If a giant crane is going to collapse a couple of blocks from your apartment, destroy a couple of buildings, and kill a couple of people, try to avoid being on a plane to Reno and unreachable when it happens. It sure does increase the voicemail and e-mail volume for the rest of the day.

Back in 1995 when I first joined a group of musicians in Dryden, NY who fancied themselves a nascent band, the bassist (and basement rehearsal host) was a gentleman named Dave Brown. In addition to being a senior member of Cornell's Extension community and a Food Science instructor in the College of Agriculture & Life Sciences, he was a well-known and highly regarded cheese judge. He'd also been in bands just about as long as there'd been such a thing as rock and roll, and he kept a solid beat and sang good backups. Moreover, Dave was a quietly funny guy who knew how to keep rehearsals light but productive.

I eventually named the band "Revolving Door" based on our inability to maintain one, stable lineup, but Dave was one of the original members. We had only played out a few times (in fact the userpic for this entry is a photo from one of those gigs, at the Savoy in Watkins Glen) before there were a few more personnel changes, and Doug Dann took his place, later to be replaced himself by Jim Smolos. Revolving Door went on for another few years, while Dave continued to be a strong part of the central NY music scene in a variety of capacities, both in bands and otherwise.

Dave passed away this week at the age of 63. His music and his laughter will be missed.

Reason #306: Since I had cleared my weekend (besides Passover seder with the family last night) for the possibility I might have to spend much of it hustling around Brooklyn looking for a one bedroom apartment that I could afford and didn't make me ill with the thought of living in it, I instead got a little more sleep than I would have otherwise, had a nice, relaxed dinner with my friend Brandyne (even managed to stay kosher for Passover at a Mexican restaurant!), now have a slightly cleaner apartment, and also caught up on my Friends page for the first time in months.

The latest bulletins from BeeeejWorld:

As of last night, I apparently have a new roommate. My friend Andrea's colleague Raj looks to be moving in at the end of the month to replace Pat. For a while I was quite stressed, not knowing whether I'd have a new roommate, have to move out on my own or what... it even looked for a while like little_odd_duck and I might end up sharing an apartment in Prospect Heights, which probably would've been tons of fun, but the logistics on that one never came together the way we'd hoped. In any event I'm relieved not to have to move.

I'm now two sessions into an intensive, ten-session program with my once and future trainer Adam, and I'm simultaneously in agony and feeling great. Even though I'm still technically in training for "America's Most Beautiful Bike Ride" in Lake Tahoe June 1, and even though the commute to my new job involves a fair amount of walking to and from the subway, I've become quite the slug, so this is much needed. We're treating my knee gingerly, but thus far it has been performing quite excellently.

It had been rumored for a while, but it's now official; Cornell men's hockey will play a pair of games at University of North Dakota this coming Thanksgiving weekend, Friday and Saturday, November 28 and 29. It's obviously a little early to be making plans about it, but I really do intend to go; it'd be a shame for the team to face a new opponent (well, relatively - we lost to them in the national quarterfinals in 1997, when they won the championship a couple of games later) without the strongest possible road-fan support there. I know a lot of other Lynah Faithful are planning to go as well, and it sounds like the most cost-effective way of doing it will be flying into Minneapolis/St. Paul and driving the rest of the way in a convoy of carpooled rental cars. Well, the most cost-effective way from New York City would probably be the $170 Amtrak route, but that takes nearly 48 hours each way, so I'd miss Thanksgiving. I hope those Faithful reading this will consider joining those of us already planning to do so.

This evening's sundown marks the beginning of Passover. Chag Sameach to those celebrating! I still haven't picked up any kosher Coke this year... I'd better get around to that soon.

Oh, and that other thing? The absurdly long-term thing about which I finally found some courage and no longer had any regrets? Yeah, that didn't work out. It wasn't a surprise to me, and it hurt - again. But I meant what I said, I have no regrets this time. It's amazing how much easier it is to sleep when that's true. I only hope I can find that courage again in the future, when it really matters.

I arose early yesterday, put on my cold weather riding gear, and headed downstairs with my rental bike. Alicia, the Denver TNT chapter's assistant coach for the group doing America's Most Beautiful Bike Ride (a.k.a. the Tahoe Century), picked me up at my hotel, and we managed to fit both our bikes in the back of her car. A short drive later, we were at Maple Grove Park in Golden, west of Denver, to meet the rest of the team. I'd foolishly forgotten to check whether my rental bike had water bottle cages, and we were about to figure out a way for me to give each of my two bottles to a different rider so I could get my water and my Accelerade handed off to me whenever I needed it (which probably would have been a huge pain in the ass), when team member Emily volunteered her bottle cages and her allen wrench tool to move them to my bike; she was wearing a camelback for her fluids anyway, so she didn't need them.

The main goal of the day's ride was to climb the switchback route up Lookout Mountain, but first we did fifteen miles in and around Golden, then the same fifteen miles back - past the Coors Brewery, and around some hilly but not awful terrain. The real problem was the brutal headwinds on our way out to Foothills Road - and for me, the additional problem was the thin air at this altitude. I was sucking wind most of the way, even after we turned around and caught the tailwinds.



We paused in downtown Golden for a photo:



Then the team set out to climb the aforementioned Lookout Mountain:



I was game to try, but one of my strengths as a bicyclist is that I know my limitations... and with the air problem, I just wasn't going to make it. A quarter of the way up, I let Alicia know I was heading back down and would wait for them after their descent. I grabbed a sandwich at Woody's Pizza, then hung out at Starbucks and nursed my rather uncomfortably hairy lungs until the group returned a while later. Then I rode back out to the park with Alicia, where we repacked the car and headed back to Denver. She was heading past the Bicycle Doctor on her way home anyway, so she very graciously just dropped me off at the hotel and returned the bike for me.

I didn't have time for a nap, just a shower, before the first ever all-Jesuit Frozen Four championship game, Boston College vs. Notre Dame. During the first intermission, Rita and I were chatting about post-game plans for the group when a random guy in a Cornell jersey approached us; turns out he lives in Denver and had actually made his choice about a job offer a year and a half ago based partly on the Frozen Four being here this year (and hoping that Cornell might make it, though this was definitely the wrong season for that).



The game itself was pretty exciting, though the final score wouldn't make you think so. Notre Dame, who had upset three "better" teams in the first three rounds to get to the finals, fought valiantly, and at one point had even scored what looked like their second goal to make the score 3-2, but the goal was called back, and BC put the nail in the coffin less than a minute later to make it 4-1.

Afterwards the group went to Appaloosa Grill on the 16th Street Mall for dinner, where I had a very good bison cheddarburger and a locally brewed New Belgium Mighty Arrow IPA.





I was pretty exhausted (and a little sunburnt) from the long day, so it was right off to bed with me.

So on Wednesday, after a lovely evening at the Power of Film Gala (about which more later), I stayed up the rest of the night and then took an early Thursday morning flight from Newark to Denver for the 2008 Frozen Four. Everything went smoothly on the trip out - well, almost everything. I was on line to check my suitcase when I suddenly remembered I couldn't bring my toiletry bag (which included a can of shaving cream) in my carry-on, and I quickly reached in to move it to my suitcase... grabbing it, unfortunately, by the head of my razor, and cutting my finger open. It bled pretty copiously for such a small cut (I later realized I'd actually taken a good chunk off, not just cut it), but with some Continental Airlines staff help we got it under control before I boarded.

When you have to fly for several hours, very few things beat being able to do it for free (or for miles, anyway), in the aisle seat of an exit row, with nobody in the middle seat, with a power outlet underneath you. On my laptop I watched "Across the Universe," which was really wonderful (I started with "Michael Clayton," which froze 59 seconds in - thanks, Netflix!), and finally started reading Limitations, a Scott Turow novel that the New York Times Magazine had serialized a couple of years ago, and which Mom had saved for me.

A quick trip to my hotel later, I napped for a few hours, then went to see some hockey.

The early game, #2 North Dakota vs. #3 Boston College, was supposed to have been the more competitive of the semifinals, but somebody must have forgotten to tell them, because it didn't work out that way. North Dakota clearly had the better of the physical game, and a crisp, clean power play, but that didn't last long or get them very far. Defensive breakdowns quickly led to Boston College breakaways and 2-on-1s and short-handed goals, and Sioux goalie (and Hobey Baker candidate) Jean-Philippe Lamoureux got hung out to dry.

Six times.

North Dakota finally put one on the board with close to nine minutes left in the game, but it wasn't nearly enough; the Eagles had too much of a step on them. Final, 6-1.

After the first semi, most of the Cornell contingent present (or at least most of the ELynah Forum contingent) met to coordinate nighttime plans and put faces to names:



The second semifinal, in which #1 Michigan was heavily favored over #4 Notre Dame, turned out to be far more entertaining - though for a while, Notre Dame seemed to be doing its best Boston College impression, and was up 3-0 fairly quickly. But the Wolverines fought back to a 3-3 tie, and then after the Fighting Irish made it 4-3, also tied it up at 4. We went to sudden-death overtime, in which the Irish just clearly had more steam left, and finally capitalized with their fifth and winning goal to end the game.

Saturday evening, it seemed, would feature the first all-Jesuit Frozen Four championship game in history.

A different subset of the Cornell contingent went out for legal beverages and food across the river(s) from downtown at the charming and friendly My Brother's Bar, whose most notable feature seems to be that they retail Girl Scout Cookies. My J.C.B. - Jalapeño and Cream Cheese Burger - was quite yummy, as was my locally-brewed Great Divide Denver Pale Ale.



After a long walk back to the hotel, I settled in for a good night's sleep.

Mid-afternoon upon my return from a pre-trial conference downtown, I saw a message on Facebook inviting me to tonight's Wonderous Stories gig at B.B. King's. Apparently Dave Mason (of Traffic and later Fleetwood Mac) had taken ill, and Wonderous Stories was filling in at the last minute - and for free, which is always a good price. Wonderous Stories is only known to me because they share a keyboardist/vocalist, Mark Bonder, with Stealin' Dan, a Steely Dan tribute band I've seen before (at B.B. King's in fact). They were originally a Yes tribute band, but have expanded their repertoire to include a vast array of classic and progressive rock.

Anyway, I'd been alerted by mhaithaca that zercool and talkingmute12 (whom I had not previously met) were going to be down here for the weekend, so after a few rounds of phone calls with them, and with my friend Eddie (and IMs with Eddie's girlfriend Melissa), everybody showed up, including zercool's and talkingmute12's host Rivkah, and so we were a sixsome in the Big Booth™ at B.B. King's, quaffing legal beverages, eating barbecue, and digging a most surreal and impressive set of rock and roll.

The set list, believe it or not:

• From The Who's "Tommy":
  
  • Overture/It's a Boy
    
  • 1921
    
  • Amazing Journey/Sparks (segue into Underture)
    
  • Pinball Wizard
    
  • See Me, Feel Me/Listening to You
• Elton John, "Funeral for a Friend/Love Lies Bleeding"
  
• From The Beatles' "Magical Mystery Tour":
  
  • Magical Mystery Tour
    
  • The Fool on the Hill
    
  • Flying
    
  • Blue Jay Way
    
  • Your Mother Should Know
    
  • I Am the Walrus
• Genesis, "The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway"
  
• The Allman Brothers Band, "Jessica"
  
• Traffic, "The Low Spark of High-Heeled Boys"
  
• Yes, "Yours Is No Disgrace"
  
• Emerson, Lake & Palmer, "Still... You Turn Me On"
  
• Emerson, Lake & Palmer, "Benny the Bouncer"
  
• Emerson, Lake & Palmer, "Lucky Man"
  
• Procol Harum, "Salty Dog"
  
• The Beatles, "A Day in the Life"

A bizarre and rambunctious time was had by all.

I attended the weekly Urbana Slam at the Bowery Poetry Club this evening, to see little_odd_duck perform some of her poetry in competition as I'd promised I would ages ago. It turns out to have been a good night for it. She opened with "The Wanderer" (which can be seen in an earlier performance in this YouTube clip), and got the highest score of the eight poets performing. She also won the round of four, and then won the last round against a friend of hers, with two incredibly contrasting poems, gut-wrenching and nostalgic respectively.

Even with an open-mic segment and a couple of featured touring poets preceding the slam, only a few other poets managed to touch me with their words tonight, but it was a few hours well spent. Things like Def Poetry Jam or dramatic spoofs of feminist poetry nights and teenage angst "poetry" really don't do the art form justice, though you could see their influence in the (mostly amateurish) open-mic segment. But as with most performance arts, the truly talented distinguish themselves quite acutely from the rest of the pack.

With her victory, little_odd_duck moves on to the Urbana semi-finals, date TBA. I hope to cheer her on with another glass of Laphroaig in my hand.

Several months after my brother mhaithaca alerted me to a friend of his about to move to NYC, and close to three months after she actually arrived, I got together last night with october31st. We had beers at the Peculier Pub, famed in story, song, and Goats, and then wandered Bleecker looking for food. To my surprise, we stumbled upon a branch of Rare - a wonderful, creative burger place based in the Shelbourne Murray Hotel in midtown that I hadn't even realized now has another location. Good stuff.

Anyway, it was a little surreal as always to "catch up" with someone I'd never met in person before, but I've been doing that for going on fifteen years now (the very first time was with a redhead too, come to think of it), so no biggie. Good to make a new friend.

I'm quite certain I got on an E train at the World Trade Center stop after my lunch with Gerald, a friend from law school who's opening his own solo practice downtown. In fact, it even still said it was an E train when I got off of it...

...on Roosevelt Island.

WTF?!

On the other hand, how sad is it that I'd never been on Roosevelt Island before today?

Yesterday evening, after an all-day CLE program in midtown, I headed to my neighborhood and stopped by my favorite haircut place for a long overdue trim. While I waited for Jen to be available, I had a Chivas (Mario was out of single malts, but said he was planning to stock up on Macallan) and chatted with another customer who works at a retained executive search firm. Nice guy, knows his Scotch (had me try a Ghirardelli dark chocolate with the Chivas; very nice), and his father's a lawyer.

Anyway, as Jen was cutting my hair, Mario came back downstairs and asked me for job search advice on behalf of his daughter, who's just about to finish law school next month. Never mind that I'm not thrilled with my own employment situation, but I asked for more about her background so I could be as helpful as possible. Turns out she had started law school part-time while she worked as a paralegal... at a medical malpractice firm here in the city.

"Defense?" I asked.

"How do you mean?"

"Did the firm represent the patients or the doctors?"

"The doctors."

And then we both named my old firm at the same time. He told me his daughter's first name, and I followed it with her last. His daughter left after I'd been there for only about six months, but I did know her, if not very well. All present laughed at the coincidence, then I asked him to convey my congratulations and good wishes to his daughter and that I hope she finds what she's looking for.

May you have a relaxing, enjoyable day!

Largely due to my training schedule for El Tour de Tucson (which is in five days, by the way!!), I haven't really taken a weekend entirely for myself in a few months. Since my bike was already on its way to Arizona, this weekend I took a roadtrip.

I stopped off in Dobbs Ferry to pick up Dad's car, and dropped off a piece of my birthday cake for him in return... then after a long, traffic-filled drive to New Haven, I saw the Cornell men's hockey team defeat Yale 2-1 in a hard-fought, exciting game that would've been a shut-out for Ben Scrivens but for Yale's goal with 5.7 seconds left. At the game, I saw my distant cousin David and met some of his friends, and hung out with my friends Anne, Jeff (and his son Brian, who already wants to go to Cornell's School of Hotel Administration when it's time for college in ten years), Kevin, and Arik.

A snack and a quick, traffic-free drive to Providence later, I was sleeping on the couch of my friends John & Micaela. Despite their best efforts, their adorable toddler Maggie woke me bright and early, and we all went out for a relaxed breakfast. I drove down to Cranston for lunch with my fraternity brother Pete, who's now the rabbi for Temple Sinai, a Reform congregation covering Cranston and Warwick; we hadn't really sat down and talked in many years, and it was great to catch up with him.

Then while John, Micaela, and Maggie went to a party for a friend of Maggie's, I napped... rather briefly, because their babysitter showed up an hour early and kept calling. Finally John and Micaela and I went off to Meehan Auditorium, where we saw a hard-working Cornell team and another good night from Ben Scrivens in net overcome a larger, faster Brown team to defeat them 4-1. At the game I also had the pleasure of finally meeting Al, a frequent poster on the eLynah Forum and a fan of Cornell hockey for nearly fifty years. (John commented on how unusual it is for him to introduce me to anybody...!)

Afterwards, Rich joined John, Micaela and me for dinner, drinks, and dessert to celebrate Micaela's birthday at restaurant/bar/nightclub Paragon (motto: "We'll keep turning up the music until you get the hell out, unhip non-clubbing hockey people"). While I stayed up digesting, I suddenly remembered my friends Phillip and Lauren had moved to Providence earlier in the year, and dropped them an e-mail. They called first thing in the morning (after Maggie had woken me up a couple of times), and we made plans for lunch. After my goodbyes to Hayes family, I drove the 3/4 mile from their house to the Karlssons', got the grand tour of the house that used to be Phillip's parents', and hung out with them and lunched with them and their two year old daughter Ebba and 7 month old son Ronin, who alas is getting over the croupe.

When I got home last night I e-mailed contact information for Phillip and Lauren to John & Micaela and vice versa, as they had all commented on the coincidence of two sets of my friends with toddlers (and several Cornell degrees) living in fairly close proximity. Then I had a light dinner while watching "Flags of Our Fathers" (not bad; nice to see Jesse Bradford getting work again), went to bed early, and got a delicious night's sleep.

Now I have an abbreviated work week before flying off to Arizona on Thursday morning. Yay!

I ran into my friends Marc and Cara this morning in the 86th St. subway station, and we rode the 6 train downtown together until I got off at 51st. They live just five blocks north of me on the corner of 93rd and 1st, but between all our work commitments and their nearly nine month old baby girl Olivia, we rarely get to see each other except like this, by accident. It was nice to catch up with them, though. Once this big bike ride is over in mid-November (see tucsonorbust if you still don't know what I'm talking about), and I have a little more free time, I should make more of a priority of getting together with the friends in my life who don't happen to be on my radar screen just because they're throwing a party or something.

So, it's been a few weeks. There's a slightly longer story to it - a perfect storm of discontent, poor people skills, and even poorer organizational planning - but I came within a hair's breadth of starting a document review gig through an agency I didn't respect for a client who didn't seem to know what was going on for a rate lower than I wanted and fewer hours than I wanted to work, and which was to start two weeks later than they originally told me. Instead, the firm where I'd been working from early June to mid-September called the agency who'd placed me there, told them they loved my work, and asked to have me come back. So I'm back, and happy to be there.

In the meantime, since it's been my habit in the past to make note of celebrity sightings, I thought I'd mention my breakfast yesterday. I met my friend Molly at Irving Farm, a cute coffee place not far from Union Square, and we had some great waffles while we talked about our writing. Susan Sarandon came in to get some coffee to go, and then a short while later Val Kilmer sat down with someone to have an extended conversation over hot drinks. Did I mention the waffles were great?

My friend Ross has just had a piece published by McSweeney's:

Alan Greenspan's eBay Auctions.

After two weeks in a row of thirteen-hour days here at the firm, I very badly needed a three-day weekend like this one. I started things off early, joining a few high school friends for drinks and dinner in midtown on Friday evening; one even surprised us by showing up at the last minute from Ohio. We had fun reminiscing about stuff that happened more than twenty years ago (ouch!!), and catching up on what we and other classmates were up to; we're now thinking about trying to arrange a larger-scale reunion in a few months.

Saturday, I slept in, then rode my bike about 25 miles. The rest of the afternoon and evening was spent at Coney Island celebrating magnetgirl's birthday with her and a bunch of her friends, including our overlap friend coyotegoth. (I assume at least a few other friends of hers at the party are also LJ users, but I haven't seen a post from her about it yet, so I'm not gonna speculate.) I ate Nathan's hotdogs (and creamy garlic fries - SO good), rode the Cyclone and the WonderWheel for the very first time, and just relaxed on the beach with cool people, good food, and a spectacular sunset.

Sunday, I slept in, then rode my bike about 30 miles. I didn't do much else productive Sunday; I had been invited to a BBQ, but it was in the middle of the outer-borough boonies, I wasn't going to know many people there, and I was still tired. So I stuck close to home and just relaxed.

Monday, I slept in, then rode my bike about 50 miles. Then my friend Dave from college and radio came by; he lives in California, but was in town for his sister's wedding. We hung out for several hours, walked around the neighborhood for a while, and he indulged in a couple of New York guilty pleasures, pizza from a real pizzeria and a chocolate-dipped cone from an ice cream truck on the corner.

The weather just could not have been better these last few days... and it's still supposed to be gorgeous for another few days. I wish I had those days off, too! Alas.

One of the convenient things about doing some sort of fundraising event every single year is that it gives me an excuse to update my contacts. If I've "lost" someone (and since I have no shame whatsoever, I ask pretty much everyone I've ever known, unless they ask me not to), I try to track them down.

Last night my e-mail about El Tour de Tucson to someone I hadn't really spoken to in a few years bounced, so I used my usual resources... Facebook, LinkedIn, Google... and discovered that since the last time we spoke, she joined an all-female Depeche Mode tribute band.

Ah, surreal life in the big city.

I've never posted a YouTube video here before, but this one is too good to miss. My friend Andrea has entered a Popular Science contest to make a video for the Jonathan Coulton song about drugs, "I Feel Fantastic," and I think it's absolutely brilliant.



You can see her competition at http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=49E2A02DDD5DF4C8. I don't think viewer ratings on the videos factor into who wins the contest, but if you enjoy Andrea's video, please do help out its rating.

My friend Fran, of Top5 fame, has focused her photographic skills on a new website of mostly Winnetka pictures. Enjoy!