This is the tip jar and Lego village at Butch and Nellie's, a cafe near the studio where I go for life drawing on Wednesday nights. The sign on the tip jar says, "Your tips support our Lego habit." 

I saw this in the office of Prosper magazine, where Scott Olling works. 

This is a poster I saw at Javalicious when I was tuning.
Other news: I got called to play with the Choral Society on Stabat Mater. 

I helped Jennifer and other volunteers sort books at the library bookstore. They do this once a month. We ended up buying about ten books ourselves. 

I thought maybe FIDY was an acronym, but it's Ebonic for "fifty", as in "fidy cent." The barista loves to hear older white people try to say it. 

I was paying for coffee with this bill at Espresso Metro when I noticed that someone had put mysterious rubber stamps on it. 

Two 70s icons: The Volkswagen Rabbit and the Grateful Dead. 

The newly renovated Fox Bob Hope Theater in Stockton is nicer than any theater in Sacramento, even the Crest. It is also the perfect size for a Broadway house (they have a small schedule of touring shows.) 

I ran into my old friend Glen Naydan, who was playing in the string section for Smokey Robinson. He is now married and running a teaching studio in Santa Clara with his wife, a super pianist from a rich Thai family. He is also a cartoonist who recently illustrated a series of children's books.
He has a large whiteboard in his teaching studio and gets his younger students to play by saying, "Do you want to see a pig? If you play, I'll draw a pig!" 

I tuned for a Smokey Robinson concert in Stockton today. From left to right, these people are: musical director, dancer, Smokey. 

We're really, really tired of people trying to play the piano on their own. Doesn't work. 

This is a little metal fish on the bumper of a car that says ALIEN. Take my word for it. 

Especially if you do all three at once. 

This is Highway 80, seconds after I ran over a pillow. 

Near the school piano I tuned today was this poster for Rachel's old music camp. They also asked me to stop tuning for five minutes because it was driving the autistic kids crazy. 

This is the first two pages of a book by James Hamaker, one of Paul Basye's students. It's hard to believe that James is mildly autistic. 

This is Stan in his percussion setup. (Based on the huge setup for Flower Drum Song.) 

A picture of Rachel. 

The strange house on Del Rio is now for sale. It is literally a stone's throw from Robin's house (she hates it); I said we were going to buy the house so we could spy on her. 

Robin finally got to meet Stan backstage. Robin's son Aaron was interested in Harry Partch and contacted Stan a while back about advice on making experimental instruments. I lent Aaron some copies of Stan's avant-garde publication The Source. Stan said that a copy of issue #1 recently sold on eBay for $1500. 

Wendell and his family showed up for Little Shop last night. Here he is posing with the show's bass player, Lynn, who Wendell knows from his Los Angeles days. 

The view from Keyboard 2 in the green room/remote band room. 

Here's the whole canyon piece. 

Here's a detail of the Chinese bridge. 

Joseph Jacobs, the father of a tuning client, made twelve of these amazing models out of white acrylic. This is a detail of his model of the Roman Coliseum. It is about four feet wide and three feet high and rests on a large black pedestal. The other two pieces in the house represent a Chinese bridge and part of the Mesa Verde canyon with a small village in a cave in the side.