Check your mailbox!

I am sending out an email about the pre-release party for Soapy's new CD!

Seriously, for those of you who don't know, while he may not be on the verge of releasing a CD just yet, Soapy is a wonderfully talented musician-singer-dancer. (Here's just one of his outlets. And here are his heroes.) Apparently, he has squandered all his talent on his art and left none for the task of naming. He has written some new compositions, and we're going to have a little name-that-tune (literally) competition.

You can join in the fun, too. Let's make this a night for musical adventurism. Bring your axe, your bone, your stick, your squeeze-box, whatever.

I also found a copy of the Password home game at the VV for two bucks, so we'll have that if we want it to turn into a games night as well. Bring an old or new game along if you want to.

Soapy is also going to bring some Strong Bad email DVDs. You either know how cool that is or you will find out.

We'll have pop and beer and munchies; bring any other comestibles if you'd like to.

Come for an evening of eclectic, musical, edible fun!

At 7:00 pm this Saturday, May 7?

RSVP!

Lettuce ketchup

I'm listening to the swish of the cars going by on Phinney, but the rain is okay with me today. It hasn't been the greatest weather this week, and I haven't gotten any bike riding in, but I have been walking and did get out on the scooter and had a pretty decent week overall.

We didn't go to the movies last night, but Johnbai is back from Paris, fill of pisse et vinaigre, so Otis, Soapy, Di and I met up with him to catch up and get presents. I got what John called a batteur-d'epouse Francais, Otis received some 86 pour cent chocolat, Soapy got some (more) sous-vetements, and Di a lovely tasse-pour-bougie-chose.

Of course, there is a new LPD cartoon from all this: this is the link.

Classes are going fine; I may have another grant-writing gig in May and continue to send in full-time apps, so who knows what will be up in September.

Now, to make another entry with the invite news...

Whew!

Takin' a breath after doing lots of grant work the past few days. It's in now, or at least my role is over, so I should be able to come up for air.

Otis and I took another long ride on Saturday - wound up being 22 miles, mostly on the B/G - and it felt really good. That's one reason I was so busy Sunday and so on.

Looks like the Crest is turning over some screens this Thursday so maybe we'll moovie it on Friday night, if we can get an early enough show to accommodate the weekend students. (There's no mid-week this week, obviously.)

Hey, Soapy - what about the party?

Pause button off

I was awakened early this morning by a bird chirping so loudly it was as if he was in the bedroom. It is such a beautiful day - it appears spring is actually here. I have a lot of work to do this weekend on the Last Minute Grant as well as my usual stuff, but I hope we can get out for a bike ride sometime.

This has been a good week. Yesterday was another great day. Otis and I spent some time down at Golden Gardens, on the beach. We went out on the scooter - it sure feels good to scoot around again. I am thinking of scooting to Edmonds in the morning when it gets consistently nice. I did have to go in for a meeting for the L.M.G., and Otis had her Friday lab day, so there wasn't any adventuring. Thursday was my long work day, but Wednesday was glorious. It felt like a holiday - after the early morning class, Otis and I rode down through Fremont to get on the B-G trail, and then rode out to Magnusson Park to hang out. We came out of the park and headed across the neighborhoods. We stopped at Nana's for soup and then cut up the Ravenna hill, out to Green Lake, around the lake and up the hill to the zoo. It was quite a workout and a total of 17 miles. Good stuff.

Haven't been doing much moovie madness lately. Thinking about a mid-week at the BP. Soapy also had a great idea for a get-together, so when he gets back to me, we'll announce that. In the meantime, keep watching the skies...

The fire's Joe?

Man, this is the third entry in a row that starts with the word "man" and then a comma. Maybe I should change the name of the blog. What do you think:

Man,

Does that work?

Anyway, it was a fairly uneventful weekend. Otis was at massage school all day Friday and Saturday. I marked a lot of little things off a longish list, mostly school work. I still haven't heard about summer quarter, or fall quarter, or full-time jobs: the life of an adjunct goes on.

I ran into Toni at the Starbucks while I was reviewing papers. Made me feel like I was in my neighborhood - which, of course, I was.

No biking this weekend, but plenty of walks.

Here's hoping for a good discount movie this Friday - it has been too long!

The Rain is Tess

Man, the rain was coming down in sheets all night, and it's still tipping. Once again, I figure I am not going to be biking today. I want to get back to the place where weather is not a factor in riding, but I have to admit I'm not there. I used to see these two particular cyclists all Winter quarter; I would meet them as I was driving along Green Lake Way to get the freeway or Lake City Way and head out to Bothell. They would come west from Roosevelt and head south along the lake - going to downtown, maybe. No matter what the weather, they were there, the big one and the little one, lights blazing, legs pumping, neon gortex glistening, just zipping along. A man-and-woman couple? I couldn't tell through the dark and the rain and the gear they were wearing. I feel out-of-shape and lazy whenever I think about them. Either that will motivate me or I will stop thinking about them.

It's been a quiet week on the Ridge. Didn't make it to the Sat on Wednesday. The Crest was all out of movies that I haven't already seen, so I didn't try for a Friday moovie nite. Activity is picking up on the latest grant-writing deal, and Otis has been giving and getting a lot of student massages (as well as studying), so I think I have been just working a lot. Have been doing a lot of walks around the lake and along the Ridge, but not biking. And that's where I came in...

Sunny days and Mondays

Man, after raining all night it sure looks beautiful out today.

Yesterday was a fine day. Another Green Lake walk, some bidness, then heading to Cap Hill to do some teacher-work while Otis gave massages at the apartment. Met Di and Dar and Dar's new friend (about which see a little here in the latest LPD comic).

Doesn't look like Sin City will be on the moovie list; too many people have seen it already. I guess I just wasn't too hot on it; still not. I had high hopes for the Hitchhiker movie until I read a review that began

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy movie is bad. Really bad. You just won't believe how vastly, staggeringly, jaw-droppingly bad it is. I mean, you might think that The Phantom Menace was a hopelessly misguided attempt to reinvent a much-loved franchise by people who, though well-intentioned, completely failed to understand what made the original popular - but that's just peanuts to the Hitchhiker's movie.

So, I don't know how high on my list this is anymore. (And before we get into the slavishly-following-reviews discussion, this was a four-page critique with a lot of details that I think gave me enough info to make an informed decision.) Anyhow, we'll see what coming up at the Crest for Friday.

Bullet points

Friday was a beautiful day.

There was no PB&J.

There was, however, a Green Lake walk.

JJ is still sick so there was no Friday night Friday night.

Saturday was a beautiful day.

Otis and I were on the road, and checked out Olympic College in Bremerton (application outstanding, natch.)

On the way back, we stopped at Ikea (agh!) and scored a new TV cart cheap. And some felt tip pens for fifty cents.

I sent out a group text message last night. Anyone get it? Dar responded but I missed the message until this morning. Duh. Maybe that's not as effective a means of communication as it might be.

Watched Stage Beauty at home. Interesting movie. A bit uneven; I can see why it wasn't a box office success; it was a bit hard to get ahold of.

It looks a bit hazy this morning.

Anyone around today? Otis has some sessions scheduled for this afternoon so I will be fleeing.

By popular demand...

Here's a new LPD strip, torn from the headlines...

You're not made of sugar...

It seems that no one thinks we will be having biking weather on Friday -- what is up with that? A few sprinkles got you down? C'mon! Let me know if you're in for the PB&J and/or whatever else on Friday.

Had a nice time at John's Satellite caucus last night; it was just a small group, but a voluble one.

Food for thought

Here's a deal from my great and good friend, the Emmy-winning Jim Wilson, Chief Noisemaker at Wishupon Productions. I'll let him tell you:

So, I got a call from Bad Animals [a recording studio - Ed.] late last year, and they asked me if I wanted to do a documentary series for Oregon Public Broadcasting. Oh, absolutely! You'll be working with Shannon Gee (I worked with Shannon on Conscience and the Constitution, which, by the way, had a showing at the Seattle Public Library last week). Great! I said. Always a pleasure! What's the series about? It's called "The Meaning of Food."

Eh?

Well, I thought, not much chance of sound design there. Probably a lot of chewing sounds, the occasional swallow. Mostly eating sounds. Mastication. Dinner-table conversation.

Well, wrong again.

"The Meaning of Food" is a three part documentary airing (locally on KCTS) the next three Thursdays at 10pm (same time for my Hawaii correspondents), the parts being "Food and Life," Food and Culture," and "Food and Family." The breadth of the subject matter and the depth to which it is presented is astounding. I kept comparing it (probably to the producers' annoyance) to This American Life in terms of story-telling. Each segment takes a look at the many cultures that comprise America and the way food--what we eat, how we prepare it and why we eat what we do--plays such a big part in our lives.

There's a lot of variety. Through the course of the episodes you visit a boisterous Italian wedding, learn of a recipe book secretly compiled by women inmates of a Nazi work-camp, suffer through a teen's attempt to fast during Ramadan while living in a fast-food culture, visit a New York Airport's Customs seizures (there's a lot!), watch the Macah tribe prepare for their first whale hunt in generations, discover what's up with...poi, and whatever the heck "booya" is. Meet a man who's made it his mission to make the last meals for death-row inmates. The last days of a family-run Chinese restaurant. It's multi-cultural. Multi-faceted. It's like...well...a smorgasbord. There are stories to make you laugh, stories that'll break your heart, but mostly...they'll make you want to cook. Yeah, every few minutes you're gonna go, "Hmmm, that looks pretty good."

And it's a might fine show. Check it out. Thursday night (and the next two Thursdays at 10 pm). Check local listings.

Friday funnies!

Okay, let's have some fun the Friday!

We'll start with a PB&J ride from GasWorks to Matthews Beach. Let's aim at something like 2:30 in the afternoon to meet at GasWorks (since the clocks were reset that might even be the best time). We'll go as long as it's not pouring, okay?

When we're done with that, we can head up the Ridge for a movie and/or game night chez moi. It will be $5-Friday for pizza from Safeway and we'll lay one or a couple in, depending on who's coming. Any suggestions for a DVD? I can pick one up after my 7:30 am(!) class, or any of you net-flixers can bring one you have in stock. Or do you just want to do the game thang? In any case, the nite-owls will be shooed out early, since Otis and I need to head to Yakima with dawn's early light on Saturday.

So, who's in? Post, email, call or carrier-pigeonate.

Both feet

Well, in addition to this here blog, I think I am going to try a webcomic as well. I am setting up an account on a site dedicated to amateur (read: crappy) webcomics, and I should fit right in. Anyway, until I get that all up and running, here's a preview. Just click here:



and it should take you there.

Seeing the Sea

Well, Andres (I), Mel, Otis, and I saw the show last night. It was deep and thoughtful as well as beautiful. No coffee-an' afterwards, for a variety of reasons, but I am sure it will inform a a lot of discussions for a long time.

This is a working weekend for our massage folks, and for me as well: getting a syllabus together for EdCC and doing some other writing. I am still wondering where our springtime went after getting hailed on yesterday.

Hydroareology!

Here's an email I just got from sweet pal Mags down in PDX:

They found evidence of water on Mars! Check it out!

Wow!

Last words

"hill-training has to start somewhere, eh?"

Um, yeah, but did it have to be today?
Oh, my achin' knees...

Bike change (get it?)

Okay, Otis has a ton of stuff to do today before her weekend class, so the PB&J has been cancelled. I am off to bike on my own - I have to go to AUS anyway, so I figure a Fremont -Westlake-Belltown tour will do it for me. I am not looking forward to coming back from Fremont up to the ridge, but hill-training has to start somewhere, eh? Wish me luck.