Other things I did over the weekend

My brother Tom is picking me up at the train station in his town in less than half an hour. I'm bringing his wife Lori half a triple-decker sandwich from 2nd Avenue Deli on E. 33rd St in Manhattan. This sandwich was huge! I had to leave half of it, and that's really saying something because I rarely ever leave food on a plate!

Walking down the street from the Chelsea penthouse where I'm staying, I passed Madison Square Garden and stopped inside the Empire State Building to use a Bank of America ATM.

Last night, four of my friends and I took in a hilarious improv act at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater, three blocks from the penthouse. That was a load of fun. Then again, in a city like this, most everything is a load of fun!

Oh, before we went to the comedy show, we started watching my Third Eye DVD of Led Zeppelin's reunion concert from Dec. 10, 2007. The audio source on that recording, produced from a DAT recorder in the audience, is really nice but not quite as good as some other sources I've heard. Still, it is adequate in the bass department and sounded good being pumped through a meager pair of computer speakers. That was good since the guy most interested in watching the show, after me of course, was a bass player (a member of the Building Science Boogie Band I play with every August in Massachusetts), and he was impressed with the show (and also with the sheer fact that I had it so soon after the concert). But until an official DVD is released of the concert, I don't think you can get better footage of the show than what is on this Third Eye disc. We darkened the room to view the performance projected directly on the wall. It couldn't have been much cooler! Everybody was duly impressed with the performances of these guys aged 59 to 63 plus that of their 40-year-old counterpart. After the opening three-part assault of "Good Times Bad Times," "Ramble On" and "Black Dog," one of my friends commented, "Seems like they've still got it!"

I'm gonna miss NYC. It's a shame I have to head back to DC to get back to work tomorrow, but it was a great diversion to come up to NYC for a fine three-day weekend. Plus, since Monday is a federal holiday when I go back to work, it should prove to be a pretty quiet day. I did hear there would be 30-minute delays on the Red Line due to construction work between Metro Center and Gallery Place. Maybe they're finally putting in that underground pedestrian walkway they've been talking about for years!

Well, now that half hour has turned into a few minutes. I'm gonna be getting off the train in just a couple to go visit my brother's family.

Oddly enough, my phone just vibrated for the first time in about three weeks! It had stopped ringing and vibrating sometime in December or January. Strange that it chose my brother's phone call just now to work again for the first time.