This is what I'm looking at today, and for the next couple of weeks:

As sympathetic as I am to the cause of the Greenies, and as much as the guy from the Sierra Club quoted in this article isn't wrong about being concerned about disposal of radioactive waste, the fact is that if we as a country truly want to put our money where our mouth is about weaning ourselves from fossil fuels, nuclear power is one of the best options available. Most of the electricity generating plants built since the Three Mile Island incident are powered by burning natural gas. The USA until recently had no problem generating 100% of the supply of natural gas it required - but now, our native supplies are past peak, and for the first time, the US now has to import natural gas to meet our usage requirements.

Nuclear power has come a long way since Three Mile Island. Yes, disposing of waste remains an issue, and should be fairly and intensely debated. But if we really care about energy independence and reducing emissions into the atmosphere, nuclear power generation needs to be on the table.

Yes, I actually had boxes sitting around here that I hadn't yet unpacked from that move from Kirkland. Yes, I realize that there's something really wrong with that. I don't know why. No. I know. I know. Yes. What can I say?

I feel as if I'm in a whirlpool of procrastination - every time I think of a way to finish up the task I have before me, I invent five more "long-lost" tasks I've been meaning to do for months (years)! Like the last couple of days: I've got all these how-to courses of varying stripes - some are about financial management, some are about how to play nineteen notes in the space where normally sixteen would go. Many of them have multimedia support materials, say on audio cassettes, or maybe several videotapes. So, I've decided that right now is the time to convert all the audio tapes to audio CDs, and import all the video tapes into DVD format. Right now as I type this, my other machine is busily capturing some video. Since I have more than one computer, and all the equipment to get this work done is in the same room as all the music writing gear, I rationalize that I can do my work on the Web sites I'm supposed to be maintaining and the tunes I'm supposed to be writing while overseeing all of this multimedia importation.

You know where this is going.

The pile of stuff to get handled is dwindling. My hope is that once I get through it, once I get through everything (like unpacking boxes that are three years packed), then eventually I'll run out of things to distract me from what I'm supposed to be doing. Right?

It's gotten downright cold outside around here of late. I'm over the recent head cold, but I've got this little scratch in the back of my throat that won't go away. Hopefully it isn't a mind probe left by Alien Visitors. I just can't fit a scenario like that into my life just now.

Oh, and hey - congratulations are in order for my roomies, Beta Girl and Beta Beau - who got engaged last week or so while on holiday in Hawaii. Here's a pic of the happy couple snapped at one of the recent Storm games (the Beta Ring has since been resized and now fits properly on the correct finger).

Awww. Don't they look tickled? There has been a marked influx of wedding magazines covering every flat surface in the household.

• Don't have a spouse or children.
• Don't have a mortgage.
• Don't have a lot of credit debt.
• Sock money away when you are working.
• Don't have a social life.

Heh.

The Seattle Storm have begun their title defense, after winning the champeen-ship last fall. We became season ticket holders right after the playoffs last year. So we've been going to the games, which have been a riot of good times thus far. Well, there was that opening day pasting from Los Angeles.



But the girls have won three in a row since then.

The days in between Storm games seem to run together. The band is averaging two rehearsals a week right now - and we hardly ever actually play any actual songs these days. Mostly, we just sort of jam on whatever seems to pop up, as we attempt to generate more material for the new record. We've been getting pretty good at the process, and Pete keeps bringing his laptop and recording these little things. So it's nice to be able to just float off into the stratosphere without worrying if we'll remember what we did later. Pete makes me MP3's the day after rehearsals, and I've been compiling these recordings on CDR's and finding excuses to drive around and listen. Pondering. Looking for ideas that can go together and make tunes. Thinking about melodies.

In fact, the process we've been doing at the studio has spoiled me. I've been getting impatient with my typical demo-construction process, where I slowly program drum programs and then get out the bass and guitars and lay down roughs to sing to. It's so much easier to just get Pete and Lizzy to play it, isn't it? They can do it in real time. Unfortunately, for my process to be effective, I require multi-track versions to cut, chop, re-sequence, and re-imagine with.

Oh well.