Memorable Day

Really only did two things today, but both were major. Ye Older Towne Band had its first concert of the year, attendance was less than it might have been, but there was so much else going on, and we'll be back the last Sunday of every month through September. I got there way early and snagged my favorite parking spot - the closest one to the park without being actually in the park - I save those for the handicapped and those whose instruments are too big to carry that far. And there are usually picnickers who are already there.

It was chilly and windy. The wind makes it awkward - we bring clothespins but if a piece is 3 or 4 pages, there's no good way to clip it to the music folder without having to flip it over at some point. Which means missing a few measures of music. It was a shorter concert than we usually do too, so my lip is not as demolished as it might have been. And we played a lot of pieces in which baritones had the melody, which I like.

Stopped at a produce stand on the way home and scored some nice looking 49¢/lb bananas and 89¢/lb red delicious apples. And half a dozen big 6/$1 limes. Next stop was Lucky's. originally just for sourdough slices to go with the goat cheese I bought a few days ago, but decided to pick up some microwave frozen entrees too, which meant no Starbucks stop. Home, had an early dinner, toyed with the idea of going into the city to see the Golden Gate Bridge fireworks, but the news pointed out that there was really no way to get there - the major bus lines were not running, and there was no parking. Tried the goat cheese on the sourdough slices - the cheese was bland and will be recycled, the sourdough slices appear to have been mislabeled, they taste like plain baguette slices. :-(

At about 6:15 I realized if I was going to make it to the show in Saratoga, I had best leave now. Got to the theater at 20 till 7, house manager was my theater son Ed, whose wife was in the show. Box office lady gave me the senior discount even though I'm not their official senior age. This was a special show, one performance only, local actor/director/playwright/song writer Ted Kopulos's Out Of My Trunk, Out Of My Mind - Four Sure. The 4th time in 10 years that he has pulled out some stuff he wrote, found a cast to perform it and made it into a concert-plus. He's an amazing director, and many of the numbers were thoroughly staged. Everyone in the show (10 of them) are excellent musical theater performers, and with one exception were well-rehearsed. Bob Sunshine was the accompanist, I am always blown away by his keyboard skilz. Many of the numbers are Broadway-worthy, a couple should have stayed in the trunk. All of them were brilliantly performed. I had been onstage with four of the cast, worked backstage with two more, and would have been cast in the last show Ted directed for Sunnyvale except tech week was my nephew's wedding. Oh yeah, and they also changed which show they did.

And there was some very confusing theater people drama. ( cut for boring speculation )

I hope the finale, Now, finds its way to YouTube. Ted wrote a musical called It's Your Year, Charlie Brown for the opening of the Charles Schultz Museum in Santa Rosa, and this was the finale for that.
Home in time to watch the last half of the Golden Gate Bridge fireworks, but my internet signal decided to crap out on me (no one was showing it live, it was streaming or nothing). Meanwhile, a mile away Great America's fireworks sounded like they were in our BBQ area.

Got email from the art show director for the next Worldcon (in Chicago) inviting me to participate. I won't be going to the convention, but I do have a supporting membership which is good enough to be in the art show, but it would mean having the photos matted and paying a $25 fee to have them hung. It sounds like they are doing the U-shaped display which is horrible  for the size prints I do, and difficult to light. And they are restricting mail-ins to 2 panels, when a U is 3 panels. Stupid. Not sure if I want to do that.

Plans for tomorrow:
Many choices. I could catch the death throes of BayCon, but that would be depressing. Maybe there's still some jazz worth going to see in Sacto. Fireworks again at GA? I'll have to check. Hmm. their web site doesn't mention tonight's. Strange.

Me Day

Looked at the logistics of taking public transport to Sacto & back. Getting there was no problem, but the Amtrak trains stop running to San Jose fairly early, it would have been 1 am before I was home if I left there at 8 pm.

Instead, I had a massage at a place which was having its grand opening. Zion Spa. Way out in east San Jose. It's in a tiny brand spanking new L-shaped shopping center which has signs up for most of the businesses, but at least two looked like they have failed before they even opened, and out of maybe 10 storefronts only three or four were occupied. It wasn't as much a massage as a body rub done by someone who watched the massage training videotapes. Nice middle-aged Vietnamese lady.

Somehow I thought this was near the latest San Jose Hooters, which my GPS could not find (no surprise, that Hooters is only a couple of months old). I headed in what I thought was the right direction, and managed to find the edge of SJ, and a fairly large Asian shopping center which was only missing a grocery store to be the complete set. Got out the cell phone, found Hooters on Google Maps, and punched the address into the GPS. It was clear across town, but on my way home.

As usual, very friendly staff, and since it was happy hour the boneless wings (aka chicken tenders) were $3 off. I prefer the ones with bones, but these were not bad. The onion rings look like they are coated with foam rubber but taste fine, if not very crunchy. Also had the chocolate mousse cake, which was a little dry but very chocolate. The cake wasn't dry, the mousse was. Excellent service, and I got to watch the Giants relief pitcher try his best to blow a 3-point lead at the top of the 9th. Zito had pitched a respectable 1-run, 7-hit eight innings up to that point. Some excellent fielding saved the day and SF won 4-2.

I always feel cheated when they don't play the full 9 innings. I figure if the home team is ahead at the bottom of the 9th, they should be allowed to try to add to the score. It's only fair.

Home, had to reboot the router to recover from Comcast being out, which also meant re-syncing the repeaters, rebooting all the webcams and re-setting the network radio's network setting. Or I thought it did - when I went into the bedroom half an hour later the radio was playing a Thai station, which means it had found the connection on its own.

Spent some time on FB responding to comments on last night's excellent show.

lemmozine will be happy to know I found a Howard The Duck #1 for $8 including shipping (I could have picked up a signed one for $24 + shipping) and a #33 without the printer's error for $1 less than that. With the printer's error, the bids were $89 and $140 each for two copies. The error is interesting and hard to miss once it's pointed out. Under the seal and info in the upper left they always put
"All-new
xx
page epic"
where xx is the number of pages. The error copies have the number 30, but are missing the "All-new" and "page epic".
Even if I was a collector, I don't think I'd pay that much.

Finally measured the patio for cat fencing. Looks like all I need are four pieces of the black version of those orange  plastic temporary fences they put up around road work. Like this.

No BASFA tonight. I figure attendance would be light, what with Baycon, Fanime, Clockwork Alchemy and a couple of obscure gamer cons.

Plans for tomorrow:
Work
???