We're on Page Three! and the Swing; and My Site

Yesterday, our building had an open house, having invited various "big-wigs" and MainStream Media types. Now, the Rock Island paper is weirdly expensive to read online, but I offer you, reader, this link to my downloaded copy of the story. My favorite quote?

State Rep. Pat Verschoore (D-Milan), also marveled at the transformation the building has made
from just three years ago.
"It's amazing what they're doing with older buildings, rather than tearing them down," he said."It's very nice."

Now that link may or may not have tipped you off to the fact that I finally have a page on the Augustana server. It's linked over on the right, but in case you want to write it down, the address is www.augustana.edu/users/pldominick. Now if only I can persuade the department chair to update their site . . .

Not much else to tell here; lots of orientation workshopping and such--today was like the 5th day; only two left!

We did, however, get some free tickets to a baseball game (actually, recent rains made it a double-header). The Swing of the Quad City (their name, not mine) played the Kane County Cougars (yes, that is where St Charles is--talk about drama! and the games decided 1st place in the league). The Swing swept the night, and the ballpark is just beautiful: right on the Mississippi--you can see across to Rock Island, though our building, alas, is obscured by a casino; life on the big river, I guess.


Mimi in the outfield


View from the cheap seats.


This pitcher, Chris Perez, whoever he is, sure could throw. See next photo.


That "94" there? Pitch speed. . . .


In the outfield.


Here's the view from the bridge (2nd game was a bit of a blow-out (Swing up by 7 in the 1st), so we left early to get this shot, and watch the fireworks (unpictured) from above). It's very nice.

No Kidding

We honestly saw this guy in Moline the other day.
Yes, that's a pipe and a cell phone, as he drives his motorcycle . . .

In other news, as my mom mentioned, Sandy Takes a Break did get a good review from the Reader--it's even marked as "Highly Recommended"! Huzzah!


As you can see, the bloom on the lily is coming along nicely.


Finally--and I hope she doesn't mind the publicity, cheers for Haley Harrison, who recently accepted a position at 6 News Lawrence.

It was All So Worth It

Waiting for Waits

He started late, but we didn't mind the . . . oh forget it.
Anyway, Tom Waits was just incredible live. Great stories (like the one about the silverware-throwing 11 year-old pimps in Minneapolis in the 70's ("I know it sounds like I'm making this up, but I'm not")); great backing band; great sampling of songs from throughout his 30+ year carreer (setlist); great piano playing; great big magnifying glass over his face for Eyeball Kid (get it?); great (?) dance moves; and two encores--maybe the show's peak (and, therefore: great timing).
Awesome.


view from our seats; not great, but close enough to pick up some dance moves (ask me when next we meet reader, I dare you)

Then it was back to the suburbs to make sangria, eat, and hang with

Brax

Friday we went to the city (only took an hour to find a parking spot!) and had dinner with Chris and Carrie. A+.

That night, we caught Chris in Sandy Takes a Break. I had heard about the show, but hadn't seen it before. I would definitely say that it was excellent, and met or exceeded my expectations. Chris was great--particularly good were his Sandy the newscaster (à la Dan Rather) character and the 'creepy dad' (Mr Cooper, as I recall; see video below) character. Ben, Chris' parter, was quite good as the guy heckling Chris' lawyer in one sketch, and especially as the marine giving 'notes' to his troops (rought paraphrase: "some of you are thinking 'we had another Fallujah today'; we did not have another Fallujah today! . . . did you see how well we were working together out there? You guys really looked like you were enjoying yourselves. And why? Because we were making eye contact").

Chris was also funny as the love-lorn Keisuke (any resemblance accidental) and as one of the dads in the Video Project skits ("I'm not Hitler; I just want to make sure there's enough Shake 'N Bake for everyone at the table"). My favorite, though, would have to be Mr Cooper, who asked his daughter's boyfriend if he still kept in touch with his ex-girlfriend's dad, and if he'd sing Happy Birthday on the car ride home. . . . Splendid stuff. Here's hoping the Reader gives it the rave review it deserves.

Sandy on the marquee at the Apollo Theater Chicago

Here's a short bit of the Mr Cooper scene from Sandy Takes a Break (hard to film much when you're laughing):

Good stuff.

One last thing: back in Rock Island, the peace lily we took home from the funeral of Emily's grandmother, Norma Campbell, is blooming for the first time in five years, so that's pretty cool.

Lily

Not Much New Here; and Holy F**k!

This was Sunday; as of tonight, all the books are, more or less, in place.


As you can see, it was some work to get everything stowed in the new place, but we're loving it. And it helps that neither of us has a job right now. . . .

I did get my book order in, and my syllabus is almost done. Eagerly awaiting 5 September, the first day of classes. Should be a lot of fun. Hopefully by then Emily will be happily working her afternoons away at the Augustana Special Collection/Archive. Here's hoping.

Wednesday, we make the drive to Chicago. Why, you ask? We got tickets to see Tom Waits! Holy F**k! As you can see from the Wikipedia link, he's only toured 11 times since 1973. Holy F**k! Should be great.

Then, on Friday, we're planning to see the fabulous Chris Lee in Sandy Takes a Break. Should be great.

I'll end by inviting you (or those of you who know Stephen Colbert's show enough to get this) to enjoy this photo-shop-ie thing Deron sent:

welcome home

We're in Rock Island. Here's a pic of our building, the Voss Brothers Lofts.


A house-warming plant and . . . a bunch of stuff.

Will update more soon, once we have our own internet (cheers to Rock Island for their free downtown Wi-Fi).