After nearly ten years of living and working around Athens, I finally saw R.E.M. perform at one of their notorious unannounced performances. It was a combination release party for And I Feel Fine: Best of the I.R.S. Years 1982-1987 CD and When the Light is Mine: Best of the I.R.S. Years 1982-1987 DVD sets from R.E.M. and Finest Worksongs: Athens Bands Play the Music of R.E.M. benefit CD. I had a hunch, and sure enough the original four (plus another fellow I didn’t know) were the second band to play. Mike Mills and Peter Buck returned to the stage throughout the night to play with the other bands. Thirteen dollars was quite a small price to play to see R.E.M. play from ten feet away at the Fabulous 40 Watt. EDIT: I knew he looked familiar, but I couldn’t place him at the time. The fifth band member was none other than Young Fresh Fellows frontman Scott McCaughey. I think that probably maximizes the jealousy felt by my fellow Techies.

So we were out and about yesterday evening, and one place we went into had a large cut-out of a flying Superman suspended from the ceiling. Vivian looked up, pointed, and said, “Daddy!”. What more could I possibly ask for on Father’s Day?

I put my RailsDay entry at weather.ericwagoner.com. It’s exactly as it stood after 24 hours, typos and bugs and all.

I finished with four minutes to spare. Here’s a shot of the front page of the app. It turned out pretty nice for 24 hours… though I’ve seen screenshots of some of the competition and wowsers!

I’ve now got a complete application. I could be adding bells and whistles, but with only two hours to go, it’s time to clean everything up, do some final testing, write some simple instructions to the judges, and let it go.

Four hours to go! Here’s another screenshot. On a whim I tried a “Rock Star (diet) Energy Drink”. It’s like condensed cool-aid with a few Flinstones vitamin pills crushed in. Yum yum!

After 15hrs (including a four hour nap and some quality Vivian time), I’ve got the makings of a nice little app. Here’s a screenshot of the work so far.

I’m comfortable enough with Ruby on Rails now to participate in RailsDay 2006, a 24-hour challenge to build a web application from start to finish. There’re lots of cool prizes, the best of all possible judges, and no small number of participants. It all starts at 12 midnight tonight (Eastern), and we’ll have the next 24 hours exactly to build something cool. Myself, I’m building a weather tracking application (shhh… keep it under your hat!). We’ll see how it goes. This page will show my activity in real-time, if you happen to wander by here on Saturday. In other news, the #1 magazine for market farmers (Growing for Market) has for its current cover story a lengthy article about my latest public project – FarmNotebook. So far the reception has been quite positive. It was a great article (since they let me write it) that makes a strong case for using my website.

I’ve long maintained that sleep’s a crutch, and I’m glad to see that the fine folks at Folger’s agree with me.

How can I keep me from moving? Now I need a change of scenery Just listen to me I won’t pretend to Understand the movement of the wind Or the waves out in the ocean or how Like the hours I change softly slowly Plainly blindly oh me oh my!

-- Clap Your Hands Say Yeah “Skin of my Yellow Country Teeth " The debut album from Clap Your Hands Say Yeah has been getting a lot of listening to from me. (Want to see?) Besides being just a really good album full of really good music, it also makes me think of Randy. I can’t say why, exactly. Maybe it’s the blend of David Byrne and Robyn Hitchcock that CYHSY’s lead singer brings to the music. I’ve been thinking of Randy a lot lately. A new wife, a new son, new rooms in the home – I wish I could be there to witness them. Someday, maybe. Hopefully.