Blog

Last night at home with Jen, we had the Jazz cable music channel on while she was reading and I was working on the laptop. I heard “Over There” by Terence Blanchard and was stunned. I sat starting and the awful slideshow displayed by the channel and listened to the 7+ minute tune without moving. It’s rare that I hear much newer Jazz that hits me like this did. Afterwards, it was a quick visit to the Amazon MP3 store and I was all set. I’ve listened to the entire project “A Tale of God’s Will (Requiem for Katrina)” twice now and the tune “Over There” at least six times. It’s an amazing work, and I’m lucky that I came across it. I’ve been too busy with work and school to keep up with much new music, and most of my time listening to Jazz involves making my way through a hundred or so John Coltrane projects and bootlegs.

Infinite Jest was a title that rang in my head for some reason, so I picked up the $5 British pressing paperback at Barne’s and Noble while looking for something of decent length to read on my first post-college vacation in spring of 1999. On the flight from Indianapolis to Seattle (via Detroit) I opened the massive novel and dived in. One of my favorite memories of the trip was lying in the hostel in downtown Seattle and reading Infinite Jest. Just out of college and truly broke, there wasn’t a lot of night-time entertainment available. ...

I missed nearly a month of gym time due to shoulder surgery, but I tried to be in the best possible shape going into the procedure. Over the summer I did nearly two months of two-a-day workouts and lifted up until the day of getting sliced (8/10/07). Just about a month later (9/6/07) I was ok’d to go back to the gym, and went in 20 lbs lighter and much weaker. During the month out of the gym I walked with my arm in a sling and did rehab exercises 3-5 times a day, but it was nothing compared to having 300 lbs on the bar. ...

Since Jen had Monday off, we headed up to Milwaukee to get a short little vacation, pretty much the only time off that we’ll both have. Jen picked me up after class on Saturday and we headed northward. The trip went well until we got near downtown and the expressway just ended. After a futile attempt to find the hotel and being transferred to the wrong number from information, we managed to find our way to the lovely Ambassador Hotel. The design was art-deco and the room provided a personal DVD player and internet access. There was also an excellent coffee shop (Caffe Deco) in the hotel that served Alterra coffee, which was fantastic. There was a surprising number of different coffee places, and I only remember seeing a single Starbucks. ...

6:00 AM and I’ve been up for a few hours already. Watching a video by Lyle Lovett on YouTube (She’s Already Made Up Her Mind). I remember seeing this video on a tiny little black and white TV at my parents old house. It made me a huge fan of Lovett’s music, and I’ve been lucky enough to see him several times live and even assisted with the sound for a performance while I was at the Interlochen Music Camp (Summer of 1999). The internet can be such a mindtrip. I just stuck in the keyword ‘Interlochen’ into flickr, and found photos of the recording studios were I spent the majority of my time that summer. Seven years ago, seems like a lifetime, and the person who I was then is a stranger to myself now. As much as I love music, I don’t miss hauling racks of gear around to record lousy music. ...

Pretty good weekend, good to get away from thinking about work. With system administration, there’s always the worry that something will break, and I’ll miss an alert, and work will be a nightmare the moment I walk in. Being a small company, every little thing falls into either my lap, or James'. Phil came by and we got some decent Asian food and hung out for a bit playing cards. I threw ‘Clerks’ on the DVD player for background noise. I hadn’t seen it in awhile, but it brought back a few memories. I was lucky enough to be in school at a time when independent film was getting a bit of acclaim. ‘Pulp Fiction’, ‘Killing Zoe’, and ‘Clerks’ came out in 1994 when I was living in my first apartment. I was able to catch other films like ‘Roger and Me’, ‘Slacker’, and ‘Go Fish’ on video. I was lucky enough to have a roommate who was a film minor and got me into films such as ‘Man Bites Dog’, ‘Delicatessen’ , and the work of Kieslowski (‘Trois Couleurs’) and Errol Morris (‘Thin Blue Line’). ...

Made it back from Louisville with no issues. Both flights were uneventful (in the best way) with no delays and the brother showed up with an airport pickup that Costanza would be proud of. Since we had skipped breakfast we made our way to Famous Dave’s BBQ for an exceptionally large lunch. I settled on the chopped pork and beef brisket with some fine sweet tea. Sweet tea and BBQ are a couple of the south’s saving graces. ...

Since I was in complete bodily pain after an overindulgent workout yesterday, I spend the day catching up on a few movies and make up a bit on my 52s list. I’ve hit the Altman section and made it through ‘MASH’, ‘Nashville’, and ‘ShortCuts’ in the last two days. It’s been really interesting seeing three Altman films in a row. He’s always been one of my favorite directors and I try to catch anything that he does. It was interesting to see how his technique has evolved throughout his films. There are definite constants such as the zoom shot, overlapping conversations, and the documentary style of filming. For me it feels more like eavesdropping on a situation rather than viewing a film. ...

The new Donald Fagen project ‘Morph the Cat’ came out today and now I’m happily grooving to Mr. Fagen’s music. There were two events that finally got me into the music of Steely Dan and Messrs. Fagen and Becker. I was driving back to college during a time when I nothing more to listen to than FM radio. I feel completely spoiled today with a CD player or iPod my vehicle, but I did have several lucky occurrences from scanning the radio dial. I was on a length of highway 28 and caught a morning show that was featuring the music of Steely Dan. I managed to catch about 30 minutes of the show and heard such tunes as ‘Babylon Sisters’, ‘Hey Nineteen’, and ‘FM’. After getting back to the lowly college apartment, I borrowed the roommate’s Citizen Steely Dan boxed set and became a fan. ...

This weekend, the Chicago Tribune had an article that mentioned the current economic status of Muncie, IN. I had spent a good deal of the 90s attending school there at Ball State. It is a odd mix of a college town and a blue-collar town, where the college kids try to avoid the locals, and the locals blame everything bad on the school. Last summer Nathan and I made a quick drive-thru, and took a look around where I had spent so many years. I felt like my memories had to be wrong, that things weren’t this run-down and pitiful when I had attended school. It turns out I was probably correct, and things had gone down considerably since I had moved on. It reminded me of watching ‘Roger and Me’, Muncie was rapidly turning in to Flint, MI. ...