Dinosaur Jr!

So I saw the original lineup of Dinosaur Jr. last night - J. Mascis, Lou Barlow and Murph. They played the Ottobar and I went with friends Keeve and Becky who came over or pizza and diet 7ups beforehand.

The opening band Mouthus straddled the line between chutzpah rock (like they must have cajones to think what they are doing is cool) and intense noise. In the end I enjoyed them but the set could have been shorter. On the stage during their set was 4 massive Marshall stacks not used by Mouthus which forwshadowed the volume that Dino Jr. would eventually assault us with. I actually stood by J. Mascis during part of the Mouthus set, and was going to tell how enaoumoured I had been with the band in the mid-80s but he walked away before the "song" was over. Age has not been good to J - check out this longitudinal evidence (before (ie: 1987 or so) and after (ie: now). But despite the fact that J. looks like Gandalf these days, the music has aged quite well. Homey is a serious guitarist and let it all hand out during the 90 or so minute set. Mad effects, extended solos etc. - and all the hits, including my absolute favorite song from the '80s "In a Jar". Just awesome. Folks are all over other acts like the Pixies as being the godfathers of post punk - but Dino Jr. IMHO was much better, fusing metal, psych, emo and punk effortlessly into a great musical stew.

Even better the show ended at midnight. I'm bachin' it this week with Roni and the kids at the inlaws, but I still need my beauty ZZZs. That shit was loud though, my ears are still ringing. The rest of this week I'll be more domestic - I'm doing tons of laundry, gotta teach on Thursday and have to replace the upstairs bathroom's toilet seat (Micah made this clear to me - when I told him I had to go back to Baltimore he didn't get all mushy and tell me he would miss me - he just remarked "Daddy make sure you fix the toilet seat upstairs".. and I thought him being potty trained would cut down on my responsibilities!)

part III!

the final installment in the more to tell series...

so when it comes to travellin" the "rains it pours" analogy works for my past week - just after arriving back from Seattle, I hopped in the car with the family on Friday the 11th to head west to beautiful Thurmont for a weekend of mountain air and fun with Micah's classmate Liam and his moms, Kim and Kathy.

We hit the road about 6, and headed off into the sunset, arriving at the Cozy Inn around 8. Thurmont is home to Camp David so the Cozy Inn is all about the presidential them - we were staying in the (I kid you not) "Johnson Room" named of course in honor of LBJ. There were other named rooms and cottages, includng Reagan, Nixon and other JFK..Aside from this cute taxonomy the Cozy Inn was a standard motel, comfortable (not quite cozy, perhaps cramped) and not too expensive. After checking in we met up with Liam and fam, and the three boys (Micah Liam and Emmet) burned off some stored enregy by running amok in a grassy field adjacent to the motel.

We then retired to the Johnson room for ZZZs and started off the next day with breakfast at the Cozy Inn's famous buffet. Over 60 items (no all you can eat pudding), with nary a vegetable in sight. Afterwards, we headed to Catoctin Mountain State Park - in lieu of hiking we opted for their killer playground and spent a few hours playing hard. We returned to the Johnson room and miraculously all 4 of us napped in sync on one king size bed. After some New York style pizza for lunch we headed off to playgoung #2 for 3 houes of hardcore sliding, swinging, and spinning.

The next morning we got up, hit the cholesterol buffet and then..well, Emmet fell and it seemed like he had really hurt his leg. He kept standing up and immediately falling over- so we rushed back to Bmore, took him to Patient Care, had his leg x-rayed. After two hours and no conclusive findings we came home. That evening Emet was back to normal, even managing to esape from the playground and into the street before we could catch him - he must have just had a cramp or he seriously played us.

more to tell part II

So on Tuesday I awoke bright and early to get my bags and stuff ready to go. Although I was not catching a flight until 10 pm that eve, I had to check out by 12 noon, and neded to head back to the conference earlier. In the morning I caught Holly Janes' presentation which was excellent. Hung out with JHSPH alum Wes Eddings around lunch and then spent the afternoon interviewing potential candidates for our consulting center position. I then debriefed with Mike over beers and spinach dip from 4:30 -5:30 or so..As I still had a ton of time to kill, I took one last walk up to Capitol Hill, my new favorite hood. I cabbed it to the aiprort and got on my plane to Atlanta at 10. This was my first ever ready and I didn't dissapoint by sleeping through it or otherwise relaxing. My first seat was the middle of 3, and one of my rowmates was a very large man - he needed a seatbelt extension, and could not fit into his entire seat, so the armrest separating us had to go up. I literally ws crammed into half an airplane seat which did not bode well for a comfortable ride to Hotlanta. One of the flight attendants sympathetic to both mine and his discomforts, related me and the other rowmate to other seats, and replaced us with a formerally separated mother and young daughter who were so happy to be seated togeter, they jumped at the opportunity. I felt bad for the large man, as he was very nice - I mean I'm not small, and airline seats are uncomfortable enough for me, he must have had a really unpleasant time. Passed the time on the flight reading Skymall, wathced "Over the Hedge" the inflight movie (weird choice - a children's movie for such a late flight, but I enjoued it), an episode of "Everybody Hates Chris", and an episode of "Alias". I had never seen either show before, enjoyed the former but couldn't figure out what the hell was up with the latter.

Landed in Hotlanta around 5:30, and waited to board the flight bound to Bmore. Landed in Bmore, and took the Super Shuttle back to my house. It turns out Emmet and Roni were home as Emmet was sick and out of daycar. Emmet gave me the BEST long hug and I was happy to be reunited with 2/3 of the crew at home. I took 2 naps throughout the course of the day, and then went to get Micah. I was so excited to see him and it was great to get another awesome hug!

part III of the more to tell trilogy coming soon!

so it' been a spell and I have lots to tell : Part 1

Where to start?

On Aug 5 I headed out early in the morning to Seattle leaving for BWI at 5:45 am. The lines were surprisingly long at this hour (longest I've ever seen, but of course this was nothing compared to what was coming in less than a week), but moved very quickly (again, unlike the lines a few days later). The first leg of my trip took me to Mineapolis - my rowmates included an older Indian women who turned out to be an evangelical Christian - after luring me into conversation with the old "Where are you headed" trick, she proceeded to lay things on pretty heavily. She had me cornered, and there was nothing I could do but retreat to my copy of Skymall and try to politely ignore her. Well, I could have argued with her, or pledged my love for Satan, but she was a very nice person. Luckily she was not heading to Seattle so we parted ways atthe Minneapois airport and she went on to try to convert someone else on another plane.


I arrived in Seattle about 3 pm, and took a cab to my hotel. I was staying downtown and I tried to get a fix on things in the area around the hotel. After picking up a copy of Seatle Weekly and persusing, I decided to walk to the Capital Hill section of th city for dinner that evening. I got my Vietnamese on at the Green Papaya and walked home, retiring by 9 pm Seattle time.

The next day I was up bright and early- registerd for the meetings, pick up a copy of the NY Times (5$!), and went back to my room to read it. Around noon I caught a ferry to Bainbridge Island to hang out with the Hopkins biostats crew at Sandy Eckel's place. We had a great time eating bar-b-qued salmon, hanging with Sandy and her folks and just taking in the beautiful weather and setting.

On Monday, I led a "roundtable session" at 7am on distance education - about 10 folks in attendance, good discussion etc... At 2:15 I gave my talk on my analysis of my online/onsite outcomes comparison study, and it was received well. The other talks in my session were very good, a nice surprise. Afterwards, I went out with my former classmate Nick Horton for some beers. Then I rolled solo back up the (capitol) hill to get my grub on - settled in at Honey Hole Sandwiches and dined among the hipsters.

It's so hot in herre...

my apologies to Nelly, but damn it's been almost unbearable here in Bmore - I am lucky to work in a nicely ACed place, and have ample window unit coverage in my home.

It's been an exciting week. On Tuesday, Roni defended her thesis and is now officially Dr. Neff. Now that she's all doctoral and what not, she can get paid, and be my sugar mama. But seriously, it was the culmunation of 5+ yers of serious activity on Roni's part. When she started the program, neither Micah or Emmet was around! Despite having two kids (beautiful and awesome kids, but nevertheless a lot of work), and all the time constraints and work setbacks she finsihed with a beautiful thesis. I am inspired now to wrap my work up - can't have this imbalance of higher degrees in the house for too long :)

Aight - on Saturday I'm off to Seattle for a few days to relive the good ol' days of grunge and hang with some statisticians at the JSM 2006 meetings.