Predicting the Future

What will 2008 bring? More of the same? Better? Worse? Change is likely. Change is good.

Kelly conjures the Future

The Muted Holiday Sting

It seems that with each year, I need to be increasingly stoic about my pain. This year was exceptional for several reasons. The easy ones are the objective physical pains. "Your patella is fractured, it's becoming arthritic, deal with it". OK, it still f*cking hurts! Suck it up. Then there is the upcoming decade anniversary of Chris' death - something that I still can't process. Good thing my cadre of coping skills are exceptionally well developed. "Look how much better off you are than that". That's lame. Blue has suggested that I should expect (and plan for) excellence. Right on! I just need to motor though life's crud until we find the corduroy.

Good Times at the Pig Pen (ca. 1977)

Too Much Snow for Poker

With over two feet on the ground before "Winter", this is one of the snowiest starts in some time. A noticeable contrast to last year's warmth. In any event, there is no way I'll make it out to Brian's poker game. Drats. How will I pay for fuel?

Snow on Mine Hill

Neil Jung

In the 70s it was "After the Gold Rush" and "Harvest". In the 80s I lost track. And throughout the 90s I was big Teenage Fanclub fan. Clearly, Neil Young was an influence, as well as a track on 1995's Grand Prix. So when Dan made my miracle with four tickets to Neil's Boston show last Sunday; it seemed inevitable that I stir up Lisa and Casto. The show was great. My faves were the start and end of the electric set, "The Loner" and "No Hidden Path".

Briggs, Ian, and Casto (1978)

Adjust your Monitors

I had about 3000 slides scanned; now I have to roll them out with witty titles.

Woody adjusting Y/C delay (ca. 1979, Studio A Control Room, Bearsville)

Biscoween

Jeff called and before you could say "Boo", it was Halloween with The Disco Biscuits. This was a needed school night journey. They took the Orpheum with a "rock opera" not quite like Tommy.

Not the Disco Biscuits - DMB+Trey @ `Roo 2004

Above Average

Treked to Woodstock for the Johnny Average Tribute. It was great to see friends and be reminded of Woodstock in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Missing Mick.

Breakfast Chat

Awful Audio from my camera, but captures some vibe

Casto's Pals

More Dogs of Fall

We get deeper into October. The Red Sox are still in the ALCS. Peak color has reached the hilltop. And the dogs must go out on patrol.

Liona on Patrol

Pages Turn

My nostalgia for the circus of Phish festivals was revived this week as I heard the lyrics "If life we easy and not so fast, I wouldn't think about the past." As it turned out there was a circus in town the night Susan, Brooke, Matt and I went out to see Doug Stanhope - regrettably not Phish... Ringling Bros. Doug's humor is honest and insightful. It certainly does the job of momentarily disengaging yourself from your own, possibly stagnant, perspective. Great stuff. Right to the top of the list of people you might want to party with. Like P.J. O'Rourke twenty years ago.

Greg does his thing at MVPT (2007)

The Explorer Canoe Trips

For two consecutive Augusts starting in 1974, Explorer Post #63 would set out on a "Canoe Trip". In `74 there where 13 explorers; the next year just 9. Did it go commercial? Nahh, it was just a roll of the dice. I captured some shaky Super-8 that stayed in heavy-rotation among Pig Pen favorites. Catch the (silent) vibe here:

A non time-compressed version of the above is available on Blip.TV Here. It will take a minute or two for the download, or you can click below...

Click To Play

Dogs of Fall

The leaves cling to the trees, the ones that weren't dried off as the result of a harsh, punishing summer. Susan is on pet patrol for the greater good. I'm comfortable, at least for the moment, as the sox work their way through the first ALCS game.

Linus (spring 2007)

Zoe

Zoe brought together friends and family for her Bat Mitzvah, which coincidentally, fell on the third day of Sukkot. I had the honor of opening and closing the Ark. This was a joyous and memorable day!

Schmozing with Ted and Jamie

Whine Fest

Regrettably I'll miss Lori's always-excellent SML shindig this year. The event has morphed into more of a party and less of a reunion. New gossip emerges each year and I doubt WhineFest will be an exception.

Onteora Montage (1973)

Bachelor Mode 07

I'm in "bachelor mode" as Susan and Eileen head off to the wilderness of Baxter State Park. What will I do? For starters I'll try to hack my iPod touch. It arrived yestereday and I enjoyed borrowing UNH's wireless while chatting with Duane and Tina at Cotton. Is it a media player? Maybe - Although I've sorted my music by color for CoverFlow, I haven't plugged my headphones in yet. But it is an insanely thin and sexy Safari web browser. Time will tell what I can do with the thing.

Hint of Fall

The exceptionally dry August, in part because most every summer t-storm "missed", has triggered an early hint of fall. It isn't that the leaves have changed; it's that some of them have just fallen dead off the trees.

Happy Dogs I

Happy Dogs II

Happy Frog

Summer of Tragedy

In my life, I haven't processed as much tragedy as I have this summer. There are no words, magic or otherwise, that I can muster to help make it better. Only time.

Hilary at the Dubes Pond Classic (2004)

Knee Bored

Today marks the eleven-week aniversary of when I dinged my knee rounding four-ball at Dubes. This is a long recovery; and it's a drag. The last seven weeks have offered only a slow improvement. But soon the snow will fly.

Welcome Wagon at KTEX

Amsterblog

The three days at FPL went by in an instant. There is very little information content in saying “Amsterdam is a fun city”. But by circumstance, I eschewed the hackneyed red lights and red eyes for some deep dialog on reconfigurable computing. Dinner on Sunday night was at a fine Indian restaurant adjacent to a sex shop. Dinner Monday night was at a French affair called “Luden”. Finally the grand conference dinner at Jamie Oliver’s, “Fifteen”. Compared to Madrid, it was pretty tame. But maybe it just was that we were collectively missing Kati and Lesley. Sat with Seda on the plane from AMS to BOS; she was on the second leg of a slightly longer journey.

The Conference Hotel

Along the Canals

Mondo Bloggo

So long since posting: I brought "Steve French" home from the dealership. I can't think of a better name. Royce and Craig came to visit. Susan and I saw "Zappa Plays Zappa" in Boston, which was fantastic. The best live performance I've seen since, um, the two days at Tweezer Center just before Coventry. Then there was `vibes 07. My funked up bipartite patella and the still-unresolved mystery of why it so slow to heal. Then HotChips. And here we are. Whew! It sure seemed like more. I guess there is the jobby thing mixed in there too.

Preparing for HotChips (Menlo Park, CA)

Jeff is Happy (Vibes07, Bridgeport, CT)

My Bipartite Patella?

I like math. And graphs. So the word bipartite tends to fire more feel-good neuro-chemical transactions than bad. Until today. A trained professional looked at images of my knee taken just after my trauma. Tweaky-Tweaky with the gain and offset (er, window and level) and there exists this very uncool segmentation between the otherwise homogeneous density. MRI to follow soon.