We went to Dogtoberfest at Capital Brewery today. This was a benefit for Dane County Humane Society. It was pretty fun. There was beer, live music, dog costumes and games. Lola had a pretty good time though it was hot and humid – surprisingly so for October.
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Amazon launched a new MP3 purchase/download store. No DRM. Yea!
Oddly, or predictably I guess, the number 1 and number 4 (huh?) single at the Amazon store is 1234 by Feist.
This is the song on the new iPod Nano ad.
I was in Minneapolis for the first part of this week. I was speaking on Identity and Access Management at the AACRAO Technology Conference. If the off hours, we went out to several great places.
We had dinner at Zelo. I had a very nice grilled copper river salmon with blackberry pinot noir sauce.
The next night we went to Masa – a nuevo Mexican restaurant where I had a great Chilli Relleno that was stuffed with shredded pork, raisins and toasted almonds.
The last night I went to Dakota to listen to live jazz. Signe Hensel was singing with a small trio. Her voice is velvet and smooth. It was a great evening in a small jazz club.
We also sat outside at pre-Sommerfest concert and listened to the Spaghetti Western String Co. band. They are an eclectic band… I would say they are like Armenian / Klezmer / Bela Fleck and Kurt Weill mixed up. Very fun music.
All of this took place along Nicollet Mall downtown.
I was the emcee of of a 50th birthday party for a group of friends (11 people had 50th birthdays this year that we celebrated). This is my speech for the party.
These are your formative years – cohort of 57
1957: Your birth year
Everly Brothers Bye Bye Love & Wake up little suzzie are at the top of the charts
Buddy Holly was at his peak
Paul Anka was a rock-and-roll teen idol
Arturo Toscanini has a stroke and dies 2 weeks later
Hamilton Watch Company introduces the first electric watch
Wham-O produces the first Frisbee
On E-Day, Ford introduces the Edsel
In Oct – Sputnik is launched
IBM releases FORTAN to its customers
Pina Colada was invented by Ramon Marero at Puerto Rico’s Caribe Hilton
March – Osama Bin Laden was born
1957 was one of two peaks in the baby boomer generation. 4.3 Million births
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Lola has a friend Liam who has an owner Jamie who is in a hot Afro-Cuban jazz band called El Clan Destino. They really cook. Head over to their web site and click on Listen. Check out El Rukus and Ponle La Clava live (if you like hot fusion jazz). Undine is a more traditional Afro-Cuban jazz.
Great fun to know there is hot jazz band in town and I know a member of the band and his dog.
I’m in New York at the Common Solutions Group meeting. So I had to do remote celebration for our fifth wedding anniversary. I called Ena this morning and guided her around the house to presents that I had hidden around the house. It was pretty entertaining to hear her searching for the hiding places. This modern life: conference call for anniversaries now 😉
This is from Gavin Eadie‘s photo album – picture of me and others on our dinner cruise last night.
This is one of my favorite Ze Frank episodes. Though, it is a “final act” of sorts. The songs play off of the history of Ze Frank. You won’t get the humor unless you have watched a bunch of the previous episodes.
http://www.zefrank.com/theshow/archives/2007/03/030808.html
play_blip_movie_169197();
I miss Ze Frank. Ze did a year of short videos. They were political, humorous, silly, insightful and great fun. If you missed the year of Ze Frank, you can still watch his archive. He was very amusing.
Ze also performed at TED in 2006.
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Two Green Thumbs Miniature Garden
This looks something fun to try. Two Green Thumbs has miniature garden supplies, decor and plants. Seems like a great garden hobby that would be easy to weed on weekday afternoon.
Today is Lola’s birthday. Our little girl puppy is now a 2 year old dog/puppy.
We are taking her out for a picnic dinner and swimming – which is her most favorite activity.
Happy Birthday Lola!
Hard to believe that you are now two.
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