Hello, 4 people reading this

A quick introduction before I get swinging. I'm Jim. I live in Portland, Maine. We're 100 miles up the road from Boston, 4.5 hours from New York City and in the center of all the culture that is New England. It's beautiful here, with ski slopes an hour away and water everywhere.

The thing is, I never do anything. I've filled my gas tank three times since Thanksgiving. Over the course of two recent weeks, the only places I went in my car were: A. The grocery store; B. The gym to work out; C. Work. Wheeeeeeee.

I don't reckon that'll change much. I'm doing the P90X of blogging. I'm going to blog every weekday for 90 days. I imagine that will get old tomorrow. But I'll give it a shot.

So the other night, I did something I haven't done in years. I went to see a concert. It was these guys. --->
In a sense, it was these guys. A local bar does a thing on Tuesday nights where they have a band come in to play a show. It's a different band every week. Each week, the band picks one of their (its?) favorite albums to cover. So, Tuesday afternoon, I'm driving home from the grocery store, and I hear a promo for the show that night at The Big Easy. A local band was going to cover The Beatles' Rubber Soul. What the hell.

One Facebook status update later and I was committed to going to the show. Because, you know, I'm old and everything, I showed up at the stated time of the show: 9 p.m. It was nice meeting the guys in the band, but note to self, shows start an hour after stated times. Kids these days with their showtimes. So cute. My friend in Portland, who might forever be known as "my only non-work friend in Portland," showed up as well, so that was nice. Then, we looked like a bunch of schoolgirl Beatles fans. Not really. The nice thing, from the band's point of view, is that they play original stuff to open the show. So, I kid you not, we got a half hour of raggae to warm up. Then a break.

At this point, I turned into an old man. "Gosh, it's 10:45," I thought. "I hope they play soon so I can get home before it's too late." Yup, I'm that guy. I originally typed gay. Either way works.

Then things smoothed out. By that, I mean I had a beer. Abita beer, no less. The band, which seemed like a pretty tight raggae group, came out and ripped into, "Baby, You Can Drive My Car." They were solid. The harmonies weren't there, but c'mon. It's hard to screw up the classics. I won't bore you with a song-by-song review. I had no idea how good that album was. Not just the songs you've heard all the time. I forgot how good "The Word," "What Goes On," and "Michelle" are all pretty entertaining and creative EARLY Beatles songs. I'm a late Beatles guy. But anyway.

The show ended around midnight. I work until midnight, so I should be used to this. I was invited to another bar, Amigos, but declined. It was nice to get out and about and actually DO something. The fact that the grand total cost for the evening was about $15 didn't hurt. I went to work Wednesday night and did something I haven't done in nearly 8 months: I requested a specific day of the week off, Tuesday, May 3. There's a band covering "The Cars" that night.