Errata

I misidentified the young man who played with Buddy Guy Friday night - his name is actually Quinn Sullivan, and here's a video of him playing with Guy earlier this year in New Bedford. It runs over 9 minutes, but well worth checking out:

Too Much Fun

Busy weekend - went up to Lowell Friday night to see Buddy Guy at Boarding House Park. My friend had never seen him, so I bought tickets last week and off we went. Left @ 4:45pm figuring we'd be fighting traffic on Rte. 93, but it never materialized, so we were parked next to the venue by 5:20. We had an hour to kill, so we wound up in a place called the Blue Shamrock, which was a tad sketchy, but had Guinness on tap and therefore was acceptable. Got back to the venue @ 6:30 and it was already full up due to general admission seating. So we perched on the concrete wall at the back of the park and watched the show from there.

Buddy can be hit or miss, but he was on Friday night. Did a great version of Otis Redding's "Dreams To Remember". He did all the schtick too...plucking notes with a drumstick, playing with just his fretting hand, playing with his teeth. He's something to watch at age 72. At the end of the show, he brought out an 8 year old guitarist named Quinn Sullivan who was amazing for his age. He showed no signs of nervousness and traded licks with the master. I'll have to post some video of him when I get a chance. A fun night all around.

Saturday night I went over to the Abbey Lounge with my friend George - saw the Mess Me Ups, the Lyres and the Classic Ruins. Great bill - all 3 bands were good. George and I were talking about how we saw the singer for the Lyres (Jeff "Monoman" Conolly) at The Rat with DMZ over 30 years ago. Tempus has fugited, but his band still rocks. Stopped off in Malden on the way home and saw Bootleg Willy for an hour.

This week will see me getting my unmotivated self back to the gym...I strained my back last weekend, and I haven't worked out since then. I'm feeling better, and I want to get a week's worth of exercise in before heading out for vacation.

Speaking of vacation, it's almost upon me. Looking forward to it greatly...have my books picked out and will spend the time doing things with the family and just relaxing and reading. I've made up my packing list and will spend next Saturday doing laundry and packing up. We've made our list to things to do (horseback riding, Alpine slide at Attitash, perhaps some canoeing/rafting on the Saco River) and places to eat, so I guess we're as ready as we'll be.

Sorting things out, part 2

Will wonders ever cease? I'm actually fulfilling my promise!

I guess this is as good a time as any to write about the Benoit family murder/suicide. People who know me in the real world will tell you that I've been a wrasslin' fan for over 30 years. I saw my first live show at Madison Square Garden in 1975 (George "The Animal" Steele v. Bruno Sammartino main event) and my most recent house show was a few months ago at the Lowell Auditorium. Truth be told, I had started losing interest a couple of years ago, until last summer. We were on vacation in NH, and G decided she wanted to watch some of the Raw show one night. And got hooked. Big time. So she had a million questions about the matches, the personalities and the business, so I started watching the shows again.

Two weeks ago I was home, while G and L were down on the Cape for a dance competition. G called and wanted to know if I had heard any news about Chris Benoit. I checked online and saw the awful news about his being found dead with his wife and son. I wish I could say differently, but I had read he had missed a PPV the night before, and I thought "murder-suicide". And unfortunately, I was right. G has tried to come to terms with why someone who was described as a good husband and father could commit such a horrible crime. I wish I had a simple answer - other than the fact we can work and travel with people and never realize the darkness that exists within them.

My own feeling is that this tragedy is just the latest example that the wrestling industry is built on human wreckage, and it's getting harder for me to reconcile the "turn your brain off" entertainment value with the addictions and physical destruction that follows in its wake. When ECW was breaking over a decade ago, I'd watch Mick Foley and KNOW that he was suffering a physical toll during his matches. Ten years later and Foley talks about forgetting the route home from the airport, along with a multitude of physical problems.

It gets harder and harder to reconcile.

Sorting things out, part 1

Almost a month since my last post - for shame. There's a lot to catch up on, so I'll split this into early morning and evening segments.

Still hard at work in Maynard - hard to believe it's 8 months now. Been busy with projects and getting ready for more server migrations to the Dallas operations center. Had a fairly easy commute last week with so many people being out for holiday week, but I'm guessing the grind starts again this morning.

One of the company executives held an outing a few weeks ago at his home out in Acton. I had a good time - lots of food, brought a bottle of Riesling. All was well until the volleyball game started mid-afternoon - I was asked to play and proceeded to run myself into the ground. The main problem is that I refuse to acknowledge my age, so I was hurling myself into the sand trying to dig out balls, and generally putting my body to much more stress than I could handle. I got home that night and I felt like I had been hit all over my body with a wiffleball bat. I actually needed 6 Advils to get through the next day and a half. I told Lofty Mario about my athletic efforts and he told me, "Dude, we're getting too old for that."

Looking forward to vacation in three weeks. Heading up to the Mount Washington Valley with the family - we rent a condo for the week, which brings pool privileges there. It's great to wake up, look out the living room windows and see the Presidentials in the distance. We'll be celebrating G's sixteenth birthday while there, and she'll be applying for her driver's permit the following Monday.

One main drawback to the volleyball fiasco was getting out of the gym routine. At one point, I had gone 5 days in 3 weeks, which doesn't get the job done. I got back the last 3 days, so I'm hoping I'm back on schedule.

That's all for now...more later, I promise.

A good night to play catch-up

I'm sitting on the couch, zonked, watching the Mets-Yanks on the dish. Just to clarify, I'm zonked as in tired...got called the past two nights in a row by work. Was up from 11-a Wednesday night and 11-2 last night, so I'm running on 9 hours sleep the last 2 nights. I do get OT, so I can't complain too much. We're in the process of rolling out a production application in Dallas, so there are some growing pains involved. I got home @ 6pm and immediately took a nap for over an hour.

Finally got tracked down by Sirius radio - when I bought my car nearly 3 years ago, it came with a one year demo for satellite radio. Well, on May 31st the demo finally ran out. I play it a lot - G listens to Hits One when she's in the car, and I switch between Howard, the rock stations and some classical. So I bought a subscription, and all's well with the commute again.

Speaking of which, G is done with school for the year, so I'm leaving earlier, and the drive has been a bit shorter. My mood is a bit better, but I still want to evaluate my options as far as employment goes. My fellow contractor and I were told this week that we're extended through the end of the year, which would put me there for over a year.

Not much planned for the weekend...L and G are taking me to Sake on Rte.1 on Sunday for Father's Day. One of my favorites - they do a great job with sushi, as well as tempura dishes. Have some yardwork to do, as well as washing the car. Updating the resume should be on the list as well.

Recital

G. had her dance recital yesterday - couldn't be prouder of her. She did a great job...she has the ability to make her dancing look effortless, although you know she's working as hard as she can. Two performances, each with 9 dances, including the opener, the finale and a solo. I made the afternoon performance and the second half of the evening show, as I had to come home and take care of the pets in the late afternoon. L. stayed and rooted her on through both shows. Poor G slept until 12:15 today, as expected. She has finals this week, then starts summer vacation on Thursday.

Pretty quiet day today - mowed the lawn and did some cleaning up around the house. Hard to believe the final episode of The Sopranos is less than 4 hours away. It's been my favorite show for years now, and I didn't even start watching until the second season. I grew up in northern Jersey, and it's always fun to watch and see if I can figure out where scenes have been filmed. A few years ago, we were driving to the cemetery in North Arlington for a funeral and went past Pizza Land (as immortalized in the show opening credits). My friend shook his head and called me a tourist when I pointed it out. :-)

Things are going well at work, but the commute has been horrible the past couple of weeks. I'm at the point where I'm updating my resume and thinking of exploring my options. I like th jib and the people I work with, but spending an hour and a half to two hours in the car every morning is zero fun. Things will change up a bit by the end of the week as I won't have to drop G off at school, so I'm hoping getting an earlier jump will help.

There are other things to blog about, but enough for now.

Happy Birthday Dad

My father turned 80 today - the two milestones I know he wanted to reach were this birthday and his 50th wedding anniversary. He has them both now and I couldn't be happier for him.

Dad was diagnosed with Alzheimer's two years ago this summer. It's easy to let the disease and its effects define him now, but on his birthday I'd rather rewind my memories of him. I have so much to thank him for - the ability to face life with a sense of humor, an appreciation of family, his unwavering support in my education and career and a love for sports and music. We all go through phases in our relationships with parents, and our appreciation for their role deepens considerably upon become a parent. There were many complaints and things I harbored against him as a child and teenager - as I matured, I got to see him as a person with the credits and debits we all own. On balance, he was on the plus side of the ledger.

Dad has six children - two are gone and I know he carries that grief with him to this day. He's proud of his 7 grandchildren and 2 great-grandchildren. He loves his wife of 52 years dearly. He has his good days and bad days, and the good ones still carry the majority.

I called him this morning to wish him a happy birthday. He gave me the Mickey Mantle line - "if I knew I was going to live this long, I would've taken better care of myself." We both laughed - and Dad, you took great care of me, and I'll always be grateful.