Blog from the 'burbs

Having spent the past weekend filming, feeding, watching and celebrating with the RMHS Poms and other RM Pom parents, I feel like I've earned a few pom mom bragging rights. I'm so proud of them! Congratulations to Sarah, Ally, Nava, Tiffany and the other 8 Poms for building up such a sharp, competitive squad, for placing well in all your competitions and looking good at RM football and basketball games too (and pep rallies). A huge thank you to Kathleen and Theresa especially, and to Shelby and Chloe and Jordan, for coming back and helping with practice and competitions. Here are some video clips from the past couple weeks. Looking forward to County's this coming Saturday. Go Rockets!

Update 2/12/08: Rockets placed 3rd (great job!) and Sarah took 2nd at counties, and the well-trained RM Bom Squad placed a definitive 1st at RM.

This morning about a million birds decided to grace the old maple tree in our front yard, something that always makes me happy to see and hear, and which I encourage by trying to keep the nearby birdbath full when the temperature is above freezing. Almost immediately after I filled it this morning (with the claw-tingling mixture of ice chunks and freezing water that came out of the hose), everyone in the tree descended into it. Mostly they were robins, as you can see (picture taken through the window so as not to disturb them). Some days they are joined by sparrows, catbirds, mourning doves, or an occasional woodpecker or finch, but the robins are pretty feisty about keeping the party a robins-only affair. Their interactions are always fun to watch; today is the first day I've successfully caught this particular one on camera (closeup):

Update 2/18/08: Ok, now I am forced to admit how dumb it was to keep the birdbath outside over the winter. My friend Diane, who has been known to go out and wrap every delicate thing in the yard when frost is forecast, warned me that this was not a good idea, but out of inertia and love of seeing birds in it, I left it out anyway. But after taking the picture above yesterday, I watched the water drain away (the poor robins kept coming back and trying to drink the dregs anyway) and realized there is a big crack in the basin. The birdbath is made of some kind of plastic resin and I'm trying to figure out what to plug the crack with that won't hurt the birds. Caulk has all sorts of gross stuff (phthalate esters, ethylene glycol, etc that are, according to the package "known by the State of California to cause cancer and birth defects"), so that seems like a bad solution, even though I live in Maryland which apparently remains blissfully unaware of these dangers. If anyone has ideas, I'd appreciate hearing them. I'm about to go chew up a pack of gum and stuff that in the cracks for lack of a better idea. Hope they like wintergreen.

Most Friday afternoons I meet with a client in Town Square at one of the locales featuring free wireless, including Cosi, the Rockville Library, and First Watch, among others. Last Friday we met at Austin Grill for a change and were impressed with the helpful staff, who pointed out the best table for reception from Ricochet, the City's free wireless service in Town Square, didn't mind that we were just snacking, and kept us supplied with beer and chips. So, nerd that I am, I have to report that the wireless connection there is one of the best in Rockville -- strong signal and fast upload and download speeds (we drag a lot of files around during these meetings so that's important).

On a less nerdy note, I returned in the evening with P to hear one of two musicians who I've listened to a lot online but never seen live: Nelly's Echo (or rather, Nelson and his band, Nelly's Echo). And of course I brought my videocamera just in case it was ok to tape. One of the good things about Austin Grill is that they don't crank the sound up so high that you can't talk to the people you came with, which I really appreciate, but it also means the recording has a lot of ambient noise. My favorite of the evening was Killing Me Softly, but the recording/slideshow I posted here is a bit of "Just a Dream", which you can hear a much better recording of here. Thank you to Steve, manager of Austin Grill, and to Nelson --who must surely be one of the few musicians who goes around and meets the people in the audience, even us oldsters-- for letting me tape. For those who still don't know, Austin Grill has live music almost every night of the week -- you can hear samples of a lot of it at the calendar page (click any music note) and at Austin Grill's myspace page.