The Mindset of this year's college freshman…
Although it makes me feel older and older every year, I always enjoy hearing what the mindset is of the current year’s college freshman: this year’s list from Beloit College is pretty extensive. Truth be told, #60 got to me, thinking back to the first Gulf War and Berny broadcasting from under the hotel room table as the bombs started to fall.
The intro to the list:
Members of the class of 2010, entering college this fall, were mostly born in 1988. For them: Billy Carter, Lucille Ball, Gilda Radner, Billy Martin, Andy Gibb, and Secretariat have always been dead.
Toad was Great!
Wow, holy smokes, Seattle loves Toad the Wet Sprocket.
And Seattle loves Toad’s opening act, Matt Nathanson (matt nathanson at the point ..www.mattnathanson.com). Matt got on stage with his guitar in one hand and soon had the crowd in the other hand. Through a little bit of dialog, Matt managed to set up each song with a bit of an erotic state of mind (“slappy, tickly love makin’!” and “imagine you’re soaping up in the shower and, mmm, you spend a little bit of extra time down there…”) and he really had the audience when he did a cover of Journey, getting the crowd to sing along. Who the hell knew that so many people in Seattle would know the lyrics to an old Journey song…
Then Toad came out and started playing and it was all over. Happy, happy people. They said it’s been twelve years since they played in Seattle. I have never been to a concert in an auditorium the size of The Moore when the crowd put out so much loud, raucous love for a band. And Toad did two encores. They always save “Walk on the Ocean” for the encore.
Glen Phillips shared a simple perspective on his life that explains some of the lyrics, “When something good happens to me, I keep expecting it to end at any moment.” The song “Something’s always wrong” is an especially good example… and something that resonates with me a lot.
Looking over the band’s website, I realize they have one live CD I don’t have… hello Amazon wishlist.
Anyway, there are few bands I would go see anymore and I’m still all a-buzz and happy for seeing Toad. Life is good.
Toad the Wet Sprocket
I’m off to Seattle tonight to see Toad the Wet Sprocket.
I’ve listened to them since my Auburn days… I caught the video “One Little Girl” on 120 Minutes one night and got hooked. Though I couldn’t afford to buy the CD at the time I at least had WEGL to play the occassional Toad and looked forward to their various CDs as they came out. And then one day, I actually was able to buy them.
I’ve seen them… let’s see… I guess only once before. In Portland. At the dark hole that is the Roseland Theater.
Susan and I had written some of the words to “Walk on the Ocean” to start “We spotted the Boo-Bear” in reference to travelling to Olympia, when we lived near Portland, to pick up Beauregard from the Pyrenees breeder there.
Then Toad broke up.
When Elisa and I travelled to Las Vegas to meet my folks, Toad was playing a reunion concert there. But it was too much to try to consider fitting that in.
Now tonight! Unfortunately, Elisa’s travelling so I’m going to be the lonely guy with an empty seat next to me.
(written using the new Windows Live Writer… it’s posted to my other two blogs just swell, though this blog has a stylesheet that has confused it so I’m just typing in their plain mode. Windows Live Writer is great!)
The Lost Mac Ads
Ah, the joys of broadband: The Lost Mac Ads.
Even more fun are the comments by the Macintosh fans who just can’t take a freaking joke. They just go to prove the truth behind the video’s satire…
Freak Brothers – unbearable lightness
Back when I was a kid in Hawaii, Brom and I would geek over the Freak Brothers comics. I still remember one where aliens captured Fat Freddy’s cat. And Fat Freddy’s cat getting a form of revenge via headphones… a new comic: unbearable lightness
Okay… not high art.
10 Free Plug-ins to Enhance Photoshop
Found off of digg.com: 10 Free Plug-ins to Enhance Photoshop
Right now, I’m probably going to break out the water oil paints first for some traditional art, but getting new plug-ins might also convince me to fire up Painter again.
Mystery Solved!
For the past few weeks, usually while walking Bella in the morning, I have heard this mystery from the trees. A bird. What sounded like a big bird. And a bit like a… monkey? One day, I heard one off in the distance to my left, answered by one off in the distance to my right. I tried to figure out how to verbalize the strange call…
Finally, tonight, mystery solved! As the sun was beginning to set, I took the first bag of Elisa’s to the Subaru and up above in a nearby maple tree, I heard the call. I peeked up! What did I see? A big ole Pileated Woodpecker
Ah ha!
I went back inside for the next bag and grabbed my audio recorder. Unfortunately, it had, uh, rebooted. By the time I got out, hoping for my first podcast, it had flown away.
But at least now I can rest easy. There’s one less mystery in the world.
Don Knotts, Richard Pryor Team Up For Madcap Haunting | The Onion – America's Finest News Source
Funniest Onion article I’ve seen in a while, especially since I’m a big Don Knotts fan: Don Knotts, Richard Pryor Team Up For Madcap Haunting
Screencast – InfoPath 2007 and the Document Information Panel
Here is Ted Pattison showing, in a twenty minute screencast, how to leverage InfoPath 2007 within Word, Excel, and PowerPoint when combined with SharePoint V3:
Creating Custom Document Information Panels
This is a very nice tour, hitting on both the SharePoint UI you need to be aware of (even showing how you set up a new content type with specific meta-data) and then how to launch InfoPath 2007 to customize the default Document Information Panel that the meta-data is displayed within.
Look ma, No Code!
The power of the Document Information Panel is an excellent reason to learn how InfoPath 2007 works and why it can save you time and money.
For instance, do you have documents where you need to edit structural information along with free-flowing information? The Document Information Panel (I’d love to use its acronym, but it’s rather embarrassing) is exactly what you need. If you have Office 2007 or the Beta of Office 2007, give it a go and let us know what you think.
Woodinville Wine Village – any year now
It’s getting closer. But while we wait, the Woodinville Wine Village continues to grow. I somehow missed the news (probably while traveling) but the village, located where SR-202 – aka Redwood Road – bends at the Hollywood Schoolhouse has procured the set of apartments along the Sammamish River and some more property. Other than the stroll across busy SR-202, the village is very convenient and close to Elisa and I.
What else is new? They are putting in not just one circle but three traffic circles. I’m going to have to download the documents to see more.
(Downloading)
Hmm, too bad. Their revised plan is a zero-length ZIP file. Okay, digging around some more I see that slide #21 of their round-about presentation shows where the other two round-abouts would be. Luckily (?) not right at our entry onto to SR-202.
Looks like they are way, way behind schedule though if construction was supposed to begin May 2006.
Other stories: