Then came the performance by Lura. Sometimes we have these great secular church experiences at a show where the crowd is totally charmed and in sync with the performer and there's this ecstatic group thing that happens and people step outside of their usual boundaries and sing and dance. When they walk out afterward, they are totally lit up. A show like that lights me up for a couple of days, like I have diamonds on the soles of my shoes.

John, the theater manager, was away on vacation for the Lura show, and it was a complicated stage plot with a lot of borrowed equipment -- a lot of drums -- so it was the ultimate test for Team Picayunity. It was comps and we passed.

Music (here's what's on the February Mix) gets me through the winter. Well that and new shiny techno gadgets. Gadgets are superior to drugs for treating winter depression because when winter is over, you still have all this cool stuff. The newest cool stuff, of course, does not work in the wilds of Maine, but what is last week to you city dwellers is good enough for me. Cellular service is really improving here, enough that I could justify going with a contract rather than Tracfone. So my new cell number is 207.680.5819.

Dave Cash's Katrina experiences seemed to have pushed him finally, long overdue, into the blogosphere. Dave is that rare individual who is both geeky and good at visual design.