brrr….

Step­ping off the plane in Buf­falo yes­ter­day it was clear that I had reen­tered a much chill­ier world than then one I had left at 6.30am that morn­ing. There has to be about a 20-degree (Fahren­heit) dif­fer­ence in tem­per­a­ture between North Car­olina and North­ern New York.

I brought back a bunch of great “souvenirs” from the trip and a few not so wel­come ones as well. Before anyone bitches about all the heat and sun that I enjoyed, I should note that one or the lesser wel­come reminders from the week­end is the great sun­burn I picked up. Strangely none of the shops I vis­ited while in Car­olina car­ried sun­screen. Per­haps it was a “get-the-yankee” plot: as soon as they heard my accent they hid all the sun­screen and maps (dri­ving to the fes­ti­val we got a little lost. I went into a gas sta­tion to ask for a map… they didn’t have any. Mind you, this wasn’t a small gas sta­tion but rather a Mobil with a full mini mart. They did how­ever have a HUGE selec­tion of chew, snuff, cig­a­rettes, cigars, loose tobacco and other tobacco prod­ucts I’d never heard of… Sir Walter Raleigh would be proud… but I digress).

Another sou­venir I brought back was a cold. Thanks Glenn, it looks like you got the last zing in after all. It’s not too bad, but it’s pulled me off my game. Last night I “limped” through a mar­tial arts class. It was a bad class for a couple rea­sons. First of all my brain was just not firing at it’s usual rate thanks to the cold. So I ended up get­ting caught in the right calf with a knee. Not only is that going to leave a great bruise, but it also left me with a great “char­lie horse” that I’m still feel­ing today. But mobil­ity is highly over­rated anyway. Then we worked pak and back­fist into mul­ti­ple com­bi­na­tions. A “pak” is a Chi­nese slap block applied against the mid fore­arms. I learned a new equa­tion last night:

Slap + Sun­burned Fore­arms = New Pain

But before I ask for cheese with my whine, I have to say that all of this was worth it for the trip I had. Not only did I get to see my broth­ers, but I also got to expe­ri­ence great music and North Car­olina was absolutely beau­ti­ful. We spent Sunday hiking in the Blue Ridge Moutains and it was just breath­tak­ing. The mem­o­ries def­i­nitely out­weigh any cur­rent prob­lems I have as a result of the trip.

‘lil more blog love

The day con­tin­ues to be pretty amaz­ing. There is a spirit of com­par­ti­o­tism and togeth­er­ness that I have never expere­inced at a music fes­ti­val before. Per­haps it’s that the blue­grass tra­di­tion is one where just about every­one covers each other mate­r­ial. Much like Jazz or Clas­si­cal, the cre­ation of inter­pre­ta­tion of exist­ing mate­r­ial is as impor­tant as the cre­ation of new works. Artists are con­stantly making guest appear­ances or rec­om­mend­ing other shows to go see. I even got to hear Dan Tymin­ski per­form Man of Con­stant Sorrow. Dan, of Alison Krauss and Union Sta­tion, pro­vided George Clooney’s singin’ voice in Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?.

Also apple slices cov­ered in caramel and nut bits are super yummy. I love fes­ti­val food (espe­cially when it’s rel­a­tivly fairly priced).

Cool Beans and Bluegrass

This is going to be short. I’m cur­rently blog­ging from an inter­net ter­mi­nal at the Merle Watson Memo­r­ial Blue­grass Feast­i­val in North Car­olina. So far it’s been great. The temp isn’t too hot and the music is great. I’ve already heard a great band called Pin­mon­key. They man­aged to pull off Sugar Ray with a blue­grass flair. It was so wrong and yet so right.

Of course it’s also been a usual trip in that it only took us about 10 min­utes after arriv­ing for me to get sep­a­rated from my broth­ers (no wonder my mother used to keep me on a leash… seri­ously). I did find them and now we’re off to Mando Mania: an hour plus of man­dolin music. Alison Kraus and Union Sta­tion are the head­lin­ers tonight. In between there’ll be some BBQ good­ness as well.

your loss

Blog­ger just lost my post. Grr… Sorry about that folks. Tune in another day for it. Bleh.

I’m in the middle of a meet­ing, I really shouldn’t be blog­ging right now. I like being evil… And every­one think’s I’m scrib­ing notes right now.*

mmmm learn­ing con­tent is fun!

A better blog will come later. Oh, the past week­end was great! Pic­tures and video are coming!

*actu­ally I am, so I’m not really being that eeee-​vil

back in the swing of things…. sorta

Last nigth was my first Mar­tial Arts class in three weeks. All and all I didn’t do too bad. The break let me develop a dif­fer­ent per­sec­tive on what we’re doing. Which was good. How­ever, it took longer than I would like to react to cer­tain things. In part, I’m still pretty tired. But more so it’s because I didn’t prac­tice enough in my off time and so my limbs weren’t react­ing at the speed I needed them too. Darn this get­ting old stuff!

I’m still work­ing on a post­mortem post­ing for the play. Each time I try to write it, I find myself not know­ing where to begin. I guess that’s because I have not gained enough dis­tance to give me per­spec­tive. It’s funny how that goes.

it’s a beau­ti­ful day

Well, I’m slowly recov­er­ing. Last night I spent a lot of time clean­ing my apart­ment (I can see the floor again… woo hoo). I’ve already had two meet­ings about the next play (I can’t believe that it’s start­ing already), thank­fully I’m not direct­ing this one. And I’m get­ting ready for two week­ends out of Rochester. This week­end, I’ll be trav­el­ing to scenic NJ, to meet up with Heather and other old friends and go to Mideavel Times. Then next week­end I’m off to North Car­olina to hook up with my broth­ers Glenn and Paul and take in a Blue­grass Festival!

In the mean­time the weather has been absolutely gor­geous here in Rochester. Yes­ter­day we cel­e­brate it by having lunch out­side. Kodak Tower is located right by the Genese River and a local water­fall called “High Falls” (which while it’s high, it’s no where near as high as Nia­gara Falls, though it was high enough for Sam Patch [there's another blog topic right there]). Here are a couple shots:

I’m happy to say that every­one stayed on the right side of the rails. Every­one, except a poor doomed orange.

find­ing my way back to the ordi­nary world

The play closed yes­ter­day after three great per­for­mances. Sunday’s was by far the strongest. I have a lot of thoughts about every­thing. But before I can write them I need to get some dis­tance and sta­bi­lize my life. So the next couple days will be for me to tran­si­tion back to “normal” world.

On the plus side I’ll be blog­ging on a much more reg­u­lar basis. And sleep­ing a bit more as well.