Another Wachusett Hike!

Rachel was a trouper - we went up the classic long route from the south, past Jack Frost, looped around south of the summit.  Weather was flawless, a little warm.  On the way down, we took the main trail down to the park HQ and picked up the Bicentennial Trail back to our trailhead.  Warning - Bicentennial, although "flat", is a bouldering trail, and not easy for small children!

http://mats.com.ar/und9.html

Now publishing...

It's been a while, but I've been working on a few new projects - some of them work related, but that's OK. Right?

Can't Wait, one of my songs, is finally on sale at Amazon.com

Also, a preview of my new book, SharePoint 2010 Consultant's Handbook - A Field Guide to Managed Metadata is also available for Kindle at Amazon.com. The full print version will be available next month.

This Decade's Best Music

I have some friends who debate which decade was the best for music - the 80's seems to come up a lot (that's when I finished high school.) As many of my friends know, I've been working on this list all year. Here are 150 or so songs that made this decade great. (in no order.) And its 150 or so, because I had to add a few back - Empire State, Transatlanticism, Hide and Seek - that have to be on my soundtrack of the decade.

I tried to limit most musicians to only one entry, but some, especially Jay Z, seemed to show up everywhere. And in posting, I see a good number of songs that wonnt make the top 100. Nonetheless, here they are. Feel free to add or subtract to your heart's content. Final 100 to post next week.

Happy New Year!

Adele - Chasing Pavements
Alicia Keys - No One
Amy Winehouse - You Know I'm No Good
Andrew Bird - Fitz and the Dizzyspells
Arcade Fire - Keep The Car Running
Arctic Monkeys - I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor
Ashton Shepherd - Takin' off This Pain
Astaire - Weightless
Badly Drawn Boy - Everybody's Stalking
Band of Horses - The general specific
Beastie Boys - Ch-Check It Out
Beck - E-Pro
Ben Folds - Rockin' the Suburbs
Beyoncé Knowles - Crazy In Love (Feat. Jay-Z)
Black Eyed Peas - Let's Get It Started
Bob Dylan - Things Have Changed
Brazilian Girls - Jique
Brian Wilson - Heroes and Villains
Britney Spears - Toxic
BRMC - Shuffle Your Feet
Broken Social Scene- Cause = Time
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - Over and Over Again (Lost and Found)
Coldplay - Viva la Vida
Corinne Bailey Rae - Put Your Records On
Danger Mouse - 99 Problems
DAUGHTRY - Home
Dave Matthews Band - Grey Street [Lillywhite Bootleg]
Death Cab for Cutie - Transatlanticism
Death Cab for Cutie - I Will Possess Your Heart
Doves - Catch the Sun
Dropkick Murphys - I'm Shipping Up to Boston
Duffy - Mercy
Elastica - Ready To Go
Elliott Smith - Somebody That I Used To Know
Elvis Costello - Tear Off Your Own Head (It's a Doll Revolution)
Elvis Presley - A Little Less Conversation [JXL Radio Edit Remix]
Eminem - Without Me
Evanescence - Call Me When You're Sober
Explosions in the Sky - Your Hand in Mine
Fall Out Boy - Sugar, We're Goin Down
Feist - 1234
Field Music - You Can Decide
Fischerspooner - Emerge
Fleet Foxes - Mykonos
Flo Rida - Low [feat T-Pain]
Foo Fighters - The Pretender
Fountains of Wayne - Stacy's Mom
Francine - Trampoline
Franz Ferdinand - No You Girls Never Know
Frou Frou - Let Go
Garbage - Breaking Up the Girl
Glee Cast - Don't Stop Believin'
Glen Hansard & Marketa Irglova - Falling Slowly
Goldfrapp - Strict Machine
Green Day - Jesus of Suburbia
Gwen Stefani - Hollaback Girl
Hoobastank - The Reason
Hugh Grant - Pop! Goes My Heart
Imogen Heap - Hide and Seek
Iron & Wine - Flightless Bird, American Mouth
James Hunter - Dearest
Jason Mraz - I'm Yours
Jay Z - Empire State
Jay-Z - Show Me What You Got
Jet - Are You Gonna Be My Girl
Jimmy Eat World - The Middle
John Mayer - No Such Thing
Justin Timberlake - Sexyback
Kanye West - Gold Digger
Katy Perry - I Kissed a Girl
Keane - Is It Any Wonder
Kelly Clarkson - Since U Been Gone
Kings of Leon - Sex on Fire
Landon Pigg - Sailed On
Leona Naess - I Tried to Rock You But You Only Roll
Lily Allen - The Fear
Linkin Park - Leave out All the Rest
Louis XIV - Finding Out True Love Is Blind
M.I.A - Paper Planes
Machine Translations - You'll Change
Madonna - Hung Up
Maroon 5 - Makes Me Wonder
Mates of State - California
Metric - Help I'm Alive
Midlake - Roscoe
Monsters of Folk - Say Please
Muse - Supermassive Black Hole
Neko Case - I Wish I Was The Moon
Nikka Costa - Like A Feather
Nirvana - You Know You're Right
Norah Jones - Don't Know Why
Paramore - Decode
Paul McCartney - Fine Line
Peter Bjorn and John - Young Folks
Phoenix - 1901
Pink - So What
Prototypes - Je Ne Te Connais Pas
Queens of the Stone Age - In My Head
Rachel's - Water from the Same Source
Radiohead - 2+2=5
Radiohead - Everything in its right place
Ray LaMontagne - All the Wild Horses
Regina Spektor - On The Radio
Richard Ashcroft - A Song For The Lovers
Rihanna - Umbrella
Rilo Kiley - Does He Love You?
Robert Plant-Alison Krauss - Gone Gone Gone (Done Moved On)
Ryan Adams - Wonderwall
Scissor Sisters - Take Your Mama
Sia - Breathe Me
Silversun Pickups - Rusted Wheel
Soundtrack - O... Saya
Spoon - You Got Yr Cherry Bomb
Spoon - My Mathematical Mind
Sugarcult - Los Angeles
Supreme Beings of Leisure - Golddigger
The 88 - Hide Another Mistake
The Beatles - While My Guitar Gently Weeps [LOVE]
The Bravery - Believe
The Dandy Warhols - Bohemian Like You
The Dirty Projectors - Stillness Is the Move
The Donnas - Take It Off
The Dresden Dolls - Coin-Operated Boy
The Fratellis - Flathead
The Fray- You Found Me
The Gaslight Anthem - The '59 Sound
The Hives - Hate to Say I Told You So
The Killers - Somebody Told Me
The Magnetic Fields - California Girls
The Mooney Suzuki - Alive & Amplified
The New Pornographers - The Electric Version
The Pernice Brothers - Working Girls (Sunlight Shines)
The Polyphonic Spree - Light And Day
The Pussycat Dolls - Buttons
The Raconteurs - Steady, As She Goes
The Roots - I Don't Care
The Rosewood Thieves - Los Angeles
The Shins - New Slang
The Strokes - The Modern Age
The Thrills - Not for All the Love in the World
The Ting Tings - Thats Not My Name
The Vines - Highly Evolved
The Von Bondies - C'mon C'mon
The White Stripes - Seven Nation Army
Tim Myers - A Beautiful World
Timbaland/OneRepublic - Apologize
U2 - Beautiful Day
Usher - Yeah!
Vampire Weekend - A-Punk
Weezer - Hash Pipe
Wilco - Panthers
Wilco - Wilco (The Song)
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Gold Lion

A hike! At last!

Finally, a real Ridgeline post -- here are some of the red rocks from Red Rocks Canyon [Nevada] on October 22, 2009. For a sense of size, look at the people in the lower right side.

From the summit....

At the top of Wachusett Mountain today with Nate. Low 60s and a little breezy. Hazy -- can see Monadnock but not Boston. Summit road is closed so we have the place to ourselves.

Came up Mountain House - Bicentennial - High Meadow - Jack Frost - Mountain House. A lot of trees and limbs down everywhere on lower elevations from last December 11 ice storm, b ut all trails are clear. The pine forest on Jack Frost was beautiful and in great shape.
Nate did super and is ready for bigger mountains.

(BTW, this kind of post was the original intent of "Ridgeline"....)

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year, folks.  2009 will be a great year.

Much more to come in music.