Rob Lifford

Wow. It had to happen eventually. Straight from the horse’s mouth:

Last Friday night, I got together with Mike, Page and Fish to talk openly
about the strong feelings I’ve been having that Phish has run its course and
that we should end it now while it’s still on a high note. Once we started
talking, it quickly became apparent that the other guys’ feelings, while not
all the same as mine, were similar in many ways — most importantly, that we
all love and respect Phish and the Phish audience far too much to stand by
and allow it to drag on beyond the point of vibrancy and health. We don’t
want to become caricatures of ourselves, or worse yet, a nostalgia act. By
the end of the meeting, we realized that after almost twenty-one years
together we were faced with the opportunity to graciously step away in
unison, as a group, united in our friendship and our feelings of gratitude.

So Coventry will be the final Phish show. We are proud and thrilled that it
will be in our home state of Vermont. We’re also excited for the June and
August shows, our last tour together. For the sake of clarity, I should say
that this is not like the hiatus, which was our last attempt to revitalize
ourselves. We’re done. It’s been an amazing and incredible journey. We thank
you all for the love and support that you’ve shown us.

Thanks for everything, guys. You did things musically that others would not or simply could not do. Some might add “should not” to that list. Not me. Man, did we have some fun shows…

Can anyone tell me why it is that the better I hit the ball in practice, the more I’ll stink it up on the course? Is this a simple extension of Murphy’s Law?

A few weeks ago, I bought a shag bag and went out to the practice green at Jimmy Clay a few times. Pretty soon I felt I had made amazing improvements to my short game. I was hitting my short irons consistently and accurately onto or just near the green, and suffering very few mis-hits.

Inspired by my progress, I headed over to Bergstrom municipal course last weekend and went out for a round. Wouldn’t you know it: I couldn’t hit a green to save my life. I hit the ball pretty darn well off the tee, usually the weakest part of my game, but I was reminded very quickly of the old adage that you drive for show, putt for dough. But I can’t putt for dough, or glory, or anything else if I can’t put the damn ball on the damn green, now can I?

To sum up: grrrrrrrrrrrrrr. Golf make Hulk angry.

In other news, I got to do something really fun last night: play bluegrass as backup for a choir. The Hays County High School Choir enlisted my buddy Jamie to put together a little group to back up the choir at their recital, since they’d be performing two songs from the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack. The choir was split up into several little sub-groups, so we also got to play fiddle tunes out in front of the curtain during the stage changes. The school district’s performing arts center is a brand new, gorgeous facility… after all my gigs in dank, sweaty bars and nightclubs, it was nice to experience that touch of class for a change.

…about Blogger’s new commenting features. Would’ve taken more effort than it was worth to get it to behave the way I wanted it to. Just went back to the old comment system. Simple & comfortable.

Possible big changes afoot in my employment situation in the very near future…

Well, Blogger has introduced their own commenting system, and I couldn’t resist giving it a try. For now, the old comments (provided graciously by BlogBack), are gone, and I haven’t decided if it’s worth the effort to figure out how to keep those available too. Looking forward to seeing how good a job Blogger has done with this, since they’re probably feeling like they have to scramble to keep up with Movable Type (which may have fewer users, I don’t know, but offers a much more powerful set of features).

In the previous post about my damaged digital camera, I said:

It’s pretty clear, however, that no repair can save it.

Well, they say it takes a big man to admit he’s wrong… so I’m feeling pretty huge right now. Despite the cracked, hanging cover, this sucker still works. Even the flash. Check it out:

Amazing. Looks like I’ll be using this camera for a while longer after all. And when I buy another, I think it’ll have to be another Olympus.

…for my Olympus D-220L digital camera, which died this morning at Long Island’s MacArthur airport. I was getting ready for the security check and slapped my backpack up on a table to queue it up for the x-ray machine. I guess I was in a hurry and put it down right on the edge, because the bag fell off as soon as I turned around. It hit the ground with a dull thud, and my first concerns were about the bottle of wine I had in there (which somehow didn’t break). I didn’t hear any plastic-cracking sounds, so it didn’t even occur to me that my camera was in there, carelessly protected by nothing but an old bandanna wrapped around it. The front panel (which houses the flash, covers the lens, and serves as the on/off switch) is cracked and detached. I’d post a picture of it, but, uh, I don’t have a working digital camera. It’s pretty clear, however, that no repair can save it.

I can’t say it hasn’t served me well. I got the camera in October 1998, right before we shoved off for Korea for the first time. It made it through the second stay, of course, and remained with me all this time. It’s responsible for over 500 pictures on those two sites, and hundreds more on my hard drive. It survived many, many drops and knocks in various locations around the world, including several that I was sure would put it out of commission but didn’t. It was already a dinosaur by digital camera standards, but still perfectly fine for simple pics to be used mainly on-screen. Cheapskate that I am, I probably would’ve kept it for several more years.

There is a bright side to any sad situation, and that is the fact that I can still view the pictures on the camera (so perhaps it’s not quite dead, just critically injured). It seems that the memory card is alright, and I’ll be able to preserve the pictures I took over the weekend. Seeing as I spent the weekend at the wedding of my oldest friend (to a really wonderful woman!), plus hanging out with my family, including a first look at my brother’s beautiful daughter, that is a really bright side. So, ironically, the predominant feeling I have right now is gratitude. Thanks for the memories.