Fighting Those Nashville Blues

Blog Moved

2009-03-19T16:34:00.003-05:00

Hey guys...

I've moved my blog, so update your bookmarks / RSS feeds, if you've got 'em and make some if you don't!

I'll probably be tweaking things over the weekend, to include a new post soon.

http://godar99.wordpress.com/

March Already?

2009-03-06T10:16:00.014-06:00

So, here we are in March and no posts yet this year. For shame. I'm going to just dive in with some kind of bastardized photo bullet-point highlight reel to update some of y'all and get my head back in the game. Many of these may graduate into full-fledged posts. In fact if there is an item you are particularly interested in, let me know in the comments and I'll be sure to expand those first. So, to begin at the beginning, of the year, that is...

New Year's Eve. Had the pleasure of watching the Vanderbilt football team in their first bowl appearance since losing to the Air Force in 1982. Prior bowl history includes a 6-6 tie against Texas Tech in 1974 and you've got to go all the way back to '55 for the last victory (25-13 over Auburn in the Gator Bowl). These guys had things down in the tailgating department. I'm already ready for next football season.

On Wine: My roommate, Andrea, found this great wine class at a local restaurant (Sunset Grill). For $12, you can explore five examples of the weekly varietal. Craig Clifft, the GM / co-owner of Cabana, teaches the class and it's a very enjoyable, non-pretentious way to expand your wine palate and vocabulary. There are few classes left, check it out. On the wine note, our favorite wine ~~tasting~~ swilling event was Bistro215's First Friday tasting, but now that the place closed down, we took matters into our own hands and had a replacement of our own. First one was a lot of fun last month and we've got another one on deck tonight. Looking forward to it. Suppose this also falls under the wine category: I gave up beer for lent, so this has definitely upped the wine / whiskey consumption.

Shows: There have been a decent selections of shows lately... So far this year I've caught Jason Boland, Randy Rodgers, and Charlie Robsion last night (bumped into his brother Bruce at the Sunset Grill bar as well). Made it out to 12th & Porter for the first time since they re-opened. Like what they've done with the place. Heard some good acts, to include Ms. Shea Fowler. My only complaint about the music scene of late is that I completely missed seeing Reckless Kelly last week. I was at another show, but if I knew RK was playing, I would have been there instead. Oh well...

Relationships: I was debating on whether or not to include this, but what the hell. February marked a six month anniversary in my latest romantic endeavour. Celebrated with a picnic out at Arringtong Vineyards. This was shortly followed by a classy Valentine's day meal complete with a couple bottles of champagne at her favorite restaurant, Prince's Hot Chicken. (Watch this video.) Thought things were going well, but I got the pink slip a couple days later in dramatic fashion. Complicated, as always, but boils down to she's older, not having kids, etc. Oh well, whadaya gonna do?

Nerd Stuff: You're on the home stretch... Lab is going well. I've started an exciting new collaboration with a vascular surgeon where I'm actually doing some molecular physiology in addition to biophysics. This picture is probably as nerded out as I've been with personal protective gear in quite some time. Glasses, lab coat, the works. Good ole' radiation safety - working with "hot" ATP. Also notable in the nerdy highlight reel, as of 14FEB09, I'm on twitter @JaredGodar. Now I'll leave you with today's XKCD, which cracked me the hell up.

Happy Thanksgiving

2008-11-27T11:12:00.000-06:00

Hey, all. As you gathered from my last post, the family already celebrated Thanksgiving last weekend. It was great to see everyone and the folks game through with a great meal as usual.

Since I took a long weekend last weekend, I’m making up my time in lab. It’s nice to have the place to myself. Fewer distractions, get to rock out to my own music, and in the last week or so, some things really seem to be coming together with my project.

Having some time alone away from the typical hustle and bustle associated with putting together the Thanksgiving meal gives me a chance to reflect on what I’m thankful for. Health, family, friends. As much as I bitch about the third year graduate student slump and the transition from the excitement of getting paid to go to school, to feeling like I’m stuck in a low paying job, it’s nice to step back and think about what a good position I’m in: great lab, doing exciting work, with a mentor that cares about us as scientists and people. To be able to ask and hopefully answer important questions related to human health and disease with the freedom to explore the unknown is truly a gratifying experience and I am thankful for all of the teachers, role models, and support to find myself in this position.

I won’t ramble on, for a change, because if I get on a roll I don’t think I’ll find a way to wrap up. After a few more hours in lab, I’ll head home to get a couple things together, and then my boss has invited me to his home to celebrate Thanksgiving with his family. Hope you enjoy this clip. Gobble, gobble.

On weddings and early Thanksgiving.

2008-11-25T12:33:00.005-06:00

Hello all. Again, as these things generally start, an apology for the length of time since my last post. Qualifying exams are no longer an excuse, but I suppose I’ve been busy with work. You know, one day, I would like to graduate and be done with school. That being said, I had a great weekend. I was back in Houston from last Friday through last night. Some friends of mine from here in Nashville were getting married downtown and my family did an early Thanksgiving dinner on Sunday.

About a week ago, I pulled my tuxedo out of the back of the closet and nervously tried it on. This one dates back to the undergraduate days at Southwestern. Fortunately, it was post freshman fifteen and pre-Army. With the exception of needing a new vest, it was entirely salvageable. While purchasing the vest, I contemplated getting a legitimate silk tie it yourself bowtie as opposed to the pre-tied number I’ve always used. I initially talked myself out of it, but as the date approached, I decided to go ahead and pick one up. And by ‘go ahead and pick one up’, I mean call the formal wear place on West End, pay the man by card over the phone, and have him stick my tie with the cashier at Panera next door since I knew I couldn’t make it there before the shop closed.

My Thursday leading up to leaving town consisted of lab, graduate student social in my building, a cab to the Ryman by way of Panera (for the tie) to go see Robert Earl Keen. A brisk walk from there to the Gulch to catch Bruce Robison at Station Inn, another cab home, pack a bag, then a 4:45 wakeup from way too nice of a roommate who got me to the airport for a 6:00 am flight. (Thanks again, Andrea).

Friday evening, I went downtown for services and the rehearsal dinner. We were at a Synagogue near Rice University. Oh yeah, this was my first Jewish wedding. Having to drive from the Conroe / Woodlands area on a Friday afternoon, I allowed myself ample time for traffic and ended up about half an hour early. The marriage couple showed up right on time (five minutes late). So, here I am, wandering around looking for a familiar face. Everyone was nice, “shabbat shaloms” were exchanges all around. “Shabbat shalom?, Right back at ya, buddy.” About ten till, some folks I knew trickled in. Nice service with beautiful music (even if I couldn’t understand any of it).

Saturday, I had lunch with my family then went down into Houston to catch up and hang out with a couple friends before the wedding. We’re watching football, and I see a Rice halftime score at the bottom of the screen. This prompted me to ask my friend to hop online to see if they were playing at home or away, given the proximity of the Rice stadium to the wedding site. Their internet wasn’t working, which was no big deal. Except it kinda was. About an hour later, I realized that I was counting on the Google and YouTube to teach me how to tie a bow tie! Given the extraordinary path to getting the tie, I was determined to wear it, so I went ahead and donned the tux and we started to attempt to tie the damn thing. The one thing I took away from my early, cursory how to searches was that it was allegedly ‘just like tying your shoes.’ While this was decidedly not the case, it was enough information that we ultimately stumbled upon a passable knot.

Fully clad and tied, I headed back to the synagogue for the service. Our program included an explanation of the symbolism associated with various traditional aspects of the ceremony, to include the eagerly anticipated glass stomping. It was a beautiful service, then we migrated towards the Westin Galleria for the reception. Why there is a Westin Post Oak less than a mile away from the Westin Galleria is beyond me, but after a detour through Sacks Fifth Avenue, I found the place. Top floor. Gorgeous view. Full bar. What else do I need to say? Well, you know brevity has never been my strong suit, so I’ll find more to say. There was assigned seating and Leanne, bless her heart, put me at the table with all her bridesmaids. Great band, featuring Mr. Shawn Jackson for a few numbers. I knew he had the chops to hang with anyone, but he impressed with his pipes as well, singing a couple numbers.

Everything was in place. Gorgeous and elegant, but my evening wouldn’t be complete until I saw people hoisted and carried around in chairs. The evening did not disappoint. I didn’t realize that my proximity to the bride and groom when the chairs were slid in their direction would place me at the bottom of one hoisting Leanne in the air. Her brother, Shawn, got a little carried away on the back end and launched her. All of a sudden, the chair was lighter and Leanne was back on the dance floor. Fortunately brides, like cats, always land on their feet and all was well. In a move even cooler than the chairs, immediately following that someone showed up with a tablecloth. Once the edges were filled with sturdy guys, the bride and groom each were individually placed in the center of the cloth and launched skyward. Both of them are on the lighter side, and we had a lot of muscle on the bottom so, before you knew it, Shawn was having to push off the ceiling with his hands to keep from smacking his head.

About the time I was heading home from the reception, my Dad was waking up across town to start smoking our early Thanksgiving turkey. It turned out amazing. Good to see everyone. Had to squeeze some extra niece bonding time in before she left for Korea. Look at her. So precocious. Not even a year old yet and she can pack her own Cope. I couldn’t do that until I was two.

The final installment of this chapter involves my early Christmas present. I love Texas. Step into Academy Sports and outdoors. Walk out thirty minutes later with a Mossberg 935 12 gauge shotgun. After a quick stop next door at Spek’s Liquor Warehouse for some Shiner 99, I’m on the plane to Nashville. First time I’ve flown with a gun and it wasn’t too bad. Of course, leaving Houston, I’m sure the fine folks at George Bush Intercontinental airport have it down pat.

Thanks Shawn and Leanne for such a wonderful weekend! Mazel Tov!

Updates

2008-10-20T10:57:00.005-05:00

Well, as usual, I am blaming my prolonged absence on qualifying-exam related busines. Fortunately, that’s over with – passed and done. Unfortunately, it’s to be replaced with lab-related business. No more classes, no more exams, (no more excuses). As of now, I am the only obstacle to timely success. So, this means entering the dreaded living in lab phase of graduate school. It’s not all bad. As I’m getting to set my daily routine, I’ve been pretty successful in integrating daily gym time which. Looking back on one of my more productive periods, on my Kosovo deployment all I really did was work 12-14 hours a day, work out, and sleep. Same thing six or seven days a week. Once I got into the swing of it, it wasn’t nearly as miserable as it probably sounds. Don’t think I’m headed to quite to that extreme, but I’ll be much closer to that than my ‘usual routine’ since I’ve been here, whatever exactly that is.

After passing the exam, I took off with my pops to visit his folks in Iowa. We met in Kansas City and drove up to Marshalltown, Iowa from there. I was pleasantly surprised to find that he had my niece, Peyton, with him. He didn’t kidnap the poor girl. My sister and brother-in-lab are both in the Air Force. He’s in Korea for a year, and she’s got to spend a month at Wright-Patterson AFB in Ohio, so Peyton’s hanging with the grandparents. She’s still got a great personality – all smiles. Very happy baby just on the verge of being able to walk. Her and my sister are visiting Nashville early next month – I can’t wait.

My Uncle Mark has been doing a Fall festival out at his farm for the last eight years. Bonfire, hay rack ride, some hiking, shooting, etc. Good times had by all. Check out Peyton on her great-great-grandfather’s 1949 John Deer B. Still runs great.

Last Friday afternoon, I decided before it got too cold I needed to go camping instead of just talking about wanting to go camping. So I loaded up a few things and took off for the Natchez Trace. Ended up at a camp site near the grave of Meriwether Lewis. In spite of having a horrible first name, he was kinda a badass. No Theodore Roosevelt, mind you, but he’s up there. Oh, I guess I never got around to posting that Theodore Roosevelt is my new hero and why. You’ll have to look forward to that coming soon. That’s the update in a nutshell.

Due for my annual gross injury

2008-08-14T19:30:00.002-05:00

As promise, the Kentucky hole in shin story… Prior to heading to Denver, an Army buddy of mine invited me up to Louisville for a weekend on a friend’s boat. Upon my return from Colorado got a call from him that there would be a slight change of venue to Murray, Kentucky but the boat was still on and the lake was actually better. This took about an hour off of my drive so, it was good with me. At this point I was still in limbo at my new house – living in a spare bedroom with sub-optimal air conditioning while a girl was still moving out of the room I’m in now. So, a weekend away at a reasonable sleeping temperature sounded great.

Drive out there was fairly uneventful. Texted a grad school buddy from Paducah, KY that I was heading up that way. He immediately replied with instructions to pull over and buy beer at my earliest opportunity as I would be unable to do so once I reached Murray. Glad he was focused on the important things.

The first evening we went to a party at a friend’s fairly uneventful, save the fact that it was wholly depressing that it was a themed “90’s Party.” Really? Saturday morning rolls around – boat day, what I’ve been waiting for. With an additional tag along (the host of the party the night before), our number exceeded the capacity of the boat. Not to worry, we had an alternate boat backup planned. The day is dragging on as we’re waiting on the captain of the second boat to sell a truck so we can hit the water. As we’re getting ready to roll out, she decided that it’s late enough that she no longer wants to go. Without going into too many details, she ended up blowing the plans for both of the boats. I’m a little peeved at this point, since that’s the reason I drove up that way. To at least salvage part of the day and get wet and sunny, we head out to the pool of the Murray Country Club. Within minutes of arriving, I get a call from friends in Nashville letting me know they had rented a boat and wanted to know if I wanted to join them on the lake. You can imagine that I’m fuming at this point.

One positive thing about the pool was that it had a decent diving board. It wasn’t quite the gold standard Duafirm, but it looked pretty legit. You can’t tell to look at me now, but I actually dove 1M and 3M springboard competitively in college. Since it looked like I real board, I decided to do some real dives. Things were going fairly smoothly and I’m going down one of my easier lists and get to the ole’ inward pike. All in well on my approach, a few bounces in I’m going for my press. At the bottom, my toes slipped off the board and it recoiled right into my shins. The right leg got off pretty easy, but I’m pretty sure I took the corner of the board on the left. It was pretty deep with little patch of gristle (aka subcutaneous fat) hanging out of it.

Fast forward to Monday, I swing by student health to let them have a peak (and request some broad spectrum antibiotics since I did make it on the boat with the Nashville crew and couldn’t resist jumping into the lake). Based upon my dressing of the wound and my description of it, the doc seeing me pauses as she’s removing the dressing and muses about how I’ve either had formal training in this area or hurt myself quite a bit. I chuckled and informed her that it was a little bit of both. Got some dressings and some antibiotics and was on my way. Definitely took several days for the bruising to set in. It’s nice and pretty now, but filling in and moving steadily in the right direction.

It’s definitely putting a damper in my attempts at increasing my basal activity level this summer, but in a week or so I should be back running and on the bike – a little longer until I can make a return to the pool.

Rocky Mountain EPR Fever

2008-08-04T12:33:00.004-05:00

This has been a great week, especially considering I am in the throes of my doctoral candidacy exam. Last Sunday through Thursday I was in Breckenridge, Colorado for the Electron Paramagnetic Resonance (EPR) Symposium of the Rocky Mountain Conference on Analytical Chemistry. I don’t think I talked about my last scientific meeting, at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, at the level of detail it deserved. It was great and I may have to post a retrospective account. That meeting had a number of researchers employing a variety of techniques to investigate one area -molecular chaperones and stress responses. My most recent meeting was of investigators using one technique, EPR, to study a variety of problems ranging from biomedical applications similar to my own all the way to materials science. The various sessions dedicated to these niche specialties meant there were times I got great exposure to relevant material and other times where things were so far from my discipline that we could run off to go sightseeing or mountain biking without feeling guilty about missing anything. My PhD advisor was the chair and organizer of the meeting, so I just followed is recommendations on what to attend and what okay to skip.

It was quite warm, but amazingly in dry climates sweating actually performs the intended cooling function instead of just accumulating and making you miserable. Denver was in the process of breaking a number of heat-related records. Other highlights include the observed wildlife list: bighorn sheep, deer, and two red fox. I also made acquaintances with Jim Hyde, my scientific grandfather. That is, the PhD advisor of my PhD advisor. He’s one of the original researchers to apply EPR to biomedical problems as well as a pioneer in developing functional MRI. Interesting guy with a great sense of humor. I’ll have to be sure to pump him for more dirt on my boss as a graduate student when I see him next. The man has a research empire which is currently fully funded through his 81st birthday.

Several members of my lab and my advisor’s family went on a nice bike ride from Breckenridge to Frisco, a little under a twenty mile round trip. I was tasked with making the appropriate reservations and arrangements for the trip. The various members of my lab in attendance came with an assortment of spouses, mothers, siblings, and children in tow. I was the only one to come to the meeting without any such attachments. The list of those attending the bike ride varied by the hour up to and including the fifteen minutes leading up to our departure. We attempted to accommodate everyone in the group on a bike in some manner. This included the pretty standard approach of towing kiddos in various trailers to me driving my boss’ mother around on a tandem bicycle. This proved to be a little challenging with only one of us pedaling and was ultimately abandoned. Given the grade and turns of the trail ahead, that was probably for the best.

View Larger Map

The last day of our conference overlapped with the first day of some Corvette owner’s convention at the same resort. So, the nice cars started trickling as the week progressed. There was one covered older model that I had to take a peek at (picture to follow once I get to another computer). In fact, we have to relocate for next year’s meeting as the Corvette owners are taking our time slot. Apparently, they spend more money (read: drink more at the resort bar). I tried to do my part to represent the scientific community at the bar. While I was trying to get recommendations for places to go in town from the bartender at the downstairs bar, another one of the bartenders who had been working various receptions associated with our meeting came to the bar. She told bartender #1 that I was her favorite here because I had the most to drink. Upon seeing me becoming slightly embarrassed, she quickly reassured me that it was okay to be the one drinking the most in a group of analytical chemists, stressing that it’s not like I’m the guy drinking the most at a NASCAR event.

Also of note, on our way home a semi full of gravel literally split in half on the road ahead of us emptying 50,000 lbs of rocks on the road. Here's some air news video. We didn't witness the actual breakup of the trailor, but were upon the scene before the cleanup crews and fortunately before I-70 turned into a parking lot. Initially, traffic slowed unexpectedly in front of us. There was quite a bit of rock. Then we see the orphened ass-end of a gravel trailor. Several hundred yards later is the other half, still attached to the truck. Not something you encounter every day.

The original plan was for this post to include info on a trip to Kentucky, putting a massive hole in my shin through a diving board mishap, and subsequently being placed on broad-spectrum antibiotics following a lake excursion with said hole in shin. This is already growing lengthy, so I’ll save all that and try to get it up here in the next couple days.

Small World Hippie Coffee

2008-07-22T17:45:00.008-05:00

Dragging myself into lab yesterday morning, my first stop was the breakroom to fire up that first pot of coffee. Lately my boss has been experimenting with a few different brands. I pull a brown ‘Ruta Maya’ bag off the shelf, dump some beans in the hopper of the grinder, and fire it up. Gee, there was a place of the same name right by my old place in South Austin. When I say, ‘right by’ I mean it. As you can see to the left, The Google shows a 670 foot straight line shot door to door. Turns out, my lab coffee was indeed from this same Ruta Maya.

This place was…interesting. Great coffee, served beer and wine, and had a cigar shop. I was about to describe the crowd as eclectic, but that wouldn’t be accurate. It was fairly homogenously hippie-infested. Yeah, every independent coffee shop has some degree of ‘hipster’ element. I’m not talking about some guy with dreads and tie dye in the corner, or a beatnik with a beret reading Kerouac. No, my friends, we’re talking shirtless, shoeless hippies with their shirtless, shoeless hippie kids beating on bongos until the wee hours of the morning. Here’s a sampling of the weekly classes offered in addition to the music and poetry slam: Tai Chi; Qi Gong (whatever that is); yoga; a hypnosis workshop; and, my favorite, ‘medical terminology, Latin tutorial & English word power.’

I wasn’t really aware of how my time in Austin expanded my horizons what was, if not ‘normal’ to see at least not bizarre enough for me to give a second thought. Hell, we had a cross-dressing homeless guy, when not on 6^th street sporting a leopard thong, runs for Mayor every election. I was in attendance as Leslie debated the other mayoral candidates at Saint Edward’s. Good times. One evening I took a friend from my original undergraduate institution, Southwestern University, to Ruta Maya. Southwestern is in the tiny town of Georgetown, Texas also known for the Sun City retirement community. Williamson County was rumored to have more people employed by law enforcement agencies per capita than anywhere else in Texas. My fact checker is taking the week off. Whether this stat is true or not, the frequency with which it is referenced alone tells you a little about the kind of place I’m talking about. Don’t think Leslie would be pulling 2,755 votes there. So, we walk in and there is some kind of drum circle going on with people writing to the beat. As I’m strolling to the bar, there is this firm grip on my forearm. I turn to see my friend, eyes wide, proclaiming that we needed to get out of there. Guess it isn’t for everyone. Guess I didn’t realize how the years there inured me to sites like this. Apparently, I wasn’t there long enough, because I still wasn’t quite ready for Berkeley when I went on grad school interviews there.

The coffee is still great and I'll have to see if I can't get my boss to settle on this one. Nice bit of nostalgia, if you can be nostalgic about a place you left two years ago. I never noticed the mellow, earthy undertones that didn't have the potency to fight through the wafting patchouli.

Weddings, III

2008-07-01T11:40:00.001-05:00

I thought this mini-series was done, then I stumbled on this gem:

From xkcd.com Click to Enlarge

My new place

2008-06-30T11:46:00.002-05:00

Last few weeks have been particularly busy – working on my department doctoral candidacy examination and trying to find a new place to live. My lease is up at the end of July. It’s going to be tough to leave. As anyone who has been there can attest, it’s got a lot of character. In a good way. Spacious, lots of brick and exposed stone (which has been alternatively described as giving it a tavern or dungeon feel). Quite a steal for being across the street from campus. Why would you want to leave, you may ask? One would only ask this question if that haven’t hung out there in the last calendar year. I got a couple new roommates there, rando med students. One of them was really cool and the other really….wasn’t. Definitely altered the dynamic of living at the ole’ Westboro. Temper-tantrums about the noise of people talking in the living room before midnight on a Saturday is a pretty big no-go in my book.

Without elaborating on all the reasons why I can’t wait for release from my current living arrangement, let me quickly tell you how great this new place is. It’s over by Belmont University, a little less than two miles door to door to my lab. Still walkable, but I’ll probably be biking when the weather is appropriate. It’s in a cool little area up the road from Bongo Java – several little bars and restaurants nearby. I’d say it’s the same distance, in the opposite direction, as I was from Hillsboro Village from my old place. The plus side is I’m now a similar short distance to 12 South, which occasionally seemed ‘far’ from my old location. I will miss being able to walk a couple blocks to Centennial Park and Springwater, but there are plenty of nearby places to make up for that. Football season will be tougher not being across the street from the tailgate area and stadium, but we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.

The place is pretty big. According to the Davidson County Property Assessment, it was built ca 1910, 2100 finished square feet with a 26’ x 34’ attached garage, 11 total rooms – 4 bedroom, 4 bath. I’ll have a large upstairs room with a bathroom attached. There are only three occupants, the fourth, small bedroom is reserved for visiting guests or revelers who need to pass out. I was greeted by a keg-o-rater in direct line of sight from the front door, which put to rest any lingering reservations shaped from my last year about making sure I found roommates who actually hung out.

Needless to say, there will be some kind of farewell bash at the old place and, more importantly, a housewarming at the new one. I’ll keep you posted.

On Weddings, Part Deux

2008-06-11T12:42:00.007-05:00

An insightful comment on my last post prompted me to do some further research. (Thanks, Wendy.) Having lived in the South all my life, I’ve definitely noticed a trend towards marriage at a younger age and I hear tell of places where this is not the case. With a little help from the Google, I found these plots:

Upon my initial inspection, I was struck by a couple things.

The first and most obvious was that there is, indeed, a statistically significant regional difference in median age of first marriage. Since I’m not sure how legible the legends will be when posted, I’ll go ahead and throw ‘em out there. US average: Women – 25.1 ; Men – 26.7. The light pink represents states significantly under the median, the dark states are above, and those few of intermediate sh

ade do not differ significantly from the national median. All the states I’ve lived fall into the “significantly lower than the US" range (Women: 21.9-24.9; Men: 23.9-26.5). The dark states here are significantly higher than the national average (Women: 25.2-29.9; Men: 26.8-30.1).

The second is there really aren’t any average states out there. In fact, there are only two states for women and four for men that do not differ significantly from the national average. These data demonstrate a bimodal distribution where some states tend to marry young and others older. This prompted me to find the hard numbers, state by state. Here’s a subset of them from 2006:

	Women		Men
1	District of Columbia	29.5 ± 1.0	District of Columbia	30.3 ± 2.1
2	Massachusetts	27.7 ± 0.4	Massachusetts	29.6 ± 0.3
3	New York	27.7 ± 0.3	New York	29.5 ± 0.3
	National Median	25.9 ± 0.2	National Median	27.5 ± 0.6
	Texas	24.9 ± 0.3	Texas	26.8 ± 0.3
	Tennessee	25.0 ± 0.2	Tennessee	26.6 ± 0.3
	Louisiana	25.8 ± 0.2	Louisiana	26.5 ± 0.4
49	Wyoming	23.8 ± 1.5	Arkansas	25.3 ± 0.3
50	Utah	22.7 ± 0.4	Idaho	2.5 ± 0.5
51	Idaho	22.5 ± 0.7	Utah	26.5 ± 0.4

(FYI – if your state isn’t listed here and you are curious, here are the links: Women; Men. A little aside: John, next time you’re in Mystic tell your Mom’s friend that the average for men in Connecticut is 28.8, so you aren’t too far behind and maybe you aren’t gay. You’re on your on with the ballet thing though, I can’t help you there.)

Where was I? Oh. It’d be nice if the good people at the Census Bureau gave us a standard deviation instead of the margin of error, but I guess you gotta take what you can get sometimes. Most of them were quite tight. Notable exceptions include the comparatively large error for men and women in DC, guess it’s close enough there. It’s also quite large for the Wyoming brides, which I attribute to an imprecise conversion from “sheep years” to “people years.”

Alrighty… While interesting, I’ve already spent more time on this than I intended, so I suppose I should wrap this up. Looks like I’ll be back to posting semi-regularly again. As promised, a couple pictures:

Wedding Season

2008-06-10T16:10:00.008-05:00

Haven’t posted anything in a while… It’s been hectic, but in a good way. In the interim since my last post, I went to New York for the first time to present some of my research at a Meeting at Cold Spring Harbor Research Laboratory. It was amazing and I should really share more about that trip out on here soon. I’ve also been back to Texas twice for weddings of dear friends – conveniently located in Central Texas so I’ve been able see my niece, Peyton, every couple months and track her progression of cuteness.

Towards the end of my undergraduate experience, I was in several weddings in rapid succession. Always a good time –great collection of friends, getting fed several times a day, and who can argue with the open bar? After the first batch, there was a bit of a lull with a couple sporadic weddings scattered in, but now it seems I’m cresting up to the next peak in the oscillations of the weddings v. time wave.

Attending these weddings has reminded me of an emerging trend in which it seems like a surprising proportion of the girls I’ve ever dated are now married. From the best of my recollection, I come up with an n of 15 relationships ranging from about a month to a couple years in duration with the other party’s current status depicted below:

So, assuming there is a 50-50 outcome for the one unknown, 76.67 ± 3.33 % of the girls I’ve dated are engaged or married. That’s a little weird. Reminds me of the previews of what looks like a horrible movie, Good Luck Chuck. When I asked a buddy his thoughts, he chalked it up to a statistical anomaly. I’m in no particular rush myself, just wondering if this is a usual phenomenon by this time. I’ll have to post a few pictures from the weddings I’ve attended recently. They have been very nice. I guess this has been enough of a productivity drain on my afternoon, so I’ll get back to legitimate work.

In the coming weeks I’ll be doing more scientific writing than actual bench work, so there’s a good chance I’ll be able to squeeze out a couple more posts I’ve been thinking about without having to run to tend to experiments.

These quick back home have been really nice to see people, but rushing to the airport straight from work, packing as much into my trip, then coming back late Sunday and back to the grind takes it out of me. I'm feeling like I need a vacation from my vacation. It's actually summed up pretty nicely in 'Home for a Rest', a catchy tune by 'Spitit of the West'. It starts out:

You'll have to excuse me, I'm not at my best
I've been gone for a week
I've been drunk since I left
And these so-called vacations
Will soon be my death
I'm so sick from the drink
I need home for a rest

Give it a listen here:

	Spirit of the West - Home For a Rest

	Found at skreemr.com

The Paschal Mystery

2008-03-23T20:55:00.001-05:00

Happy Easter, all. I think this may have been the first Easter, except when deployed with the Army, that I haven’t spent with my family. Taking the long trip back to Texas just wasn’t in the cards this time around. My mom was off with a friend of hers hanging out on the set of Me and Orson Wells out on the Isle of Man in England. Wish I still had a Spring Break so I could sham out of work and kick it there with them. Allegedly last week was my Spring Break; just heard that on Friday. I’ll be back Tejas way in less than a month for a Hill Country wedding, so I’ll get to catch up with everybody then.

Oh well. A buddy of mine at graduate school’s folks live in town and he graciously invited a few of us who were stranded in town out to their place for dinner. I think I’m going to be full all week. There was a ham, chicken, salad, asparagus, potatoes then a whole other dessert buffet complete with Gigi’s Cupcakes.

I think the best part of Easter dinner, aside from the copious Riesling and a yummy red I can’t recall, was the last minute addition to the guest list. My bud that invited us all over, met a nice young woman Holy Thursday. I think there was a Good Friday invitation to Easter dinner with the family and friends. The meet the parents dinner within seventy two hours of meeting yourselves is always interesting. I remember a while ago, there was a girl who had a sister getting married within a week or two of when we first started dating. That was a nice early dose of extended family. They had a great sense of humor, which translated into ‘let’s bust the new guy’s balls as much as possible.’ I came out of the situation relatively unscathed, but it definitely makes for trial by fire. The young woman in question this particular evening handled herself with great poise. I don’t think we all scared her off.

Spring is definitely in the air here in Nashville. It hasn’t completely sprung yet, but the dogwood trees are in full bloom and it’s actually still light outside some days when I leave the lab. We’re still currently oscillating between gorgeous days in the seventies, and rainy ones that are substantially colder. I’m still looking for a nice weekend to go camping. It’ll be nice to spend some time in the woods, sleeping on the ground, and looking at the bright, unadulterated stars that you never can quite see in the city. Until then, I’ll have to settle for pretending I’m outdoors those nights spent in a sleeping bag on the floor of the tissue culture room in lab.

Entertaining in Music City

2008-03-04T16:01:00.003-06:00

Last weekend a buddy of mine, Tom, had a couple friends from undergrad in town visiting. Paired with Mark’s friend’s visit from a week or two prior, I was reminded of some of the finer points of the Nashville nightlife. A while back we went to Lower Broadway when Jason’s mom was visiting. It was a pretty sad realization when a few of us collectively considered that we were burned out on the honky tonk scene that had provided so many weekends of quality entertainment our first year in Nashville.

(A little Wikipedia aside: The Oxford English Dictionary states that the origin of the word honky tonk is unknown. However, the earliest source explaining the derivation of the term (spelled honkatonk) was an article published by the New York Sun in 1900 and widely reprinted in other newspapers. It states uncategorically that the term came from the sound of geese which led an unsuspecting group of cowboys to the flock instead of to the variety show they expected. Also, the OED states that the first use in print was in 1894 in the Daily Ardmoreite (Ardmore, Oklahoma) newspaper where it was honk-a-tonk. However, honkatonk has been cited from at least 1892 in the Galveston Daily News (Galveston, Texas) where it referred to an adult establishment in Ft. Worth.)

The Lower Broadway scene is a pretty good time. There are a couple bars all my friends can agree on, like Tootsie’s. Others love The Stage, which I despise for it’s complete lack of character. Gotta admit, their mural is pretty sweet and there is always a solid crowd. Robert’s Western World is my personal favorite, but most of my compatriots can’t stand the old crowd it often attracts. Anyplace covered with boots on the wall with good western swing and serving cheeseburgers until 3:00 am is alright in my book.

It’s definitely different than the dancehalls back home. Some of these have a modest dance floor, but typically stacked with people standing still at concerts. Not the 2,000 square feet of solid oak dance floor of the Midnight Rodeo, or the Broken Spoke, or even Dallas Nightclub with the inexplicable limestone pillars in the middle of the dance floor to avoid at your own peril and provide amusement watching unfortunate others bounce off of them. Never mind the comparative space to dance, the overall attitude surrounding it is the hardest thing to stomach here. Back home, you hear good music, your feet start moving, and you just want to twirl around the dance floor. You ask someone to dance, and that’s exactly what you’re asking to do. This is completely acceptable and more often than not, invitations are accepted readily. Here, many places you someone to dance it’s like you’re trying to take them home right then or something. I miss the regular Thursday Midnight Rodeo circuit, but I’m doing the best with what I have to work with here.

I got a little carried away with the introductory remarks, as is often the case. Now to the anecdote prompting the current post: Last Saturday, while entertaining Tom’s out of town guests we returned to lower broad since the girls apparently hadn’t had their fill Friday evening. Since the crew had collectively been drinking since around ten am, by the time midnight came around there were some issues with pacing catching up with folks. Well, I think it was more the issues with standing at the heart of the problem. Either way, I was already downtown which hasn’t been happening that often lately, so I decided to stick around and see what the evening had in store.

Since I had been avoiding it for so long, I wandered into The Stage to see if it was really as bad as I remember. There were a few familiar faces of various classmates scattered through the crowd. I was catching up with one of them when a girl grabbed my arm and excitedly exclaimed, “Jason!” My confused look told her I was no Jason before my mouth had the chance and she quickly apologized and told me how much I reminded her of her friend Jason from somewhereoranother. I replied that I was Jared from Texas and then she pondered this with a furrowed brow. After some brief reflection, she tells me that she thinks we’ve danced before at Tootsies. This sounds entirely plausible. I ask when this took place and she replies, “I don’t know… About a year ago?”

I’m tilting my head to size her up from different angles and trying to rack my brain for this evening at Tootsies. She’s adamant that we have indeed danced before, and tells me she can prove it. At this point, she pulls out her cell phone. I’m wondering who she’s planning to call to convince me. The next moment my pocket is vibrating. I look down to see ‘Angela Dance Tootsies’ on my caller ID.

Choked With Rage

2008-02-15T00:36:00.003-06:00

UPDATED DISCLAIMER: Here is a slightly abridged version of my post from last night. The content is essentially the same, just cleaned it up a bit.

ORIGINAL DISCLAIMER: Typically, if I find myself too excited , I won’t just start free-form typing an angry post in front of God and country, as I am doing right now. But, as the title suggests, I find myself choked with rage. Granted, after a good night’s sleep and a little quiet introspection, I’m sure I’ll have a much more cheerful outlook tomorrow (especially if it’s sunny and over 50 degrees). I’m sure If I wrote this tomorrow, it would be far more coherent, better spelled, and less profanity riddled; but, tough shit.

I'm sure being a cab driver isn't easy. Crazy hours, long nights, drunks, plenty to worry about. Why is it so much harder to be an honest cab driver?

The summer after my freshman year at college I worked in the Tarzan show at the Animal Kingdom at Disney world. Why am I telling you this, you may ask? Because it was there in sunny Florida that I got acrewed over by a cabbie the first time. There I was, eighteen years old, hailing a cab from the place I was staying back to Pleasure Island on my night off. Guy shows up. Seems nice enough. Then he starts telling me something to the effect of he saw me waiting for a ride, but we have to cross county lines and the cab commission doesn’t recognize fares that cross county lines or some such horse shit. He proceeds to tell me that if anyone from the cab commission saw him taking me there with his meter on, he could be fined, but he wanted to help me out, so he’d be willing to just take me there for twenty bucks. In retrospect, this is shady as all hell, but this was probably my second or third cab ride in my life so I looked him in the eye, shook his hand, and thanked him for ripping me off for a ten dollar fare. Chalk that one up to ignorance on my part.

Yeah, I’ve learned a thing or two in the intervening years. Until tonight, my most recent semi-scandalous cab encounter was coming home from a hotel party back in Texas off Lake Austin. I rode there with my Army buddy, John. Open bar and hours later, I found myself passed out on the couch. I wake up to find a few stragglers remaining, but my amigo and chauffer missing. I figured he wandered off with the thick girl I saw him talking to before I passed out. Slightly miffed, I wandered down to the lobby to find myself a ride. Didn’t wait long, and there was a yellow cab there in no time ready to whisk me away home. Only problem was, this patchouli-smelling asshole had some wicked incense going. Fun fact about me, in case you didn’t know: if I’ve been running; working out; or, apparently, drinking; I become exquisitely sensitive to strong smells. Good, bad, indifferent – it can be kerosene from training fires (thanks for Army training at firefighting school), run of the mill shampoo (i.e Pernt Plus), or damn dirty hippie stench. Sure enough, on that right home, I absolutely loose it and ralph all over that cab. I feel horrible, yet not wholly responsible since he feels obligated to stink the thing up. Just so I can sleep that night, I give him twenty bones for a five forty fare, or so I think. It is only the next morning at mass that I realize Igave him fifty dollars for the dame five forty fare + plus a little of my partially digested dinner. Alright, that one was on me.

Which brings us to tonight. Hopefully the rambling asides have allowed me to gather my thoughts to the point that I won’t have to worry about this post should I choose to run for office one day. A good buddy of mine, Mike, had great tickets to a Nashville Predators game this evening. We checked it out, and even though Chicago handed us our ass, it was a good time. Being downtown already, we checked out a few of the Honky Tonks on Lower Broad. Things were just starting to pick up. Mike had to call it a night, but I figured I’d stick around and see what the evening had to offer and just cab it back. Couple more decent hours at the bar and it was rapidly approaching my bedtime as well, so I hailed myself a cab.

The ting about the streets in Nashville, is they all have multiple names. Should you look at any sign, I was on Broadway. This turns into West End, which I live off of (then Harding, then Memphis-Bristol Highway, then 100 –see what I mean?) The moral of the story is, I’m standing on the road I live on catching a cab pointed in the direction I need to travel, and telling the cabby to GO STRAIGHT, I LIVE OFF THIS ROAD. Pretty simple instructions, right? I hop in, eager to get home, and proceed to give her the simple instructions – go straight. She starts giving me this run around about having to circle the block and take such and such side street and all this other horse shit. I asked her why, if roads were closed, or what the problem was. Since we were coming from lower Broadway, I could look up the street and it was clear as it could be. When I asked her about the reason for the roundabout route, she vaguely alluded to some cop who allegedly gave her shit for going straight there at some undisclosed point earlier in the evening. I was having none of this. Reaching back to my naïve Florida cab days I reminded her that I lived on this road and she could take me straight down this road or turn her meter off and let me out so I could find somebody who would. She made her insisted right around the block and I excused myself from the moving cab politely wishing her a Happy Valentines Day.

I hopped into the next cab. Told him where I lived and he took me directly there, sans fabricated 'I have to drive you farther out of your way' horse shit. I told him what happened and he described the route she probably had in mind, observing that it would have been less than a dollar difference than had taken me directly home. It’s a sad state of affairs when your integrity goes for seventy-five cents.

Yelp! The Rutlege

2008-01-29T17:20:00.000-06:00

Hey guys... Stumbled upon a what I think is a pretty cool site. New to me, but apparently been around a while. It's called Yelp Like another helpful tool, Craig's List, it comes to us originally from the San Francisco Bay area and has been spreading around the nation. I guess more than just fruits and nuts come out of California after all. It's basically a tool to find recommendations for businesses to frequent or avoid based on user reviews. The scope runs the gamut from shopping to bars to mechanics. How is this any different or better than say, Citysearch, you might ask. Well, I'm not really sure, but it definitely sucked me in and has become my favorite time waster of the last couple days (even surpassing the new Wii). I've been perusing the Nashville listings the last couple days and posted my first review today.

Last night, I went to go see a show at The Rutledge, down on Fourth Ave S. a few blocks southeast of Broadway just past the GEC err... Sommett Center and the Country Music Hall of Fame. Without going into too much detail, the place is a medium to small smoke-free venue that has good local up and coming acts. Saw some good acts, not your stereotypical Nashville country. Reminded me a bit of The Basement in terms of the diversity of sounds and local talent on the verge of making a big next step. Definitely one of those places where you'll catch acts that you can talk about seeing "before they were cool" a few years down the road. It was nice to not reek of smoke after a couple hours of hanging out. The interior decor has a lot of exposed brick and stonework -- which anyone who's been to my place can attest I have a soft spot for. For more info, you can check out my review here.

Definitely going to try to work this one into the regular rotation. Good music, cool crowd, and looking forward to hitting it up again soon.

Happy New Year

2008-01-23T11:37:00.000-06:00

Hey everyone...

I know it's been a while since I've posted anything up here. Have a few possibilities churning in my head, but my first post of the New Year has to me about the most important new development: my niece, Peyton Rene, who is absolutely adorable.

She was born December 14th and I got to meet her when she was eight days old. Here's the first time I held her.

I've got weddings to attend back in central Texas in April and again in June, so it's great to have excuses to get back and see her. She's very alert and inquisitive, always looking around ar what's going on. Just so cute and tiny. She's awesome now and all she does is eat, sleep, and shit her pants. Imagine how cool shes going to be when she can do other things too!

Ah, and I'm also a Godfather now. Not sure when I'm supposed to start talking funny, but you can be honored and grateful when I invite you to my home on the wedding day of my daughter.

I'm pretty swamped in the lab right now... Finally done with coursework and actually have time to devote to research. Settling into the new groove of lab all the time and trying to do the experiments I've been thinking about and planning for a while. Kinda got a fire lit under my ass when I saw a paper today by a competitor basically doing my project. More on that to come soon though. Getting back to work, but I'll leave you with some more pictures.

Crazy Friends

2007-10-10T14:41:00.001-05:00

Ever know anyone who makes major, life-changing decisions on the spur of the moment? I've had a couple buddies that fit that bill... Depending on the individual and the instance it's either been with an air of admiration about having the flexibility and commitment to do something or wondering what the hell they are thinking.

Let me give you a couple examples. A month or so ago, one of my best friend's brothers, William, packed up and moved to Alaska. That isn't very remarkable in and of itself, so let me give you a few more details. His family had been up there on a cruise years ago. Ever since then, Will had the "wouldn't it be cool to live here for a while" bug. How many cool vacation spots have you thought that about? I know I've had a couple. Before this move, he was working in marketing in Houston. Through some contacts from a summer he spent working on oil rigs in the Gulf, he heard about some job openings somehow affiliated with the Alaska pipeline. That's another classic story about a whim he followed up on - this particular chapter involving drunk-dialing the president of the company (friend of a friend's dad, sort of thing) at an obscene hour to inquire about jobs, but ultimately landing the position he wanted.

The folks hiring for the Alaska gig naturally wanted people who were already there, since the cost of relocating there is quite high. Will applied all the same. He found out on a Monday evening that the job was his if he wanted it. Thursday morning he was in his truck embarking on a four and a half thousand mile trek across the continent towards his new life. In the days between, be found and committed to an apartment site unseen from a Craig's List add. Fortunately, breaking his current lease wasn't too difficult since he was renting a room from his sister.

I've heard he's liking things up there, haven't talked to him since he took off. It's a little crazy, but I think it's awesome that instead of just imagining 'gee, wouldn't it be neat if _____' really making opportunities, jumping onto them, and holding on for the ride. Pretty awesome.

Another amigo of mine, Joe falls into is another one of those special classes of people. He went to Rice University where he double majored in Political Science as well as German & Slavic Studies. There was that one semester where he "took classes" at UNLV. Translation: six months living as a degenerate gambler frequenting smoky poker rooms and turning tricks when the cards weren't falling his way. (Alright, I made up the tricks part, but it isn't outside the realm of possibilities. After all, the guy drives a Corvette with 'GIGOLO' vanity plates.)

He calls me up about a month ago asking if he can stay at my place in Nashville for a couple nights sometime in October. I told him no sweat. Apparently, this would be a nice breaking point as he is riding his bike from Houston to Maine. Bicycle, that is. Yeah, he had some time off and was looking for something cool to do. Gas prices eliminated an epic road trip. There wasn't enough time between inception of this idea and execution for him to purchase and get comfortable riding a motorcycle, so he decided to pedal his ass across the country.

Will follows through on almost all of his schemes. Joe has some even wilder notions, and more of them. It's a smaller subset of these schemes he actually carries out, but he does so with similar vigor. A week or so after he called, I asked his roommate in Houston what he thought the odds of Joe pulling this one off were. After clarifying if I meant him leaving Houston on a bike or actually making it to Maine, the roommate put it at 5:1 of leaving Houston, 10:1 of him making it out of Texas and 100:1 of making it to Maine.

As of this afternoon, here's his progress so far:

View Larger Map

He took off the afternoon of October 3rd. Got about 75 miles under his belt and stopped in Sour Lake, TX for the night. If he's on the road too late, he grabs a motel room, but he's got a tent and the preferred method has been making camp at some inviting field before dark falls. Day two saw him in Deweyville, TX 60 miles later, near the state line. The next few days were shortened by weather, precluding him from reaching his target of 70 miles a day. 25 miles but him in De Quincy, LA for night three. Out of Texas, which takes a while. Next day and forty miles later, he made it to Kinder. Then fifty more miles to Opeloussas. Twenty miles or so into day 6 he irreparably blew a tire in Krotz Springs (That's pronounced 'crotch springs, by the way'). Set him back a bit, but he spent a couple days at his grandmothers 116 miles away in Metairie. He's currently back on the road, backtracking a bit to Baton Rouge, then taking the Natchez Trace up to Nashville from there.

He's got to be back to work earlier than anticipated, so he's picked Nashville as a final destination as opposed to the half way mark. It'll be good to see him. I met up with him in Louisville for the Kentucky Derby last summer and we road tripped up to Cincinnati to visit my cousin, see the Astros crush the Reds, and meet up with his folks at the largest AKC Boxer show in the country. Good times.

I'll keep ya posted on his progress.

Busy Saturday, but in a good way.

2007-10-01T19:50:00.000-05:00

I left my apartment at 6:00 a.m. last Saturday and made it back around 3:30 Sunday morning.My first stop was the Providence Park neighborhood in Nashville for a Habitat for Humanity build through the Cathedral Parish. The first day of the build is always exciting because we go from a bare slab with some chalk lines and letters to completely framing the walls and roof. The weather was great - got just the right amount of sun without frying. Didn't injure myself severely, though I acquired a wicked 'paper cut' from a metal tape measure as it was retracting. The nurse on site thought I chopped my thumb off when I wandered up to her with a red stream dripping down my forearm and off my elbow. Some iodine, couple band aids, and a little electrician's tape to hold it all together and I was back in business. There are three more build weekends October 6, 7, 13, 14, 20, 21. Folks are particularly needed on the Sunday build days. If you're interested in helping out, you can find more information here. Let me know if you want to head out that way.

Made a brief appearance back at the apartment - my neighbor was attempting to assemble the second part of a new entertainment center. We tackled the first piece the previous evening more or less successfully. I took my sweaty, stinky ass up there and we got the new piece assembled with minimal difficulty. Then it was shower time and walking over to the Vandy v. E. Michigan game. It just occurred to me as I was writing this - we opened against Michigan at Michigan last year. I remember towards the end of last school year that the boys up in Ann Arbor wanted Vandy to come back up there to be their sacrificial, season-opening lamb. They kept sweetening the deal and throwing more money at Vanderbilt (like they don't have enough already). Ultimately, the 'Dores opted to have Richmond come open here in our attempts to secure the first bowl bid in a while. If we only knew then how terrible they were going to be this year, we could have been the Appalachia State exposing them as frauds and logged a quality win!

It's a little early in the season to start getting cocky, and they haven't hit the meat of their schedule yet, but right now here are some of Vandy's current SEC rankings:

#3 Scoring Defense (Behind LSU & S. Carolina)
#3 Pass Defense (Behind S. Carolina & LSU)
#3 Turnover Margin (Behind LSU & Kentucky)
#2 Total Defense (Behind LSU)
#3 4th Down Conversions (Behind LSU & Florida)
#1 Receiver, Earl Bennett Receptions / Game
#1 Receiver, Earl Bennett Yards / Game
#2 Interceptions, D.J. Moore (Sophomore)

Like I said, there's a lot of football left to play, but the 'Dores are doing their part to do more than hang in a tough conference. (I'm sure more than a couple people I know will be pointing out that I had to type 'Behind LSU' quite a few times. I know. Geaux Tigers!)

Left the game in the third quarter when it was 27-7 Vandy. Not a fan of leaving early winning or losing, but Walter, Jan and I were hungry and walked over to Rotier's on Elliston for an award winning cheeseburger on french bread. Couple cold Shiner Bock's later, Walter and I kept walking down to Exit/In to see a Reckless Kelly show. They rocked, as always. I've mentioned that good Texas acts don't come to town as much as I am used to or would like. It's kinda funny - I'm starting to recognize and be recognized by a number of fellow aficionados who frequent the same shows I do. There was a couple from Kentucky that I met at the same venue at a Jason Boland show. A guy came up and said he saw me at Roger Creager a couple weeks before and asked me about other good shows in the near future. I'm slowly introducing some friends here to these acts so hopefully I'll have a crew to join me at these things, but I'm certainly not above going alone. Stoney Larue opened for them and both bands put on a hell of a show. RK played from 11:00 until a little after 1:00. The crowd thinned out quite a bit before they came from backstage to meet everyone. By the time they were rolling out, Willie invited those of us still at the venue across the street to the Gold Rush for drinks. It was pretty cool.

Next stop on the concert calendar is Cory Morrow on Monday, October 22nd. I've got four tickets to the show, so if you want to go, let me know. Just so happens that Vanderbilt's Fall Break (which I'm not sure if I technically get, but am planning on taking) is the 22nd & 23rd - perfect timing.

Music City v. the Live Music Capitol of the World

2007-09-26T15:55:00.000-05:00

You'll have to wait a couple days to hear about that third tow... This issue is a little more pressing as it relates to some rapidly approaching events.

Whenever I tell anyone in Nashville that I moved here from Austin, Texas always comments on how similar they hear the two cities are (whether they've ever actually been to Austin or not). This usually occurs right after telling them that I am a science nerd, not a musician; the typical Austin to Nashville trajectory.

Several of these similarities were apparent upon my first visit to Nashville and entered in my decision for where to move for grad school. My graduate education provided a rare opportunity to pick anyplace I wanted, pack my bags, and go try a new city on for an average of 5.2 years. I intentionally wouldn't let myself apply to any schools in or near Austin, and even decided to exclude Texas from that list. It would be easy to stick around. I applied almost exclusively to schools in Boston and California - with Vandy in Nashville as the only exception.

Short version on similarity between the cities:

Both the State Capitol (though we almost missed the TN capitol driving downtown looking for it. Yeah, ours is bigger than the one in Washington, DC)

Comparable in Size: Austin 709,893 City, ~ 1.5 million Metro (2006); 607,413 City, 1,498,836 Metro (2005)

Easy to get around; Plenty to do (symphony, art museums, etc.)

Music Scene (more on this to come)

Friendly, approachable, helpful people.

It is the last point mentioned above that really set Nashville apart from the other places I was looking. My theory is this: people on either coast aren't necessarily rude, per se. There is just an inherent tendency to keep to yourself and distrust of strangers. Once folks got past the initial shock of someone they don't know talking to them on the train or something, I encountered some people who were helpful enough in Boston and elsewhere. Back home, it's not uncommon for someone to go out of their way to help someone visiting find their way, or converse at length about mutual love (or hate) for a team when you're out at a bar. If this is what you're used to, the coastal distance does come off as rude, even though I guess it's just what everyone there expects.

I suppose I'll get to my original point... The difference between the Nashville and Austin music scene. Before I come off sounding overly critical, let me preface all subsequent remarks with the disclaimer that while I am still entitled to my rights to piss and moan about missing Austin, I am thankful to be in a place where I can go listen to good music on a nightly basis. I think this is going to have to be a prerequisite for wherever I decide to settle. Something about being at a show when everything is clicking - between everyone in the band, the collective group and the crowd, just getting caught up and lost in what's going on. Even if only for a couple hours, all other distractions and problems just seem to disappear when you're caught up in the music. I've met a few people in my day (including a past ex and current neighbor) who "aren't into live music" and can't think of anything more boring than going to a show. I just don't get it, but to each his own. I gave up on trying to get them to see the light, but learned to leave them at home when I want to go enjoy a show.

Without getting onto my rant about "Texas Country" v. Country, let's just say I got spoiled by the number of quality acts I had at my fingertips on a weekly basis. Even when some of the same shows come to town here in Nashville, going to them isn't the same... It's as if the folks of Nashville take for granted having talented musicians in town and going to most shows is more of a passive process, critically taking it all in as if you're watching it on TV from your favorite ass-groove in your couch. Shows back in Texas are definitely more interactive and this makes for a better show as the band is feeding off the crowd's energy and this positive feedback loop builds into the raucous frenzy topically resulting in you ending up with your arms around a stranger as you're belting out every word off-key at the top of your lungs.

Another big difference is dancing. Back home, you'll see these guys at a big dance hall - or even in a bar, there will be room and couples pairing off and twirling around. Something about a good band just gets my feet wanting to move. Back home you ask someone to dance, and that's all it is. (And, they typically know what they are doing). Here, you get a funny look - and there is this long protracted process where apparently if you ask someone to dance, you're automatically asking to take them home or something. Usually, here getting the first person to dance is the rate limiting step. I don't necessarily look like I can dance hence the high energy of activation. In the big scheme of things I'm not great, but I can definitely hold my own. Once I get somebody out there twirling around, it's like free advertising and finding subsequent dance partners is a usually thermodynamically downhill. (Unless you drop someone, but that's only happened twice).

Before this gets too long, I'm going to provide details about some good upcoming acts from back home coming to Nashville soon. The lineup in the next couple months is the best I've seen since moving here sixteen months ago.

Mickey & The Motorcars
Cross Canadian Ragweed
This FridayFiddlin' Brewin' Bar-B-Q'N Cook-Off™ featuring Iron Chef Bobby FlayOpryland Hotel $15 (Mickey Braun, the frontman for Mickey & the Motorcars, is the brother of Willy & Cody Braun, the mainstay of Reckless Kelly. There's a good chance we'll see a guest appearance from the little bro.)

Reckless Kelly w/ Stoney Larue
Exit/In - Nashville, TN Saturday September 29, 2007 at 8:00 PM $10.00
Here are a few videos from the last concert of theirs I went to in Austin - they were filming a live double album:
1952 Vincent Black Lightning
Wicked Twisted Road

Cory Morrow w/ Matt Stillwell
Exit/In - Nashville, TN Monday October 22, 2007 at 8:00 PM
$10.00

Robert Earl Keen
Belcourt Theater, Nashville Friday, Nov. 9th @ 7:00pm, 9:30pm - 2 shows!Tickets: $32 - on sale Friday, Sept 28th @ 10 am

So, if you're still reading, here's the deal. If you're back in Texas and have seen some of these acts (as all of you good Texans have), leave a comment on here telling these folks in Nashville how they need to get their ass out to a show. If you are here in Nashville and want to check one of these shows out, drop me a line and let me know!

On Tow Trucks, Part II of III

2007-09-24T13:21:00.000-05:00

Alright, fast forward five days from my last tow and we're up to last Tuesday. Back in July, I applied to be a Big Brother with Big Brothers & Big Sisters of Middle Tennessee. There was a decent background questionnaire, references provided and a fairly lengthy interview with plenty of personal questions. In the intervening months, they have been using the various information gleaned to match me with a compatible kiddo in the area. Without dwelling on the technical aspects of this process, a couple weeks ago they called me up to tell me about a perspective little bro. They gave me the street block he lived on to do a drive-by to scope the neighborhood and the commute. Everything looked and sounded good enough, so I gave them the thumbs up and last Tuesday we had our "Match Introduction Meeting" where I sat down with my little, his mom, and a representative from BBBS who went over every ones respective roles and expectations.

Driving to this meeting was going to be one of my first experiences with Nashville rush hour. Living next to work and biking or walking to campus has insulated me from the frustration of commuting daily. Since I was going to have to fight my way into, across, then out of downtown I decided to leave myself plenty of time to make it to this meeting. I ended up making it to his neighborhood with fifteen to twenty minutes to spare. These first introductions are typically pretty boring for the kids because it is mostly banal paperwork and talk about rules. We're encouraged to do something fun, but low-key and close to their place to get to know each other once the match introduction is complete. Since I had some time to kill, I decided to drive around a bit and see if I could scope out a nearby destination to grab a Slurpee or something. My little has a neat little house with a well-maintained yard. That being said, he's in a fairly rough neighborhood and there is definitely some shadiness going on nearby.

As I'm cruising around, I start paying attention to a goofy noise that my car seems to be making as I accelerate. I had first noticed it the evening before, but it seemed to go away. With the radio and A/C off, I'm able to concentrate and try to better characterize when the noise is and try to describe it better. It wasn't really a clank, kindof a click - but there was somehow a bit of a crumpling noise mixed in. While still trying to reach a better description, I seemed to have the stimulus evoking this noise about down. After applying the gas in the initial phase of acceleration, I was greeted with this weird noise. So, here I am pressing and releasing the accelerator pedal with more descriptive terms for the noise entering my head with every round when, suddenly, there is a much louder pop immediately followed by a cloud of steam and smoke billowing out from under my hood as well as an intermittent stream of bright green antifreeze spraying onto my windshield. Well, shit.

I immediately pull off the road. The area was mixed-use; primarily residential but had a sparse scattering of businesses as well. I pull into the lot for 'Davis & Davis Deli and Car Wash', get out, grab a nice brown Army towel from the trunk (they do have some uses), and pop the hood to assess the damages. I'm no mechanic, but I do have a rudimentary understanding of what a number of things under there are and what they do. At this point, I'm hoping it's something easy (and cheap) like the hose attaching the radiator that is faulty, or even better, just disconnected. This hope is quickly dashed as a quick visual inspection shows a four inch by inch and a half gaping hole in the top tank of the radiator near where the hose attaches. Shit again.

We're sitting at T minus about ten minutes until my match meeting us supposed to take place. I call the main BBBS number, talk to the operator, and am ultimately given the cell phone number of the person from their organization who was to attend this meeting with me. The plan is to call her, hitch a lift to the meeting then have AAA get me at my car once the meeting is over. Sounds simple enough. My match support person I called was lost en route to the meeting herself, but she eventually got oriented and found me and we go to the meeting just a few minutes late. I call AAA to schedule a pickup following the meeting. Without going into details, there was a big to do with me having a new member number since spitting off from my folks account and something about computers in TN being down and unable to process a request from a TX member at that time.

The match intro meeting went really well. Elijah, my little brother, seems really cool. I'll have to publish another post soon with more info. We went and shot hoops at the Y Saturday. It's a little hectic trying to juggle this additional time commitment with everything else going on, but I'm looking forward to it. We're done meeting around 6:00pm and I call AAA back to arrange a pick up. They are able to process the request and tell me I can expect a wrecker within forty-five minutes to an hour. I get dropped off back at my car and am hanging out waiting for my ride. Here's a picture of me and my little guy.

The former deli and car wash was for rent at the moment. Initially, folks left me well enough alone although I was standing out out like a sore thumb in my polo and khakis. Didn't take too long for me to attract the attention of folks in the neighborhood. The first guy to approach me, Michael, started out cordial enough. He tells me, "This is a bad neighborhood, you know. It's a bad neighborhood, but it's a good one. I've lived here all my life, but it's a bad neighborhood." He then gets down to business. "I'm going to the store to get me a pack of cigarettes. You're going to give me a couple dollars to go to the store and get cigarettes. Then I'll make sure nothing bad happens to you in my neighborhood." It didn't take too much processing to recognize the thinly veiled implicit threat suggesting that if I didn't comply he could ensure that something bad happened to me while I was in his neighborhood. Figured it was a sound investment in my future, so I fished out a couple singles and sent him on his way. About fifteen minutes later, Michael returned from the store with a shopping bag and now pushing a rusty lawnmower he somehow acquired along the way.

I called my pops to let him know what was going on. He asked if I knew of a shop I could get towed directly to so I would only require a single tow. I didn't and had no way to really look anything up, so he was wondering if leaving my car where it was and having it towed somewhere the following day was an option. Not so much. I explained that I was interpreting the puddle of glass in the parking lot as the window of the last person who tried to leave their car there. I have no idea what prompted him to tell my mother that her baby boy was stuck in a sketchy part of town, but within ten minutes of getting off the phone with him, she calls to check on me. I'm trying to downplay everything as much as possible and tell her that everything was fine. Think I've got her pretty well calmed down and convinced, but over the course of our ensuing conversation three crackheads came up asking for 'seventy-four cents for a beer', if I 'was holding', or if I 'needed any milk.' Needless to say, this didn't help my case in assuaging mom and she was more worried than before we talked.

A little over an hour after calling for the ride, AAA calls me to apologise for the delay and to assure me that I am next on the list of people needing to be picked up. They are unable to convert 'next' into minutes, but I suppose it wouldn't have mattered if they picked another number out of their ass like the initial forty-five minute projection. By now, the sun has gone down and the streetlights are on. One of the people from a neighboring house had already asked me what I was doing there. Let's see: there is smoke rising from my car and green shit dripping down. I'll give you three guesses, but you should only need one. Give you a hint: I'm not sightseeing. Later, the same person is approaching my car with something in her hand and keeps saying 'You've been here a long time." I get out and she hands me a Diet Bubba Cola. I didn't know they made Diet Bubba Cola. Or regular Bubba Cola, for that matter. Either way, I had been there a while and it was refreshing and hit the spot.

A while later, she comes back and hits me up for some beer money. I've just gotten off the phone with AAA again and am getting the run-around when it comes to an accurate idea of when to expect my ride. I had played things pretty cool up to this point, but was getting increasingly frustrated with each passing minute. As I'm fishing some change out of my pocket, Ms. Bubba Cola asks me "why are you shaking? You nervous or somethin'? Think somethin' bad is going to happen to ya'?" Over the preceding half hour or so, I had a few run ins with this truck with dark tinted windows, covered mostly in gray primer with a few multi-colored patches. As it approached, it slowed, then pulled into the parking lot for the business for rent that my car was in. After about three minutes, it pulled back out and continued in the original direction of travel. Ten to fifteen minutes later, it returned and duplicated the same casing out move. I'm thinking it's a little peculiar and get on the phone with a friend. It eventually leaves again. The third time this little drama played out, I was increasingly alarmed and again relieved once it left.

It's about a quarter after eight now and I've been hanging out for over two hours waiting on my ride. It eventually comes at five 'till nine and I can't tell you how happy I was to see the driver. First thing he asks me is what the hell I was doing in that part of town in the first place. I tell him I'm volunteering for Big Brothers. Karma my ass. You never see this sort of thing happening in an episode of My Name is Earl.

On Tow Truck's, Part I of III

2007-09-21T11:18:00.000-05:00

My car has been towed three times in the last seven days. No fun. The first time was last Thursday. Throughout the week of the tenth, I enjoyed an extended birthday celebration. Kinda happens when the date falls on a Monday. Not everyone can make it out, so there were impromptu get togethers with folks all week. On Thursday, my buddy Walter tells me about 'bar review', a weekly event where all the Vandy law school converges upon some selected bar. This week, it was Paradise Park down on Lower Broad, which is generally a good time. Since I had already been out every other night that week, I decided it would be a low key, shoot to be home by one, and I'd give my liver a break and play DD. Walter and I ended up having a blast hanging out, dancing, meeting new people. As it often does, our best intentions of returning early were abandoned. As two thirty rolled around, we decided to call it a night and head back to my car. We walk down past the Schermerhorn (Symphony Center, for the non-Nashvillians out there) to the parallel parking spot on the street where I left the car. The only problem is, no car.

I was in a legitimate spot. Parking meter. Painted lines. The works. I went to look at the standard 'No Parking Here to Corner --->' sign. Only problem was, it actually said 'No Parking 3:30pm - 8:00 am <-----'. What kind of horse shit is that? There was an additional sign with the address and phone number where for the impound lot where the vehicles were to be taken. About this time, a checkered cab rounds the corner and we flag him down for a lift to the lot. Let me just say that this was the most interesting cab ride I've had in this hemisphere. There were a few in Bulgaria that beat it, but not by that wide of a margin. Within thirty seconds of entering the cab Jimmy, our driver, asks if we need and "blow, green, crank, or ladies" and told us that he could basically hook us up with anything our hearts (or other parts of anatomy) desired. Caught us a little off guard, but I just chuckled told him we were good and that I just wanted to get my cab back. Apparently he wasn't convinced, because he started telling us about a particular friend of his working nearby and all the things she would do to us, in what order, or at the same time. He then covered the very short list of things she wouldn't do, but assured us that if we were determined to do those things, he knew someone else who would.

Fortunately, we pull up to the impound lot about this time. I told Jimbo to hang out and keep the cab running until I confirm that they actually have my car. I walk in, approach the counter, and describe my car and where it was left. The woman sighs, shakes her head and says, "they should really change those signs. They haven't been taking cars from downtown here in ages." Let me tell you how thrilled I was to hear that. I take a deep breath and ask where they are taking the vehicles. She gives me the name and number of a private lot and the attendant confirms that they do have my car.

Back in the cab. This time, he's convinced we aren't interested in any of the other services he has been offering and we're on to the topics of world events and politics. He proceeds to tell us the rough framework of his international relations agenda were he the leader of this great nation of ours. Cliff's Notes version: nuke 'em all. His rant was moderately entertaining, yet disturbing at the same time. Walter and I were looking at each other like "what the hell is really going on here." Walter would occasionally throw out some pejorative interjection, which just fueled the fire even more.

As we approach the second lot, I call their number again to verify the location. The attendant directs us in and informs me that he's out on the truck and won't be back to the lot for another five minutes or so. No problem. As Walter is squaring up with Jimmy for the ride, I start looking at the different fenced off areas for my car. About this time, a pack of fifteen to twenty feral dogs comes snarling by. Great. A quick blast form the horn, and they are on their way. I spotted my car, which was something of a relief. The lot that it was in had an interesting gate. Well, there wasn't a gate per se, just a Cadillac fulfilling that role parked blocking egress.

At this point, I don't know how much it is going to cost to get my car out, but I'm pretty sure it's more than I want to pay. I get the brilliant idea that if there is only some way to move this Caddy, I'm home free. I know the car's gotta be locked, but I decide to go give the handle a tug for the hell of it and am rewarded by a click and the dome light as the door opens. Score. A little neutral, a little push, and off I go. I figure there may be repercussions at some point, but it's not stealing or anything. After all, it's my car! If anything, he stole it. (I don't hold wrecker drivers in very high esteem. The guys that get you when you're broken down, sure. But the ones that snatch your car off the street, not so much.)

Like most cars, without the keys you can't just drop it in neutral. But, they all have some kind of emergency release or override or whatever you want to call it. This one is in a different place than mine. Situation calls for a little teamwork. Though we've already paid Jimmy for the ride, he's feeling chatty and still around, so I put him on lookout duty as I send Walter to the passenger side to check the glove compartment for the owner's manual so we can figure out how to drop 'er in neutral. We find the appropriate page in the index and as he's thumbing there, we get the word from Jimmy that our cover is blown and the driver is back. Walter gets the manual tossed back in the box and we're out, walking innocently in circles, hands in pockets and whistling my best inconspicuous tune. So close!

I begrudgingly pay my tow fee, then the guy hands me the ticket from off my dash for being parked there in the first place - great. We make a pit stop at the Hermitage Cafe, a little twenty-four hour diner out that way, then roll home at 5:21 am. My 8:00 class was lots of fun the next morning.

Stay tuned for accounts of the next two tows.

Are you ready for some football?

2007-08-31T13:59:00.000-05:00

I know I am. Got a pleasant surprise yesterday in the form of two Titans tickets from my boss. A friend of his has season tickets and gave him a pair since we were playing Green Bay and he went to grad school in Milwaukee. Come game day, my boss' wife is home sick. He got the, "It's okay honey, you can go." green light, but I guess after years of marriage he knows what that really means and stayed home. Since he needed someone to use the tickets, I was willing to step up and help. That's the kind of team player I am. The seats were great - lower level, on the thirty-five about twenty rows up from the field. Looks like this could be a good (better) season for the Titans. Vince was doing alright and it was great to see a fair share burnt orange. Sure beats the lighter shade that prevails around here - looks like those people should be filling potholes somewhere.

The people watching was top notch as well. Not quite on par with the county fair, but close. We were down on field level, so that cut down on a lot of the riffraff, although at least one guy slipped through the cracks. The best hair goes to the guy with the mullet. And a mohawk. And bangs. Wish I had my camera with me for that one. The guy behind us and to the left was holding a wad of cash and taking bets on everything from first downs, scores on series, who would be substituted when, and almost anything else you could think of. Immediately behind me was another gentleman who was passing his binoculars around getting the opinions of neighboring spectators to support a heated debate about a cheerleader across the field and wheter or not she was Asian. While the game was fun, what I'm really excited about is college ball.

Vandy has their opener against Richmond tomorrow. If we can't chalk that one up to a 'W', it doesn't bode well for the season. I think they've got it in 'em to make it to some sort of crack-ass bowl this year. Michigan was throwing money at us to get us back up there to pad their schedule, but Vandy opted for the home opener. These Vandy kids don't really tailgate like they do back in Austin. (With such classics as: "You honk, we drink') I guess they are more stylish when they do. Blew me away my first game seeing all the guys in ties and blazers and the girls with dresses, pearls and heels. This weekend will mark the first time I've been tailgating with my Mom before a game, should be good times. Get to see Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, and Wake Forrest at home this year. Not too shabby.

So, in the last couple weeks I have had friends make two great football analogies pertinent to my situation at the time. This will require a brief set-up, but I think they're worth it.

The first one was a couple weeks ago at a local bar. We were a few stops into a birthday celebration and a group of acquaintances happened upon the same drinking hole - Some friends of friends I met at a barbecue. One of the girls in the group I had taken out to a concert since. There was a live band picking away and a small clearing in front of them. Not much of a dance floor, but it'll do in a pinch. I ask her to dance and we start twirling around the floor. Just a little two-steppin'. This was the first time we had danced and she seemed to be pleasantly surprised that I knew what I was doing and was complimentary in that regard. Everything was going great until the end of the song where I went to perform this side dip I have successfully executed countless times. Then I slip, fall, and drop her as well. Smooth, smooth. While I can't say that's never happened before, it has been years - and I'm still moderately embarrassed about the last time that happened. Needless to say, I feel horrible. Later attempt ask her for a guaranteed drop-free dance, but no dice. My buddies are cracking up and as I am lamenting to one of them he put his hand on my shoulder, looked me in the eye, and told me, "Dude, one fumble doesn't guarantee you're going to lose the game." That was exactly what I needed to hear, but didn't help much at the time.

The following week, we were doing the lower Broadway thing after spending most of the afternoon and evening on a friend's boat down on the Cumberland. Met up with one of the guy's friends who was up from Atlanta for a bachelorette party. We started chatting. She's a huge SEC football fan and knows her stuff. She mentioned something about a trip to Texas with a roommate of hers to visit a guy she was dating. At some point, she mentions this guy was Catholic, and there was a bit of a tone. It then goes down a little like this: "Wait you aren't Catholic are you?" "Yeah, as a matter of fact I am." "They have those in Texas?" "We're worldwide, dear." She does a little backpedaling and describes her first experience in a Catholic church where everyone was standing, sitting, kneeling, sitting again all at the appropriate time and saying the same long prayers in unison describing feeling out of place just because everyone but her knew what was going on. To further clarity this point, she goes on to day "It's like PAC-10 football. Lot's of people love it, but I just don't get it." Nice.

Vick's 63,000,000,000.00 Billion Dollar Law Suit

2007-08-16T13:23:00.001-05:00

Did you know Michael Vick was in legal trouble? No, not the Federal indictment, the civil manner. On July 23rd one Johnathan Lee Riches, an inmate at the Federal Correctional Institution at Williamsburg, filed a complaint about the "Theft and Abuse of [his] Animals" in the US District Court, Eastern Division of Virginia Richmond Division.

What does he want? 63,000,000.00 billion dollars, backed by gold and silver, to be delivered by UPS the the front gate of the jail where the plaintiff is currently incarcerated.

I'm all for due process and everything, but if Vick did what is alleged by the Federal indictment he deserves to be punished to the fullest extent of the law. And I'm not just saying that because I hate the Falcons.

So, what's the civil suit about? Mr. Riches claims that his federal and state constitutional rights have been violated under the 1st, 2nd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 8th, and 14th amendments. Did Vick take away his guns? Make him testify against himself? Pay excessive bail? At least he didn't force Riches to quarter British troops, I hate it when that happens. The complaint claims that Vick stole two of Riches' white mixed pit bulls from Florida, then used them for fighting in the Richmond area. Sounds plausible... But then it gets weird.

This is one of my favorites: Vick stole the plaintiff's identity "from his coat" and fraudulently opened lines of credit at PetsMart and Doggie Warehouse to secure food and supplies for his illegal dog fighting operation. What are you doing carelessly leaving your identity in your coat, Mr. Riches? Vick then allegedly sold the dogs on eBay and used the proceeds to buy missiles from the Iranian government. Yep, apparently Vick pledged his allegiance to Al-Qaeda on February 16, 2007. As if all of this isn't bad enough, Vick "subjected [Riches] to microwave testing" and used drugs in school zones.

The plaintiff seeks compensation for damages as well as a restraining order prohibiting Vick from continuing to sell T-Shirts, Johnathan Lee Riches Mugs, and Mr. Riches hats. All he wants is for Vick to stop "physically hurting his feelings and dashing his hopes.

I've spoiled most of the good stuff, but you can view the whole complaint in it's handwritten glory. Thanks for finding this, Rob.

Music Genome Project

2007-08-15T11:54:00.000-05:00

I'm definitely a music lover. Playing, listening, canned or especially live - sign me up. Classical, Jazz, Rock, I've got a wide range. As it always happens when I start getting homesick, I'm firmly entrenched in a Texas Country phase right now. Not too long ago, I was concerned that listening almost exclusively to my MP3 player was stifling my new music exposure breadth. While devising a work-around for this problem, I left the damn player on a plane flying back from a wedding. That solved the stagnation of listening to the same thing (not that 30 gigs was too repetitive), but did little to spur branching out.

This week, I've made two great steps towards addressing this deficiency. First of all, I was looking at Rufus Wainwright's web page trying to decide if I was going to see him at the Ryman last night (poker night won). Coincidentally, on the front page of his site was an announcement that Rufus was going to be performing a live, on-air set broadcast on KGSR out of Austin before a Stubbs BBQ show. I clicked over to the KGSR site, registered, then listened to ole' Rufus. This was a nice pick-me-up on a hungover Saturday in the laboratory. Since then, I've been listening to the station daily. They play quite an eclectic mix, as evident from their playlist. As they claim, the station truly does "Sound Like Austin". Most of the time, that's great. The down side is I have to listen to people talk about the ACL Lineup, or who's playing live at: The Shady Grove, Threadgill's, Hill's, The Saxon Pub, Austin Music Hall, [insert other great venues I miss here]. Doesn't help with the whole missing people and places in Austin... (I won't be back home until Thanksgiving, but come visit Nashville!)

My second discovery, which I'm pretty thrilled about, is called Pandora Radio. It stems from the "Music Genome Project", an effort started in 2000 with the ambitious goal of providing the most comprehensive analysis of music ever and capturing it's essence at a fundamental level. They threw out all the crap about what a band looks like, who's label it's on, who buys what, or what "genre" it belongs to.

They identified over four hundred attributes from music of the past and present (i.e. electric rock instrumentation ,vocal-centric aesthetic, major key tonality, electronica influences, flat out funky grooves, prominent synth drums, etc.) Likening these elements to genes of an organism, a song or artist is defined by their use and incorporation of these building blocks. As a user, you start a radio station by entering an artist or song you like. Musicians will listen to a song and in a process that typically takes twenty to thirty minutes, assign numerical values to the different "genes" to create a coordinate vector of the song. Typical rock and pop songs have 150 genes, rap songs have 350, and jazz songs have approximately 400. Other genres of music, such as world and classical, have 300-500 genes per song vector. Given the vector of one or more songs, and a little linear algebra, a distance function is used to create a list of other similar songs. So, you seed a station with one song and it starts playing other similar things, continually adapting with your feedback to come up with a great mix allowing you to enjoy the music you know and discover new things you like.

I'm pretty stoked about this. It's great for hosting - you don't have to worry about burning a CD or finding something to please everyone. We found some Brit rubbish and some Dutch pop to meet the needs of the non-Texans at the poker table last night. The stations I've devised to date should appear as links to the right of this posting. I'd definitely recommend checking this out.

While we're on the subject. I'm going to see Jason Boland at Exit/In tomorrow, 16AUG07 and The Greencards at Station Inn next Friday, the 24th. Let me know if you're interested in going to one or both of these shows.

Enjoy, Jared.