Regina Spektor Concert

Last Friday Connie and I went to a Regina Spektor Concert with some friends. Connie and I found out about Regina about a year ago via pandora.com. We have enjoyed her music since then and when we found out she was coming to town we were excited to attend.
The venue for the concert was frankly terrible (terrible audio, standing room only), but the concert was awesome. What we like about Regina is her diversity and depth of talent. So for all you viewing pleasure, I have duplicated the concert here, with the songs in the order that she played them.

She start out with a fun song, called "The Calculation":


She then followed that with one of my favorite songs of hers, "Eet":



Next up was "Folding Chair" was illustrates the quirkness that makes her fun to listen to:



The moving "Ode to Divorce" brought out Regina's serious side.



"The machine" is a weird and awesome song about the future:



Next up was "Laughing with", a thought provoking song about God:



Next up was "One more time with feeling" which I hadn't heard before:



This was followed by the haunting "Blue Lips", which I believe is based on some her experiences as a Jewish family immigrating from Russia:



One of my favorites, "On The Radio" was next:



Next up was the peppy turning to sad song "Dance Anthem of the 80s":



This was followed by the accapella "Silly eye color generalization":



"That Time" is a song about remembering the weird and sometimes foolish things of youth:



"Apres Moi" is a strong and moving song with a long bit in russian:



"Poor Little Rich Boy" was interesting because Regina used a chair as drum and that was pretty cool (WARNING: Explicit lyrics)



After this Regina said it was here last song and left the stage. Then everyone cheered and cheered until she came back on. I have to be honest, the encore seemed pretty staged, but we didn't mind because she came back and sang some of our favorite songs.

The encore started with "The man of 1000 faces":



Then came a Regina classic "Samson":



Next was another Regina classic "US" (also one of my favorites):



This followed by yet another favorite classic "Fidelity":


Well, this brings us to the end of the concert, I hope you enjoyed it!

Knee Surgery

Looking through my exercise logs I first started having problems with my left knee around the first of April 2008. At the time my knee got swollen and was locking up and so I went to a doctor. went easy on it for about a month until the swelling went down. I didn't have any more major problems with it until October when I started try to run more. Then it started to get really sore so I went to a doctor took a day or two off until it felt a little better. Then I tried running some more. It started to get really sore and hurting so I went to a doctor but I just kept running anyway until it was so sore I could barely walk. Then I went to a doctor took a month or so off to see if it would get better. It did not get better so I went to a doctor decided to try to some weight training to help strengthen my knees. After a few months it did start to get better, though I could not run up stairs or jump at all. Around March I started riding my bike to work again and it felt good enough that I ran a triathlon. It didn't feel too bad after that but I still couldn't jump on it or run on it without it hurting, so I mostly just road my bike.
It had been feeling pretty good and then in June while on the pioneer trek with the youth in our stake I was doing a tug of war and was pulling really hard and felt it slip a little bit and it got sore again and I was hobbling the rest of trek. At the point I finally decided I should go to a doctor because I as tired of always having to be super careful with my knee.
I went to a sports medicine doctor and he told me I probably had a torn meniscus. He referred me to a orthopedic surgeon and said I would need knee surgery. I had a choice to do an MRI but both the sports medicine doctor and the surgeon said it would be a waste of money because if they found something they would have to do surgery anyway and if they didn't find anything in the MRI they would have to do surgery to figure out what was wrong. I was convinced, so scheduled a surgery for the end of summer, after some of our planned vacations would be over.

The surgeon explained to me that if I had a torn meniscus that he would cut the torn part out and that I would be able to walk the same day and that in a month I could run, ride my bike, or do whatever I wanted. It was several weeks between when I first met with the surgeon and when I actually had the surgery. By the time the surgery was coming around my knee was actually starting to feel pretty good (though I still couldn't run or jump without pain) and I wondered if I was just being a pansy and was just wasting a lot of money. I asked the surgeon if he ever got into someone's knee and found nothing wrong. He said that rarely happened with people with my symptoms, so I decided to go ahead with the surgery.

Well it turns out that when he got into my knee, my meniscus wasn't torn. It was much worse. A large part of it was shattered and delaminated (detached from the bone). If you look at the picture at the top, the whole thing is supposed to be white. The pinkish and red parts are bone that is supposed to be covered by cartilage. So the surgeon performed what is called a micro fracture. Basically what he did was take a small awl and poke a bunch of whole into my bone where the cartilage is supposed to be. The holes are made deep enough that the bone bleeds and bone marrow seeps out. Then what is supposed to happen is that over the course of the next year or so, a scab forms which then hardens into scar tissue which has some cartilage in in it which acts as a new meniscus. Because the scab takes a while to harden, I have been on crutches for a month so as not to break it while it is soft and I am just now starting to put weight on my left knee and trying to walk on it. I am making good progress and am starting to ride a stationary bike and improve my usable range of motion. I don't know if I had gone to a doctor sooner if the surgery would have gone differently, but I do know if I had I would be done with the very unfun process of rehabilitation.

Upside down vacations

This summer we traveled all over the west. I tried to take pictures of me doing headstands and handstands where ever we went.

Bryce Canyon

From handstands

Mossy Cave (new Bryce)

From handstands

Pioneer Trek, Wyoming

From handstands

Orderville Canyon, Zion's, Utah

From handstands

Horsetail Falls, Oregon

From handstands

From handstands

Columbia River Gorge, Oregon

From handstands

From handstands

Cannon Beach, Oregon

From handstands

Shosone Falls, Idaho

From handstands

Eating cheese while standing on my head
Home (Click to watch video)

From handstands

Oregon Trip

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Bryce Canyon

Earlier this year we went to Bryce Canyon. It rained most the time and was quite cold, but we still had a good time.

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4th of July Children's Parade

They have a children's parade and a big party on the 4th of July in the park by our house. Here are some pictures:

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Flow Rider

As part of Connie and I's mini vacation we went to an indoor surfing place. It took a little bit to get the hang of it, but we both got where we could stay up pretty well.

From FlowRider

From FlowRider

Some action footage. Click to play movie.

From FlowRider

From FlowRider