Mike D, MCA, Ad-Rock

so I went and saw the special screening of Awesome; I fuckin' shot that! which is the Beastie Boys concert as taped by 50 people in the audience at the New York City concert of the "To the 5 Boroughs" tour. I actually went and saw this show in Atlanta in October 2004 and it was GREAT of course. It was cool to see the same show on a film that I went to and actually remember some of the details. We had floor general tickets and I went with Jason and Dave Brown.

That was my third Beastie Boys show; I had also seen them at the Omni Arena in Atlanta in 1995 the week I finished law school (with Chris X, D. Brown, etc.). Carver and I were too unable to leave our seats when everybody else went to go and mosh. I also went to see them in Atlanta at the outdoor venue with Jason and Dave Brown and Dave Brown's brother and that was the infamous "Take off your skirt, Sally! Do you want me to hold your purse!?" moment when Dave yelled that at his brother who was feeling a bit queasy as we were drinking in the parking lot. I also remember being at Waffle House and D. Brown put all the jukebox songs on various Waffle House theme songs. Good times.

2160 miles of walking

as Sherrel says, "didn't anybody tell John that he could just DRIVE?"

Jill and John are on their way to Maine, leaving this past weekend. I will have intermittent dog-sitting responsibilities and perhaps the chance to join them in the Massachusetts stretch near my parents, this summer. I've added the links to their journals to the links on the right. Check 'em out.

the nation's capital

I have been in Washington, DC since Saturday for the NASPA conference. I did two presentations, a regional board meeting, a advisory board meeting, and of course attended sessions. Our Fo Shizzle presentation had about 200 people in it and I think we might have gotten a few more consulting gigs. I got to see many of the usual suspects: Frank, Judy, Ronni, Will, Carrie, Rey, Gin, Karla. But most fun was getting to see some old friends from the Knoxville days: Dennis Gregory, Carl Johnson (as always...ridiculous!), Dave the Rave, Heather Larabee, and Donut. I went to 5 receptions on Monday and 3 on Tuesday. Yikes.

Today I played DC girl and toured around town. Highlights included seeing the panda baby and mom and cheetas at the zoo; meeting Cliff Stearns; getting into the Capitol to meet Mark Stuart without any sort of pass (hooray for me); meeting Gainesville's lobbyist; running into Frank in Urban Outfitters in Georgetown and then hanging out with him for a few hours; and tonight I am having dinner with a former student in Chinatown. I ran into a UF student and her mom at Senator Nelson's office and chatted with them for a while.

The best dinner so far was at B. Smith's in Union Station, where I had the fried chicken and crabcake. Yum. Hopefully tonight will be as good, if not better. I have eaten a lot of OK meals but nothing GREAT. Yet.