Sunday, July 30, 2006

Wide-Open Day

How are Jeannie and I going to spend our Sunday? We've been oscillating between getting outside to do something adventurous or just staying at home and getting more unpacked in the apartment. Tonight, though, I am planning on BBQ-ing.


I wrote the above paragraph yesterday morning, Sunday, at around 10 in the morning. Then I couldn't think of anything else to write so I just saved it. Tonight, Monday evening, I can tell you exactly how events unfolded yesterday:

Jeannie skipped her yoga class, and she and I worked all day yesterday getting the apartment into shape, with good results. Our living room now looks like this:



Which is fine by us.

One thing I like about our new apartment is that the stereo sounds really good and I can listen to it with no guilt because there's no one living beneath our living room. Right now I'm jamming to some Curtis Mayfield.

We caught a mouse yesterday morning. Unfortunately, he chose the mean trap rather than the happy trap. Sorry, Mr. Mouse.

Jeannie might be quitting her architecture job today. I'll have to find out how it went when she gets home.

Last night after we finished working, we walked down to Rocky Run for some drinks, and I drank a very large stout that tasted exactly like a very large glass of cold coffee, but better. Anyway, it was a nice little date. All in all a very good day.

Friday, July 28, 2006

Long and Boring.

Long and boring is how the last few days have been. At work anyway. At home, Jeannie and I have been taking walks in the late evenings after I get home, enjoying the new apartment and the new neighborhood. At some point we should have people over for beers, conversation, and maybe games.

Been thinking lately about maybe eventually working on some more music. Not sure what it should sound like. The two songs that lately I have been wishing I had written and recorded:

1. Maps, by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.
2. Another Day on Earth, by Brian Eno.

I don't know what it would sound like if those two songs had a baby, but that's probably what I would want my new songs to sound like.

Also been missing my weekly lunches with the Beej. I hope that his summer is continuing nicely in the Missouri.

Wednesday, July 26, 2006

CSC

Spent the day in at CSC packing stuff up and throwing things away, getting ready for a junk sale on Saturday that will be taking place before CSC moves to a new space in August.

I spent a lot of the day thinking about CSC, about how just when I can be all ready to quit doing theatre stuff once and for all I go in and have a good, fun day like today and it ropes me in for another season. As I was thinking, I came to the conclusions that it's really just the large-group activites that I don't like. I tend to like the smaller shows, the smaller group meetings that are less planned and more intimate. And I like puttering around by myself and moving stuff around. So now that things are settling down again at work and at the new apartment, I feel a bit more comfortable about working on the shows this year. I guess it's all a matter of balancing work and home and CSC and free time.

Also, Ian told me that he read the blog the other day, so this evening I reread through a lot of old blog posts to see if I'd said anything bad in the past...surprisingly the only negative stuff I found were some un-stellar reviews of past shows. But nothing that I think was unaccurate or mean, so I didn't have to erase them from the blog or anything, ha ha.


Today I found on Rich's secret blog a link to the Steinmetz Family Rhymin'. Holy Jeez, it's good. Holy Jeez.

Tonight Jeannie and I have some un-planned hang-out time. What shall we do? I'm predicting that no matter what we do, some ice-cream eating will take place. Probably from cones.

At the moment I'm kinda sticky-sweaty from working at CSC and I need a shit and a shower. For the last few days I've been picturing myself doing some recording, which means that in a few weeks I might break out all the equipment and see what happens.

I make the stinky gas!

Tuesday, July 25, 2006

Patrick Kayak Pork

The last few days have been b oth eventful and uneventful. The fun started on Saturday night when Patrick C. left his keys at the B&N and was forced to spend the night at our place. Stupid Patrick! So we popped some corn and watched a bad SNL.

Then on Sunday (after taking P-rick to retrieve his keys) Jeannie and I wanted to get outside on our day off, so we decided to go to Gunpowder Falls State Park and rent a kayak. So we headed out (it's only about 20 minutes away, which is nice) and rented a kayak for a little while and paddled around. Then watched people learning how to windsurf on a day with very little wind.

Then a brief trip to Target and the grocery store where we bought some fixin's for a nice dinner, then brought them home, stuck our camping grill out on the roof and had us a nice little barbeque.

Yesterday was all about going to work. The crazies kinda drove me nuts last night.

Today is also all about going to work. ANd then tomorrow I'm going down to CSC to help get ready for the office-move.

Saturday, July 22, 2006

Rocks.

The Jeanners and I went to Rocks State Park yesterday on our day off, it's one of our favorite summertime swimmin' spots. The water was pretty low, and it's a pretty, um, rocky place, so we didn't stay too long, but it was a good time.



This morning we walked to the farmers market to pick up some tasty vegetables. On the way home got a call from my good buddy Chris Bosco, who I have not talked to in a damned long time. Reminded me that I still need to send out an e-mail with our new address and phone number....

Off to work.

Friday, July 21, 2006

Surprise

I have been really enjoying Paul Simon's latest cd, Surprise, which was half-produced by Brian Eno. It's a very interesting combination.

Also, saw Pink on Letterman tonight, and was expecting to not like her. But I ended up liking the song.

Tomorrow I'm playing with me wife all day.

Thursday, July 20, 2006

Certi-mofo-fiable!

The music department passed the big ISO certification yesterday, which means I can stop stressing out over all the bullshit now. Woo-Hoo!

Not too much else has been going on, except for me stressing out. The apartment is starting to come together, the books are up on the bookshelves, and now we just need to figure out how to work Jeannie's painting area, and how much of my recording junk we want to set up. I'm kind of leaning towards just setting up the recording stuff for the couple-day periods that I seem to record in and then taking it all down and storing it when I'm not using it. We'll see. That might be a big pain in the johnson.

I was very happy to hear that Henry's surgery went well, and also glad to hear that Jen Schlueter's play went very well and that she got some offers to stage it from a few different theatre festivals. Nice work, Schluets!

We finally have the stereo set up in our living room and it sounds really good. I'm glad there's no one living below us because now I can listen to music guilt-free. Also, we get PBS in our new place! Now I can watch all the British mystery shows that the centenarians who come into the B&N are always looking for. By the way, Jen Schlueter, centenarian means someone who is 100 years old. And I'm glad I looked it up in the dictionary because it turns out that I was originally spelling it way wrong and you would have publicly shamed me for it, I'm sure.

Can anyone out there tell me how to get Jeannie to stop hitting me?

Wednesday, July 19, 2006

French Onions

Tonight when I got home from inventory I couldn't find a place to park on our street, so I parked on Calvert and walked a block to the house. Here's some things I encountered on the way:

1. A bumper sticker that said, "My cat didn't make the honor roll."
2. A strange french onion dip smell. I think it was just garbage.

Inventory went fine, I got home around 2:30 and found an e-mail from my old grade-school buddy Mike Zahra, who I keep in very very loose contact with. He just moved to Miami, where he is in his like 30th year of training to be a doctor. He was the drummer in my first band, the Sons of Cain, which consisted of myself, him, and Doug Krey on bass. We weren't very good, but it was fun. And his parents were kind enough to let us use their basement.

Off to bed.

Tuesday, July 18, 2006

ISO!

Hmmm. Got an inventory at work tonight and ISO certification tomorrow. Which I know means nothing to most people out there, but to me it means stress and stomach-knots. Yuck.

I'll be glad when tomorrow's over.

The apartment is starting to shape up. We had a little bit of a shelf-building fiasco, but when all the dust settled we were left with two lovely IKEA-bought bookshelves.

Friday Jeannie and I get to play together. Maybe swimming?

Saturday, July 15, 2006

High Fidelity

Last night as I was sitting in front of the computer, writing, I was trying to remember what it was I wanted to write about. Today at work I finally remembered what it was: on Wednesday night I went over to Pat and BJ's to play some geek cards, and Pat was a little bit late getting home, so BJ and I watched the movie HIGH FIDELITY while we waited for Pat to get home. I had seen that movie before, a couple of times, and I like it. As I watched it again, I was more aware of the parts that I didn't like, but I was also very aware that the movie helps me put my job in perspective, helps me not care too much about it, and helps me remember that maybe I'm not going to work at B&N for the rest of my life. So I need to get a copy of that movie so I can watch it when things get rough.

Today I did a bunch of laundry at the laundromat a couple blocks down the street. Tomorrow I'm gonna do more.

Today and tonight Jen Schlueter's play is being performed in Columbus. I hope everything goes well, and I hope the music works. I expect a full report of how it all goes down...

Friday, July 14, 2006

Pink Eye.

Not a bad day at work today. Got a lot done, and it wasn't super busy. I'm getting settled back into the routine of things.

Unfortunately, the apartment still isn't very settled. Jeannie and I haven't had a chance to do any major unpacking yet. So the plan is to do some work on Sunday, when we both have the day off. We also want to do something fun, maybe swimming in the rapids at Rocks State Park.

Jeannie thinks she has pink eye. I hope I don't get it.

Hmm. That's it for now. Tonight's BJ's last night in Baltimore for the summer. He and I went to Pete's Grille for breakfast this morning, but it was closed.

Tuesday, July 11, 2006

Out and About

We're back from California, the land of zero humidity.

What a wonderful trip it was. We got to meet some really cool new people, and reconnect with friends we haven't seen in awhile. It was especially good to see Dr. Witz, who has been reprimanded for not updating his blog.

Since it's been pretty much universally agreed that pictures can be sold for nearly 1000 times the value of words, here is a painfully brief recap of what happened on the trip:

The Jeanners and I arrive in California. We drive north from San Jose and set out on Highway 1, which is painfully too curvy. We abandon Highway 1 for the more boring but less motion-sickness-causing highway 101.



These are pictures of where we stayed. It's a 5 bedroom house named Crane Dance located right on the beach just north of Mendecino, CA. Lots of people stayed there, which brought it down to an affordable price range. The top picture is of one of the doors (there seemed to be lots of doors), and the bottom picture is Dr. Witz (left) and Kevin Lowry watching the sun set from inside the living room.


This is the happy couple, John (K-Torr) and Christmas. The wedding was very beautiful. Perhaps some of the hippies I met this trip will have rubbed off on me and I will be filled with more peace and love. I am actually not joking about this. Not entirely, anyway.


The whole gang, on the beach. The beach was interesting. We walked from the zen house where John and Christmas were staying, through a section of desert-like sand dunes, then down onto the beach. The water was paralyzingly cold. Seriously. I honestly and no joke thought that my brain was frozen when I got out of the water. It was fun, though. The Pacific is very different than the Atlantic.


Jeannie and I in wine country. After a lot of folks left, Jeannie and I went wine-tasting with Jeff, Casey, Jessie, and Rema. I forgot to set the timer on my camera, otherwise the rest of them would be in this photo, too. I was probably trashed.


Well, that's all for now. Eventually, once we get all the pictures uploaded I'll post a link in case anyone who was on the trip wants to download or print any.

It was really an amazing thing to get to hang out with such fun and interesting people. Sunday-night club, I hope you all made it to your flight safely.

DO NOT want to got to work tomorrow. Ugh.

Tuesday, July 04, 2006

A quickie 4th.

It's been a long time, due to the fact that we don't have internet access at the new place yet. Here is a quick recap of the Schlueterileymetz' visit, in pictures:

Rich at Sandy Point beach.

Henry at the beach.

Scattergories.

We just finished watching fireworks from the CSC building downtown. Time to head home to get Henry in bed. Probably won't get to write again until Jeannie and I get back from California on the 12th.

Drew, loved the preview video. Can't wait to see the real thing...