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Photo of Joe Jackson with the band on stage at the Beacon Theatre. Left to right: Joe Jackson at the keyboard, Doug Yowell on drums, Graham Maby on bass, Felipe Fournier on percussion and Teddy Kumpel on guitar.
Photo credit: @dougyowell on Instagram

Caught an evening with Joe Jackson and the band at the Beacon Theatre on Saturday night. He began the show at the piano, solo for the first song. Then he was joined by his long time bassist, Graham Maby for the second. These guys have been playing together for 50 years. I wonder if they think about how special that is while they’re on stage, just the two of them. Maybe after thousands of performances, they don’t. But, I like to think they do.

The rest of the band joined them, one by one from the wings for the third number and proceeded to rock the Beacon. It was a wonderful show with plenty of newer material mixed in with the classics from his extensive catalog. He even played Home Town, one of my favorites, and a pleasant surprise.

I did some quality procrastineering this week and created a little menu bar pomodoro timer. It already helped me break a procrastination spell this weekend, so it’s not a total loss. If you also suffer from procrastination from time to time, the pomodoro technique can help jump start things. You don’t even need my fancy application, you can just use the timer on your phone.

Links

There are a lot of links this week—so many that I’ve decided to categorize them..

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Screenshot of a map showing the NYC area. A 35.5 mile route is superimposed over the map with numbered markers for each mile.

The big news this week: Jonas and I walked the perimeter of Manhattan. As I write this, I’m hurting a little bit—to be expected base on first-hand accounts from others with experience. While we had sort of trial run about a year and a half ago when we walked the length of Broadway in Manhattan, I’m not sure if anything can fully prepare one for their first 35.5 mile walk.

Overall, it was a great experience, one worthy of a post of its own. Stay tuned for that, once I’ve had some time to collect my thoughts. In the meantime, here’s a screenshot of our route.

Links

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Photo of fireworks against the downtown Manhattan skyline.
Low res fireworks

Happy belated July 4th to those who celebrate. There was a lot going on in New York to celebrate 250 years. First, we were treated to a spectacular Parade of Tall ships and International Aerial Review, then the fireworks. Hats off to the people that went out in the heat to see these things, we opted to enjoy it all from the air conditioned comfort of our apartment.

Speaking of air conditioning, ours has been cranking for days, which is unusual for us. We’re not the only ones. ConEd reduced voltage in large swaths of Brooklyn on Friday. I was curious as to how much, so I broke out the multi-meter: It was around 115 volts in our apartment. Without measuring, we wouldn’t have noticed, but some of our neighbors’ air conditioners weren’t performing well in those conditions.

Earlier in the week, I was invited to the annual Blessing of the Fleet in Sheepshead Bay. Mechanical trouble forced us to go back to the mooring just seconds after we cast off—better there than in the channel. This prevented full participation in the blessing, but we were able to enjoy some time on the boat and a taste of rum punch.

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Photo some blue egg crate foam attached to a white wall. A sign above has the text: "BANG HEAD HERE".
All workplaces should be equipped with this emergency feature.

The week numbers in the titles here remind us that we’ve reached the halfway point of the year. Well, close enough, anyway. I think this halfway point is a good time to take stock of the things I wanted to accomplish this year and make sure they are moving in the right direction—or at least some direction. In that spirit, I managed to knock a couple big things off the list this week. “Big” in the sense that they were blocking further progress, even if just mentally in some cases.

I attended an employer sponsored volunteer event in the park one day this week. We assembled some outdoor displays then did some weeding and mulching. I think this was my first time volunteering in the park that didn’t involve pulling up English ivy though. That, coupled with the great team made this one of the best events I’ve done.

It looks like we’re in for a heat wave next week. Stay cool out there if you’re on the East Coast.

Links

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Photo of a white sign with black text on a wooden fence. The text is: "ENTRY INTO THIS YARD FOR ANY REASON IS PROHIBITED. THIS INCLUDES TIME-WARNER, NYNEX, CON ED AN ALL UTILITY COMPANY EMPLOYEES. SUPERVISORY PERSONNEL AT THESE COMPANIES ARE NOT AUTHORIZED TO GRANT PERMISSION TO ENTER. VIOLATORS WILL BE PROSECUTED. NEW YORK STATE PENAL LAW Sec. 140.06."
There must be an interesting history behind this sign, both literally and figuratively.

The “band” was back together for a Jamulus jam this week. It’s been about a month since we played together, and therefore about a month since any of us has picked up our instruments. Surprisingly, we sounded alright despite our lack of practice.

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