Ali bought me a mandolin for my birthday! It is a fender FM-52E acoustic / electric. Although, I don’t know how to play much on it yet, acoustically it sounds sweet. I haven’t had a chance to plug it in to see how the electronics sounds yet. All in all, I must say this is a pretty cool birthday present.

When Ali and I moved we decided not to get cable, it is just too much of a time sink. Whenever I’ve had cable I’ve found myself planted in front of the TV instead of doing more interesting things. And while I am completely and unwaveringly happy with our decision to go sans cable, I just stumbled across a new show on VH1 called In Tune. The idea is to take an up and coming artist and a well established one and put them together to perform each others music. It appears the upcoming show is featuring Paul Simon and John Mayer. I absolutely love both of these guys. If someone has a way to record this on VHS or burn a DVD for me please do. If you need my address to … Read More »

Ali and I went to see Lyle Lovett this weekend. He played the Belleayre music festival. He is kind of a big act for them (I think). The setup isn’t the greatest, they have a tent and sell seats under it, and there are general admission lawn seats. However the setup only allows people of the lawn to see the legs of the performers. In spite of that we still had a good time.

I still can’t believe how cold it gets at night. We wore long pants, tee shirt, flannel, fleece jackets, gloves, and used a blanket — with all of that I still wasn’t warm, but I was comfortable. It is the middle of July people; you should be able to go out in a tee-shirt and shorts.

I keep forgetting to post … Read More »

The concert was great as expected. We were 10 rows from the stage! The concert opens with America playing (a recording) and they have a large screen where they play images from their childhood through growing up and then on to some political events the walk on Selma, Iran Contra, and so on. When this finishes the lights come up and Simon and Garfunkel are on stage. Simon started by dedicated the concert to Ray Charles who passed away that day. They then launched into Old Friends / Bookends theme, just the two of them. When that finished the whole band came on stage and they launched into A Hazy Shade of Winter. (The whole set list is included at the bottom of the entry).

They have some scripted banter about getting back together and breaking up, and how this is … Read More »

Ali found out last week that Simon & Garfunkel are playing at the Pepsi Arena in Albany tomorrow night (6/10). We were able to get row 11 floor tickets. I can’t wait! We saw them back in December; all I can say is WOW.

If any of you get the chance it is very much worth it.