The week itself has been busy, but there aren’t any particular events to which I can point which have exhausted me so. Played some music with friends early in the week, did a lot of user support and document review at work (plus our section Thanksgiving luncheon yesterday), and ran kids all over the county […]

My friend Steve is a very talented musician and songwriter. He’s played all kinds of interesting venues from honky tonks to places of worship. He builds beautiful native american flutes, and plays upright bass (airbrushed with gorgeous Betty Page pinup artwork) in a Rockabilly cowpunk band. He’s written and released lots of material over the […]

So yes, I only work four days per week (never mind that it’s ten hours per day). Doesn’t matter, I sit here on Friday morning, paying my bills, and I can’t help but reflect that this was one long week, at least from the point of view of this observer. Relativity in action, folks, look […]

Costumes for kids are still coming together, but the spouse and I got our kit on early for a party last weekend…with a theme: “dress your favorite decade.” We were kind of stumped for a while, though it was kind of a foregone conclusion that we went with different aspects of the 80s; her the […]

Even though the Government is still shut down, I went back to work on Monday, as I’d been, thanks to a broad interpretation of the Pay Our Military Act, determined “essential”, at least until someone makes another decision that I’m not. Who knows if I’m going to get paid for it any time soon, though. […]

So, it’s the fourth day of the government shutdown. I haven’t been to work since Tuesday morning, when I went in for fifteen minutes to sign the letter telling me I was “non-essential” and changing my voice mail to reflect the fact that I won’t be available until congress gets their heads out of their […]

I have finished my first week at the new job. As I mentioned previously, I think it’ll be a good experience; it’s been so thus far. I’m still not entirely sure how to deal with the additional time I’ve found myself with. I’m still trying to convince my body that bedtime is no longer 7pm, […]

I guess it’s one of those date occurrences that really set off some people’s superstitious reflexes. Me? I don’t really care. Been an okay week, I guess. The usual annoyances are still annoyances, though some are at least winding down a bit. More to come there later, if we haven’t talked about it. If that’s […]

Just wanted to take a minute to point out (another) article over at The Av Club which I *almost* wish existed ten years ago when I fell into a particular rabbit hole, a Beginner’s Guide to Paul Westerberg and the Replacements, which does a nice job of running through the band’s history and evolution, and […]

The AV Club recently posted a great Q&A feature discussing suggestions for various official state rock songs, given that a couple of states actually have official ones, and others have generally accepted unofficial ones. There are lots of good suggestions in there: New Jersey writer Joe Keller makes a passionate and lucid defense for Bon […]