I have a new setup in the home office. This is, if you ask me, getting a bit excessive. Also, it probably won’t stay like this for long.
Not pictured is all of my audio gear, which I need to work into this new workflow somehow, and also just use more. It’s sitting to the right, and just out of frame.
The biggest problem is going to be struggling with the new keyboard. My computer is one size, my work computer is another size, and when I go between them I’m always about a key, a key and a half, off as I type. It’s all a work in progress, of course, everything always is. The rest just comes down to how you feel about that.
That “Facing History” feature on the monitor, above? That’s on the Rowan site. Some of the archeologists there discovered, just a few years ago, some Hessian soldiers buried not too far away. It’s a Revolutionary War mystery they’re still trying to unravel. Fascinating stuff.
Today I had my first swim in three weeks. Three weeks of summer swimming I had to give up! Stupid ear.
Anyway, I got back in the water today. I was too nervous to do it yesterday, because my stupid ear has not given me a pleasant experience and I’m in no hurry to repeat that. But, healed up, fed up, and finally just dove in today. I wore ear plugs.
They did not work.
As soon as I popped the plug out of my left ear I felt all of the water that the plug was actually holding in.
It’s OK, though, because my lovely bride got me two other kinds of ear plugs to try, as well.
But I got in a good solid 1,650 yards. The first 300 and change were dreadful, because that’s what its like when you’re forever having to stop something, and then begin again. After a while, though, my arms warmed up and my brain got into that magically meditative state where it doesn’t really think about much of anything and the laps just started clicking by.
Three weeks!
Now I just have to wait a day or two to see if the swimmer’s ear returns, I guess. I poured some of the ear drying miracle of chemistry into it. Maybe I’ll be OK.
(Update: Looks like I got by without any problems. Maybe I just have to be particularly careful about this in the future.)
Here’s the last little clip from last week’s concert. This and “Touch Me Fall,” which I don’t think I’ve seen them play live in a long time, are always going to be the songs that opened my eyes up to what Amy Ray does. I’m going to say that, but if I played their whole catalog, it’s really all of it. And then if I played every CD from her solo catalog, I’d say, “See? See, right there.”
Anyway, this is a tune I think that probably does something different for different parts of your fandom. It literally screams about the being too young, and being too old. I was perfectly middle-aged — but trending, ya know? — before I really figured that out. I find this interesting because they have that now 40-year collection of fans. No matter where you were then, now, or in between, it has a moment for you.
Forty years. That hardly seems right, but they started playing in Georgia in 1985, and most of the rest of us started catching up in the next five or 10 years.
It’s funny, we went to a show of theirs some time back and jokingly said, “Wow, look at this crowd. How old!” Jokingly because we were, too. And that was seven years ago. Caught them three more times since, now.
I hope we get to go, go, go see them again soon.
