Measurable Progress

Jon has successfully completed his first internship as a psychometrician! His project, "A Method for Cooperative Test Assembly for Large-scale Assessment," had great results. The results were so good, in fact, that the president of the company was intrigued. The method, in a very elementary interpretation, basically made selecting test items easier from the start by automatically choosing items that meet both psychometric and content constraints. Interesting, no? The 4 interns made their presentations on Thursday, and each had varying degrees of technicality. The projects will be submitted to the NCME conference to be presented next spring in New York.

We really enjoyed getting to know the folks at MP and the other interns. The interns were like a group selected to be featured in a college brochure with one from the western U.S., the Midwest (by way of Korea), the east coast, and the south. Two guys, two gals. I was like their manager, showing up to dinners and special events but not doing any of the real work--the Miss Elizabeth to their Macho Man.

(The pic at the top is MP. Second, dinner with the interns Eun-Young, Becky, Zach, and Jon. Finally, Jon and I in his cube@MP. Photos from/by Eun-Young. Click to enlarge.)

The Saints are Coming

I saw a commercial for Sunday night football!

Lookin' for a home

Amanda has already covered the highlights of the White Stripes show, but I just wanted to add a couple cents.

First, Jack White is a unique talent. I can't really describe it, but wow. The Presence, the musicality, just the sensibility he has - he really feels it. I have a small man-crush on Jack. And Meg holds it down so well. She's rock and roll.

The songs from the new album were great live. Especially Icky Thump, Effect and Cause, and Slowly Turning Into You (which was my favorite of the night, I think).

I can't say much more about it, just because I enjoyed it so much. Here are a couple of good Youtube videos from the show. The first is a great recording of Jolene, and next is their closer, the old standard "Boll Weevil." Enjoy! We did.

Mainely Moose, Music and Fried Chicken

In our many trips to Maine, we have discovered the use of the word Mainely in many business names, for example: Mainely New Hampshire (a store that sells locally made items), Mainely Auto, Mainely Crafts, etc. This was the inspiration for the title of the post.

When we left for Portland, ME, for the White Stripes show, I found myself watching the sides of the highway for wildlife. Typically, when we are in a rural area and Jon is driving, I help watch for deer. Sunday I was watching for moose. In Kentucky when I was reporting, the police always recommended hitting the deer rather than trying to avoid it because many people would lose control, go into the woods, go into the oncoming lanes, etc., causing a worse accident. Here we saw a bumper sticker that said, "Brake for moose, it could save your life." There is also the sticker, "Break for Moose or die. It's really up to you." A little different philosophy due to the size difference. On the drive, we did see a deer and a fox, but no moose. Though I would one day love to see a moose just hanging out, the last thing I wanted to see was a giant moose in the middle of the road at midnight on a deserted Maine state road.

In Kennebunk, on the other hand, we saw chicken, fried chicken. My friends, it was a Popeye's. We did not anticipate seeing this New Orleans-based chicken franchise so far north.
This ended up being our preshow meal.

The show was great. We sat stage left, opting out of standing on the floor, which was already full about 100' back from the stage. The opening act was Dan Sartain, a rockabilly act from Alabama. I like the song "Gun vs. Knife," and one about spring break 1998--I'm sure what it's called.

Portland kicked off the American leg of the White Stripes' tour. They opened with "Dead Leaves and the Dirty Grounds." We were happy to hear Jack's haunting cover of "Jolene" third in the set. They played a lot of songs from the new album, and the title track, "Icky Thump," was rockin'.

One of the best effects of the show was the big red screen behind the band that alternately showed the silhouettes of Jack and Meg two stories high. They blended the shadows during, "I'm Slowly Turning into You." Check the pics below. Awesome. I kind of wish we had bought tickets to see them in Boston the next night too.

Astro, astro!

Until we have time to properly blog about the White Stripes show in Portland, ME, Sunday. Here are some pics. Note the big screen in the background. It was like watching a movie of the show. Very cool. The last pic is Meg singing, "Cold, Cold Night."

Absence makes the heart grow fungus

We've been off the blog for a few days here due to a bout with sinus issues. Jon is congested and I've had a sinus headache for several days. I'm feeling better, but Jon is still pumping the vitamin C.

We had a great date on Friday despite a lack luster dinner experience. We ate at Newick's, which is a local favorite, and we were not impressed. Now, we shared a cup of the thick and creamy chowder, which was really tasty...probably because it's made with cream, thus is not so good for you. I had a haddock sandwich and Jon had haddock nuggets. We left feeling greasy and too full though neither of us finished our meal. It was just a fried oily meal. If you're going to eat at Newick's, make it a part of a progressive supper and just get the chowder.

After dinner we went to Hampton beach and walked while the sun set. Being on the east coast, this just means the ocean gets dark, but it was so relaxing and the waves were pretty. The water is still very cold, 64 degrees. (SIDENOTE: Jon was looking at a survival guide at the bookstore today that said in 64 degree water you lose feeling in your extremities in 15 minutes and can only survive swimming in water that temp for about 1-4 hours.) We walked back to the car on the boardwalk, enjoying the summer vacationers, henna tattoos, and ice cream stands.

The sites at the beach made us wonder if we're tourists. We do live here, but we do a lot of tourist stuff. Plus, we live live in North Carolina. But I take a lot of pictures, but neither of us own Bermuda shorts. Thoughts?

Before we take our first breath

As mentioned below, Amanda recorded my open mic performance last night, and I think this particular clip is pretty good. It's a cover of BNL's "What a Good Boy," and I feel like I sang it pretty well.

Amanda says I should be more specific in my blog entries, so: this was shot at Top of the Chop in Dover, NH on 7/16/07. Enjoy!

People here are nice, and my former roommate is both talented and diligent

1. I played again last night! Same place I've played the last couple of times, but this time the crowd just really seemed to love it. I got some genuine-sounding compliments, and it was nice. I see it less as a reflection of my playing and more as a reflection of the supportive atmosphere musicians have for each other here. That's one thing I really wish was around at home. In a dream world, I'd talk Snuzz into hosting an open mic at a decent hour in Winston, and there would be a lot of nice, talented songwriters that would come out and do their thing. And I could find someone to come up and do "Yankee Bayonet" with me.

Amanda, wife and friend extraordinaire, once again filmed the performance, so I'll but a song or two up soon.

2. If you read this and aren't Brendan, take a minute to check out Anacrusis, Brendan's constrained-writing project he's been doing for quite a while now. Every day, he writes a story with exactly 101 words, and today he posted his 1,001th entry. Pretty awesome. The milestone entry is actually an audio story read by a bunch of folks, myself and Amanda included (we're the bookends). But yeah, check it out and celebrate the milestone. You should read the archives too. My favorites are the celebrity stories.

Pics from York, Maine

Not old or new just York

We took a little trip up to York, Maine last night to check out the beach that many of the locals go to. We arrived after dinner and parked along what we thought was the main drag. There were silver shops, ice cream shops, candy stores, and the weirdo t-shirt shop that all the teens like to hang out in to buy hemp necklaces and incense.

We walked along the shore and enjoyed a beautiful setting sun, but our walk only took about 5 minutes, and we couldn't figure out why all the Dover-ites were so crazy about York Beach. On the way back to NH, we took 1A South, which led us to the actual beach. As it turned out, we were at a little access point in an inlet and not at York Beach proper. The differences were striking, and we will be going back to York soon to enjoy what we now call the real beach.

Though unintentional, we took an alternate route down the shore on 1A-S to 103W and then to 236W. It was a beautiful drive. We would round corners and see the ocean between beautiful seaside cottages. We crossed the Piscataqua bridge back into NH just as it got dark, and we could see all the lights from the harbor and downtown Portsmouth. We really fell in love with Maine last night.