Monday Music

Another MM in absentia from me.  At this point in time I should be somewhere on the road in the hills of western Virginia, on my way home from the holiday with my family.  So what the heck, a good road song.

Rascal Flatts, “Life is a Highway”

Yes, it’s country-esque – I like their harmony on the chorus.  And yes, it includes scenes from Cars – it’s one of my son’s favorites, and hey, I like it. Bite me!

Back tomorrow, folks.  Take advantage of your peace now!

The Truth Hurts

Family is funny.

Around the table in the second room over Thanksgiving lunch:

Cousin A (Female, 30, newly divorced, to Cousin B):  You realize we’re the only single ones here?
Cousin B (Male, 27, hopefully reformed meth head):  Yeah.  I HATE that.
Aunt C (Cousin A’s mom):  Well…the dogs are single.
Me:  I don’t think I would have said that out loud, Aunt C.

Happy Thanksgiving to all y’all!

Thanksgiving

I ran an errand yesterday.  I drove a few miles down the winding road to the nearest tiny town to the post office.  There behind the counter was a woman that I’d never met.  She looked at my face and called my father’s name.

I walked out the door and looked across the street at the majestic Victorian house, and beyond it at another Victorian falling into disrepair.  They lay cheek by jowl with mobile homes and more modest homes from the 1970s or so.  The nineteenth century homes seemed to stand proudly – aware of their flaking paint and not-quite-plumb doorways but still prideful in their age.  They’ve survived floods, fire, and depressions before and will do so for another hundred years.

I took a left by the church to see the 1880’s house that my first cousin just bought in a state of awful disrepair.  It’s okay; she’s young, she’s moving home after a divorce, and restoring the house will be a good focus for her as she starts over again.  A dim memory of a decade ago tugged at me, and I continued past her home and down a tiny little road.  Sure enough, a mile later I came to a small cemetery.  I got out and walked around for a few moments, seeing the familiar local names on the headstones.  For the first time in ages, I heard – nothing.  No cars, no planes, no trains, no trucks.  Silence.

I got back into the car and headed back toward my parents’ house.  A few miles away, however, I turned off.  Down a small gravel driveway, past a trailer where the gravel driveway petered out to two grassy ruts.  I got out and walked around the short fence to the gate.  I had to push hard to open it – not that the gate was rusty, but the earth around it had piled up to the level of the bottom rail.  There’s no way to know how long it had been since someone else had been that way.

Inside, a thick layer of pine needles muffled my footsteps.  A half-mile away occasional cars whined down the highway, but the wind in the trees was as loud.  A bird lit on the old mud-and-log tobacco barn nearby as I stood for a long moment over the graves of my great-great-great-grandfather and great-great-great-grandmother, where they’ve laid for a century.

Back at my parents’, I took a long quiet walk through the hardwoods behind the house.  Inches of wet red oak leaves rustled under my feet as I stood, walked, stood, walked, and finally came to rest partially up the ridge on the other side of the tiny creek.  I stood on a stump to make sure that adjusting my position wouldn’t rustle the leaves, and waited.  Soon I could hear a doe calling over the ridge.  The smell of decaying leaves was everywhere.  I waited to see if any deer would appear.  Squirrels hopping in the leaves sound very much like an approaching deer, but aside from a hawk and occasional falling leaves the squirrels were all I saw.

The people here generally drive me insane.  But the land…it calls to me.

Too Quiet.

It seems oddly still here now that Crisitunity and BF have gone.  Except to Dys, who says “You forget.  I’m here alone every day.  Just having YOU here is weird.”

We’re busily packing to go to Virginia so I don’t have much time to talk, but I wanted to say that

a)  Don’t believe the hype.  I may have owned one segment of SceneIt, but then we played a quick lightning-round (note for the future:  lightning round doesn’t have the cloying narration) and Crisitunity pwned us all.

b)  BF should blog.  He’d sit there quietly while the three of us blabbed and blabbed and blabbed and then he’d say one short sentence and slay me.

c)  We played a slightly cutthroat match of one of the most awesomely dorky card games I’ve ever seen.  (Crisitunity won that one, too.  Considering how dorky we guys were, the ladies quite kept up with us.)

d)  I got to see them both giddy for a few – Crisitunity at Churchill Downs where she played a proper 12-year-old girl and squee’ed over the horsies, and BF while eating brunch this morning.  They both agreed that while they might not want to move to our state, it would be JUST FINE with them to move into our favorite restaurant.

e)  Having been able to witness Crisitunity teach yoga to Dys in and amongst running in and out of the kitchen on Sunday night, I’m quite thoroughly convinced that she is so ready for this yoga-teaching gig.  ‘Twas quite apparent that it suits her to a T.

f)  I think part of the reason that BF wasn’t feeling good is that we live in a bad allergen environment – and my “hey, let’s drive up here” idea on Sunday afternoon turned into “Well, the road’s closed, how about a 1.5 mile hike?”

g) We were all sad to see them go.  I’d be hard pressed to say who was saddest.  Including the dog.

h)  One thing agreed upon is that there will be further visits!  Woohoo!  I might not even make them watch motorcycle racing next time.  Maybe.

 

PS:  The rumors that prom pictures were laughed at have some basis in reality.  The rumors about my hair, though, are patently false.

Monday Music

I’m blogging this in advance, because if all goes according to plan then the time on Mondays in which I normally post the MM will be spent taking Crisitunity and her BF out to one of the craziest places in town where I will eat a big stack of bourbon ball french toast.

Yeah, you heard me.  SUCK IT, BITCHES!!!

So to honor her adoration of Boston (and recognizing that I’ve already used “Peace of Mind” as an MM) I give you my other favorite Boston tune.

Boston, “More Than A Feeling”

The Amazing Jonny Lang

At this point, what can I say about Jonny Lang that I haven’t already said?

How about this:  beyond all laws of possibility, the guy keeps getting better.

Our babysitter was held up in traffic and Dys was held up by work, so we left home quite a bit later than planned.  As such, we missed a number or two by Robert Cray – who was fantastic, by the way.  Very bluesy, very R&B in an Otis Redding kind of way.  I’ve only seen him play with others before, so seeing him on his own was a real treat.  I particularly enjoyed the tune “The One in the Middle” – they played a slower and more blues-tinged version than the one in this YouTube vid.  It was wonderful.

We took some photos of Robert – none of which turned out all that well.  At one point people we shoving by us carrying cups of beer, and as Dys scooted out of the way the camera slid off her lap and THUNKED to the floor ominously.  After that – uh – the thing wouldn’t work.  The lens wouldn’t retract or extend.  It was stuck, and the thing wouldn’t turn on.  We were somewhat dejected.  (Of course, this could have provided us another opportunity to say “screw it” and blow a ton of money we don’t have on an SLR…)  Finally, though, after replacing the batteries, trying other stuff, and Dys even saying “WTF?” and dropping it again to see what would happen, I took the thing and forced the lens inward through brute force, and that apparently worked.  Yay, we were re-cameraed!  Boo, no excuse for an SLR.  Oh well.

We were seated a few rows back from last time, so the whole low-light photography was a slightly bigger challenge, as the fuzzy edges above show.  But it still made for some interesting photos, I think.  And we still got some great individual shots, mostly from one lucky run in the beginning of Jonny’s set.

Speaking of which, when he came out, I thought he looked a little sweaty already – and he started out a little down-energy.  I was wondering, “Hmm, is Jonny feeling well?  Maybe he’s sick.”

He was sick, all right.  In the “OMG THIS IS BADASS” sense of the word.  Because he got his stride in just a few minutes, and folks, that was probably the best JL show of the five we’ve seen.  I can’t even begin to describe it; I’ll just be stumbling over superlatives like I did in the last post and you guys will just think I’m an even bigger Jonny ho.  So I’ll just put up some pretty pictures and make a few comments.

First, and completely randomly:  Of all the shows I’ve ever been to, I’ve had a lot of beer and drinks sloshed on me by people scooting by, I’ve had pot smoke in my hair, blah blah blah.  All occupational hazards.  But I have never, ever, had somebody squeeze by me carrying a box of fucking pizza.  Not between acts, but DURING THE HEADLINER’S SET.  WTF?  And the kicker:  I recognized this guy.  His photo was all over the place last fall because he was campaigning for a judgeship. Heh.

Setlist for the evening (Dys can correct me if she remembers):

Give Me Up Again
A Quitter Never Wins
Thankful
Don’t Stop (For Anything)
Red Light
Breakin’ Me
Lie to Me
Livin’ for the City
I Am

Jason Eskridge SLAYED on “Livin’ for the City.”  Good GOD that boy has a voice to kill for.

Jonny used an acoustic intro for “Lie to Me” that was so gut-wrenching that I actually had to go home and make sure his wife hadn’t left him.  WHOA.

Now on to the pics.  All of these photos (and more) are available on our Flickr set – go check it out!

Dys took that one above and it’s fantastic – she just happened to catch the moment at the end of bassist Jim Anton’s solo in which backup singer Jason threw a towel at him in a “YOU BAD!” gesture.  That’s the blue blur over Jim’s shoulder.  And for the record, Jim Anton is still one of my favorite bassists EVER.

And finally, because we thought it was so beautiful last time, I made a special effort to record the live version of “Red Light” this time.  Yes, the video is shaky (I had to record over the shoulder of the lady in front) and there’s some crowd noise, but overall the sound is pretty good, I think.  (For some reason it gets less good toward the end?)  I just wanted to share that moment with all of you – so if you’re so inclined, come along with me.

Beautiful.  Just beautiful.

Thanks so much, Jonny, and come again real soon now, ya hear?  We’ll be there.

 

Monday Music

Sadly, I’m still in the midst of my time crunch – but my progress toward my self-imposed deadline has been better than I expected.  Coming in to the office for a few hours yesterday may have been a pain in the ass, but it definitely helped.

Here’s another MM I’ve been holding back for several weeks – it’s never far from my brain lately.  How I love this tune.

Rush, “Closer to the Heart”

I’m still behind on all my blog reading, but I’m still alive, I promise!  If things continue to go well for my deadline there’s a good chance I’ll have a good post or two before the end of the week.

Awesomeness Approacheth

We’re doing something REALLY COOL this weekend.

REALLY COOL.

I’ll give you a hint.

Woohoo!  Clear the camera card!

Crunch Time

I recently read an aphorism that says, “The days are long, but the years are short.”  Hoo boy is there some wisdom in that.

A couple of things are converging upon me right about now, not least of which are typical year-end projects at work, the holidays, three out-of-state trips between Dys and myself, and my aforementioned class.  Some things just don’t respond well to preplanning, it seems, and a lot of this work is coming up all at once.  Add to that the combination of some dimwitted procrastination on my part and some recently changed priorities at work, and I find myself in crunch time.

Some deadlines are coming down, and I’m attempting to set some even more aggressive deadlines for myself in order to beat the rush.  Until the end of next week, and to a lesser extent for the rest of the month, I’ll likely be more quiet than usual.  I still have a lot to say, especially my usual year-end review of the MotoGP season (which is much more important to me than it is to you guys, I know!), but sadly my time is suddenly a lot more precious.

Even if I’m not as present, I’ll definitely be thinking about all of ya.  In the meantime, I’m gonna try to remember to keep my nose properly oiled for the grindstone.

Those Who Can’t Do

I think I’ve mentioned it obliquely here once or twice, but I’m teaching a class next semester.  Co-teaching, actually, with a couple of my coworkers, and the topic is basically an introduction to our field.

Here’s the funny part:  I never took such a class. Anywhere.  Not one.  All my training has been on-the-job.  And once a boss said “You want a promotion?  Here, read this textbook.”

I know my job and my field.  I’m actually quite good at what I do, even when I don’t necessarily like doing it.  But I consider my ability to do my job so well without such underpinnings to be something of an indictment of the professional literature and theory of the field.  For every important new idea in the field – probably less than one a year – there are dozens and dozens of articles that are rearranging the same old nick-nacks on the same old shelves.

So now I’m busily reading the professional literature that I’m pondering assigning in the spring.  I AM learning just a little bit – but mostly it’s “Yeah…mmm-hmm…yeah…is it 5 o’clock yet?  8:28?!?!?!?  AUGH!!!”

Not to mention that my public speaking style is somewhat authoritative.  I’m often asked about my military background afterward.  (Maybe the earrings will change that now.)  I’ve never had to do a lot of sharing-the-stage in such situations.   But I will now, and I’ll have to find ways to preach what I believe and NOT what I don’t believe.  Without ticking off my co-teachers.

This will make for an interesting experience.