My land! (To quote my grandmother.) Has it been only less than two months since my last post? It seems like 6 months. I guess that's because there's been a bunch of stuff going on. Let me try to sum up for both of you who are still checking in...

It's lovely autumn in New England, which is well...lovely. I know I shouldn't complain, but I'm ready for snow. This is sadly inconvenient because we have a good three more months of this autumness before snow flies. Funny. I never thought I'd get sick of autumn but it lasts so darn long out here. Then again, winter is shorter than it was in Minneapolis which is a wonderful thing. I guess there's just no pleasing me...

Speaking of Minneapolis, I do have to plug Dan Wilson's new CD, "Free Life." I had a fabulous evening on Thursday night when I joined up with another old MPLS buddy and caught Dan's show at Joe's Pub in NYC. The room was about half full of MPLS expats, and the Minnesota-nice vibe was humming. Love was all around just like it used to be at Trip Shakespeare's shows back in the day. It was a much needed reminder of, well, who I am and where I'm from, I guess. For the first time in years, I was once again in an audience in a rock club with my friend, Mark, listening to Dan Wilson sing. Of course this time I was sitting on a velvet couch and eating goat cheese foccacia instead of standing on a sticky and crowded dance floor at First Avenue (which I consider a vast improvement,) but the regular players were the same. Dan even brought along John Munson just to add to the "Trip Shakespeare-lite and Semisonic-majority" cast.

But, back to the vanity/creative outlet/keeping me out of trouble project: My first "TWJ" You Tube extravaganza will be online by Halloween. Look for an announcement here, in your e-mail, and on any bulletin board I can find in the next few days. I'd like to say it will be up by the end of today, but as yesterday taught me, sometimes the day doesn't go the way you planned.

Speaking of yesterday (gotta love these segues!) I've been climbing a lot recently and yesterday I did my first 5.9-, which means (for those of you who don't know,) that I've officially reached the advanced intermediate stage, which is great because I was getting sick of being in the intermediate intermediate stage. However, my back and shoulders are killing me today. No pain, no gain, I guess, and the pain only informs me that I'm just one step closer to lookin' as bitchin' as Angie Jolie did in Tomb Raider.

Ciao fo niao...