Boomeranging back to Cali
Last we left off I had the Afronauts over for our one-year anniversary party. It was fun to hang out for a while and just kick back. Tober braught Sessions Black Ale which is yummy. I made a big salad, some roasted green beans and carrots, and some rotisserie chicken. Once again I failed to allow enough time for trussing the chickens so they were underdone when I took them off the spit and had to go back on a little longer, but eventually things worked out. Alice made a delicous chocolate cake. Then we rehearsed and jammed a bit.
Wednesday morning after a meeting with my investment advisor I coded from the Dojo and said hi to the folks there before coming back home for the afternoon. Thursday was a good aerial open workout followed by a Turtle Dove rehearsal, which I forgot about and so showed up late. Oops. Friday I happened upon a facebook post that my old Oberlin buddy Ben Cantu was playing Steve Reich's Electric Counterpoint live in Boulder, so off I went. That's one of my favorite pieces. The second movement is just gorgeous. If you like minimalism at all, well I guess if you like minimalism at all you've already heard it, but anyway I recommend it. There were also a bunch of great pieces by Stockhausen and Gorecki on the program. I hadn't heard live 20th century concert music in a while, so I really enjoyed it. It was at the First Presbyterian Church and there were only 25 or so people in the audience, so it was practically a private show.
Saturday it was lovely, sunny, and warm so I spent the whole day outside. I biked to south Boulder in the morning and had a delicious brunch at the South Side Walnut Cafe. One nice thing about being a single dude is that even when a restaurant is packed there is almost always seating available at the counter or bar. Then I met up with a CHAOS hike up Shanahan Ridge, which was very muddy but fun. Then it was back on the bike up the big hill on South Boulder road. Just barely enough time for a quick disco nap and mohawk preparation before driving to Englewood for the Turtle Dove Gig at Bushwackers Saloon. It's a biker dive bar in a somewhat seedy area and definitely not focused on the music, but it ended up being all in all a decent show. The band after us, The Symbols were pretty entertaining and the crowd eventually filled in nicely.
Today I mostly worked on my todo list. I packed for my work trip out to Mountain View, California tomorrow. I also walked into town to return some DVDs to the library this morning and then walked in again to the Rex restaurant to watch a bit of the Oscars with my new friend Alizay. I also had to go get a minor hair repair done. I had quickly stopped at Great Clips on the way to the concert Friday night and the stylist didn't quite get the transition from clipper to full length hair in my mohawk clean, so I had to go get it fixed. The stylist who fixed me up said her husband has a mohawk so she's a pro. Much better now. I through on a fresh coat of nail polish this evening and I should be looking sharp for the California trip.
So in other news the new job is going well so far. I really like working from home. I especially like starting early and having several quiet hours before the California folks start to show up in our virtual office. This also gives me some extra time to get a run in before lunch, which I did twice last week I think.
In other news, with all the biking and hiking Saturday, this morning I again lowered my weight record down to 134.2 lbs. I'm planning to go fully off-diet next week on the trip and surely gain a few pounds, but I didn't think I'd ever cross the 135 threshold.
Oh, and a few weeks ago I bought a Boomerang looper pedal on craigslist and today I finally had all the necessary cables and some time to toy around with it. Big. Fun. I think my practicing in the immediate future is going to be focused on the looper pedal. I was able to make it work reasonably well in the first session though, so that's a promising sign.
Lots of fun planned for next week both at work and then hanging with my San Francisco friends later in the week and over the weekend. I'v stopped bringing my trusty and beloved Canon Elph on trips now. I take photos with my phone and upload them to Flickr in real time. My Canon was so great and so durable for years. I took it to the beach, the mountains, the desert, Burning Man 3 times, etc and it never malfunctioned. Of course, being a point and shoot, it has the frustrating shutter delay, but other than that it works fine. The ease of managing things in Flickr is so great though. My phone's camera is fairly crappy and painfully slow to start up and to actually take the photo. I joke that it's a psychic camera because when you press the shutter it takes a photo 30 seconds into the future. Hopefully when I upgrade my phone some of that will be improved.