Tressa and I saw Luke Doucet and the White Falcon play the second of back to back shows (November 3rd and 4th) at Amigos in Saskatoon. It was a fun evening.

The opening band was Sunparlour Players, whom I had not heard before. There opener number was folky and reminded me of mumford and sons or frightened rabbit and so I enjoyed it.

A banjo was played in an upcoming song, but except for a a cool usage of percussion - using a steel drum, chimes tied to the end of a guitar and hitting a keyboard stand, the next songs were mediocre to me. The last song the trio played, called dyin' today, used two drum kits and the lead singer playing a bass. Than half way through the song, they switch back to their regular guitar/bass/drum formation. The lead singer than put on a slide and played a very bluesy riff with desperate hell escaping lyrics. It was very entertaining.

The great guitarist and songwriter Luke Doucet than hit the stage and opened with the bluesy-desert-surf riff of Emily, Please. Some of the songs I can remember being played are "For Joy Division fans" The Ballad of Ian Curtis, Take You Home, Mitzi's, Long Haul Driver, It's not the liquor I miss which was sung with a local woman from Saskatoon, Cleveland, First Day (in the new hometown), The Day Rick Danko Died, You gotta get it, Sundown, Dirty Dirty Blonde, and the encore of the great song Blood's too rich.

Of these many songs, the best moments for me were You gotta get it and Ballad of Ian Curtis off of the new album, the harmonica on take you home, the fact that the very old song Mitzi's was played and the encore Blood's too rich.

I had seen Luke Doucet and White Falcon at Broadway theatre about a year and a half ago. It was a good show musically, but a Sunday night and you had to remain in your seats. So this show was much more energetic (despite less people) and funner to sit or stand as we felt. I appreciated the mix of older songs played and Mr. Doucet graciously posed for some pictures after the show.

Very good performance, will make me relisten to the new album. 8/10

A few New Year's ago I mentioned that I was interested in taking up meditation. I have not (I still would like to). However, for over six months now I have practiced yoga on and off.

As someone who has worked at a desk for the last five years and hunched over a computer too much in the last fifteen, I've had some back issues already.

I have found that weeks when I have been able to do yoga, it has helped my mobility greatly and reduced stiffness and pain. I have found to make sure NOT to stretch farther than I naturally can for a pose, or I will be sore and possibly worse.

I am glad that my girlfriend Tressa introduced me to yoga and recommend it for others with back issues that think it is just hype

hello, hello. tressa and i are back from holiday in the mayan riviera. we stayed at barcelo beach resort which was very nice. the weather was sunny and about 30 degrees celsius the entire trip which was great.

we went on day tours of xcaret, a catamaran, xplor, party hopper pub crawl, and shopping in playa del carmen. the wedding of tressa's friends angie and brad was very nice along the beach and had a mariachi band play during the surf n'turf supper.

xcaret is a huge ecopark. we snorkelled, saw exotic plants and animals, bought a giant corona bottle (like 2L) and saw a spectacular two hour show about the history and culture of mexico. xplor is an adventure park where we went on 8 of 15 ziplines (tressa had never ziplined before and overcame some jitters - so yay for her!). we also got to drive an amphibious vehicle through a jungle trail which went over suspension bridges and down into dark, water filled caves. it was cool!

for the most part we did not buy souvenirs this time around. tressa did find two nice dresses and a dress shirt for me. on one of the first nights we went with half of the wedding group on the 'party hopper' tour. this went to three bars including 'senor frogs' and 'coco bongo' and was a lot of fun.

unfortunately, sometime between 1:15am an 1:30am when our group exited early back to the resort i lost my camera. we had some great, goofy shots at xcaret and the party hopper that are lost forever. for the duration of the trip, we bought a couple disposable cameras and some souvenir photos. we will also get pictures from other people's cameras (there were about thirty people altogether for the wedding) in the upcoming days, so not all was lost.

the wedding was very nice. i am sure tressa will discuss it in great detail on her blog http://www.tressakirstein.blogspot.com/

food was great. we went to four a la cartes - mexican, spanish, french and japanese. ocean was warm (salty of course), pool was refreshing. it was a good trip, but not completely relaxing - we packed in so many activities, because tressa had never been to mexico and wanted to see as much as she could. this was fine by me for the most part as anyone who knows me can contest that i need some help getting up most mornings, even in a tropical place. one of the days we did go to the resort spa and get massages, so that was nice. oh..we also got sea sick on a catamaran ride later that day...

after a not so fun twelve hour travel day yesterday (for whatever reason we had to fly cancun-toronto and then toronto-saskatoon), i was back to work today.

tressa has found out that her education internship is in saskatoon with a friend of hers, so that is good news! her first final is tomorrow morning. we are getting the counters in the condo replaced tomorrow, so that is good as well. and then we are off to tusq restaurant and then the symphony in the evening with nick, kendra and vince.

i have two great things coming up which blend love, travel and music

tressa and i will have dated for one year next weekend. we met on st. patrick's day, but the first date was a little later. next weekend we happen to be in regina and will visit some places that we enjoy and have a night on the town.

next, we are going to mayan riviera, mexico from march 31st to april 8th! i was there last year and am returning to be part of tressa's friend angie's wedding. i really enjoyed the trip last year but have tours that i did not get a chance to experience (was not enough time). the rio secreto, or secret river, tour lets you put on wetsuits and head lanterns and go in an underground cenote system with narrow tunnels. exciting!

as well we will visit xcaret which is a giant nature eco park - partly natural, partly manmade - that might take the entire day :) - animals, plants, snorkeling

i am excited to be going with tressa and for the buffets...ha. so much good food.

finally, david gray is coming to saskatoon, and i am a fan. i have got tressa to like him too, and we have 3rd row seats in a small-medium sized ("comfy") venue on may 18th

So what is new with me?
Well, a lot! In chronological order:

I watched some very good World Junior hockey games including both semifinals. The second semifinal between USA and Sweden was very, very good. Extremely fast and skilled players. Thought Sweden should of won that contest.

Got sick (ok I guess this part was not 'good fortune'). Had strep throat for almost two weeks, missed some work and had a low key New Years.

Tressa's luck turned around! She has had a lot of good fortune in 2010 including health, accolades and financial events. She is my lil' panda and I am very happy to still be with her.

I finished doing a technical review for the first round of editing of the upcoming book PHP: The Good Parts. It turned out to be more time consuming then I thought it would be, but was an honour. For my effort, I get some free books of my choice from O'Reilly and my name in the book, so that is very cool.

tressa is a good cook. she gave me two good reasons to learn how.

1. her meals tasted much better than mine - so I thought "I should cook too, then meals would always be good"
2. it is somewhat embarrassing to not be able to cook (and now I feel better since I can cook half a dozen good meals)

here is a sample meal by tressa - beef kebobs with a baked potato and caesar salad. yummy!

there are additional benefits - financial, convenience (leftovers), health

Here is the succulent, which we named Sunni, that I bought Tressa. He's growing - about two inches now and was transplanted.

Yesterday I cooked shrimp pad thai from scratch for Tressa. And it actually turned out quite well! This was encouraging for very future attempts. It was spicy to me (but tolerable) and a good spice level for Tressa (who has a higher tolerance).

This Halloween was fun (I usually do not dress up as Halloween and I have a long, troubled past). Tressa and I dressed up as garden gnomes. We paraded around town - to my work on Friday the 30th, and to local businesses, including Walmart, Future Shop and Chili's restaurant. We enjoyed being oddballs ; )

tressa gettin cuter each day ; )

update: upon hearing this tress says, and i quote:

'that's what i do!
i grow on you like mold.
and then you like "don't leave me mold"'