Day 217: Concert 1 – The Bravery

 

August 5th, 2011Today begins what will shape up to be a month of various concerts – all at Del Mar Fairgrounds, and all for a reasonably cheap price. In the morning after watching Breaking Bad, I proceeded to work at EHS, where I got to research chemical safety permissible exposure limits and maximum thresholds for my boss, as well as take one of the cars to the car wash. Afterwards, I proceeded for home, where I caught up permanently with Breaking Bad, while at the same time making some delicious hard boiled eggs for myself. When Lauren got back, she convinced me to go to the Bravery Concert at Del Mar. So, with Rosario, we all swung by McDonald’s for a cheap dinner, me only spending two dollars. Afterwards, we went to the racetrack, paying $6 admission to get in, but all worth it to see a free concert. Me, Rosario, and Lauren waited anxiously for the band to start playing, but we also ran into Tyler and his friend Robot while there. The concert finally began, and it was super exciting, even though I only knew two songs: Believe & An Honest Mistake. I snapped a picture of the Bravery as they performed one of their ultra hits. When we got back, Rosario, Lauren, and I watched some Family Guy – Tyler came in and joined us and we had quite a swell time. I ate some noodles and cereal for dinner, before ending the night watching Degrassi.

On this day in 2002, the rusty iron gun turret of the U.S.S. Monitor broke from the water and into the daylight for the first time in 140 years. The ironclad warship was raised from the floor of the Atlantic, where it had rested since it went down in a storm off Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, during the Civil War. Divers had been working for six weeks to bring it to the surface. Nine months before sinking into its watery grave, the Monitor had been part of a revolution in naval warfare. On March 9, 1862, it dueled to a standstill with the C.S.S. Virginia (originally the C.S.S. Merrimack) in one of the most famous moments in naval history–the first time two ironclads faced each other in a naval engagement. During the battle, the two ships circled one another, jockeying for position as they fired their guns. The cannon balls simply deflected off the iron ships. In the early afternoon, the Virginia pulled back to Norfolk. Neither ship was seriously damaged, but the Monitor effectively ended the short reign of terror that the Confederate ironclad had brought to the Union navy. EHHH…

The Obama administration angrily responded to Standard & Poor’s decision Friday to downgrade the U.S. credit rating, with one senior official saying the agency’s “analysis was way off.” U.S. Treasury officials received S&P’s analysis Friday afternoon and alerted the agency to an error that inflated U.S. deficits by $2 trillion, said the administration official, who was not authorized to speak for attribution. The agency acknowledged the mistake, but said it was sticking with its decision to lower the U.S. rating from a top score of AAA to AA+, the official said. OBAMA = FAIL.

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