Goodness, goodness, goodness. Started the afternoon by finding out the kind folks at Lifewise are going to cut our (individual, God help us) insurance costs in >1/2 (for the same coverage). Then met Tom at the Guitar Emporium to try out some Larrivèe guitars--man, that rosewood sounds sweet. So in the spirit of celebration, went to see Supersize Me and get properly horrified, then came home actually inspired to work on the homework, then went to the Yoga Tree for one big blast of Restorative Yoga for Geezers. Jennifer Walker is a goddess!!

Listening: The Rough Guide to Franco; Sonny Red, Red Blue and Green; Albert Ayler, The Bells; Earl Hines, Tour de Force Encore; Miles Davis Quintet, Live at the Plugged Nickel

Happy day in the lab today. This quarter lab times have either left me overjoyed of (more often) completely drained. Scott did a lot of the work (especially the coding work) for this one, but we both walked through everything and figured out what was going on, and when we finally got the first part of our experiment working (we were actually writing an assembly-language program to sample a waveform and capture data points) and were looking at a pretty good replica of the wave, our prof was so stoked! He's such a sweetie, all the nicer for the gruff, avuncular act he puts on.

Mark goes to the bar...I mean, movies: Eat the Document (dir. Bob Dylan, Howarad Alk) As a documentary, this one is for folks who thought Don't Look Back was slick and overproduced--compared to this movie, Don't Look Back looks like Woodstock. And the version I saw (at the Sunset Tavern's wonderful Monday-night rock movie series)started with 10 uncut minutes of Dylan mumbling and looking blitzed while driving around with John Lennon . (It's cut to about a minute in the movie.) So this is for two types of fans: people who love raw cinéma vérité and people who love Bob Dylan. For the latter, you get terrific concert sequences of Dylan with the Band (né Hawks) playing like Blonde on Blonde turned up to 12. (I just wish someone had dubbed in their live album instead of the godawful one-mike live sound!) As an added bonus, you get to hear some beautiful acoustic performances by Dylan and Robbie Robertson in some hotel room of a couple of songs I didn't recognize but would love to hear on one of the Bootleg Series albums. Mark's rating: **½

Mark goes to the movies: After the Life (Après la Vie) (dir. Lucas Belvaux) The third in Belvaux's Trilogy, and since I've only seen the first film (Cavale) besides this one, I can't really say how the whole hangs together. But this film about a policeman who steals drugs from his collars for his morphine-addicted wife is plenty wrenching in itself. It makes addiction seem cruelly matter-of-fact (the wife seems to function just fine, except for long naps, as long as she's supplied--but her life revolves around making sure the next fix arrives on schedule) and looks at the ways people make hard choices, good and bad, for those they love the most. Beautifully acted and beautifully shot (in Grenoble!), I think the film stands on its own just fine. Mark's rating: ****

Saddened to hear Elvin Jones passed away at 76. One of the great, great rhythm masters in one of the great, great quartets (and more) in jazz history.

Listening: i-The Magnetic Fields A clever, well-constructed, skillfully-arranged chamber-pop album. But unlike the Sixths' Wasps' Nest or their own 69 Love Songs, it didn't break my heart once. And though I like Stephen Merritt's basso profundo, I like it even better when he breaks it up a little and lets other singers take over the mike. Mark's rating: ***

What I won't do to procrastinate. Even restart this blog! Well, okay. So we celebrate the rearrival of light to our darkened part of the world. (I always love the first weekend in May for that reason.) And the fact that Dad's most recent mail alluded to Erma's going to the hospital to have the heart valve she had replaced a couple of years ago replaced again. And that I feel relaxed (for no good reason) over tomorrow's Embedded Systems final--like after that, the paper and labs are all I have to worry about, and they're day-to-day enough that I won't be stressing. So, 48 hours to first taste of summer freedom.

Last week resumed the big exercise push. Walked from home to the gym through Woodland Park, a few miles, the first uphill. Met a fellow in the park who was all set to kick off his weekend: had the burgers, the charcoal, the starter, the portable TV on which the Yankees were handing the Mariners yet another humiliating thrashing. But no incindiary devices! So I loaned him my lighter, jumped a little when he left the can of starter sitting on the grill as the flames rose. (He said not to worry, he was a marine engineer and worked with flammable stuff all the time, but his intention to "get intoxicated" left me wondering.) Then he shared with me his experience of women in the Kamchatka Islands, where he was stationed. "There's two things they like," he said: "Vodka and ice cream." I told him that was a milkshake I could get behind.

Walking, walking. Flowers everywhere. Irises and hawthorn trees particularly lovely. And poppies--can't forget the poppies.

Celebrated with Tom and Joanie and Keely yesterday evening. On the way out to Monroe we ran into our street-mystic buddy Dash up at Marketime. He always launches into long, long discourses on Dzogchen (and its relationship to traditional Tibetan Bon), and we always have a hard time disengaging. But he's so sweet about it, madman or no. We gave Keely an early birthday present I've been waiting to give her ever since I learned she shared my love of Gerbera daisies: an actual Gerbera-daisy plant! (She's a Gemini, and I reminded her of how I should have recognized the signs: the mile-a-minute stories she used to tell, just barely pausing to take deep breaths between sentences.) We managed to keep resistance to the white-chocolate-chip-Macademia-nut cookies Joanie whipped up within reasonable levels, then downed some champagne and watched the remake of Willard (you remember, the other great rat movie of the '70s after Ben)starring Christian Glover in one of his fit-like-a-suit roles. He definitely reminds me of some great silent-movie star--would have been right at home in Nosferatu. Now ain't this just the best? To be 47 years old and still spending my spare time doing such silly stuff?