in my yard, i don't care!

dinosaur meat = deliciousness

murray hill

when i worked for uncle booz's sweatshop, i worked in murray hill at the corner of 40 and park. the joshua tree was lame back then, too.

this video is hilarious. thanks to the friends of bama boy who told me about it at the righteous room last thursday (was in town for interviewing students at the alma mater). .

why is it still cold in the south?

greetings from nashville. it's still freaking cold here. i'm pissed off because it is 55 degrees and feels like 35.

where the hell did spring go?

dr. w's dad was in the hospital yesterday. the doctor had detected some potential blockage in a stress test last week. so, he went in for a catheterization. if they found blockage, the options ranged from putting in stent to having to perform bypass surgery. thankfully, they didn't find any blockage, and he was in and out yesterday afternoon.

we're blessed that it turned out ok, and if he works on his diet and exercise, it's very manageable.

congrats to the beav

the beav is expecting baby # 2.

here's a link to her blog and first sonogram.

i'm grilling in the rain

had my bday bash on saturday night. woke up to gray raining weather. that wasn't going to slow me down. at noon, the chief, wolverine and me went downtown to the fish market for jimmy's super delight and to bring back a couple dozen raw oysters for the grill out. it was pouring, cold, and miserable.

at 4:30, the clouds broke and sun came peering out. amazing.

we had a great time, though it was a bit cold. keeping the cooler of beer outside encouraged folks to keep hanging out the backyard.

the night ended with some rock band, included singing soundgarden's spoonman to the chief's own version of jimmy's special sauce. you had to be there.

the cheese was awesome for doing a ton of work to set up and to clean up afterwards. wolverine did most of the grillwork and the food turned out great. and dr. w whipped up delicious fresh strawberry cupcakes from scratch. finally, mpg made a surprise visit. he caught the evening train down to dc, shan del shan picked him, they hung out, and then mpg caught the 3 am train back to philly. that's dedication.

the only down was that my brother had some kind of stomach bug and spent a lot of the weekend sick and puking. he hung in like a champ, though

pics to follow. in the meantime, i'm headed to the ville with a pit stop in atlanta this friday for recruiting at the alma mater; dr. wintermute is on her way to new orleans for a conference.

productive

yesterday was productive in an eerie way. i got up at 5:30 to drive dr. wintermute to the airport (she's in LA for a girls weekend). when i got home, i was feeling kind of tired, so i decided to do something that i do about five times a year: drink coffee. yes, living on the edge.

dr. w claims that i exaggerate how sensitive i am to caffeine, and i'll admit that i 1) like to embelish stories 2) the effect can be psychosomatic. however, it feels real to me.

so, i downed one mug of coffee. from 7:00am to 2:00pm, i worked non-stop. i was barely hungry when i noticed the clock, so i came downstairs to make some lunch at 2:00. i then worked until 6:00pm, and finished a bunch of work stuff. i'm usually drained by the end of the workweek, and typically spend the last two hours of my friday writing in my work journal (helps me focus on priorities and plan ahead, i'm trying to be more like hari seldon). instead, i powered through more tasks and work. i actually finished my friday task list and started on monday's.

at 6:00, i wanted a break, but i wasn't close to hungry. so i decided to treat myself to some guitar time. figured that i'd play for an hour or so and then eat leftovers.

more than three hours later, at 9:45, i finally stopped playing. not because i was tired, but because i wanted to get more things done. so i ate leftovers and watched some tv. then i cleaned the house for two-and-a-half more hours. i swept all of the floors, mopped all of the floors, vacuumed upstairs, took out the garbage, shredded a month of junk mail, and cleaned up the basement. at 12:30, i was still too alert to go to sleep. so i read for ninety minutes. at 2:00am, i finally turned out the lights.

i suppose i would habituate to coffee, but shit, if life were like this everyday, i would build my empire by 35 instead of by 45.