Wind Power!!!

Here's the kind of story that turns me into a blubbering mess! So great, and check out the video at the end:

http://www.good.is/post/african-dynamo/

More Abbot Kinney!!!

Thank you very much to anyone of the Jewish faith!! I’m at home today with Finn enjoying our Yom Kippur day off. I whine about school a lot, but they do get so many holidays, so I shouldn’t complain tooooo much : )
I really could use a day off though after this weekend. You know how sometimes you just pack a little too much in? That’s what we did, and it was fun, but it’s so nice to have just one more day – if only Em were off too : ( Here are the highlights:

Slumber party with Hannah! The kids had a great time making forts, watching The Aristocats, and...

Pillow fighting!!!

Em's old friend Elena came over with her two kids (including this new one) and their friend. It was nice to get everyone in the pool!

Finally, we went to the Abbot Kinney Festival again this year, but it really ended up as a trip to go see Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros for the second time this week! We got there just in time for the show & had to leave pretty soon after. It was a great show, but I felt really bad for the boys (Em had to work that day, so I went with Dan). They were so patient, and then we tried to go to the kids’ play area right after the show, but everything closed down right when we got there – the bouncy castle literally deflated right when we walked in : (

I think that they enjoyed the show though, and it occurred to me that it was their first big concert. I’m glad that it was such a good one!!

The show wasn't quite as good as the one at the El Rey - it could hardly live up to that! They had some sound problems, and we couldn't go as close to the front with the guys. But they are still such a great band, and getting to see them for free on a nice end of summer day reconfirmed my belief that Los Angeles is a pretty cool place to live!

Time to rest now. Happy Yom Kippur!!

Abbot Kinney!!!

Great festival this weekend! See info here:

http://www.abbotkinney.org/music.html

And Edward Sharpe at 4:40!!!!!

Gangster Presidents!!!

I couldn't resist stealing this one from Eric's blog! It's probably not the best song of the 80's, but maybe it is : ) Thanks Eric!!

Cosy!!!

Please do not watch the first 3 minutes and 30 seconds!!! As Larry said, "Stay off the mic!" Also, ignore the earrings. Maybe too much to ask, but it's pretty great.

Magnetic Zeros!!!

I’m still coming down off of the high from the Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros concert!! Even a day at school couldn’t entirely quash my good vibe! What an amazing show!!

It started out with some interesting opening acts. There was a really good banjo player and even a mime (the 70’s return!), but the best was definitely the Los Angeles Women’s Choir. They looked great & sang some really beautiful and simple songs, ending with Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah”. It’s hard to mess up that song too much, but it was a really special version with all of the beautiful voices!

Finally, the Magnetic Zeros came on, and got things going right away with “Coming Up from Below”. They had a lot of energy, but it was kind of angsty at first. Em thought that it might be because some people were not too kind to the mime (who also happened to be the father of one of the band members). Whatever the case, Alex Ebert seemed a little uptight at the beginning and made some pointed comments to the audience. Fortunately, I think that we eventually convinced him of our good will, and he definitely loosened up (to put it mildly) before too long. It’s funny, because Alex mostly comes off like a peace and love hippie, but you can kind of see the dark side as well – not unlike The Dead in a way.

This goes to show one thing that is great about this band though. It’s completely the opposite of a polished rock and roll machine and you kind of get the feeling that any number of things could happen. Either the gig could get just end at any time, or you could have the time of your life! Luckily whatever weirdness was there at the start faded away, and it was just an amazing show!!

It’s soooooo fun to jump up and down with someone you love and complete strangers, and one great thing about this band is that they are obviously having as much fun as the audience!!! People come and go on stage, playing different instruments, and everyone is dancing as much as possible with instruments strapped on! The one exception is a grumpy looking guitar player, but the contrast only makes it even more enjoyable : )

Special mention goes to the main woman singer, Jade, who sings part of the lead on “Home”. She has the greatest energy (Em said that she’s one of the sweetest looking people she’s ever seen!), and she obviously has a lot to do with keeping Alex in a good space. After an over-zealous fan jumped on stage and crashed into the amps, the crowd started booing and Alex looked like he was going to hit him, but Jade simply said, “No boo” with a lovely smile, and everybody started cheering, and the fan got a hug instead (although he was still escorted off of the stage).

The crowning moment of the show, though, was the last song, "Om Nashi Me", which is good on the album, but becomes an incredible, cathartic song on stage! After getting the crowd pretty wild, Alex jumped into the audience and really partied with those of us lucky enough to be in front!! For a while, he and I were arm in arm doing a crazy Can Can dance!!! But then it got even better – a couple of fans went on stage (not an unusual occurrence at this gig), and after Alex went back up and gave them the mic, the guy proposed to his girl friend! But the really ridiculously amazing thing, is that this all happened while the song was still going strong! The band just came down a little for the proposal, and then the crowd went crazy, and they slammed right back into the song!!! It was really one of the most amazing musical things that I’ve ever seen!

After playing a new song that they were still kind of making up, they ended with a beautiful version of “Brother”, and the grumpy guitar player even cracked a sweet smile! What a wonderful night!!!

Busy Week!!!

Soooooooooo busy lately. Oh how I miss the summer!!! Still we've been getting out a little & here are some better memories of the past week (at least better than the police report in class today!)

Museum of Science & Industry - So great (and free!!!)

A little bit of reading time : )

The beautiful people of Atwater enjoying The Princess Bride on the golf course last Friday night. Fun!!!

Inconceivable!!!

Happy Birthday to my sister!!!

The ravishing creature in this photo is my beautiful sister, Rosada. The googly-eyed, wild-haired girl and her pin-headed friend with the beedy eyes are none other than me and my sister Bell (not necessarily in that order.) We used to joke that Zod got all the brains and beauty long before we came along - but luckily we got good senses of humor, ha! And really, can you blame us? I don't have any recent pictures of Zod, but she is still so lovely she can sometimes take my breath away. (I think she looks a lot like Finn.) Anyway, I meant to post this on her actual birthday (Sept. 13th) but I blew it, sorry Zod! See the note about brains above. Love you!

A few words about Jack

This is Em, hijacking the blog for a bit. On our vacation up to Oregon this year, it was brought to our attention that we don't mention Jack nearly enough in this blog. We also, apparently, neglect to take pictures of him. As the third child, I know all too well that second and third siblings sometimes get the shaft when it comes to attention (ahem...still waiting for my baby book, Mom). Seriously, though, the problem is Jack hardly ever stays still long enough to get a decent picture of him. Personally, I think Jack gets plenty of attention. In fact, I sometimes worry that Jack is such a dynamo that poor sweet, gentle Finn gets short-changed, but we try our best to love them both to pieces. Still, in the interest of playing fair and making sure that Jack is well known to those of you who may be far away, here is a little bit about Jack:

Let me start by saying that Jack was the perfect baby. I don't mean a good baby, that kid was perfect. I remember him getting upset three times in his entire first year - that's how rare and memorable Jack's crying was. He ate well. He slept well. He was just very even keel and even tempered. Nothing seemed to phase him. The only hint of trouble at all was when his babysitter told us at 4-months that Jack was trying to stand up. I laughed, I thought she meant he was pushing himself up a little bit, but she wasn't kidding. He was standing not long after that and at 7 months his daycare found him trying to rock climb the front of their fireplace. He was walking - no, make that running - well before one and he pretty much hasn't stopped since.

He is still mostly very cheerful and easy going. He's just starting to show a hint of the drama that happens if things don't go exactly the way his three-year-old heart expects them to, but, unlike his brother, we can almost always distract Jack pretty quickly. Finn is such a sweet, sensitive soul, but man that kid can hold a grudge. (Bell and Mom - I have absolutely no idea where Finn got that from and I don't know what you're talking about.) Jack is a funny mixture of daring and tenderness. Poor Finn sits and tries to read his books while Jack races around and pounces on him like the Wild Thing that he is, but at the same time, Jack is very loving - especially towards his brother. Although Jack calls Finn "Bwuther" (his first word) he names all of his stuffed animals "Finn". Finn the dog, Finn the Shark, Finn the monkey, etc.

The only exception to this naming convention is Jack's very well-loved (i.e. extremely shabby) bunny, Bun-buns - who came with his name. Finn originally had Bun-buns, but he was somewhat indifferent to him. Jack came across Bun-buns when he was a couple of months old and never let him go. Well...okay, he DID let him go once at the zoo and now Bun-buns number #1 is really Bun-buns #2, but that's another story we'll tell Jack about when he's much much older - shhh. (In case you can't tell, this is a picture of Bun-buns tucked into bed at Great Pee-pa Hank's house. What can I say, I told you he was a little bedraggled.)

At any rate, I really get a kick out of Jack. I'm not quite sure how so much personality got packed into one little body, but Jack is just such a funny character, he never ceases to make me laugh. He's more of a handful than Finn and he's got a mischievous little twinkle in his eye that I know is going to cause us many a sleepless night during his teenage years, but he comes by it honestly enough from certain members of the family who will remain nameless (Bell and Mike, I'm talking to you.) After growing up in a family of three girls, it is interesting and entertaining to be surrounded by boys - especially one who is such a bundle of unbridled male energy. Jack's favorite thing to do in all the world is to dangle. He dangles off door handles. He dangles off tree branches and poles and occasionally people. If you let him, I'm sure he would be more than happy to dangle off of you. And if you do let him dangle, he'll probably tell you that he loves you...all the way up to the moon and back.

Some funny Jack quotes:

Upon seeing me in a dress for the first time in probably ever: "Momma! I always knew you were a princess!"

About a cheerio he bit in half, right after he turned 2. "Look Momma, it's a moon! It's a rainbow! It's a bridge! It's a c!"

To Grandma Molly at Farm Fest. "Grandma Molly?" Molly: "Yes, Jack?" "Um...um...uh...um...uh...um...um...uh...um...I wub you."

We all love you too, Jack. All the way up to the moon and back.

Hermione!!!

I got a chuckle out of this one ("Wizerd" is pretty good). Jamie - you should check out the site where I got it - I think you might dig it!

http://www.the-isb.com/

“But I got a warnin’ to all would-be aurors. You join Gryffindor and you take on a debit, a debit that you owe me personally. Each and every student in my house owes me one hundred Death Eater scalps. And I want my scalps. And all y’all will get me one hundred Death Eater scalps, taken from the heads of one hundred dead Death Eaters.”

“Or you will die tryin’.”

Sun & Showers!!!

So school started again this week, and I feel like I got run over by a bus! I think that I may have mentioned that I expected this school year to be a little bit challenging, but I am at the moment staggered by the omnipresent deficiencies. I promise not to turn the whole blog into a jeremiad against the school system, but can I just list a couple of minor issues? Not enough desks (I had to raid 27(!!) from another room), not enough books, all of the copy machines broken, my room not cleaned since last year, and, on top of it all, absolutely GINORMOUS classes!! Well, at least we're getting paid tons of money. Oh, wait...

OK, end of whine!!!! Here is some MUCH better news - my very esteemed friend Eric posted this video on his blog a few days ago and I thought that it was so great that I had to steal it!! My days of staggering through the school system have coincided with becoming a huge fan of this band (a lesson in duality), and they made the days much more bearable. In fact, Em & I are going to see them in two weeks!! And on a small funny note, it turns out that some of the band hang out at Dave's Chillin' & Grillin' where we play!! I love Los Angeles, even if the schools could use some help : )

Hope you enjoy it:





And here's one more - incredibly boring video, but great song!!



"She got jumper cable lips, she got sunset on her breath now. I inhaled just a little bit, I got no fear of death now!"

Peace & Love to y'all!!

My Oh My!!!

The L.A. Dores headed down south this weekend to see Great Peepaw Hank and to have one last summer adventure. Really, if you want to capture the essence of summer before it all fades away, you could do much worse than go to La Jolla, and this weekend it really outdid itself!!

It’s pretty rare to have an ugly day down there, but the weather this weekend was amazing! The air was so clear (especially after our smoky September), and the water temperature was an unbelievable 78 degrees!! This made it a perfect beach weekend, and we went with the kids to the La Jolla Shores, which is about the best beach possible for someone like Finn who is just starting to feel comfortable in the ocean. The waves were not exactly heart pounding, but for someone who is 3 feet tall and has been honing his skills in the pool all summer, it was just right!!

I was so proud to see Finn getting thrown around by all of those waves and coming back for more!! And by the end of the weekend he was even starting to body surf – it was so great! Unfortunately I was too busy keeping him from drowning to take any good pictures, but I think that this “after” shot says a lot!! Beach days like that are a super-rare treat & we had a fantastic time!!

Our other big treat was a trip to the Birch (formerly Scripps) Aquarium near the shores. Both kids are big fish fans (Finn's name is perfect for him!), and they had a great time. For a smallish aquarium it has some pretty amazing stuff, including moray eels, jelly fish...

and LEAFY SEA DRAGONS!!!!! I love these guys – they look soooo much like fake little fairy creatures, I can’t even believe that they actually are swimming around out there!! What a world!

It was such a great way to end the vacation. Thanks for having us Peepaw Hank & farewell to the summer of 2009!

Fear!!!

The school year approacheth, and the summer fadeth away. We had a really, really wonderful summer, but I have to admit that I am a little terrified of this coming semester. Due to the massive budget cuts and teacher layoffs, my classes are about to double in size – and they weren’t that small before!!

Double this!!!

I know that I am sooooo lucky to still have a job in the schools, but it’s hard not to feel like the passengers of the Millennium Falcon seeing the Death Star for the first time. So I was wondering if all of you could do me a favor: could you quickly vote in representatives that would raise the trillions of dollars in taxes that it would take to really help the school system? Or, failing that, could you please send some good wishes my way on Wednesday? Either would be great!!

At the end of last year, I staged my own protest of the current situation. I got permission from the union, and announced it to the entire school faculty, but it was sparsely attended. Basically it was myself. Here is a picture (Ms. Kwan came after I had been there for a while):

As school was about to get started, more and more teachers and students joined in, and by the bell, we actually had a pretty sizable crowd. Unfortunately, our political representatives seemed unmoved. But I don’t even really think that it’s their fault. People are nervous about so many things these days, and maybe this can’t be one of the biggest things on their minds at the moment. But I’m tellin’ you all: that’s no moon, it’s a space station.

Books!!!

The summer of 2009 is drawing to a fiery, smokey end & Finn and I are getting geared up to head back to school : ( It’s not over yet (we’re still going to La Jolla next weekend, yay!!), but it’s always good to reflect back on the vacation before school starts up again. I know that the minute that first class starts (and each one is twice as big this year, woohoo!!), the summer is going to seem like a million miles away!!!

One way that I always remember the summers is by the books read. Some summers have better ones than others, but happily there were some pretty great ones this year! I almost got to the end of the Aubrey/Maturin books by Patrick O’Brian again (two more to go). This is an amazing series about the British navy during the Napoleonic wars, although it’s really more about two unforgettable characters, and is actually kind of like Jane Austin on the sea. You get history, science, philosophy, great adventure, and romance!! There are also more nautical terms than some people might want, but you get used to it. If this seems even remotely interesting to you, you should give them a shot – they are so good!!! I remember that Kelly Coy said that she reads them all again every year or so, and while this seems a little excessive (there are 20 total!), I can see re-reading these every so often for a long time! Out of the 20, I think there are only about 1&1/2 that are not outstanding, and so many of them are awesome!!

It’s hard to do all of the O’Brians in a row though, so there were some good ones in between. I have been wanting to read more Murakami ever since Em turned me on to Dance, Dance, Dance a few years ago, and Norwegian Wood is his most popular book, so it seemed like an obvious choice. I really enjoyed it!! It was so interesting to read a book about the 60’s, but set in Japan. It was fascinating to see how things were similar and different than the American experience, and (like most books I like), there were some really well-drawn characters who seemed familiar, but also kind of different and mysterious. It was actually a pretty sad book, but totally worth reading!!

Another one that I'm still going through is The Magic Mountain. I did a whole post about Thomas Mann pretty recently, so I won’t belabor it again, but it really is a great book, if a little heavy for summer reading! Hopefully I’ll finish it again before next year!

On the other side of the Magic Mountain, I read a good quick one up in Oregon (Em & I always find good interesting books at Dad & Molly’s and often have to steal them for a while!) This one was called Outliers, and is by Malcolm Gladwell who also wrote The Tipping Point. His thing is to do really detailed analysis on interesting topics and come up with information that no one has really thought about before. There were tons of interesting ideas in this book presented in a really readable way, but one the most fascinating parts to me was about education. He argues that in the great debate about schools, people are missing a huge point – that the schools are not the problem! He measured student achievement just over the school year (as opposed to the whole year), and found out that American students do just fine in comparison to other countries – regardless of socioeconomic level, or whether they are in public or private school. This is totally counter to most arguments that point to a decline in education. It turns out that the big problem is over the vacations, which the United States has far more of than other countries. The kids from poorer economic backgrounds tend to not do the summer education/reading/enrichment that the wealthier kids do – and all of our kids have about 40 more vacation days than Japanese students for example. It is a terrible irony for me that we really should have much less vacation time – BOOOOO!! Oh well. Anyway, this book was super-interesting & not just about boring teacher stuff! Did you know that a lot of success in sports depends on what day someone was born? Very fascinating!!

Finally, the controversial book of the summer came at the beginning. I think that I already wrote a little about The Shack (checking past blog entries…yep there it is, although it was mostly in the comments). This is one that I was pretty skeptical about, but I had read a lot of positive reviews, so I gave it a shot. I was really surprised at how much I enjoyed it! It is such an audacious concept – the main character meets God (and Jesus and the Holy Ghost!!) in a shack after a terrible tragedy. It’s kind of like an updated book of Job, but with some different answers and more humor. I know that some people were turned off by the (really) dark beginning, and others were dissuaded by the overt religiousness of the book…well, that was just about everybody; this one was a tough sell! But it affected me much more than I expected, and I’ll probably go through it again pretty soon – lots to ponder!! The Shack was one of the quickest reads of the summer, but it definitely stayed with me!

Disappointing book of the summer: If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler... by Italo Calvino. It sounded perfect, but you never know – didn’t finish it.

I hope that everyone else had a good literary summer (I think that Finn read about 30 books in the Magic Tree House series!) When school gets going I always gravitate back to old favorites for support, but it was great to find some new favorites over vacation!

Better!!!

Nice one from Spike this morning. Much better than the movie as I recall. One quibble - why don't they do that "We want to be like Peter Pan" thing again in the song? Best hook ever (hah - see what I did there!!)

Eric!!!

I was all set to go with a fascinating post about what I read this summer when I was blindsided by a whole new development! For those of you who don’t know Eric Norgaard, he is my oldest friend (with whom I am still on speaking terms), and writes a great, if often depressing, blog at:

http://assassinateyourpenguin.blogspot.com/

Among Eric’s many attractive qualities is that he is one of the biggest music fans that I have ever met. That is not to say that he is always right (we don’t exactly see eye to eye about certain psychedelic acts of the 60’s, 70’s, 80’s, and early 90’s), but he tries, and his favorites are always worth listening too.

Actually, I can’t count the number of bands and songs that I have found & loved because of Eric, and many many many great musical experiences happened in his enthusiastic presence. We actually created one of the first remixes (of "Sandinista" by The Clash, still not acknowledged by the music press) when we were around 13 years old, and have been in various bands together with varying degrees of popularity, including The Sinister Men in Black, The Misses, and (briefly), The Squirt Bunnies. And there was no one better to go with to see The Clash, Paul Westerberg, Adam and the Ants, Oingo Boingo (he looks a little like Danny Elfman), and many others. He is a music guy & tends to score well on Facebook music quizzes.

So Eric posted his list of the top 133 (plus 11) songs of the decade, and you should stop whatever you’re doing right now and listen to every single one! In light of this new information, I will definitely have to make some additions to my pathetic list, and will be putting up the addendums as soon as I listen to them, and can decide whether "Milkshake" by Kellis is horrible or amazing!

Thanks a bunch to Eric for not making us wait too long for the list (I knew he couldn’t go too long without doing it!!), and for being such a great, musical, friend for all of these years!! I love you man!!