I got a few more quilt pieces cut last night, and I am closing in on finishing the first "simple" sock of the pair I'm giving my mom for her birthday.

I find it really hard to wrest much free-time-to-do-stuff-like-that this time of year. Even though during the school day yesterday, in addition to teaching, I

graded a full set of ecology labs
updated all the BlackBoard pages for all my classes (I have a love-hate relationship with BlackBoard.)
wrote a letter recommending my grad student for a summer workshop program
wrote next week's ecology exam
filled out the paperwork for someone who needed to drop my class with my special permission
prepared all necessary handouts for classes for the end of this week
sorted a soil sample (I was going to do 2, but by the time I got done with that one, it was nearly 3:00, I hadn't gotten up to do a workout yesterday, and I kind of wanted to go home and do one).

I find it's easier to work out in the afternoon (what asthma problems I have seem to show up overnight and lessen as the day progresses), but I'm not sure I can reconfigure my schedule to be able to do the full hour every afternoon. (And I'm not sure I could bring myself to get up at 5 to do the hour's piano practicing then).

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One sort-of-random thing. The Local-On-The-8s here for the Weather Channel plays some different music. (Or at least they do now. It used to be the kind of wandery, "new age" type stuff that didn't have much of a set melody).

For a while, the instrumental part of the "Theme from Shaft" was in the line up.

Lately, though, they've been using a song that I suspect not too many people know: Sleep Walk, by Santo and Johnny (I don't think it's the original version, though. It might be the Brian Setzer Orchestra version, or just some random studio-musicians version. I have a recording of the "original" and it sounds a little different).

I guess this was used in a couple of movies and more recently in an episode of "Heroes," but I suspect not a lot of people of my generation know the song. (I used to be really into some of the obscure early-rock stuff and this was on a compilation album I had).

I'm not sure what style you'd call it. I used to think that the slidy steel guitar made it sound kind of proto-surf. But the guys who originated it are from New York City.

It's funny, in this video, they look different than I envisioned they would. I guess I didn't expect the suits: