging folks, and then was able to keep moving. MB called and said they were all done, and hanging out at the park. I got there and we met up and she changed out of her costume. Then we walked around the park a bit. It wasn't very crowded yet, mostly parade folks at this time. But people kept flowing in at a pretty high rate. We split a "fruitkabob" (chocolate covered strawberries on a stick) and some potato fritter / chickpea thing with chutney made by the Hare Krishnas. We sat on the grass for a while, just relaxing and watching people, then headed home.

Later we went up to Northgate to try out the Indonesian restaurant we'd tried to go to a few months ago (but it was too busy, so we went to the Thai place next to it, which was good). It was OK – the menu is really really meat-centric actually. So we didn't have too much to choose from. The egg-noodle with tofu dish was very good, but could have used more "stuff" eg some veggies. The spicy fried bean sprouts weren't so great. Not bad, but it was a damn big plate of bean sprouts. I can only eat so many of those! The iced tea was good. Then we went to the bookstore for a while, and then stopped by Target to get some candles for the show. We went to Oak Tree and got tickets for the 9:50 The Hulk, we were pretty early so we played the boat racing arcade game they had in the lobby – not bad, the really cheesy pseudo-American voice announcer was awesome. The movie was OK – it had some really good bits and some pretty stupid / blah ones.

Today, slept in while MB went to yoga. Then oatmeal for breakfast, and some time lounging around the house, reading etc. Then we headed to the Eastside, for a BBQ at Alfred and Jodie's. Dan and Dawnise also showed up. There was (almost) a snafu with the food as Alfred didn't remember (or never really picked up on) that MB is a veggie. So there was lots of meat as I predicted, plus a salad with bacon in it. But at the last minute he grilled some asparagus which was really good, and Dawnise made a good shredded-every-vegetable salad. So everybody was pretty happy with the food. The meat included venison, which was tastier than I expected. A&J's young ones were both cute and well-behaved and all that. After dinner we played a game like pictionary but where the scribbles are already drawn for you, you have to assemble them. I brought a bottle of honey pepper vodka, but only Dan and I drank any of that. We got home around 10:30.

Oh – on Saturday, I got a sunburn, despite never actually seeing the sun. Just a bit of redness on my face, but pretty funny considering it was overcast.

Ouch

2008-06-18T01:12:00.001-07:00

Tuesday, June 18 2008
25:00

A man jumped from the roof of this building – 6 storeys – yesterday morning. We didn't hear him hit the ground, but we heard the fire truck arrive. The workers in the bank heard it (the fall) and went out to check on him. He was still conscious at that time, and told them he jumped. The EMTs got him all braced up (and cut off his pants) and took him away. He was unconscious by then. At the time, we didn't know what happened, though we surmised as much, because the EMTs kept looking up at the roof. Externally, the guy didn't look like he'd fallen 70 feet onto concrete – just very pale, with a cut on his thigh. He might have hit the plastic dumpster lid on the way down. Anyway, we got a memo about it today, apparently he is still alive.

Got the new mixer plugged in and everything tonight, works just great. It may take me some time to decide which routing configuration I like best, but at least I have options with this thing. Many of them. The 20-foot balanced cables were barely long enough to connect it to the computer – I was surprised by that, I thought I bought 25 footers but now I see that I bought 20s, and that's the longest they stocked, so I guess I thought at the time it wouldn't be that much of a stretch. Hmm.

It's late, time for bed.

Sun!

2008-06-16T00:03:00.001-07:00

Sunday, June 15 2008
23:40

Turns out I had a few things wrong in my last entry – my great-grandfather was doing his cowboy thing within Colorado – he was the foreman of that particular drive actually. And, the pictures were found in Lebanon, OR, in the house Frank had lived in until he died.

A good weekend. Friday night, went out to dinner with MB's aunt and uncle. Nice folks. They'd asked about a place to get good seafood while in town, so I recommended Anthony's on pier 66. They invited us along, their treat! It was very, very good. They each got Copper River salmon, MB had halibut, and I got swordfish. That was the first time I'd had swordfish, it's pretty tasty. The view was wonderful, and we had a good time.

Saturday: guitar in the morning. Then I spent some time working, playing games, and listening to music in the afternoon while MB was out doing first the HC meeting, then she had a belly dance class. She got back around 7:30, and made oatmeal raisin cookies for a party she was going to later in the evening. I mentioned that I loved oatmeal cookies, but without raisins so much, so she made me a batch sans-raisins! I headed off to travgor's to have some dinner and watch BSG, then MB headed out to her bellydance party. We each had a pretty good evening. I got to chow down on leftover Thai food, and brought the raisinless batch of cookies plus some pretty nice Scotch for everyone to enjoy. BSG was, yet again, amazing. I have no idea where it will go next, really. Some theories are flying about, but who knows. We may have to wait a while to find out, it looks like. Ugh. I got home around 12:30, then MB about 1. She had a lot of fun at the party, the live band was great.

Sunday: slept in while MB made the raspberry-almond-cornmeal tart again, this time noticing that she'd left out a step the previous time. We had some of that plus cereal for breakfast. It was looking pretty sunny outside! yay! I had a bit of a headache though, and at one point it suddenly got a lot worse. Had me freaked out a bit. It subsided, and a couple Tylenol made it disappear. I was pretty dehydrated when I woke up, think that was it. I don't know why, but it's just a lot dryer in here than it was in my old apartment. We went to IKEA – a long drive, but the nice day helped and it wasn't too crowded in there given the weather. A very successful trip. Turns out the table that I thought I wanted, and they didn't have anyway, wasn't what I wanted. There was a whole other table system that turned out to be perfect. I really don't like their website. It's just so non-obvious how you get a listing of what you want to see. In this case, I didn't even know that the Galant table/leg series existed. Because they consider it a desk! Well, OK. It's a 63" long, flat, rectangular table.

When we got back from IKEA – the desk just barely fit in the car, we had to have both our seats scrunched way up towards the front – we unloaded the car, then went out to get some lunch/dinner. Given the nice day, we went to the Hi-Life to sit outside. Well, it was actually a bit chilly in the shade, because it was windy and I was wearing just a t-shirt, so we moved inside a few feet. Very nice. MB got the spring ravioli and I tried the porkloin asado from their Barcelona menu. Very good. Could have used some greens of some sort, however. We took a detour by the park on the way home, watching some kids skateboarding in the "pool". Later, CF came over and we watched Control Room, which was excellent. There are a few people that were/are involved with the Iraq war who, in many different times and cultures, would be considered prime candidates for execution given their actions. I don't quite feel they deserve that, but damn close.

After CF left to walk home, I put together the new table, and MB and I moved it into the office. It's totally perfect. Had a funny moment when wrangling it through the doorway – it wouldn't fit, and as I was trying to figure out how to angle it in, MB suggested "shortening the legs". Duh, of course. It has adjustable legs, and I'd put them out to maximum (because that's where I wanted the table height to be). So we shortened them, and it was a breeze after that, then re-lengthened them and put it in place.

I hope the beautiful weather keeps up.

Oh yeah – picked up the car on Friday. It's now "like new". Not bad.

June 2

2008-06-09T00:30:00.001-07:00

Sunday, June 9 2008
24:07

A little over 100 years ago, my great-great-uncle Frank was a photographer. His three brothers, including my great-grandfather Stanford, were cowbowys. Frank took many photographs depicting their life and the lives of the other cowboys on the long cattle drives up to Wyoming and Montana. These photographic plates were found in an attic in Idaho in the 1960s, and made their way to a fellow named John Eggen. With the endorsement and aid of my grandfather, John Eggen printed several books from these pictures, including The West that Was and The Cowboys. Our family received several copies of each book, and I am very glad to have them.

Mr. Eggen had an agreement with my grandfather that the negatives would be donated to a museum in the event of Mr. Eggen's death. Several years ago, Mr. Eggen decided instead to sell the plates. I do not know where they currently are. My father managed to track down an email address a couple years ago, but he received no response.

The pictures themselves are in the public domain, the copyrights long expired. However, the plates themselves are simple property. Without knowing the contents of Frank Sherman's will, as far as I know, my family has no more right to them than anyone else on the planet – whoever has them in their possession owns the plates, and that is that.

I would like to make these photographs available to the public. I cannot do this. If I were to upload scans from Mr. Eggen's books, I would be violating his copyright. How this makes any sense, I'm not quite sure. But that is the way the law works in this country.

Meanwhile. . .a good, action-packed weekend. Friday night, went out for dinner with MB. We stopped by a joint on Fremont Ave recommended by BR – very cozy, and full. The guy we talked to said maybe 15 minutes, but given the fact that all tables were full and another couple was in front of us, we kept walking. Though, we did give him our number just in case. We ended up at the Asteroid Café – and, sure enough, right after we were seated, the first place called. Oh well. We stayed at the Asteroid. It was really disappointing. Very expensive, and not very good. MB ordered the special, black cod. It was undercooked, essentially a huge gelatinous mass on her plate, and over salted. I got spinach gnocchi with fresh veggies. The gnocchi were very good, the vegetables were all cooked just right and otherwise excellent, except that it was salted to death. It was borderline inedible (though, the way salt works, that meant that I couldn't stop eating it). So, scratch that place off the list.

Saturday – open circle. Mostly the house team plus a few perf. team, and one newcomer. He did pretty well. Good circulations. Then, a break at the coffee shop, and over to the Wilson's for reahersal. That was good. Igor hurt his back earlier though, and was stiff as a board and hiding the pain pretty substantially.

MB and I came back and took a long nap – three hours. Then, we walked to Rain City and rented Control. A sad movie, as I knew it would be, but beautiful. So well done. MB enjoyed it too.

Sunday – slept in. MB made French toast, mmm. Then some domestic work, moving boxes of stuff down to my storage space in the garage, while MB worked on her editing job. I made a run to the hardware store for some lumber to put down, so the boxes aren't on the concrete directly. Then, over to travgor's for CF's birthday. A lo-key thing, with some pizza and drinks, then a super yummy chocolate tart and some chocolate fig ice cream. Damn, I just realized I left the leftover ice cream there! I should've nabbed it instead of the wine, heh. Anway, we watched some of the 1968 Elvis "comeback" show, the acoustic "black leather sit-down" set, which was great. He was quite a guy. Then, the latest BSG. Holy crap. Then, back here for some guitar practices and emailing and now this, then to bed.

crunch

2008-06-03T23:17:00.001-07:00

licensehole
Originally uploaded by Taylor Sherman

Ugh

2008-06-03T23:15:00.001-07:00

Tuesday, June 3 2008
23:05

Got rear-ended last night. After I stopped on Market to turn left onto Russel, heading for the Hi-Life after the show, I heard skidding. I had long enough to think "what's that sound? . . . oh, shit" and look in the mirror to see two lights getting too close too fast, then bang. Nobody was hurt – MB was in the passenger seat, and the other car (a pickup truck) just had the driver. Seemed like a nice guy but he didn't really speak any English. We did trade insurance cards though. I made a claim last night, got the estimate done today. I guess tomorrow I have to call his insurance people and give a statement. Yay. Thankfully, the car is totally driveable, all the doors work, taillights, etc. The rear bumper is effectively toast, and the hatch is dented. A front headlight is out, I'm not sure if that is related or not (the "tab lights" over the plate in back got smushed, that might have caused a short that blew a fuse, but I don't know why that fuse would be the same as the left headlight's).

So that put a damper on the evening. The first accident I've ever been in, really. The show was pretty good, meanwhile. Large audience. Two people from work were there – Jeep, and Karen P. I tanked the first half of the IMR zithers, complete brain fart. Luckily the 2nd half was still in there, and I think it was about as best as we've done for that half, actually.

MDW

2008-05-28T00:21:00.001-07:00

Tuesday, May 27 2008
23:58

A pretty feature-packed weekend: Friday night – release party for work, dinner at Las Margaritas in Redmond, then the Cirque du Soleil. The latter was amazing. What more can I say. Wow! One coworker (who is prone to such things) later complained about the ticket prices (which he didn't have to pay), saying "there was no plot". I just thought that was funny. Got home from that around midnight, I think. MB really enjoyed it too. Some of the acts had us on the edge of our seats.

Saturday – practice as usual. Then MB and I got ready, and hit the road around 2:30 for the Gorge. We followed my ritual of stopping at the DQ in Ellensburg for ice cream – she got a small HF sundae, I got a small Reese's Blizzard. Mmm! We got to the place at a little before 6. It was overcast – it had been sunny up until the pass, then cloudy from then on. Totally the opposite of what I'm used to. On the drive from Ellensburgh to the venue, there were sheets of rain visible in almost all directions, but it never rained on us. During the show it sprinkled a couple times, then started raining in earnest around 11. The New Pornographers were wrapping up on the mainstage. The view coming over the crest was amazing, even if it was cloudy. That maybe helped, the lighting bringing out some depth on the hills across the gorge. I'd never seen the wind farm over there before. Impressive. We listened to the NP for a few minutes, then walked back to the Wookie stage, for Crudo. They didn't hold my interest long. So, back towards the mainstage, where we got a spot in the main section, then waited for the next act – M.I.A. That was wacky. Cool and fun and noisy, with (from what I've heard, I couldn't understand any of the lyrics during the show) socially relevant lyrics. They invited people up on stage and had it totally packed for two or three songs. Modest Mouse were next. They were pretty good, it was great to see Johnny Marr playing guitar. Isaac is quite a nut. They had some technical problems, and tuning/notes wise were a little rough around the edges. The crowd was very enthusiastic. We were stuck in a blob of drunk/stoned frat guy types. Yay. When they were done, it was getting dark. We got some food – veggie yakisoba that was warm and yummy but ohmygod incredibly salty. Glad we brought water, as it was $4/bottle (beer was $12, something that didn't keep most of the people there from constantly having one in-hand). Then we found a spot on a high-up walkway that turned out to be a really good place to sit and watch REM. It was raining by this point, but we had jackets and it wasn't hard enough to soak us. REM put on a very solid, professional, rocking set. We left about halfway though, to beat traffic. They had to deal with a wet stage, wet gear, and eventually wet clothes. Hard to imagine playing in the rain. At least, well. There wasn't much traffic on the drive home. It was just long, and constantly raining (then not, then raining, etc), and I was pretty fried by the time we got home, at 2:30.

Sunday: slept in, yay! Then a BBQ at Travgor's. Collin L was visiting. It was a nice day, slightly cool but sunny, and a bit windy. Lots of good food. Igor's old Les Paul sparked what became several hours of jamming, with various people playing various guitars, a bass, and drums. Oh, and an "almond jar" shaker. We had to stop that at 10 to keep the neighbors at bay. It was pretty fun. I can only take so much blues, though. Let's make some new music. But, it wasn't really that type of thing. Sat outside for a bit after that, which was very nice. Then, MB and I were done and came home, while the remaining folks put on V. For Vendetta.

Monday: worked. The show was good, in a wacky way. No ChrisG, we got around his absence OK but surely that changed the vibe. Then, Curt skipped "My Precious Dream" (forgetting it completely) and went straight to the next bit – a circulation. That put the rest of the show (most of it) a little bit off-balance, but it wasn't bad I don't think. Just a little hairy. A large group out to the HL after that, goodbyes to Collin, and back home around 12:30.

High Ate Us

2008-05-16T01:18:00.001-07:00

Thursday, May 15, 2008
23:23

Wow, I've been neglecting this. I never even finished typing up my impressions from the trip to Cabo. Spring has been a long time coming in Seattle, and may not quite be here yet. Well the trees have leaves and blossoms. But it was cold and dreary all through April and the beginning of March. Today was sunny and non-cold (maybe low 60s), but yesterday was dreary. The coldness appears to have mostly gone. It actually snowed in April, I believe. It never stuck to the ground, but we got sleet, hail, and big ol' snowflakes on more than one day.

The TTA season is going well. Our new home has its ups and its downs. In terms of the performances themselves, it's probably the best location we've had so far. The incredible pounding we have to endure before the show – due to a samba class upstairs – is utterly unbearable, however. This goes on for two hours before the show; we get a 30 minute break before our performance begins, but only 15 of that is usable for playing together, because the doors open at 8:15. Also, we have to disassemble and re-assemble a stage, two drumkits, and some PA bits before and after each show. Oh, and put up the light trees and re-aim the lights. And lots of other things the House Team has to do to get the place ready to accept an audience.

We've had the luck/opportunity to work closely with BR for the past several weeks, in rehearsals. Extremely valuable, to have a set of good, experienced ears there to listen and provide feedback. Good stuff. Alas, he's hitting the road soon so that's it for a while.

Let's see. . .I bought a TV last month. It's big. But, very thin, relatively. So it looks big but doesn't take up a lot of actual space. Ideally, I'd be able to mount it on a wall; however the room just isn't arranged for that, so it goes in front of the balcony doors, instead.

I still have many gaps and cracks in my floor. I don't think they've moved much in the past month though, which is nice. Actually, I think the building has stopped settling gravitationally (at least so rapidly), and now it is just flexing with the weather – some times the deadbolt on my front door lines up with the other side, some times not so much. The replacement bamboo will be a different brand. I got a sample of the proferred "model" a few weeks ago. Not bad, probably a better overall product than the current stuff. However I'm not sure about the color. And, if it were my money, I'd probably buy the much harder (twice as hard) "strand woven" stuff. It sounds like one option is for them to just cut me a check for the replacement cost; if it's a reasonable amount, I may take that and take care of it myself.

MB is in Boston this week. I miss her. On the flipside, it's good to have a little time alone once in a while, eg now I have some time to do things like this. It's not that she "keeps me busy", but when I have the time, I'd rather be spending it with her than writing journal entries. Anyway, she gets back on Sunday! woo.

OK, wrapping up about the trip – not going to go into much detail, it's all fuzzy now anyway.

Tuesday, April 8: Company trip to the beach at Chileno Bay. The party boat thing was pretty funky. Inside the boat (lower two levels) was fairly cold and dull. Up top it was pretty hot. MB and I sat inside on the trip out, we chatted with KC for a while, also stepping out to the bow when the boat went by the arch and the sea lion colony. That was nice. The beach was good, and there was a fairly small but reasonably interesting reef nearby. We couldn't really get to it until about an hour after we got there, because we had to time it between the waves of people coming off snorkel boats that were coming and going (one of which is a giant (prop driven) pirate ship). After snorkeling around for a while, we laid out on the beach. Then we walked around, down to there there's a rock outcropping between this beach and another one. Lots of little crabs and some other sea life were on the rocks. There was a rock a few hundred yards out that had tons of pelicans on it. Several were usually circling overhead near the shore, and one would dive in spectacularly once in a while. I'm not sure I'd ever seen them do that in real life before. From this vantage point, we could see the whole beach, and it was covered with orange blankets and the blue umbrellas they'd handed out on the boat. On the ride back from this, we sat up top, it was nice and sunny and windy but they were playing annoying music, and way too loud.

When we got back, we were pretty beat. We tried out the in-room Jacuzzi – not bad – then took a nap. We went to the Italian restaurant at the other hotel down the path for dinner. It was OK. Not bad. Better for the price than the fancy place at our hotel. On the way there, we walked behind the "stage" where they do their nightly variety show. What a spectacle. This time, since we were backstage, right as we walked by a very frantic dude dressed up as Superman ran by, looking like he was really late for his cue. We laughed. I don't remember what we did after that, I think we just had a quiet evening.

Wednesday April 9: Off-Road racing! This was great. It was marred by a few bits and pieces, but we had a lot of fun overall. I was half-surprised to find out that the cars were stick-shifts (really, an automatic baja racer? but I never bothered to ask up front). Upon hearing this, MB decided to be a passenger rather than a driver. I told them it'd been a few years since I drove a stick so they gave me a couple laps around the "parking lot" to warm up. I think there were 8 of us from our group there in total (and we were the only people there for this session). The cars are the real thing, RWD Baja racers with buzzy VW engines in the back and yards of suspension travel. One car was a single-seater, the other two were dual. Right off the bat, they had to take one to the shop, because they had to move the pedals for Jaime but they were stuck. But they let her go around as a passenger w/ Chris at no extra charge. There were one or two "off-track" excursions – just getting high-sided on the berm really, but around back so those of us waiting couldn't see. Eventually it was our turn, we got the white car which I think was the fastest. The yellow car (the single-seater) started off a bit slow and got slower from there. Anyway, it was tons of fun. I got off the track twice, both times on the inside of a turn. Probably not turning into the skid. It's really a lot harder to drive slowly. Once you're moving fairly well, the friction and traction are more consistent. The other thing I found, from looking at the pictures, is that you really get a lot more air than you think. I'd expect it to be the opposite, but we were 4-5 feet up a couple of times, and I never felt like we got more than a foot of air, while in the car. The suspension is amazing, it's a shaky ride of course, but landing from that high up in anything else would shorten your spine a few inches. The whole thing ended on a down note, as the yellow car finally crapped out on MikeB on his 4th of 5 extra laps, but then they later still tried to charge him for all 5 laps. I think he ended up splitting the difference.

After that, it was late in the afternoon. MB and I went to Nick San, a sushi joint downtown. The food was good. Another SNAFU here though: when the waiter came to get our orders, MB asked what I was going to get, and I said dish A. Then she ordered, and I changed my mind and ordered dish B. They brought me both dishes; but, as soon as I said, "oh! I only wanted one" they took one away (the one I wanted actually, but I'd already started on the first figuring that's what I was going to get) and said nothing more. I think I got the stinkeye from the chef, as they basically just had to toss a plate of hamachi it looked like. Oh well. They didn't charge me for it.

Then, we walked back to the hotel, taking the "through town" route. It was a bit circuitous, and the long day and the heat were getting to MB so it wasn't a fun walk. But then we got home and relaxed and showered and chilled out for a while, that was good. One small problem: when the time changed, we didn't change the clock on the kitchen microwave. And then, the power flickered, zapping the clock in the bedroom (the one we did change). So, we set that clock back to the *wrong time*. Several hours go by, and MB got ready to go out for the "Ladies' Night" group that was going downtown. She waited in the lobby for 30 minutes, before finally asking the desk clerks if they had any idea where the big group of women was. . .he said they left an hour ago. So, that sucked. Meanwhile I was practicing guitar. She came back up w/ the news of what happened right as I was stepping out to go play Rock Band in the ballroom. So after we talked for a bit she encouraged me to go do that, so I went and played a couple songs. But, I wasn't having any fun, so I went back and we spent the rest of the evening together, including writing in our journals (for me, just notes about things – and that was the last I wrote in it while there).

Thursday, April 10: Uh. . .beats the hell out of me. Oh – skipped our morning "ATV" excursion, and slept in instead. Then what, I can't remember. I think we went back to Wal Mart. Yeah, that must have been that morning. In the afternoon, we went horseback riding. That was weird. There's a "farm" just up the road – really they look like a bunch of squatters and their animals in what is just some public land overlooking the dry river bed. The guys working the place had a real nutty "cowboy" thing going on. They didn't speak much English. They just put us on the horses and started down the creek bed. My sandals have a really wide toe box that didn't fit in the stirrups – he kind of tried to wedge them in, but without much luck. So, the first time my horse started trotting, I was basically standing on my toes and hoping I didn't slip out. When we got to the halfway point, he wedged them in for me better, but that also left my feet sideways-ish. It's been a long time since I've been on a horse. Beautiful animals. Really *big*, and they have a mind of their own. We basically just went back to the beach, then up it a half mile or so, past a few resorts, then back again. We had signed up for 2 hours, but we said that 1 was enough. Uh. . .I don't remember what we did after that. I think that night we went back to Alfred and Jodie's room to play some more games with a bunch of folks. We learned a great game, known by several names including "Oh Shit!". So I thik we were there fairly late doing that.

Friday, April 11: Let's see. . .I think MB spent some time at the pool, I wasn't feeling well so I stayed inside and read or something for a bit, then went out and joined her for a swim. Later, a bunch of us "rode the banana". That would be, in case you were wondering, a very large inflatable raft. It's really two bananas, side by side, each seating six people. When I say "seating", I mean you straddle it (sort of, those with long legs couldn't really do that), and grab a little handle, and hold on. Then the boat takes off and zips around the harbor at 20 mph. On the trip "out" to the arch (which means we go out pretty far – through areas where there's all kinds of boat traffic, and not too far from cruise ships, they don't seem to have any sort of "zoning" in Mexican waterways), DB and the other DB were in the "back" seats. Which meant they were basically falling over backwards, holding on for dear life. Out near the arch, a bunch of people on the right side fell off (we all had life vests on), which naturally lop-sided the raft and caused everyone on my side to fall off to. Somehow, except for Dan. I lost my goggles (and, I found out later, a contact lens), Jeremy spotted them a few feet down and retrieved them for me. On the trip back, he and I were in the back seats. It was insane. The best I could do was trail my feet in the water (at which point Jeremy shouted "BE CAREFUL, YOU CAN BREAK YOUR TOES DOING THAT", but I didn't have much choice) and hold the handle and pull myself down onto the raft as hard as I could, to keep from bouncing off. Jeremy gave out and fell in about 100 feet from shore, and Dan went in to get him but then they just swam in. When we got to shore, my ankle was hurting pretty good, but also I did something to my knee. MB had a big scratch, that turned into a couple bruises, from where someone kicked her during the chaos. Lots of muscles were sore already, and as the next couple days went by, my arms actually got more and more sore/tight, peaking around Monday at the point where I could barely straighten them out all the way. What fun! And it was cheap, too.

So I think we crashed for a bit after that. We probably did something else but I can't remember. Dinner that night was the whole group at Casa Mia. It's a huge, kitsch-y but cool restaurant. They had a margarita waiting for everyone as soon as we walked in the door. A really strong, sour margarita. So people got pretty loose pretty quickly. Dinner was yummy, I had pollo en mole, though I've certainly had better in the US. There was a band, it was accordion, guitar, and harp I think? maybe one more instrument, they were pretty good. Then an interesting dancer, she didn't come very close to our table though. MB went over and gave her a big tip. After something like 2 or 3 hours there, we got the bus ride back to the resort. MB and I just packed and crashed for the evening, I think a lot of people kept partying for a while.

Saturday: the flight back. etc.

OK, enough of that for now.

room_view2

2008-04-19T17:36:00.003-07:00

room_view2
Originally uploaded by Taylor Sherman

Saturday

2008-04-19T17:36:00.001-07:00

Saturday, April 19 2008
17:02

It snowed yesterday and today. It was snowing as I drove home last night – mid-April, still light out at nearly 8PM, cloudy and snowing.

Monday's show went well. Much better than I'd feared, or at least for my out-of-practice playing. I took my guitar to Cabo, and practiced for an entire 30 minutes I think. And, that much, mostly just so that I would'nt have brought it all that way for absolutely nothing! Anyway, the show was good. The Samba dancing going on upstairs during our setup / soundcheck time was really hard. It's incredibly loud, in a low floor/ceiling-is-a-drum booming sort of way. We had about 15 in the audience I think.

Rehearsal today was good, but tough. Lots of work on some sticky bits of one piece that are constantly in need of work and everybody is sick of working on. It'll be in the set Monday though!

Back-filling from Cabo. . .Sunday, April 6: We woke up hungover, and (not realizing it yet), one hour late – Mexico is still on the "old" DST schedule (and the whole country is in Mountain time). So, we missed our bus to the zip lines thing. Which was probably for the better, as my sense of equilibrium was somewhere down on the beach. We went down and managed to reschedule for the 12:30 session, then went back to bed for a bit. Felt a little better when we got up the next time, and hopped in the van for a day of ziplining. That turned out to be really good. Instead of trees, they string the lines up across a "small" canyon up in the hills a bit. This place had 10 lines zigzagging back and forth, though only 8 were in use (2 were damaged in a recent hurricane I guess). The whole thing took 4 hours – lots of time waiting for the people in front of you to go across. Each zip takes all of about 10-30 seconds, but they were great. The highest was 350 feet up, and the longest over a half mile. Most were over 1000 feet long, and the long ones MB and I did in tandem. We did one crossing as a threesome, w/ D's friend Stefano, and I was in front and in charge of braking. I was slow to recognize the "brake!" signal from the guy on the ground because he had demonstrated it two-handed and was doing it one-handed (because the other hand was holding the safety catch). So, we came in hot and kind of got piled up, but nobody got hurt. He asked about the signal and then on the next crossing they made a note to everyone that the one-hand signal means "brake" as well.

It was pretty hot and dry out there, they had water though, and we were hiking 5 or 10 minutes some times to get from one "landing" to the next "departure" point. So after 8 of them and 4 hours up there we were pretty ready to leave. The crew were great, mostly young and fairly fearless guys that explained most things very well. So then we had a van ride back to the resort, and MB and I showered and rested for a bit.

Later in the evening, we had a company dinner down on the beach. There was a group photo first – which MB and I were late (but not last!) to, so we got mock-booed as we showed up. Dinner was wonderful, the beach was in the shade by this time, they had a mariachi band, and very tasty food. The food lines ended up being ridiculously long, though. Luckily our table was near the front so mostly we had time to hang out and eat and talk. We had a good time. I avoided any alcohol for that evening. I think that wrapped up pretty early, and we had a quiet evening after that.

Monday, April 7: Poker tournament in the morning. Slept in, then the tournament began at 11. I played so-so, got a couple good hands when I needed them in the middle, then at the final table didn't get much of anything and petered out in 6th place. Just barely "in the money", though I got my payoff in local pesos! Which came in handy later, at least. MB came and went during the event, getting some lunch, reading her book, etc. I think it was over around 3.

After that, we walked along the beach into town. I got hit in the ankle by a stray boogie board – the kid using it had let go, and it came in on the surf and whacked the inside of my right ankle. It must have been really moving, because those things are pretty light and it hit with a really solid, horrible thunk sound. That left my ankle bleeding a bit, and it started swelling up, but it didn't hurt to walk on so we continued on. In town we walked around the marina a bit, and got gelato at Sr. Sweets. I got green tea and Mayan chocolate (which was pretty spicy!), MB got dark chocolate and dulce de leche. It was all really yummy. I was a bit worried about my ankle, which by now was pretty swollen, but again walking on it didn't hurt at all. The marina area is pretty touristy, as this is where the cruise ship people land. There's a Ruths Chris and a Hard Rock, etc. It was ghost-towny though, as the ships had already left for the day.

The marina police had armed guards – guys in fatigues with machine guns. They appeared to be doing rounds while we ate our ice cream, and made the ice cream shop workers come out and move one of their signs about 6" out of the walkway. Weird.

We walked back along the beach, and heard that there was a get-together for Jodie's birthday at their room. So we went over there, and hung out with them, Derrick's family, John and Kirsten, and Dan and Dawnise. My ankle looked fairly gruesome, so Alfred called me "Gangrene". We had some fajitas and nacho-like things and some off attempts at making fruit dacquiris, and visited with them until around 10:30. MB and I then went over to the other hotel's meeting room (where the poker tournament was), to play some Rock Band. They had it set up w/ a projector displaying on the screen. I played a couple songs, then we left and called it a night.

busride_us

2008-04-17T23:14:00.001-07:00

busride_us
Originally uploaded by Taylor Sherman

Back from sunny parts

2008-04-17T23:12:00.001-07:00

Thursday, April 17 2008
22:53

Lots to catch up on. The trip to Cabo was great. I didn't write much while I was there, so most things will be from memory. We got back on Saturday night. . .the high temp Saturday in Seattle was 79! Wow. Then, of course, from Sunday on it's been cold and rainy. Oh well, at least we had a few hours to adjust.

Anyway, backfilling. . .Friday, April 4: Two short flights. Free snack (for us) on the first, it was OK. I read magazines and chatted with MB mostly. Got to Cabo around 4. Our luggage took 30 minutes to get offloaded from the plane! Then a 45-minute or so bus ride to the resort, then a fairly big line at the front desk (earlier in the day it was huge as two planeloads landed at the same time – people waited two hours!). A SNAFU with the rooms – 12 people had to stay at the next-door resort, the Villa del Palmar, for one night. Including us. It was old and fairly icky. The bedroom window faces the hallway! I was really dehydrated from the flight, so I had a pretty bad headache. We finally got to our room at 8 or something?? then we went back to the del Arco for dinner. We ate at the Perla, which was really expensive and mediocre. I had pollo en mole, MB had a sea bass dish I think. I was stupid and had a margarita, which made me feel worse. Alfred stopped by and joined us for a while – Jodie and the kids were back at the room, he was looking for food. Most of the other people around were Valve folks. Things were pretty low-key around the resort. After that we went back and showered and went to bed. Oh – they have "shows" at the Palmar, cheesy variety show things. They are loud and outside and we could hear it from our room when we first arrived (it was over by the time we got back from dinner). Our luggage was still not in our room, but then once I called the front desk it was there in about 10 minutes. This pattern would be repeated fairly frequently.

Saturday, April 5, Cabo San Lucas, Mexico: We slept in a bit, then checked out of our temp room at 11 as we were supposed to. Then we found out that our room at the Arco wouldn't be ready until 2. So we left our luggage with them, and headed to Wal-Mart with Alfred, Dan, Bryn, and Jen. That was a bit wacky. I never go to Wal Mart here. But, they had many things we wanted. Cereal, milk, granola bars, yogurt, water, fruit. Pretty cheap by US standards. When we got back from that, it was 2, but our room was not ready. So at this point they went and actually had housekeeping clean it up, while we waited in the lobby with our groceries. Then, we finally got into our room. Much better! Really wonderful actually. Probably the nicest hotel room I've ever stayed in. We were up on the 6th floor, and had a balcony facing the pools and the water and the arch across the bay (though the arch itself was around a corner, out of view).

Once we got settled, we went for a swim. First at the beach – the water is fairly cool there, but not too bad. The beach is pretty short, and the surf is in the middle – heavy enough that you can't just relax, and not big enough to do any body surfing or anything on. After that we went in the pool. Nice! very warm. There's no deep water though, so that was a bit odd. It's all 4 feet deep or so. But that was relaxing, especially the hot tub. Then MB and I got cleaned up and chilled for a bit, then got ready for the cocktail party. Which was a lot of fun. It was dark and a little cool, but very nice outside. The bar was open, and the drinks were strong. The moustache contest was great. I can't really remember who won what. I think they were all "winners", in a certain "special" way. MB and I went down and sat on the beach with Martin and Rose and Dan and Dawnise. That was fun. Apparently I was pretty funny. It's a little blurry. Then we came in around 10! and hit the sack. Sunday morning was a bit rough. But I'll get to that with the next installment.

March is soon out like a polar bear

2008-03-30T17:42:00.001-07:00

Sunday, March 30 2008
17:12

Hmm, let's see. Last week, MB's parents were in town. They flew in Sunday night and left Thursday, staying at her place. Very nice folks. MB made strawberry shortcake for their arrival, which was very yummy. They drove themselves to the zoo on Monday. Tuesday I took the day off, and drove them up to the falls and Snoqualmie itself, then to Boehms, then to the wineries. It was gray and cold and drizzly. MB's mom kept exclaiming about the good weather. She was serious. I guess maybe she expected torrential downpours or blizzards! Anyway, it was good and they got to see lots of the eastern foothills and valleys. Oh, we had breakfast at Sr. Moose that morning, it was very good. I had sopes con platanos and it was delicious. Then for dinner my folks cooked up some halibut and we had a nice evening there. David was very interested in my great-great uncle's pictures documenting cowboy life. Wednesday, MB took them downtown to the Space Needle, the market, the art museum, etc. Thursday morning we had breakfast at Besalu and I said goodbye before heading to work. MB took them to the airport Thursday night.

Backing up a bit, on Sunday afternoon, went to Easter dinner at my Dad's. That was good, it was really "the nephew show". I got most of the gold eggs in the easter egg hunt, I was going slow but everyone else was distracted by the kiddos. Sadly, none of the lottery tickets contained within yielded any winnings. Anyway, caught up on things w/ family there. MB got to meet my step-sister, and her husband and kid.

Yesterday, last day at Trinity. We cleaned out the remaining stuff after rehearsal, then painted the floor. Some of the paint crew got a little ahead of themselves while I was rolling out the drop sheet in the hall, so I did a little garbage-bag sack hop around the far end of the room to close the windows. MB and I then came home to chill out and have some food. Later, headed down to the Showbox SODO to see Meshuggah. It's an interesting place. The original Showbox is "nicer", but this one pretty well-polished for a warehouse-type venue. Nice and large. The sound was so-so, it was mostly loud, but fairly mushy. Well the bass was tight. Anyway – met up w/ Gary and Jim from work there. The opening band was a really cheesy and uninteresting hardcore band from LV. Then Meshuggah played. It was good, I really enjoyed some of the songs. I don't think they played any from Catch 33 – all were either from the latest album, which I haven't heard, or older albums (eg DEI). The high lights for me were the longer, groovier songs. All of the material was of the more upbeat, brutal type stuff. I guess the quieter bits from C33 wouldn't really work in that situation – playing 5 minutes of mellow guitar wouldn't cut it as an opener for Ministry. Anyway, glad I went. MB enjoyed it.

Today has been mostly relaxing about. Went to a kitchen store down the street for a few items that I've needed over the past couple months.

Backing up some more. . .last-last Friday, hung up the remaining acoustic panels. That mostly went well, the hardest part being that I'm incapable of consistently measuring, and once in a while a rotofast connector would get stuck into the panel about an inch (the thickness of the ruler, eg I put the dot on the wrong side of it!) off. So that just meant re-drilling a hole. The whole mounting system mostly worked, hanging a 2'x2' panel by myself was a bit tricky some times, trying to get all the little bits hooked up without putting the whole panel's weight on one hook. They look OK, and the sound is improved considerably. I still have yet to order up a bass trap for the corner. Waffling between 48" or 78" height. I think the latter, that's pretty tall but it's the only real corner I have where I can put one, so one will have to do all the work.

Was also sick last weekend – began Thursday, then was finally gone by Wednesday or so. Nothing too bad, just a sore throat then the sniffles.

Can't remember at all what I did the weekend before that. . .keep getting the urge to go check my diary to find out. Oh yeah, can't do that. Hmm. Ah – that's right, MB babysat Eve and Isabel on Saturday afternoon / evening. I think I did some work from home, and listened to music during that time mostly.

Ah hah, I can check MB's diary. . .ok. So that Friday, 3/14, we had dinner at Carmelita. That was very very good. It's a vegetarian place in Greenwood. Then on Sunday, helped MB w/ a rusty screw holding her old MA license plates on, and later had dinner including an artichoke that was very yummy, then looked at pictures from a "semester at sea" that MB did in college. Sailing from New England all the way to the Caribbean! pretty cool.

My scratched-up cabinet doors were replaced this week. The new ones are nice, they did a very good job matching the color, however they are a different cut/variety of wood (walnut, these have nice grain but no flame figuring). They are also finished better than the old ones (which have a rough varnish surface). They should have just replaced them all. But, well, that's done at least, 6 months after closing.

The floor continues to show more and wider gaps, as the building continues to settle. So, it's really good that they didn't do anything last month, I guess. Now they are talking about replacing more bits. I suggested replacing the entire floor, to ensure consistency (it's apparently a different wood supplier now) and also because there are many places where there are drops of some sort of epoxy on the wood, that I didn't notice until after closing.

They have yet to sell either unit above or below me. MB met my Eastern-wall neighbors and they said they have never heard any loud music or anything, so that's good. They also hear footsteps from the place above them.

So the rest of today will probably be just hanging out, having dinner etc. Getting ready for the trip, less than a week now! It is sunny and in the 70s and 80s every day there. Ahh. . .that will be good.

It has been very cold, mid-30s, around here. It snowed twice in the past 4 days.

Par-tay

2008-03-09T23:16:00.001-07:00

Sunday, March 9 2008
23:01

A fairly lazy, relaxed day. Slept in, then had oatmeal for breakfast. Dropped off MB at her place, then went to the hardware store to get some screws and bits for hooking things to the ceiling. Put up four of the new acoustic panels – the ones that go on the wall. The screws aren't the right kind for drywall, but six of them are plenty to hold up each 8-pound panel. The panels look OK – the fabric is nice and a good color – but a little bit odd. I need to order some funky little fasteners to mount the ones on the ceiling – they are screw-like jobs that twist into the fiberglass in back of the panel, and have an eyelet that protrudes.

Did some work remotely, then did my taxes for last year. A small refund should be coming my way. MB came back over, then we had some roasted pepper soup, and a grilled cheese sandwich. Yum! Then guitar practice.

Saturday: just 7 for TTA rehearsal. Then, three or so hours spent cleaning out the Trinity space. It is nearly empty now. It needs some touch-up paint on the walls, and a couple coats on the floor. Had a party at my place in the evening – it was good, I think people had a good time. Thankfully, this time I didn't have a hangover the next day. The food-themes turned out to be cookies, cheese, and whisky. The latter involving two different bottles of Islay single-malt, and an orange-whisky bundt cake.

Friday we had an impromptu gig at Fremont Abbey – their "grand opening" party. A loosely-organized event, that had us playing downstairs while dozens of people were samba dancing was going on upstairs. Did I mention we were acoustic? It was interesting, and strangely, we played very well I think. MB did some of the dancing afterwards, having fun. Then we came home and went to the Hi-Life for dinner.

Faceoff

2008-02-24T22:42:00.003-08:00

Faceoff
Originally uploaded by Taylor Sherman

Weekend

2008-02-24T22:42:00.001-08:00

Sunday, February 24 2008

MB's Birthday!

We went to the Hi-Life for brunch this morning, then over to the Woodland Park Zoo for a couple hours. That was cool, we mostly saw the tropical rain forest exhibits, the nocturnal house, and the lions / tigers / bears. Then a trip to the store, and , and later watching the Oscars. I was bummed that TWBB didn't win best picture. As good as No Country was, I thought the other was better.

Yesterday – a good small-team rehearsal, working on Igor's new piece the whole time. I came home to work on installing the acoustic panels while MB worked with the house team further. Then we walked around Green Lake – we were going to get ice cream at the marble slab, but they were closed, so we got a peanut butter / banana smoothie from WW that was really yummy. It was nice and sunny, if cold. Then, a trip to HD to get some hardware – the drywall screws I had weren't right for mounting things to drywall, they are actually for mounting the drywall itself. So I got some funky little plastic jobbies that turned out to be complete pieces of crap. Whether they broke before or after they stripped out a giant hole in the drywall was a toss-up. Anyway, decided to just use the too-long screws, which worked great. Thankfully I didn't hit anything behind the wall with them. Then the panels just pushed right onto the impaling clips, no sweat. Mounting the next series of panels – which will arrive in March – will be harder, as some are going on the ceiling.

After that, I picked up MB again and we went to Yanni's to see Lost Pedro – 1 play. We had a yummy dinner along w/ Meleah and Diana while Chris and Howard played. We also ended up splitting an entire bottle of wine between the two of us, as it turned out that nobody else wanted wine. So we were both pretty zonked from that and all the food, and got to bed around 11.

Friday night we watched Stop Making Sense which is just amazing. David Byrne is awesome. We both wondered how much coke some of the players had done before the show, but that's just the way things were/are/whatever I guess. They certainly put on quite a show.

Tomorrow, back to work.

deet deet deet

2008-02-18T22:42:00.001-08:00

Monday, February 18 2008
22:22

Recapping. . .Thursday: picked up MB at 6:30. Traffic wasn't too bad until we got to within a few blocks of Benaroya. MB claims she never really guessed where we were headed, even when she saw the building w/ its "Symphony" banners and such. Anyway, we parked in a lot next door for $6, quite a bargain for downtown! And walked over to the place. It was very crowded – nearly sold out, I think. It's a very lovely hall. The first piece was orchestral highlights from a Wagner opera, apparently a comedy. That was OK. The next was a horn concerto, written specifically for the Symphony's principal French, uh, hornist. It did absolutely nothing for me. It was really a musical non-event from my seat. Then, the intermission. MB was having a good time, though she also didn't go for the music so far. After the break was Dvorak's 9th – much better. I don't know the piece much at all, so for the most part it was new. All pretty enjoyable, then there was one moment near the very end that had me grinning from ear to ear, and nearly shouting. It was just two melodies played on top of one another, but super wonderful. On the way home, we thought we'd give 13 Coins a try, but they had a 45-60 minute wait, so we skipped that and stopped at the Hi-Life, fancy clothes and all. This was the first time I'd worn one of my new suits (the black quasi-tux one) since the cruise last February. It's all too big for me now! Wow. Anyway, we had a salad and some pizza and some wine which was all very tasty.

Friday night, a get-together at Howard and Diana's for D's birthday. That was good. We got there pretty late, as I had to work late. So we mostly ate the food we brought, which was OK since I was hungry. There was still 1.5 bottles of wine and an entire chocolate cream pie left over, plus we were given a few bottles of beer and a tub of hummous to take with as we left.

Saturday, calisthenics were a free-for-all sort of thing, which was really good actually. Then the sitting, a trip to Java Bean, and a 30 minute meeting to discuss the facility search. Progress and dead ends on a few different fronts. Rehearsal was good, we continued learning a great circulation that is part of something Bob has written. The bass line for it is very Mick Karn-esque, I think.

After that, I listened to some music at home while MB and the house team had a circle w/ Curt. We got some pho for lunch. We saw Juno which was excellent – funny, touching, super well-written. Then, over to Curt's for a get-together in honor of Dev, who was in town w/ his managee. That was a pretty lo-key affair, beginning at 10:30, and Dev showed up at around 12! CF was also there, as well as Bill and Frankie. I'd never really met Frankie before, she's great. Christina brought some soup – something Spanish that starts with a Z? – and it was really one of the best bowls of soup I've ever had in my life. Absolutely delicious. We also brought the aforementioned pie, I had one slice. Anyway that was a nice relaxed evening, we got home around 1 I think.

Sunday: slept in, MB went to yoga, during that I walked to the PO to get the SC mail, and grabbed some coffee and a scone on the way back. The weather was beautiful, so I suggested we go to the park – Discovery park. We thought about walking there, but as it's such a large park and involves lots of walking inside, I drove. That was very nice, still sunny though fairly windy and nippy. We walked around the entire park plus a little extra here and there, so probably about three miles worth. After that, we went to Café Flora. We got there at exactly 5 PM, which was good because that's when they open! There were about 6 other people waiting outside the door, too. We stuffed ourselves with yummy vegetarian food and dessert and wine, it was very good. Then, home to digest and convalesce after the various exercises of the day.

Today, back to work. People leaving or getting ready to leave for GDC. I got to test a new game idea, it was fun and very silly, which is good.

I had a package waiting for me at home – some of the acoustical wall panels I ordered. They are good, the color turned out just right to match the walls. These are just the three pseudo-suede ones that will go on the bar side wall. There are still 8 more panels that will go other places (and are twice as thick) to arrive, I don't know when. This place isn't so hot about doing things like communicating. So I spent some time listening tonight, noticing the differences with them in place (though just leaning up against the wall) and not. Some times it's more noticeable than others, though fairly subtle for the most part.

music: Opeth - Ghost Reveries; Arvo Part - Tabula Rasa

Hello Again Again

2008-02-12T23:12:00.001-08:00

Tuesday, February 12 2008
22:49

Tuning The Air is in a bit of a limbo – we have nowhere to do our next season, which is somewhat tentatively penciled in for March through June. CHAC had some downsides we don't want to put up with any more, and it was darned expensive too. We could "fall back" to Trinity but nobody really wants to do that. We have seen some potential new spaces – some in the "new home" category, some in the "just for the show" category – but nothing is a winner yet.

The trip to Mexico is getting near enough that some advance planning is going on. Woo! Warm weather will be a nice change. I'm very happy to have a traveling companion for this trip!

I ordered some acoustic room treatments about a week ago. The company is a bit flaky, well their online system is. So, I had to put some effort into getting important details from them: how much will shipping cost? when will they ship? Finally got a number for the former, and a "two or three weeks" for the latter. OK.

I bought a subwoofer – a Velodyne DD-12 – last week. It comes with a microphone, and cabling to hook it up to your system and your TV, such that it will do frequency sweeps from 15Hz to 200Hz and display the result on your TV. So that is incredibly handy. For setting it up, for sure – something I documented w/ pictures on Flickr so I won't go into too much here. And, when I get some bass traps, it'll provide objective feedback on what effect they may have.

Speaking of comparisons – I got the hybrid SACD of the remastered PG album "So" the other day. So, I put the CD in the Rotel and the SACD in the Oppo, cued up the same tracks, and A/B'd them. There was a distinct, not terribly subtle when listening intently, difference. So, I swapped the discs. This meant 16-bit CD data from both players. The difference remained, and perhaps slightly pronounced (I should have gone back to the first arrangement after that). The Rotel has more detail, a deeper soundstage, and more "contrast". With the SPL meter I couldn't detect any volume differences, but I should do that using a -20dBfs test tone just to be sure. A slight volume increase can fool you into thinking you're hearing something else "better".

Speaking of test tones, one of the test CDs I got recently has a "MATT" – Music Articulation Test Tone – track. It is really pretty awesome. It has tone bursts that are 1/16th of a second long, followed by 1/16th of a second of silence. Each burst is 2Hz above the previous, and they go from 28Hz up to 780Hz and back down again. It was pretty much exactly as described in the booklet: it sounds like "TUT-TUT-TUT-TUT" most of the time, but anywhere where you have resonances or strong reflections it turns into "BLUDDABLUDDABLUDDA". So as the frequency goes up it will pass through these chaotic sections once in a while. If you listen on headphones, it's all the TUT-TUT stuff because there are no reflections. I didn't write down the track times where they happened, so I don't know the exact frequencies at this point. But there is one up near the 780Hz turn-around. Anyway, the test will be seeing if I can make them go away, or lessen them at least, with the panels that should be arriving in a week or two.

So, I've been meaning to do a "Taylor's top 10 albums of 2007" list here – not ones that were released in 2007, necessarily, but the ones that were on "heavy rotation" for me last year. I'm not sure yet if it means "more than the previous year" – some things I just listen to a lot, and have for years. Anyway, I'm out of time tonight so that'll have to wait.

Today's listening included: King Crimson - The Great Deceiver disc 3; Carla Bley and the Lost Chords find Paolo Fresu; and a Russian Circles album that was really boring.

Graphy

2008-02-03T22:24:00.001-08:00

room_response_012808
Originally uploaded by Taylor Sherman

Hello Again

2008-01-28T01:39:00.001-08:00

Sunday, January 27 2007
25:16

With two weeks since my last entry, what to write about? Did a birthday dinner for my Dad last weekend. Went on a field trip to Tukwila this week. MB left for Boston on Friday, will be back next Sunday. We've had two TTA rehearsals now for this season; next one is Wednesday. We are looking at a possible space to move to in Phinney/Greenwood. It has a lot going for it but a daunting and ever-growing list of concerns that we need to get completely ironed out and nailed down before signing a lease. This has to happen in fairly short order.

I'm currently looking at many different options for acoustically treating my living room. Given the odd shape of the place, the bass modes aren't as lumpy as they would be in a box, however they still can be pretty strong. The most egregious however is a bunch of muck in the lower midrange – not really sure what causes this. Resonance between the floor and the underside of the bar? Between the floor and the ceiling? On many recordings it's only noticeable once in a while. However, piano recordings are almost entirely unlistenable. And the third issue is reflections off the side of the bar, screwing up the image. I think the first step will be to treat the bar reflections w/ abosorbing panels. I'm also thinking of putting "flatfusors" (absorbing and diffusing panels) behind the speakers, on the ceiling near the reflection points, and on the "back wall". Given that the back wall has an obtuse angle in the middle of it, that means one that's not really behind me but is parallel w/ the wall behind the speakers, and the other half which is pretty much orthogonal to the line from the left speaker to my head.

I think I've spent about four hours today doing this. And I still will have left bass management. I'm hoping that a good sized tube trap in the right front corner will help out a lot there.

I've been picking up a lot of cds lately. Some of the usual stuff, plus also I'm a bit more inclined towards remasters, especially SACD or DVD-A. I was able to do an interesting test yesterday – the remaster of Music For the Masses has a CD and a DVD. The DVD has various things (a short film, some 5.1 mixes, etc) including a 24-bit stereo version of the entire album. I put the CD in the Rotel and the DVD in the Oppo, queued up the same track on each, and hit play simultaneously. I could then switch back and forth between them using the preamp, albeit with a click-pause-click that was jarring. So, 24-bit DVD in the super-value does-it-all-for-not much Oppo, and 16-bit CD in the costs-four-times-as-much-and-only-plays-CDs Rotel. Within any psychological "noise", I couldn't hear a difference. Which may mean that there was no audible difference between either the two data sets or the two players; or, it may mean that they essentially cancelled each other out. This is also in the as-yet-untreated room, so there were issues there that may have masked things.

I tried a similar comparison between the original CD pressing (in the Oppo) and the remastered CD (in the Rotel), but the volume levels were so drastically different that it wasn't nearly as useful. I am eager to get two exact copies of the same recording (I guess I could burn a disc. . .actually I've done that w/ a couple already), and see if I can hear differences just between the players.

Mid January Update

2008-01-13T22:53:00.001-08:00

Sunday, January 13 2008
22:40

A very good weekend. Slept in on Saturday – though accidentally – but then got some coffee and made a sandwich, did some domestic chores. Went out to look at a potential new TTA space, it is good but has some serious things that would need to be nailed down in the lease. Then, home to hang out with MB for a while. We went over to Newcastle for a coworker's "game night" party, it was actually only slightly geeky and mostly a nice little party evening where we also played one game of Cranium (better than I thought it would be, lots of fun actually) and one game of Balderdash (which is great). I got lost trying to get out of the maze-like housing developments (the ones up in the hills in the Eastside are just horrible, they have to follow the lay of the land and such). Finally found my way out to "real" street, on the back side of the hill though actually, so got to tootle around a couple miles back to the parkway. Got home a little after 1 I think.

Today, got up at around 10:30. We tried to go to Sr. Moose for breakfast, but it was packed and there was a mob of around 20 people outside waiting for tables. So, we went to Than brothers instead. Pho makes a pretty decent brunch. Off to the farmer's market after that, so MB could get some gifts for friends, quite successfully. Then we walked down the locks. It was a gorgeous day outside – and not actually very cold, I think it was in the 50s. Blue sky and all that, though the mid-day sun was actually just barely hanging over Magnolia hill. Anyway, that was good, watched some ships there, saw the fish ladder (no fish), checked out the gift shop, and looked at some of the trees in the park.

After a snack we hit the road for Ikea. I needed to get some new slats for my bed – the arched ones are actually pretty dumb in the fact that they create a low-point in the middle of the bed, so you essentially fall downhill to that point which is no good. MB was looking for various bits of furniture, and I had my eye out for a few things I needed too. We were mostly successful finding what we wanted, but then several bits were out of stock. Also I found a really great rug – after finally deciding I liked the black one well enough – so I grabbed that plus the slats. MB got a dresser and half of a table (the legs, the top was out of stock). Once we got that home and unloaded we went to the Hi-Life for dinner, which was yummy as always. Pumpkin ravioli, roasted beet salad, carrot soup! There were some folks at the next table from Rhode Island and it turned out that MB and they knew several people in common, as well as many places and things. That was great. Now back here for some dessert and maybe guitar practice.

music: Radiohead - In Rainbows (just got this, needs more listening); Gtrstrffe; Failure - Magnified

This week

2008-01-08T00:18:00.000-08:00

Monday, January 7 2007
24:06

There was a fire in my building Saturday night. MB and I got back from dinner, to find a mildly flooded parking garage. As we walked around to see where the water was coming from (dripping through cracks in the concrete. . .) I ran across a man who seemed to know something about what was going on. I asked if there was a flood, he said "there was a fire". It was in a unit on the 5th floor, in the kitchen I guess, at the other end of the building. So that unit and the ones below it had water damage, as the sprinklers had gone off. I guess the water made its way all the way down to the bottom of the garage. Eek.

Dinner before that was very good. We went to Café Flora. Definitely someplace we'll be going back to. Sunday was a pretty slow day, tried to do some shopping and was only somewhat successful at that. Then home for a snack-y dinner and a game of Scrabble.

Tonight, a meeting for TTA: what next? we need to find a new space, pronto. We will have an 18-show season from March to July. Where, we don't know yet. Whee!

music: Talking Heads - Speaking in Tongues; Led Zeppelin – box set, disc 2; Red Sparowes - At the Soundless Dawn

Newy Ear Sieve

2008-01-01T23:19:00.000-08:00

Tuesday, January 1 2008
23:13

2008. The party last night was great. Not a large crowd but enough to reach critical mass. Chris put his bartending skills to good use to improvise with the somewhat spotty selection of booze and mixers I had on hand. Everybody brought food and most brought drinks, so there was plenty all around. At midnight someone put on The Police Live! disc one, a perfect selection, and then the lights were dimmed and there was lots of dancing. People seemed to have a great time. I don't remember when it wound down, after 1 I believe. MB and I did a quick clean-up – not much more than that was required, then it was time to hit the sack.

Woke up hurting this morning – not enough water last night. So, I had a pretty icky hangover, managed to eat some toast and drink some water then read for a bit, then just went back to bed. Woke up at 4:30 PM like a new man! so we went out to Than Brothers for some Pho, that was yummy. Watched some music DVDs after that, then had some ice cream and played Scattergories. Got my pictures uploaded and now here for this. Back to work tomorrow.

Christmas

2007-12-26T00:29:00.000-08:00

Tuesday, December 25 2007
24:23

Christmas. A pretty laid back day today. Slept in until after noon. Grabbed some coffee just before Tully's closed – it was snowing as I walked back to my place. Not below freezing though. Listened to some music for a bit, then headed down to Dad's to visit and have leftovers for dinner. Played some pool on their new table, then played a game of Upwords after – I led the entire game only to lose by four points at the end! Tried to show him and Sue some of Portal, but their video drivers were uncooperative and many textures (walls, floor) were solid black.

Yesterday – the last of the gifts arrived just before I headed out the door. Before that, a trip to the bank to deposit the TTA door money from the past few shows. It was a somewhat crazy Xmas eve at Dad's with 10 adults and two toddlers around. Played some air hockey. Dinner was yummy, if the pork was a bit dry. Then gift-opening madness for an hour or so, dessert, and some more visiting before heading back here.

Probably taking the day off tomorrow, to clean up around the house etc. Then MB arrives back in town later in the evening! woo.

music: David Byrne and Brian Eno - My Life in the Bush of Ghosts (this is great! and it sounds wonderful, too); Underworld - Oblivion with Bells

Friday

2007-12-21T23:23:00.000-08:00

Friday, December 20 2007
23:14

A long day. Up early, then took MB to the airport to see her off on her holiday travel adventures. Then slogging through 405 traffic to work. After a few hours there, found out I got to head all the way back down there again – a disk was borked and needed replacing in a rack in Tukwila. So, hit the road with another coworker (so at least we got to use the carpool lane, not much advantage though). That was quick, but the full round-trip time was around two hours. The good news was that by the time we got back, the end-of-year / holiday happy hour party was underway. That was fun, plenty of booze and some hot snacks, and lots of Rock Band. Stuck around mostly playing the latter until a bit after 9, then came home. Tired and headachy. Missed a call from MB – safe and sound in Philly – and now too late to call back. Going to bed now. We'll see when I wake up tomorrow.

music: New Order - Movement; Opeth - Ghost of Perdition; Arcadia - So Red the Rose

New Entry

2007-12-20T00:36:00.001-08:00

Wednesday, December 19 2007
24:21

Been neglecting the diary. Well. . .the last show of the TTA season / CHAC run was Monday. It went very well, we had a huge crowd, 83 people in total! Tonight we had a wrap-up meeting and will begin looking at the next season now, whatever form that will take.

Bought a stereo last weekend. DA had a pair of B&W 804s that had been traded in, so they were in very good shape but at a substantial discount. So I spent a couple hours listening to them on Saturday and Sunday, and decided to go for it. Also got a set of Rotel electronics while I was there. They didn't have the 1080 amp in stock so I've currently got the 1050 model as a loaner. Also, one grille for the speakers was missing so that is on order and should be in soon. The salesman – Allen – was very nice and helpful, and willing to stay more than an hour after closing to get the sale all wrapped up on Sunday. Anyway, it sound great and I have some listening and adjusting to do but I think that turned out very well. I was tempted by the Maggie 3.6Rs but frankly my expectations must have been too high because they sounded good but not amazing, and they are really gigantic. Also, the B&Ws have absolutely excellent off-axis performance and so that means the ambient sound in my place is great even though they face "sideways" to most of the room.

Much more to write about I'm sure. . .but that's enough for now.

Old Entry

2007-12-20T00:35:00.000-08:00

Sunday, December 9 2007
23:31

Decorated gingerbread houses at my Dad's today – Carrie and family couldn't make it so it was just MB and me v. Dad and Sue. Ours had a weathervane, and a fish pond w/ Swedish fish and a bridge. Dinner was a yummy bean/potato casserole w/ Roquefort and watercress and pear and walnut salad. Mmm. So, MB met the folks. Good impressions all around I think!

Listened to some speakers this weekend. Dalis at Speakerlab, B&W at Definitive, and Vandersteens at the place down the street. Hmm. The B&Ws sounded the best so far (the CM7s) but I have many more to listen to (including more B&Ws) and of course there were many other variables involved.

We had dinner at an Indian place just off I5 on the Bothell hwy last night. It was pretty good. Then we went up to Target and MB bought lots of apartment stuff, and I got a rack for my shower. It was a pretty good day overall. Today was good too, though I got a headache after dinner.

Tuesday

2007-12-05T01:17:00.000-08:00

Tuesday, December 4 2007
25:11

Getting very sleepy the past 15 minutes or so. Bedtime soon.

It rained quite a lot yesterday. Flooding around the area. There was an inch of water under my car yesterday morning. Luckily when I came home it was gone, I was trying not to picture the whole garage being underwater. The show was very good. Some luminaries in the audience, including a certain French musician and one music reviewer who was also there as part of a grant request process. Once again had a good time after the show, had some mahi mahi tacos which were tasty, and a margarita.

MB's stuff all arrived today. There was some weird confusion with the actual arrival time, but it worked out OK. also some boxes got beat up but the contents survived I guess. Oh, well the car still isn't here and it's got a trunk full of boxes too. So she's got plenty of work to do in the next few days, between that and work.

Bought some chocolates from the place in the lobby at work today for the first time. They are OK, the truffles are really not very flavorful though. Often, the smell of chocolate and truffle fillings wafts throughout the first two floors.

music: Angels of Light - We Are Him; Radiohead - Hail to the Thief

Weekend

2007-12-03T00:49:00.001-08:00

Sunday, December 2 2007
24:31

Saturday: First Primary for calisthenics. First time w/ MB in the circle with guitar here. Then the sitting, and the usual coffee / snack run. Practice was good, I don't remember the details much though. Came home after that quickly to pick up some financial stuff to give to CF for the grant proposal. Got distracted by a game of Mastermind online. . .we lost (though later I think). Then the open circle – 90 minutes, mostly circulating. I was fading by the end, after 5.5 hours of guitar playing that day. It was good though. One snafu w/ some pictures taken during the circle, an eager publicist seeing the need for some educational circle-work pictures, but not asking any of the participants beforehand. Oh well. Home after that for a snack and stuff.

It was snowing by this time, Ballard looked beautiful under the big flakes falling. Stuck somewhat, but it was above freezing so not much. Mostly slush. Headed up to Greenwood to see Lost Pedro at 7:30. Sat w/ MB, CF, DGS, and MG. Had a very good time. Lots of conversation. Great food as always, and more than I could eat too. The belly dancer Z. was her usual kind of scary self, and also awash in baby-powder smell that really interfered with my dining / wine enjoyment. Oh well. MB and D got up and danced during the "everybody get up and dance!" segment, that was nice. Oh, and Z put a hat on my head, apparently it looked cute.

Over to Howard and Diana's after that for ice cream and more wine. Curt came up to join the fun. That was also a really nice time, though it was pretty darn cold in there. We watched some of the "shreds" parody vids on YouTube and the Santana one had me in tears once again. Got home from there around 1:30?

Slept in this morning which was nice. A quick breakfast then headed to the Seattle Center House to see Diana do some butoh. Wow. That was amazing. The live band was very good, the music was good, and the three butoh dancers did their thing which was great. Potatoes, ketchup / blood, salt, French fries, running, slow-mo running, fighting, greed, gluttony, etc. There was a very wide range of reaction from the people present. Kids for the most part pretty much didn't care. Some adults were shocked and some were loving it.

It was rainy and dark all day. We walked to the Science center, but none of the IMAX movies sounded very interesting. So, back up to Ballard to do some shopping. Got some board games and a puzzle. . .oh, first a stop at Staples for ink cartridges and a shredder. Then to a furniture store so I could get some barstools. Mission accomplished, and MB also got an awesome bookshelf / mirror wall thing. The former will arrive in a week, the latter in about a month.

Dinner at the Hi-Life. That's just a good place. Our first choice was Madame K's but they were closed – we are not having good luck with them. Anyway, we got the Mendoza salad, the seared ahi (which was surprisingly bland – may have been that I had strong food before it), veggie gratin, and pommes frites. Oh, then an incredibly wonderfull "Churros for two" dessert, with what they called churros but they didn't resemble what I've seen at so-so Mexi places, they were more like begniets, and two demitasse cups w/ "hot chocolate" that was halfway between hot chocolate and chocolate pudding. Yum!

Stopped by MB's place on the way back to scope out where to put the bookshelf/mirror thingies. Then home.

music: The Cure - Three Imaginary Boys

Friday

2007-11-30T23:30:00.001-08:00

Friday, November 30 2007
23:25

Friday already? The week has flown by. MB's trip here was safe and largely uneventful. I took Monday off and we spent the day together, though the weather was icky so couldn't really go see any sights. The show was good. Felt much better than any had for a while, to me. Another fun outing to the Elysian afterward.

Had to stop by my old place today, I'd accidentally left a few things behind, nothing important, but I picked them up, along with some checks. Got back the "last month" deposit, the security deposit, and a pro-rate for the last week of November since I left early, which was great. There were no marks against my security deposit which was good. It wasn't in terribly great shape when I moved in, over ten years ago.

MB has the keys to her new place. No car or furniture yet. The former just got picked up today actually, some snafu with that unfortunately. So it'll be here in about two weeks? There is a table actually and then also I found I had two more little folding chairs so she will get those, and will have someplace to sit and work/eat now. Meanwhile it's been great having her around here. Seeing the light on as I drove up on Wednesday night was really nice.

music today: Rush, Talking Heads, Gtrrstrffe

MB Day

2007-11-25T18:22:00.001-08:00

Sunday, November 25 2007
18:09

Saturday: Slept in a bit, sitting at home then met w/ some of the gang getting coffee on the way to rehearsal. We spent much of that working on Chris's new piece, The Wig Maker. Encore material for Monday night! After rehearsal, a shower, some house cleaning, dinner, some errands. Talked to MB for a bit. Then, out to see No Country For Old Men w/ CG, CF, IK, IA and his two friends. Great movie. Nothing quite mind-blowing, but just all around excellent. Got a goodnight message from MB right after that. Then to a nearby Thai place for some drinks and snacks. I was hungry so I had the green curry chicken dish, very tasty. Their "May Tai", a take on the mai tai, was OK but essentially tasted like guava juice on the rocks. Got home around midnight, with a headache and very sleepy.

Sunday: slept in until 1. Well, awoke to a text msg from MB around 5, replied to that then went back to sleep; then she called around 9, from the airport, we talked for a bit then I went back to bed. There was lots of sunshine coming through the blinds. Anyway, up and a shower then a bagel w/ peanut butter, a double espresso, and some OJ for breakfast. More housecleaning, and laundry. Some wrapping and hiding of gifts. A trip to the grocery store. Now, waiting around excitedly until it's time to go to the airport!

84 Days Later

2007-11-24T00:16:00.000-08:00

Friday, November 23 2007
23:59

I'm out. The keys are on the counter. Got to the old place at 10:45 this morning, and grabbed a breakfast from Starbucks up the street. The junk movers showed up just before one PM, and were done around 2:15 (so much for only needing 30 minutes). They filled up the truck. Well the first thing they did was track muddy footprints all over the carpet. Whee. Good thing that carpet is getting replaced. Then they started dropping large pieces of particleboard over the 3rd floor stair railing to the ground below. I brought up that I was worried about the noise. So, they stopped doing that. Maybe that's why it took them so long. Two very nice guys. Just clueless. Meanwhile, I got a carload ready to take to Goodwill. In all, took three loads down to the GW in Burien. Then packed up my remaining stuff into the car, and did a quick vacuum. There really wasn't much else to do cleaning-wise – the carpet, paint, kitchen and bathroom tiles, and most appliances are getting replaced. So, I figured I'd be cleaning countertops. But, when I showed up today, the kitchen and bathroom countertops (and sinks) were dirty from the results of replacing various mirrors, medicine cabinets, hood fans, faucets, etc, that had been done in my absence this week. So, I didn't exactly feel the need to clean up after them, and anyway, they'd probably just get them dirty again as they renovate the place. So, I was "outa there", at about 5:30.

Dropped off a big ol' LEGO toy at Dad's so he can give it to Carrie so she can give it to Katie and Ben so they can give it to Cameron. Chatted with Dad and Sue for a bit, then headed back to Ballard. Just enough time to unload the car and check messages, then back out to Curt's for a little t-day leftovers dinner then the grant-proposal writing meeting. That went until about 11 – good work again, we have a completed "rough draft" that we will now run by a few people w/ experience at this and find out all the things we did wrong. Shared some port w/ the gang, comparing my tawny to the ruby Curt got as a birthday present this year. Both very tasty. Then home. Oh, got a text msg from MB around 11:30, just a goodnight from another friend's house in RI, so goodnight back. I always feel retarded trying to type on phone keypads. It's not helped by the fact that I have two phones w/ different layouts – my personal phone is the old style ABC DEF kind, my work phone more of a QWERTY type layout (but still compact).

Oh, forgot to mention – my downstairs neighbor (who's been living there for a couple months now at least?) was moving in today, too. Every single time I have encountered the man, he has stunk like a tavern. Any time of day. So today he showed up (parking a u-haul truck on the grass, blocking a nearby driveway, when there was a perfect spot out back in the parking lot) around 1 PM already pretty sloshed. Needless to say, his moving efforts were mishap-prone. He tried to rope me in to the effort as well, well, I did help him carry a couple things up the stairs. His two buddies were gone by the time I got back from the first goodwill run. I'm not kidding about the smell – after he'd been at it for a few hours, I could smell the reek of alcohol and tobacco from my entryway one floor up.

And, now. . .need sleep, as another early morning tomorrow. Then, cleaning up my new place and attending to a few other errands, and/or taking a nap and postponing much of that until Sunday. We'll see.

music: Dead Can Dance, Tool

Turkey Day

2007-11-23T00:30:00.000-08:00

Thursday, November 22 2007
24:07
Thanksgiving

Mmm. Yum. Stuffed full of wonderful food. Spent the day with family, at my step-sister's new place. Very nice. They have a good view of the Sound. My contributions were a bottle of Riesling (which I think went un-drunk), one of Pinot Noir (turned out very good), and one of 30yo Port, which was also very tasty. The usual meal components, all extremely good. 6-month old nephew Charlie was there, very tired but non-cranky; as well as 20-month old nephew Spencer, much more active and pretty happy-go-lucky himself.

Talked to MB twice, first as she was getting the car all packed up and ready to head out. Then, later post-dinner from a friend's place in Rhode Island.

Doing some laundry now, planning my day tomorrow. Junk removers come to the old place some time between 11 and 1 tomorrow. After they are done, a few runs to Goodwill are in order. Then, maybe some general cleaning. Maybe the new Coen brothers move later on.

Yesterday – work, some games (tried out "Rock Band" – fun, a little weird on the drum timing sometimes though), no rehearsal so joined the "other" circle meeting and worked with them on some classic pieces plus some circulating. Then a grant proposal writing get-together at Curt's. Long and tedious work but it was good and we got much accomplished. Stuck around for some wine and conversation after that for a little bit.

music: New Order, Steve Reich

Tuesday

2007-11-21T02:58:00.001-08:00

Tuesday, November 20 2007
26:55

Up way too late. . . just the broad strokes here. The show was good – first time amplified, that went well. Large audience. Fun outage afterwards. Quiet and mostly productive day today. A little distraction via a Rock Band setup down the hall. That could be fun, but the timing on the drums was off, you have to be ahead of the beat too much. Spent some time tonight further disassembling furniture, and organizing things for when the removers come on Friday. Got a Van Gogh in the mail. Well, yesterday actually, I forgot to check until tonight. It looks pretty good.

music: Angels of Light, Yeah Yeah Yeahs

Another busy weekend

2007-11-19T01:35:00.000-08:00

Sunday, November 18 2007
25:08

Saturday: up at 7, calisthenics at 8. Sitting at 9. Off to CHAC after that, tech rehearsal for amplification stuff. That was generally good but we have open issues to resolve. We are go for Monday night. There's now even more setup though, so people will be arriving earlier.

Home, some emailing, then over to a nearby building to pickup MB's keys. Which, of course, I can't do, as they have no idea who I am (except in terms of her mentioning me). So, that makes sense, just a minor snafu really. So, arranged w/ the super to come back at 6 PM w/ some things to put in the apartment. Next, down to the old place. One guy waiting for me when I got there, he bought a papasan chair for $20. Then some general cleaning, including disassembling the old bed and much vacuuming. Then a call from the fellow interested in the speakers – he was running a bit late, but should be there by 5:15. He got there at 5:30, which is when I wanted to leave. So, left a message w/ the aforementioned super that I'd be late, how about 6:30. The good news is he bought the speakers, ding, $200. Not bad for some speakers I got in a trade over 15 years ago. They are still in good shape, never had any problems with them. Cheers to the folks at Magnepan.

Then back uptown w/ a carful of stuff. Met Alby outside MB's place, he graciously helped me carry the microwave and table inside. Then back home to rest for a bit. Left a message for MB, and went out for some food. Popped into the Market Street Grill, looks good, no seating for me though. So, to Zack's for a veggie burger. I realized about 10 minutes in that I'd been dumb by sitting in a booth – the place was crowded and there was a small table open – so I volunteered to move. The staff were very appreciative and I got a free soda. Then, home after that and a phone call w/ MB, me describing my day here and she hers in Connecticut.

Walked down to Mr. Spot's. Unsurprisingly, the first band went long, so EC hadn't even had a chance to set up by 10. Hung out and talked to their new drummer a bit. They got started around 10:45? Several other friends in the audience including one sleepy Spaniard. EC played a good set, their new drummer is very good. A couple other folks in attendance, most of them strange. One drunk woman "dancing". One very agitated young man that kept coming and going and harassing the staff. Home after that.

Sunday: slept in until 11. Grabbed breakfast at Java Bean – I think the young woman that took my order wasn't hearing so well, my mole turned into a mocha and my bagel with peanut butter turned into a bagel with cream cheese. Oh well. Chatted w/ MB for a bit as she drove back to Boston. The chair-replacement delivery happened at around 2. The new one is still imperfect, but in a subtle and almost "charming" way. Certainly not as lopsided as the first. Put some felt pads on the feet of that one.

Then, headed south. Stopped at Target to return my birthday present – the clock radio; unfortunately the screen was just ridiculously bright and then also humorously unreadable. So I have some Target bucks on a card now. Also stopped at a bed+bath store, to get a pillow, some spare sheets (now that the jury is in, and I do like the first set I bought), and a garbage can. Then to the old place, for some misc stuff – disassembled two desks and two bookshelves. Boxed up a few things to bring back. Made an effort to clean the grout on the shower tiles. I think they'll probably want to re-do the shower anyway, the caulking around the tub isn't in such great shape and I'm sure the drywall isn't either.

Home around 7:30. Grabbed some dinner at the grocery store, not very good. Talked to MB for a couple hours. Spent most of the rest of the evening doing personal and SC finance stuff. Also some laundry and unpacking of boxes.

music: Skinny Puppy, RF + the LCG

Friday

2007-11-17T00:15:00.000-08:00

Friday, November 16 2007
24:06

Not much diarizing this week. . .Wednesday practice was good, learned most of a new tango, it's really great and we should be able to put it in the set by the end of this run. Yesterday, someone pointed out to me that I mis-labeled the speakers I'm selling, I listed them as "SMGa" models, they are just the precursor "SMG" models. oops. And then said party was no longer interested. One bite today on the updated ad, so maybe tomorrow they'll sell? Also some tentative interest in the papasan chair. After that. . .soon I will arrange a visit from the "got junk?" people to come take all my leftover stuff away.

Rehearsal tomorrow will be of a tech sort, at CHAC, with cables and DI boxes. . . my regular guitar is DOA in terms of plug-in-ability right now, a snipped wire from the (already half-busted) battery box being the culprit. Rather than try to fix that now and hope it holds up tomorrow, I'm just bringing the spare, which is good to go. Though, different. Hmm.

After that, I'm going to stop by MB's new place and pick up the key from the super there. Then, I'm hoping to get some time in cleaning at my old place. . .before heading back up here for an EC show at Mr. Spot's.

Sunday, a delivery truck will be coming to exchange my new chair, which is lopsided! Ugh. The couch is OK though, and I'm very happy with it so far. I just put felt-y feets on it tonight.

music: Killing Joke - Pandemonium; Radiohead - Kid A;

T- T- T- Tuesday

2007-11-14T00:35:00.000-08:00

Tuesday, November 13 2007
24:30

Nobody broke into the green room at the show last night, at least. Another small audience, though very appreciative. Two encores called again. I made so, so many mistakes. Ugh. But there were some moments of redemption. Including a spectacularly wrong C# that ended up sounding almost OK.

Sold off a chair and a bass guitar cabinet tonight. Many large items remain, looking at ways of getting rid of them soon.

It's cold in here tonight. . .my thermostats are still a mystery wrapped in an enigma wrapped in white plastic.

A "go go go" day at work today.

The sofa will be delivered tomorrow. A few other interesting packages will be arriving in the next few days or week.

music: Klaxons, Talking Heads, Battles

Busy weekend

2007-11-11T23:30:00.001-08:00

Sunday, November 11 2007
22:46

Lots to write about. . .let's see if I can do this in under 30 minutes.

Friday: Another productive-feeling work day. Got into something I'd hoped would improve performance on one type of server. . .managed to get a couple instances propped w/ that code before leaving work. Results are inconclusive so far. . .or maybe they are strongly suggesting that nothing changed. Oh well.

Got a call from CF in the evening – the Seattle Harmonic Voices were performing at the Good Shepherd at 8. Ah, glad to get that info. So, headed out to that. Met CF and IB there, then also SA, chatted with him for a bit. First time for me in that space. . .very interesting. CF pointed out that it's somewhat like our Trinity space – it's a room on the third floor of some church, kind of hard to find without signs. But that's about where things end. This is a large space, with a very high ceiling, though also two columns breaking it up.

The performance was very good. It included a variety of things – harmonic singing, Javanese gamelan (though a "home-made" set that was apparently the first Jarrad Powell built in the early 80s, with surplus aluminum beams from Boeing! The gongs were wonderful – actually still long aluminum bars, but with large resonator box-tubes, they produced pure clean tones that resulted in amazing beats when played in intervals, very rich overall), some traditional Javanese singing, and also the introduction of trumpet as one "voice" in SF's long, multi-section harmonic interval lattice composition. That worked pretty well. It sounded good, better in that space than the PONCHO hall where I last heard them. Still, there were a number of times when I could just ever so slightly hear some of the overtones, and I don't think that was intentional – it would have been better to my ears if they were out and strong at those times.

Home after that, and a goodnight phone call to MB, who was home from dancing and very sleepy. Then, stayed up later than I should have, looking at furniture and art online, and reading the new Dune book.

Saturday: Up at 7. A harm. minor arpeggios for calisthenics. A good sitting, for me, a little less distracted than usual. Lots of wonderful circulation work during rehearsal, then at the end some bootcamp for the cascade players in IMR. Listened to that from the center a bit, not something I often get to do. When it's on, it sounds wonderful.

After that – walked down to a local furniture place, of Scandanavian type influence. Some promising things there sofa-wise, but nothing quite right. Either the wrong shape, or the wrong fabric, or the wrong color. Though they had some wonderful barstools, I'll probably get some of those. So, back home to reconnoiter for a bit, then downtown for more shopping. Some SNAFU getting where I wanted to go – first, forgot that the Market interrupts Western, so had to go around, which was a pain. Then, overshot the address for Kasala, and ended up quite a few blocks south, though that's where a number of other stores are, including Dania. Went in there. . .some promising sofas but again they didn't quite match what I was looking for. One was extremely comfortable – maybe too much so, but too big and too black leather. Another, the right size and still pretty comfy, but the wrong shape, and a bold color that maybe would be right, but maybe not.

Went in to some of the fancy-pants stores around there, where prices were mixed from "ouch" to "more than my car" and reception to my presence was mixed from indifference, to a wary ". . .hello" then indifference, to a fake smile then indifference, and finally (at the most expensive place actually) a very polite guy that asked if I had any questions, then sincerely said "thanks for coming in" when I said I was out of my price range, then did answer a question I had on one piece after that.

Anyway, finally made it to Kasala, where they were having a big sale. Again, nothing quite "perfect" jumping out at me. One sofa that was the right size, but so-so comfort-wise and not the best colors. That was right about six, closing time, so I came home to chew / sleep on the subject.

Grabbed dinner at Than Bros, where MB called and we chatted for a bit as I slurped my noodles. Then home, reading more of Sandworms of Dune (past what seems to be the climax. . .a few open questions though. . .not quite disappointing, how things go in the story, but then also a bit weird / unsure about it), chewing on furniture ideas.

Posted many ads on craigslist, most for "free" for the larger items that aren't worth much, then a few bits of electronics or nicer pieces of furniture I attached a price. Email started pouring in immediately for the free items.

MB called again, very sleepy after a long day of packing. Went to the store and got some snacks and some ice cream. Replied to some of the ad inquiries, then deleted the ads responsible for most of the input, as I had plenty of interested parties already. Then to sleep fairly late.

Sunday: [btw I'm passing that 30-minute mark now] up at 10, against all impulses to sleep for several more hours. Did some more ad-related emailing, setting up appointments for this afternoon for people to come by the old place and pick things up. Then hit the road for furniture shopping. I had almost made up my mind to get the super-comfy black leather sofa from Dania. . .but, turns out they didn't have the slightly smaller arrangement (it's a sectional) in stock. So, nixed that idea. Went to look at the other option there again. . .actually, the configuration they do have (extension w/ ottoman on the right side facing) maybe works better. . .yes, I think so. And, the bold color will work. So, got that, and also an accent chair that may or may not have been an impulse buy. I think it'll work but I didn't give it much time to sink in. We will see.

Then down to the old place, for a flurry of cleaning / trashing / recycling / boxing / moving stuff out of the way of things people were coming by to get. Asked my Dad to come down w/ a hose and help me drain the old waterbed. After a few false starts and much fiddling, we got the water flowing pretty well. People came by to take away an old amp head, some old half-broken speakers (they were interested in how hard it is to fix the foam surrounds on the woofers, but I didn't get the idea they were the types to have any luck fixing the non-functional midrange. EG glue and foam yes; circuit tester and soldering iron, no. Anyway, also a guy came by and took away my old homemade (and extremely front-heavy) bass cab. The guy for the Ikea twin bed was a no-show. No email or anything. Someone was interested in the V-Bass, but then also bailed (with a nice phone call to say so, however).

The bed was all drained by 6:45, then I loaded a few boxes into my car and returned the hose, staying to chat with the folks for a bit. MB called while I was there, from the restaurant where she had a gig. Home around 9, unloaded the car, made some dinner, ate that and did email stuff (not much new on the craigslist items, but a couple bites). Bought some art – a couple things I'd had in mind for a few days now, then one new one that jumped out at me. So, I have a few things to hang on the walls, or will in a week or so, anyway.

Then, this. Now, to finish up the Dune book and then to sleep.

music: Miles Davis - On the Corner; The Cure - Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me; Modest Mouse - We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank

Well

2007-11-08T23:47:00.000-08:00

Thursday, November 8 2007
23:37

I need furniture! Indecision has delayed that subject for a long time now. . .time to act. Hmm.

Felt productive today.

E- and phone-conversations the highlights of the day.

music: LCD Soundsystem - Sound of Silver

Tuesday

2007-11-06T23:31:00.001-08:00

Tuesday, November 6 2007
22:51

Some excitement at the show last night. First, some of the good kind – got a "thrakked" happy birthday in my honor before the encore. After that though, the first words I heard when I got back to the green room were "check your wallet and keys – somebody was in here during the show". The lock latch was unscrewed and some random woman was in there, our house team were able to interrupt whatever she was doing up there but not find out exactly what that was. But, nothing was missing. A large and joyful crowd at the bar after that. The show was OK, from my seat. Felt blasé. A very, very small audience, which is even tougher here than at the old space. Hmm.

Uneventful day today. . .Got the post-show scoop on the LCG performance from MB. Jealous, I wish I could have been there. They suck for not coming to Seattle! Heh, Oh well. The report was that it was an excellent show.

Doing some gift shopping online right now. . .looking at furniture too.

Oh yeah – voted this morning.

music: Soundgarden - Superunknown; Swans - Various Failures

Whee!

2007-11-05T00:38:00.001-08:00

mb_me_awesomeness
Originally uploaded by Taylor Sherman

Be Day

2007-11-05T00:30:00.000-08:00

Sunday, November 4 2007
24:22

Slept in but not too late. . .a tad later than I wanted to though, but then a well-timed call woke me up. After that, some coffee and a bagel, then some further tidying up around the house. Got a call from my sister – they wouldn't be able to make it, as all three had colds! dang. So we talked for a bit. Then the folks showed up. Gave them the tour, talked about furniture and stuff, opened some gifts – I got a shiny new clock radio, which is very nice. My Dad helped me build the nightstand I've had sitting in the box for a month or so, it was actually good to have his help as it involved moving the bed to attach it. Also slid the bed a bit towards the windows, it's much better in the new location. Then, out to dinner at Ray's Boathouse. Very nice. Great view, a lovely area that's close by but I haven't been there much or really at all. Good food. Got a little special treatment with my dessert, but very low-key, no singing and dancing and such so that's good. Just candles and a "happy birthday!" from the waiter. Dinner topics included dates (this was where they had their first date, eleven or twelve years ago), updates about MB and plans, and music / art / creativity / artists that burn brightly then die young (specifically Stevie and Jaco).

Then, a trip down to my old place to get some stuff I'm selling or giving away. Lingered there a bit, to get some things ready to take back when I'm more inclined to make a carload trip, then MB called, so we talked for a while. Talked about emotions and emotional things, and changes in my inner atmosphere and general being over the past few years.

Now home and a snack, and writing, and some other things that need attending to.

music: Yeah Yeah Yeahs – latest album whatever it is; Gang of Four - Solid Gold / Another Day, Another Dollar

Deja Vu Time Night

2007-11-04T01:07:00.001-07:00

Saturday, November 3 2007
25:54 ( 1:54 AM PDT. . .soon to be 1:00 AM PST)

Slept in a bit this morning, did my sitting at home then joined the team for rehearsal. We spent some time working w/ Diana, reintegrating the dance and improve with some slight changes for the new space. Then, work on "Bus Artist". Finally, re-visiting a circulation pattern that came up Wednesday before last.

A board meeting after that – despair over lack of money, lack of "the right space", lack of manpower, lack of clarity. Some light though: a space in Fremont that is ostensibly a better match for us than CHAC, and from the looks of it (though currently under renovation), very nice in general. The despair was also eased by the fact we held the meeting at Besalu, and I got a piece of leek goat-cheese quiche and an espresso macchiato.

Home after that – cleaning house, going to the store to get house-cleaning type stuff too, and a shower. Cut my hair. Spent some time on the phone. Then, down to Cinerama to see Blade Runner – The Final Cut. Excellent. What a movie. It's a very good movie up until about the time Roy shows up at Tyrell's place, and then Scott pulls out all the stops and it's just awesome from there on out. It's been a while since I saw the last Director's Cut, so I'm not sure the differences, but overall it worked very well.

Home after that, and a good long phone conversation, with "extra bonus time" as the clocks turn back tonight (oh, it's now 1:03 AM PST). Then a snack and some chocolate, and here I am. Getting very sleepy.

Oh, Battles played at Neumo's tonight. . .wouldn't have minded going to see them, but Blade Runner beat that out in the end.

Thursday

2007-11-01T23:47:00.000-07:00

Thursday, November 1 2007
23:34

No rehearsal last night, being Halloween and all. So, joined the "other" circle that's meeting on Wed. nights now. We did some circulations, then worked on Asturias, EOTN, and 1 of 1000 Regrets. Most of us went out to the HL afterwards for pizza and drinks.

A date was set yesterday – the woman I love will be hitting town in less than a month!

Today, a fairly normal day. The parking garage has been completely packed this week for some reason – so, had to valet-assist it this morning. That whole thing just annoys me to no end.

Stopped by the old place to take pictures of things – for sale or, for most, giving them away for free to whoever picks them up. A few bites so far, but much left still. Also grabbed a box load of stuff.

A very sleepy MB called while I was on the way up here, we talked for a bit then said goodnight.

music: Angels of Light - We Are Him; Battles – somethingorother; David Bowie - Low

Tuesday

2007-10-31T01:40:00.001-07:00

Tuesday, October 30 2007
25:14

Back at work. . .into the fire. A nice, sunny day meanwhile. The Blogger timestamp on my post last night is totally wrong – it was 1:03 AM when I began typing it. . .and it says I posted it at 11:57 PM. Weird. Typed up my handwritten journal entries from the weekend – only two pages. Back filling:

Friday: up before 5, and an uneventful flight to Boston. Was in the very back of the plan, so witness to a constant parade of people using the bathroom, ugh. Also the last one off the plane practically. MB had almost given up on me when I came out of the security area. We went up to the North End for dinner, but didn't get out there until after 11, and most of the places were closed. Also, we didn't bring an umbrella and it was raining (just slightly before dinner, and harder afterwards). We found a place – Lucca – that was open and pretty good, too. If loud.

Saturday: slept in pretty late, with a morning snack of some fruit and chocolate. Had a sitting together, then cereal w/ more fruit for breakfast / lunch which hit the spot. Left for Providence some time after dusk, maybe 6? It was drizzly but warm. Providence was very nice. Last night of "Waterfire" – bonfires floating in the canal. Many of them. Sounded great, smelled great, looked great. Walked through that once, then over a hill and through RISD and Brown, to a college-y neighborhood. Ate at an Indian place – Kabob N Curry. Very good. I got bharta, she had veg. curry. The veg sampler appetizers were actually the best. We split a mojito – pretty so-so, made w/ a mix or something. Walked back – sat on a bench-type thing at the river, talked and watched the fires and people. The mall bathrooms (we parked at the mall) were closed, so we had to stop at a Dunkin Donuts on the way back, in Pawtucket. MB was sleepy but got us home OK.

Sunday: another lazy morning, and cereal and fruit for breakfast again. In the afternoon, we went to Harvard Square and walked around. Pretty cool place. Cold. Bought a wool cap at the COOP (Harvard store). Hung out at at a book store for a while, then went to the Algiers Café. A nice little place. Got some very good falafel and an espresso, MB had a cappuccino, a yogurt bowl w/ fruit, and a bagel. After that, got a driving tour of Somerville and Cambridge, then went to the Middle East. It kind of reminded me of Mr. Spots' while being totally different. MB was supposed to dance at 11, we got there at 9:30. They asked her to dance early, which was good as we didn't feel like hanging out there. I got some baklava and a black Russian while she got ready. She was great – every eye in the place was fixed on her. She chatted with some people afterwards then we took off. We would've gone to the restaurant / bar near the hotel for a drink but it was closed (this was just after 11). So, we called it a night.

back to today. . .music: Tool - Lateralus; Philharmonie - Le Dernier Mot

BOS -> SEA

2007-10-29T23:57:00.000-07:00

Monday, October 29 2007
25:03

Home. Tired. Did get a 2-hour nap in today, but it's been 22 hours since I woke up on the East Coast this morning. The whole weekend feels like one day in a certain way, which is strange. Much to diarize here, but it's too late tonight, so tomorrow.

things and things

2007-10-26T00:25:00.001-07:00

Thursday, October 25 2007
24:19

In broad strokes: A doctor's appointment, returned a cable modem, breakfast, work, got my watch battery replaced, looked at furniture, talked on the phone, worked, tried out the sushi joint down the street, got some housewares, skipped a condo meeting, did laundry, drove to the old place to check the mail and grab a few things, disposed of much cardboard, packed, changed strings on my guitar, watched a free DVD I got with some other stuff yesterday.

An early morning tomorrow.

music: New Order - Factus 8 / 1981-1982; Mudvayne - LD 50; Photek - Modus Operandi

Weather that begins with D this time

2007-10-25T00:25:00.001-07:00

Wednesday, October 24 2007
24:15

Dark and dreary and drizzly today.

The FedEx guy buzzed my place at 4:30 – so my phone rang, at work. I answered and got snippets of a guy with an Indian accent saying he had a delivery for 403. I said, "Hi, if I buzz you in can you leave it in front of my door?" at which point all I got was nothing for about 30 seconds, then the phone disconnected. . . .he buzzed again 5 minutes later, so I buzzed him in. The FedEx tracking page said "delivered". Turns out he left the package in the lobby, right next to the door!

Good rehearsal tonight. Short-staffed, only five present, but we did some interesting and fun work with zithering.

A number of items to take care of tomorrow, including packing for a weekend getaway.

music: Interpol - Antics; Res - How I Do

Notes From Mee

2007-10-24T00:16:00.000-07:00

Tuesday, October 23 2007
24:08

The show was a little better last night from my POV. Small audience though. And, I forgot my stool. Thankfully SB was a hero, bringing one from home on his way there. Phew! A large crowd out to the Elysian afterwards – my food was very tasty this time, and I have a good idea what I'll get next time too.

Sunny day today. Apparently over 70? Wasn't that warm any time I was outside, though. However, my home is not cold for the first time in a while.

This week is feeling a bit compressed, being short – leaving for Boston on Friday morning. Not a ton of stuff to do, but feeling a bit time-constrained. Looking forward to the weekend.

music: Ratatat, some gamelan, Talking Heads, Ned's Atomic Dustbin, Pigface

Weekend Type Stuff

2007-10-22T01:07:00.001-07:00

Sunday, October 21 2007
24:31

Friday: worked from home. Waiting for a phone call from a Qwest technician that never came. Turns out they didn't need to access my home to turn on my service. Too bad they told me they would, and that I'd have to wait around all day for it. I finally did an online service chat at 5:30, where I found out it was "completed". So I went and got a phone cord and plugged in. . .yep. OK then. Tried a teriyaki place down the street for dinner – not bad, for a hole-in-the-wall type place. Considerably better than the place w/ the same name that's in the building I work in. Spent most of the night after that on the phone, off and on, talking to MB in between sets dancing at her least favorite place, .

Saturday: the usual guitar circle stuff in the morning. Pho for lunch by myself, then a trip to the record store on the way home. A nice phone call after that. Then out to see the new Elizabeth move w/ CF. That was good. Very intense. Wondered at times if it was overdone, but it never quite crossed the line. You have to suspend disbelief about the fact that E was in her 50s during that time period. . .Cate Blanchett being only in her late 30s, and they didn't go to any effort to make her look older. After the movie, made a run down to the old apartment to grab a carload of stuff.

Sunday: slept in. breakfast / coffee, then out to try to return the cable modem from my old apartment's service. But they aren't open today. So, over to the mall, to get some clothes. First, a new gig shirt. Also picked up a new jacket and some miscellaneous stuff while I was there. Got some food at Burrito Loco on the way back. Then, chores for the rest of the evening. Finances, laundry, etc. Spent a little time on the phone.

music: new stuff: Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Gang of Four, Talking Heads, Ratatat, and two "outtakes / weird mixes / live stuff / etc" disks, one Joy Division the other Killing Joke. I think the latter is mostly designed to humiliate Jaz Coleman.

What?

2007-10-19T01:27:00.001-07:00

Thursday, October 18 2007
25:24

Windstorm today. Knocked out power a few places apparently. It flickered at work. Went to see Interpol at the WaMu theater – AKA the Qwest Expo pavilion with seats, curtains, and a stage built into it. Good show. I wasn't enthusiastic about it, I almost didn't go / left after the opening band (who were exciting but really inconsistent). Glad I stayed though. It was loud, clean but too loud. Also, couldn't hear the bass guitar as is typical at concerts. The mix was so clean there was plenty of room for it, but they kept it to a rumble.

Yesterday's synchronicity: one LCD Soundsystem song references "Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun". Which is covered on disc two of the OSI cd I also had with me.

Wenesday, excerpt

2007-10-18T01:20:00.001-07:00

Wednesday, October 17 2007
25:17

Got dinner from the new Thai place in the building today. It's more fast-food-ish in layout than I'd imagined. Definitely more of a lunch stop than a dinner venue. But I was getting takeout so that was fine. Got curry fried rice with tofu and pineapple. Not bad, the tofu was too spongy for my tastes. A lot of food, but that justified the $8. Too much food for one entrée, really.

music: OSI - Office of Strategic Influence; LCD Soundsystem - Sound of Silver (liking this so far! reminds me of A Certain Ratio at times).

Tuesday and stuff

2007-10-17T00:41:00.000-07:00

Tuesday, October 16 2007
24:16

Missed a few days journalizing. . .slept in pretty late on Sunday. Spent the afternoon attending to some domestic things and working, mostly the latter, then a trip down to the old place for another carload of stuff. Grabbed some stuff and dinner at the grocery store. The ready-to-go sushi at this store is pretty bad. Dry. Not made there at the store, but somewhere else in town apparently. Oh well. Talked on the phone for a bit after that. More work, trying to fix a bug exposed by my fix for another bug.

Monday – an early phone call, then decided to just stay up, eager to go fix that bug. A hectic day at work, doing that (got it fixed) and also fighting another fire that fell in my lap. Felt more harried than I should have, nerves over the first CHAC show no doubt. The show went well. Quite a bit different playing in that space. Good sized audience – lots of friends, some that hadn't been around for a while, and a couple new folks. Good feedback afterwards. Mixed reviews on the overall sound. Having to deal with set build-up (though I missed most of that) and tear-down, plus extra security, parking, etc etc issues makes for a much more stressful evening overall. That'll hopefully diminish a bit. . .we'll see. Out to the Elysian after that for some food and drinks. Not bad. The salad I got wasn't that great really, but I think there are many other better things on the menu.

A more relaxed day today. Spent a good amount of time mostly visualizing some things on the todo list. Got started implementing one late in the evening, it's coming together OK. Turned the wrong way coming out of the parking garage tonight. Oh yeah, I live in the other direction now. Driving home, was thinking – is this the first night where I've driven straight home to the new place after work? Seemed like maybe Tuesday last week, but I couldn't remember what happened Tuesday night. . .had to go look it up in my journal. Oh, duh, the release. OK, so I drove here after that. But in a loaner car and very late at night, so I don't remember it much. Anyway.

Hooked up the TV w/ the new cable box tonight just to make sure it worked and check out the digital / HD cable. Works. Looks good. Many more channels now, not really something I "need" but that's OK. . .

Today I remembered something from Thursday that I forgot to mention. . .after I dropped of a check, at an insurance office in Bellevue, I almost got mauled by an elevator. . .this was in a circa 1985 building, it was really like time travel while I was in there, like many places I went with my Mom when I was young. Anyway, as I headed to the elevator to go back down to the first floor, the doors were closing, so I stuck my arm between them to trip the IR sensor. . .oh, this one doesn't have that, it's got the old-fashioned rubber "bumper", so I moved my hand over and pushed that in. . .to no effect. At this point the doors are only 3 or 4 inches apart, so I yanked my hand out just in time. Well!

My car still drives differently than it did before the service. Feels like at times it's struggling, and at times it has more power than before. I got gas on the way home tonight, and the math worked out to about 21mpg . . . which sucks, I usually get 27. Well, I'll give it another tank, if it stays that low, something is wrong.

Got my phone service switchover scheduled this morning, and my old cable service turned off.

music: Opeth, New Order, Mick Karn, Gus Gus, Jonas Hellborg Group

Saturday

2007-10-14T02:12:00.000-07:00

Saturday, October 13 2007
26:02

Friday: worked from home. The fire alarm went off again! damn. Something to do with drywall dust. In the evening, drove uptown a couple miles to look at a possible rental for MB. Not bad, though funky. Home, napped for two hours, then a long phone conversation which was very nice. Stayed up for a couple more hours, mostly working.

Saturday: slept in, sitting at home, off to TTA rehearsal. Short meeting after that about practicalities for Monday. The home, a shower, a little work (found a bug). Headed south – which took forever as the viaduct was closed – for my sister's birthday dinner. That was good. Stopped by the old place to pick up some things – a file cabinet, a printer, etc. Home, some time on the phone, then assembling the CD case I got last weekend. Went together fairly smoothly. Some work – fixing that bug and now deploying the servers – and unloading boxes of CDs into the case.

music: Angels of Light - We Are Him; Talking Heads - Stop Making Sense

Shapoopi!

2007-10-12T01:40:00.001-07:00

Adrian doing a Jig
Originally uploaded by sluggoman

Zzz

2007-10-12T01:39:00.001-07:00

Thursday, October 11 2007
25:32

Tired, so abbreviated: Wednesday – the release continued to go well. A client update on top of that pushed the total system bandwidth use to over 40Gbps. Good practice at the Wilsons, and a low-key evening afterward's at Travgor's as usual.

Thursday: awakend by the fire alarm. Yes, it works. Quite well. It would take some will to stay inside with that thing going off, unless you had earplugs handy. As it was, in the time it took me to get dressed and down the stairs, my ears were ringing a bit more than usual by the time I got outside. The alarm wasn't a test nor false, something had gotten hot and created fumes. But no fire, thankfully. The fire department gave the all clear after about 30 minutes. Then, beginning my day, and a detour south to my old apartment to get my checkbooks. Dropped a check off on my way to work.

Productive but short day at work. Then to the Garage Billiards (more bowling than billiards, really) for a release party. It was fun. Bowled enough to make my hand hurt, and drank enough to make my head hurt. When there's an open bar and you order an Oban, neat, and the bartender asks "Single or Double?", there is only one correct answer. I did restrain from getting some McCallan 18 though. Home from that around 1.

WFH tomorrow, going to check out an apartment for MB in the evening.

music: Steely Dan - Gaucho; Cocteau Twins - Heaven or Las Vegas; The Cure - Concert; Tom McCarthy - Spark and Luminance;

Orange Box Time!

2007-10-10T03:05:00.000-07:00

Tuesday, October 9 2007
26:53

A long day. Woke up early because I wasn't sure if the notice on my door last night about building work at 8 AM meant they'd need access to my place or not. They didn't, it turns out. But I woke up before then anyway – at 3:30 AM then again at 5 AM with indigestion. Well I think I was just too warm at 3:30, still getting to know the climate controls in here. But felt very icky at 5, was up until about 5:30. Took the opportunity to send an earlier-than-usual hello message to MB over on the other coast. . .which ended up bouncing, as apparently Yahoo and Hotmail are dueling again. Later, a nice wake-up call just before seven. . .after that I decided to just sleep until 8. If I was in the shower when they knocked, so be it. But they didn't.

Took the car to get its 30k service done, and picked up my loaner [not remembering, at this point, to take my garage fob with me, more on that later]. Then to work a bit earlier than usual, on a day when I'd be there until at least midnight. Worked pretty steadily until about 7, then there was a break in the action so some of us took the opportunity to go get a nice dinner. Had a good Asian shrimp salad and then a funky lamb curry with a wide assortment of "mix-ins" arrayed around it. A glass of wine, and some coffee crème brulee for dessert. And back to work.

Excitement started brewing in general by around 9 or 10. Missed most of the festivities upstairs, keeping an eye on things downstairs. Was up there for the big "button pushing" event though. I couldn't see anything, there was a gizmo constructed that had several huge blade switches and lights and dry ice and pulsating sounds and such. Things were looking good when I left at 2:15.

So, I left my fob in the car. So I can't get in the garage – parked on the street. Had to buzz myself in via the cell phone to get in the building. I think if I didn't have my phone I'd have been screwed. I'd have to have gone to the old place, and suffered without a change of clothes or contact removal. If I didn't have that option. . .eek. I'll have to treat that fob like the housekey it is now.

music: Police - Live!; Primus - The Brown Album

Monday / Center of Gravity now Ballard

2007-10-09T00:37:00.001-07:00

Monday, October 8 2007
24:29

I have internet and cable here now. A long and often hectic day, but it was nice. Last show of this run at Trinity; possibly the last one "ever" there! A large crowd out afterwards, a fun time. Tomorrow will be a long day too.

music: Nirvana, Radiohead.

Weekend

2007-10-09T00:32:00.000-07:00

Sunday, October 7, 2007
25:47
New place – on the computer

Well I'm "moved". Still lots of stuff at the old place, most of it to sell/give away, but lots still that I will want to bring up here. But, I have most of my clothes, and the computer. Comcast arrives between 8 and 10 tomorrow to hook me up w/ TV and internet. Been a busy weekend.

Saturday: cali/sitting at HQ. Breakfast at Vera's w/ IA, IK, TM, CG, CF, IB. Huevos rancheros again this time. Then to CHAC. This time the space was mostly "neutral" when we got there. Quick briefing, then Curt and I began hanging the columns. The hooks on the lines make that a little easier, but it still involves adjusting alligator clips until level. We marked them though, and apparently they will be "fixed" now. That took around an hour, longer than expected. Also got the risers arranged and numbered. And the seats put out, in the first of many arrangements. We practiced the entrance a few times – beginning the twinkling in the green room upstairs, then down the stairs and in the side doors. We sat and played through most of the set, then there was about 30 minutes of audience-seat-rearrangement. Then practiced the exit. Then it was time to strike – that took 15 minutes, very good.

Came back to the new place, napped from 4 until 6. Ran to Guitar Center looking for a computer/music desk/workstation. No joy – they had some big wood things w/ lots of rack space, none of the little modular things. Stopped at Office Max on the way back – a few promising desks but they were closing. Long phone conversation with MB. It was good, but I was feeling a bit off afterwards for some reason. Got to bed around 1.

Sunday: up at 10. Got some coffee/breakfast, quick email check. Up to the new place with a carload of stuff. Went to the "Loren May" apartment building to check out two units for MB – very old and quaint building, a bit musty inside. Fairly $$$ for the size ($1000 for 675sf "one bedroom", it's really a v. large closet that happens to have two doors and a window). Cute place though, hardwood floors, old-time charm. No dedicated parking. Took a bunch of pictures.

Stopped at Bartell's on the way back – no luck getting the watch battery changed, will need to take it to a jeweler's. There's on on Market, I'll try them sometime maybe. Got some elec. razor cleaner, and miscellaneous stuff for my face also shaving-related. Drove to Office Max – got the corner desk in "cherry" finish (a dark one), plus a chair (my third choice, the first two were out of stock) and a carpet-protector mat. The desk was in one box – very square if thin, and super heavy, 65 kilos. Barely fit in my car. I barely got it back out when I got home. Opened it up and decided not to put it together yet. Went to Zak's for a burger – bacon cheeseburger, the bacon was very thick which was "nice" but way more than I wanted/needed. Got some indigestion of the hernia type afterwards. The onion rings were very good.

MB called, from the airport again, on her way home this time. We talked for a bit, then I headed out to Silver Platters to get a cd shelf. The Queen Anne SP is in the old Tower Records building (which I could've sworn was right off Mercer, not Roy – maybe they moved for a while before going away completely), it's pretty large. They had some small cases/shelves, and one giant three-section thing that holds 1500. So I got that one. Room to expand! They were apparently having an open-mic night – they have a stage/PA in the back! – so the salespeople and I had to shout. That box fit in the car better but is also very heavy – says 35kg, I think more though.

Came back here, mostly put the desk together. It's OK, for fake lam / particle board. Still have some drawers and the keyboard shelf to assemble. Was getting pretty sore by this point – pulled a few muscles today, I think. Headed back to the old place. Started packing up some stuff, and also attending some bills before / receipts before I shut off the computer. More time on the phone w/ MB, talking about apartments and the pictures I took, and about our respective days.

Then lots of packing, throwing things into boxes / suitcases – socks/underwear, my daily-wair pants/shirts, the computer and cables etc, bathroom stuff. Loaded all that plus my guitar into the car and headed up here at 12. Was worried my computer would get borked on the drive up. It was making a "rattle-y fan" sound when I turned it on – I opened the case and moved some wires that were buzzing a fan, but in the process winged a knuckle on the CPU fan, it took some skin off.

Looks like I'll get about four hours of sleep tonight. Whee!

music: Bozzio/Sheehan, PMG, NIN

Friday

2007-10-08T10:01:00.000-07:00

Friday, October 5 2007
25:30
New place – handwritten entry

Brought up some clothes – nice shirts, dress socks, suits – and a miscellaneous box.

MB called at 25:00 or so from the airport – yet another early morning flight – to Atlanta for her sister-in-law's baby shower.

Went to the World Cyber Games today – played infected side in L4D from 9:30 until 2. Fun. Loud place though – not many people, but blasted MC/music. Played some Project Gotham Racing 4 and Guitar Hero III.

Buzz, zap, rumble

2007-10-04T01:16:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, October 3 2007
25:06

Worked from home today. Wanted to get something packaged and in the mail, and also had airport duty to pick up the folks, back from their tour of Spain and Portugal, mid-day. Spent most of the drive back talking about me! actually. Well I look forward to hearing more about their trip and seeing the pictures once they've got them processed.

A thunderstorm moved through in the early evening. . .lightning and hail. Had some energy of my own buzzing around, a good kind, then I was tired and took a little nap before rehearsal. . .which was bracketed by an interesting discussion re: said energy, and now I am buzzing again.

music: Gateway - Homecoming; Gordian Knot - Emergent

October time already

2007-10-03T01:10:00.000-07:00

Tuesday, October 2 2007
24:45

A gray, windy and rainy day. A weird show last night. Not bad, and some real high moments. But much weirdness. I made different mistakes than usual. A fun gathering afterwards. Stopped by the new place on the way home to grab a couple books that I'd boxed and moved, but now am thinking about shipping across the country instead.

Today's highlight was a call from MB just as I was leaving work. . .she was at a friends' house, and they had important questions for me, about pants and cats and such. It was fun and silly and very nice.

Picking up the folks at the airport tomorrow. There will be much to talk about!

music: Angels of Light - We Are Him (this is really great)

Sunday

2007-10-01T01:06:00.000-07:00

Sunday, September 30 2007
24:55

I just submitted an address change request online.

Slept in until 2 today. It was gray and drizzly out, was worried I would sit around being lethargic. But that didn't happen. Went through a few old boxes of stuff, letting go of various bits and pieces that I didn't really need to keep (like the "longboxes" from CDs I bought in high school!), coalescing things into fewer boxes. Took a car load of stuff up – said boxes, two bass speakers and a power amp. I have a rolly cart I bought three-ish years ago, that did so-so duty as a gig-rig-hauler, but is now doing excellent duty carrying heavy items from my car to my new place. One elevator, no stairs. Perfect. I should have used it for the bed boxes when I brought them home a few weeks ago – apparently, the heaviest of those weighs 105 pounds. But I used it for the dresser yesterday, and for all my speakers/boxes/etc today, I fit all of them on it in one trip.

Finished assembling the dresser – "LEGO furniture" as MB put it – only one minor SNAFU / QC error involved. But, it works. Then a shower, and a trip to the store to get some drinks and snacks, then over to Travgor's for a movie night – Donnie Darko. The Director's cut. The movie made more sense this time, partly because of the DC version having more details and things. Had some yummy snacks, wine, and a little bit of that Scotch from Wednesday. Talked to Mary Beth on the phone for a little bit. Home around 11:30.

music: John McLaughlin, Failure

And more Saturday

2007-09-29T17:11:00.001-07:00

26:29

Up too late now. . .Will inevitably get a late start on things tomorrow. Oh well. The shopping run produced the desired results from the first location, and some so-so ones from the second – a dresser and a nightstand. Had the big, heavy bits of some bookshelves loaded up on the cart thing, but ended up putting them back because the extra shelves were out of stock. Found out that the sofa (loveseat+chaise combo, actually) boxes won't fit in my car (the easy way, by measuring before I bought them). May have them delivered, or go look for something nicer. Oh – still no kitchen garbage can. Maybe I should give up trying to find a good rectangular, under-the-sink one.

Got the dresser half-assembled tonight, that was pretty easy so far. Was pleasantly distracted during that by a good, long conversation with MB. Came home for some dinner after that. Scheduled cable/internet installation today, it won't happen until Monday the 8th though. Oh well. I can't really "move in" until I have internet access. . .I guess that's OK, I'll be able to prepare for that mostly next weekend.

music: Mesuggah, The Cure, Siouxsie

Saturday so far

2007-09-29T17:11:00.000-07:00

Saturday, September 29, 2007
17:02

Back at the old place now. Nice to not have to drive across town this morning. Slept mostly OK, took a while to fall asleep though. Need less-poofy pillows. Didn't help that the BB went off at 2:30. Found a few more warranty issues there – seals on windows, etc.

Six? for calisthenics today, including newcomer IB. First hour of practice was an open circle, mostly circulations, F major, Bb major, D melodic minor. Then some cake (BR's birthday is tomorrow, wherever he is), then mostly work / play w/ Diana, improve w/ dancing. Then a bit more of IA's new piece.

DB called during practice, one of the ASes had the BBS queue thread die, he was at a soccer game, luckily Alfred was online to go kick it.

Came home after that, debated what to do. Looked at furniture and electronics online. Decided to eat – when to Than bros. BB rang there – DB again, CSDSes were not working right. Probably a buffer size issue, yet again. I scarfed down my food and went home – yep, he was working on updating the configs. What a pain. That's done now.

Probably going to head to BB+B and Ikea, to get kitchen towels, pillows, garbage cans, bookshelves? sofas? chairs? we'll see. It'll be a zoo, I'm sure.

Friday at the new place

2007-09-29T17:10:00.000-07:00

Friday, September 28 2007
15:30
My new place!

No computer here yet, so hand-written journal tonight. Spending the night here alone for the first time.

Work was work, got to play TF2 on our pub server for a bit which was fun. Called MB @ 3-ish [left a message], she called back a bit later, from Harvard Square – running some errands. Good to talk w/ her.

Spent a couple hours cleaning up and disassembling and boxing stuff there. Bass rig / music gear / etc, cleaned my desk. Brought 2 boxes of books up. Not sure yet if I'll bring more bookshelves or what.

Bought Eat, Pray, Love at B&N after work. Will begin that tonight Or tomorrow, should sleep soon [read 3 chapters].

music: Roxy Music, Res

/cold

2007-09-28T00:27:00.001-07:00

Thursday, September 27 2007
24:12

Back to being overcast today. Began the day sniffly still, but I'm not anymore. Yay! Went in to work. On the drive in, had a momentary thought, "gee, that weekend felt really long". Duh, that's because it's Thursday.

Kept in touch throughout the day with a dear friend on the other side of the country that is going through a lot right now. Feels weird, not a lot I can do from here except talk and listen. I'm pretty sure I'd be overwhelmed were I in the same position. The process continues, there are many personal elements to it, and also a few beaurocratic ones now. Lawyers and name changes and such. I did find something that I can do here, a little advance work / recon sort of thing.

Had a package waiting for me when I got home, as I'd hoped. A dictionary and a thesaurus! and old ones, at that. Wonderful. More Far Side cartoons involved too.

Then some work on that recon. . .seeing if I can get some online map stuff to work out, IE crashed on me once! but then I think it worked in the end.

music: A Perfect Circle - Mer du Noms; Jonas Helborg - Abstract Logic

A sunny day

2007-09-27T01:34:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, September 26 2007
25:20

Sniffly today, still. Worked from home. Sunny outside, and in the 60s today. Not bad. Got to go out a couple times to run some quick errands. Also a nice break mid-day for a phone conversation, the timing was good as my CD package was received during the call. Was really tempted to just stay on the phone indefinitely, but back to work. Not as busy as yesterday.

Had some dinner – sushi, and a bagel, then grabbed a couple more boxes of stuff and drove up to the new place. Unloaded those boxes, also the two boxes of books I'd left there, and headed East to rehearsal. Which was good – we had a visitor, IB who has moved to Seattle for school and is crashing at Travgor's for a couple days – worked on Igor and Travis' new piece the whole time. It's good, a fun and slightly silly one. After that, over to Travgor's for some Scotch I'd picked up this afternoon, feeling good and wanting to spread the feeling a bit.

Not sure if I'll be going in to work tomorrow or not. Will probably still be sniffly.

music: Tom McCarthy - Spark and Luminance; Klaxons - Myths of the Near Future

Tuesday

2007-09-25T16:28:00.001-07:00

Tuesday, September 25 2007
14:36

Yesterday: Still had that sore throat when I woke up. Actually I was awakened at a quarter to seven by a phone call. . .a pleasant surprise though. Talked about some big things. Then back to sleep. Then, luckily, a follow-up call which woke me up when I should have been up already – I'd forgotten to turn my alarm on last night. Anyway, sore throat still, so decided to work from home. Did that, also wrapped up the CD project and got that in the mail. Listened to a copy of it on the stereo – the first time I've really listened to a bunch of those tracks that way, usually it's through headphones. Interesting. Monitor speakers are definitely on my to-buy list after I move.

Anyway. . .grabbed some stuff to take up town with me – silverware, of which I have plenty and it's good, so there's one thing I won't be replacing – and headed up to Ballard. Dropped that off and went to the space. Lots of warmup time which was good. The show was weird. Lots of us felt that way. Small audience, one sleeping/snoring at times. I tried to wake him up during Kashmir but dang, he's a heavy sleeper. He was up and very attentive for the encore though! haha. Anyway, then a small gang out for food and drinks after that. I had a few announcements – it was all good/right news really, but the lead-in sounds like bad news, so initial responses were mixed. I was also all prepared for many probing questions, eager to talk about it, so when they didn't come I had to kind of fish for them which was funny. Anyway, that was good. Meanwhile I had some tasty salmon (though outshined by the very peppery broccolini and the yummy sweet potato fries) and a hot toddy.

This morning, another wake-up call! Haha. Well, that will get old eventually ;) Anyway, some talk about last night, my email "report" wasn't really worded well and that caused some upset. Better now. My sore throat isn't so sore, but I've got the sniffles a bit, so staying home again today. Been a productive remote-work day so far. Chilly, gray and drizzly here yesterday and today. Sunday was pretty nice, if I remember correctly.

Wheeeee!

2007-09-24T13:37:00.000-07:00

I am a happy boy.

2 + 2 = 4

2007-09-24T02:06:00.000-07:00

Sunday, September 23 2007
25:09

Saturday: Calistenics and the sitting as usual, then a trip to Vera's for lunch. After the big dinner Friday night, was feeling like maybe a light lunch was in order. But, somehow I ended up scarfing down a plate of huevos rancheros. Then, over to CHAC for our tech setup/etc day. Four hours non-stop, mostly moving stuff around, and climbing up very, very tall ladders to screw things in to the ceiling. Some playing too, it sounded OK which was a nice surprise for me. The ladders were scary and I'm worried about people having to climb them before and after every show.

Home for a bit after that, boxed up a couple loads of books. Deciding to sell/give away about as many others. The dust on the bookshelves was pretty thick and probably not good for my health. I ended up with a sore throat by the end of the night (that is still with me). Then, drove the boxes up to the new place and dropped them off, and headed to Yanni's to see Lost Pedro. A very enjoyable evening. Five of us at the table to listen / eat – again, I ended up eating more than I expected. I got a salad. . .then Diana didn't like her entrée (an eggplant thing what was really really yummy), so I ate most of that. The wine was a bit off – almost effervescent, but palatable. Then back to Howard and Diana's for some more wine and good company w/ people and cats.

Today: slept in. Then some time around the house writing and figuring out what to do. Hit the stores, failing to find a few things (furniture) but ending up getting some plates and cups and a runner rug. And a broom! Back home, to also grab a bookshelf, and up to the new place. Had a good long phone conversation while there. Had a few of those this weekend actually – my friends are suspicious, as I hardly ever talk on the phone. Well, it may be time to let the cat out of the bag. I have the feeling a few have already figured it out.

music: Pat Metheny Group, ProjeKct One, Autechre

Zoom

2007-09-22T01:45:00.000-07:00

Friday, September 21 2007
25:24

A pretty enjoyable day. Pretty focused at work, knowing that it would be a short day due to celebrations. First, a "happy hour" in the company kitchen / etc area the celebrate the Orange Box games going "gold". Had some yummy tequila then some blah brandy after that ran out. It was noisy and crowded and people everywhere were having a good time, and it was good. The highlight was a round of Happy Birthday for a bemused and maybe embarrassed now-26-year-old dude.

Bailed on that a bit early to go out to dinner w/ some of the guys from work and their wives. Went to Maggiano's, where we had a price-fixed family-style dinner that was really very good. Left there around 8:30 I think. Then, back to the office to wrap up some things and write some email, then home. Spent a couple hours working on the "liner notes" to a CD sampler of my recorded musical output over the past decade or so.

Ah – how could I have forgotten to mention this! Got a housewarming gift in the mail yesterday – a big book of Far Side cartoons. I love the Far Side. Absolutely my favorite cartoons, going back to when I was a kid. With Bloom County a close second. Anyway, this would go on my coffee table if I had a coffee table yet.

music: Cocteau Twins – box set; Christine Zuttery - A Decouvert;

Thursday

2007-09-21T01:01:00.000-07:00

Thursday, September 20 2007
24:49

Began the day in a funk, ending it feeling pretty good. Lots of good discussion on email and later the phone. In between that, work, fixing bugs and doing some things that had been put off for the push last week. After work, stopped by the new place to see what's been done – nothing – since Tuesday, and do some laundry. Had the aforementioned good phone conversation while I was there, then picked up some leftover margherita pizza from the fridge to take home and eat here. It was but a shadow of its former self, having been sitting in a box in the fridge for three days, oh well. I still have a couple food items in there, that are probably fresher, courtesy of my weekend guest: a pack each of yogurt and rice pudding. Oh, and a bar of very tasty chocolate.

A friend's car troubles tonight remind me that my car is overdue for service. Hmm, maybe next week.

music: Klaxons, Interpol, Modest Mouse