Last night, Peter and I went to San Francisco to see Stan Ridgway perform at the Great American Music Hall. It was one of the most enjoyable concerts I’ve seen in a long time, and the acoustics at the Great American Music Hall (which I’d never been in before) were great. I haven’t really been…
Author: cjbickford
The San Francisco Symphony Returns to San Jose
When the San Francisco Symphony played at Plaza de Cesar Chavez in October, I thought it would be a once-in-a-lifetime treat. So I was incredibly thrilled to find out they were putting on another free concert on Tuesday: and now it’s just foosteps away from our office. In a way, the outdoor concerts are nicer…
Nancy’s Seven Songs She’s Into Right Now
My friend and college roommate Nancy emailed me her list of seven songs she’s into right now. For some reason (even though she likes to write), she doesn’t have a website of her own. Here’s her list: “Down to Earth” by Peter Gabriel (from the soundtrack to “Wall-E.”) “1492,” “Hanging Tree,” “When I Dream of…
So Much Fun in Downtown San Jose
I do go on and on about how jazzed we are to have our offices downtown now. We end up seeing a lot more of downtown San Jose, and there’s always more fun to be had. The weekend before, we’d gone downtown to see the fireworks and thanks to our office building, were able to…
Special FX Skyping
When I went to Germany in February, Peter and I discovered Skype. It’s so much fun that it inspired Peter to buy us (as well as his parents) high-quality web cams, and upgrade my computer so it could handle said webcams. Like other technologies we’ve embraced, it’s so revolutionary that it by far surpasses other…
My New License Plate
This morning, I got up early to go to the DMV office downtown in order to pick up my new vanity license plates: Peter and I ordered it after Wizard World LA reminded us about how we feel about the big city down south. And I’ll be driving it through LA in, um, just about…
Best Music Video Ever!
Thanks to James Hudnall for discovering “Gorbachov: The Music Video.” If this isn’t everything I’ve ever wanted in a music video….. Socialist realist imagery! Zombie Stalins! Super Conan the Barbarian Gorbachov! Russian folk music interlude! Conspicuous consumer glee! Tacky sexual innuendo! It’d be even better if the Russian singers were singing it in Russian, but…
Seven Songs I’m Into Right Now
Joel just tagged me to list 7 songs I’m into right now, or actually 7 songs I’m listening to now, whether I like them or not. I haven’t been listening to music as much as I usually do, since a) I’m driving a lot less, and b) I’m busy homeschooling Neil. But I could still…
Generational Attitudes Toward Homeschooling
Peter and I briefly toyed with describing the next few years of Neil’s education as “a classical education at home” or “going to a very exclusive private school.” We just wanted to separate ourselves from the unfortunate conception of homeschooling as forcing our child to be cloistered away from all society with only a Bible…
Americanized Europeans versus Europeanized Americans
During my trip to Germany, I noticed something which really should have been obvious to me years ago. Europeans who come and live in America for a while become rather perky, a quality that sets them off from their native countrymen. It’s not that they stop being German or Dutch or English or French, but…