Weekend wrap up

Friday I played hooky from work and volunteered for a day with the Sandtown-Winchester Habitat for Humanity with some folks from Hopkins. Sandtown-Winchester is a pretty brutalized part of West Baltimore - lots of public housing, run down homes, open air drug selling etc... But its very impressive what the Habitat group has managed to do - they've renovated and sold a lot of homes (230 so far!), and continue to contribute to the community. I didn't get to do any building on Friday, but spent a lot of time loading and unloading building materials from a truck that drove from building site to building site. As such, I not only got a great workout, but saw 7 or so sites in various stages of completion. One of the highlights was meeting a habitat buyer in is home to be - where he and a volunteer crew were busy at work. They had gutted a 3 story rowhouse and were in the process of rebuilding inside- its going to be a marvel - high ceilings, great windows in the back, etc... I was very blown away and the owner to be's pride and excitement was really neat to see.

The rest of the weekend was fun too - went to Music Together with the boys on Saturday and they both loved it - went to Micah's classmates Liam's house for dinner and play on Saturday eve. We had a great time hanging out with his parents Cathy and Kim, and watching Micah and Liam repeatedly jump off the couch frame into the mound of pillows they had piled on the floor.

On Sunday we went to a baby shower for one of Roni's colleagues -
there were three older boys there (6, 9 and 11 years old) who took Micah and Emmet under their tutelage including them in the football and wiffleball action going on in the backyard. On the way home we had to detour to Target and pick up a bat and ball for Micah - this is all he has talked about since yesterday - he even slept with the new bat.

Musings

Hey y'all - well Hopkins is on spring break so I guess I am too!
No Lauderdale or Daytona for this statistician though - just working on stuff and enjoying the temporary calm before the storm of the 4th quarter starts on Monday!

So sicne seeing the Pogues I've been on an Irish rock kick - we sort of. I've picked up a few Pogues albums and also a live album by the Dropkick Murphys. Never had any interest in the Murphys before, but I gotta say this album is awesome - its a collection of live songs recorded over 3 nights circa St. Patrick's Day in 2002 in the Murphys hometown of Boston. This disc shreds, chock full of fist pumping singalong after singalong, loud roudy punk with sometimes bagpipe, tin whistle and mandolin accompamient.

Also rocking my world is something I've owned on vinyl for a while - just got MP3s for my Itunes and have rediscovered - Lightning Bolt's Wonderful Rainbow. Just drums and bass but this album is a BEAST! Get it, you won't be dissapointed. Well before getting this I saw Lightning Bolt in concert -without a doubt one of the most insane, intense shows I've seen - and I'm old.

Okay enough of my whitebread music tastes for now -
back in a flash!

Some new photos!

Frank Zappa on Crossfire

Here's a classic tidbit from '86:
Frank Zappa on Crossfire arguing with some wacky conservative writer for the Washington Times about censorship.
Result: Fran Zappa 1, Washington Times Guy 0

Spring has sprung here

in Bmore - of course until we get a mid-March snowstorm.

Big ups to Alex for commenting on McG's Blog....the gas face goes to her husband Rafa for his weak Triumph the insult dog imitation on other's blogs :-)

So on Sunday the 5th we went to Micah's classmates 4th birthday at a "Pump it Up" Center - a lot of moon bounce and inflatable slide action was had by all - Emmet and Micah had a BLAST and it was awesome to see Micah eat pizza and regular cake now that his dairy allergy seems to have subsided.

On Thursday the 9th, Dougie P and I went down to DC to the 9:30 club to catch the sold out Pogues show - awesome! Shane McGowan is still on death's door but he and the rest of the (healthier) band tore it up. BTW, if this is any indication of responsibility at a later age, Shane's 3 teeth that he had in the mid 80s still appear to be in tact.

Aight, I'm out for now.

March is upon us!

And so far it's everything I could hope for!

On Wednesday, Mar 1, Emmet officially started walking. He's still doing some walking, some crawling, and his walking is of the Frankenstein nature, but I think he'll be a fast learner. Homey already understands how much more havoc he can wreak if he gets around on two legs!

On Saturday the 4th, I took Emmet out for his deving nap about 9am (as per his schedule he got up at 5 am and was zonked by 9 - but of course he won't nap in his crib). I actually have driven around most of Baltimore City with Emmet, and a few years back Micah - I enjoy this and it gives me an opportunity to see the good and the bad areas- and its kind of staggering how much of the city is blighted. Anyhow, I drove through the most blatant open air drug market I've seen in the city ( we pass it everyday on the way to daycare), and witnessed something I have only seen in the Corner and the Wire - hoards of people running to get free "testers" , ie: samples of a dealer's product. Auto traffic was literally stopped as hoards of fiends jonesing for a hit wantonly ran across the street and into an apartment complex courtyard. I circled the block and saw them all lined up at the mercy of a few dealers.

Later in the moening Gigi and Grandad (aka John's parents) breezed in from Ambler PA to hang out with us for the day. They brought lunch, made the boys and us happy and played for the afternoon.

We went to an off the hook birthday party on Sunday - details to come!