Living the Dream

Y'know, I kept meaning to post something during the week and then for whatever reason didn't and here we are on Saturday. It's been a busy week around the homestead; we've had workers painting the house. The first few days they were sanding the old paint off, which meant all the windows had to be closed to keep the dust from getting in. Not particularly fun to come home to after a 90-degree day. But now they're actually painting. We're also getting new gutters put on because our old ones were hanging off and full of pine needles and crap. At some point, we're getting a new front porch put in because the old one is rotting. So big changes are in the works. I'll post some photos soon.

Tough week for the girls. First Hannah was sick, then Lily caught her own version of the stomach bug, which left her pretty listless and unable to eat much for a few days. I came home at 1 on Wednesday to watch her and she spent much of the afternoon hanging all over me, which again wasn't fun with all the windows closed. Fortunately both of them are back to normal now.

I'm getting used to running in the hot weather. All three of my runs this week were in 80 or 90+ degree temps. Not easy but since most of my running is done at lunch, it's necessary. I've got to run an 8-mile leg in a relay on July 4, so I need to be able to deal with the heat.

Thursday night, I saw Mission of Burma play an impressive set at the Paradise. Met OJ for a beer before the show; he went to see them play last night. I found a spot up in the balcony, which was good because I didn't feel like standing in front of the stage, but tough because it was hotter than hell in there. Plus somebody had puked in there before the opening band played, so that smell was wafting around as well. I was pretty tired going in and the heat didn't help matters. But Burma kicked butt; the sound mix was better than the last few times I had seen them there. They played primarily stuff from their early days of 1979-80, including all of their classic EP Signals, Calls and Marches (which features their best-known songs like "That's When I Reach For My Revolver" and "Academy Fight Song"); after their 80-minute main set, they came back out and played some songs from their recent albums. They were done just before midnight and as they were leaving the stage, bassist-singer Clint Conley came back out and said, "We're up 5 with 15 seconds left," referring to the Celtics in Game 4 of the NBA Finals.

Turns out I missed a pretty good game. The Celts were down by 24 in the first half before storming back to win the game. Now they're up 3-1 over the Lakers and have a chance to win the championship tomorrow night.

The weather the last few days has been awesome. I'm supposed to play 9 holes of golf with Stevie Z. this afternoon, so I'm looking forward to that. Then I plan to run 10 early tomorrow morning.

Some bulleted items:

• I was never a big fan of the guy, but sad to hear about the death of NBC news dude Tim Russert. He was only 58; looks like he had a heart attack.
• So if you're an established rock band looking for a sales boost for your new album, where do you turn? The InterWeb? Radio? TV? Nope, apparently you sign an exclusive deal to sell the album at Wal-Mart. It worked wonders for the Eagles, Journey and Garth Brooks, and now next up is none other than AC/DC. Wonder if some anti-rock preacher is going to start protesting outside Wal-Mart stores because of this? AC/DC has never been considered inoffensive by any means, although they're pretty tame compared to some of the other stuff out there.
• Speaking of bands and publicity stunts, here's an interesting twist on those "Rock Star" shows where bands like INXS find a new singer via the reality show: KISS is in talks to do a reality show in which they replace the entire band. Not a shocker, since these guys have been holding farewell tours for the last 12 years. They'll probably pick KISS Jr. and then go out on tour with both bands.
• Interesting story out of major league baseball about Milwaukee Brewers slugger Prince Fielder (son of Cecil), who hit 50 homers last year but this year had seen his power numbers decline. Coincidentally (or not), he became a vegetarian in the offseason. Is the lack of meat contributing to his lack of power, or is he just having an off year? Fielder's a big dude (270-300 pounds), so what's he eating instead of meat? He's a streaky hitter, so he still could get hot and at least approach last year's numbers. I'm sure a lot depends on whether the Brewers are providing him some decent meat alternatives in the clubhouse spread; pass the veggie burger, dude.