From Armenia to the gates of H3ll - taking in Sonoma, the Californian coast, Hollywood Bowl and the Greek Theatre along the way

I have been to more concerts this summer than my weary body could take. Where did I leave you last? In Armenia, it seems. Since then, we've been on holiday up north. And then back to a host of concerts at the Hollywood Bowl: a soused Diana Krall, a spritely Dave Brubeck and quartet (with the lovely Madeleine Peyroux opening the Bowl for them), Essa-Pekka Salonen conducting the LA Phil playing his composition - Foreign Bodies - with the Diavolo dancers writhing through metal pyramids to boot, finishing with eclectic Pink Martini and their guests the March Fourth marching band, Carol Channing and Henri Salvador. Pet Shop Boys let us down by cancelling their American engagement, citing logistical issues. And at the Greek, just to make up for that awful Sonic Youth night of noise, we witnessed one of the many evenings of joy that the newly-reformed Crowded House is sharing with the world. They're just so good at working the audience. Aliens, sexy ladies descending staircases from Heaven/Andromeda, the 2nd generation Finn with his one-man hard-core-rock, the beautiful set of political statements: all part of the Kiwi/Aussie magic that is Crowded House.

Hardly a week without some excitement. All was going well until a string of bad luck struck a fortnight ago. It really started with a power outage on the UCLA campus, caused no doubt by the digging up of the main road in (Westwood Blvd). That killed one not-at-all-cheap experiment of mine, and set me up for a week of playing catch-up. Actually, two weeks cos a few other experiments didn't work the first time. Probably because I was flustered and didn't take my usual care rather than out of sheer bad luck. This all coincided with P's month of crazy experiments too.

Long days, long nights in the lab can really screw you up. For one, it resulted in me losing my wallet after a late-night visit to the local supermarket for some emergency dinner. Bad enough having to cancel credit cards, losing my S'pore IC, and not having access to my money in the bank for two weeks. To make matters worse, what we initially thought were a string of unfortunate flea bites on P's back turned out to be shingles. Yes. Shingles in a young-ish man whose 30-ish-eth birthday was not too long ago. As can be imagined, large lumps of inflammation not unlike giant pus-filled pimples along the nerves of your back are painful with a capital F-word. To his credit, the boy grimaced through the pain to rescue parts of his crazy-but-necessary experiment. (You see, this is where the crazy postdoc differs from normal people. All expts are critical and hence necessitate working through pain that would floor a grown man.) A bit of D chipping in to rescue his grant application and taking on all physical duties in the house kept us afloat. It's nearly all over. The shingles have scabbed over. They still hurt like buggery, but no longer feel like instant death is just round the corner. My expts are working again. And this Saturday, the 2007-2008 LA Phil season starts again. We might yet survive Los Angeles.

And here's a gratuitous doggy pic.