Bono on stage

I promise he's up there. I don't think he saw me. If he had seen me, I'm sure he would have come down to say hello. But then he would have invited me out for a pint and I don't drink so that would have been awkward - as usual. It is probably better that he didn't notice me.

At the Bono Ceremony

Bono is being awarded the Liberty Medal tonight and I'm happy to be
here.

Hi Dana!

Floyd Landis

Spencer asked me yesterday if I think Landis is a doper. I’ve thought about this a lot and I really don’t know. My first thought was that he doesn’t fit the profile of a cheater (upbringing, worth ethic) but then how well can I know someone who I see on TV a few times a year? I absolutely believe the doping system is in need of reform. It seems to me that the lab was sloppy and several experts have stated that due to lack of standardization, the results would not have been flagged in another lab. Also, out of 180+ cases brought by the USADA against athletes, the number of athletes who have been cleared is exactly zero. Can all of them have been guilty? Is the science that perfect? I highly doubt it.

Still, he acted irresponsibly when he divulged to his manager that Greg Lemond was abused as a child. That breach of confidentiality definitely doesn’t fit the profile of a humble, wrongly accused cyclist. That event during the trial last May influenced my thinking (changed my mind?) in this whole thing.

I so want to believe that his performance in Stage 17 of the 2006 Tour was natural and unaided. As a cyclist, I’ve been robbed yet again of a source of inspiration.

Welcome home dad!

Dulles

I took a free flight in exchange for a
later flight out of Reagan. When I arrived in Philly they told me my
original flight was cancelled. So in addition to getting a free
flight,I actually made it home.

Repent ye! Repent ye!

This guy and his followers were preaching to the departing crowds.

Welcome to ACL!

@ Rudy's with Spencer

All my troubles seemed so far away...

Important events from my past 12 months

2006

September

• Attended my first ACL Festival. Favorite discovery: The Secret Machines.
  

October

• Bought a Fender Stratocaster electric guitar. Still developing finger calluses in August 07.
  

November

• Jeff Rountree invites me to see The Decemberists at Stubb's in Austin. I'm hooked!
• Accepted a job at Comcast Interactive Media in Philadelphia
• Traveled to Tokyo to see two U2 concerts (Thanks Janean, Naoji and Junko!)

December

• 11^th: Last day at Dell
• 13^th: First day at Comcast. Philly is dark and cold in December.
• 25^th: James Brown passes away. You may know him as The Godfather of Soul or The Hardest Working Man in Show Business. His last words? "I don't feel so good."

2007

January

• Discovered the joys of communing to work by train. No, really. I enjoy the down time. I'm re-discovering all kinds of music. The Cranberries and Oingo Boingo are two examples.
• Sold the house in Austin in a matter of days. Janean and kids would spend ~15 weeks with family in Utah while I looked for a house in Philly.

February

• Work, work and more work.
• Elder daughter gets a nasty virus and is quite sick for days. She also falls while climbing over a chair, twisting her ankle. The x-ray reveals no break.
• Bought ticket for 2007 Austin City Limits Festival

March

· Bought Come on Feel the Illinoise by Sufjan Stevens while in Utah on a business trip. Excellent album!

· Bought Arcade Fire's Neon Bible. The album's organ and orchestral arrangement is the perfect complement to the dreary cold of the northeast.

· Saw The Decemberists again. Didn't feel the connection this time around.

• Saw Philly locals The Roots at The Tower in Upper Darby. Left early.

(blogger formats March funny)

April

• Family joins me in Philly. We spent our first East Coast weekend in NYC. Kids repeatedly sing "New York I Love You, but you're bringing me down" by LCD Soundsystem. A. asks, "daddy, what does 'bringing me down' mean?"
• 13^th: Moved into our new home
• 14^th: Our first nor'easter. Copious amounts of water seep into the garage and one of our window wells. Thankfully no interior flooding.
• Thinking A's ankle is taking too long to heal, we take her back to the doctor. She is diagnosed with Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis, likely contracted during her illness in February. Her doctors tell us she may grow out of it in a few years. She may not, but she's fairing well.

May

• Very busy at work transitioning our analytics infrastructure to Omniture

June

• Summer in Philly ain't so bad, compared to Austin

August

• Complete transition to Philly local status by referring to the beach as "the shore"
• M.I.A. releases her second album. Didn't expect to like it as much as I do.

For those of you about to rock...

Here are the track details for the CD compilation of music I've been listening to that I've been sharing with a few friends. I'm calling the compliation "Meguro" after a train station in Tokyo. I used to transfer at Meguro station on my way to work. The past year has been transitional in nature so I thought the name was appropriate. Let me know if you want a copy. Enjoy!

Song/Artist

1. 20 Dollar / M.I.A.
   
2. Come On! Feel the Illinoise! / Sufjan Stevens
   
3. Lightning Blue Eyes / Secret Machines
   
4. Gum / Cornelius
   
5. Shankill Butchers / The Decemberists
   
6. Yellow Skies / The Cranberries
   
7. Kings of the Wild Frontier / Adam & the Ants
   
8. Wake Up / Arcade Fire
   
9. Seconds / U2
   
10. New York I Love You, But You're Bringing Me Down / LCD Soundsystem
    
11. Red Sun / Anoushka Shankar
    
12. No One Lives Forever / Oingo Boingo
    
13. More than This / Lucy Kaplansky
    
14. Paper Planes / M.I.A.
    
15. 80's Life / The Good, The Bad & The Queen
    
16. Intervention / Arcade Fire
    
17. Sons and Daughters / The Decemberists
    

More Decemberists

Backstage with The Decemberists

Thanks Kirk!

Waiting for Arcade Fire

45 minutes to go and the place is packed

M.I.A. Invites Austin onstage

Wild and wacky stuff

Fire @ ACL

Crazy surreal fire from one of the concession vehicles. No one was
hurt, but it took about 10 minutes for the fire dept. to show up. Crazy.

Update: Four people were hurt. Two had minor injuries, the other two had serious burns.

Pete Yorn @ ACL

On the Ben Franklin

Cool Site for Web2.0 Goodies

I stumbled across this handy and fun site the other day: Go2Web20.net. The site is basically a nice graphical index of some of the top Web2.0 sites currently vying for eyeballs. Some of the logos are easy on the eyes as well. Others….not so much. This site is driving some traffic to Fancast.

Austin Restaurants

I'm going to Austin next week for the ACL Music Festival and I'm ultra
excited to visit the following restaurants (in order of desirability):

- Chuy's
- Rudy's
- La Madeleine

Labor Day

Beautiful day for a bike ride!

Calvinism

The boy starts kindergarten this week. I think I wore a shirt that
said "Macho Man" to my first day of school.

Wicked!

Janean and I went to see Wicked a few weeks ago. Fun show.