Spring continues in fits of rain and storms amidst a nice day here and there. I’ve been trying to shake off a cold for the last week. It feels strange having a cold when it’s eighty-five degrees outside. Now it seems I’m finally mostly better. I had a good workout today and hope to get back on my bike tomorrow, and get caught up on the yardwork over the next few days.
Still been doing stuff. Last weekend Jeannie and I took a fun day to go into the city. We started with a stroll thru Central Park, and it was a lovely day for it, sunny if a bit brisk and breezy. The main attraction of the afternoon was the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which I haven’t been to since before the pandemic. Spent most of our time in the Ancient Greek and Roman collections, as well as the Middle East and Asia, the modern wing, and of course the musical instruments and arms and armor galleries. Afterwards we crossed thru the park again and had dinner at a very nice Italian restaurant, in part to celebrate Jeannie’s recent promotion at her job!
That evening we saw Kamasi Washington at the Beacon Theater. He put on a great show. His sound continues to evolve, now incorporating a DJ and some dancers into his large, sci-fi band. It’s a great sound with two drummers, a standup bass with effects, piano and synth, trombone, vocalist, and Kamasi’s tenor sax over everything. Lots of big extended-jam pieces with great rises in energy. Lots of fun.
Then I was back in the city Thursday and Friday for an onsite for my job, with a bunch of people coming in from out of town including my friend Annmarie from Chicago and Sukhi from D.C.. Thursday night we all went out to dinner and afterwards ended up at the rooftop bar of the Harvard Club (my boss Ginny is an alum) until closing time. Lots of fun, much more open and enjoyable than your typical work social function. Sincerely good people. Or maybe it’s just that since we all mainly work remote, it just feels like a special occasion when we get together. In any event Friday I gave a demo of my current R&D project, which integrating the Data Rights Protocol into Permission Slip, our privacy app. Been making good progress and this is a key milestone for wider adoption of the protocol among industry partners.
Friday Lizzy came home for a visit with her boyfriend Josh. They came up from Philly, where they did a little trip see a ball game and some museums and the zoo. Saturday her grandparents came up for a visit and we had the first barbecue of the season. Again it was a bit chilly our, so I made a fire in our firepit, which was very nice.
The mixing of the Spacecats record is nearly complete, and I must say it sounds quite good. Gavin came by for a mixing session a couple weeks ago, so I got the benefits of his ears and skills. Now I’m basically up to final mastering. The next step is to come up with an album cover, and then I can get CD’s made and get it place on the streaming services. The band wants to try and do a group picture, but unfortunately some of our our out of town the next few weeks, so it may be a while before we can get that together. Ah well, I can work on an illustration and rest of the text and graphics in the meantime.