Overdue updates (long ones)

I've been keeping myself pretty busy lately and haven't had a lot of opportunity to update my journal, but I'm making the time now. When last we left our hero he had discussed Lyle Lovett, Wedding Crashers, and the death of a person he had never met. Oh, and the whole living fearlessly phenomenon that's sweeping the nation. (Or so I hope.)

After our weekend in VA Beach, Judy and I spent as much time as possible together before she headed to Nepal for three weeks.

We went to the Rufus Wainwright/Ben Folds concert on Wednesday, which was actually pretty fun. We met Yoni, Greg, and Pam, more friends of Judy's, and had a nice picnic (several bottles of wine this time) and enjoyed being bitchy about all the people in bad clothing. The music was good, with an Australian guy (can't remember his name) as the opener. He was quite good and pretty funny too. Actually, all the musicians were funny. Once the opener finished, Ben Folds came on, and while he's a great pianist, (which I didn't know) he seriously needs to fire his sound guy. The levels on the bass were way too high and everything was clipped and distorted as a result. The only time you could understand anything of the lyrics was when they were playing very softly, and then it sounded good. I did like the music, from what I could tell, and if Ben Folds has anything "accoustic" I'll probably buy it, because the man can seriously jam on a piano. Rufus Wainwright, by comparison sounded awesome, and his soundguy was phenominal. They actually interacted and sound was adjusted whenever Rufus mentioned anything, so the set was phenomenal. I haven't listened to Wainwright much, in fact only one song, but he was great. He is far more effeminate than I had expected, given his voice when he sings, but it was fun and interesting to watch. And he had a lot of political comments that I could get behind. All in all a good show, with good company.

We had a nice dinner with her father, Gary, on Thursday at a place called "Arties" in Fairfax. When we got there we half expected a geriatric convention (apparently her dad has a habit of picking "old people restaurants") but there was a really good mix of people, including many familys. The place was packed and the food was excellent. I had a spinach and potatoe wrapped halibut that was excellent, with fresh asparagus. Judy had a seared tuna salad, and Gary had the prime rib and crab cake, which also looked very good. All the food was excellent. We also had a nice bottle of Pinot Grigio that was quite crisp and not nearly as sweet as I expected. It was a good match for our dinners. Conversation was good, and it was a nice opportunity to actually have a real discussion with Judy's dad, which I (or rather he) didn't have a lot of time for when we went up to Boston. Good guy, and friggin hilarious.

The weekend was spent running around doing errands and getting Judy ready for her trip. We took the opportunity to relax a little as well, and went hiking on Sunday for a few hours. We did a couple sections of Billy Goat Trail in Great Falls and had nice conversation about a whole bunch of different things.

So Monday we went to the airport and then I headed to lunch with Dan and Miguel, with whom I had really good discussions about businesses and other opportunities. (I currently have small businesses with each of them that we are trying to get moving forward, and we were talking about real estate ventures as well.) We also discussed girls, as Dan was getting engaged (officially) the following weekend and everyone wanted to know more about Judy. Just as we were discussing her, Judy called again, and said her flight had been delayed long enough to miss all of her transfers so she would be staying home one more night. Yeah! I picked her up from the airport after lunch and called in healthy from work to spend the rest of the day with her. We picked up some supplies so I could start building her a Baidarka (skin on frame kayak) while she's gone, and I also upgraded her computer with one of the laptops I had bought through ebay and received that day. She fell asleep early and I stayed up reading Harry Potter. (It had to happen eventually)

Speaking of Harry Potter, I liked the book, but not nearly as much as the previous two. I had predicted who the Half Blood Prince was before the book was released (the only real, and logical, choice), and everything was so predictable that I was a bit disappointed. Also, while it was a nice nod to all her fanboyz and fangrlz, using acronyms like DADA was just annoying to me. It made the book seem like an amateur effort, though generally it was well written aside from that. I did like the little twists at the end about who ends up with whom and all that. Also, some really cool new tricks for Harry in this one, and a touch of what he's truly capable of, and what we might see in the next installment, I hope. I like the darker side of Harry a bit, because it gives more of a hint of reality, and unfortunately, we don't see a lot of that in his character. He's too charmed, it seems to me. Yes I know, his parents are dead, and all these bad things seem to happen around him all the time. That's the problem I have with it...it happens around him, not to him. I guess that's all a matter of perspective though. Anyway, good book, fits with the whole epic and nicely sets up the last(?) book. I don't know if it will be the last though, as it seems like an awful lot of wrap up has to occur. My sister and I are of the impression that the seventh book won't really be the last, now that the franchise has become so successful. There's just too much left to do and it will be so easy to just keep writing about this boy and letting the story drag out a bit more. But maybe we're both wrong, it's happened before.

I dropped Judy off at the airport on Tuesday and had another short day at work so I could do some of that little side business stuff. I got home, did some errands and settled in to some reading. I finished Harry Potter then read some more of Lamb and that was my day. Thursday I finished Lamb, which is an excellent book about Jesus Christ as told by his boyhood friend, Biff. Yes, that's right, Biff. It's an absolutely hilarious book from Cristopher Moore, and fantastic in its irreverence. It does, however, tell a fairly accurate tale of Jewish life during the period and a very good story about the "lost years of Jesus" from ages 13 to 30, that the Bible doesn't cover at all. If you have a strong faith, this may not be the book for you, but if you can take it as a work of fiction and not be offended, I think you'll find it paints Jesus in a good light. I haven't convinced myself that Moore is a christian, but the book doesn't really indicate that he isn't, either, so take that for what you will. Not being christian, myself, I loved it and would gladly recommend it to anyone.

So now that I've finished those books, I'm working on Katie's and Judy's boats. I'm making one of these for Katie and one of these for Judy. Katie's is a greenland style boat that has a flat(ter) bottom and is easy for rolling but doesn't have a lot of volume. Judy's is an Aleutian kayak, or Baidarka (Russian for "small boat" -appropriate for my Russian literature loving love), that has a bit more volume (because she's bigger) and a different aesthetic. Both are made from a wooden frame with nylon skin stretched over it then sealed to make them water proof. I've actually been building Katie's for over a year but am rebuilding because she has grown quite a bit and I broke several of the ribs and they need to be replaced. What better time than now?

I guess that about catches us all up to date for now. I'm sure there will be more in the near(ish) future.