AIR and fire

Last weekend I was back in Toronto with Mollie to see the band AIR play at Kool Haus. AIR is a French pop band, though pop doesn't describe them by American standards. Although they're one of my favorite bands to listen to, I wasn't sure how seeing them live would be, since they specialize in down-beat, melodic songs that generally lack lyrics. They started out very relaxed but the excitement built and by the time the concert ended most people were dancing. I ran into another couple from Buffalo in the t-shirt line and judging by the Sabres t-shirts I saw, we wern't the only ones.

Back here, I was leaving dinner in North Buffalo a few nights ago when I saw a huge plume of smoke in the air which was definitely coming from a fire. I followed the smoke to the foot of Grant St. by the city car impound and saw that a large industrial building had gone up in flames. The flames were easily 50 feet high and power lines around the building were exploding everywhere. It was the largest fire I had ever seen and quite a spectical for everyone out on a Sunday night.

fencing at MSU

Last weekend I took a road trip back to East Lansing, Mich. and the ol' alma mater. It was the annual fencing alumni tournament - I've always said that I as long as I can make it there I'll go to the tournament because who knows when all of us alumni will get too busy with our lives to make it back. I got to hang out with Johanna and Andrew again, who I haven't seen since last year. We went out for dinner and drinks, caught up on what everyone is doing these days and pondered the sad fact that, now two years out of college, we are those older people in the bar. Oh well, we still know how to have fun. After crashing at Jared's place in Okemos, I hit the tournament and tried to remember how to fence. It could have been worse, but I'm sorely out of shape. Still, it was great to get back to MSU, fence again and see that the team is doing really well, especially women's epee.

toronto for flash in the can

Been so busy I've hardly had time to post! After I got back from South Carolina, I got to catch one of my favorite bands, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah!, at Town Ballroom which was a lot of silly dancing fun. They are one of the few bands that Patrick and I share in common and I'm glad we got to see them together.

After that it was off to Toronto for three days at the Flash in the Can conference with my co-workers. FITC is for web designers and developers especially those using Adobe Flash, which is what my company does. Lots of engaging presentations and tutorials (cool after parties too!) and mostly interesting people to talk to. On a superficial note, the web design field is full of boys and skewed to a young, 20 something demographic - as a 24 year old girl I was in good shape. But working and talking about work is what I mostly did for three days straight and afterward I was thoroughly tired. Feeling very inspired nonetheless.