Well, I did find my way to the Blue Light Monday. Mistake. I have been dragging since then. However, the show itself was fun. I got to hear "Windfall", which Charlie says he only plays when I'm there...like I have any way of knowing whether this is true. My favorite part of the night has become the rap medley. You never know what new song will be in the mix with the usual Dr. Dre/Eminem/50 Cent. They are going to be backing Matt Martindale for about another month, then the band is going on the road. Translation, I'll not be seeing much of them after that for some time. *sigh* Things learned Monday: Rap names can be hilarious. I've tired of hearing cliche songs over the same guitar chords (open mic night can make time stand still). The local hockey team is unbelievably unimposing and nice.


It's been a Leonardo DiCaprio film festival at the house this week. I've watched The Departed a few times and finally saw Blood Diamond. I liked them both. The pacing of Blood Diamond could have been a bit faster, but I liked it better than The Departed. The ending of The Departed probably leads me to feel that way. I'm not really a DiCaprio fan, and am in no way familiar with the South African accent he employs for Blood Diamond but I thought he was great in that role as Danny Archer. Of course, the same goes for Djimon Hounsou as fisherman Solomon Vandy.

I'm ready for the weekend and a few days away from here. I feel like it's been ages since I've seen everyone. I hope everyone that's going has safe travels into Austin this weekend. See y'all soon.

Since the first day of spring, not a day has passed without rain. Strange. It rained all day yesterday, and there were at least a half dozen sightings of funnel clouds within the city limits. I watched this all from my parent's house, away from the city. I don't think any major damage was caused, there was some damage to warehouses, but I don't believe there were any injuries. Just a bit unsettling to see them around town.



Besides watching the weather situation, yesterday (and pretty much Saturday) was spent watching the tournament. The Georgetown/North Carolina game made me very happy. I can't believe UNC failed to connect on so many shots in the last minutes of the second half and in overtime. It was remarkable. I feared Tyler Hansbrough would take over the game and carry UNC. Thankfully, that didn't happen. I also wanted an excuse to post this picture comparison from adamriff.com:

I'm looking forward to this day being over, quickly. I have to be in court this afternoon and finish up some research for Wednesday. It will be a long day.

This week:

Wednesday: Ryan Bingham
Thursday: Ryan James
Friday: MMC
Saturday: Greenfest

Maybe, I'll find my way to the Blue Light tonight...

my nightmare...

Water Privatization

I have to confess that I was around eight or nine years old when I started hearing about the greenhouse effect, global warming and environmental causes in general. Do you know how scary those concepts can be to kids? Anyway, I digress, one of the issues that always stuck with me was the availability (or lack thereof) of drinking water. I know...weird child, still am. Living up here, where there's not an abundance of water, I became aware of what a shortage of rainfall can mean to this part of the state. I always told my dad that we seriously needed to consider a move...based on water availability.

Anyway, today I ran across this series investigating the effects of corporations buying water rights around the globe. The prospect of this natural resource being horded by these corporations scares me like no other. Overreaction? Probably... I understand that the front-end promises they make are beneficial to the growing communities. However, I'm not naive enough to believe those benefits/promises will remain when the sought after resource becomes more and more scarce.

I love spring and the thunderstorms it brings. This being the first day of spring, we experienced the first spring shower. I was enjoying the thunder off in the distance, then heard the beginning of the rain shower. Apparently, it lulled me to sleep. I was reading one minute, and the next...I'm waking up to a ringing cell phone, 3 hours later! Falling to sleep tonight should be fun...

Neil Patrick Harris was just on Conan, and told what may be the funniest/grossest story I've ever heard on a talk show. I think he, as Barney, is my favorite character on t.v. right now.

Here's my favorite segment from last night's Late Show, I finally found it on youtube:

remains of the weekend...

I have a paltry 2 teams remaining in one of the four regions...pathetic. Talking with some friends, though, I'm not as bad off as I thought. Especially after the demise of Wisconsin & UT.

I didn't get much accomplished this weekend. We had a family dinner, Friday night, at my grandma's house. Always fun and interesting to see what's going on with everyone. I spent the rest of the weekend watching games, reading a few books and catching up on some episodes of ROME on the DVR.

When the series first began, I wasn't really interested in the Caesar/Brutus/Mark Antony storylines. I was more intrigued by the story of Lucius Vorenus and Titus Pullo. In the past few episodes, that has flipped, and I'm much more interested in the politics and deceit in the Gaius Octavian and Antony storyline. The actor, James Purefoy, that plays Mark Antony is outstanding. The series finale is next Sunday, and should be great. Sorry to see it go, but Entourage and The Sopranos will be back next month.

I just had Wimbledon on the background and heard this David Gray song, a favorite, that I'd somehow forgotten about.

This Year's Love:

This year's love had better last
Heaven knows it's high time
And I've been waiting on my own too long
But when you hold me like you do
It feels so right
I start to forget
How my heart gets torn
When that hurt gets thrown
Feeling like you can't go on

Turning circles when time again
It cuts like a knife oh yeah
If you love me got to know for sure
Cos it takes something more this time
Than sweet sweet lies
Before I open up my arms and fall
Losing all control
Every dream inside my soul
And when you kiss me
On that midnight street
Sweep me off my feet
Singing ain't this life so sweet

This year's love had better last
This year's love had better last

So whose to worry
If our hearts get torn
When that hurt gets thrown
Don't you know this life goes on
And won't you kiss me
On that midnight street
Sweep me off my feet
Singing ain't this life so sweet

This year's love had better last
This year's love had better last
This year's love had better last
This year's love had better last

let me count the ways...

...my bracket stinks. Holy @#!& So far, I have lost out on: Old Dominion, Georgia Tech, Notre Dame(Irish losing on St. Patrick's Day is wrong), Duke!!!, Gonzaga, Marquette (who's always good to me!), Texas Tech and Long Beach State (I just KNEW they could pull off the upset against the Vols!).

We'll see how badly I fare in tonight's games. If TXAMU-CC keeps it up, I'll be down another team. North Texas gave me a scare, but I would have been happy to see them win.

I hate when I think I'm going to have a relatively free Friday afternoon, and then we get calls about things that MUST be done by the end of the business day (Eastern DST). Now, I'm just sitting in the office watching the games and hoping the phone doesn't ring in the next five minutes. I'm gone after that.

I hope you all have a good weekend, I'll be tearing up my bracket.

creepy

Killing time this morning, I came across this entry on Gizmodo: Drug Developed that Erases Specific Memories.

Apparently, they've been able to do this successfully in rats. Is this a good thing? I am sure there are some people that suffer from post-traumatic stress that it could benefit, but I am pretty creeped out by the idea.

____________________

20 hours 25 minutes until the tournament starts... I am all alone in the office tomorrow, worked late yesterday and doing the same today. So, there won't be much to do tomorrow. It looks like the television will be on and I'll be watching whatever games are slated for our region.

started off shaky...

The weekend ended up being fantastic. I was still feeling bad, but it was no big deal. The disappointment from Thursday was replaced with alcohol and lots of laughs Friday night, before and after the RRB show. As much as I think my love for the live shows has waned; my love for those guys is the same as it ever was. They all make me laugh for different reasons. RR took care of us, and the show was better than the previous night's.

I met these two guys Friday night that had me laughing for like an hour. In retrospect, I don't even remember what the hell we were talking about besides Mike's trip to Panama City this week. However, it just struck me at lunch today that Todd reminds me of an old friend from middle school/jr. high/high school. I'm going to have to track down Robbie now, it's been too long since I've seen him.

The boys from RRB and Ryan James convinced me that going to sleep that night would be fruitless and I should just stay up until my flight left. I should not listen to these fools. I was so sleepy waiting to board the plane, it was ridiculous. To make matters worse, I couldn't even sleep on the flight to DFW because of the stabbing pain in my ears...FYI, they're not kidding when they say you shouldn't fly when you're having issues with a stuffy head/sinus. I crashed at the terminal for an hour at DFW; proceeded to do the same at the hotel room in Waco. I woke two hours before the wedding.

The wedding was great. Becky looked fantastic and Brady looked a mess. LOL! He said he had a major freak out the day before. Becky called him from home and alluded to the fact that by that time tomorrow, she'd be his wife. He said the panic set in. For a second, I thought he might hyperventilate just recanting the story. All was well...and it went off without a hitch. The weather was just beautiful...as was the margarita machine.

I got to see Mike Modano score his 499th career goal...it was the game-winner against the Kings, in overtime. At one point during a Stars power play, the guy sitting behind us said something like, "Come on Modano, do something...for once in your career." You have no idea how much self-restraint it took to keep from pouring my 9 dollar drink on this man.

We followed up the game with a trip to Ft Worth, and Joe T. Garcia's. Yeah, it's out of the way, but it was such a nice night. Threatening storms moved dinner inside, but it didn't really matter. We had a great time.

. . .

Have you had one of those moments where you hope what you see coming is something altogether different? Yet you know, it's exactly what you fear is happening. I understand that there are things beyond one's control. I hope the entire thing was just a blip and not something that's now the norm. All that being said, I can't even put into words how disappointed and sad (I guess that's the only fitting word; not just personally but for everyone involved.) the entire thing made me.
________________________

Moving on...

Regarding Idaho, I think I may have changed my mind regarding when I'll arrive. I'm going to go ahead and say I'll be there the entire week. That, I'm very happy about.

Eye Wash is my friend...

I have no idea what happened today, but my left eye is U-G-L-Y! On my thrill-a-second drive to the New Mexico border, my contact began bothering me. A few seconds later, I was pulling over to take it out. The eye continued to bug the heck out of me during the court appearance. On the way home, I decided to cut the drive a half-hour short and stop at mom and dad's house because my vision was getting really blurry. It felt like there was still some kind of irritant in there. I got an eye wash and it feels fantastic. I'm going to repeat it in the morning and hope it feels better.

I'd planned on seeing Reckless tomorrow night, but who knows now. I don't want to cause a flare up if it's due to environmental irritants. I guess same goes for RRB on Thursday and Friday nights. (gasp) Hopefully, this will all be clear in the morning.

I went to the Blue Light, Monday. Charlie sang Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah." It's such a beautiful song. Charlie did a good job of covering it. My favorite is Rufus Wainwright's or Jeff Buckley's version.