Hatched by clouds

The clouds certainly opened up yesterday afternoon, as promised, and today's drive was overcast.  Low hanging clouds of the sort Bruce Cockburn references in You Pay Your Money and You Take Your Chance when he sings:

Under the deep sky that's squatting so close over us tonight

You'd think it was trying to hatch us

That's us this morning, hatched by clouds onto our morning commutes.  The squatting clouds also meant no moon to see (which, come to think of it, is a bit of an unintended pun). Not as many cars on the road as usual, probably because it is a Friday in the peak of late summer holiday season. Otherwise, a very nondescript drive.  

It would have been a one-tune drive in if I hadn't stopped for coffee, with George Harrison's nearly-twelve minute instrumental jam session Out of the Blue sending every part of me that could tap tapping.  A seriously awesome electric jazz/blues/rock jam tune.  However, the stop for coffee slowed things back down to a morning-worthy crawl.  Not only was the corner Starbucks drive thru moving a bit slow this morning, but so was the music at this point.  Jarrett and the team of Ritenour/Grusin both offered up slow, quiet, gentle tunes.  Just to keep the mix mixed, though, the iPod tossed some very up-tempo Pinback at me as I drove onto campus. A very satisfying mix of the sort that likely only comes from a random shuffle.

• Valley: Come Down
• George Harrison: Out of the Blue
• Keith Jarrett: Someone to Watch Over Me
• Lee Ritenour & Dave Grusin: Elegia (A Henri)
• Pinback: From Nothing to Nowhere

Cloud pee, summer strawberries, and high school band concerts

If the weather forecast is correct, this morning will be the last top-down blue-sky drive for a while. NOAA's iPad weather app tells me that today's blue skies will give way to clouds that bring a 50-60% chance of rain by mid-day. Thirty percent chance of cloud pee tomorrow, then several days of sun/cloud/maybe a little rain here and there.

The moon continues to intrigue me.  For the past three days it has been very prominent on my drive in.  But each day has seen it shrink in visible size (not by crescent slices so much as just appearing farther and smaller each day) and I find it located much higher in the sky (at roughly the same time of day) with each passing day. I don't think I've previously noticed just how much movement there is day to day. I know this has to do with the fact the earth rotates (eastward) faster than the moon, causing the moon to appear to shift west over time, and there is the elliptic nature of the orbit, apogee, perigee, aspect, and a number of other factors that make my head spin (probably elliptically, in the other sense of the word), but laying those facts over the sky dome doesn't click for me in terms of what I see in the morning sky.

For better or worse, the iPod cares not a whit for these fascinating ponderables. It served up a nice little mix of tunes today, with a lot of variety in terms of tempo, sound, and style. I can't recall the last time I heard I'll Play For You" but for whatever reason it always takes me back to summer picking strawberries, one of my first summer jobs. I didn't like that job, but can still recall the long school bus rides out to the berry fields, the hot stooping work, the dust, the smell of warm ripe strawberries, and the AM-band soundtrack coming from a handful of transistor radios a few kids would bring with them each day. Seals & Croft must have been part of that soundtrack.

The last tune is from an award-winning local high school band that a colleague's son has played in (heading off to university this year). A great band program that produces consistently professional results.  Melissa and I have enjoyed attending the concerts and events, and I wonder if we will continue now that the colleague's son has graduated.  Life, like the moon, does pass through its phases and each day finds us in a slightly different spot. I haven't picked summer strawberries for pocket money in many years, and now maybe I won't go to high school band concerts.  Well, maybe just the winter Ellington Nutcracker concert.  Good stuff.

• Common Market: Spits
• Seals & Croft: I'll Play For You
• Bill Frisell: My Man's Gone Now
• Big Head Todd & the Monsters: Cruel Fate
• The Roosevelt Jazz Band: Fantazm

A Hollywood Soundtrack Sort of Morning

What a beautiful morning!  The impatient frigtard that rode my rear bumper for a few blocks notwithstanding, it was a really splendid morning drive in. Yesterday's moon may have been, in the words of one of yesterday's musicians, a 'harsh mistress," but today's was hanging out in the full regalia and strut of a confident temptress. Gossamer silver like damp morning spider webs, but large and bright, it looked both substantial and yet paper thin, like a giant translucent cut-out set against a light blue backlight.  This morning it was hanging out directly above the highest visible peak of the Olympic mountains, at least along my aspect.  Toss in crisp morning air and sunlight and the basic ingredients were in place for a basic beautiful morning.

This morning's soundtrack was also keyed for the day, with a collection of soft and beautiful tunes that fit the drive.  The overture from the musical Spamalot, which runs quickly through the main phrase of each of the show's tunes, was the most upbeat of the lot and more or less coincided with the short tailgating episode, adding a bit of levity to whatever frustration the car behind me was exercised about.

• Van Morrison: Madame George
• Spamalot: Overture
• John Stowell: Ron's Return/Eclipse
• Louis Armstrong: What a Wonderful World

That last tune kicked in just as I turned down the service road to North Campus.  That had me driving directly toward a very tall stand of pines just as Louis sang, "I see trees of green..." and the tune wrapped up just as I pulled my car into a parking spot and turned off the ignition.  It couldn't have been more precisely timed if it had been the soundtrack to the opening sequence of a movie.  Puts me in mind of the opening sequence to the Goldie Hawn/Chevy Chase movie, Foul Play. The Manilow tune Ready to Take a Chance Again is perfectly timed to fit the driving sequence (convertible bug) along the California coast.  I'm (obviously!) not Goldie Hawn and Lynnwood isn't the California coast, but sometimes the playlist soundtrack is just as precise as when Hollywood crafts it, even for mortals like us.

iMood: Heat Would Feel Good Today

Another cool clear sunny morning, Olympic mountains in view to the West, not a cloud to be seen in the blue overhead. When I got up this morning (just getting daylight these days as we head into the final phase of summer) a large full-ish moon hung bright and low in the sky, a deep yellow orange.  The moon was back to silver against blue by drive time.

The morning temps are just flirting with the heat-would-feel-good-on-the-drive-in-when-the-top-is-down range. I left the heat off, but was just a tad colder than was perfectly comfortable today.  My fingers are a little stiff on the keyboard while they warm back up.  I thought about turning up the heat (it's only a knob twist away, after all) but was also enjoying the invigorating morning chill and in the end couldn't quite bring myself to shatter the latter with the former.  Still, it is another reminder that summer is starting to phase gently out, whether we want to admit it or not.

The iPod was in a variety mood, from perky to melancholy. I'm glad the first tune showed up on a Tuesday instead of a Monday.  "Pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and start all over again" wouldn't have been quite the ticket first thing on a slightly tired-feeling Monday, I don't think.

The full list from today's drive:

Diana Krall: Pick Yourself Up
Matthew Perryman: Echoes of Eden
Charlie Haden & Pat Metheny: The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
Anna Nalick: Satellite

iMood: Dancing in the Dragon's Jaws of Monday

A cool bright morning drive today.  The sort that looks for all the world like the day will soon ignite into a fireball of blazing temperature but which, here in the temperate Pacific Northwest, usually means mid-seventies.  Scheduled high today is 71°, so that's about right.  As Bruce Cockburn says:

Sun's up, uh huh, looks okay
The world survives into another day
And I'm thinking about eternity
Some kind of ecstasy got a hold on me  (Wondering Where the Lions Are, 1979)

I'm not sure about the ecstasy bit, it being Monday and all, but the rest of the stanza fits the morning just fine.  And Cockburn also started off this morning's sound track, though from live acoustic 2009 album Slice O Life.  It suddenly occurs to me that the song quoted above was released thirty one years ago on the album Dancing in the Dragon's Jaws. Thirty years and twenty three (of Bruce's 36) albums lie between these two and I bought both of them fresh off the press, the former as an LP and the latter as a digital download via iTunes.  Thinking about eternity, indeed!

This morning's iMood:

Bruce Cockburn: Celestial Horses (Live)
Tracy Silverman: Intermezzo from Carmen
David Gray: Shine
Sigur Rós: Agaetis Byrjun

Saturday on lieu of Thursday/Friday

It is Saturday morning and the sun is already burning through. Looking out the kitchen window I can see the weather coming in from the southwest, and it looks like more of same: scattered clouds and soft blue skies. Should be a nice day!

It has been a few weeks since the cars had a bath, so this morning may lend itself to that pursuit. Melissa is catching up on lost sleep this morning, Fred and George have had their morning wee and breakfast and are now back to sleep, Robie is curled up with Melissa, so the house is quiet for the moment. I fried a couple of eggs and added a slice of toasted bread (need to make more today!) and my usual cup of Yerba Mate.

I took Thursday and Friday off from iMood blogging since my morning routine was altered. Board meeting down in Edmonds both days brought a slightly longer commute. Both mornings were heavily overcast, though it was a high overcast. Cresting the last hill between Lynnwood and Edmonds afforded a clear view of the waterfront, and the ceiling of cloud was floating high enough to keep the Olympics hidden across the water.

This is a longer commute for me, maybe twenty minutes (or longer one morning when I also stopped by the Cafe Ladro at Five Corners for a coffee on my way in). That means more music for my iPod to serve up en route. I tracked Friday's playlist (I tracked both days, truth told, but accidentally deleted Thursday's when I went to list Friday's - grrr!).

Phil Keaggy: Praise Dance
Mew: An Envoy To The Open Fields
Billy Bragg & Wilco: I Guess I Planted
Bruce Cockburn: Rumors of Glory
Matchbox Twenty: If You're Gone
Bruce Cockburn: The Pipes, The Pipes
Rocco DeLuca: Point of View

George has just come over to tell me he needs another break, so time to wrap this up and post.

Clouds and Well Travelled Music

Overcast morning.  Which means, in this case, a high layer of gray clouds covering the entire sky, with just a hint of darker fraying edges here and that that could signal light localized showers.  Rain isn't in the forecast (not that this means anything you could bet your picnic plans on), it just looks like it could if it wanted to.

So I took the day's dare and left the top down again this morning (though did pull it back up when I parked; I'm not that much of a gambler) just to see what it would do. It was an empty bluff, as it turns out, and the cooler and slightly damp morning air felt good.

A geographically diverse playlist this morning; clearly my iPod was in a traveling mood.  From Boston (Pixies) to California (Augustana, Rocco Deluca), South America (Getz & Gilberto) to Iceland (Sigur Rós).

I'm a big fan of Sigur Rós' music, though I know it is an acquired taste here.  When my iPod isn't on random, it is more often than not on my Sigur Rós collection (which includes solo albums by lead singer Jonsi), especially when working, writing, or driving.  There is something about the intense and sweeping scope of their music that draws me in.  Viörar Vel Til Loftarása is one of my favorite pieces and by the time it gets to the major build up at the eight minute mark I'm totally pulled into it.

Today, that tune was just getting started as I pulled into the campus and wound along the golf course via the service road connecting main and north campuses.  It would have been the perfect soundtrack for the weather of today's drive, and it is now in its second play-through in my office as I write up today's entry.  It's that worthy.

Augustana: Stars and Boulevards
Rocco Deluca: Gravitate
Stan Getz & Joao Gilberto: Para Machucar Meu Coracao
Pixies: Caribou
Sigur Rós: Viörar Vel Til Loftarása

A Lovely Lady Day

Its another beautiful day in the neighborhoods I pass through, sun up, skies blue, air fresh and cool, and the forecast calling for a slightly more temperate upper 80's.  Traffic was light, which was just as well since the small truck I followed most of the way in this morning was stuck in dawdle mode.  As such, I had plenty of time to watch the passing trees.  I am regularly struck by how many really really tall trees line my route to work, many of them next to the road.  Mostly relatively spindly pines, poker straight and prickly verdant, they look impossibly tall from my near-ground mobile seat.

One indication that it is summer quarter: the morning email inbox's offering of new unread mail contains only a handful of junk mail solicitations from various vendors.  Today it's cloud-based anything and e-meeting and e-portfolio software options. The inbox volume of "real" email will change as more folks arrive on campus, later this morning, but it makes for a quiet and productive start to the day.

The iPod was leaning heavily on jazz this morning, and a couple of more avant-garde tunes, at that.  I didn't make it all the way through Torke's Flint, to be honest.  It is an interesting piece, but wasn't quite the right soundtrack for my slow moving arboreal study.

• Electric Owls: Kallispell
• Michael Torke Band: Flint
• The Bad Plus: My Funny Valentine
• Charles Lloyd: Lady Day
• Counting Crows: Colorblind

Of the bunch, Charles Lloyd hits it the most spot-on, for title, theme, and just-the-right soundtrack for the morning.  Today is a lovely Lady Day, in all likelihood, with all the irresistible charm and intense complexity of a Billie Holiday tune.

My iPod is still, as I write this, in mostly-jazz mode.  Marcin Wasilewski', January album is offering up New York 2007 right now, following an Ellington tune (Zweet Zurzday).  It will be interesting to see how long this genre streak runs.  Oooh - Norah Jones' Shoot the Moon now - perfect!

Losing my topless resolve

We're in a hot spell, so the morning drive was already a very pleasant mid-sixties, the night having clung on to a sizable chunk of the previous day's heat to give this morning a good head start.  Top-down, of course.

Speaking of top-down, yesterday's high temps were the kind that challenge my love of driving topless.  I always feel like a convertible should have its top down whenever possible, otherwise why have one?  But when the temperature gets to 90 or above I lose my topless resolve. At that point, I'm just sitting in a black leather and plastic bucket grilling under the broiler with nothing to mitigate the searing effect.  I was waiting to meet my son on Sunday, sitting in a parking lot with the top down and starting to think about finding a tree to sit under when it occurred to me (slow, I know, but that was probably a heat-effect) that I could simply pull the top over me.  Whew!

Glad this morning's drive was so pleasant, since I expect I'll do the return trip this afternoon with the top firmly up and the AC on.  Maybe.

A short/long week this week.  Thursday and Friday are board retreat, so a short work week that involves a lot of preparation.  I spent a chunk of Saturday working on the retreat materials, so feel pretty well prepared at this point.  I really wasn't joking when I told someone, who asked what I was going to do with all my post-masters free time, that I was looking forward to the luxury of being able to take work home.  It is worth it when it helps set the week up and takes away some of the when-will-I-ever-get-to…? pressure.

My iPod was all over the place this morning.  From spoken to French, alternative to big-band jazz.  I'm afraid I don't see any shapes forming, regardless of which order I connect these musical dots.

Winterpills: Portrait
Belle & Sebastian: A Space Boy Dream
Bob Florence Limited: 3 E-Motions Part 2
Michel Legrand: I Will Say Good-Bye

iMood Friday Aug 13: The Cool Before the Warm

The Cool Before the Warm

A much cooler morning today, despite the fact that we're supposed to hit the high 80's by mid afternoon.  Checking a couple of iPhone weather apps, I get a current temp of 56° F whereas the temperature sensor on the roof of my office building says 60°.  Also, wind.  As I moved closer to the college there were several strong gusts of wind and lots of swirling leaves.

Falling leaves and convertibles can be kind of fun.  Leaves will often fall downward, sweep up over the windshield and then swirl once or twice around the cabin before jetting away behind me.  Even so, dry-brown, wind-blown leaves in mid August is surprising.

My iPod was in prescient mode today:

• Duke Ellington: Autumn Leaves
• Fountains of Wayne: Troubled Times
• Van Morrison: Behind the Ritual
• Michael Torke Band: Change of Address: West 4th Street
• George Harrison: Isn't it a Pity

I could easily string this all together into a paragraph that fits the day, more or less:

Early wind-blown autumn leaves were falling as I drove into the office, the Governor's press conference spelling out the ongoing depth of our economic troubled times weighing on my mind.  Behind the ritual of my daily drive into the campus, there is a change of thinking as well as a change of address; I shift from waking look-at-the-day thoughts to what's-in-my-inbox thoughts as I draw closer to the campus.  Yet, even as I move toward campus and tasks I can't help but ask myself, "Isn't it a pity to have to work on what promises to be such a beautiful day?"

iMood: Wednesday Aug 12

Another sunny day, another crisp clear morning drive in to the college.  I was coming in a wee bit earlier than usual so traffic was really light.  I'm a morning person, by nature.  I like getting up early and getting into work early.  Those first couple of hours before the campus really starts to wake up are usually my most productive of the day.  They allow me to get my day in order, clean up any messes that I left the previous afternoon, whittle down the inbox, and are my best creative writing/working zone as well.

Alas, this morning I found the campus wireless network not functioning.  Its amazing how dependent my working life now is on having reliable access to the Internet and cloud-based resources.  I won't be able to post this blog entry (until some later service-restored time), for example, though I can write it. I can't get to documents I need for an event later today because they are stored as Google Doc files linked to a calendar event.  I can't get to some of the numbers I need to continue working on a budget presentation for next week's Board meeting. I can't clean up my inbox.

While having become a nearly paperless person has its perks, and using cloud-based tools and services makes plugging into my data from almost anywhere super easy, when I end up someplace like this (in my office, a cellular dead zone now with no wireless) I certainly feel cut off.

The good news is that we have several great coffee shops right here in the neighborhood, all with good wireless.  So…. maybe I need a tall cup of coffee and 20 oz. of iced Internet connectivity!

My iPod's mood this morning was lazy.  It served up one nine-minute song (Six Days…) from a group whose name could be a reflection of the Persied Meteor shower that is currently lighting up the summer night skies (Explosions in the Sky).  That one song covered most of this morning's commute, with the preceding song starting midway through from the previous evening and the final song just barely getting started by the time I pulled into the campus.

• Cake: Italian Leather Sofa
• Explosions in the Sky: Six Days at the Bottom of the Ocean
• Bele Fleck & the Flecktones: Stomping Grounds

A really good mix of songs for this morning's drive, even if the number of tunes was limited.

iMood Wednesday Aug 11

A beautiful Wednesday top-down drive in this morning, full of the kind of early morning-ness I most enjoy.  Crisp air, blue skies and pockets of fairly thick fog-already-burning-off, bird singing and calling, and light traffic.  What's not to like?

Two observations-cum-questions:  First, it intrigues me how many people pull up to within inches of the car in front of them when they stop.  Some roar right up and stop at the last minute, others slow down a ways back, but keep rolling forward until they get to within inches before actually stopping.  Is it a form of agoraphobia? They like to stay huddled close to others? Maybe an addiction to exhaust fumes?  Are they worried a very skinny bicyclist might slip in between them and the car in front?  Folks that do this do it every time, so it's not just distraction––it's a practiced driving habit. I just don't get the reason.

I'm talk about the average joe/car here.  The guys driving the massively over-sized trucks who do this, I get their deal.  It's all about size and in their grill comparison.  Driving a very small car I get this all the time.  That crowd will, more often than not, pull right up on my rear bumper (when they don't with other cars).  Makes 'em feel big or something. The more after-market kit and chrome the truck has the more likely to engage in this compensatory behavior.  Frankly, they don't bother me, providing they don't actually make contact; I get the psychology at play here.  But all the other folks who pull up so close––that "why" intrigues me.

Second: the number of drivers who drive in fog with no lights on––what's up with that?

Oh, and in case you were wondering, a lot of people still smoke.  In a convertible you can really tell, and it is a rare outing when I don't have someone in front of me smoking.  Very rare.  Not this morning, though - just crisp clean morning air!

My iPod's mood this morning:

• The Bad Plus: Silence is the Question
• John Barry: Body Heat
• Charlie Haden & Hank Jones: Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen
• Wilco: Side with the Seeds
• John Denver: This Old Guitar
• Yusuf Islam (FKA: Cat Stevens): I Think I See the Light

That last one was especially true, as I came through the last of the fog and into the bright blue skies of what promises to be a very nice day here in our mild PNW town.

iMood Tuesday Aug. 10

Rain again this morning, at least on the drive in.  Top firmly up (window part way open - gotta have my nose in the air if at all possible!), wipers slapping away the accumulated mist-cum-rain.

Traffic this morning was obtuse.  Everywhere I went someone(s) were asleep at the wheel, out for their Sunday drive several days too soon (or two days too late), and I think I ended up stopped behind every possible light on my route.  More, actually, since 200th was blocked off by emergency vehicles midway down the block with no advance warning (and no detour indicated) - so I wandered several very residential blocks out of my way to find the next closest path to highway 99, along with a couple of particularly obtuse drivers.

Still, all of this meant more playlist time this morning, so what did my iPod make of this extra time and my frustration level?

Bobby Previte: Airstrip One
Foreigner: Tramontane
Michel Camillo: Oye Como Va
Leonard Cohen: So Long, Marianne (Live)
Kenny Werner: Hey Reggie
Jim Ed Brown: The Three Bells (Les Trois Cloches)
Pixies: Debaser

I suspect that is one mix of tunes that no radio station in its right mind would attempt to play back to back.  Just about right with a morning that's starting out a wee bit out of sorts.  As I listen now from my office, Madeleine Peyroux sings a solution to the out of sorts morning: Damn the Circumstances.

For the record: yesterday I had the iPod set to a single album on my way in to the college (The Fray: The Fray).  Back to random on the way home and I think I intentionally skipped over more than I listened to.  At one point, having skipped over about five really awful tunes, I started to wonder where all this piteous music had come from.  Just goes to show that even an intentionally built music collection has some stuff in it that isn't the bees knees.

iMood Friday Aug. 6

A non-declarative morning today, with high sky covering that could be clouds (it's going to rain) or mist (it will burn off and shine) or (more likely) something in between.  How we are to determine what our perspective on the day is to be when the sky hasn't made up its mind is beyond me.

Stopped for gas on my way in and then, in a fit of "its an undermined Friday" swung through the local Starbucks drive through and bought an iced late.  Made the way I like it, it's 180 calories.  Ask me why I know.  OK, don't.

I also cheated on my music this morning.  The fourth tune this morning was Wilco's Impossible Germany, which simply had to be repeated.  So I repeated it, just to listen to all that wonderful guitar work.

Wireless in the office isn't working this morning so this will no doubt be posted a bit later than usual.  Still, if that's as challenging as the morning gets, I have nothing to complain about. [Now restored, now posted.]

• Peter Doherty: Salome
• Louis Armstrong: I Still Get Jealous
• Fountains of Wayne: Bought for a Song
• Wilco: Impossible Germany (twice!)

iMood Thursday Aug. 5

Rain!  At first, just barely there and I actually started my drive in with the top down (I could see the sun, and 20 tiny drops per mile wasn't going to wet me) but then it got wetter and I tossed the lid over by shoulder and back up.  Good thing, because by half way in it was coming down surprisingly hard.  It was all over by the time I got to the college, though, and the sun is once again out and ready to lend us another beautiful day.

What with the rain dance, I forgot to even turn my music on until about half way in, so a very short song list today.  And, the iPod was in a particular mood today: Alternative folk/country or music my mother would be just fine with.

• James Taylor & Carole King: Sweet Baby James
• Nanci Griffith: Beacon Street
• Bon Jovi: One Step Closer
• Il Divo: Ti Ameró

iMood Wednesday Aug. 4

This morning was again just a tad hazy, but otherwise clear enough to see the far hills, if not the Olympics on my way west toward the college.  About half way in an egret flew directly above me, very purposeful looking in its spear-like flying position.

Nothing purposeful about this morning's mix of tunes, ranging from silly to sacred.  It was nice to hear a bit of Blue Merle, a group that only put out one album together before moving on to separate musical projects.  I wish they had done more.  Haden/Jones is just plain simple and classy.

• Blue Merle: Either Way It Goes
• Spamalot: Knights of the Round Table
• Christine Lavin: 85 Degrees
• Charlie Haden & Hank Jones: We Shall Overcome
• Train: My Private Nation

iMood Tuesday, Aug. 3

Another softly beautiful morning, with light high fog barely hiding a blue sky.  Thermo-thingy says it's roughly 55° F heading to a possible high of 75, which is very pleasant for the beginning of August.

The iPod, this morning, had contrary ideas about where we were in August, since it kicked off with August Ending, a tight piece of jazz trio work.  After that the iPod bounced around musical styles like a spinning radio knob, ranging from Don McLean to Nada Surf.  I confess I skipped over most of Spits. It was a little too thumpy for a morning drive through quiet residential streets, though it's a great album (Tobacco Road by Common Market).

Camera Obscura (http://www.camera-obscura.net/), if you are not familiar, is another one of those gems worth looking up.  A Glasgow group that has a unique high energy sound.  Always a good thing when one of their tunes pops up on the morning list.

• Brad Mehldau Trio: August Ending
• Camera Obscura: If Looks Could Kill
• Common Market: Spits
• Don McLean: And I Love You So
• Nada Surf: Comes a Time

iMood Monday Aug. 2nd

It's Monday, though it doesn't really feel like Monday.  Probably because I spent most of Saturday and Sunday in the office this weekend, so this is something like a Wednesday. And a foggy one at that.  I refer to the weather, not my state of mind.  The fog was dense at about roof-top height, so at street level it was reasonably clear with a block or two visibility. That being the case, the top stayed down and I enjoyed the swirly cool of the morning.

Music: another strange mix today.  I don't see much of a common thread in this random concatenation of songs. There is, maybe, a faint trace of time passage in these tunes, but that takes a bit of reading into the lyrics.  More effort than a Monday dressed up as Wednesday is worth.

• Wilco: Handshake Drugs
• Logh: A New Hope
• Pat Metheny: Time Goes On
• Karrin Allyson: Plasir D' Amour
• Pink Floyd: Another Brick in the Wall (Part 1)

iMood Sunday Aug. 1st

It's Sunday morning, but I'm still heading into the office nice and early again today.  That will make it a full weekend spent in the office, but there is work that has to get done and sometimes it just has to flow this way.  With luck it won't be another full day.

That said, was there anything in this morning's random music selection that can be read like tea leaves or a mood ring?  Not that I can see, to be honest.  An odd combination of tunes, and a short list (the last tune runs over 8 minutes, and Sunday morning traffic between house and college was almost nil).  The first one swings, but the other three are melancholy.  Maybe that's the connection: it's hard to swing when you know you're entire weekend is one long work day?

• Pearl Django: Stompin' at the Savoy
• The Beatles: For No One
• John Mayer: Vultures
• Sigur Rós: Ny Batteri

Still, though overcast this morning it isn't raining or chilly, so it was a quiet top-down drive in.  The music was down low so the bird song was clearly audible over the music, and the crisp morning air and crisp morning smells were abundant.  Can't complain about any of that!