brainsplotch

I saw two concerts in two days, which is a first for me. There was Sloan at Saint Andrew's Hall (Detroit) on June 22 and Yo La Tengo at Bell's Brewery on June 23. It was a live music marathon that truly tested my middle-aged stamina. As I may have mentioned in here already, my Sloan fandom was a slow burn until fairly recently, when I finally made the deep dive and wondered what the hell took me so long. I'd considered seeing Sloan on a few of their previous tours, but for whatever reason it never seemed to happen. This time, however, I was determined that I'd see them, and wanted to see them more than ever before. I've seen more concerts at venerable old Saint Andrew's Hall than any other venue, yet every time I drive down there, it always seems to be more of an "adventure" than it should be. After some glitchy Google maps navigation, and a few wrong turns, we pulled into our pre-paid parking garage a block over from Saint Andrew's. L. and I then ...

I/we spent a week in San Diego/southern California. It was my very first time in California, and I enjoyed it. As I may have written in her before, the most stressful aspects of airplane travel for me are driving to the airport (particularly if it's Detroit Metro Airport), printing out baggage tags, making sure my boarding pass appears on my phone and my phone is properly charged, and--the icing on the cake--making it through TSA. Now, as a pretty basic middle-aged white dude, I have never had any problems, and for that I am thankful (as well as feeling bad for folks out there who find themselves unfairly profiled by TSA). Still, I find the process stressful. One of life's most exhilarating feelings is the moment I grab my bags, shoes, and other accessories off the conveyor belt and am free to explore all the delights the airport has to offer. This usually only means the closest coffee shop (I am an unapologetic Starbucks fan and always hope to see that familiar green-and-white...