When my sister and I talked about our 2019 siblings weekend in Oklahoma, my cousin Becky (who is an only child) asked to get in on the next one. Kind of a lot has happened in the intervening six years - like M and I getting married, my daughter and two nephews being born, and most critically for this entry, Becky moving cross-country from San Diego ( Read more... )

Had it really been seven years since I saw Los Campesinos! at the Grog Shop? Apparently so. I was happy to break the streak and see them again at The Roxy on Friday, June 21 ( Read more... )

On October 1, Birdie started Sunday School. Well, she's 2, so the "Torah Tots" program she is signed up for is more like "Sunday morning daycare at a synagogue," but even if you don't want to count it as her first organized educational activity, it certainly counts as her first daycare experience. We're signed up through the end of the year, and we ( Read more... )

As of Wednesday's post, I have posted 200 straight days in a row. Assuming yesterday's post and this post (which is being written Wednesday night) go up as scheduled, it's now 202 days in a row. This blows away my prior longest streak, which was 59 days back in 2014. It more than doubles away the 100 in a row I mistakenly thought that I in 2014. So ( Read more... )

The very first arena concert I ever went to was Meat Loaf at the Fargodome in July 3, 1994 as part of the tour for the Bat Out of Hell 2 album. The opening act was a German band with evocative name of Fury in the Slaughterhouse, who I recall being reasonably well matched with Meat Loaf ( Read more... )

This journal still isn't a current events blog, but the recent death of George Floyd in police custody and the subsequent ongoing protests have pushed the coronavirus off the front page. One pleasant side effect of that is that a lot of people are suddenly a lot more interested in African-American history and related topics. A lot of reading lists ( Read more... )

How long have you participated in a given activity? I'm not talking about the obvious things like you have to do to stay alive (e.g., eating, breathing) but the things you choose to do or perhaps have chosen for you when you are young. For example, how about school ( Read more... )

( TANSTAAFL becomes TISTAAFL )