Thanksgiving Rainbow

The Sunday after Thanksgiving it was absolutely pouring on our drive home from my mom's. Later that afternoon, as I was watching TV, I noticed something glowing outside the window... It was a vibrant double-rainbow that appeared and disappeared just as quickly. Thank goodness for nearby cameras.

Mile High Club "Kit"

I have two plastic bins in my closet full of travel items - tiny toiletries, inflatable pillows, collapsible backpacks and the like. Every time I'm preparing for a trip, I haul the bins out and rifle through them to find the perfect things I'll need for that adventure. I've got damn near everything I could ask for in those bins, I tell you.

What I don't have in my closet, however, is a Mile High Club Kit.

No, I don't think I'll be getting one. But it nearly gave me a stomachache from laughing, so I thought I'd share the wealth with all y'all.

Over-Stuffed

My, what a Thanksgiving weekend... We spent four days down at my mother's house, and I ate far too much. I paid for it yesterday, when my gastro-intestinal system finally cried, "UNCLE!" All better now, thank goodness.

Anyway, I hope everyone who celebrates Thanksgiving had a good holiday!

This is going to be a busy week for me - the BootsnAll Holiday Party is this Saturday, and we've got folks coming in from all over the place for the festivities. There are also other activities going on starting Thursday afternoon and going through Sunday... I'm sure to have some great stories (and pictures) next week, when I'm recovering, but this week I might not be posting much. Just so y'know.

Geography Awareness Week

I think I'm kind of clueless about geography (don't tell my boss)... In fact, I'm so out of it that I didn't even realize Geography Awareness Week was last week. Oops. Well, we can all play catch-up now, including testing our own knowledge of our world. How well will you do?

A computer backup is a wonderful thing...

Well, I lugged the laptop into BnA HQ today, thinking I'd be handing it over to coworker and computer guru Mika to salvage what he could from the hard drive before I shipped the whole thing off to Texas to be repaired... And then when he turned on the computer, it powered right up. Sluggishly, but it worked.

"Yeah," he said, "I sometimes have this effect on computers."

So I still have no idea what was wrong with it yesterday, but Mika scared it into submission today, and, while it was still working, he and I went to the office store, bought an external hard drive and did a full backup. Just in case. The machine is home now (with its new external hard drive happily camped out next to it), and seems to be fine. I'm not going to look a gift horse in the mouth, I'm just going to continue being really happy it's working and my data is now safe.

And again, let this be a lesson to you - back up your computers regularly. You don't want to give yourself an ulcer.

Don't know what you've got until it's gone...

My laptop is having a nervous breakdown - and I'm frantically (and somewhat unsuccessfully) trying not to do the same thing. Perhaps this will teach me to do more regular backups on my machine.

Let this be a lesson to you! Do weekly backups of anything you would be sorry about losing forever and ever and ever!

So, uh, posting may be sporadic for awhile... Cross your fingers for me, will you? Many thanks.

Tiny Toiletries

With the TSA's ban on liquids over 3 oz. in carry-on bags, I figured sooner or later someone would try cashing in on that. And finally someone has. I'm with Carrie, however - there's no way I'm putting a shampoo/conditioner combo anywhere near my tresses, so I hope these folks expand their selection soon.

Lindsey Buckingham Concert Review

Lindsey Buckingham
Newmark Theatre, Portland Oregon
16 November 2006

The Newmark Theatre is small; the fact that it has two balconies might confuse you into thinking you're going into a grand hall. You're not. From our 2nd row seats in the first balcony, we could still see Lindsey's hands moving on his guitar. Rather, to be more correct, guitars. The man changed instruments after every single song, I think. But I digress...

Lindsey Buckingham is a legend, and while I think on some level he must be aware of his own genius, he also seems humbled by a cheering crowd, genuinely thankful people still want to hear what he has to say. He routinely bowed with what appeared to be deep gratitude at the applause he was receiving, and even made mention of the fact that when one is locked away in a studio or dealing with the business end of music that it's easy to forget about the delivery of said music... And that he was thankful we were all there to hear his songs.

This band, like the group he last toured with, is fabulous - they shared the stage with him a little more than half the time. Lindsey is known for his penchant for gadgets and technology, and the band and stage show reflect that - the drummer, for instance, plays probably the most hi-tech drum kit I've ever seen. There wasn't a single actual drum - they were all electronic, including the bass drum (the pedal just hit a tiny pad on the floor - if you're familiar with drum kits, it looked like the pedal was set up without anything to hit at all), but that wasn't even the coolest thing. The coolest thing, hands down, was the drummer's seat. Yes, his seat. Why? Well, because it doubled as a set of conga drums. No joke. The man would just pound his hands on his friggin' chair, and depending on where he hit it, it would sound like a different drum. Absolutely cool.

But back to the man himself... Like I said, he changed guitars practically every song. I imagine his house is rather full of instruments at this point in his career. Anyone who's watched him play knows the most interesting thing about his style is that he never uses a guitar pick - no matter what technique he's using, he uses only his fingers. His lightning-fast picking style is legendary, and he didn't disappoint last night, running through lots of his solo music as well as some beloved Fleetwood Mac songs. Standouts for me were his haunting rendition of "Go Insane" (it truly sounded creepily crazy), "Big Love," "Bleed to Love Her" (the grand finale), and "Tusk."

Perhaps the thing that struck me most, however, was how in between many of the songs, as the crowd was clapping and yelling, he would fold himself in half, doubled over at the waist, guitar still hanging from his neck, and just scream. This is a man who is, at nearly 60 years old, still having a blast doing what he's doing, and still getting a huge kick out of the fact that other people are enjoying it, too.



Now, the only beef I have is that at the end of the show (after the 2nd encore), he walked offstage saying, "Thank you so much, I'll see you next year!" which made me think, "Wait, did he say that last time he was here? Y'know, 14 years ago??" Yeah, he probably didn't make any promises back then. I hope he meant what he said last night, though, because he's the kind of performer this girl just doesn't get tired of watching.

14 Years Between Dates

Ordinarily, if a date I liked didn't come around again for 14 years, I wouldn't be interested in a second date. But Lindsey Buckingham is different.

I saw him on his "Out of the Cradle" tour in 1992, and he was brilliant. It was, if I remember right, the 2nd show of the tour, and already his band sounded amazingly tight. Over the past 14 years, I've occasionally pulled "Out of the Cradle" off the shelf and thought, "I must have missed the follow up to this album..." And then I'd check online and find that, no, nothing had come out since then.

Until this year.

"Under the Skin" came out recently, and that means Lindsey's on tour again. And I'm going to see him tonight, 14 years after our first rendez-vous. I can't wait. And I intend to forgive him completely for the long delay in his return. You can't hold a grudge against musical genius.

Happy Hubby Birthday

Happiest of happy days to my one and only, the best husband a girl could ever ask for, my perfect travel companion (on vacation and everyday), and the man I love. All rolled into one. And yes, I am the luckiest person I know.

Happy Birthday, Hubby.

I wanna be on this committee...

I don't usually pay attention to the random spam crap that ends up in my email inbox... But for some reason, I noticed one the other day. And I've decided I want to be on this committee:

I belong to Independent Committee of Eminent Persons (CEP).

Day-um, how do I join??

Blustery to Bright Overnight

When we drove out to Lincoln City on Friday afternoon, the rain was blowing sideways and Highway 101 had plenty of standing water - in many places it was difficult to see the road at all. We ate a late lunch at Mo's and then hung out in a coffeeshop with wi-fi for a couple hours, watching the horizontal downpour. By Friday evening, it had calmed remarkably to a constant - but at least vertical - rain.

Imagine my surprise, then, when I woke up Saturday morning to a bright, beautiful, sunny day! The sky was blue, and it wasn't even very windy on the beach in front of the cabin - I felt quite overdressed in my rainjacket and scarf. There wasn't a single drop of rain all day. We still were supremely lazy, despite the glorious weather, and I got caught up on a ton of reading I'd pretty much given up on ever doing. I even took a nap. Heaven, I tell you - heaven.

And now we're back to the real world - and the rain. Some weather-people are predicting 60MPH winds in the Portland area (80MPH at the coast, so I'm glad I'm not there tonight), so I'm just hoping we don't lose power or have anything crash into the house.

Off to the beach

Chris & I are going to the beach house for the weekend, since I'm finally over the worst of that cold. I'll be congested for a week or so (stupid sinuses), but at least the fever's gone.

Anyway, what we had originally thought would be a lovely and relaxing weekend at the beach will now probably be a blustery few days - I'm hoping the house hasn't been affected by the excessive rain and flooding, but who knows? We'll find out tomorrow. As long as we can sit around reading with a fire in the fireplace, it'll still be the perfect beach weekend.

It's about damned time.

Democrats have taken back the House in DC, and it looks like we're poised to take back the Senate, too. As if that wasn't good enough news, Rummy resigned today. Let's see how far this administration's arrogance gets them now.

Next item on the agenda? ITMFA.

Fevah! In the morning, fevah all through the night...

I think I'm finally over the worst of the whole being sick thing - I hope so, anyway, because I'm not prepared to go backwards at this point. I didn't sleep at all on Sunday night - and I'm not exaggerating there, either, I didn't sleep at all - because I literally couldn't breathe through my nose. That truly sucks. Then yesterday I ended up getting a fever midway through the day. We don't have a thermometer, but I knew when I was sitting at the computer yesterday in my nightgown and sweating bullets that probably wasn't a good sign...

Amazingly, I slept through the night last night and while the fever has been coming and going all day, I'm feeling tons better tonight. I'm hoping for another good night's sleep tonight. Man, but these things manage to kick my ass but good. I told Chris on the phone yesterday that he's not allowed to leave anymore, since the last time I had a fever he was also on a business trip. He didn't think that would go over well at work, though, so I think as a backup plan we should at least think about investing in a thermometer.

Cold = Cold

The work retreat was great - lots of energy, great ideas... I'm excited about the next year. The temperatures at theFarm, however, were abso-frickin-lutely freezing. I woke up yesterday (final day of the retreat) with a sore throat, and I knew when I went to bed last night that it wasn't going away. Today, it's a cold. Dammit. I'm laying low this weekend (didn't even go outside today, which, by the sound of the rain pounding on the windows is probably just as well), and hoping the sore throat - at the very least - is better by the time I have to teach on Monday. Well, if it's not, I guess there are always drugs...

At any rate, I posted a little blurb on BootsnAll's behind-the-scenes blog about the retreat, complete with photos.

Life on the Farm

I'm currently ensconced in a three-day year-end meeting/retreat in the hills above the Columbia Gorge. There's a mountain view off the front porch, and another off the back porch. The house sits on 20 acres. There are two fireplaces, and it's got WiFi. Yeah, it's not too shabby.

We had a really productive day today, and tomorrow is when we start talking about the part of the company that's my job... So I'm really eager to get my ideas on the table, and hear everyone else's. It should be a good day.

Oh, I'm also hoping that the rains stay away long enough for me to get out tomorrow and get some photos.