Say it isn't so: The Asteroid is closing...

Sad news today: The Asteroid restaurant in Wallingford is closing.
There's a closing party this Sunday night (August 31st) at 8pm, and all are welcome. I'll be out of town, so sadly I won't be able to make it...

{A} and I love this place, and had our wedding rehearsal dinner there just a few weeks ago. It feels odd to know we won't be able to go back, enjoy the great food and service, and re-live the memories. I hope Marlin finds a new restaurant site, but whatever he chooses to do, I wish him all the best!

As one commenter on the Seattle Times website said: It's sad that good, independent places like the Asteroid can't make a go of it, but chains like The Cheesecake Factory make gobs of money.

Feel-good music from Africa

I've been having a bit of an African-themed few weeks, musically speaking. {A} and I received two CDs as a wedding gift from our friends Patrick and Tracy in Cape Town: Putumayo's Mali and African Odyssey CDs.




Both are great, but the Mali CD reminded me how much I like Malian music. Perfect up-beat stuff that leaves you feeling energized and cheerful. The songs by Habib Koite & Bamada are my favourites, so I looked him up on Napster and downloaded his most recent album, Afriki.



That led me to related artists on Napster, and I discovered more good stuff - most notably, Dimanche a Bamako by Amadou & Mariam. (This was released back in 2005, but I've never heard of them before.) This has an interesting, more modern pop edge (not surprising since it is produced by Manu Chao).




Finally, I've been enjoying the recent album by South African guitar legend Tony Cox, called Blue Anthem. This is a collaboration with the guys from the SA band Benguela, and it's quite different to Tony's usual fingerstyle guitar CDs. (He won a 2008 SAMA award for this album - congratulations!)

Wedding pics

We met with our wedding photographer yesterday and got the pictures - they are amazing! :)

Here is a link to the collection on Flickr - if you're not already on my friends/family list, drop me an email and I'll invite you so that you can see them.

I'm working on the honeymoon pics (tagging them and cleaning out the bad ones) - I'll post an entry here once the sets is ready for viewing. (They're already on Flickr if you want to look at them in the meantime).

Married!

Well, that was certainly an eventful few weeks! {A} and I are now married - Hooray! The wedding went smoothly, she looked beautiful and everyone had a great time.

We had a lovely mini-honeymoon in Seattle at our favourite hotel, and then left for the real honeymoon in Costa Rica a few days later. (We just got back this morning at 1:00 AM) The 13-days in Costa Rica were fantastic - more details to come, along with pictures. In brief, we saw lots of amazing wildlife, plants and beautiful scenery, spent lazy hours on the beach or in warm pools swimming, did a horse-ride at sunset, went on many rain-forest walks, and ate lots of yummy food.

Now it's back to the grindstone for a while :)