Weekend Roundup

So, three days too late, a brief roundup of a few activities pursued over the weekend.

Friday night, I went to see the Colorado Symphony Orchestra. It was not the finest performance that I've ever seen, but probably the most interesting. It was a mostly jazz-inspired evening (you can see the program details here). Undoubtedly the most fascinating part of the evening was the performance of Edgar Meyer's 2nd Concerto for Double Bass. Really cool stuff. Apparently, Meyer is the world's preeminent double bassist, which was pretty apparent. He rocked the living crap out of that music, which is not surprising, since he wrote it pretty much for himself. But still; while the music itself was only so-so (he's a good composer, but not great), his technique is fantastic and his playing was very exciting.

Interesting in theory, but lacking somewhat in living up to its potential, was an as-of-yet unnamed instrument which resembles nothing so much as a huge xylophone, only with the keys made of lengths of PVC pipe which are 3 to 6 or 7 feet long. We are told that the pipes are tuned to quarter-tones, instead of halves (imagine an extra key in between each key on a piano). And it did sound interesting. But because PVC carries vibrations so poorly, the instrument had no reverberation at all, so it was mostly drowned out by the rest of the orchestra, or even Meyer himself on the double bass. Still, cool idea.

Saturday morning there was a painting party at Shane's house, followed by a belly dancing performance by Daisy at the Boulder Creek Festival. The painting party was, well, much like a lot of people hanging out and painting. Not especially exciting, but not bad, plus I'm pretty sure I got at least a bit high on paint fumes, always a good thing. Daisy's performance was quite impressive; hopefully I will have pictures up soon.

Sunday night was Jess and Nate's wedding in Estes Park. The wedding was quite fantastic. It was the first time I've ever been to a Quaker wedding, and I really enjoyed it. In particular, the fact that the wedding ceremony is performed by the community, rather than by any special officiant. This gave plenty of opportunities for laughs and fun during the ceremony, which makes it more enjoyable, in my opinion, and also is completely appropriate for Jess and Nate, who are both wonderful and wonderfully silly.

Dancing into the wee hours (okay, not really, since the hotel mandated that the DJ shut it down at 10 PM), and then further celebrations at the 'party cabin' at the YMCA in Estes, all very fun. Not at all surprising to find that Jess and Nate had a really spectacular group of friends back in DC and generally on the East Coast, and I felt very fortunate to be at the wedding.

Then, on Monday, I managed to drag my ass out of bed and down into Boulder in time to meet Geir at the base of Flagstaff mountain for a refreshing little trail run. This was my primary long-term goal after my ACL surgery; since I have no plans to play Ultimate again, I had to come up with something specific to be working towards, and it was very satisfying to make it all the way to the top just 6 months after the surgery. There's still plenty far to go until the knee is completely healed, but so far this recovery has been scads easier than the first one, for which I am thankful. Plenty painful enough that I have absolutely no desire or intention to go through a third, but still...