Freya: 2001-2017

We put Freya to sleep today.

Freya

Wait, that doesn’t sound right. Whenever I have to euthanize an animal, especially a beloved pet, there is always a lot of guilt. The words “put to sleep” just don’t cover it. Perhaps the harsher “put down” would be better, while “I killed my dog today” is more honest.

I’m always jealous of people who have a pet who just dies, as in “Little Fifi went to sleep on her favorite pillow and passed peacefully in the night”. I have never experienced that, and it seems all too often the decision has to be made to end a pet’s life. Yeah, I know it is often for the best, but that doesn’t make it any easier.

Freya was the most amazing dog I’ve ever known. Andrea got her from the shelter in October of 2001, and you could tell that she was one smart dog. Part Doberman and part something else (she had a blotchy purple tongue) she was the the dog that made me fall in love with mutts. I can remember Andrea bringing her by the Oculan office where I had just started working on the job that would define my professional career, and I knew she was something special.

She was also an incredible hunter and I can count at least six deer that she managed to catch on our property. Now, I wasn’t super happy that she killed deer, but I had to give her credit. Whereas all our other dogs immediately bark and run after them, she would hunker down and slowly crawl until she was close enough to burst out and run them down. Usually they would escape, but sometimes she could catch them. She was an extremely friendly dog in all other aspects, but if you were furry and ran from her, the chase was on.

Freya with a Buck

She was also good with other dogs. When we got Maya (another stray puppy) she adopted her instantly, and put up with all of Maya’s puppy antics. About five years ago something happened and she was paralyzed on the right side of her face. This caused her ear to droop, and she had trouble breathing out of one nostril. The worst part was that she lost control the ability to blink her right eye, and while we put drops in her eye every day she lost the use of it. Several thousand dollars later the Vet School had no clue as to what could be wrong, so she just learned to live with it.

As the years went on, she also started to lose her hearing. About a year ago she became incontinent. This was a dog that would never go in the house, and I think it was more that she would wake up with an incredible need and just not have time to alert us to let her out. We adapted, took her out often, and bought a Rug Doctor. Toward the end, she pretty much slept 23 hours a day. She had a lot of trouble getting around, and would often fall down the steps of our deck. She would get halfway down and then, for some reason, decide to jump. With her bad eye I’m certain her depth perception wasn’t great, and she’d sometimes land in a heap at the bottom of the stairs. We’d carry her down when we could, but we weren’t home all the time.

A couple of months ago I was traveling on business and Andrea told me a sad story. She had let Freya out to pee and was trying to get her shoes on to carry her down the steps. However, we have two other dogs who were happy to see her, and before she could catch up to Freya, the dog had jumped. She failed the landing and ended up on her side, and because she had to go she just peed while she lay there. That was the story that made me think it was time.

When a dog as active as Freya just isn’t able to do the things she loves, one has to think she can’t be happy. While we don’t think she was in much pain, we did give her a slight pain killer twice a day for arthritis. She did eat but was still becoming too thin, and she was having trouble standing up (sometime while she ate I would put my foot next to hers which would keep her legs from splaying out). It got to the point where we couldn’t bathe her because she couldn’t stand up long enough.

But we still loved that bony, droopy, stinky dog. We canceled the first two appointments, and it wasn’t until Andrea asked me to do it alone that we were able to go through with it. As a sixty pound dog that was over 16 years old, in human years she would have been north of 100. It was time.

Freya

Doesn’t make it any easier.

2017 Total Solar Eclipse

My friend Bob and I are both science geeks, Bob perhaps a little more than me. We started planning for the 2017 total solar eclipse months ago. We thought it would be cool to watch from the beach, so we booked a hotel in Charleston, South Carolina, for the weekend, ordered our eclipse glasses and waited.

In hindsight we didn’t really plan for the weather. We should have booked two hotels, one at the beach and one in the mountains, and then canceled the other booking based upon the weather (the viewing conditions for the mountains were supposed to be excellent). As we left for Charleston the weather forecast was not promising. However, we had picked Charleston because we knew we could simply head inland if needed, and as long as we stayed in the path of totality we would be fine.

This was to be my first total solar eclipse. The closest I’d come before was in 1984. I was just getting ready to graduate from the NC School of Science and Math and we all went out to witness an annular eclipse on May 30th.

1984 Annular Eclipse

It was cool. The picture above was taken by Joe Liles, the school’s art director, but it really didn’t get all that dark. It is surprising how bright even a sliver of the Sun can be, and since we didn’t have totality it was less impressive than I was expecting.

Flash forward 33 years.

Isle of Palms

The four of us: Bob, his wife Kathy, Andrea and I drove down to Charleston late Saturday night, and we explored the city a bit on Sunday. Of course, all of the tours were booked due to the influx of people, so we just wandered around the market and ate some seafood. Later in the afternoon we drove over to the Isle of Palms. This was where we were planning on watching the show, but as the forecast just kept worsening we decided to head inland. We made it an early night so we could get up early Monday and beat the traffic.

Bob decided we should try to go to Lake Murray in Irmo, South Carolina, just outside of Columbia (and once home to Donna Rice). A few miles away was the Columbiana mall, so we made that our destination as a place to get lunch and sit in some air conditioning. We figured if worst came to worst, we could simply watch it from the parking lot.

Traffic wasn’t bad until we actually headed for the lake, and even then it was only congested near the two parks on either side of the dam. All the public parking lots were full, so we paid a guy $20 to park in a business lot and then walked the rest of the way. Luckily there was a nice place to sit on a hill overlooking the water, and so that’s where we made camp.

The place was crowded but not packed, and there was a general festive atmosphere. We were still worried about the clouds, and soon after the eclipse started this is what the sky was like:

2017 Eclipse - clouds

We had heard that an eclipse will actually cause cumulus clouds to dissipate. In the summer most of them are caused by afternoon heating, and while I couldn’t tell that the light level had decreased at all, the clouds did thin and eventually go away completely, and we had excellent viewing for totality.

2017 Eclipse - Kathy and Tarus looking up

Since we ended up at a lake, Andrea decided to watch from the comfort of the water. She found that she could float on her back and hold on to one of the float wires marking the edge of the “beach” area, and since her ears were submerged she said it was a very cool and quiet experience.

2017 Eclipse - Andrea floating

I hate the water so I stayed on land. With our glasses we could see totality inching closer and closer.

2017 Eclipse - nearly total

I had decided not to take any pictures during totality, and almost all of these in this post were taken by Bob. We only had about two and a half minutes for the main event, and there is a lot to take in. You get to look at the sun with the naked eye:

2017 Eclipse - totality

and there is a sunset in every direction you look:

2017 Eclipse - sunset

In a word, it was amazing. It got considerably darker than it did during the annular, and it was just so totally awe inspiring I really don’t have words to express it. While I consider myself spiritual if not religious, there is something about seeing the moon fit over the sun just so perfectly that implies the divine.

When it was over I wanted to do it again, immediately. I also felt kind of gypped, as it is possible to have a much longer eclipse than the two and a half minutes we observed. In fact, it can go up to seven and a half minutes (when the Moon is close to the Earth and the Sun is farthest from the Earth), but since that won’t happen until 2186 I’m going to have to be satisfied with what we got, for now.

Once totality was over, there were still some cool effects to discover. The leaves of trees act kind of like pinhole cameras, so you get little crescent shaped shadows everywhere:

2017 Eclipse - crescent shadows

Still buzzing from the experience, we walked back to the car and joined the throngs heading home.

Google wanted us to take I-26 to I-95, but I-26 had become a parking lot:

2017 Eclipse - cars on I-26

Looking at Google Maps it kept telling us traffic would get lighter, but when we got to that point it was “red” again. It dawned on us that folks leaving the area after the eclipse probably formed a sort of “clot” that would continue to move, slowly, along the interstate. It was funny that I don’t think Google Map’s algorithms really planned for something like this, so we decided to take back roads.

That was slightly better, until you would hit a small town. For example, in Bethune, South Carolina, there is a four-way stop on the highway.

2017 Eclipse - Bethune four-way stop sign

Based on the amount of time we sat in traffic, my guess is that they didn’t think to put a cop there to direct traffic until just before we made it to the sign.

So, it took us about seven hours to travel what should have taken four. I don’t care, I would still do it again even if I had to wait longer.

I might have caught the “eclipse” bug. According to Neil deGrasse Tyson, a total eclipse happens on average about once every two years.

2017 Eclipse - Tyson tweet on eclipse frequency

This is backed up by Wikipedia. The next one is in July of 2019, and the path of totality is just south of Buenos Aires in Argentina. That could be doable with frequent flyer miles and hotel points, and it will occur near sunset which should be hella-cool.

The next one in the US is in 2024 and should last more than four minutes. Bob and Kathy may have an RV by then, and if so … road trip. If you get the chance to see a total eclipse, don’t miss it. I’m still thinking about it two days later.

Lollapalooza Twenty-Six Years On

Bob is one of my closest friends. We met back in 1988 when we both worked for Northern Telecom, and we’ve managed to stay in touch through a few moves (on my part) and the birth of his daughter Megan. In fact, when Kathy (his wife) announced she was pregnant, I can remember being a little angry. Single people hang out with single people, couples hang out with couples, and parents hang out with other parents. I was certain we wouldn’t be friends with them much longer. I am grateful that I was wrong.

Bob and I share the trait in that we rarely let what other people think influence our behavior. For example, I’m a fifty year old guy who plays Pokémon Go. He’s a fifty year old guy who likes Electronic Dance Music (EDM). This year Megan bought him tickets to the Buku festival in New Orleans, and he enjoyed it so much he decided to get tickets to this year’s Lollapalooza in Chicago. I went to the first Lollapalooza in 1991, and so when he invited me I thought it would be an interesting experience to go again.

Lollapalooza 4-Day Wristband

While alternative music is a well established genre now, it wasn’t 26 years ago. What we tend to think of as “alternative” was often just called “college radio” back then (you young folks can look up what a “radio” was). Perry Farrell coined the term “alternative nation” when he established Lollapalooza festival as a farewell tour for his band Jane’s Addiction, and the first festival was a pretty unique experience for me.

I’ve always been attracted to people who defy categorization. Being a “smart guy” in the rural south was pretty isolating, and so I tended to associate with other outcasts, and it wasn’t until I attended the North Carolina School of Science and Math that I really felt like I fit in anywhere, but even there you had your normal high school cliques with the jocks and the rich kids, etc. It was cool to be able to attend a festival more targeted at “my people” for lack of a better word. It wasn’t very commercial and it seemed like people were there for the music as well as, maybe, to learn something.

I enjoyed my first Lolla, so I don’t really understand why it took me several years to return. In part it is because I am adverse to crowds, and also it isn’t a cheap festival. I returned in 1997 when the company I worked for had season tickets to the venue, and it was a shadow of its former self. The amphitheater held over 20,000 people but I think less than 8,000 showed up. I did get to stand feet away from Tricky, and I enjoyed both the Tool and Orbital sets, but I wasn’t surprised when it was announced that it would be the last Lollapalooza tour.

Lollapalooza was revived in 2003 but it wasn’t until 2005 when they settled on Grant Park in Chicago for the location that it became something of a permanent fixture. Over 100,000 people attend each day of the festival, which is now four days long.

I wasn’t sure I could last four days (I didn’t) but I was eager to go to the event and see what it had become.

While I love Chicago, I’m not sure Chicago 100% loves Lollapalooza. I know the hotel industry does since the hotel prices were much higher than normal, and it was looking like it was going to be an expensive trip. Luckily, I have a friend who splits his time between Chicago and Miami and he offered up his apartment for the weekend as he was going to flee the city during the festival. Andrea came along since her and Kathy are friends, and they were going to hang out together while the rest of us went to Grant Park. Four of us were going to the show: me, Bob, Megan and her friend Claire.

While the apartment was over a mile from the park, it was a lovely place to stay. It’s nice to be in a home versus a hotel. Andrea and I arrived Wednesday afternoon, and as she had work to do I decided to prepare myself for the long weekend with a much needed nap.

View from the Apartment

On Thursday the six of us met for lunch and then the four of us headed over to the event. They were staying a a hotel across from the Trump Tower Chicago. It was funny to watch people taking pictures of themselves with it, usually sporting obscene finger gestures.

Megan and Claire in front of Trump Tower

There were a couple of entrances to the event, with the main one being near Michigan and Congress. From the hotel we were closer to the northern gate. As you approached the barriers you were asked to hold up your hand with your wristband.

Lollapalooza - northern entrance

While the instructions were pretty specific, the wristband is to go on the right wrist, not a lot of people seemed to get the memo and both Bob and I were bothered by this for some reason. There was also a long list of things allowed in the park and things forbidden. No outside food or drink but you can bring in a bag. Bob had a Camelbak but even those had to be brought in empty (there were numerous “hydration stations” in the park). Once past the first barriers the line broke into those with bags and those without.

Security was really lax at Lollapalooza. I got the most minimal pat down and there were no metal detectors. While the event was non-smoking, people had no trouble bringing in cigarettes, vapes and other contraband. It was one of the things that really detracted from the show for me.

Once inside we decided to learn the layout. Grant Park is large, and the festival is spread out over seven stages (eight if you count “Kidapalooza”).

Lollapalooza - map

The main stage, Grant Park, was on the south end in a large field. If you faced that stage there was another stage called Lake Shore behind and to the left. The largest headliners were on the Grant stage, and shows were staggered so that they weren’t on at the same time. On the opposite side of the park was the Bud Light stage. I didn’t like that stage much, as it seemed to be in a little valley and the area was much more claustrophobic than the area around Grant. Unless you were pretty close it was hard to see the stage. It also had a second stage off to the side sponsored by Tito’s Vodka.

Lollapalooza - Day 1 Schedule

On the western side of the park was the Perry’s stage featuring EDM acts. We spent a lot of time there since EDM was one of the main reasons for attending. It was the first place we stopped to see an act, in this case Tritonal.

Lollapalooza - Tritonal

Seeing EDM performances in the middle of the day is a bit odd. First, it’s pretty much just one or two guys hunched over gear and it is hard to differentiate that from just someone clicking on “play” in an app. Also, the strobes, fire and video effects lose something in bright sunlight. Still, it is music to bob your head to and it was kind of fun to hang out and bounce a bit. Bob kept getting high-fives from people walking by and seeing his Buku shirt.

We decided to check out the main Grant Park stage for Cage the Elephant.

Lollapalooza - Cage the Elephant

The lead singer wore fishnet stockings and a dress, and that at least took me back to my last Lolla when the lead singer for Tool performed in a bustier and kabuki makeup. It was also here that I first experienced the most annoying aspect of the festival.

Many of the people didn’t seem to be there for the music. When a band got started, groups of people would form a little “train” and push their way through the crowd. A few minutes later they would push their way back. Sometime they might stop right in front of you or in the middle of your group. Often they’d light up a cigarette or a joint or start puffing on their vape. Frequently they would be more interested in chatting up the person next to them versus listening to the music. I will say that I was glad that mobile phone usage was less than I expected (I’ve been to concerts recently where people record the whole thing), but being in a crowd of mostly young people with the attention span of gnats lessened the whole thing for me.

Lollapalooza - Buckingham Fountain

We did find refuge in one place – the Cocktail Bar. Situated in the center of Grant Park is the large Buckingham Fountain. Off to the east was a little archway with the words “Cocktail Bar” on it, and inside provided a delightful respite from the crowds. Situated along Lake Shore Drive, this area had grass, trees, lawn chairs and access to a number of decent cocktails. At $14 a drink it was also one of the more affordable items available in the park, believe it or not. In addition to being quiet and relatively free of obnoxious young’uns, there was also a bank of toilets you could use without leaving the area. We would end of spending at least an hour here each day.

Weather was hit and miss Thursday (as well as most of the festival). It looked like it might rain at any minute, and so I was happy to find that the app Dark Sky is now available for Android. This is an app that does “microforecasts” – it doesn’t try to forecast the weather for the day, just the next hour or so. As I was writing this it was raining, and you can see how it will taper off over the next hour.

Lollapalooza - Dark Sky

It’s not 100% accurate out very far, but it is really good for about 30 minutes, sometimes saying things like “light drizzle starting in 7 minutes and lasting 13 minutes”, etc. You can also set it up to send notifications when it is about to rain at your location.

The last show of Thursday had split headliners, with Muse at Grant Park and Lorde at Bud Light. Bob wanted to see Muse so I left him and headed north. About this time Dark Sky warned me that it was getting ready to pour in four minutes, so I made a dash for the exit. The rain was pretty torrential but I was able to make it to the subway without getting too damp, and I watched the rest of the thunderstorm from the comfort (and rather exquisite view) of the apartment. About three songs into the Muse set the show was canceled and everyone was told to leave the park. I understand the reasoning but it would kind of suck if the main band you came to see was canceled as there is no way to reschedule the show.

Lollapalooza - Day 2 Schedule

On Friday we got an earlier start and also entered through the north entrance. First stop was Perry’s for a performance by San Holo. He was pretty good but again it was broad daylight and we were looking at a guy hunched over his equipment.

Lollapalooza - San Holo

It was at San Holo that I got my first request for an “old guy” selfie. A young man came up to me and wanted a selfie, and while it was probably just for my devilish good looks I think he thought it funny that someone my age would be at the EDM stage in the middle of the day. Well, as the young kids say, send it.

I got another odd old guy comment later in the day. At Lolla they encourage you to pick up trash, and if you bring them a full bag you can get a small prize, like a shirt. Megan and Claire did it just because they wanted to, and as I was following Megan around and helping with the trash another guy, probably in his mid-40s, walked by and said “you’re a good Dad”.

Heh.

When I decided to come to Lollapalooza I posted the lineup on-line and asked if there was any of the lesser known bands I should try to see, and I was told to check out The Lemon Twigs, so we headed over to their set.

Lollapalooza - The Lemon Twigs

They were … odd. I liked the music well enough, but it seemed like a band in search of an image. The guy on drums was shirtless with white makeup and this whole Marilyn Manson thing going on. The lead singer was dressed in a blue jumpsuit while the guy on keyboards had on a Hawaiian shirt and khakis. The bass player was a woman who kind of stood off by herself. It was cool that the three men would switch positions and instruments, but it was weird to watch.

It was a bit of a toss up for the next act. Bob and I wanted to see Phantogram while the girls wanted to see Bishop Briggs.

Lollapalooza - Phantogram

I really liked the Phantogram set, well, except for the children constantly pushing themselves forward and back (sigh). What a lot of people don’t realize is that while these band names may sound new, bands like Phantogram have been around for a decade. How do you get to Lollapalooza? Practice, practice, practice.

Bob wanted to get some batteries for the DJ Snake set later that night (he has rave glasses that blink to the music) and so he had to leave the park. I went north to catch the end of the Tegan and Sara set at the Bud Light stage.

Lollapalooza - Tegan and Sara

As I mentioned above, I really didn’t like this stage. It felt very boxed-in and with the level of acts performing here you could always expect a crowd.

We all decided to meet back at the Cocktail Bar.

Lollapalooza - Cocktail Bar

It was a little more crowded than on Thursday, but we managed to find seats. Bob had tried to smuggle in three packages of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, but of course the crack security staff confiscated them. Well, two of the packages – for some reason they left him one. Sharp as tacks they was.

We left the bar and headed back north to check out Foster the People. It was a bit more of a madhouse so we kind of stayed toward the back. While the lens was kind of angled here, you can get an idea of how low the stage looked from the back.

Lollapalooza - Foster the People

The final show for Friday was DJ Snake at Perry’s. Yes, there was fire.

Lollapalooza - DJ Snake

And to answer your question: yes, the old guy did bounce, and I did “get low” when he said to “get low”.

Lollapalooza - Day 3 Schedule

We got a later start on Saturday and decided to enter at the main entrance. This was a mistake. It took over 45 minutes to get in. Of course, after the wait I wasn’t even touched by security, just waved right through.

Lollapalooza - Line at the Main Entrance

We wandered around a bit and decided to try to get decent spots for Glass Animals. Megan took a group selfie:

Lollapalooza - Group Selfie

Left to right: Me, Claire, Bob and Megan.

I’m not that familiar with Glass Animals, although I’ve heard them on SiriusXM “Alt. Nation”. I enjoyed their set, but one thing happened that kind of illustrated my biggest disappointment with members of the crowd.

Lollapalooza - Glass Animals

When I used to go to concerts, people would smuggle in beach balls. Once in the venue, they’d inflate them and play “keep it away from security”. It was fun to bounce them around waiting for the show to start.

Glass Animals have a song called “Pork Soda” with the line “pineapples in my head” and images of the fruit appear throughout their show. Before they started a roadie came out with a bunch of inflatable pineapples, and he handed them out to the crowd. Instead of tossing them around, most people just kept them as souvenirs (sigh).

Despite that, I enjoyed the show and plan to check out their music.

Now the one show I’d been waiting for was Banks. I am a huge fan of Banks. Had I bought Goddess on vinyl I would have wore it out. Of all the performers in the lineup for this year’s Lollapalooza, hers was the show I would not miss, and I made sure to get there early for a decent spot right in front of the stage.

When you are waiting for a show to start, they would often post pictures and videos on the screen by the side of the stage. Some of those would feature bands “From the Vault” (i.e. older Lollapalooza festivals). When I mentioned earlier that it can take a decade for a band to make it to the Lolla stage, many of the bands that have played here seemed to have disappeared. Take Broken Social Scene from 2008:

Lollapalooza - Broken Social Scene

or Delta Spirit from 2012:

Lollapalooza - Delta Spirit

Never heard of either of those.

Anyway, I really liked the Banks crowd. Of all the bands I had seen at the festival, I felt most at home among these people. You could feel the excitement build as it got closer for the show to start. One thing that is really cool about Lollapalooza is the bands start on time – the schedule is very tight.

Lollapalooza - Banks

Banks strode onto the stage flanked by two dancers in mesh and launched into “Poltergeist”. It was magical. Her music is pretty ethereal in the first place, and with the addition of the choreography it just jelled. It was the only set I saw all weekend that tried an artistic presentation, and yes while I’m biased I think she killed. Most of the tracks were off her second album, The Altar but she did play several from Goddess including “Begging for Thread” which is probably how most people know her.

Afterward I thought about heading north to see The xx, but I might have mentioned I hated the Bud Light stage, so still high from the Banks show I headed out.

I skipped Sunday. Andrea and I had a late brunch and then met Kathy to go and hang out at the zoo. I did have a slight FOMO, and one thing did happen that I would have liked.

Lollapalooza - Day 4 Schedule

Bob and the girls went back to the Cocktail Bar, and there was a stand there promoting Tito’s vodka. After chatting with the person in the booth for awhile, they were given wristbands that let them in to a special lounge near the Tito’s stage. It was apparently very nice with an open bar, but I just couldn’t handle the thought of the crowds one more day.

Overall, I’m glad I went but unless something unusual happens it will probably be another 26 years before I go back, although who can guess what Lollapalooza would be like that far into the future. I know I’m in the “hey, you kids get off my lawn” age bracket, but I was pretty disappointed with the most of the people in the crowd. They seemed very self-centered and more interested in being seen than seeing. A lot of the young women wore fairly revealing clothing, and although few people can actually pull that look off I was happy that they were comfortable enough in their body image to try. The closest thing to a theme among the women was to wear Chuck Taylors (Converse All-Star sneakers, preferably in black), Daisy Dukes short enough that the pockets showed and mirrored sunglasses, which seem to be making a comeback. The guys wore mostly athletic jerseys, namely NBA, although in any particular group you couldn’t wear the same jersey. Of course there was the one dude with a jersey with the number “18” on it with the name “You Over” on the back, and I just had to wonder if that ever worked to meet girls (my guess is, no).

Around the food areas the trash was pretty impressive, even while people like Claire and Megan worked to pick some of it up. It made me despair a little for our future, but I bet that thought has occurred to everyone who reaches my age for as long as people have been reaching my age.

This also wasn’t the crowd I remember from the first Lollapalooza, at least through the rosy lens of a quarter century. At least there was the exception of the crowd at Banks. I stood next to a young lady from Columbus, Ohio, whose head was nearly shaved. She had modest gauges with hoop earrings through them, and this was her third or fourth Banks show. She didn’t seem ruled by her mobile phone, and was both well spoken and intelligent. It reminds me of one of my favorite quotes, this one from Henry Rollins:

“I want a soul mate who can sit me down, shut me up, tell me ten things I don’t already know, and make me laugh. I don’t care what you look like, just turn me on. And if you can do that, I will follow you on bloody stumps through the snow. I will nibble your mukluks with my own teeth. I will do your windows. I will care about your feelings. Just have something in there.”

This won’t be my last music festival, I still have Burning Man on my bucket list, but I hope there is more there, there, at the next one.