Merry Christmas!

Mine is! I hope yours is too!

Our first Christmas tree!

A boy sleeps in Brooklyn

It's been a week, and I'm back on a plane, returning home after a trip to NYC. Lovely, but also exhausting. Rather than a narrative description of what I did (which would take a long long time), here are some metrics:

Shows seen: 3 (In the Footprint, Fuerza Bruta, Three Pianos)

Friends seen: 36 (Matty, Darron, Cat, Futter, Hillary, Magic, Dan, Deborah, Will, Pam, Ko, Marc, Zan, Adam, Patrick, Mandy, Sean, Liz, David, Brian, Nastran, Jessi, Alex, Andrew, Sharath, James, Vicky, Ben, Bree, Veronika, Brad, Dr. Thunder, Sandra, Mike, Renee, Karen +)

New friends made: 4 (Jean, Lindsay, Chris, Rachel)

Semi-interviews conducted: 1

Manhattans consumed: 4

Martinis consumed: 0

Days the temperature creeped above freezing: 3

Minutes of field recording conducted: 75

Slices of NY pizza consumed: 1

I skied this last year. Will do it again. Oh yes, will do it again.

Another cross-country flight

Classes are over.

Final projects are graded.

It should be time to settle into some holiday cheer with friends and family. I got the friends part down (holiday party at the U on Monday, dinner/drinks/show in LA on Tuesday, more drinks with folks on Wednesday), but the family part is still escaping me. S was supposed to return home from her movie on 18 December, but it now sounds like that return date is going to be a few days later. We are quite disappointed.

Right now, I'm in a flying tin can, throttling through the atmosphere from the city of angels to the big apple. I've got a loose agenda while I'm there, mostly social calls, some work meetings, some shows, and a good bit of field recording. My friend Connie is out of town for a show, and she's graciously allowed me to stay at her place while she's gone. I'm looking forward to some serious exploration!

The baby sitting behind me is all sorts of crying.

Last weekend, my capoeira academy had their first batizado. Batizado means 'baptism,' and it's a time where our academy hosts other academies for a few days of classes, training, and playing. At the end of the batizado, we had a cord ceremony, where academy students receive colored cords to signify their advancement in the training. This was my first cord ceremony, so I received a green cord (the color significance is different from karate- green is the lowest rank of cord- beginners wear no cord at all). After receiving my cord, the mestres and professors decided on a nickname for me: 'coruja,' which is portugese for 'owl.' I think its a comment on how wide I open my eyes when playing, but one of my professors thinks that it's uncanny that the other mestres gave the college professor the nickname of the wise owl.

I'm not bringing the SLR camera on this trip, but I am bringing the flip camera. Maybe I'll post some video!