Front porch and the rain

I'm sitting on my front porch and it's raining. Absolutely perfect. The morning was all sunshine and light breezes. Now I'm just out here with my computer transcribing some song lyrics. Going to grab my guitar in a bit too. Alas, my camera isn't working so no pics....oh well.

My brother in law: superstar

Just got home from a grueling day of corporate stuff and to unwind from it spent the past few minutes looking at (watching/reading) my brother in law, Robert Guererro's blog, Controlled Accidents. He and I went out for dinner (at a yummy Indian place) last night and had a wonderful, wandering conversation about life, the universe and all that other stuff. I'd be lying if I said I don't envy him a bit -- he is about as free as they come. Now granted, he's six or seven years younger than I am, but still. I just love the way he's drifting around following his passion and his star. He's a professional in-line skater on Rollerblade's pro-team. Whenever he's on the East Coast he and I get together, sometimes he stays with me. Last time he was in town he was doing a stunt for some tv show that required him to skate backwards at high speed down the steps inside the NY Public Library. He's just an incredible athlete and a warm, thoughtful person...those attributes aren't so often combined, which makes him a pretty unique guy. Anyway, check out this video he just put together a few days ago.

Wordle

I just plopped the text from my last term paper into an online tool called "Wordle" that allows you to create a word cloud from any chunk of text. Here's mine. So cool!

Check it out and create your own.

Hottttttt

Returned from London late Friday night and found myself at the front end of a NY city heat wave in an unairconditioned apartment with a whole lotta packing to do. No worries, Sarah and I spent Saturday sweating and packing boxes for the big move next week. We got 85% of it done, which is no wonder because we started early, taking lots of stuff up to the house. Tonight: more sweating and packing.

Saturday night I went out with Brent for a real East Village evening. We had drinks at the newly re-opened International Bar...my old favorite bar revamped and reopened after more than two years shuttered. They still sell cheap Rolling Rocks, so I'm a happy customer. Then we had aaaammmmmaaaazzzziiiinnnnnggggg burgers at a new place called Seymour Burton. The joint needs to finish some of the decor (noticeable issues with the ceiling, air conditioning was broken etc) but the food was incredible. I think they sautéed the burgers in butter o something. Incredible. Then off to the Music Box -- a bar I haven't been in for a few years. We met up with some of Brent's film industry friends...luckily people in production rather than actors :-)

On Sunday Sarah and I went to see Ironman, which we both loved -- especially escaping the mid-day heat. (And have I mentioned air conditioning enough?) Sunday night we celebrated Josh's birthday at Nurse Bettie's on the Lower East Side -- great birthday bar. Oh, and to redeem myself for the snarky anti-actor comment above, I should mention that we hung out with some of his thespian pals and they were delightful.

Zombies

Watched "I am legend" last night and loved it. Nothing like a good zombie flick to cap off a sunny, spring weekend in New York City -- especially a zombie flick that features images of a deserted, desolate alternate-reality New York City.