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The West Palm Beach Int'l airport has free WiFi. How cool is that? Probably a security risk, actually. And this is an airport that disallows GUM. Yep - chewing gum. Can't chew it. Can't sell it. Maintenance problem, apparently.
But free Wifi. That's cool.
I've got to go board a plane to come home.
Well, happy bunny day!
But some sad news ...
Kevin's Aunt Pat died in her sleep on Thursday night. She was a really neat woman. I'm glad I had the chance to meet her, although only once, at our wedding reception. She is Kevin's father's older sister. Pat left behind three daughters and many grandchildren. We'll be heading to the south Chicago area later this week for the funeral.
I'm still recovering from that stomach virus that hit me early Thursday morning. Blech. It hit me really hard and has just been awful.
Tonite I leave for Boca Raton, Florida, for two days. It's for business though. I'm either leading training or observing training. We'll see when we get there. (Ack!) Cross your fingers for observing. I get to have dinner with Kevin's Aunt Irene on Monday night while I'm there, so I'm looking forward to that. Kevin's aunts are just neat people. I fly back home late Tuesday night.
We're home Wednesday. Tentatively, we'll leave either Wednesday night or Thursday morning and head to south Chicago for the viewing/funeral. From there, on either Friday or Saturday (everything is still up in the air right now), we'll head to Washington, IN for my Grandma's 80th birthday. It's a big birthday and it only happens once, you know. Sunday we come home.
I have a sneaking suspicion I'll be catching a plane to Rhode Island that night, coming home late on Monday night. Parker's resumes that Tuesday, then I'm gone again early Wednesday morning for the user conference in Orlando. Kevin joins me that Friday and we both come home on Sunday 4/10. Yep, I'm basically out of town from tonite through the next two weeks. Who knows my travel schedule after that?
Sigh. It makes me tired just typing about it.
Feeling rather crappy with some sort of stomach virus. Found this while browsing through Wired New Online.
Anyone can make grafedia, too. To do so, a user selects a rich media file (image, video or sound) and then chooses a word (say, "wirednews") to go along with that file. The user then uploads the file from a computer or sends it from a cell phone to, using this example, wirednews@grafedia.net. The user can then paint, draw or tattoo "wirednews" in public spaces in blue with an underline to identify it as grafedia. Viewers can interact with the grafedia by sending a message via their computer or certain cell phones addressed to "wirednews@grafedia.net" to get the content behind the link.
Sounds fascinating, I think.
It's not Graffit, It's Grafedia (WiredNews)
Grafedia Web Site
Couple reviews from the weekend, when we watched The Office (BBC) on DVD, Ray, Shark Tale and Without a Paddle.
Continue reading "The Office (BBC), Ray, W/O a Paddle, Shark Tale" »
it pours.
I'm stressed out majorly. I have to start work on new changes for client A on a help system, tutorial, and quick start guide.
Client B called up and said we need you to travel and train! I said, Okay. We can work this out. So I spent the afternoon at their offices getting ready for training. I'm basically gone the next two weeks conducting training sessions.
Client C, for whom I wrapped up a project at the end of February, emailed while I was at Client B. Client C now has feedback on what I gave them and wants changes right away.
I have Parker's on Tues/Thurs nights, plus any choreography sessions. Thank goodness they are on Spring Break next week.
I'm losing it. Everything was irritating, but manageable, until Client C poked their head in. I didn't expect them for another two weeks. Let's cross our fingers that the feedback is small and can be done on an airplane or hotel room without too much problem. If its big, well - they may have to find another technical writer. Looks like I'll be working around the clock again, like in February, but this time with Parker's tossed into the middle.
Argh! Why does everything happen at once?
Okay, maybe not resent. I got myself into it after all. But my inability to balance both work and Parker's (see this post) was more apparent than ever today. My client wants me to fly lots of places - all on on Mondays and Tuesdays. But Parker's rehearsals are all on Tues/Thurs night. This means I had to say no, which means not only less business now - but less business later. They will find someone else to do this and keep them doing it. It's even more frustrating because they want me to train. I love to do stand-up training. I miss leading stand-up training. And I'm peeved (mostly at myself) that I can't because of Parker's.
This is just fun in a geeky sort of way. For a while now, I've had the RSS feed from the Write Tech blog feeding into the Write Tech site. It occurred to me that since I have the Kevinandshel site associated with its own blog, I should do the same thing there. I'm quite pleased with the results.
I directed the feed with the help of code from Maricopa. If you work in instructional design/eLearning at all, I highly recommend you check out the Maricopa Center for Learning and Instruction. They have an unbelievable selection of free tools (such as Feed2JS that I used) as well as free online learning. I used their online learning to help train other professors when I was at Miami University.
I had it in my head that we would get Grandma an email machine for her birthday next week. Two or so years ago, I saw these internet appliances advertised anywhere, but no ISP supported Grandma's rural location. Now there are several ISPs, but there are no longer any internet appliances. I don't want to get her a full PC, no matter how low-end. Among other things, a full PC is intimidating to someone who has used a Selectric typewriter for 50+ years. Second, we don't live close enough to Grandma to provide technical support and we all know that a full computer, in the hands of a novice, will need support.
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I needed a full-size mouse for my laptop, as I was using a mini mouse and my hand was cramping. So I picked up this super-fun mouse from ThinkGeek. Of course I got the duck (I love ducks!) and now SurfDuck and I surf the web. It's a pretty good mouse too (I'm surprised) - it's optical and USB. |
Last year when I choreographed Parker's I had just started my business and I had one client. This year I'm balancing four clients and missing work-related events. Had I known this would happen, I'd never have agreed to Parker's this year. I had to let the high school know back in October. Back in October, I had 0 clients and nothing to do. My business didn't really take off until November. Now I have tons of work and am being invited to all sorts of pricey and expensive functions, be they conferences or just important networking events. And I'm missing them. It's a very bad thing.
There is no way to manage this either - it's very frustrating for me. Even my Palm Pilot can't help me.
On top of things, Kate is very tired and her boys are sick. :-( I've suggested she take Tuesday off from Parker's (since I'm already missing one for the Conference) and stay home to catch up on sleep. Tuesday night we're missing half the kids because of an honors banquet (they may drive me nuts, but they're smart!), so it's a good night to miss. I know how sucky it is to be that exhausted and she doesn't need to get sick by driving herself too hard. Been there and done that.
Oh - bright side to this weekend: Kevin has not had to work! Yay! First time in a long time!
From Gawker, a list of reviews from the opening night (St Patrick's Day) of Spamalot on Broadway
Lots of reviews and the only guy who didn't find it to be an absolute hoot was the guy from the NY Post - he wanted it to be just like the movie.
Related Posts:
Fox Review on Broadway
More Spamalot
Spamalot Chicago Photo
Ni Ni Ni! : My Spamalot Chicago Review
Well, based on some more in-depth theme park research, we'll be going to MGM-Disney for our Theme Park Day. I decided that I wanted to do rides and not fun education - I figure we'll go to Epcot many times once we have a kid. The deciding factor, then, between MGM and Universal? The Muppets.
We got a good deal at the Hilton Doubletree inside Downtown Disney. The hotel includes free transportation across Downtown Disney and all the Disney theme parks, which then eliminates the need to rent a car. It also includes full breakfast, which means we don't have to eat at an overpriced restaurant in or around the theme parks.
In case anyone is curious, I got a fantastic deal on Kevin's ticket by going to CheapTickets.com.
In order to go to the conference (see previous post), I'll have to miss one Parker's session, in which we were originally working on stunts. Kate and I have to decide how to handle this. I feel really bad - I even decided against going to Savannah this weekend with Marianne so that I could be around for Parker's.
The kids at Parker's are trying my patience. This didn't happen last year. Maybe because last year my co-choreographer tried my patience instead, so I didn't notice the kids as much? I need to chill and just let them do their thing, I guess. I know they are teenagers. My siblings aren't like this though. Steven and the Twins are all three active, involved, normal high school kids - they never act as immature as some of these kids were acting last night. I compare all high school kids to those three, and maybe my standards are just too high? Kate (a mother of three young boys) is much better at handling the kids. I should probably shut up and just talk when someone needs help. That's how I did things last year, but for a different reason. Maybe I should do it again. I don't like to feel this frustrated about kids that I like so much and I don't want them to think I'm a b*tch, which I was last night. My lack of patience in this situation further proves that eventually, I will be a lousy parent
An old client & former employer called me yesterday. Looks like they'll have some work for me over the next year, which is good. Even better, it looks like it's instructor-led training work, which I've missed even more.
On top of that, in order to get to know their products again and get a feel for their audience, they're sending me to a user conference in Orlando for the software product they create & sell. It looks to be a pretty good conference as far as sessions go. The conference is in about 2 weeks. :-)
Kevin is flying down for the weekend and we're going to hit an Orlando theme park, which we've been wanting to do for a while. I've only been to Disneyworld proper and Universal's Islands of Adventure. Kevin has been to everything. So, which park do we go to? Any thoughts? We've "narrowed" it down to MGM (at Disney), Universal Studios, and Epcot Center. I really want to go to all three very badly. In the end I'm torn between my love for Mickey Mouse & Friends and the need to ride fast roller coasters. All three parks cost $60 for one day admission, so price isn't the deciding factor.
Another SpamALot Review - this time of the show now that it has hit the Broadway stage. This review furthers my belief that the show will win at least one Tony. I still fully believe that once the Great White Way hears the VOICE that belongs to Sara Ramirez, that she'll win a Tony for Best Actress.
Have I mentioned that I want to see this show again? And I'm not even a big fan of Monty Python. The cast (well, the famous guys & Eric Idle) was on the Today Show this morning. That meant I had to put up with 2.5 hours of Katie Couric and fluff news in order to see the Spamalot gang. Thank goodness for Tivo!
Related Posts:
More Spamalot
Spamalot Chicago Photo
Ni Ni Ni! : My Spamalot Chicago Review
As I type this, I'm on a dial-up connection on my Mom's Bondi Blue iMac. This is soon to be my iMac, although my Mom doesn't know that yet.
Now, I'm really rusty on my Apple knowledge, and even more rusty on Apple's running OS9 or earlier. Mom is currently running OS 9.1.2. She apparently has 64 MB of memory built-in. I'm wondering (hoping, praying) if I can upgrade that. However, she also has "8549 M of virtual memory available on the hard drive." Could someone please refresh my Mac memory and remind me exactly what virtual memory is?
Much to my surprise, this little machine has a 9.5 GB hard drive. (Funny - Mom has over 8 GB still available.) It also has two firewire ports, two USB ports (+ 2 I just discovered on the keyboard), a modem, and a network card. I had no idea. This machine is massively underused. I need to get a whopping external drive for this and upgrade the memory. Possibly even upgrade the internal hard drive as well.
Anyway, if someone could answer my virtual memory question, I'd appreciate it!
Stumbled across a brilliant new business the other day. It's not only tempting to use, but makes you say "Why didn't I think of that?"
Rip Digital will rip all your CDs to mp3s. 100 CDs for $129. Once you hit 250 CDs, the price drops to $1/CD. They give you FedEx materials to ship your CDs and return your CDs to you along with the digital files. You can have the files sent to you on data DVD or you can purchase a portable hard drive from Rip Digital. They'll put the files on the portable hard drive and also send you data DVDs as a backup. The largest hard drive you may purchase is 200 gb and costs $250. I know that's actually too much to pay for a 200 gb drive (I was looking at them for $133 the other day) but I figure the extra money goes into the costs for materials - mostly DVDs and shipping costs, plus operating costs. Really, this is a brilliant little business.
(Also, any one who has a Mac will appreciate the site layout of Ripdigital.com.)
Due to price, Kevin & I won't use it, despite the fact that its our goal to remove those multiple and overflowing CD racks from our family room and offices and rip everything. We have no excuse to use a service when, at any given point, we have at least 4 working computers between the two of us.
Happy St. Patrick's Day to everyone! May your days be filled with four-leaf clovers.
The Google image for the day, of course, is 
If you could be anything in the world, what woud you be? (Feel free to comment.) I'd be a lounge singer. Every night I'd go to work in a spiffy red or black gown, nod to the piano player, and belt out standards like "Someone to Watch Over Me" in a smoky, dark lounge - maybe even in a small casino lounge in Las Vegas. Seriously. That's my dream.
I discovered the Grateful Dead last year. This year they take up a gb or two on my iPod. I suppose its never too late, but had I listened to an old college boyfriend way back when, I might have seen them in concert.
Everyone else does it on Fridays - I'm going to be different. When I can remember, I'll post the first 10 shuffled songs on one of my music players (iTunes, iPod, etc) on Tuesdays. Post yours in the comments section! This week the selection is from my iPod seeing as how we haven't yet recovered our music files from The Big Crash. It's a good mix this week.
1. Miracle Drug: U2
2. You Call it Madness: Diana Krall
3. Button My Lip: Elvis Costello
4. How Long Has This Been Going On?: Carmen McRae/MJ Cole Remix (Verve Remixed)
5. Bright Sunny South: Allison Krauss & Union Station
6. I Can't Stop Loving You: Ray Charles
7. La Suegro (Mother-in-Law): Los Strait Jackets
8. I'll Be Seeing You: Martha Wainwright
9. Because We Can-Can: Fatboy Slim (Moulin Rouge)
10.Dirty Life & Times: Warren Zevon
Two things you need to know - I grew up in the Cincinnati area, a bike-ride away from Kenwood Mall - I was there when Kenwood was nothing more than a strip mall. Also, I love to shop more than anything else.
That said, make the mall building stop!!!! Coming from a diehard, serial shopaholic like myself, that's serious.
Here's the thing. We have Kenwood Towne Centre and the mall across the street from it with B&N, Old Navy, etc. Down the road a couple of exits, we now have the Centre of Cincinnati. Soon, next to the Centre of Cincinnati, we will have Cincinnati Mills, or whatever they're calling it. One of those outdoorsy, towne-style malls. Down exactly one highway exit from that is Rookwood. Rookwood is another one of those high-class, outdoorsy, towne-style malls.
They are currently remodeling the existing Kenwood Towne Centre (Why can't these malls spell Centre any other way?) into one of those high-class, outdoorsy, towne-style malls. You cannot currently drive in Kenwood, really, the congestion on those little roads on which I used to bike is now too heavy for the roads to really bear. It's ridiculous. So now, they want to grab another corner of the Kenwood Towne Centre parking lot and build what? Another one of those high-class, outdoorsy, towne-style malls - called Kenwood Towne Place.
Might I add that over here in Kentucky we currently have the old and desperately in need of rehab Florence Mall and surrounding area. One exit down from that is Turfway Road, which is overflowing with stores and shopping, but hasn't yet been turned into an organized outdoor mall. (It's coming - I know it is.) Then, one exit down from that (and ironically, in biking distance from my house) is the in-progress Crestview Hills Place. Now Crestview Hills Mall has been empty and rundown since my high-school days. It has been flattened and they're building a high-class, outdoorsy, towne-style mall.
Here's the thing. Downtown Cincinnati has Tower Place, a mall that survives because of its food court alone (lunch time). That's it, really. If they want to rehab a mall, or build something grand, put it downtown before downtown dies out. The riots were four years ago folks! People here have long memories. Of course, its the people in the suburbs who are afraid to come downtown - not folks like me who had an apartment on the edge of riots. Get over it!
In the meantime, developers will continue to build malls along I-71 until there are no more homes and only malls, stretching from Kings Island to the river. And not just malls - malls geared to the people who do not require outlets or sales. Apparently Cincinnati isn't as middle-class as I thought.
When Kevin & I get around to having a kid, we'll get together with our academia-oriented friends, of which we have many, and teach all of our kids about evolution. I figure it will have to be that way. If not, our kids will never learn it - most likely not in Catholic school and quite possibly not in public school. Nineteen states are currently considering adding intelligent design to the mix - not quite overturning evolution, but not supporting the idea either. And the fight to slowly eradicate Darwin's "theory" of evolution is being led by the Discovery Institute.
The idea was to sow doubt about Darwin and buy time for the 40-plus scientists affiliated with the institute to perfect the theory, Meyer said. Also, by deferring a debate about whether God was the intelligent designer, the strategy avoids the defeats suffered by creationists who tried to oust evolution from the classroom and ran afoul of the Constitution.
"Our goal is to not remove evolution. Good lord, it's incredible how much this is misunderstood," said William Harris, a professor at the University of Missouri at Kansas City medical school. "
Keep reading this quote and the rest of the argument.
An interesting weekend.
Friday night my printer gave up the ghost, being one month out of it's one year warranty. So we headed off to Best Buy. The HP all-in-one that died had only cost me $100 last winter. You get what you pay for. This time I did a fair amount of research and ended up with the Epson CX6600 All-in-One, which got great reviews from CNet. The darned thing takes up TONS of space - a lot of rearranging was done to accomodate this printer. I also got the two-year full replacment warranty from Best Buy. This was a more expensive printer and I will get two years out of this thing even if it has to be replaced under warranty during that two years. It's working beautifully so far. I had some trouble networking it to Kevin's Win2K machine, but an email to Epson tech support got me the answer I needed.
That night, Kevin stayed up all night for work. All night. Honestly, they'd better thank him, thank me, and give him a huge raise and promotion based on the ridiculous hours he's been putting in, non-stop, since the end of January.
Keep reading after the jump. You know you want to! There's a wine festival involved!
So I'm backing up our iPods and laughing. Between the two of us, our three iPods managed to save the entire R.E. M. collection, the entire U2 collection, all of Elvis Costello, all of Rufus Wainwright, and all of the Bare Naked Ladies. We also have everything ever recorded, I think, by Jimmy Buffet (that's me) and the Beastie Boys (Kevin). Everything else is sort of random.
Kevin and I had two drives running downstairs - one is a fairly new 160 GB (I think) drive that had all the videos I created in Premiere a month or so ago - roughly 60 GB in video files. We also had another drive that had about 60 GB of music files, all my Write Technology backup files and financial files, as well as all my photos (about 30 GB in photos).
GONE.
Something happened; we haven't figured out what yet. All the file names on the smaller drive (with photos and music) read like gobbledygook. I can't even get to the larger drive that has videos on it.
The really annoying thing? We thought something was wrong with the smaller drive and started to back it up to the larger drive. Oops.
I'm lucky in that I had the foresight to burn a data DVD of my Write Tech files & financials and my web sites. I will have lost some of my photos, but I'm pretty good at backing those up to CD-ROM, so I should be mostly covered. I also have backups of the wedding and reception photos in our fire safe (some things I don't want to lose). Basically I'll lose photos of Halloween, and such. But if they're on my web site, I'm good. They won't be full resolution, but at least its something.
But we've lost about 60 GB of music. In theory, there is a lot of that music on my iPod and Kevin's iPod. Using Copypod, we should be able to transfer a lot of it back onto a hard drive eventually. However, we've got a lot of overlap on our iPods, so that won't even be 30 GB of music.
GONE.
ARGH!!!! At least I managed to back up the really important financial stuff.
The moral of the story - always backup your hard drive(s) on a regular basis.
First off, I'm a sucker for most marketing campaigns. If a commercial shows a hamburger, I suddenly want a hambuger. In most cases, marketing works on me.
So I was incredibly parched the other night when I stopped by Kroger for some Snackwell's cookies. I saw the display for 7Up Plus, with the Sex & the City girls and all the pink. I was sold.
Do not fall for the marketing campaign. I bought 12 cans and now am forcing myself to drink it all. It's pretty. But its sweet. It's not even yummy sweet - its bad-after-taste-from-too-much-Splenda sweet. It's also only like 2% fruit juice or something, as opposed to the ads which make you think its bubbly fruit juice. Also, its supposedly created by consumers for consumers. What consumers created this?
Anyway, don't try it.
mmmm ... Valomilk candy. It's hard to find them around here. But I was in a little "gourmet" grocery store just now, picking up some fudge bunnies (what diet?) when I saw the Valomilk by the register. They are chocolate cups filled with gooey, gooey marshmallow. The label says "The original flowing center candy cups." They are messy! The packaging is very retro looking. And the ingredients read: MILK CHOCOLATE and MARSHMALLOW. I love these candies - they don't list the scary-for-me warning of "May have been processed in a plant with peanuts."
Yummy - gooey chocolatey marshmallow goodness.
Thanks to Google's logo, I now know that today is Int'l Women's Day.
So out of curiousity, I did that oh-so-popular thing where you actually pay attention and write down the first 10 songs that play when the iPod or iTunes is set to shuffle. It is incredibly interesting.
1. an aria from Carmen with a long French name
2. White Wedding - Billy Idol: Wedding Singer sndtrk
3. Lover - Frank Sinatra
4. Shut Down - Beach Boys
5. 1917 - Emmylou Harris with Linda Ronstadt
6. Vengabus - Vengaboys (dance/club)
7. 9 to 5 Mashup - 2 Many DJs/Dolly Parton
8. Live From Matt Molloy's Pub - The Chieftains
9. Don't No Woman Want a Do Nothin' Man - various artists: Margaritaville Cafe Late Night Menu (blues tune)
10. For the Love of You - Joss Stone
So I found this incredibly fascinating. While it certainly didn't touch on every genre on the iPod, it did a good job of trying. The transition from Opera to Billy Idol there in the beginning took me by surprise and made me laugh a lot.
Met with the accountant tonite. Considering my fear of Numbers and my immediate stressed-out response whenever Money is mentioned, I handled it remarkably well. I always think its going to be awful and then I find out that, as far as my business goes, I'm quite well organized and everything will be good. Our accountant is this really sweet guy who, despite a thriving business, still manages to meet with every client personally and treats all my stupid questions as if they are all very important after all. Of course, tonite was just to drop off and review all the invoices, expenses, etc. It'll be a couple of weeks before we know if there is a tax return involved in all this.
Also, a friend of mine has a great signature line on her emails and I'm quite taken by it. I will never fail to promote the concept of chocolate in one hand and martini in the other. Hell, make it a chocolate martini:
Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely, in an attractive and well preserved body; but rather, to skid in sideways - chocolate in one hand, martini in the other - body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming, "Whoo-hoo! What a ride!"
- Anonymous
Actually its called Google Local and I have no idea when it got there. I just noticed it today. I do a lot of my searches from the Firefox branded Google start page, which is minus many of the many Google features.
Google Local is basically your phone book. Kevin & I don't even keep phone books in the house anymore. This drives my parents crazy when they're over and want to look something up. "Well what do you use?" "Yahoo! Yellow Pages," we say. Yep - phone books get instantly recycled in this house.
I don't know what will make Google Local better than Yahoo! Yellow Pages yet, but I know that for some odd reason, I'm more willing to use Google. Yahoo! started out hip and cool and has gradually become Microsoft-like. Google is also a corporation, but their constant innovation and occasional goofiness make them easier to like as they slowly take over the world.
I was never comfortable with the cost of the Vaja flip case, especially since it didn't offer a screen protector (which is so odd - the other Vaja cases do), nor was there the option to buy or add one on. I know, I know. Vaja cases are supposedly the best. I agree. They remind me a lot of my custom-made Bellagio case for my PDA. In fact, I think the only difference is that Vaja are Argentinian and Bellagio are Belgian. Seriously. Same wait time, custom designs, and options, and quality of workmanship.
The Top 100 Gadgets of All Time - everything from the Etch a Sketch to the iPod.
My company & I bought a new iPod tonite. It wasn't planned and it was a real deal - I expected to wait until the end of March and get the new 30 GB photo iPod that is $349. I just wanted to go out to the Apple store tonite and find out what comes in the box, what fits the new iPod from the old iPod, and so forth. For instance, the new iPods don't come with docks, and I was curious if the new one would fit in my old dock. We played around - it doesn't. (In case anyone is curious, Kevin's sister Marianne is buying the spare iPod in the house.)
So I updated my iPod with the latest software from Apple yesterday. There is now an Audiobook category on my iBook that I swear was not there before (or it was and I just missed it). What do I do with it - how do I assign my audiobooks to it? Apple's Knowledge Base was not useful. I did notice that it put my speeches I downloaded from iTunes from the 2004 DNC into the Audiobook classification. I had put those in a genre of "Politics." I have Bill Clinton's book on there too, but the iPod didn't stick it in the audiobook category. It did not come from iTunes and I assigned the genre of Books & Spoken Word. Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew is also in this classification, also not from iTunes, and also not placed into the iPod Audiobook category. So I'm curious as to how to work this thing. Any thoughts?
Last night we saw Movin' Out, the musical based on Billy Joel's songs, conceived and choreographed by the unbelievable Twyla Tharp.
The entire story is told in music and dance - there are no words, but you definitely get the picture of what is going on. High school kids graduate in roughly 1969, fall in love, have lives - in New York City of course. The guys are drafted, go to VietNam, one of them is killed. When the survivors return, they don't adapt well - haunted by the war and death. They all work their way through the darkness.
It's all told in dance. The music is all music you've heard before - there were no original songs written for this musical. And its incredible. Okay - it helps if you like Billy Joel (I love him) and helps if you appreciate dancing (again, right up my alley). But its great - the dancing is athletic and incredible. I tried to take notes, to help with Parker's choreography. As if I could ever hope to emulate Twyla Tharp!
We had a great trip in New Orleans. Photos are posted in the Photo Album at KevinandShel.com.
I think I've come back with a stomach flu, but I always get sick when we go to New Orleans. Still ... a great time was had and I want to go back. Read about the whole trip after the jump.
Continue reading "Do you know what it means to miss New Orleans?" »
Malcolm Gladwell: The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference
Robert Mondavi: Harvests of Joy: How the Good Life Became Great Business
This book is, for me, about business more than wine. I find Mondavi rather inspirational when it comes to Business.
James Conaway: Napa: The Story of an American Eden
I know it seems I'm reading a lot of wine books. The 2 Conaway books feed my fascination with the politics of the valley - not the wine. The politics and associated characters are worth reading about.
Lawrence Osborne: The Accidental Connoisseur
This book is teaching me about both wine and the people involved.
