Parents' Pets

Pales (Paylees) enjoying the sunshine. She'll be six months next month!

Henry is not amused by the puppy's antics.

Tropical Heatwave

I went to Tampa this weekend to visit with my parents and go to Tropical Heatwave. Heatwave is an annual concert put on by WMNF, the local community radio station. It's a chance to find new music that you might not normally be exposed to. Most of the musicians haven't played Tampa before or are up and coming. It wasn't quite as good as last year, but still worth it. We arrived at 5:30pm and got home at 1am. I was extremely proud of my parents. Only minor annoyance at the late night!
It was great people watching if you didn't let the crowd get to you. There was plenty of tie-dye and hippy stink (patchouli), but also a great variety in people. It amazes me how people can appreciate such different genres of music and get along so well. The standout performances of the night included Julie Black, a local blues/torch singer, Blue Vipers of Brooklyn, a traditional jazz and blues band that practices in the the Subway, Rocket 88, a rockabilly group from Orlando with a crazy show, Soul Rebels, a brass band from New Orleans with hip hop influences. There were many many other great musicians, but these stick out.

Birmingham and back

I got Taye the Macbook back last week, fully functional but missing all of my files and programs. So I lost all my music and photos (original files and those not good enough for Facebook), oh and all of those pesky papers from grad school. so it's kind of appropriate that I am starting fresh with new memory.
So what did I do to celebrate the return of my faithful laptop? Why road trip to Alabama of course! Hannah had a job interview (still crossing our fingers to hear the news) and I didn't have much to do (besides finish all those freelance projects!). So I tagged along for the 8-hour trip. Hannah is persistently pushing a move to Birmingham for me. Of course others are pulling for the frozen tundra of the North. I will go where the jobs lead!
Birmingham was really nice. The weather was unusually cold, and there had been tornadoes in the area, but it was still very pretty. The hydrangeas were blooming everywhere as well as the dogwood. All the people we met were extremely friendly. I don't know if I would know how to react to every shop/restaurant owner exchanging pleasantries with me.

This is a view of downtown Birmingham from Vulcan park.

Grandiose Graduation

This past weekend was the culmination of two years of hard work - commencement! I think it's very neat that commencement means a new beginning or start, but they use it to describe the end of your formal education. It's very appropriate, because I am starting a new chapter in my life.

Check out the graduation present that I got!

Ok, not really, that is dad's new toy, not mine. But he did let me drive it a few weeks ago.

Pretty Orange and Blue! I felt like I belonged at Hogwarts in that outfit.