phoenix: deliriumdreams, audra, fun
Whew, busy week.
The work trip to Dallas was pretty painless, but I'd forgotten how much I hate the heat and humidity (and in the case of Dallas, it's the heat and the stupidity...) The coworkers were mostly nice, and we got some good technical discussions done, but they seem to be a little scared by some of our processing pipeline. They are planning out whole weeks of time to work on stuff that, so far as we can tell, really ought to just take a few hours.
The social gathering Monday night was at The Green Room, which was very good food served with lots of attitude. Most of us got the chef's choice tastings menu, and it was quite yummy. Only bummer was talking with the guy next to me, who started out very friendly, but by the end of the meal we'd made the mistake of getting into politics. Uhg. He's a self-described "'Texas Libertarian' and hawkish neo-con!"... and proud of it. Grrr.
I think I've decided that the single most annoying aspect of right-wingers (although more than a few lefties have it as well) is their supreme arrogance that they know the answers, and that those answers just happen to work out well in their favor. How... convenient.
Anyway, rest of week at work was uneventful; finally got a big project thing checked in. There's lots of work yet to be done, but it's all grunt work; the architecture and lifecycle issues are mostly put to bed.
On Friday I flew to Phoenix to meet up with the lovely and sexy deliriumdreams for a few days of visiting and going to concerts.
We saw Audra that evening, although we were a bit disappointed by their performance; the opening acts weren't all that special either, even if Reliquary has a fabulous lead vocallist (classically trained opera singer and she looks divine in a corset and falls!).
Second Skin looked like they were having a lot fun, but also looked like they were putting on a bit of a reunion show for the benefit of their friends in the audience. Which lent it a bit of a friendly social aspect, but might have turned down the musicianship a notch. Cute dancer / backup vocalist, though. :)
We did find out that Audra was playing another gig Saturday night; since we hadn't made plans yet, and since chancellor_d hadn't felt well enough to join us Friday night, we thought we'd give them another chance. (I've seen them once before, at ProjektFest 2002, and remember really enjoying them; Friday's show seemed out of place -- not edgy enough to be menacing, too casual to be ironic, it just felt ... blah.)
And I really wish that Arizona would pass a no-smoking law like California has. Gah.
We stayed at the Hotel San Carlos, which had some fabulous character. The character sometimes got in the way of actually getting a good night's sleep, but since we weren't on a schedule, it wasn't a big deal. We had a lovely lazy Saturday morning (meaning, we didn't wake up until 11a). Getting woken up by the gay boys next door (sound travelled a little too well) was amusing...
We thought we might try to do something that afternoon, but then we discovered that the irish pub next door to the hotel (Séamus McCaffrey's) serves yummy food (including boxty, one of deliriumdreams's favorite irish foods), and has an extensive and high-quality whiskey selection. Mmm-hmm.
Five hours later, we finally pry ourselves out of the pub to get ready for the show that evening. We pick up chancellor_d and had a delicious dinner of green chile goodness at Si Señor.
From there we went to "Chasers" in Scottsdale, which is a total hole in the wall bar in a small strip-mall in the middle of nowhere. Apparently the regulars didn't care for the music, but I rather enjoyed it: Echo Chamber opened for Audra, and they did an interesting cross between the Smiths and Chris Isaak. Audra's set was much improved over Friday, and they looked like they were having a much better time. I think they also had their parents in the audience, which is not what I expect from goth bands, but hey...
An even later night, and we barely got out of the hotel by the noon checkout time. chancellor_d joined us for lunch downtown (at the same pub, of course), and then deliriumdreams and I went to the airport a bit earlier than necessary -- because at least it would be air-conditioned. Gah. Returned the rental car, made it through security, spent an hour and a half people-watching (and making up stories about those people!), and we were gone.
A great weekend, and I wasn't even all that thragged. She'll just have to try harder next time. :)
The work trip to Dallas was pretty painless, but I'd forgotten how much I hate the heat and humidity (and in the case of Dallas, it's the heat and the stupidity...) The coworkers were mostly nice, and we got some good technical discussions done, but they seem to be a little scared by some of our processing pipeline. They are planning out whole weeks of time to work on stuff that, so far as we can tell, really ought to just take a few hours.
The social gathering Monday night was at The Green Room, which was very good food served with lots of attitude. Most of us got the chef's choice tastings menu, and it was quite yummy. Only bummer was talking with the guy next to me, who started out very friendly, but by the end of the meal we'd made the mistake of getting into politics. Uhg. He's a self-described "'Texas Libertarian' and hawkish neo-con!"... and proud of it. Grrr.
I think I've decided that the single most annoying aspect of right-wingers (although more than a few lefties have it as well) is their supreme arrogance that they know the answers, and that those answers just happen to work out well in their favor. How... convenient.
Anyway, rest of week at work was uneventful; finally got a big project thing checked in. There's lots of work yet to be done, but it's all grunt work; the architecture and lifecycle issues are mostly put to bed.
On Friday I flew to Phoenix to meet up with the lovely and sexy deliriumdreams for a few days of visiting and going to concerts.
We saw Audra that evening, although we were a bit disappointed by their performance; the opening acts weren't all that special either, even if Reliquary has a fabulous lead vocallist (classically trained opera singer and she looks divine in a corset and falls!).
Second Skin looked like they were having a lot fun, but also looked like they were putting on a bit of a reunion show for the benefit of their friends in the audience. Which lent it a bit of a friendly social aspect, but might have turned down the musicianship a notch. Cute dancer / backup vocalist, though. :)
We did find out that Audra was playing another gig Saturday night; since we hadn't made plans yet, and since chancellor_d hadn't felt well enough to join us Friday night, we thought we'd give them another chance. (I've seen them once before, at ProjektFest 2002, and remember really enjoying them; Friday's show seemed out of place -- not edgy enough to be menacing, too casual to be ironic, it just felt ... blah.)
And I really wish that Arizona would pass a no-smoking law like California has. Gah.
We stayed at the Hotel San Carlos, which had some fabulous character. The character sometimes got in the way of actually getting a good night's sleep, but since we weren't on a schedule, it wasn't a big deal. We had a lovely lazy Saturday morning (meaning, we didn't wake up until 11a). Getting woken up by the gay boys next door (sound travelled a little too well) was amusing...
We thought we might try to do something that afternoon, but then we discovered that the irish pub next door to the hotel (Séamus McCaffrey's) serves yummy food (including boxty, one of deliriumdreams's favorite irish foods), and has an extensive and high-quality whiskey selection. Mmm-hmm.
Five hours later, we finally pry ourselves out of the pub to get ready for the show that evening. We pick up chancellor_d and had a delicious dinner of green chile goodness at Si Señor.
From there we went to "Chasers" in Scottsdale, which is a total hole in the wall bar in a small strip-mall in the middle of nowhere. Apparently the regulars didn't care for the music, but I rather enjoyed it: Echo Chamber opened for Audra, and they did an interesting cross between the Smiths and Chris Isaak. Audra's set was much improved over Friday, and they looked like they were having a much better time. I think they also had their parents in the audience, which is not what I expect from goth bands, but hey...
An even later night, and we barely got out of the hotel by the noon checkout time. chancellor_d joined us for lunch downtown (at the same pub, of course), and then deliriumdreams and I went to the airport a bit earlier than necessary -- because at least it would be air-conditioned. Gah. Returned the rental car, made it through security, spent an hour and a half people-watching (and making up stories about those people!), and we were gone.
A great weekend, and I wasn't even all that thragged. She'll just have to try harder next time. :)