Just when you think

things are under control, something else happens. After having to wait outside in the heat for almost an hour for the Fire Department to get the alarms turned off last evening, I thought things might seem a little quieter. After all, those shrill alarms have a way of drowning everything else out but tonight's street noise is typical of what attracted me here.

That's the way Midtown is though and now with warmer weather and longer days, it's all abuzz every weekend and some week nights too. It's almost 9 p.m. now on Sunday night and the streets are full. I walked down to Flying Biscuit a few minutes ago to take something to my friends there and it was like a three-ring circus. You can barely get through the mobs. Karaoke across the street at Gilberts, people from outlying counties cruising with their bass wide open, life everywhere. There was so much noise you couldn't hear the music from the ice cream truck which was surprisingly still making its rounds.

Even I will admit that quiet is good sometimes but you can have too much quiet just as you can have too much noise and I wouldn't trade one for the other for the world. Most of the time anyway.