Category: Personal

Slip shopping, Steve Earle, sailboat racing–It doesn’t get any better than this!

I had a great weekend. Friday night I kicked back with the wife and kids. Saturday morning I got the kids up, got them dressed, and then headed out to give mom a break. We took Dad over to Pier 121 to shop for slips for his new boat. It was windy and cold but the kids had fun looking at the boats and it was exciting looking at slips knowing there’s a boat in Marina del Rey with Dad’s name on it.

Saturday afternoon Dave rolled in to town. He came down for the Steve Earle show. It’s always good to see Dave. He played with the kiddos and we got to talk and swap music. He also brought his Apple powerbook and he showed me a few cool tidbits in OS X. It got me psyched up about the G4 we appropriated to use as part of our internal KM efforts.

Now, that right there would be a great weekend. But Sunday Dad and I headed over to Lake Ray Hubbard for the alumni sail at “ntssweb”. But they were running a regatta and weren’t doing the alumni sail. (Normally, folks that have taken classes there can sail with other former students and instructors on Sunday afternoons on the J22’s for a reasonable price. Good stuff). So Dad and I ended up crewing on a couple of the boats. Dad got on an Irwin 30 and I got on an S2 7.3.

It was a great day for sailing. 60 degrees or so with a stiff 14 to 18 knot wind. Unfortunately for me on the S2, we were a little overpowered. We reefed the 150 Genoa to about 75 and eventually even less but we still had too much heel sailing upwind. Still, I got good practice working the jib sheets under race conditions, setting the whisker pole, and handling a self-furling headsail. The boat was immaculate and the skipper, John, was friendly and helpful.

All of this and I still managed to get in good quality time with the kiddos. An awesome weekend for sure.

Steve Earle rocked the Gypsy Tea Room

Steve Earle was awesome last night at the Gypsy Tea Room. He opened up with Amerika v. 6.0 and then played several more off of Jerusalem. They didn’t play much from Transcendental Blues but they did play a wide range of my favorites from just about every album I could think of.

The sound was great and the vocals were extremely crisp. They had two drum sets–one was more of a percussion setup which his brother Patrick played. They had an inverted garbage can Patrick played with a couple of mallets that went perfectly with Ashes to Ashes. Steve’s electric mandolin also sounded pretty cool.

An unexpected surprise was the opener, Garrisson Starr. I hadn’t heard any of her stuff but my friend Dave said her album last year was one of his favorites for 2002. She has a sweet voice with a Mississippi southern drawl. Her simple three-piece set up (Patrick Earle played the drums for her–they couldn’t bring their normal drummer for “financial reasons”)–was tight and commanded the attention of what is usually a bored and distracted pre-opener audience. The best part, though, was that Steve incorporated her into his own set. They sang together on a couple of goosebump-inducing duets.

He played two encores. The second one included two covers: Time (The Chambers Brothers) and Get Together (the Youngbloods). Both were crowd favorites.

I’d highly recommend catching a show if you’ve never seen him.

Ahoy!

Dad bought a sailboat! He’s had the itch ever since we got our cert. I told him to relax and let’s do some crewing and some renting but he was really pumped. When he found a marina less than 20 miles from his house I think that really clinched it. I haven’t talked to him yet so I’m just guessing.

Here’s the boat.

Here’s a good description of the same model, three years older.

The boat is in Marina del Rey. It sounds like the plan is to fly out there and sail it to Santa Catalina to give it one last look at the sea before being landlocked in a Texas lake.

TMBG says we’ll miss the major record labels when they’re gone

Music Biz: Compromise Is Key. Musicians, industry execs and policy-makers can’t always agree on the best way to keep consumers happy, embrace new technology and still turn a profit. Meeting in Washington this week, they seek solutions all sides can live with. By Michael Grebb.

John Flansburgh of They Might Be Giants said although record labels are fun to bash, they help filter music. Now consumers must do much of that work themselves.

“It’s ironic that we’ll miss the majors when they are gone,” Flansburgh said. [Wired News]

Miss the major record labels? I’ve never thought of it that way.

Just got another batch of World Cafe CDs

I just got another batch of “World Cafe CDs” for Christmas. Because my local public radio station took “World Cafe” off the air (or moved it to some obscure time slot) I don’t stay up to date on when CDs are coming out so when I think about it, I check the site. I bought volumes 11 and 12, the 10th anniversary double CD, and the “Next Decade” CD which I guess is really volume 13. They are all awesome.

I haven’t picked a favorite yet. Right now it is between the 10th anniversary and volume 13. Volume 13 has a great Lucinda Williams track, “Get Right With God” as well as one of my favorite Ryan Adams songs (at least of his newer stuff), “New York, New York”. The 10th anniversary CD has “Another Town” from Steve Earle, “Can’t Let Go” by Lucinda Williams, and “Designs on You” which is a great Old 97’s song. Of course all of the World Cafe CDs have great tracks from artists you might not otherwise be exposed to.

The Toadies rocked Deep Ellum Live last night

The Toadies show was awesome last night. They played to a packed crowd at Deep Ellum Live. Before the show we had speculated on whether or not Lisa, the bassist would play. She didn’t. I thought the show just wouldn’t be the same without her but I was wrong. The show was classic Toadies. It’s too bad it was their last. They are such a great band.

Dad and I are now ASA-certified sailors

Back after a much-needed break from the laptop. Today I completed my ASA Basic Keelboat certification. It was a great weekend of sailing. Now that I’ve got my cert I can rent the J22’s at Chandlers. Who’s ready to go sailing?

The cert covered two classes. The first class was the weekend before Thanksgiving. My wife, kids, sister, and brother-in-law got me the beginning sailing class as a birthday present (thanks again, guys!). The owner of the “ntssweb” had asked, “Are you sure you are up for winter sailing?” It had sounded slightly foreboding, but that weekend was one of the most perfect weekends for sailing ever. The wind was up and the temp was warm but not hot.

When we picked 12/28 for our Intermediate class I figured we wouldn’t get as lucky on the weather as we had the first weekend. But when Saturday rolled around it turned out to be another beautiful day. The morning wind was a little lighter than we would have preferred but it picked up in the afternoon.

This morning there was some fog on the lake and it was a bit chilly but the wind was up and we were working hard, putting the J22 through its paces, so I barely noticed the cold spray. (On both mornings I was able to take advantage of some fleece pullovers I got for Christmas which worked perfectly as a middle layer).

If I may say so, my Dad, who was taking the class with me, and I executed our sailing skills pretty darn well. I was a bit sloppy leaving the slip but I shook it off and subsequently nailed the slalom course and the race course. We’ve still got a lot to learn and I’m looking forward to logging more hours in the boat but I was feeling pretty cocky by the time the weekend was over.

The written test was 130 questions. We both scored well, just shy of a perfect score. I don’t know about my Dad but I was really hoping for 100%. The sailing school owner had said there had only been one perfect score at his school in the last several years and I was disappointed I couldn’t bump that up. (Advice for ASA Basic test takers: Understand the different horn signals, night-time lighting requirements for sailboats, and what equipment is/isn’t required on a sailboat of a specific length). My Dad beat me by one question. DOH!

I’m still working on “creating a vision” for the rest of the household, but if I can add some advanced creds to my diving and sailing certs, log a bunch of time doing both, and save up cash, maybe I can have a second career as a dive shop/charter boat operator. Now that’d be the life…

So long D.C.

Ah, the last night in good ole D.C. Or should I say good ole Vienna/Tysons Corner/McLean? When I travel I like to get out and experience what the locals experience. This trip, that hasn’t been too enriching. Taco Bell. Panera Bread. Corner Bakery. Galleria. My training is in the back room of a CompUSA for crying out loud.

Me and a few classmates drove down to an Italian place for lunch. I was hoping it was a local whole-in-the-wall but it turned out to be a chain called Aledo’s or something like that. Calzone was good. Also, they gave a two-pack of Oreos for each person with the check which I found both strange and satisfying.