One from the road

"21" with Kevin Spacey could have been great. It is 'inspired' by (we'll get to that linguistic atrocity in a moment) the book "bringing down the house." Even from the trailer, you can tell that the greatness of the book was long-ago jettisonned. The thrill of seeing a smart, awkward geek walk the writer through his tranformation into a Vegas gigolo who strapped hundreds of thousands on dollars to his body for weekend gambling binges and then seeing it unravel as the casinos get wise doesn't fit with the slick Spacey persona, the sexy lady players, and the chase and fight scenes. When will they learn that the threat of violence can be more powerful that the act itself?

I encourage everyone to read the book. As for the movie? This is nothing more than the latest in casino movies with numbers in their titles.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Shpiel 5768

Wait around until the end, and you might even catch glimpse of a white boy rapping and disrobing in front of the whole congregation, all within the span of about 5 minutes.

A Real Open Skies regime

"Open Skies" is a type of agreement permitting nearly every airline in one country to fly to nearly every airport in another. You might ask, "Wait. Wasn't that happening anyway?" Far from it. One of the most tightly locked-up markets for air travel is "fortress" Europe, with the U.K. being the tightest of them all - permitting just 2 U.S. carriers into Heathrow and only for limited flights. But, come of the end of this month, that will all change as the U.S. and the EU (not just the Brits) execute an open skies agreement. Mind, these aren't new - but this is arguably the most important one to date. What it will likely mean:

1. Direct flights to the EU from more U.S. cities.
2. Same in the opposite direction.
3. Quicker flights to European destinations that require a connection. With open skies, you can enter a country through any international airport, not just those previously designated as entry-points from the U.S. This means a deeper initial direct flight and a reduced-time short hop.
4. Greater U.S. presence by EU-based airlines. This has a diminished effect given all of the code-sharing to date.
5. Hopefully, some improvement in quality (if not price) due to competition.=

A Dukakis Moment?

Could this be Hillary's Dukakis moment? We'll see. It might actually come at a moment when the media is still too interested in Rev. Wright.

T-Shirts

Here is a shameless plug for some fun shirts, available in a variety of colors and styles:

I $ DC - Available at Cafepress.

It might be crude, but it is honest.

I $ NY - Perhaps even truer now. Get it at CafePress.
The real question we should be asking, should these say "I (Euro) NY"?

Better Living Through Chemicals

Just a quick rundown of the drugs I have been on while trying to rid myself of a baterial infection or what-have-you:

• Azithromycin (anti B)
• Cefuroxime (anti B)
• Gaufenesin (both with Codeine and OTC)
• Advair
• Tessalon Pearle
• Sudafed
• Levaquin (anti B)
• Flonase and its new buddy Verqmyst
• Prednisone
• And an attempt at Nexium (ins. rejected, so I need to downgrade to Prilosec)

I am pretty sure I am forgetting some of these. Along with these came the cough drops and the lozenges and the tea and the smoothies and the staying off of my feet for several weeks and...well, you get the idea.

Looking for an Investment? How about a Lawsuit?

Legal Week and the WSJ report that most of the top UK firms are now turning to third-parties to fund litigation, usually "small group actions" which resemble mini-class actions. I make no claims as to whether this is good or bad. I think there are any number of criteria under which to make that determination. Here are some things to consider:

1. Many plaintiffs in the U.S. already have someone else funding their case, the plaintiff's lawyer. Plaintiff's lawyers will take cases for a 25%-40% contingency fee. This raises some conflict-of-interest issues where the client might want to settle and the lawyer wants to keep going. We've managed to come to some equilibrium on this issue so far.

2. A third party funder would require a reopening of this issue -- guidelines as to billing, what documents a lawyer can share with the funder, how much input the funder has regarding the legal strategy, etc.

3. Do we really need a third party funder at all? In the U.S., there already exist those who buy others' legal claims for some % of the potential recovery. Why fund someone else's case when you can just buy it?

Wow -

I didn't realize that I had not blogged for several days leading up to this. 3 Causes: Work. Lots of Work. And shpiel.

At least the shpiel is done with and Purim is still roarin'. To sum up, the shpielers were fantastic, the show was well-received, and I got to get nearly naked in front of the whole congregation. What do you get for your membership dues?

Anyhoo--I am back with some med stories and the normal inter-flotsam.

[ Whereupon There is Screaming.]

Thanks to www.abovethelaw.com for what, apparently, was a great day in court. The PDF transcript is here. A full account of the even is in the NY Post. Highlights:

A female federal prosecutor was viciously attacked by a hulking, razor-wielding drug dealer in a Brooklyn courtroom yesterday - and was saved when the thug's 72-year-old lawyer and others tackled him.
"He was going to slash her throat," said defense lawyer Harry Batchelder, who, along with a court reporter and two marshals, slammed Victor Wright, 27 to the ground and grabbed an inch-long razor blade from him.

Typographies

Take a famous sound bite, like the speech from Pulp Fiction below, and sub out of the video for a set of emotive, moving words and you have a newish style called "A Typography." I just stumbled upon these and they are neat.





And for a bunch more, look here.

How Much is it Really?

Harry White has designed this accurate, if somewhat icky, measuring cup. Now, to convert the cookbook...

A day of 'stitutions.

1. Constitution. The Spring Blockbuster here in the District is the 2d Amendment case at SCOTUS. The lines filed up last night to get a seat in the chamber. Dorks.

2. Prostitution. Turns out that Democrats can't keep it in their pants. The shiny new governor of the Empire State admitted that he, too, has strayed beyond the bonds of matrimony. That said, I support his choice to have an affair. Cheating is, after all, cheaper than hookers, so, ultimately, this was an act of fiscal conservatism...and who can't get behind that?

TED

If you are a person who believes that the word "entertaining" includes within it that feeling of complete focus that comes with the intense mental stimulation of seeing new ideas explained by engaging speakers, you owe it to yourself to check out TED (www.ted.com).

It features talks by Gehry, Negroponte, etc. and they are all fascinating, funny, and engaging.

I Welcome Our Robot Overlords

Boston Dynamics has created this robo-quadraped that can tackle varied & slippery terrain quickly and efficiently, while maintaining perfect balance. Wanna see? Go to 0:44 in the movie where the guy full on kicks the thing.

I actually think something like this would be a reasonable space exploration vehicle. Oh, and wait until they lighten it and teach it how to run. Sick.

Thanks to Gizmodo.

Bare Stearns

JPMorgan won a bidding war for Bear, paying $2/share, or about $293M, for a firm whose share traded at a high of $170. Unreal. I have two questions:

1. Who got to bid? The NYT reports that roughly six groups got to put their numbers before the company, which was facing bacnkrupcy. JPMorgan won. I have to imagine that there were many foreign banks that could have and would have paid more. Were they invited to participate? Bear is a public company. I wonder what the shareholders think of this deal.

2. Wall Street is the bastion of purist capitalism and supply-side economics. How can any of these guys look themselves in the mirror when the Fed is providing $30 BILLION to finance Bear's "less liquid assets" - whatever that means - while JPMorgan is paying 1% of that for the company. This is a bail-out by members of the Bush administration, no matter what his public statements have been, and Bear should be ashamed to take it. Apparently, when people fall on hard times, almost anyone will look to the government for a little help. Unfortunately, I think this lesson will be lost on the Brooks Brothers set.

Political Tidbit

Hey Democratic strategists - I propose a "culture of corruption" message against the GOP in the general. Three simple claims:

1. McCain is a continuation of Bush - the foreign policy, Iraq, the tax cuts, etc.
2. That is a continuation of a corrupt GOP. Take a look at the NRCC's fraud at the very heart of the party.
3. Then take a look at the disasterous Oil for Food program that went completely south in 2001 to the tune of roughly $60B in kickbacks.

Geeking out for a moment.

The new Lenovo X61 I got has an LED keyboard light. It's located above the screen and does a nice job casting a little light on the keys when it's dark.

I know, Apple backlights the keys. Fine.

Oh, and I also know that Lenovo just slashed prices on their Tablets (from $1600 to $1250), so I missed out on that.

But I still gots me a kbd light. Fn+PageUp baby!

Political Tidbit - NOT about the election

I should also add, NOT about Spitzer. Nope, this one comes from the Department of State's Blog. Yup. The ship of state is one step away from a MySpace page.

The Question:

Question of the Week: Should the U.S. Engage Hamas in the Peace Process Between the Israelis and Palestinians?Posted by DipNote Bloggers on Mar 04, 2008 - 11:58 AM

The House got wind of this, prompting this post:

U.S. Congressman Mark Kirk in Washington, DC writes:

Worrying that you guys are asking questions like this using funds approved by the appropriations committee that I am a member of.

Posted on Sun Mar 09, 2008

State called the Congressman's office to verify that the comment was, indeed, his. Having done so, it posted this response:

State Department Spokesman Sean McCormack writes:@

Congressman Kirk --
Thank you for your comment, the first on the blog from a member of Congress. The
question of the week portion of the blog is meant to allow public comment about
questions we at the State Department are asked by the media and others in public
fora. The asking of the question is not meant to indicate support for a policy
different than that of the government. The asking of the question is also not
meant to hint at a change in policy.

Sean McCormack Posted on Tue Mar 11,
2008

Thanks to Dorkowitz for both creating and then promulgating this tidbit.

Neo-Pop Culture

Today is culture day on the blog! First, here is the next logical step to blogging: www.tumblr.com . People 'too busy to blog' post scraps of their thoughts on tumblr. You read. You go: "huh?huh!huh." You move on.

Speaking of the next big thing: meet www.JakeAndAmir.com. They have an online version of the office, which is awesome. If they look familiar, theses are the guys whose "prank war" video I posted a while back. Turns out it was a fake. An awesome, awesome fake.

Finally, http://improveverywhere.com/. Where normally the audience demands a show, they are a show which demands its audience into existence.

The Pixels Are Coming

I rarely blog products. Let me rephrase that; I rarely blog products that I or anyone I know can afford. Behold the Icon Clock. Available at the MoMa store for $75.

It's just subtle enough to actually wear, and just snazzy enough to stand out as art.

Yum. Pop.

Legal Tidbit

There is so little left to be said about Spitzer (? I don't even know her!) that this has to be short, so: A legal primer:

1. What is Mr. Spitzer's crime in NY State (mind you, he was investigated and brought in under federal law)? Prostitution in the Fourth Degree, a Class B misdemeanor -- the lowest form. This is what you and I and your mom think of when we conjur up a ho - patronizing a prostitute. The other three degrees are sex with someone of a progressively younger age, from 17 to eleven.

2. Why does NY law matter? Because the NY state bar has the power over Mr. Spitzer's license. I am sure it is the least of his problems, but he'll be glad to know that a Class B misdemeanor is usually only cause for a suspension.

3. We assume Spitzer will be tried. Not so fast. WSJ provides an interesting insight. This might explain why the man has not yet resigned. If he does not get charged, then he might make it out of this one. Technically, he violated the Mann Act by causing transporting a prostitute across state lines, but that's usually reserved for big ticket movement of persons or illicit goods. The real danger is apparently his complicity in making payments to shell corporations. He has nailed others when they should have known that these offshore corps were used to launder money, so he can't feign ignorance.

Hm. Tried for money laundering over prostitution charges. Sounds a lot like getting tried for perjury over banging someone in the oval office charges. Precedent. Just what a lawyer wants.

Things You Already Knew Because You Are Smarter Than Me

Per the Volokh Conspiracy:

"Splitting the Atom" is an oxymoron. 'Atom' is the Greek equivalent of 'Singularity.' The phrase means "Splitting that which cannot be split."

Divers Down.

Some Very large searches in our databases leave me free to show you this:



This is the "Poseidon Discovery", part of a new breed of consumer 're-breathers.' For those who like breathing air on terra firma, the way god intended, a re-breather recycles the CO2 your breath out back into some usable 02 you can breath. Special forces and researchers (particularly those who engage in more deeper "technical diving") have been using these for years. Now, they are becoming simpler and "cheaper" -- This one costs $7,400, roughly 2-5x the cost of a basic rig.

Two benefits inure from rebreathing:

1. No bubbles. Fish don't like them. Without bubbles, you get to see more stuff.
2. Longer down times. If you are not breathing compressed air, you are not getting the progressively dangerous 02 or N levels that limit dive times. The company claims you can dive twice as long for the same surface time. Heck, a 2 hour dive? You'd need to train up for that kind of stress.

Patriots - De-hashed for Personal Gain

SI reports that the Rams v. Pats suit has been dropped. Plaintiffs are making noises about refiling, but I would bet that noise is about all that is.

A No Shintz Sherlock.

Drinks at Restaurant Eve in Alexandria fall nothing short of impressive. To a one they are mixology masterworks. But one stands above the rest: The Sherlock Holmes.

1 shot Laphroiag scotch (I know, it is the sacred single malt, but wait!)
1 shot Lapsang Souchong ,
allegedly the famed sleuth'ss favorite tea - granting the drink its name.
Touch simple syrup
Touch soda
Touch orange juice
(shaken)
Lemon peel, squeezed, lit, and dropped into the drink.

The smokey tea mixes with the now savory sensation of citrus, peet, and rye in the scotch to create the smoothest, warmest, most sensual cocktail I have ever experienced. To sip this roguishly decadent treat is to slip into a content grin or a passive observation of the delights before you for the remainder of the evening.

It was a complex, inviting heaven.

We Have a New Leader in the Space Race.

The EU launched the ATF, an automated space truck that can launch, reach, and "mate" with the International Space Station, all with minimal human interaction. It represents a low cost option for shuttling supplies to (though I don't believe from) the ISS.

More important that the tug itself is what it represents: The end of U.S. space dominance. I am not saying that U.S. space dominance was good or even worth the money. Reasonable minds have long quibbled. What I am saying is that U.S. dominance in space technology has persisted since the 1960's, and has been a symbol of its superior resources and technology. We did things just because we could, and that had political significance -- just like the Great White Fleet circumnavigating the globe. [Dorkowitz points out that the GWF predated nuclear tech by 50 years. Right he is...now what was I thinking?

Today, Arianspace operating out of French Guiana has joined us there with superior tech while our Shuttle operations are sunseting with no obvious succeessor. Europe or, more likely, China, will soon have a replacement and it will be U.S. astronauts begging rides instead of the other way around.

Vitamins Contribute to Health?!

I have been saying it for years: Airborne and similar vitamin supplements that claim to be cold remedies etc. are a crock. Don't believe me? Well, Airborne itself has come around, settling a class action today for $23M. The claim: it don't do squat for colds.

If you bought the stuff recently and have the receipt for $6.99 - good god!- you can get a refund for up to six boxes.

And if you like taking vitamins before you get on to the recycled air environs of a plane, good for you and your immune system. The generic effervescent vitamins contain the exact same stuff as Airborne and sell for about $2.

Wii Blind

Instead of tapping a long, white stick, the blind could be using this nifty force feedback wand in the future. It will sense objects and buzz with an intensity relative to the size and proximity of the object. Awesome.

Two problems. First, how long will it take the blind who have been using the stick for years to learn this new sensation (I imagine good human factors engineering should solve this)? Second, those sticks let us seeing-eye humans know that there is a blind person around. Won't people walk into the blind a lot more if they use this incospicuous device?

Ribb-ed Ribb-ed ... Ribb-ed Ribb-ed

...for your pleasure. Thanks to Neatorama for this "Camel Toads" expose. Having recently spent some time on college campuses, I can confirm that this is a chronic condition. Perhaps children of the 2001 economic bubble-burst have learned to make do with less. Having obviously outgrown their pants, they simply suck it in and deal, 'toading' from the bottom and 'muffining' out the top.

All seriousness aside, here is a quote from the author:

"There were several staff members at the library’s front desk the morning the
"camel toads" letter arrived. When I opened and read it, I was thoroughly puzzled, as I had never heard of either camel toads or camel toes. But when I read it aloud to the staff, they practically started rolling on the floor. And their explanation is almost word-for-word what I used in my answer. I kept the original letter as a memento - and to show people who didn’t believe it could be real"

Gosh I hope it's real.

Pulmonology Redux

Hopping out of a cab in DC mid-March into a spring sunshine is elating. 244 Elm St. NW. That elation quickly disappeared when I called my doctor's office to find out why their eight story office complex was not readily apparent down this quaint, residential street near Howard University.



"For our address, please press four." Remove phone from ear. Press. Replace. "We are located at 2440 M," with a popping M-phasis, "street." Oh. That's about 24 blocks from 244 Elm St. and there aren't many cabs around.



Twenty minutes later, having paid double the cab fare for my error, I entered a pretty packed waiting room. My first impression was that people in their late twenties don't suffer many pulmonary disorders. Looking around the scene from a well-populated motel-lobby, I calculated I was the minority by about ten years.



If the decor was off-putting, the rest of my stay in purgatory wasn't. The forms were clear, bolding and underlining the quirks of the office so they pop out at you -- provide a CC number so we can charge that if you don't send a check to cover that which your insurance won't, and so on. All the while that I was printing, scrawling, and dating my name, nurses shuffled over to waiting patients. They knew their names. They spoke in a soft, familiar tone, and they genuinely hoped the elderly woman or the lightly wheezing man felt better between this and the next visit.



"Mister Cohen!" This would be the first of many sharp reports from deep within a Caribbean matron behind the desk. "C'mon back," pronounced "bock," and I was in.



I haven't disrobed for a doc since my physical, and that, at least, was expected, so when I was handed a gown and told to unbundle to the jimmies, I was put off. Exam rooms are stuffy with a minty, electric air anyway. This one was a little older, a little more used. The mintiness had gone stale. I obliged and draped my clothes on the chair, the scale, my shoes. Just as I finished the doc knocked. He is one of those people you don't really see as they wander by down the street. Not invisible, just unremarkable. Still, this was "Washington's best" pulmonologist of 2005. By the time I left, I counted at least seven lexan awards and several framed announcing the same peppered from room to room.



He took a history, jotted a bunch of notes, asked what seemed to be right questions, and, most important to my taste, didn't rush the experience. "Did the Advair work?" Kinda. "Like this, or like that?" More like the second thing. "Ah hmm." We ran through a test pattern of noises that I might have made. Yes, I hack. No, I don't snort or wheeze. My throat closed up when I ate spicy food. No, I don't have any symptoms of heart burn. Scratch, scratch, scratch. "Great. We'll get you a chest film and a breathing test."



"Mistah Cohen!" I donned my pants as instructed and headed for the x-Ray room. The only light in most of these rooms comes from the protective portal to the operators booth. That is, until they turn on the machines cross-hairs. This one stands up and looks like a robot about to give a mechanical hug. You lean into one of the arms. The other holds the xRay gun. You end up facing a wall two feet away that contains the developing machine, the power supply, and two heavy chemical resistant gloves. They look like hazmat gloves and the spray of brown fluid on the wall below them creates an unsettling combination. A Lysol spray-can completes the tableau. "Shoulders forward." A quiet instruction followed by the unease of cold metal. She steps into the booth. "Dip Breth!" The sharp report at four times the volume would make you gasp involuntarily anyway. The gurgling sound starts behind me and trails off a wet exhale. One more from the side and I am back putting on the rest of my clothes.

I thought going in that I might like the breathing test. I am a big fan of breathing and a big fan of computers. I figured doing one and seeing it plotted in real time on the other might be neat. Problem is, you don't go for a breathing test when you can breathe, you go when you can't. That, and the mechanical arm with a variety of hoses hanging off of it is reminiscent of the scream sucker from Monsters Inc. My Caribbean commandant tells me to sit and explains that when she stops cooing "nooormallll" and barks "Dip Breath!" I should suck and then blow until I am blue in the face and not stop until she instructs me to do so even though it feels like the last ounce of humanity is now seeping into the breathing tube.

It took me three or four tries. I took two breaks as I lost the ability to breath. Turns out that if you don't blow hard enough or long enough, the test parameters are no good.

More waiting. The doc comes back to get me. Chest films are clean. Breathing looks normal, perhaps slightly asthmatic, but this is most likely post nasal drip. He concludes that we take the Veramyst and Claritin D for three weeks and we'll see where we are. I ask if it is normal for a cough to last this long. He says it's possible. What about developing asthma in your late twenties. "It is not rare." Personally, I hope it's rare enough, but I guess we'll see in a month. Right now, I have drugs six and seven of my progression to get me through the day.

Weights and Measures

Those interested in the numerical equivalent of the F-bomb will rejoice to know that thier four-letter friend is worth more than 13 Scrabble points. In civil proceedings, it is worth about $367 per use.

HTFC's CEO and his attorney became the unwitting spokespersons for that math lesson when a court fined the two $29,000 for the CEO's "vulgar" behavior during a deposition. The highlights were 73 f-bomb laced tirades, displaying the senior executive's command of the grammaton. F-laced verbs, nouns, and adjective all made appearances, some colorful and descriptive like "F*&! face," and "I am the one F()*^!! your world right now."

Oddly enough, the F-bomb was roughly equal to the hourly rates of both attorneys in the room, implying that there may be some "Cussin's Theorem" under which legal billing rates could be correlated to the expletive client's utter when they get the bill.

(For the record, yes, I know that such words are illegal in Scrabble.)

Patriots - Rehashed for Personal Gain

Thomas Smith of K&L Gates in Pittsburgh penned a piece for the Legal Times noting that the NFL might be in hot water for destroying the tapes. The reason, "spoliation of evidence." It sounds like "spoil," and, indeed, it means to destroy evidence intentionally. Mr. Smith's article, albeit unapologetically wordy, is pointless.

Spoliation ruins the evidence for a purpose. What is that purpose here? Mr. Smith does not claim that the NFL sought to derail the civil class action filed by Rams fans, claiming that the Pats owed them some sort of duty beyond a thorough butt-kicking. (I blogged about this before). Even Mr. Smith, in a daze of heady self-aggrandizement, doesn't claim that the case has merit enough to even warrant discussion.

Instead, he focuses on Specter's Senate shenanigans. The spoliation could ruin those. I am not sure how, as the sole purpose appears to be a media circus. Mission accomplished.

Specter's one point of leverage is the leagues antitrust exemption (The NFL can pool resources for the purpose of contracting for television and ad rights). Mr. Specter, are you really going to take that away? More imortantly, what does the NFL's power with advertisers and broadcasters have anything to do with how it administers its own rules? It is as if you are considering the NFL an agency of the U.S. government, whose rules somehow carry as much force as state law. Can we expect hearings on clock management, the interpretation of offensive pass interference, and the false start vs. encroachment rules next?

I'll say it again, this is a total waste and the legal community should stop writing about it as anything but.

Tech Rant

Behold, the Everex gPC. It is mini-PC sold at Walmart with obviously borrowed stylings. It runs a super stripped down version of linux that relies on the internet for nearly all of its apps. Gmail = mail. Google docs = documents. The whole thing is so Google-based that the two companies had to come out with press releases that stated that gPC was not a Google product.

So what's not to like? First, it lacks wifi. Everything it uses is web-based but it lacks WIFI. There is no 1337 to adequately express my geek-rage. Second, $499. That makes it $20 more expensive than a MacMini in Apple's refurb store. And for that you get a Mac, with OSX, and WIFI and blutooth, and on and on and on. Perhaps this is an elaborate scheme to keep Walmart shoppers down. Add the digital divide to the economic and we city-folk can lord over them forever! Mu. ha. ha. haaaaaaarrrgh. Whatev.

The reality is, Everex sucks. Their "cloudbook", a 7" low-cost laptop like Asus eeePC (http://www.asus.com/), failed so bad on shipping that all units were recalled. Of course, they might still suck when fixed.

Political Tidbit

Everyone is tallying how many delegates Hillary will need to stay in the race. Why isn't anyone tallying how many Barack will need to win this before the election? In reality, it looks like these coming races will all be close enough to force this to the convention. We'll see by Wed.

Bean Town Blockbusters

I had a whirlwind weekend in my old digs. I could attempt to explain it all, but the length of that post would do as much to turn me off to writing it as it would to you reading it. Instead, we'll settle for the shoutout version:

• Mom: Has to get the first shout out, and not just because she not only bought us the pot we wanted, but because she loaded us up with more W&Sonoma goodies than I could cram into my sparse luggage. If you were standing on the platform at BWI last night waiting for Amtrak into DC, you would have seen a young(ish - I hope) man reach over and heave what seemed to be an impossibly heavy duffel over his shoulder and into the train. It looked like a mime trick where you'd pick it up with force and land on your butt. What you would not have seen is the 2 gallon Le Creuset inside. Good god, it is gorgeous.
  
• SqueetlyBoink: Thanks for the couch and the company and being my faux-ncee for the day while we traipsed all over the city. Oh, and a word to the wise, if you ever find yourself warming up a crowd before a fashion show at a traveling bridal expo (the carnies of our generation, I am convinced), just end it. "B" movies are so far ahead of you, you can't see them over the tall letters in between.
  
• Legal Follies: as always, you rock. Sometime in the two nights I stayed up until past 3am, I realized some truths. First, it is a great privilege to have been a part of a group that you wouldn't get into if you had to try out now. Second, I am definitely beyond the point of 3am evenings. Third, that is not likely to stop me. And fourth, Follies is family, and I love you guys.
  
• LS & NY - Congrats - Brookline is alive and kicking.
  
• JG - It was SO good to finally meet Ryan. You are adorable together. Find time to swing dance with him again!
  
• Beantown. I do miss ya. Your buildings keep edging skyward and sidelining your beautiful brick stays. I hope they'll dig in their claws and hold on another 100 years. The weather, and all of the major sports teams, are better than those here. That said, that was home - this is home. This is just nostalgia talking.