Hotel rooms in Boston

It is amazing how expensive hotels rooms in Boston have become. I need one for an upcoming business trip and all of the old stand-byes are either sold out or well over $500 per night, which with hotel taxes means more like $575. The Westin Copley is $607. The Taj, formerly the Ritz Carlton across from the Public Gardens is a relative bargain at $579. The new Ritz is $807. Even Air BnB is not much of a bargain. Most of the desirable places are over $300. I think I will be relegated to staying in the suburbs and commuting in-- not a very attractive proposition-- since travel policy is quite stingy.

My New favorite Toy

Loopy is a great time waster when I am traveling. It lets me create little music compositions with just my vocals.  I also practice guitar solos as a chord progression loops over and over. What a bargain for $3.99!

As much as I dislike Billy Joel, here he is demoing Loopy with Jimmy Fallon.



 

Can a Friday get much worse?

I thought I'd start the day off right with a yoga class at 6:30 am. Things were going well until the sun salutation. While bringing my left leg back to plank, I slammed my big toe in the my yoga mat. The pain was instant but I was able to finish the class. I iced it throughout the day but by evening it resembled a small purple plum from the bruising and swelling. Bad enough, right. Then I had a good show with my band at a winery   but I somehow misplaced my wallet when we were packing up. So I needed to cancel all of my cards and get a new driver's license. Of course, a Friday could have gotten much, much worse, but this was a pretty bad one. Toe is recovering fine and new cards are on their way.

UPDATE 8/24/16 : I found my wallet in my car in the only place I didn't thoroughly search. And better yet, there was still $80 in it.

Training for my 13th half marathon

I just put together my training plan for the Rock and Roll Half Marathon in Philly on 9/18. It will be my 8th time running that one and my 13th in total. With any luck, I will still be doing them in 10 years when I will move up to yet another age category. My goal has been to run at a pace which would qualify me for the Boston Marathon but I am realizing that unless I hire a running coach, that will probably never happen. (The other factor is that now Boston only takes marathon results, not half.) It's just a fact that, as I age,  I am slowing down. I ran a 10K on July 4th under very good conditions - flat course, low humidity, mid-70s, lots of shade. My goal was to run it in less than 50 minutes. I thought I was pushing myself more than normal but still did it in 51:40. That was faster than last year which was hot and humid but still somewhat disappointing. On the bright side, I was 6th of 46 runners in my age group so still respectable. The fastest in my age group was among the fastest runners in the whole race. If I had done 49:50, I'd have been 4th so not that much of a difference really. I'd still like to do another marathon but only if it's a destination one, like Paris, Dublin or Lisbon. If I am going to spend all of the time training, it should be worth it. All three of those are open marathons so no need to qualify. But, for right now, it's #13 in Philly.

Looks like a nice place!

For some reason, I have started getting emails a few months ago from this resort, which looks to be very elegant and very pricey too.

 
Little Palm Island Resort and Spa from Noble House Hotels and Resorts on Vimeo.

Catch the Old Rockers before They Die

I really wish I would have seen Prince again before he died. I had seen him back when Purple Rain came out in 1985 and he was great. I have a tendency to forget how good performers are and let them pass through town without even trying to see them. That happened with Bob Marley, whom I had seen in college when Rastaman Vibration came out. He was through my town twice after that and then he went and died on me. So now I have a list of performers I need to see before they go. I saw Merle Haggard last June. I have Willie Nelson, Bob Dylan and Neil Young on my list. Also some country performers like Loretta Lynn.  Paul McCartney will be in both New York and Philly but he sold out. Dylan will be here next month so I hope to catch him.

I also missed this great performance of Prince at the Super Bowl. I think I was at a meeting or doing something I liked a lot more.


 

This made my weekend!

Still a bad season but all the same....