We went into town (Providence) and checked in to the Westin downtown for New Years. It was like a mini-vacation. Very cool to not have to drive home, and to be able to get up and be fed breakfast and not worry about making the bed.
Providence has a New Years Eve festival they call Bright Night. For $10 you get an arm band which provides admission to a couple of dozen art performances all over town. They also held a partial burn of WaterFire which wound up with fireworks at midnight. I remain convinced that Providence (like Saint Paul) is the correct size city. Small enough that the downtown really has one central area, and that people retain some sort of personal investment and ownership of the place.
The headline act for bright night was Toxic Audio. They rocked. They started out as a DisneyLand act, doing many sets per day, many days per week, and then they spent some time as an off-broadway act. They basically ooze energy and stage presence, and they put on a kick ass show. It’s not often that I experience a group who immediately get put into the same pantheon as Rockapella or The House Jacks. Toxic Audio did so. They kick ass. They covered Evanescence, and their psycho percussionist was pretty damn fast. Oh yeah, and then there was the backflip.
We also took in a mandolin ensemble and a clown show, before chowing down at Fire and Ice, which is a chain that does the mongolian style “make your own stir fry and we’ll grill it for you” thing. It was a great time. I even played a “game of skill” at one of the little carnival booths that were set up downtown, and won a large stuffed alligator for Jen. His name is “Lucky.”
This morning, post breakfast, we took advantage of the unseasonably warm weather by going to the zoo to visit the animals.
Me, this morning: “So this is 2005, huh?”
Jen: “At least it’s sunny.”
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