new dog old trick

Bluebird on the Mountain starts new season

Linda and I had a great evening last night at the first Bluebird on the Mountain concert for 2007.  For those not in Nashville, The Bluebird is the preeminent singer-songwriter club in Nashville (and hence, in the civilized world).  The Mountain is actually more of a big hill, but on the top of the big hill is Vanderbilt University's Dyer Observatory.  Bluebird on the Mountain is a concert series hosted outdoors on the grounds of the Dyer Observatory where the concert is held more or less in the same format as one of The Bluebird's three performer round-robin shows and the talent is booked by The Bluebird.  The audience tends to show up early with blankets, chairs, picnic baskets, coolers, etc. and settles in for some al fresco eating and drinking and then some music.  Imagine mixing a big outdoor picnic with a crowded singer-songwriter club, plus a big dome covering a telescope, and you have Bluebird on the Mountain. 

Last night was a beautiful night to be outside on the top of the mountain: warm but not humid, gentle cool breezes, and early enough in the season that there weren't any bugs to speak of.   The three performers were Kim Carnes, Greg Barnhill, and Dana Cooper.  They were backed by what I take to have been Kim Carnes back-up band.  We weren't familiar with any of the songwriters but the music was great and the evening was just about perfect. 

It was also a nice way to celebrate Mother's Day.  In a way, the night out was a gift from our son.  Linda's grandmother lives with us and needs constant monitoring, so we don't get out together very often.  Our son Lee has agreed to watch grandmother on one Saturday night a month so that we can go to each of the Bluebird on the Mountain events.  Thanks Lee!

This is very cool...

This was my birthday present from a couple of weeks ago...it just arrived today...thanks Linda!

How did they know?

So I see posts on several weblogs about this sports car quiz and I take it.  My last sports car (traded it a couple of years ago) was a ...

I'm a Porsche 911!

You have a classic style, but you're up-to-date with the latest technology. You're ambitious, competitive, and you love to win.  Performance, precision, and prestige - you're one of the elite,and you know it.

 

Take the Which Sports Car Are You? quiz.

Instapundit says - Colonoscopy? Indeed!

Glenn Reynolds blogs about his colonoscopy and gets a little pushback.  Glenn's right - the colonoscopy should be on your regular schedule of medical tests once you reach a certain age (the exact age either 50 or earlier depending upon your family medical history).  It is a bit uncomfortable, and the drugs stay with you a bit, but given the benefits, anyone who doesn't get scoped when they should is an idiot.  Sorry for being so blunt, but it's true.

One thing you might mention to your doc - see if your doc pokes through and takes a look at the terminal ileum (the last bit of the small intestine) during the colonoscopy.  My gastroenterologist now does on all colonoscopies as a matter of routine after his experience with me.  We would have found my lymphoma a couple of months earlier had he done this routinely before.  The odds that this will matter to you - very small.  But, since since they're in there poking and scanning anyway, might as well take a peek.  That's my totally unmedical opinion.  Your mileage may vary. 

Fighting Procrastination...

I can be a world-class procrastinator when the planets and moods align correctly...particularly when I'm suffering from what Churchill called "the black dog".  I picked up on this interesting procrastination fighting technique over at Randy Elrod's Ethos blog a couple of weeks ago - and Randy picked it up from someone who picked it up from someone - ain't the blogosphere great!

Link: Ethos : Procrastination hack: “(10 2)*5”....

If you have a minute, please go browse Randy's weblog.  I met Randy briefly at BlogNashville earlier this year.  He's an interesting guy with a diverse range of interests and his weblog reflects that fact. 

Busted

It's bad when it has been so long between posts that I start to get flack from my mother-in-law.  That's bad.  So bad it will shame me into writing more instead of just bookmarking things to write about "later"?  Well, we will have to see, won't we Norma. 

Katrina comes visiting

Hurricane Katrina has done her worst on the Gulf Coast and is now rapidly moving northwards across the Ohio and Tennessee River Valleys.  She visited the Nashville area starting around midnight last night and things are still a wee bit on the soggy side around here this morning.  I was out driving for a while this morning and didn't see any major wind damage.  There is a 25 foot pine tree down in the yard behind ours but it was just planted a month of so ago so had no root system to hold it in place.

Our house is new contruction and it's always exciting to see what problems show up during "first-time" events like this (first time 50+ mph wind gusts for example).  Sure enough, we have a leak - up about 24 feet in the air in my great room ceiling adjacent to the fireplace.  Got some staining and some sheetrock damage.  No big deal, but plenty annoying.  The good news is that my builder has already been to the house in response to my call and has already called the roofers.  Thanks Tommy - great response as usual to a problem.  Compared to all those folks on the Gulf Coast, it's nothing. 

Katrina Relief

Our hopes and prayers should be with those who died and those who are suffering in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.  On a more practical level, those who are able can contribute towards the relief effort at the Red Cross or Salvation Army websites.  Unfortunately, the suffering has just begun for hundreds of thousands of people in New Orleans and elsewhere in Louisiana and Mississippi. 

Alcohol seems to lower risk of non-Hodgkin lymphoma

This headline caught my eye this morning while browsing the headlines on Yahoo! News...Alcohol seems to lower risk of non-Hodgkin lymphoma.  As someone in remission from a relatively rare form of NHL, and someone always looking for an excuse to open a Guinness, I clicked and gave it a read...

An analysis of nine studies involving 15,000 people from the United States, Britain, Sweden and Italy showed that people who drank alcohol had about a 27 percent lower chance of developing non-Hodgkin lymphoma than non-drinkers.

And furthermore...

That felt good

Well, I finally broke the brain lock that had held me since my last post in early April.  I spent 10 days of that time in the UK and Ireland away from computers and the web and voice mail, so some of the lag in posting was explainable.  But how do I explain attending BlogNashville after not posting for a month and then still being unable to post for another two weeks?  Best not to explain it or dwell on it - better to just start writing again.  So, here we go...