Warning: Training Free Zone (aka Weekend Recap)

"Ohhhh...I hear that old piano... from down the Avenue...
I smell the pine trees... I look around for you...
Oh my sweeeeeet, sweet, sweet old someone... coming through the door...
It's Saturday... and the band is playing...
Honey, could we ask for moreeee...

Hello everybody, on a Saturday night and 

welcome to a live broadcast of a Prairie Home Companion!"

 Garrison Keillor from A Prairie Home Companion
aka The Man on the Radio in the Red Shoes.

Yes, those are indeed the lyrics for Tishomingo Blues, the opening song from the radio variety-show A Prairie Home Companion on NPR. I was lucky enough to secure (6) tickets to go see PHC in Detroit, MI this past weekend with Elaine and our parents.We bought tickets back in November as a christmas gift but then proceeded to lose the tickets. That proved to be the start of a long drawn-out battle with ticketmaster with us eventually winning (albeit, only 15 minutes before the start of the show... sheesh).

The show took place at the Fox Theater in Detroit, MI

  

  

The Fox Theater is known for having one of the most amazing Wurlitzer organs in America. You can see organist John Lauter just off to the right in the corner there. 

The organ pipes are scattered throughout the theater.

The wholesome set of a PHC. You can almost see the blankets 

over the knees of the performers.

The concert was on Saturday night. It was pretty good, but nothing like the one I saw last summer at Wolf Trap here in DC. I would like to share my favorite line from the show, delivered, of course, by Garrison Keillor:

"God invented March so that people who don't drink know what a hangover feels like."

Friday wasn't quite as exciting. I ended up flying in early in the afternoon and proceeded to help Elaine write part of her dissertation. While those 5-6 hours weren't an ideal way to spend the early part of your Friday evening, I at least had myself a decent office.

 My workspace in one of the conference rooms at the University of Michigan 

School of Nuclear Engineering and Radiological Sciences.

My job consisted of editing, labeling and organizing hundreds of scanned images showing grain boundary failures of austenitic alloys from under an electron microscope. Nice, huh? The pictures look pretty cool though...

Pretty cool, huh?

This past weekend Elaine and I also annihilated our wedding registry, among other wedding-related tasks. Gone are the days when a couple registers at one or two places - we are registered at a WHOPPING 6... and maybe more. Thanks to the internet, and sites like theknot.com, picky bastards like us can choose exactly what we want from a plethora of sources. I've given it an honest effort, but it doesn't look like I'll be able to finagle nashbar.com or bestbuy.com into our registry plans. I did succeed with Home Depot though (yes!).

Friday night concluded with a trip our favorite Ann Arbor bar - Ashley's - where great beer was consumed by all.

Garrison Keillor and I last Fall at the Detroit Metro Airport. 

He was sitting there in the terminal devouring a strawberry 

Nutri-grain bar and reading Maxim. NICE.