Tanglewood

About to get our Aaron Copland on

O gets his groove on

NMS Rock Camp ended on a serious high note. We went from grumblings about how heavy the guitar was to this a week later: http://www.youtube.com/user/parrtar/videos?shelf_index=1&view=0&sort=dd

P.s. their drummer was about 13 I'd guess. The audio here doesn't do it justice but this kid knew all the tricks

JAMA Internal Medicine article summary author gets a little kooky

"Whereas these guidelines promote use of nonopioid analgesics, avoidance of imaging tests, use of physical therapy–based exercises, and primary care for this population, the results of this analysis demonstrate recent significant decreases for these recommendations. So, in the words of Saturday Night Live character DeAndre Cole played by Kenan Thompson, “What’s up with that?”

Right on the beach

Sandbridge was a great spot. Well done, Julie and Milissa.
My favorite part was body surfing with Owen. 2nd favorite: shooting the shit with Julie's high school friends. 3rd favorite: volleyball 4th favorite: overeating and drinking (see 2nd favorite) 5th favorite: kayaking 6th favorite: biking on a totally empty beach and the list goes on

R.I.P. Jeremy

Jeremy the gerbil has passed away. New Haven Cravin' readers will recall his arrival was highly anticipated in the Becker/Parr household. His actual tenure here was a perhaps a bit anti-climactic, seeing as he spent most of his days hiding behind a wall of tissue paper he created in his little wooden house. (Lucy, his first "Mom," told us he was a biter and likely carried diseases, so we dared not disturb him in his house.) The best times were when Owen would somehow get Jeremy in his plastic ball to clean the cage and Jeremy might even roll the ball a little.

Catching up with Miguel Tejada-Flores

Best known for co-writing Revenge of the Nerds...

http://migueltejadaflores.wordpress.com/

Words

I love it when I hear a noun I've never heard before:
kerning, which came to me from Brendan in casual conversation.

Then there are words I've heard before used in delightful, awkward or horrifying ways (or all three).
A colleague forwarded me a blurb on a new study examining the validity of an instrument for identifying patients on opioids with evidence of misuse. The study authors labeled the patients with misuse "miscreants," perhaps because "ne'er-do-wells," "scalawags," or "filthy liars" didn't quite fit. Before you lose all faith in the peer review process, this study was presented as an abstract at a meeting and has not been published.

much maligned ceramic cat now has *two* uses

door stop and RCHDO (real cat heat dispersion object)

what job security affords you

check out 22 year Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro's outfit for a hardhat tour of the VA's new construction project.

St Patrick's Day in early lead for my most celebrated holiday of 2013

We went to the New Haven parade -- all 2 solid hours of it -- two Sundays ago and marched in the NYC parade last Saturday in the Quinnipiac delegation. I have to say, it was a thrill to march up an empty 5th Avenue for 25 blocks while the drunken masses cheered. I was a little concerned they might jeer us for being, how shall I put this, a low effort group -- no music, dance or  parade-relevant displays except for -- come again? -- blue sashes. Luckily, we were right behind a solid marching band that got a lot of people fired up with its rousing version of "I'm Shipping Up to Boston" by the Drop-Kick Murphys (down side: over the 25 blocks I heard them play it roughly 36 times). Favorite signs of the day: 2 parade watchers were each holding up matching neon green signs, one that read "YO, BRIAN!" and another "YO, KATHLEEN!"

Never thought of it that way ...

There's a new medical school starting up in Connecticut. I just heard an ad on NPR from it requesting body donations for the new students' Gross Anatomy lab. Let's for a minute take the viewpoint that this ad was a good idea: attentive audience of generally older people who are well-educated and probably lean towards philanthropy. The counter argument might be: hey, since this is quite likely the first time most listeners have heard of you, maybe establish yourself a bit before you go to the airwaves asking for people's corpses?

Just as I was having this debate in my head, the ad closed with "A great way to save on funeral costs."

How will they study the effectiveness of this ad? I'm guessing a form when you walk in:

How did you decide to donate your body to us? Check all that apply:

• Heard ad on radio
• Not feeling well, looking for final resting place
• Have always wanted to do this and saw building go up recently, thought I'd stop in
• Other:

11!

Unbelievable -- Owen is a tween.

Today was a bit of an anti-climax seeing as he had his  dude party Sunday, his parental party Monday, and dude party II last night (Mom is out of town). Still, we managed to pick up some munchkins for the class this morning on the way to school and some classmates wished him a happy birthday today. And Uncle Brendan sent him a nice gift. He vetoed dinner out with Dad for leftovers and more time on the computer. I'm not taking it personally.

Other news: We've had 3-4 rainstorms since the Snowicane Nemo/Charlotte and there's still 6 inches of icy snow crust covering our lawn and 2 foot mounds of icy black snow on every curb.

Also, once I finally bust out the home brewing kit Jason got me for my birthday 2 years ago, the first beer will be called "Malice Brew Ilk." Yes, it's time to pause and plug your name into the anagram maker. It's worth it.

Snowpocalypse XIII

Thirty four inches in New Haven. Yikes. I think that's more than we had all four years of college, though, granted, I was gone for 2 weeks of prime snow season every year.
It's supposed to rain all day tomorrow with a high of 46. What happens when day long rain meets 10-foot snow banks with refreezing after midnight? No one can answer that question with any credibility because it's  never happened before  anywhere on Earth in all recorded history. I did shovel the roof AGAIN -- that makes twice in 3+ years of living here. I'll keep you posted...
There was some sledding action but it's kind of exhausting trudging  up and down the hill with snow drifts up to your waist.  Leading to  a lot of this:

I received my first ever email from Owen

It contained this emoticon (only):

Bravo!

Owen auditioned for the All-City Honors Chorus Saturday and heard today that he was selected. We don't know much about this outfit except that the Yale glee club runs it and it's for 5th-12th graders.
His audition song was "Don't Stop Believin'' by Journey.

Chaos Tower

 

It's coming together...

Sunday NYT crossword

I'm getting back in the swing of it now that we get Saturday delivery. I seem to be a hair better than the college years--plus I've got O around for the Star Wars clues--but now there's a new obstacle: