Coachella time

It's Sunday and I'm in beautiful ridiculously hot Indio California for Coachella. Brad and I are staying cool in the house and keeping hydrated for the next hour or so to avoid several extra hours in the sun, everyone else in our crew has headed to the festival already to catch some early acts.

On Friday we did the early thing with the rest of them and while it was cool to see Gui Boratto playing some really nice techno (with a bit of prog house thrown in) and then We Are Scientists on the main stage, I think I got a bit too much heat and too little water so I wasn't feeling great later in the evening. After We Are Scientists we headed to the dance tent and caught the end of Steve Aoki's set which was terrible, and then the beginning of Felix da Housecat's set which was also terrible. Having heard good things about The Hold Steady we headed over there, but were similarly unimpressed. Walking past we heard Los Campesinos! and they were actually playing an awesome set that we were lucky to hear the last half of. One of the highlights of the day in the whole "band I've never heard of being really fucking cool" way.

After Los Campesinos!'s set, we headed to the Outdoor Theatre to see Conor Oberst. I like Bright Eyes but hadn't gotten much into his solo stuff and while it's not what I would generally listen to on a regular basis I liked the part of the show we saw. We left halfway through to catch Franz Ferdinand which was awesome. They're one of those bands I never think much about but then realized I knew and liked all their songs.

Next stop was the dance tent for Ghostland Observatory which was awesome, intense, and weird. The one not-so-great spot of the set was when they played one song that went on about 10 minutes longer than it really needed to, but the awesome lasers and rest of the set more than made up for it. Next up was Girl Talk who I was ridiculously excited for, but the area in which we were standing got really crowded, hot, and intense and the sun/dehydration from earlier in the day really started to catch up with me, so we left a few minutes into his set. No great loss though, I've seen him play three times before.

Unfortunately it started to get extremely cold at this point, so we found the metal/fire dragon/snake sculpture to huddle around for warmth. From this area we could hear and see most of Paul McCartney thanks to the giant screens on the side of the main stage.

Learning from my mistake of getting there too early on Friday we waited to get in on Saturday until around 4 which was an excellent call since it was MUCH hotter on Saturday than on Sunday. We met up with our friends at the Outdoor Theatre where we parked for most of the day, hearing Drive-by Truckers, Superchunk, Calexico, and Fleet Foxes--all of which were awesome. Some weirdness during Fleet Foxes though, we were watching the show when halfway through some kid just collapsed right next to us. His eyes were wide open, it was kind of freaky--he didn't have any friends around or anything, some guys carried him off hopefully to find a medic. I've seen sooo many people getting carried off this year--people need to learn that drugs, alcohol, and dehydration don't mix. In any case, spending most of the day at one stage was really relaxing and chill and a nice way to spend the day instead of running all over the place to see this act and that act.

The sun went down during the (amazing) Fleet Foxes set, and we headed out to check out Junior Boys which I really wasn't feeling especially after the soulful acts we'd been seeing all day. Got to the dance tent just in time for the Chemical Brothers DJ set which has been one of the high points of the festival for me so far. They went on with no introduction, no fanfare, and started playing really awesome banging dance music. It was such a refreshing change of pace from most of the stuff I'd been seeing there this weekend, no 80's hair metal, no giant breakdowns every three minutes (I'm looking at you Felix da Housecat). It might have been a little minimal/hard for some people but Brad and I were digging it. After an hour of dancing though I was parched and we had to leave to get water, so we ended up heading over to see the Killers which I wasn't digging at ALL (neither was this guy gal (how sexist of me) so I'm just going to remember the Chemical Brothers as the end of the evening. ;)

Hoping to get there today to catch Lykke Li, Peter Bjorn and John, My Bloody Valentine, Christopher Lawrence (who I loved when I saw perform ten years ago but realistically I will probably bitch about today. I've gotten so freaking picky about electronic music it isn't even funny!), The Kills, Public Enemy, and maybe a few minutes of the Cure.

Echo

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Originally uploaded by psydereal

Surviving

I tackled one of the tasks I have been dreading for the wedding on Sunday, finding the dress. I can't exactly put my finger on why it was so terrifying. Part of it was this fear that they would only have size 2 samples and I'd be stuck trying to squeeze myself into these things and imagining how they'd look if they fit properly. I think the rest of it was the stress of it...choosing this extremely expensive item that is supposed to be THE PERFECT DRESS.

Anyhow I mustered up some courage and got the process started. I heard you were supposed to get the dress thing locked down about a year out, so I called a place I'd gotten a good recommendation for the other day, thinking I'd have to wait at least a week or two for a weekend appointment, but they had openings right away, so I booked one. Kim came with me while her husband and my fiance played video games and had beers.

For one thing my fears about the size thing were unfounded. This place had all kinds of sizes, I tried on quite a few gowns that were several sizes too large and had to be clipped. I was also pleasantly surprised at how nice I looked in almost all of them, but honestly, they just weren't me. So many dresses were full of beading and lace, I told my lady that I didn't like beading at all. Most of the others were very structured, which turned out just to be too much for me. When the saleslady brought out the dress I ended up loving, she was like "This is not too simple, is it?" Nope, it wasn't, it was perfect. And a great price too.

Happy that I'd easily come under the number I wanted to spend, I decided to have a little fun with Brad when I came home, and tell him that I'd found the perfect dress but it was a little more than we'd wanted to spend. I told him a number about $4000 higher than what the dress actually cost me and Kim and I kept it going for a few minutes before telling him the real price.

A week in London

Last Friday I made arrangements for last minute work travel. Turns out two projects I work on both had lots of things going on this week and all of the work was being done out of the London office so it just made sense to head out there myself instead of trying to coordinate everything over email with a seven hour time difference. Actually it was the first time I'd done international travel for the office and while I have looked forward to getting to do it for some time, it was quite a difficult week.

For one thing, the time zone in the UK is a sweet spot for turning one into a workaholic. You get in at a reasonable hour and spend your day working and just when the day is about to end, folks from the States start coming online and sending you emails. There just is no good time to turn off your computer and walk away from work so you end up working say, from 8 to 11. And then you go back to your hotel and work on emails some more.

Also, jet lag, it seems as if it is much easier to recover from when you don't say, work 15 hours a day. Go figure. ;)

The week was rather hellish but it was productive as intended, and the story has a happy ending. Myself and two other engineers on the product met up for fish and chips at a pub and spent the day walking around London and seeing the sights, ending up at the Tate Modern and then going to an interesting neighborhood (the East End I think?) at night for dinner and drinks. Getting to see a bit of the city besides the few blocks between office and hotel really took the edge off the week.

CBS, how I hate you. Let me count the ways.

The start of March Madness means that I have to interface with CBS. This is why I hate you CBS:

You are always showing the wrong game. With four to pick from, I guess the odds are pretty good that you will pick the game I'm least interested in to show. Especially when I live on the west coast, which means CBS thinks that I care about Washington state and Arizona. I can't name a single team west of Colorado that I give two shits about. Damn you CBS!

So I go onto your website to get the streaming video, yay! Except, wait a minute, what's this? You only work with Windows machines running IE! Are you kidding me?!?

Damn you, CBS.

On the way out of Silicon Valley...

We stopped for burgers and I took this shot of Brad eating one. I happen to love it and am not sure why.

Our new apartment is moved into and almost feeling like a real home. I kind of go a little nuts when I'm living in place without Internet or my TiVo, which was all of last week due to Comcast and their awesomeness. Thank God for 24 on DVD amirite?

One of my coworkers stopped me in the hall and asked me how preparations were going. I assumed she meant for a small presentation I have to do at work tomorrow, so I started talking about that. She looked at as if I was nuts and said, "No, about the wedding." I guess I need to give back my girl license now, not assuming everything in the world is about my upcoming wedding.