Acheron

cha-ching

I guess I’ve been to my last concert of the summer… going to another one in less than a month, but September makes it part of the fall series, right? (It’s before the equinox though, so maybe you could call it summer still…)

Anyway..

Ben Folds (Wolf Trap): Good, certainly better than the last time I saw him, which was a July 4th in Connecticut, and the venue wouldn’t keep the fans on, and there were too many openers with around an hour in between each, so Ben didn’t come on until 10pm or something.. anyway, that was pretty bad. Wolf Trap rocks, of course, so no problems there. First time I saw him was just him solo on piano; this show was the piano/bass/percussion trio (and Ben also had an electronic keyboard which he sometimes played instead of or at the same time as the piano). Terrible opener though.

R.E.M. (Merriweather): First time at Merriweather… it’s no Wolf Trap. Yes, what is, but I was still not impressed. (And only partly because it’s in that state to the north that I don’t like to go to. [to which I don't like to go?]) R.E.M. was good though… wide variety of songs, though not as wide as other shows on the tour. I would have been happier if I hadn’t read up on what they’d been playing other places, because it was only a disappointment compared to the previous and subsequent shows. Missed the first opener here, Modest Mouse was the second opener, who I am ambivalent about (about whom I am ambivalent?).

Sister Hazel & Pat McGee Band (Wolf Trap): SH was the opener. First time seeing them, so that was fun. Wasn’t a long set, being an opener and all, but hit the songs Jen and I wanted to hear. I’ve seen PMB many times, though more through accident than by design. This one was basically the same as when I saw them at Wolf Trap last summer. It was good and everything, but, well, I’ve seen it. The audience at this show probably skewed younger than any of the others this summer, though not as young as at the Stephen Kellogg show I went to last winter. (Also, Ed Toth, formerly of Vertical Horizon, was playing drums for SH at this show.) At the end of the PMB set, the SH guys came out and the whole group of them (PMB has like 8 guys anyway, so there were a lot of people on stage) did CSN’s “Southern Cross”, which was cool (That’s just CSN, not CSNY, right?). PMB always seems to do a classic rock cover — I’ve seen them do “Pinball Wizard”, “American Girl”, “Sympathy for the Devil”, “Running on Empty”, and maybe others that I’m forgetting.

Mark Knopfler (Wolf Trap): And the audience at this one skewed the oldest, obviously. Mark is my favorite guitarist, and this is the first time I’ve seen him live, so that was pretty exciting. Didn’t play a lot from his newest album, but plenty of his older solo things, and a few Dire Straits songs, including “Romeo & Juliet”, possibly in my top three favorite songs ever. So I had a good time. Opener was not as bad as the girl at the Ben Folds show, but I still wasn’t impressed.

Great Big Sea & Eddie From Ohio (Wolf Trap): Co-headliners, really, but GBS went first. First time seeing them, and it was pretty good. Shorter set since they went first, but a good setlist for my first show anyway. They’re touring the US later this fall, but the nearest to here that they’re coming is Ram’s Head in B’more, so I’d need to be really motivated to get to that. If I don’t go that far for Carbon Leaf, I don’t know if GBS could do it. I didn’t know anything about EFO (the name is sort of a joke — there’s more than one of them [and only one is named "Eddie"], and they’re not from Ohio, they’re actually from NoVa, which is likely why they went last/longer for this show), aside from listening to some songs on their website a few days before the show. A lot more, well, folky than I normally really listen to, but they were very good. I just downloaded an album and am listening as I write this.

So that’s the summer as far as concerts go. Maybe more summer posts later.

The vending machine at work has these “Ketchup and Fries Flavored Potato Snacks”. I mean, yuck.

Best comment I’ve read about the Manny trade (can’t remember where I saw it though):

“Maybe the Dodgers will let Manny leave in the 7th inning, along with the fans.”

Since I’m going to Wolf Trap again tonight, I thought of this. Here is a list of National Parks, etc, that I have been to. (Also possibly helpful, a list of what the differences between “National Park”, “National Memorial”, etc., are.)

N.B. I don’t write “District of Columbia” any more than I would write “State of Ohio” or “Commonwealth of Virginia”.

• National Parks
  • Cuyahoga Valley National Park (Ohio)
    • I think I’ve been here, though it wasn’t classified a “National Park” until 2000, so I would have been to it when it was a “National Recreation Area”.
  • Haleakala National Park (Hawaii)
  • Hawaii Volcanoes National Park (Hawaii)
  • Shenandoah National Park (Virginia)
• National Monuments
  • Statue of Liberty National Monument (New York)
    • This includes both Liberty Island and Ellis Island.
• National Historical Parks
  • Boston National Historical Park (Massachusetts)
    • Includes many places in Boston: Faneuil Hall, Old North Church, etc.
  • Harpers Ferry National Historical Park (West Virginia)
    • Maybe? I’ve been rafting on the Shenandoah River by Harpers Ferry, so it might have passed through the park.
• National Historic Sites
  • Pennsylvania Avenue National Historic Site (Columbia)
  • Salem Maritime National Historic Site (Massachusetts)
• National Battlefield Parks
  • Manassas National Battlefield Park (Virginia)
• National Military Parks
  • Gettysburg National Military Park (Pennsylvania)
• National Memorials
  • African American Civil War Memorial (Columbia)
    • The NPS apparently hasn’t made a page for this.
  • Arlington House / Robert E. Lee Memorial (Virginia)
  • Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial (Columbia)
  • Korean War Veterans Memorial (Columbia)
  • Lincoln Memorial (Columbia)
  • Thomas Jefferson Memorial (Columbia)
  • United States Navy Memorial (Columbia)
    • Apparently this is actually run by a private foundation, but the NPS provides “assistance”. So I don’t know if it counts.
  • USS Arizona Memorial (Hawaii)
  • Vietnam Veterans Memorial (Columbia)
  • Washington Monument (Columbia)
  • World War II Memorial (Columbia)
  • Wright Brothers National Memorial (North Carolina)
• National Seashores
  • Cape Hatteras National Seashore (North Carolina)
• National Lakeshores
  • Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore (Michigan)
• National Parkways
  • George Washington Memorial Parkway (Virginia)
    • There are several parts to this: the main GW Parkway, the Clara Barton Parkway in Maryland, Great Falls Park, the Marine Corps Memorial, etc., but they’re all considered part of the “GW Memorial Parkway” park.
• Other
  • National Capital Parks East (Columbia)
    • This is a grouping of a bunch of parks in DC and MD that are run by the NPS, including Anacostia Park, which I’ve been to.
  • President’s Park (Columbia)
    • Basically the White House.
  • National Mall & Memorial Parks (Columbia)
    • An NPS grouping of a lot of the memorials I already listed, as well as some other places like the Old Post Office Tower.
  • Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts (Virginia)
    • Last but not least, the reason I thought of making this list.

The return of a series.

According to Wikipedia, today is the 2363rd (356 BC) anniversary of the burning of the Temple of Artemis, one of the traditional “seven wonders of the world”. It was destroyed by arson by someone who wanted his name to be known and remembered across the world, and it worked — we still know his name today (it was Herostratus).

The temple (in Ephesus, in Turkey) was rebuilt afterwards, and stayed there until 262 AD when it was destroyed (along with most of the rest of Ephesus) by invading Goths. By this time most of the people in the area were Christians, so when they eventually rebuilt the city they declined to rebuild a pagan temple.

It was discovered and partly excavated in the 19th century, and you can see bits from it in the British Museum in London.

Switched the OS on capitoline (again). Using Ubuntu Server now instead of Debian. Various reasons for that, but it doesn’t really matter though. Also upgraded to Wordpress 2.6, and changed the theme of the site. I’m not sure the picture of the Acheron Fossae works in the new theme — tried a bit of fading and such but that didn’t look right either. I’ll play with it some more later.

After hearing the Yankee fans boo Papelbon, I would have been perfectly happy seeing the AL lose the All-Star Game if it meant Rivera blowing it. Ah well. In the event, didn’t stay up until the 15th inning, gave up around 12:20 (end of the 12th I think). Good work Michael Young (again).

Eric Wilbur of the Globe:

In any case, the Daily News nearly incited a riot by taking the Red Sox closer out of context with a story that proclaimed him, “Papel-bum.” See how they did that? To be in on a meeting with those cutting-edge editors at the Daily News, boy, that would be something.

But these are rationale[sic] Yankee fans we’re talking about here. Surely they could see through the blatant misrepresentation that the Daily News was out for.

Oh, right.

I came up with this list:

1. “So Fast, So Numb” by R.E.M.
2. “Kinakeet Island” by Carbon Leaf

It’s not much of a list yet.

Is it lame to not post for like 3 months, and then suddenly make a new post on my birthday? Maybe, but I found a song lyric with my new age in it to use as the title (from “Flower in Rain” by Stephen Kellogg), so I don’t want to let it go to waste.