what the world needs now is a new frank sinatra, so i can get you in bed

one of the benefits of working the the education field is the built in vacation that comes during the christmas-new year holiday time. with the exception of a cold that hit right around christmas day and lingered for a few days (hitting jp much worse than me), it's been a fine week+ off from work. jp and i took a short trip to tahoe for a couple of days. it was not only my first time up there, but once we hit the cross-country ski trail it was my first time on skis ever. a bit of falling down, well, lots of falling down....but that was ok. once i got the hang of it, i had a great time. next time i'll try downhill.

the rest of the week has been pretty darned slothful. a bit of work, lots of movie and "the office" (bbc version, series 2, via netflix) watching. idle hands may be the devil's plaything, but idleness is a good tonic for getting over a cold.

last night we went to see camper van beethoven & cracker at the independent. i haven't seen camper in god knows how many years. jp works with a guy who plays in both bands, so not only did we get comped tickets, but access to an upstairs area where we didn't have to get jostled and could actually see the stage clearly. camper were as good as i remember from way back...equal parts of a variety of musical styles that work in a surprising but cool way .cracker seems to have morphed from the more alt-country/blues of their origins to a sort of harder-edged, bluesier and more jam-band type of camper that seem to be as much a showcase for johnny hickman's guitar as for david lowery's songs. their set was shorter than the cvb set, not just in overall length, but in number of songs. and some of the songs went on for, well, a long time. and jp has to ask her colleague what was up with the computer that lowery kept checking on during both sets. was he im-ing friends during the set?

tonight it's off to a party to ring in 2007. here's to a great year.