Category: Life with Pratts

Men in blue

With Studio 100 turning K3 into an international franchise, and girls in England recently auditioning for UK3, it’s fitting that today I saw Blue Man Group. The Blue Men, who are not Blue Meanies, are in various cities, with interchangeable, essentially anonymous performers.

Blue Man Group has been at the Charles Street Playhouse in Boston for almost fifteen years. Carol saw the show with a friend more than ten years ago, but today was the first time for Eric and myself. If you’ve ever doubted the entertainment potential of so-called performance art, Blue Man Group will erase all doubt. We loved it!

There’s a video featuring the current Boston trio, which makes them less anonymous, that will give you an idea of what it’s all about. (The program book lists two other Boston Blue Men, so I assume there must be some rotation.) Once again YouTube has the video aspect ratio wrong, so I’ll put it here with the correct shape.
[flv:http://www.dograt.com/Video/2008/NOV/BlueMan.flv 448 252]

Down and out in New York

I’m back home from my New York visit with Denro. Friday and Saturday were good, but I fell ill about 4 am on Sunday. I don’t know how I survived the Amtrak train ride back to suburban Boston, especially because Dennis and I had to stand for the first half hour due to overbooking. Eventually they opened the business class car.

Driving home from the train station I nearly passed out twice and swerved off the road, but I made it. Fell into bed fully clothed at 8:30 pm, not bothering to even brush my teeth, and didn’t wake up until nearly 10 in the morning, except for a bathroom visit in the middle of the night. Carol suspects food poisoning. I haven’t eaten in 42 hours and I still haven’t fully recovered, so it’ll be a while before I post more.

The Birds

We’re under attack! Birds are trying to take over our house.

First, they built a nest in some exposed insulation in the garage, after taking some of the insulation to build nests outside, accounting for why the insulation is less pink on the right.

Bird\'s nest in garage

And now there’s a bird attacking the roof. Look at the hole he made!

Hole in roof from bird pecking

Several mornings recently, including today, we heard pecking outside our bedroom window, and this afternoon, while cleaning the gutters (again), I saw the damage. It’s been below 40° at night, and I can’t imagine there are insects that are attracting him, so I don’t know what’s inspired the activity. Maybe they’re upset that I had two trees taken down from that side of the house.

Before going to bed last night, I concluded there’s no way some birds, except a woodpecker, could have created such a large and deep gouge, and we didn’t hear a woodpecker. I figure what happened is a large branch hit when one of the trees was taken down. The birds have been mistaking the hole for something they would expect to have insects in it.

Global Reach

A guilty pleasure of mine is looking through the Global Industrial catalog whenever it shows up at work. It has almost everything. Hasn’t everybody imagined decorating their living room like a doctor’s office reception area?

Reception Area Furniture

How about lockers for the mud room? And wouldn’t one of these magazine racks be great, assuming you still get magazines?

LockersMagazine StandMagazine Rack

But what I really have my eye on is the pre-engineered mezzanine…

Metal mezzanine

I want to get one for the backyard, so when K3 come to visit they can address the admiring throngs below, like they do in Belgium and the Netherlands. 😉

K3 in Holland