"Candy left over from Halloween, A unified theory of everything..."

A non-stock photo view from near the office.

The view from my room. They have since fixed and filled the pool but we are not allowed to use it until Memorial Day weekend. Let's just say I will not be recommending Extended Stay Deluxe hotels to anyone...ever. Breakfast is cold hard boiled eggs and prune juice and sometimes they have instant oatmeal.

I found this place in Corrales the weekend before last. It is a good 'bar' bar.

I swapped rental cars after returning from Iowa as I didn't really care for the Dodge Charger or its lack of fuel efficiency. I ended up with a Chevy Impala which is not too fancy but it does have XM Radio which I can see myself getting addicted to. My favorite stations so far are called "Fred" and "Ethel" which play mostly trendy alt rock bands from '80s to the present.

I hope to get a chance to visit Sante Fe this weekend. Depends on work of course.

The new Wilco, Sky Blue Sky, is in heavy rotation. There were about six or seven albums that I restrained myself from buying last weekend (Golden Smog, Pink Martini, Guided by Voices live, etc... etc.. )

I am planning on catching a band I don't know very well next week: Pretty Girls Make Graves are on their farewell tour and I like the few songs I have heard from various Matador Records compilations. That and I need to get out and see some of the town before I leave.

Mr. Dirda has reviewed American Food Writing: An Anthology with Classic Recipes, edited by Molly O'Neill, something which arrived in the mail from Library of America last month and is deliciously fun to poke around in. Dirda sums it better of course. It is a great compilation of excerpts, essays, and recipes from the historical such as Thomas Jefferson's ice cream recipe, the literary (Hawthorne, Melville, Thoreau, Stein, Steinbeck), the usual foodies (Brillat-Savarin, M.F.K. Fisher, Julia Child) as well as more catholic writers (H.L. Mencken, Guy Davenport, David Sedaris.) Hear Molly O'Neill talk about the book from NPR.

Dirda also has a good review of the new Murakami, After Dark, which I have yet to start.

Too many things to try and remember what I wanted to post about when I could not so that was just some of the highlights for now.