Life is Better with a New Vivian Swift Book in It

Vivian Swift, who I am friends with (<---bragging) sent me her new book, Gardens of Awe and Folly: A Traveler’s Journal on the Meaning of Life and Gardening. Thank you so much Vivian! I actually recently started another friend’s book, and it’s War & Peace length (not a complaint, this book is so far a masterpiece) so it’s going to be a while before I can start yours. But I am being absolutely and entirely sincere when I say I am so looking forward to your book. You are one of my favorite writers. (Not just saying that because we’re friends.)

I will also post more about Gardens of Awe and Folly after I’ve read it, but I wanted to alert people to the fact that it’s out! I know people here loved When Wanderers Cease to Roam.

I thought it would appropriate to get a little green in my picture of the book.

Vivian Swift

Echo Status Report

Update: It looks like we’ve worked out most of the kinks with mail. Now we just have to get Echo the conferencing system working and we’re a little farther along. A tiny bit.

I’m exhausted and stressed and I’m trying to remain positive but it’s hard. I had a goal to reach with my book that had to be abandoned. That may end up being for the best, you never know.

Tomorrow is the Oscars, which I love watching so much it’s RIDICULOUS. I’m also doing a Skype interview with a group who read my singing book, and what could be better than people who read your book and want to talk to you??

A shot of Times Square on my way home the other day. There’s a certain beauty to tackiness.

Times SquareEc

Echo Status Report

Attention customers of Echo: It looks like our machine may have been damaged when our host moved their data center last night. We are installing a new virtual machine as quickly as we can, with the aim of restoring the ability to receive and send email first, and Echo the conferencing system second. The web server came back up without a problem.

I am very sorry about this. Of course this kind of accident was the last thing we wanted and I am doing everything I can to get the new machine up as quickly as possible. Right now we’re restoring everything from backup, which will likely take a few hours.

Again, I am profoundly sorry this happened, and I hope to have service restored tonight.

And now, some pretty ballet dancers from the rehearsal I got to go to on Wednesday.

Ballet4

Limitless Shoot

They were shooting Limitless AGAIN, this time in Times Square. I didn’t catch any of the actors unfortunately. This is looking towards the block where they were shooting. You can see one of those huge lights on a crane in the upper middle of the shot. It’s the thing wrapped in blue tarp.

Limitless Shoot

Pacific Northwest Ballet and IDNYC

I got one of the new New York City ID cards because it comes with a lot of great benefits. The benefit I was most looking forward to was the possibility of passes to ballet rehearsals. Well, I got two passes to the Pacific Northwest Ballet’s rehearsal today for their performances at the New York City Center (which begin tonight and go though the 27th).

We weren’t supposed to take pictures but I snuck a few shots (I’m sorry!). They were just amazing. Drop whatever plans you have and get tickets, if you still can. Thank you Pacific Northwest Ballet and IDNYC. I had a wonderful time.

Pacific Northwest Ballet