Three Cheers for Holiday Cheer

It's been a great Christmas season for us. We spent holiday time with family in Florida and Beaumont, and got a little time to chill out at home.

In Florida, we walked on beaches, visited historical sites, and watched movies. And my sis showed us a great web cartoon I hadn't seen yet: Making Fiends.

In Beaumont, we made Christmas Tamales, played Sudoku (watch out, it's crazy addictive), and visited with friends & family. And Uberjam's bro showed us a great music video. Double true.

Now, with some time at home, I've been reading a book called Getting Things Done, and trying to learn some new organizational principles. I'm only up to chapter 3, but it seems pretty sensible so far. I've also made some radical changes in my personal software arsenal. I've switched from Life Balance to My Life Organized; from Metapad to Wikipad; and from Outlook to Thunderbird & Sunbird. I've also gone on an email cleaning rampage, and I'm now down to around 15 emails in my inbox (down from over 800). The real test will be whether I can get my To-do lists and scheduled organized to the point where I stop totally dropping the ball on things.

This evening, I'll be subbing on the air at KAZI 88.7 fm. Tune in if you're in Austin! It's a jazz show. I got the new Bill Evans box set (Complete Village Vanguard recordings, 1961) and the new Monk / Coltrane record that's been all the rage (both extremely thoughful Christmas presents). Both will make an appearance tonight, along with a few other gems from my jazz CD collection. If only I could play my show from my new xmas present ... :)

Hamster dance

If this isn't the coolest thing on the internet, I'll eat my hat. Check it out: music composed by hamsters!

Make sure you check out the sound samples. I wish I could write songs like that.

Trail of Dead

I am a fool.

Not for any of the usual reasons (staying up too late on my computer, forgetting to call someone, eating an entire bag of potato chips in one sitting, etc.). No, today I am a fool because I decided that, despite a complete lack of preparation or training, I would attempt to run the Trail Of Lights 5K.

Now, I'm in pretty decent shape. I am active, I move heavy gear on a regular basis, I eat more or less well (no soda, no caffeine, no meat, a good amount of veggies). But I'm not really a runner. My college-age experimentation with running ended up giving me shin splints and exacerbating my knee problems.

Well, being the eternal optimist, I thought "no problem!" and run it I did. It was beautiful, and I kept pace with Ujberjam and our friend MP - I ran 3.2 miles! Wo0T! Except that, right after, I felt like I was about to puke, and now I think my legs and feet are non-functional. Doh.

It could have been worse. I didn't acutely hurt myself, and I didn't actually puke or anything. But my overzealous optimism will certainly cause me some pain tomorrow.

I'm sure it'll be fine when we have to show up for Tai Chi at 9am tomorrow morning.

BrexMex

Uberjam and I made a visit to Cafe Magnolia on Lake Austin Blvd. last night. What a great little spot. Near our house, open all night, and they serve BrexMex! That word doesn't exist, but I'm coining it. They've got some Mexican Food, some Breakfast Food, and some crossovers (Migas, Huevos Rancheros, and the awesome Eggs Zapatina I had last night, which consists of scrambled eggs with queso over an English Muffin.) Great spot.

We also hit up the Nudge 2.5 film festival - a collection of shorts by students at a local cinematography school. Some of the films (including the one featuring music from Leap by DT) were extremely well done. Conversely, some of the flicks were amateur and nearly insulting. But it was still a good time.

Brr!

Get this: Austin's due for a freezing rain storm tonight! Yeah, I couldn't believe it. Being a hardy Northerner, my first reaction was "eh, no big deal." But as someone a blog I read observed:

Yankees, don't drive tonight! You might be fine, but all of Austin will be sliding into you.

Nuff said.

That, coupled with the fact that our thermostat seems to just "stop working" sometimes, means we'll be in for a cozy night.

My Latest Project: ARP album

I've begun work on a new project: writing an album of ARP music. I'll be keeping a blog as I go, so feel free to tune in if you'd like. I'll post sound samples (and whole tracks) as I complete them.

googly goo

So, after a bit of prodding from the fam, I've updated my Amazon wish list.

I then went on to create a Froogle wish list. Now that's darn cool. If only there were a way for people to mark that they've bought something on the list.

Also, just got back on board with SETI@Home, using the new BOINC client. So cool. I can have my aliens and help mankind, too. I'm on the plastic.com team, but if anybody knows a cooler team to be on, I'm all ears.

Now back to playing with Google Earth. If you're on a PC and you haven't tried it yet, DO IT. It's really rad.