pete and i will make an all-too-brief return to the east coast this weekend. pete just called the cat sitter and i rented a car! woo-hoo!
we will be leaving on thursday evening around 5pm. we should get there very early in the morning on friday. we’ll be returning sometime early on monday morning. and we will be attending mark‘s 4th of july party on saturday. anyone else have any plans for us? anybody got some floor space?
apparently if you’re lucky enought to see Q-Burns between now and election day. he’ll be sporting a shirt that simply says vote in an effort to get people thinking about getting themselves to the polls. pretty cool. he puts on a killer show. go see him if you can.
it’s nice to see that things are getting better for the people of iraq – especially the women. apparently now women can now leave their regular jobs and by only working a few hours a day, support their entire family. i sure am glad that we’ve gone over there to liberate these folks and give them a lesson in democracy.
so we finally found the cable that facilitates dumping all the photos from the camera into iphoto yesterday – thank god! i haven’t been able to find it for like 3 months. anyway, here are some photos that would have been posted long ago had the cable been more readily available…
here’s a photo of my new tattoo, taken the evening that i got it.
a photo from the last evening of mark’s visit where we played risk and ploughed through the last of the beer
and 2 photos from new year’s. i miss these guys ;_;
john and mark looking both intoxicated and suspicious
amy and tim demonstrate just what a bunch of geeks we are.
I love this. Nick Wooster, an 11 year old from BC, won the national coin design contest. what a totally great design.
the first class is over, 2 to go. no one threw rocks, most of my 10 students smiled and thanked me as they left so it couldn’t have gone too badly i suppose, or all of them majored in drama as undergraduates…
next up is wednesday!
tommorow i teach the first of 3 classes for the first section of L401, the introductory skills-based class for the program. I’ve taught before, and TAed a introduction to women’s studies class, but i felt so comfortable with that area of study that i could have taught the one class that was assigned to me and graded the papers in my sleep. with this, while i know the material, i’m a little more nervous. perhaps because the material has been written for me and i don’t know who the students will be, what there skill level will be, or if they’re familiar with macs (which we’ll be working on exclusively). i suppose we’ll find out tomorrow.
as i posted on the wrangle i thought that i’d blog the vacation idea here to get peoples thoughts as well.
in chatting with various wranglers, and as a result of mark’s recent visit it has come to light that a wrangler vacation might be in order. perhaps something relatively cheap, but someplace interesting that we all have to travel to get to. if we plan now for next summer, we can probably plan around it and make the necessary arrangements together, and more cheaply.
a camping trip might be nice and relatively cheap. some people might even have spare camping equipment like extra packs or tents, etc. to go around for those who don’t have them and aren’t interesting in buying them. someplace where those who wanted could lounge about outside and read or go hiking or swimming, etc. mark and pete both mentioned the grand tetons or rocky mountain. if necessary we could all plan to meet up @ the airport and split the cost of a rental van or suv or whatever to get to the park. because it would be so cheap to camp, we might be able to stay for a week or so, if everyone could dig the time out of their schedule.
another idea is to “test drive” Vancouver BC and large it there for a few days and see if its livable. even if it’s not i’m sure it’s a fun bloody time. hell, i may even eat the seafood there. this vacation would probably have to be shorter, perhaps 3 or 4 days. but we could all arrange to stay in the same bb or hotel and run around for a few days. i’m sure there are great bars in vancouver.
anyway, it’s just a thought, but might be a creative way for all of us to get together and spend more than an evening with each other. frankly i’d like to hang out for a few weeks, but like that’s going to happen unless we all move to the same city :).
thoughts? other location ideas? would this even be viable and interesting?
so after surviving the vast live-show wasteland that is southern indiana we’ve happily scored 2 shows in as many days.
sunday night brought us pit er pat, beans, and tortoise. It ruled. dancing to an actual live band was nice. pete has an adequate review, and makes mention of seeing my advisor, professor, ACM chapter sponsor and her fiance there, which was very very cool.
last night we went to the bluebird, a very cool bar, to see antibalas. we saw them late last summer when pete opened up for them at ottobar and they played a killer show, so i was really excited to see them again.
iswhat?! from Cincinnati opened up. they’re a trio consisting of a saxophonist, a stand-up bass player and a very nice dude who mcs and beatboxes. they’re pretty incredible to watch, especially as the beatboxing gets really intense – the guy makes hand gestures as if he were playing the instruments that he’s imitating. they play a remarkably tight set and they have a kind of 60s beat generation quasi-performance-art-without-the-pretention feel to it. very nice. except for the crowd, which i felt was unappreciative and annoying for the most part. especially these 2 chicks sitting about 20 feet from the stage who kept talking/screaming so loudly that i could hear them over the band repeatedly during the course of their set. it’s one thing talk during a set, actually perfectly acceptable to do so at the back of the bar, but pretty disrespectful in my opinion right in front of the stage.
a lot of people showed up as the time came for antibalas to go on stage, which was cool. it’s always so funny to see them file onto stage because there’s just so damn many of them (last night 11), so the stage is just rammed with NYC hipsters, instruments, and various pieces of gear. mike nimzo apparently now plays sax for antibalas! there was a guy there who looked just like him – aviator sunglasses and all!!! and for the first 20 minutes of the set really freaked me out! (and make me miss the dude! ;_; come visit! ) poor pete was feeling a bit under the weather, but i was starting to enjoy myself. the set was tight as usual, fun and political. they brought with them a cute chick who ran around with get out the vote-esque stickers, and had literature on the breakdown of the national budget, and voter registration forms.
just before they started in on one of my favorite songs, i saw the the trumpet player, down in the crowd chatting with the annoying chick who was screaming while iswhat?! was playing. i thought it was odd, but kind of forgot about it as they got into the song. very soon thereafter i looked up on stage and saw annoying chick and 3 other attractive young women being led on stage by the trumpet player. this made me stop in my tracks. so was the band, 11 men, watching the women in the crowd to decide who they wanted to dance on stage? does the revolution require solid gold dancers? in the once banned-by-the-fcc words of sarah jones, “you want to subjugate your queen”? i couldn’t believe it.
shortly thereafter we left. i like antibalas’ music. there’s not enough afrobeat. however i think a band who advocates revolutionary thinking and progressive ideas, and has no women actually playing in the band, then selects women to invite on stage to dance, is an issue. it would be one thing to open the stage up for people in the crowd to come dance as they chose, but do you need to display your fans as what, potential prizes for progressive thought? what does that say about women’s place in said revolution? are we just backup? are we just supposed to be up there “supporting our men”?
on the upside, as a result of leaving the dance floor to have a chat and get a restorative beverage, we caught iswhat?! on their way out and managed to grab a cd. i don’t know how much it was supposed to cost but i handed him a $20 and he tried to give us another cd, because he didn’t have change. we had a funny exchange with him after that telling him not to worry about it – and did he mind if we just burned a copy of the cd for friends instead? he was like, but i can just give you another copy here and we were like – but you can sell that one to someone else! he was like oh yeah! and he laughed, his lady friend thanked us and they went on their way. then we had pizza at rockets, which i’m convinced has the best pie in town.
altogether a weird, but not overall bad experience. definately disappointing though.
if you’re inclined to get a an animal companion, i’ve made it easy for you – just scroll to the bottom of the page!
m00se 
