"We Got Married"

A year ago tomorrow, Michelle Branco and I got married.

So this weekend, we're heading out of town to celebrate. We're going down to Fredericksburg, where she'll get a massage and a facial (her anniversary present from me). We're also probably going to see a movie to kill time between the end of that and the beginning of the next part of her gift: a big dinner at one of her favorite restaurants with lots of our friends. Should be a blast.

We're also staying at the Kenmore Inn, which I've heard nothing but good things about. I also happened to snag the last room in the joint when I made the reservations earlier this week, so this was clearly meant to be.

~chuck

Song of the Moment: Spoon, "The Book I Write"

"And You Want To Sing Along"

Things of note:

1) I hyperextended my left knee on Friday playing kickball with the students at field day after our camping trip. It hurts like all get-out, and kneeling is currently almost as painful as listening to an Avril Lavigne song (zing!).

2) Speaking of painful musical experiences, who in the hell let Green Day cover a John Lennon song? And why oh why did it have to be "Working Class Hero?" That's a brilliant, understated song that they bludgeoned to death with their power-pop chords and heavy instrumental passage. Subtlety is dead and its killers stand before you, I guess.

3) New Wilco and new Rufus Wainwright out tomorrow. I'm sorely tempted to call in late to work so I can go pick them up, but I'll probably just run out after my class and snag them.

4) Final Portfolio (the follow-up to the dreaded Midpoint Portfolio that was the bane of my existence all last fall) starts tomorrow. It's taught by the same overbearing, drunk on her own minuscule power professor that taught it last time. Round two shall go to me, I swear it.

5) My wife still rocks more than anyone else in the world, and we've officially been married four months as of yesterday. That's a third of a year, and she still hasn't suddenly decided I'm too dorky to be married to. This is a good sign.

6) I'm currently doing a music unit in the Humanities class. It is totally awesome that I'm getting paid to make Mix CDs (for the students) and listen to/discuss music. This is why I love teaching.

7) The Elliott Smith compilation that came out last week, New Moon, is amazing. As good as anything he actually released on record, and that's really saying something. He's one of those guys whose leftovers are better than most bands' best efforts.

~chuck

Song of the Moment: Elliott Smith, "Either/Or"

"Turn Up Your Stereo"

So we're heading up to New York tomorrow. I'll admit that I'm a little nervous about meeting her family. Should be an interesting visit, though, and I've never had the opportunity to visit New York before.

Granted, we're gonna have to go through Jersey to get there, and I'm not sure I'm up for that.

I mean, c'mon, Jersey. It's where the big hair and acid-wash jeans of the '80s went to die.

Now to prepare a playlist for the iPod of songs relating to New York, 'cause I'm a huge geek.

~chuck

Song of the Moment: Bob Dylan, "Hard Times In New York Town"

"Music On The Radio"

So I suffered a serious iPod issue on Friday. Since I have more music in iTunes than will fit on my iPod, iTunes created a special playlist of my selections that it would update to the iPod (rather than, y'know, trying to cram all the songs on there when they won't fit). Friday morning, I accidentally deleted this playlist. Subsequent plugging in of the iPod resulted in everything on the iPod being deleted and the system refusing to update the iPod again 'cause that playlist was missing.

Then it started saying something about corrupted files, and I feared my iPod was dead.

However! I was able to restore factory settings on the iPod, which fixed whatever was causing all the difficulty. I've got the iPod and iTunes set up to only update selected items now, and I've got everything I wanted on there now. All is groovy.

Unfortunately, it also means I can't carry all of my music with me at once. This is...unfortunate.

In other news, Michelle managed to get the wireless network up and running finally, even making my printer available on our network. So that's groovy.

Speaking of my wife, we've been married a week. Go Team Cottrell!

~chuck

Song of the Moment: Tom Petty, "Casa Dega"