Back when I was still in school, mostly the UMASS days, I would make a point of seeing They Might Be Giants if they played within 45-200 miles of where I was. I made friends that I still keep in touch with, through our mutual love for TMBG and our involvement in the various online newsgroups, chats, and web forums dedicated to the band. I enjoyed their live performances before I actually appreciated what it was like to be a performer in a rock band and continued to be impressed by their abilities after I had played in several bands. It’s been a long time since I’ve been to a Giants show, but Sarah was looking for possible gift ideas for me and we found that they were playing in Chicago, next Saturday. We bought a couple tickets, today. They weren’t doing the kids-specific albums back when I saw them, but there were plenty of kids at the all ages venues I’d see them at. My favorite solution to the kids-in-a-bar situation was at Toad’s Place in New Haven, CT. The stage was at one side of the room, the all-ages crowd filled in a large space between the stage and the opposite wall, but the bar was on that wall, so they erected a net around the bar which only had one opening in it, where the staff was checking IDs. Nowadays, they have their shows with very specific age restrictions/policies. This show is a 14+ show, should be fun; Seriously looking forward to it…
Monthly Archive for October, 2007
I just put Leopard on my Mac. The machine is a G4 Power Mac from around 2001, so it would be about the oldest Mac that officially supports the new OS (actually, it didn’t, in it’s original incarnation, but my processor and video upgrades made it sneak in under the wire. It was a kind of a scary upgrade process, knowing that my hardware was so close to that imaginary line of non-support. It was also pretty scary that the video on the install screen was greyscale and 8-bit … and the options and warnings were next to impossible to read, but I realized about 10 minutes into the process that it didn’t ever ask me about upgrading as opposed to a clean install… but it also never made me agree to write over any files, so I assumed I was safe and stopped worrying. Fortunately, it did upgrade and not write over, but I guess I’ll never really know whether it told me if it was doing so or not. I’ve noticed some interesting little visual differences in Finder and the Dock, but I decided that I’ll play with it and explore the new stuff later. It feels nice and this poor old Dell’s recent freeze-ups are making me want that MacBook Pro again.
I was late for work this morning. My Emerson “SmartSet” alarm clock still believes that this is the weekend that we change the clocks… as does this computer, here at work, along with about half of the electronics of the members here at the YMCA that I’ve talked to. This automagical technology starts to lose its charm when it’s just plain wrong. Added a new clock to my amazon wishlist.
I want to start writing more. I used to use this as a journal, of sorts, and I kind of miss writing in a journal, but don’t want to actually carry one around with me. So there may be a whole lot more entries, here. And there may be some really short ones… which I may or may not try to designate as more of a note than an entry.
I’m also considering phasing out the existing photo gallery and going completely Flickr. I’ll have to move a few photos over, but I hesitate to move any that I don’t actually have the original, full-sized files for… or maybe I’ll put them in a special set – “Lost Originals” or something like that. Here’s my first attempt at flickr integration . There were a couple more snazzy plugins, but the server needs libcurl installed to use them, and apparently, it’s not installed.
Been busy and stuff, but here are some highlights from the last month:
I cooked Puerco Pibil according to Robert Rodriguez’s recipe on the Once Upon a Time in Mexico special features (10 minute cooking school). It was fun. I had to go to a few specialty stores in order to get all the right spices and the banana leaves. It turned out pretty damn good, though. I may try his breakfast tacos from Sin City, next; We’ll see.
We went to an apple orchard store/bakery and picked up a whole bunch of apples… along with a whole lotta apple cider donuts and a bunch of other apple-themed foodstuffs. We made a couple pie-sized apple crisps and they were excellent. I was eating about an apple or two a day, and then I got sick … so much for that old adage… and couldn’t eat much of anything for a week or so. The honey crisp apples were really, really yummy. We went back again and bought some more a week or so later… and made another big apple crisp to bring to a party. I think I want to blame Chipotle for making me sick, but I’m being careful about what exciting things I introduce to my diet. Having all this cider and stuff in the house makes it hard, though.
Work’s going well. We’re past the day trip part and we’re quickly moving towards the overnighters. The day trip was better this year, mostly due to the fact that the course was in the city and we got a lot more time there. Looking forward to the overnights… three this year, in consecutive weeks. There’s also a lot of talk about expanding the program into some after-school type stuff. Maybe more work and more responsibility… not sure yet.
I’ve got to find a way to finish a roll of film faster. The light meter battery shouldn’t need to be replaced more often than the film. I’m sort of afraid to see how this roll turned out, since I have no idea when the battery started failing. I love the old Pentax, but it has issues.
Foliage is pretty out here, but I do miss what the wooded hills of New England adds to it. Those hills make the driving more fun, too, but otherwise, I’m loving life out here.
