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Umphrey's McGee - The Saranac Brewery's Summer Festival - Utica, NY

Set I: All In Time, Resolution > "Jimmy Stewart" > Roulette, Atmosfarag, 40s Theme, Uncle Wally > Women Wine and Song, Kabump -> Jazz Odyssey -> Power To Love

E: Professor Wormbog, Fool in the Rain

I didn't realize it would just be a one set deal, as Kate and I took the Jetta for it's first road trip to the beer fields of Upstate New York. The set was extra long, and quite good - although not earth shattering. It seemed like a they laid back, almost old-school(pre Jake) approach to the evening. There was little shredding, or intense peaks, just nice pleasant playing. The highlights were the segue into WW&S as well as the Kabump -> set close run.

It was good music, but probably didn't follow the intense insanity of peter Prince's moon boot lover as best as it could. That man's manic intensity is unrivaled. He just goes up in his moon boots and rocks out, making most of his lyrics up as he goes along.

Other acts included Baltimore's The Bridge, and somewhat local School Bus Yellow. I'd see The bridge again, as they had a nice blues-funk feel complete with a saxophone. School bus yellow was unobjectionable, aside from the lead singer's Yankee’s hat.

While we were chilling, we spent a good deal of time talking to a slightly unstable cabbie, and his older (lady?) friend. They were interesting folks with some stories of crack-head fares and life in upstate NY. I didn’t realize that cabbies did much business in NY's small cities.

There were good people and good tunes.
posted by Ben at (0) comments 12:39 PM

 

I've been down about work for quite a while (maybe, more or less since I started as a permanent employee) but they've finally besnickered me with a morale boost.  Up until a month and a half ago, I was very active, and occasionally overworked supporting the launch of our new P3 filter line.  Between the boredom and frustrations, I wanted nothing other than to get off of this project and unto something else.  It's not that I don't like the P3, but it's a filter where the innovations are in device format and manufacturing not in chemical engineering attributes.  I'd like to use my brain and innovate.  Regardless, we launched the first round of P3s in July.  Now that work has been completed and is shifting to the next phase, there's been time to relax and celebrate.

Yesterday afternoon, I went up to a party in Rindge, NH to celebrate the launch.  It was poorly attended (20 people or so), but was quite a bit of fun.  Frank told stories about how Millipore was banned from that place for a while after one party where they ran out of fire wood, and started throwing pictures from the wall, tables, etc into the fireplace.  I'd never realized that the corporate world could turn into a frat party.  Ah, naivete.  The inn must have changed hands a couple times, and they let us back for an alcohol free event with a meal, golf, tennis, etc..  I spent most of the time hanging out by the lake, looking at Mt. Monadnock.  It was soothing.  I was impressed and simultaneously disappointed by our token gift - a P3 memory stick.  It was a great idea, but the 128 MB size meant that I'd lose any geek pissing contest if I used it.  I have a 256 in my pc right now.  JS boasts of his 1 GB.  It must be compensatory.   Regardless, its a nice hand out for trade shows and company outings.  I would have preferred a golf shirt, but that's because I haven't been here 5 years.  I don't have a closet full of them and I figure that I need a few for business travel.

After an enjoyable outing, I came to work for a hectic day and a bigger surprise.  Frank gave me an engraved P3 iPOd mini.  Now that's a nice demonstration of appreciation.  I don't have an ipod, but expect to join the throng of people running down beacon street listening to tunes on the little trendbox.  I'm happy about it, and glad to have been on P3.  I wonder how long this will last....  Probably just until my boss has me do an asinine experiment involving a meaningless quantity.

Money can't buy my love, but the thoughtful execution of this gift and its unusual nature captured my attention.
posted by Ben at (0) comments 11:10 AM

 
George Bush is digging himself a deep, damp hole in New Orleans. I don’t blame him for the chaos in the city, but he's been foolish enough to say this to Diane Saweyer "I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees". Yes, it would be nice to write off this disaster as unanticipated. However, all the news reports prior to the storm suggested this was a possibility. It's been a top FEMA worst case scenario for a natural disaster. The city is below sea level, and protected primarily by level dams made from Mississippi delta sand. It was unstable, unsustainable. It was only a matter of time. Like Alexandria before it, New Orleans has fallen into the ocean.

Although, unlike Alexandria, this fall was no trick of tectonics. It was prompted by man's desire to control and manipulate nature. Hubris cut down by a tremendous storm. Of course we will rebuild, even though one Senator is starting to suggest what my father brought out at the dinner table a few nights back. That it is not worthwhile to rebuild. Society has a hard time grasping concepts of impermanence. That's one of the things I learned from the fall of the old man. And it's from teh vantage point of that loss, I view situation in New Orleans. No, I didn't loose my home, or my property. Those are tragic things, but they happen every year with river flooding and intense storms. The loss that has destabilized the city is the loss of an identity. So much of my state's pride, and identity was tied to a precipice sculpted by the forces that undid it.

New Orleans i s a city defined by its celebratory debauchery. It draws inspiration from chaos. It was a city founded by water, surrounded by water, and ultimately destroyed by the water that brought it Napoleonic prosperity.

The French Quarter is in flames, as the people who stayed in the city, disobeying a mandatory evacuation order, come to grips with the reality that the world that they knew is gone. In this identity crisis, they've taken to violence, rape, and pillage. The fatalists shoot the rescue helicopters because they have nothing, and cannot conceive of escaping this chaos. Their seductive muse has revealed itself to be a medusa.

And what can we do, sitting miles away watching gas prices rise, and taking comfort in news that gas futures are finally dropping. We watch the madness on TV, and wonder how long before we declare martial law in one of our own cities. Will the crisis force us to suspended our civil liberties and force order upon the wild and the innocent refugees. Will we lay siege on Orleans?

And then, when the short term fires are put out, what will we do to rebuild? The knee jerk reaction is to try to put everything back the way it was. It's an impossible task. Nothing will ever be the same. Is anyone anticipating how those frustrations will tear at the fabric of New Orleans for years to come. How long can they hold onto tatters of that identity? Or will they build some new identity, some new consciousness. If there is to be a new order, and a new ideal for the city of pageantry. Is it necessary to build it in the same parish, or in the same place? Will the refugees put their lives on hold for months before returning. Will they settle down in Houston, Galveston, or Atlanta?

Will our public policy shift from discussing the unanticipated, and unavoidable to creating some lasting and permanent solution? Will bend like a tree in the wind and adapt to our impermanent world, or will we recover our hubris and build levees against the eternal storm? As bold and dramatic as these rhetorical questions seem to be in my Friday morning exposition. I realize that this is a Christian country, not Buddhist. And we will bumble towards enlightenment along the most entropic path we can find.
posted by Ben at (0) comments 8:49 AM