Karaoke Neck

It's been a decent week. Had changeover at work today, which means that work hasn't been mind-meltingly boring for the past week, and it won't be mind-meltingly boring for the next week, and then I'll have two weeks of mind-melting boringness before the next changeover prep work starts.

Had a good weekend. On Saturday CSC had its annual picnic/strategy meeting, and it was a beautiful day to sit outside. Plus, a few of us who are guitar players brought guitars, and though we've been talking for a long time about getting together and playing, we'd never actually been able to coordinate our schedules enough to get together and play before Saturday. So we sat outside as it got dark and played for a few hours. It's been a long time since I've played that long (my fingers were hurting), and an even longer time since I've played with other people. It felt pretty good. Unfortunately, sitting outside for that long left me vulnerable to a series of attacks from some mutant-strain of mosquitoes that live in Lesley's backyard, and I have been one hell of an itchy bastard ever since.

After the get-together on Saturday, Jeannie and I ended up going to the hotel bar at the Ramada Inn at Joppa and Loch Raven, where a coworker of hers who is moving to Canada was having a little going-away shindig. Karaoke was involved. It was a little bit like an urban version of Kirksville karaoke, in that it was an interesting mix of folks and everybody seemed to get along and not give a shit about what they looked/sounded like. I sang karaoke once right after we moved to Baltimore, and it wasn't that great an experience, so I haven't sung since. Saturday night, though, felt quite a bit like the karaoke days of old. It took me a couple of songs to get warmed up, but by my 4th song ("Jump") I was feeling un-self-conscious enough to flail around a little bit. I also learned that "Punk Rock Girl" is one hell of a good karaoke song. It's got a nice strong ending, and not much down time. Unfortunately, I have become reacquainted with the tremendously sore neck/back that I used to get all the time after singing karaoke or doing any sort of head-banging. I'm starting to feel normal again, though. Anyway, they do karaoke there on Thursday and Saturday nights, so next time anybody feels like visiting B-more, bring your drinky singin' pants.

The Jeanners' new Americorps recruits started today. I'm waiting for her to get home so I can hear how her day went. Should we go out to eat?