Random Thoughts

Wow, I'm real bad at updating this thing. But I have an excuse, I'm in graduate school and it's for...you guessed it... writing. As you can see, my blog is at the ass end of my things to do for the day. I figure that if I keep this thing going at least once a week I'm doing alright.

I just want to say that I really do enjoy the area I'm living in right now. It may not last a long time (I'm thinking 6 months at this point, tops), but it has its advantages. Granted, I have to commute 90 minutes one way to school twice a week and that has been wearing on my bank account no thanks to gasoline price gouging, but yesterday made it worthwhile.

All day long yesterday, I had been on the phone interviewing various subjects about a topic I'm working on. At 1:30 I was finished the interviews, but I still has an amazing amount of stuff to read for another class. On a lark, I packed the readings into my backpack and did a quick 2.6 mile hike up to Tuckerman Ravine, a large glacial cirq that is carved into the side of Mount Washington, the northeast's highest peak. I sat for two hours amongst the towering cliffs in the warm sun, just finishing up the 100 pages or so of required reading that was so cruely assigned to me. When the sun fell behind the headwall and the temperature dropped (it drops very quickly up at 4,000 feet), I hustled my way down the mountain and back to my car. It was my favorite experience I've had doing "homework."

And in a totally unrelated subject, last night was the final night of Martin Scorcese's Bob Dylan documentary "No Direction Home." It is one of the finer "rockumentaries" out there and provides unique insight into Dylan's psyche through recent interviews and footage of the era. The documentary ends right before Dylan's motorcycle accident in 1966 and does a great job covering the period up until that point. I'm hoping that they do a "sequel" and cover some of his late 60s and 70s period. I'd like to see his thoughts on such classics as "New Morning," "Planet Waves," and "Blood on the Tracks." Film wise, Scorcese shows he can get deep into the heart of rock music. Just have a look at The Band's "Last Waltz." Although the film did put too much emphasis on Robbie Robertson, it did have some incredible concert footage.

And the Red Sox keep trudging along. My prediction is that the deciding factor of who makes the playoff will happen on this Sunday, when the Sox play the Yanks at Fenway. I am holding out hope that the Sox will remain victorius, but in the immortal words of every Star Wars character ever, "I've gotta baaaaaaaaaaaad feeling about this..."