Ants on the Melon
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I flew in to Atlanta today to work for a few days, but first there was fun to be had.

As it turns out, my old college roommate Ty was in town, so Brian and I met up with him and headed over to the Funny Farm Comedy Club to see Bob Saget’s comedy skit.

Most people remember Bob Saget from Full House and America’s Funniest Home Videos, but that was not the same person who performed tonight. Not even close. If you are into crass humor, then you should go see Bob Saget. During the show he mentioned how he googled himself and came across a fan site called Bob Saget is God. Well, as it turns, the guy who runs the site was in the audience, so Bob told him how freaked out he was about the site. Anyway, the show was absolutely hilarious, and Bob is a comic genius, really.

Last night I headed over to the Wednesday Night Dinner, bearing Beignet’s for cajun night. I got there around 9, after spending a couple hours making a mess in my kitchen with flour, beignet mix and powdered sugar.

Andy grilled up these amazing bacon wrapped jalapeno shrimp that had me sweating for at least an hour. There was a pretty good turnout and among the other things that people brought were fried alligator, crawfish pie, red beans and rice, jambalaya, and fried pickles. Mmmm, good eatin!

After everyone finished eating, we sat around the picnic table and talked for a couple hours, until around 11:00 when Issac, Steve and I started playing music. Our main guitarist, the Professor, was not able to make it this week, so the band consisted of Issac on guitar, Steve singing, and me on mandolin. We played 3 or 4 songs and decided it was too hot, so we headed back to the picnic table and resumed socializing. I left shortly after midnight so I could get ready for my trip to Atlanta. Another great Wednesday night.

Tuesday night I went up to the River Road Ice House in New Braunfels to see Drew Kennedy. Drew was a fellow history major at Hampden-Sydney College, and graduated a year after I did. Several months ago I read in the college newsletter that he was working on a career as a Texas musician. Well, Tuesday I finally had a free night so I made the trip up there to see him play.

I talked with Drew for a little while when I got there, and he mentioned that Matt Powell would be playing with him, and that he was one of the best songwriters around. Everyone has their own idea of greatness and “best”, so sometimes you just have to see for yourself. In this case, Drew was right.

The show was nice and laid back, just the way I like them. As they began getting ready to play, I grabbed a Negro Modelo and assumed a spot at the bar. There was a small, casual crowd there; apparently everyone there knew everyone else.

Drew and Matt alternated playing, with Matt occasionally dropping a lead into Drew’s songs, very nice. They mostly played their original music, with one or two covers mixed in (including “Sitting by the Dock of the Bay”). Not only are they both great songwriters, but the music was also excellent. At times Matt’s music and singing reminded me of Mofro, but then he’d throw a bluegrass song in there and tear it up. Matt is another Virginian (Franklin county) living in south Texas, so it should have been no surprise that what he was playing reminded me of music from back home. Besides the great music Drew and Matt also went the extra mile to perform comedy acts between songs, because as everyone knows, you can never have too many Chappelle’s Show references.

If you are into acoustic goodness, go ahead and make it out to one of Drew’s or Matt’s shows. Good listening, indeed.

When I switched my desktop from Linux to Mac OS X last year one of the hardest things to give up was virtual desktops. When I was a KDE user I always had 4 virtual desktops in use; it was a very nice way to segment various activities into their own space. With Mac OS X I eventually began to use Expose to quickly find a window rather than trying to keep them organized. This has worked well enough for a while, but I still sometimes wish I had a nice virtual desktop manager for Mac OS X. It’s really great working at a company full of computer geeks because someone here has almost always solved every problem I run across. Shortly after arriving at work this morning a coworker showed me this nice Desktop Manager for Mac OS X. I’ve got the key bindings mapped to match the KDE virtual desktop default key bindings (Command-F1 -> Desktop 1, Command F2 -> Desktop 2, etc) and it’s working exactly as I want. Anyway, if you are a Mac OS X user and would like virtual desktops, give it a try.

Friday night I went out to Floore’s Country Store to see Eleven Hundred Springs. It was a pretty good show, although I was disappointed that Steve was playing an electric bass instead of his usual stand-up. Along with their normal setlist they played an amazing version of Orange Blossum Special and a few other surprise covers, including an Elvis tune. During their break I asked Matt what the chances were that they would ever play “Illegal Smile” again. Based on his response, I doubt we will ever heard EHS perform that one anymore. I set my alarm Saturday morning for 9am so that I could join the band for their float down the Guadalupe. I woke up when the alarm went off, considered the cold water and almost certain sunburn, then went back to sleep for another 5 hours.

On Saturday Elana Fremerman, of Hot Club of Cowtown fame, was playing with Cindy Cashdollar and Doug Davis at the Pacha Coffeeshop in Austin from 6-9pm. I’m a huge fan of Hot Club, so there was no way I was going to miss this. I arrived there around 6:30 to find a slightly crowed room with the 3 musicians right in the middle. I ordered a smoothie and found a place to stand where I could see the musicians. They played for about 30 more minutes and then took a break. During the break this older guy named Mel found a chair and sat down next to me. We started talking, and as it turned out he was from Sacramento California, but was in San Antonio visiting his sister. He received the email newsletter from Elana that morning and decided that he had no choice but to drive up to Austin for the show. This guy knew more about music than anyone I have ever met, and we ended up talking for a long time. He had looked at the setlist and said that there was a song titled “South” on the list. Apparently this song was written in the 30′s by a man named Ray Charles (not the blind pianist), and is pretty rare. Mel said that Chet Atkin’s performed it on an LP titled “A Session with Chet Atkins”, but that album has never been produced in CD form. Mel also told me how Bob Wills performed the song on what is called “The Tiffany Transcriptions,” which has an interesting history. Anyway, Mel was very excited to see that this song was on the list, so when he asked them to play it I had my camera ready, here’s the video of Cindy/Doug/Elana – South. I also was able to record another song, but I ran out of drive space with about 15 seconds left in the song, but the video is here anyway. When the show was over Mel and I took pictures with Elana, Cindy and Doug. Elana and Cindy are forming a new band called Speedin’ West with Redd Volkaert and Jake Erwin. I was upset to learn a few months ago that Hot Club was breaking up, but after seeing Elana and Cindy play together, I must say that I think there is something even better on the way.

As if that was not enough music for a single 24 hour period, before I left San Antonio I checked Pollstar to see who else was playing up there last night. After all, the Elana show was scheduled to end at 9, which is just about when everyone else starts playing. Sure enough, The Derailers were playing at The Broken Spoke. It had been several months since I had last seen Brian and the gang, so I figured I might as well stop by and see the show. I had never been to The Broken Spoke before, but now that I have been I do not think I care for it as a music venue. The space is totally geared for dancers, and it’s difficult to see the musicians if you aren’t out on the dance floor. I watched the show from the side for about an hour and then decided to make my way back home.

All in all, a great weekend of music.

Ok, so it’s been a week and a half since I last posted anything. I’ve been really busy, and haven’t been in the writing mood. Anyway, here’s the news…

Friday, June 1 was my last day with the CORE Team. I was with the group for almost 2 years and I enjoyed working there, but it was time for something new. Last Monday I started at my new position (still at Rackspace) where I will eventually be administering the DNS servers. This is much closer to what I am interested in, and I am excited to have the opportunity to work on something like this.

Last Saturday I went to see War of the Worlds with some friends. I was really disappointed with the movie. That’s all I’ll say about that.

On Sunday Brandon and I went over to Pepper and Ethan’s house to play nickel-and-dime poker. I had never played poker before, but I can totally see how that could become addictive. I think I ended the night down a dollar or two, which bothered me enough to know that I would never want to seriously gamble. Speaking of that…

This week I bought plane tickets to go to DefCon, which is in Las Vegas from July 28 – August 1. DefCon is the big hacker conference where all sorts of interesting ideas make their way to the public. I know of 6 friends that will be out there for the conference, so it should be a good time. I’ll be back in Vegas 2 weeks later for my college roomate’s bachelor party, after spending 3 days in Reno to work. On the subject of travel, I bought plane tickets this week to go to Tampa, Fl to visit Sarah. I’ll be out there Sept 9 – 12.

On July 4th I played music with Evan and Issac for a couple hours, and then headed over to Brett‘s house for the pool party. After 5 or 6 hours in the pool and hot tub, I was exhausted. I went home and crashed early that night.

Tuesday Brandon come over for cigars and movies. We watched two more episodes of Band of Brothers. We have watched through episode 7 now, and I’m really into it. Winters and Spears are my favorites so far, and Lipton is pretty cool as well. We’ve got 4 more episodes to go.

On Wednesday I went over to Issac’s for the Wednesday Night Dinner and had a great time. I took Crawfish Etouffee and rice, which tasted pretty damn good if I do say so myself. Evan, Issac and I played music for the crowd for almost an hour, including a soon-to-be-famous acoustic version of “Ice Ice Baby.”

Thursday I had to relax after being social for like 10 days straight. But it started all over on Friday night…