undecided

Here are some random pictures I’ve taken around the city with my camera phone:

This weekend I continued my summer tour living the life of a full-time grad student / wannabe professional triathlete. Pratap, Ryan and I flew out to California for Wildflower. We spent a few days cruising around the bay area,

then headed out to what seemed like the middle of nowhere for the race. The whole weekend was so beautiful - the weather, the course, the scenery, the atmosphere. Even our bikes seemed to be happier in the warm CA sun.

When we got to the campsite, we tried to hurry and get the tent set up and a fire going before dark, but our novice skills showed right through our camping bravado. Our total lack of preparation and experience seemed to

provide our interim neighbors with a great deal of amusement. We finished setting up just before sunset only to realize that we didn’t have a functional flashlight or a reasonable way to strain the pasta we brought for dinner, but we had a great time and made do. We woke up to a 40 degree morning (we didn’t have warm enough clothes either), but after we ate breakfast in our sleeping bags and the sun came up, it was time to race.

The race was hard, maybe the most difficult course I’ve ever done, but I felt like I raced well. There was a strong head wind during the swim, the bike was hilly (as advertised), and the (nearly all uphill) run was so hot that at each aid station I dumped a cup of water on my head and was dry again within a mile. During the run, a deer just off the running path gave me a look that seemed to say, “What the hell are you doing out here?” I can’t wait to go back next year.

Last weekend, the CU tri team (plus a new friend from Penn who raced for Colorado) packed up our all our gear and drove to Tuscaloosa, AL. The 17 hour drive (each way) had all the excitement you’d expect from a college road trip. The race went pretty well considering it was the first time I’ve run this year, but this was by far the most fun I’ve ever had at a race given the environment and the company.

Be careful not to look at the race photos below for too long. You may go blind from the reflection off my pale North-Eastern skin.

After the race, there was plenty of time to indulge in less athletic activities.

I’m off to Wildflower this weekend… more race stories to come.

Science News published an article entitled “The Machine’s Got Rhythm” that describes my research (with Dan Ellis) on music transcription. Click here to read it.

Melinda pointed out that the plastic container tofu comes in is a great place to make sauce and marinate the tofu. (Surprisingly, it all fits.) I wish I would have thought of this sooner!

Recently, I was telling marios about someone when he interrupted me after the first sentence to exclaim, “You’re really going to lead with that?!” Later on, I realized that I tend to describe people using their most discriminating feature (i.e. what makes them most different from everyone else… good or bad) rather than their most characteristic feature. I’m going to try to change that. While I suppose I won’t refer to as many people in the superlative, I suspect I’ll do a better job conveying the essence of the person I’m trying to describe.

Please let me know if you have a more effective way to describe someone.

A while ago now Elle took me to see Glen Phillips at Joe’s Pub - certainly one of my favorite places to see a show. It’s such an intimate space and the acoustics are great (except for the faint sound of the occasional subway rumble or police siren to remind you that you’re in the city).

Glen played a perfect mix of the new stuff and the old classics (Walk on the Ocean is one of my all-time favorite songs). He seems like a reluctant performer, but he has all the polish of 20+ years of stage experience - yeah, Toad the Wet Sprocket was a long time ago. He plays with a deliberate passion, is amenable to requests, and chats comfortably with the audience. It’s also easy to see how I could identify with the source of the music with all the banter on random number generators, psychology experiments, and relationships. At one point Glen even stopped the show for a few minutes to measure the feedback from talking on his cell phone with his friend who prank-called him from the crowd. Oh, and these days he looks a lot like our friend Douglas Fordham (pictured right).

When we left, I told Elle it was the best show I’d seen in a long time, but she didn’t seem as impressed initially. After a bit of discussion, we decided it was the best show either of us had seen since Matt Nathanson (who deserves his own post) played at the cutting room but that she hasn’t seen any other shows since then.

The streets are covered in nasty black ice, so I’ve been riding the hamster wheel (aka the bike trainer). It gets insanely boring on the trainer so I bribe myself to keep going with tv/movies and a buffet of snacks. It’s all like a very bad reward structure psychology experiment.

I went to see Alexi Murdoch at the Mercury Lounge the other night. There’s just absolutely something I love about seeing live music - a guy battling on stage armed with nothing but a guitar and a clever rhyme. It’s one of the greatest sources of creative inspiration for me. A good performance can give me that Saturday morning “I can take over the world” kind of feeling like nothing else. Alexi’s smooth, soulful style made braving the cold worthwhile, and the set-list-free set (”because it isn’t interesting when you know what’s going to happen”) reminded me that I need to go to more shows.

The banter quote of the night, “Contrast is the path to a long life.”

I got a new toy. Hopefully I’ll be fast enough to deserve it one day.

I got it at the most amazing store I’ve ever been to, SBR Multisports.