Bridge School Beneft Concert

As it has been a very busy week, I am just now getting to writing about the giant concert I went to on Saturday. By giant, I mean there were about 20,000 people there. The lineup included (in order of performance):

• Regina Spektor
• Tegan and Sara
• My Morning Jacket
• John Mayer
• Tom Waits with Kronos Quartet
• Neil Young
• Jerry Lee Lewis
• Metallica

As you can tell, it was quite a random assortment of musicians.  You could look around and clearly identify which people were there to see which musicians.  The people to our immediate right were obviously excited about Metallica; the people to our left were there for John Mayer.  There was some slight tension.

Since we were there mostly to see Tom Waits, nobody had much distaste for our presence.  Everyone, it seems, enjoyed making fun of John Mayer.  I don’t personally have much opinion regarding his music, but he seemed like a decent enough guitar player.  I think it was mostly the stigma associated with people who listen to John Mayer that led to the animosity.   But oh well.

Because of such stark contrasts in fans, we amused ourselves by trying to guess the lineup.  We determined for safety’s sake that Metallica would have to play after John Mayer.  While John Mayer fans might be annoyed that he would open for Metallica, Metallica fans would be more likely to kill John Mayer fans if the order were reversed.

As far as the music goes, it was, for the most part, wonderful.  I really enjoyed Regina Spektor as well as Tegan and Sara.  I was unfamiliar with My Morning Jacket, but they seemed to put up a respectable set.  Nothing I would purchase, but still decent.  John Mayer was John Mayer.  He closed his set with Tom Petty’s Free Falling.  Not that I regularly listen to either artist, but I actually recognized that song.

Tom Waits was very much Tom Waits.  I found it amusing and slightly ashamed to think of Tom Waits as the recipient of some terrible disease, since the Bridge School is for children with severe disabilities.  All the students sat on stage behind the performers the entire evening, so I was wondering how many thought that Tom Waits used to attend the institution.  If you have ever seen him perform, you would understand what I mean.

I suppose since he puts the thing on every year, Neil Young got a little carried away.  He went into long jam sessions with another guitarist, boring most of the people there.  Also, he even commented that the audience probably doesn’t recognize a lot of the songs because he’s not playing his popular ones.  Strange fellow.

I think Jerry Lee Lewis died about 20 years ago but someone forgot to tell him that.  He was completely stiff throughout his entire performance, save only for his forearms.  He did not tap his foot, he did not grove to the music.  It was actually impressive that he could remain that stiff to such lively music.  It was also rather hilarious.  At least I can now say that I have seen Jerry Lee Lewis play Great Balls of Fire live.

The Bridge School benefit concert is traditionally an all-acoustic show.  This meant that Metallica played on acoustic guitars.  And played moderately pretty songs.  I don’t really listen to Metallica, but what I heard was not what I imagine they normally sound like.

Anyway, that was pretty much the concert.  Add 20,000 people, take away any heat, and add various substances which people might inhale and you can imagine what it was like.  Good music, too.

The Girlfriend

As it usually ends up happening, I spent a good 5 hours working on my bike today.  I figured that since there is enough testosterone now posting comments on my blog, I might as well write about something that is potentially interesting to the gender commonly associated with facial hair and peeing standing up.

Alas, I do not have any pictures to post, as my camera has been without a card for the past month.  I did manage to get one today, so I will be posting some as soon as I feel the lady is in proper beauty.

Anyway, since the accident, she has not been riding as perfectly as I would prefer.   There were a few little bits that could have been improved, so I stopped by the bike church after I was done with my campus business this afternoon.

When I asked one of the ministers what he believed the problem was, I had to specify that I thought the front wheel was out of true.  He spun it and decided that it would probably be a good idea to completely overhaul the tire.  So I ended up sitting on the ground, pulling the entire thing apart, cleaning the grease off of all the bearings, then regreasing and putting the thing back together.  Once that was done, I had to go figure out the truing stand and hold myself back from the regrettably tempting opportunity to play with the ever obvious sexual innuendo that was me twisting the nipples.  Since I was still afraid a tire would explode on me, I remained anxious and apprehensive about too much tension/slack and eventually retired with what I would consider a moderate true.

Other operations of the day included truing (or attempting to true) my rear tire, inflating both to a full-but-cautious 90 psi, adjusting the fenders to keep them from rubbing the tires accidentally, regreasing my chain, and shortening one of my shifter chains.  Also, I made sure to remind everyone of how beautiful my bike is.

In all, the front wheel spins better now.  Actually, there is one noticeable part where it is significantly out of true compared to the rest of the wheel, but that might just be my naivety in the world of truing.  I will have to return.

In all, she rides faster (because of the tire inflation), shifts better, and looks just as awesome.  Aside from retruing, I’d say my next endeavor will be to adjust the brakes and possibly regrip the handlebars.  As much as I think bullhorns are cool, I just don’t think I could ever do the chop-and-flop to my drop down ram’s horns.  There’s something extremely satisfying about leaning really far over and zooming past the fat girls on pink cruisers.

I honestly never thought I would be this into bikes.  If you asked me three years ago to understand this post, I would have laughed at the attempt.  Then again, I would have done the same if you told me I was going to have three majors, none of which involved science.

Life Goal Accomplished

Today, out of sheer luck, I managed to fulfill one of my most secret goals in life: to get stuck in an elevator.

I was in the basement of the library and needed to get to the fourth floor.  I got in the elevator, pushed the button next to 4, and waited.  I moved up to the ground floor, felt the car stop, and heard a ding.  I assumed that I had to wait for another passenger to get on, but the doors did not open.  A few seconds passed, so I pushed the doors open button, followed by a quick test of all the other buttons.  I was desiring to reach every floor, yet found myself on none.  With much joy and excitement, I pushed the “In Case of Emergency” button, which rang a loud bell and made me instinctively let go.  There was only one more option: the phone.

I opened the little box and picked up the receiver.  Surprisingly, the cord was only about 2 feet long, forcing me to sit on the floor to talk.  I’ve been waiting for this moment for most of my life, so I was ridiculously calm.  The conversation went something like this:

Operator: Davis Police, how may I help you?

Jeff: Hi, I’m currently stuck in an elevator in Shield’s Library.  How can I get out?

O: Hold on a second while I bring up the protocol.  Okay, I want you to pull the stop button then push it again.  When you have done that, push all the other buttons.

J: I’m still here.

O: I’m going to send someone out to open the door.  Just remain calm.  Is everything okay?

J: Everything is fine in here.  I have a book.

To be honest, I was actually pretty happy in there.  Well, one of the first things I was going to do on the fourth floor was go to the bathroom, but it wasn’t particularly urgent.  I also had a bunch of reading that needed to be done anyway, so the corner of an elevator was as good a place as any to get it done.

It amused me how throughout the ordeal, everyone took extra measures to make sure I remained calm and that everything was all right.  It occurred to me that most people would be nervous, claustrophobic, or whatever, but I have always liked tight spaces.  I was rather comfortable.

About 15 minutes later, I heard a voice outside the doors that was loud and seemed directed at me.  After making sure I was all right, he gave me instructions to pull the stop button for 10 seconds.  Since nothing happened, he would have to go to the control booth and do some finangling.

A few minutes later, I heard his voice again, but this time from above.  It turns out he was on the elevator next to mine and would need to come on mine.  I had to pull the stop button for him, then he opened up the doors.

Unfortunately, I was faced with the problem of the outer doors.  I had to manually open them by squeezing two circles and pushing the doors apart.  I also had to jump down about two feet, so he made sure to remind me not to hit my head.

Once out, I closed the doors, thanked the man, and took my bag and copy of Jane Eyre to the bathroom, then ultimately, the stairs to the fourth floor.

Hey, I thought it was pretty cool.

I Hate the Rain

It’s time for my annual post about hating the rain.  I seem to write this one every year.

It rained yesterday.  Pretty hard, I’d say.  Not all day, but at least throughout the morning.  It was enough to make things nice and wet.

Anyway, I was biking to my Italian class after meeting with a group on campus to discuss our presentation.  I donned my new hardshell and got on my beautiful road bike with the fancy fenders I recently installed.  Unfortunately, it was the first time I had ridden a road bike in the rain.  I had forgotten this fact.  I had also forgotten that I had installed skinnier tires, creating even less traction.  Also, I was a little late.

So I was biking quickly, as usual.  I was making my usual right turn at the bike circle when a girl decided to cross.  Seeing her, I made a wide swerve in front of her to avoid a collision.  Unfortunately, I forgot to remember that crosswalks have convenient large white stripes of paint that provide substantially less traction than pavement, particularly when wet.  When you combine all these glorious lapses of memory, you get what was in retrospect, a really awesome crash.

I mean, I wish I had it on video.

Imagine me riding a bike on my right side for about 10 feet.  It was remarkably clean and efficient.

I got up, put my Nalgene back in its pocket on the side of my backpack, and checked my bike.  The chain had fallen off, which was simple to put back on.  The girl crossing the street stopped and made sure I was all right.  She even felt it necessary to take the blame, since I had to swerve to avoid hitting her.  I knew full well that it was entirely my fault, but it was nice to think that I had someone else to blame.

I made it to class safely, only having to adjust my right brake on the ride.  Once I got there, I plopped my backpack on the seat and headed to the bathroom to figure out what parts of me were more than just sore.

I have a 3 inch scrape on my right elbow, a 2 inch scrape on my right hip, a 1/2 inch scrape on my right knee, and a 1/2 inch but really deep scrape on my right ankle bone.  Because I keep my keys in my right pocket, there’s about a 2 inch tear in my pants.  “It’s a shame,” says one of my classmates, “Because they’re really cute pants.”  I also managed to get a giant hole in my sock, made even more awesome by the tinges of pink that seeped out of my ankle.  Strangely, the only thing I’m really sad about is the 1 inch tear on the underside of the right sleeve on my hardshell.  How does one fix that?  Sew it?  Patch it?  Superglue it?  A combination of the three?

In all, I’m fine.  I fortunately had enough sense to use my body to brace the fall, not my head.  And for the time being, I have a nice little reminder of how to bike in the rain.  Hot showers are not fun.

Funny Dream

Being ridiculously busy, I decided to take a nap instead of actually working.  Right before I woke up, I dreamt that I managed to get a virus on my gorgeous computer.  Surprisingly, I found this funny because I distinctly remember the virus looking like Windows Vista.

I Am Such a Ninja

Last night, as I was getting ready for bed, I noticed a rather noisy fly buzzing around my room.  Instead of ignoring it, turning the light off, or trying to find a flyswatter, I decided to try and catch it.  Sure enough, after about three minutes of flailing around my room in my underwear, I caught the little fly midair.  I awkwardly put on shorts with the free hand, then proudly proclaimed my victory to my roommate.  I released the fly outside, doing my one good nature deed for the day.

Remember the incredible victory, I tried the ninja test one more time.  There was a pesky fly going all over the kitchen, so I decided to go for it.  Sure enough, in about the same time, I managed to catch the little creature midair.   Once again, it was released outside.

I am such a ninja.  My Asian ancestors would be proud.

Raul Aranovich: Greatest Source of Unintentional Irony

My Syntax Theory professor, Raul Aranovich, was exceptionally ironic today.  The first instance was when there was about a 5 minute period of confusion regarding the reading list.  He assigned the readings by chapter, section, and subsection, but the book has a different denotation for these things.  When he was trying to make it clear to us, he said, “On Friday, read chapter 2, section 1 through chapter 2, section 2, subsection 2, on discontinuous ordering.”  The following reading was on “Selection and Ordering.”  I thought it was funny.

The second instance of irony came an hour later, when he was erasing a previous class marking on the chalkboard, the word “aporia.”  I commented that it was a lovely Greek root.  He paused, confused, and asked me to repeat what I said.  I explained again, this time louder, that it’s a transliteration of one of my favorite Greek words.  Still confused, likely as to why I was mentioning this, he requested more clarification.  I think at this point, I started laughing at the irony that a word denoting a state of confusion could cause its own definition to be physically represented.

Okay, so I’m a nerd.