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amy and i went to the harry connick jr. — harry for the holidays concert on monday. actually we went to the tuesday showing as well, amy is a big fan and i picked these tickets as a surprise christmas gift.

i was very impressed with his concert. not only were each of the concerts unique but they kept you watching and tapping your feet. one of the things that most impresses me about harry is that he doesn’t have the ego that so many other performers do. during both of his shows he gave the stage to many of the musicians in his big band and they were knock outs. the first evening the drummer performed a solo playing on the piano. yea, he didn’t actually use his drum set, he played his sticks on the top of the piano. not only did he use his sticks but his palms, knuckles, and elbows. there were also performances by his trumpet and trombone players we well.

another thing that i noticed about the concert was how much the lighting affected the impact of the songs. i found myself really engrossed in the songs and really experiencing the words. it hit me during the concert how well the lighting matched the mood of each song. stage design is a subtle yet important part of so many performances and i don’t think any of the previous concerts i had attended had taken it to the level of detail that the harry connick jr. concerts did.

if you’ve never seen a jazz concert or any other concert for that matter i highly recommend that you check out harry connick jr. the next time he’s in town.

my word of the day … the persistent conviction that one is or is likely to be effected by a bug or problem with technology, often involving symptoms when problems are neither present nor likely, and persisting despite reassurance and technological evidence to the contrary.

this snippet is a change of pace for me, but close to my heart as i’m from the motor city and my family works for ford. ford is finally getting it proverbial head out of the ground and is phasing out the taurus and sable. i’ve always wondered when ford was going to attack the car market again. they’ve been all over the pick-up and suv market for over ten years. so much so that it’s now their bread and butter and with this new economy people can’t afford those behemoths and folks are now looking too smaller more cost effective vehicles. this article also overviews the vehicles ford is replacing these models with and has pictures of the upcoming five hundred and freestyle. my buddy mike is working on part of the design of the freestyle and it sounds like it’s going to be a pretty sweet wagon. i still haven’t found any pictures of the upcoming futura, which is the third car they are coming out with, but i’m sure i’ll find one soon. amy and i are planning on replacing one of our cars in a few years and it’s nice to know we have options in the home team (aka ford) and not just the european cars. being that i’m from a ford family i don’t ever see myself driving a asian car or truck.

i got an email about this yesterday from larry and then i saw that martie posted about it. i now feel obligated as a blogger to post about our first time traveler. i read the announcement a few times and a few things that i noticed that were interesting:

• yahoo placed this announcement in their “entertainment news & gossip” section.
• did you notice how reuters and the associated press missed this news?
• if someone really had the cure for aids do you really think they would use that as a bargaining chip? come one, what human who had that knowledge wouldn’t share that with their fellow humans knowing all of the devastating that it has caused to mankind?

do i think this person is a time traveler, no. do i really care or give it much thought, no. do i think that authorities should give him the opportunity to prove it, why not? what do we really have to lose? yea, it might be giving the crazy a bit of press but come on, the potential upside far outweighs the downside. in then end though, this news item reads like a new article from the onion.

i was surfing today and found a link to a pretty good site with war coverage called the the command post. they pretty much have up to the minute (it seems) status on the war as it’s being reported from around the world. i highly suggest you check it out and bookmark it for your daily perusal.

does anyone else think this is a poor excuse for reporting? the command post: al-jazeera defends coverage of iraq war

amy and i decided to bite the bullet this weekend and finally buy some new book shelves. i’ve had my books in boxes since i moved in and we’re getting kind of tired of seeing tropicana advertisements in our loft. amy will also be needing someplace to put her school books and her other books when she moves in. anyhow, we dropped into room and board and decided on these gallery leaning shelves that are made from natural and stainless steel and the wood is recycled fur from old buildings like the sears roebuck warehouse in chicago. we didn’t know it at first but amy did notice some knots in the wood. it really does add a unique character to the shelves with the clean metal lines and then the rehabbed fur wood, i’m really looking forward to getting them soon. we decided on two natural steel shelves for the loft area (to match my desk) and one stainless steel for her office (to match her desk). yes, i have more books so it’s fair that i got one more shelve.

we’re painting another room today, amy’s office / study. we picked out two cool shades of purple and are planning on sponging either tomorrow or next weekend. we just finished putting on the base coat. it’s pretty dark, but then again it was crappy painters white before so it looks a million times better.

our house is turning into a behr house. all of the paint, glaze, and detail paint we’ve used thus far has been their brand. we should send pictures of our house in when we’re done … yea right.