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Emmet!

Lean with it, rock with it

and of course blog with it..

So about 2 weeksago I watched the HBO documentary on Daniel Pearl and his assassin -
It's very rare that I have a history with celebrities, but I have been good friends (albeit out of touch since 2000 or so) with Danny Pearl's sister since the early '90s. I had the good fortune of meeting Danny and staying at his DC apartment back in late 1993. While I only met him once, I was very impressed by his easy going nature, smarts and general good guy-ness. I felt very sad when all of this went down, and was reminded by his awesomeness as well as Michelle's when viewing this. RIP Danny, you are a great guy who will obviously not be forgotten...
It's interesting how other worlds collide- it turns out his father Judea Pearl, while a computer scientist, is also a great contributer to the academic lit on causal inference, of big interest to the stats world.

This past weekend we went "day-camping" with Micah's classmate Jake and his family -
we set up camp about 2 pm in Patapsco Valley State Park, got a roaring fire going, cooked up some serious grub (inclulding mandatory S'mores), and had a great time. Jake's dad brought all the goods - two kid size tents, lanterns, a battery powered DVD player, and so on. So Micah's favorite part of the trip was watching a movie from the comfort of the ent, and Emmet's was playing in Jake's parents' van.. ah. the great outdoors! It was a perfect fall day, and we had an awesome time - and still managed to sleep in our own, warm and less lumpy than the earth, beds.

Roni statrted her nw job last week at Hopkins' Center forLivea ble Future - as the director of research. So far, so good she says, and it's exciting that her office is in the same building as mine.

Aight, I'm out - 'til next blog entry!

Recent haps

So what's been up recently?

Last Wednesday eve, Roger and I ventured to the Sonar "club space" to check out Be Your Own Pet live - they are a buzz-band snotty punkish group of high schoolers who I think bringthe noise. I'm glad Roger went with me - mostly because he is fun to hang out with, but also because he didn;t make me look like the only creepy 30-something (and to be fair Roger is 30- , and I'm 30 ++) in a seee full of 18 year olds. The first band, we missed except for the last song - not really a band, but two "rappers" - the second band the Black Lips, I really enjoyed. Garage-y punkish groovable rock with group vocals - apparently they can get really crazy live, but we were spared the worst of their shenanigans (although one of the guitarists continuallu spit into the air and caught it in his mouth - as Roger said, "classy"). Be Your Own Pet hit the stage and tore it up for 25-30 minutes.. a lot of stage presence, animation and energy...I really enjoyed their set and didn't feel cheated by the brevity.

I've since downloaded some Black Lips stuff from emusic and dig it - not as cool as the libe gig, but coool nevertheless. Emusic is my new download heaven - about $.20 per song, and I've downloadedsome really cool stuff.. http://www.matadorrecords.com/the_new_pornographers/, the Ex, Entombed, Spank Rock, Boris, Peaches, ...I'm an addict. And I've recouped digitally stuff I have only on LP..Descendents, VOID, NOFX.

So on Saturday we headed south to Takoma Park to visit Jim. Lily, Joseph and Loren - and had a great time. Lily is due any day now with a 3rd child, a girl to be named Isa. This was probably the last time we'll see them before Isa joins the family. Joseph and Loren are beautiful, wonderful, friendly and fun boys, and Micah, Emmet, Roni and I really enjoyed the visit.

On Sunday, we hung out with Micah's classmate Jake and his family near Ellicott City - we had a bbq at a local park, played until darkness set in and then went out for ice cream. It was really fun.

Monday, being President's Day meant no daycare - so we had an extra family day. It was a beautiful day, so we went to Fells Point to look at boats. After thant, napping ensued then some serious playground time. Again a fabulous day.

So as of Tuesday its back to work!

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