c2677

2008-11-08T09:46:00.000-05:00

Box man evan!

song title

2008-11-02T21:06:00.000-05:00

"the gods love a fool"

2008-09-21T00:06:00.001-04:00

Dude

2008-08-30T13:48:00.001-04:00

I am ready! See u monday!

2008-07-11T18:23:00.000-04:00

Salt water cure!

2008-06-26T12:35:00.001-04:00

Bean town

2008-06-01T15:32:00.001-04:00

Octopus!

2008-05-31T21:29:00.001-04:00

2008-04-04T17:35:00.000-04:00

SEA-TAC!

slept on the way

2008-04-01T15:19:00.002-04:00

i am in seattle-tacoma airport now in the alaska airlines "boardroom" lounge. the flight here was OK. the plane was not to full, I had a window seat with an empty seat between me and the next passenger. alaska has no-frills planes, that's for sure. no tv. no crappy armrest radio! i got one free cookie. drinks were free. but meals were $5. so in stead i ate an egg sandwich at "fridays" in the newark terminal before i boarded. it was suprisingly edible. so anyway, even though i woke up at 4:00 to get to the airport on time, i got by with just one cup of tea... i wanted to sleep on the plane, which i did. it was uncomfortable. the seats were leather, but did not really recline so much. got a sore neck.

2008-02-15T20:06:00.000-05:00

Carnitas!

2008-02-11T00:41:00.000-05:00

2008-02-08T13:29:00.000-05:00

Howdy from 9500 feet!

2008-02-06T16:56:00.001-05:00

go breck

2008-01-31T21:13:00.001-05:00

lyrics / song titles

2008-01-22T13:49:00.001-05:00

"dime-a-dozen gods"

"then again, what do girls know about rock n' roll?"

"i hear a whole lotta cryin'

but you 'aint singin' the blues"

"call me crazy, girl

maybe i'm lazy but, baby

i'll only love you if

you come over"

"now just like that

everyone is fallin' in love"

"don't even tell me you love me,

because i love you even more"

s.f. california area band name

2008-01-17T15:57:00.001-05:00

"the trolley hawks"

2008-01-14T11:21:00.001-05:00

it snowed a bit early this morning, leaving an almost imperceptible layer on the grass in the front yard. i could still see it falling as i sat on the couch by the window with my 3 year old son, who had just woken up. i pointed outside, and he looked at it coming down and said: "more snow, daddy... bigger!" i told him i couldn't make it snow more, and that it was really up to the clouds. he looked up at the sky, and said "more, snow, please". it was very cute. the snow stopped a minute later, but by that time he was already sitting in his chair at the table - happily eating a banana.

2008-01-02T22:46:00.000-05:00

2007-11-16T20:00:00.000-05:00

Mr. Fine Wine says: so what if I'm shedding at your wedding?

2007-10-20T23:48:00.000-04:00

2007-10-20T13:28:00.001-04:00

After

2007-10-20T12:01:00.000-04:00

Before

2007-10-19T14:33:00.000-04:00

RU 30 - USF 27

2007-10-02T13:22:00.000-04:00

2007-08-27T13:20:00.000-04:00

egyptian chalk drawings

2007-08-27T13:19:00.000-04:00

egyptian chalk drawings

2007-08-11T14:54:00.001-04:00

how god made everything: explaining the solar system and evolution via driveway chalk drawing to E.W.

2007-08-03T20:58:00.000-04:00

2007-08-03T20:57:00.001-04:00

2007-08-03T20:54:00.000-04:00

2007-08-03T20:51:00.000-04:00

2007-08-03T12:56:00.000-04:00

I am at the Hot Stove Saloon in Harwich Mass.

2007-08-02T15:44:00.000-04:00

2007-08-01T20:23:00.001-04:00

2007-07-23T22:52:00.001-04:00

2007-07-14T18:25:00.000-04:00

Giusto di Notri 2001

2007-07-12T08:22:00.000-04:00

Tua Rita: Rosso Toscana, Indicazione Geografica Tipica.
A very nice Tuscan red wine. 75% Cab's / 25% Merlot. It was darker and more full bodied than your average cab, but also very smooth with a not-too-overwhelming fruitiness. My wife usually doesn't like the heavier wines (like straight up merlots) but she did enjoy her glass.

2007-06-19T17:44:00.000-04:00

2007-06-12T22:06:00.000-04:00

recently added...

2007-06-01T14:57:00.000-04:00

archive:
a short play in one act, 1999

crap:
music video idea, 2005
correspondence, 2005

songs:
song titles, 2005
lyrics, 2005
song titles, 2005

2007-05-26T23:26:00.000-04:00

2007-05-19T23:17:00.001-04:00

2007-05-17T19:17:00.000-04:00

just a great nerdy link

2007-05-16T23:35:00.001-04:00

http://www.galmarley.com/FAQs_pages/monetary_history_faqs.htm

quote

2007-05-11T09:31:00.001-04:00

Truth never comes into the world but like a bastard, to the ignominy of him that brought her birth.

John Milton (1608 - 1674)

quote

2007-05-10T22:39:00.000-04:00

We are more ready to try the untried when what we do is inconsequential. Hence the fact that many inventions had their birth as toys.

Eric Hoffer (1902 - 1983)

song titles

2007-05-09T22:58:00.001-04:00

"Tertiary Girl"
"please don't take this as a compliment: i love you"
"quaternary kiss"

"I've been Buried Alive (And I Love It)"
"still i wont turn over in my grave"
"god damn smoke free caskets"

"It's Fun To Hang Out When You're Buried Alive"
"Tea For One In My Grave"
"Being Buried Alive Sucks - NOT"
"There Isn't Much Room To Masturbate When You're Buried Alive, But It's Do-Able and It's Worth It"

"i think my casket is next to yours"
"buried alive with a fucking crazy coke'd up chicken"
"size six casket wheat grass diet"
"the great big book of crosswords for the afterlife"

"professor salamander regrows the arm he lost in the bear trap of introspection"
"it's just forever once"
"extreme makover: casket edition"
"rest in peace with the casket club"

2007-05-08T20:20:00.001-04:00

quote

2007-04-30T23:18:00.000-04:00

"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away."
-Phillip K. Dick

2007-04-29T13:40:00.001-04:00

2007-04-27T14:44:00.001-04:00

song title / lyrics

2007-04-25T22:59:00.000-04:00

"warm"

(intro)
i walk home alone
step over cracks in the sidewalk
in time, my frosty breath and i
pass through the gate we shut last night

i build a snowman drunk in the back yard
i startles you in the morning sun
and by the time i arise
it's tumbled over, melting, and it's warm
... and it's warm

verse
in the morning just before the dawn
i put on my hood, though the cloth is torn
to the hill where the wind won't call my name
i am chilled to the bone now just the same

chorus
i go someplace warm,
someplace warm

in the morning just before the dawn
...i peel the blankets off
and root around for the lights i burned
...just before i fell asleep
am i flesh or am i stone?
...the cold and the smoke on the porch cry out
i am chilled to the bone now just the same
...to the bone now

i go someplace warm,
someplace warm

outtro
another piece of the wind
that don't know how to follow me
(repeat and fade)

2007-04-25T11:29:00.000-04:00

2007-03-13T20:30:00.001-04:00

Hello from Horsham, PA

2007-02-26T21:36:00.000-05:00

20020726

bombarding you

2007-02-24T16:17:00.000-05:00

i'm going to attempt to give a snapshot of what is going on nowadays, while the a.j. is sleeping. prepare for a bombardment of disjointed details. my wife and e.w. are playing with friends at the kids indoor playground at the ymca. i was puttering around the house, not trying to make too much noise, but also trying to clean up a bit. the laptop is here on the kitchen table again, thanks to the wireless router. when i picked it up just now i noticed that it is quite warm. i decided that since it was sitting here all this time i would blog. i fired it up earlier when e.w. was still here, in hopes that i could entertain him with a few internet videos. we started out trying to find a clip of the giant squid that was recently caught off the coast of anarctica, by new zealand fishermen. we did not succeed in finding a video. we also tried discovery.com, but that was not working (is it the flash player?). lastly, we settled on videos about planets, which were interesting (thank you video.google.com). before that i was out with the kids returning the unnecessarily large flat panel tv we got last weekend. while we drove the kids watched "lady and the tramp" on the minivan DVD miniscreen. as we drove i could hear the audio and i wished i could be watching too. prior to that, this morning we were having our cereal and listening to the beatles on the iPod, which i have recently brought back to life (in the house at least) by bringing out the old bose iPod speaker cradle thingy, and we were jamming/dancing to "octopus's garden", "yellow submarine", and "help". doing that made me want to go and check out all of the old chords to that music and learn to play it for the kids. speaking of iPods, i bought one for my wife last year and she never uses it. however, now that she works out and runs, i'm thinking she will use it if i program some running playlists for her. also, i have to load on all the kids CD's; since she's always looking for CD's she can't find for them... it's about time she know the wonders of loading everything onto and mp3 player and never touching a CD again. it plugs right into her car, which is also nice. what else... the house is a mess since we are in the middle of three or four little weekend projects: cleaning out the medicine cabinet in the kitchen, handing shades, re-arranging the playroom in the basement, and so on. isn't my life exciting? oh, and last night we went out to dinner at the "chimney rock" in gillette. mike b. met us there. i came there straight from work and we had a beer and chatted before the wife & kids arrived. a.j. was relatively well behaved at dinner, wiggling and pacing around in the booth between me & uncle mike. after a.j. was simply unable to be contained, i took him over to the front of the restaurant and we played ms. pacman together, which went well. he also liked galaga. arkanoid would have been fun, but the controller wasn't really right for it, and it was impossible to play. ...ok, i think that's enough. i feel that i have appeased the gods of blogging for today.

2007-02-23T19:02:00.000-05:00

20070223

mark this day

2007-02-22T09:44:00.000-05:00

mark this day. today is the day i passed a milestone of ageing. i just set the font size on my laptop to "large" from "normal". my eyes can't take these tiny fonts. or maybe i need glasses? whatever. i was just discussing ageing with a friend, after looking at some old pictures that i had posted on another blog. we spoke about how we are noticeably larger as well. such is life.

2007-02-22T09:34:00.000-05:00

"Small tyrants, threatened by big,
sincerely believe
they love Liberty."

- W.H. Auden, City Without Walls

2007-02-18T17:25:00.001-05:00

20070218

2007-02-18T11:07:00.000-05:00

who's that clown?

2007-02-17T12:30:00.000-05:00

now that i have a wireless router in the house, i can use my laptop right upstairs at the kitchen table. i opened up this blog to show my latest picture to my son e.w., thinking that he would recognize immediately the fellow next to me. i said:

"look at this picture of daddy?"

"who's that? a clown?"

"yes honey, it's the clown from mc donalds..."

"you mean 'Mr. Eat'?"

(LOL) "'mr. eat'?!? that's ronald mc donald!"

you had to be ethere. it was funny.

anyway, later on i thought about it, figuring he probably doesn't know who he is because:
a) he doesn't go to mc donald's much
b) he doesn't watch enough TV to know the commercials
or c) he's bad with names (like his daddy).

it's probably all of the above, which is fine with me.

2007-02-17T09:52:00.000-05:00

20070216

2007-02-15T22:11:00.000-05:00

20070215

2007-02-14T23:59:00.000-05:00

20070214

2007-02-13T13:39:00.001-05:00

20070213

2007-02-12T20:15:00.001-05:00

20070212

2007-02-12T15:46:00.001-05:00

20070212

2007-02-10T21:01:00.001-05:00

A mistake

2007-02-10T15:49:00.001-05:00

20070210

learn more about milk every day

2007-02-09T22:02:00.000-05:00

DairyLine.com

The Museum of Anti-Alcohol Posters

2007-02-09T21:39:00.000-05:00

Антиалкогольные плакаты

2007-02-09T15:28:00.000-05:00

20070209

no beer?

2007-02-07T12:07:00.000-05:00

last night i went straight home from work to feed the dog. my wife and the kids were on their way to my in-laws for dinner; i was just stopping home on my way elsewhere- to have dinner with a colleague from work. while home i cleaned out my car because it was a mess. i tried to use the dustbuster, but it was not enough. i ended up filling a large bag. anyway, i picked him up at a car dealership in summit, where he was dropping his SUV off for service. i had planned on taking him back to this thai place near my house, on which i have always talked to him about. but since i knew that his son was sick and that he had to get back to manhattan sooner rather than later, i suggested we just eat in summit across from the train station. while getting out of the car he commented that the area by the station looked nicer than he envisioned it, with many restaurants and such nearby- and that if he ever moved to NJ he would seriously consider summit. we opted for "brix", which apparently he had heard of before. they have sushi! when we got in there, it took them a while to even notice us, and then even longer to take our order. my friend looked at the sushi menu and commented, "i'm probably going to just get a (sushi) roll and a beer". that sounded good to me. while we were waiting, he got up to take a phone call on his mobile, and i examined the menu. i quickly determined that there was not any beer on the menu. though there was a bar right behind us, apparently it only carried wine. when he returned, he looked disappointed at the beer news. the waitress (who finally arrived) told us that we could get some down the street at the liquor store. i said "no thanks" and ordered white wine. my friend said that he'd just have water. i didn't think of it then, but i should have just said "you know what, forget the wine, i'll walk down the street and pick up some beer". but i didn't. i wish i had. it would have just been a nice courtesy, since this was dinner on my "turf" and here i was taking him to a not-thai place that also happened to not have beer- which we both wanted. ah, but anyway, the sushi was pretty good, and the conversation was good too. by the time his train was ready to come, we were done and i walked with him over to the station. i looked at my phone and saw that i had a few missed calls. it turned out that my wife was on her way back at just about the same time, which was convenient. i got home right before she did, and i was in my "play clothes" (as e.w. calls them) by the time she pulled in. i put a.j. right to bed, and e.w. had a shower and watched a little nerdy history channel tv with me before i put him to bed. we read "cloudy, with a chance of meatballs".

2007-02-07T09:29:00.000-05:00

20070207

Outside the Reina Sofia

2007-01-22T14:29:00.000-05:00

Off to Madrid. Since I studied a bit or Art history while in college, when I learned that I would have a business meeting in Madrid, I immediately thought of the art museums there. When I made my travel plans, I tried to think ahead and figure out when and how I could visit the Prado. I looked at the website before I left, and noted that it looked like a short cab ride away form the hotel. When I arrived in Madrid on the morning of 22 Jan, I checked in, and then took a cab over to the museum. When i arrived, it was drizzling. The Prado is a huge place, and reminded me a bit of the Met in NYC. It was place was under renovation, with the main entrance blocked off by construction. It was also closed, because it was a Monday. great planning on my part. I met a lady selling useless maps, and she was nice enough to direct me to the Reina Sofia Museum, down the street. I bought a useless map. I walked to the Reina Sofia, which I liken to the MoMA. Inside I saw many interesting things. Very many Picasso paintings and etchings on one floor. Another floor was a featured exhibit, a labyrinth of dimly lit rooms with TV sets everywhere that ran loops of odd tv footage, and also a room-sized exhibit with deflated plastic cushions all over the floor (you had to take off yr shoes) and grease covering the walls & ceiling. When I left the museum I bought a post card at the gift shop, which I would later send to my niece in Denmark. After that I went outside, and took a picture of myself with an interesting building in the background... some big terminal. I would later learn that it is the Atocha train station, the location/origin of the 11Mar2004 train bombings.

2006-10-30T17:29:00.000-05:00

Phila

2006-10-30T15:16:00.000-05:00

Philly

tool of fate

2006-09-07T09:13:00.000-04:00

when i was at my parents house the other day, i was wandering around the basement with EW. he was exploring and playing with things, like a little car set my parents bought at a garage sale. i was looking through an old box of LPs and tapes, which i'm sure i've gone through 20 times before, looking for hidden gems. i found a neat old LP box set called "introduction to the classical composers" or something like that- i remember it was quite good because it interspersed stories of composers lives with samples of their music. anyway, i also found a weird old cassette tape that i swear i've never seen before. maybe my dad picked it up at a garage sale recently, and deposited it in this box. but also, maybe it was always there and i just never noticed it? it was a "double album" cassette tape of fatts waller's piano solos. it was released in 1977, with a cover all made of cardboard, worn and faded. i put it in my pocket. this morning, i grabbed it off my dresser on the way out the door, and put it in my car's tape player as i headed off to work. it sounded like a recording directly off of an LP, as opposed to master tapes. it was scratchy. the songs were good. lively. i could picture this guy at the piano, playing at a bar, with people drinking and grooving along. song after song, it started to sound the same a bit... like every song was meant to convey the same bluesy thought... which is ok by me. i was enjoying the novelty of each song and the thematic monotony all at once. as i pulled into the parking lot of my office, the music stopped, as the tape broke. maybe i was supposed to be annoyed, but instead this feeling of finality came over me. calm. acceptance. somehow i felt like i was meant to find this tape, liberate it from my parent's basement, take it for a joy ride and let its tunes ring one last time, and then allow it to die right there in the tape deck. today i am a tool of fate.

2006-07-27T16:01:00.000-04:00

big ben

2006-07-27T15:54:00.000-04:00

interesting arch near bridge street

2006-07-27T15:47:00.000-04:00

St James's Park Lake, looking east from the bridge, with the London Eye in the distance.

2006-07-27T15:37:00.000-04:00

standing on the bridge over the lake at St. James park in London

2006-07-26T16:03:00.000-04:00

battle of britain war memorial

nice hotel lobby in london

2006-07-26T14:11:00.000-04:00

cold beer, cold coffee

2006-05-31T22:18:00.000-04:00

i had a nice little back-yard deck party for the first time since moving into our house 2 1/2 years ago (not counting kid parties and informal drink/grill sessions). syatyed up late strumming and singing on the deck. both kids were with the in-laws. managed to get up "on time", and fought off a sligth hangover to clean up. i was amazed to dicover that i had all this leftover beer in the ice bucket! i crammed it all in the fridge. like the loaves and the fishes, or water into wine - the beer was still cold! a miracle. too bad i'm to busy with work-y stuff to drink every night this week and watch the NBA playoffs and/or baseball. in stead i'm drinking microwaved coffee from this morning and workign on meeting minutes!

dead wood

2006-04-20T23:42:00.000-04:00

right now, my department at work is like this: in the forest, among the remnants of a fallen tree, lifting up a damp log and observing the various, scurrying, startled, light-sensitive bugs and worms- writhing, crawling, digging themselves into the leaves and out of sight.

ah, memories

2006-04-20T23:41:00.000-04:00

after we kayaked skunked coors light on your neighbpors picnic table, only later to puke them into your downstairs toilet, i lay all night, in agony, dreaming of taking the remaining beers - piling them onto your coffee table, and blasting them to pieces with a shotgun... later you and chris went and tried to fish the remaining, discarded, already-skunked beers out of the storm drain in the back yard."

bless this cup but not the bottle

2006-01-16T19:20:00.000-05:00

i'll start with the cliche: it has been quite a while since i've blogged. the past 3 months have been interesting. the kids are wonderful, and a handful. they have both been sick on and of (more on than off) for the whole fall/winter. still, they are great- the baby is big, cute, happy, and healthy (all things considered). e.w. is now 90% potty trained, which happened since about thanksgiving. the home renovations are a distant memory and we're just trying to get things in order in the house - now that we have some more space we're trying to figure out what goes where. the basement is still a mess. we did make room for a wonderful present for e.w. - a drum set! he loves it, he rocks out. (for a 3 year old, he rocks). lastly, work slowed down and my project dragged and dragged. at the end of november i got a call from a former colleague, and ended up interviewing for a new job. i accepted the offer in december, and now it's january and here i am - starting a new job tomorrow. it's more money, for a more challenging job at a company that is, by every indication, a small, nimble, fast-growing startup. here goes nothing! oh, and my wife in kids just left for florida today, for a whole week i will be home alone. time and space to get stuff done around the house (i have a list of chores), and also time and quiet to get ready for my new job. i'll be doing a lot of reading about autoimmune diseases. maybe i'll even get some time to make some rock demo's, scan stuff on my new scanner, and do other stuff that i never get around to. we'll see.

lobsters and rain

2005-10-25T22:33:00.000-04:00

i put e.w. down to sleep tonight a little early, because he has school tomorrow. we ususally get him to bed too late. lately he's been getting 3 or 4 mini-marshmallows as a reward for using the potty after dinner. but anyway, so he was a little bit wired and being a little kid who didn't want to go to sleep (but knew he had to). so as i am tucking him in, he goes on a litle monologue, trying to hold my attention and keep me from shutting off the light and leaving. it worked, long enough for me to hear the following: "daddy? can we go to costco tommorrow and see the cangrejitos? (his spanish word for lobster/crab) ...we can eat them, but not the shells, daddy... we can see then, and they'll crawl on me, and on my head, and go 'ticky ticky ticky' (sound effect for clickling of claws) and give me a haircut, daddy..." i went back over to him as he went on and on, kissed him on the head, said "i love you honey, sweet dreams", and backed away and gently closed the door.

on a separate note, today at work there was a bomb scare and we all had to stand outside in the cold rain for like an hour. it bore a strange resemblance to the late-night college dorm fire alarms designed merely to piss everyone off, standing in your bath robe in the snow.

coffee talk

2005-10-19T22:12:00.000-04:00

so every night before i go to bed i clean the coffee pot and i set the coffee for the next morning. it starts brewing coffee at 6:00 AM. i used to get up (sometimes) before the pot even started, but now that the baby sleep throught the night most nights i usually wake up and pick up the baby and then go and find the coffee all ready to go. then i got and sit down on the couch and turn on the TV to morning news or barney the dinosaur (a.j. likes both), and i play with him and make faces and he grabs my nose, and i sip coffee and come to life. later on, after i've handed off the baby to my wife and have showered, e.w. wakes up and i go and and talk to him in bed. he's usually so bottled up from sitting in bed awake for who-knows-how-long, he's always just bubbling over with whatever's on his mind. at this point i am usually again holding the baby and/or my coffee. while i get dressed for work, i have both the kids on the bed and i am still drinking a second cup of coffee, and they are watching sesame street. when i leave to go get in my car and drive to the office i am sometimes still holding my coffee.

when i leave work some days i go right to my in-laws house. my wife is either already there with the kids, or on her way. my mother in law is usually cooking something good (or also ordering it on the phone), and there is susally a bottle of wine open and breathing. so today was one of those days, and i have a few glasses of wine while holding e.w., and he is munching on a peice of a bagel and being generally messy but cute. we had dinner and then we left. wine makes me tired so i was a little groggy.

so when i got home my wife took the baby and i took e.w., attempting to divide and conquer at bed-time. i took e.w. with me into my bedroom, so i could change out of my work clothes and into jeans and a t-shirt. i saw i had left my coffee on my dresser, and i picked it up and drank what was left to help mitigate my wine grogginess. i brought it, and e.w., with me to the other side of the house for a minute before we went off to get him to bed. we were looking for his stuffed animal ghost "spooky", to whom we would read his new haloween books, for bedtime stories. we stopped in the kitchen to put down the coffee cup, and i saw there was still some coffee in the pot. cold coffee, but i needed it, so i poured a little and drank it. e.w., watching me, said "don't go to work daddy". i was about to ask him what in the world he was talking about, when the kid-logic decoding machine in my head kicked in - and i simply explained to him that i was just having a little sip of coffee, i was nto getting ready for work, and that we would be reading his new books just as soon as we could find spooky. and that we did.

the cursed blue pants

2005-10-05T10:35:00.000-04:00

i'll admit it, i was born with no fashion sense, and i will stumble through life not knowing if i look good or if i look stupid until someone tells me so. maybe some day i'll be so rich i'll just hire someone to wipe out my closet and buy me a new wardrobe- but even then, my innate inelegance would find a way to shine through. so anyway... i'm standing in my closet this morning and i see that i'm all out of khaki pants (maybe there are some in the laundry room but i don't feel like going downstairs). so i grab my blue pants. my blue pants embody my ongoing struggle with dressing: i never know what to wear with them. every shirt i own looks silly with them- or so i think. but i don't care today, so i pick a shirt- tan with a little blue in it- and that's it. whatever. as i'm diving to work and idling in construction traffic i think to myself: at least my boss (who sits in the cube next to me) is no more well-dressed than i am, so i don't stand out. we have a few things in common. we're both tall, lanky guys. we both have smiliar dressing habits: creatures of habit that cycle through a limited number of unimpressive business casual outfits- adequate, but a little akward now and then. so when i get into work, i am walking around the corner and i see my boss from across the room and i crack a smile. lo and behold he is wearing his own odd blue-pants outfit today (with a yellow shirt, in his case). we're on the same wavelength, he and i. so i feel better.

ahhhh

2005-08-20T10:24:00.000-04:00

ahhh the summer has been crazy and i have not posted much. i may do some retrospective posts based on emails and such. but for today i'll do the here and now: i am playing in the basement with e.w., who isintereste din the piano/keyboard and guitars. i came into the basement to print directions to the car dealership where we will be meeting my wife later. e.w. came down to see what i was doing and we started playing. just now he rediscovered his old tpy piano and is having fun with the light-up keys. we're listening to tha baby monitor for a.j., but he is sitll sleeping. he didn't really nap at all yesterday- so i'm not suprised. that's all for now.

throat culture

2005-07-21T23:56:00.000-04:00

i woke up this morning not feeling very well. my condition had worsened over night. now i was cranky. it hurt to swallow; but again it was still more annoying than painful. it just made me annoyed, and a little worried that i was going to come down with my annual sinus/throat infection. i got up and started the coffee machine early. i ate a bowl of cereal, which made my throat hurt when i swallowed. same with the coffee. I asked my wife to make an appointment for me with the doctor, preferably late in the afternoon. on the way to work i listened to NPR, then I played some music and inevitably sang along. it made my throat hurt. so did my coffee, even though it was now cold. i was late so i had to park all the way at the end of the parking lot. work was ok; i was antsy over deadlines, house renovations, and my throat. my wife called and told me i had an appointment at 2:30. i told my boss i'd leave early and he shrugged "ok". i worked more, ate lunch, worked more, and got ready to leave for the hospital/medical center. i printed a google map just in case. it printed on a sheet of label stickers because someone left it in the printer. i f-ing hate that. long walk to the car in the heat. i got there fine, but parked in the wrong deck; so i had to walk a little further. i got to the office, signed some things, waited, tried not to touch anything. the nurse called me in, asked me questions, and gave me a throat culture. the doc came in, asked me more questions, listened to my lungs looked in my ears and nose, but didn't feel my neck (i wanted him to, it was swollen). no matter; he didn't need any convincing. he prescribed zithromax, a decongestant, and prevacid. prevacid? he said lowering my acidity could relieve symptoms and promote healing in my throat. some TAP pharmaceuticals sales rep is doing his job. it was only a sample, but still- that's creative. (i remember the last time i took this decongestant, it is a total stimulant. that's why i'm awake so late tonight.) anyway, when i got home it was about 2 hours earlier than a usual work day. my wife was watering our sadly parched front yard, or at least spot-treating the most withered flowers. i went around back and briefly observed men working on the deck. i went inside and played with the kids. i picked up the baby and put him on the couch in the toy room, picked up the guitar, and sat down to play a song for him. e.w. came over and sat down too, ready to be serenaded. (i was flattered; i'm a sucker for praise- sometimes e.w. seems indifferent and i feel bad.) i played a few songs and they both seemed entertained. it felt good to sing, even though my throat hurt. dinner. kid's bed time routine. dishes. coffee machine. a little ice cream. blogging. shut off sprinkler. bed.

shylock to sleep

2005-07-20T23:36:00.000-04:00

tonight i had the kids all to myself. my wife went to a friend's house whose grandfather died recently, for the last evening of sitting shiv'ah. we had already gone together once; so i sat this one out and let her go early while i put the kids to bed. i played with the together for a while, but a.j. started getting cranky. i put on a dvd for e.w. (alladin). i changed a.j., fed him his bottle, and put him down. then i came back out into the living room and watched a little of the dvd with e.w., until it felt like he'd seen enough. then we went to take him to the shower (the bath is out of commission for renovations). after that i got him dressed, we read a book (mrs. wishy-washy's farm), and then he was finally in bed as well.

i called my wife to check in with her; she was done with her visiting, and was now running errands. i did some dishes, set the coffee, etc- my usual evening chores. i didn't feel so well. my eustachian tube, throat, and ears were all sore the past few days. it didn't seem to be a passing thing. it was more annoying than painful; and i have a business conference early next week so i was dreading the idea of catching some kind of full blown sickness. so anyway, i decided to take it easy and lay down. i ate an apple, and looked at a book. for some reason i had fished out shakespeare's "the merchant of venice" a few nights ago and read the introduction; so now i figured i'd read myself to sleep by starting the play. it worked. i woke up after dozing off and realized the light was on and the book was flat on my chest, still on act one. so i turned out the light and went to bed. i remember my wife coming in later on, but only vaguely.

"what could be greener?"

2005-07-11T22:57:00.000-04:00

you know spring is over
when you go outside
and think to yourself
"what could be greener?"

song titles

2005-07-11T22:54:00.000-04:00

"have a seat in the catapult"
"the perpetual postponement of the pragmatists' picnic"
"you know what's best for me"
"the tyranny of white space"

"in the android nursery"
"i'm going to sleep at sunset"
"i pray to scary jesus"
"death ray wedding"

"bathing in the hated springs of middle school paranoia"
"the devil fails the tickle test
"(he's) a man made of theories"
"painting with a cleft palette"

"preaching from the hip" or "preach first and ask forgiveness later"
"sunlight smacks the breeze"
"drinking in the river"
"(we are) brothers of the angle"

band names

2005-07-11T22:49:00.000-04:00

DC punk band name: "the known unknowns"

band name: "the unlike colors"
debut album: "wash with unlike colors

song title / lyrics

2005-07-11T22:37:00.000-04:00

"when the champagne of night comes on (i'll be gone, gone, gone)"

when the tutor paces by the sleepy ol' clock tower
when the whispering stream is stripped of all its melodies
when the cluttered attic rustling collides into a song

when the champagne of night comes on i'll be gone

when the champagne of night comes on
i'll be gone, gone, gone

when an open window pours steam into the vagrant air
when the switchman peeks to see a wound that isn't there
when a shapeless figure curls to breach the sorrow in the calm

when the champagne of night comes on i'll be gone

when the champagne of night comes on
i'll be gone, gone, gone

i've seen your face before, yet haven't found the way
to articulate the things words can't convey
and though the evening shadows may convince me that it's wrong

when the champagne of night comes on i'll be gone

when the champagne of night comes on
i'll be gone, gone, gone