welcome to the working week

the trip is over. we're back from our texas vacation. saw family, friends and got down at demitria's little brother's wedding. it was a great trip. it really was. but now it's back to the grind. and it really is beginning to become a grind.

next week i head out to california for a company pep rally. i'm not looking forward to it. but it will probably be the last trip i take until next spring. by then, i'll be ready to travel again. for now, i'm ready to stay home and get back in shape.

my world series pick of rangers versus dodgers did not materialize. the giants and tigers will fight for the crown. i'm going with the giants. i don't know how they keep doing it, but they do. and they'll be coming into the series with some adrenaline after the seven game series with the cards. you can count on the tigers winning all the games verlander pitches though. that dude is a stud. like cliff lee a few years ago.

hopefully i'll have more pictures soon. i'll probably take my camera with me to california. and a jacket. and a hat. and pants.

kill our friends tonight and bury them out of sight

joe sampson is one of the denver artists featured at the iceland concert/thing we went to a couple weeks ago. he played this song that night and it's been partially stuck in my head ever since. it's not the most amazing thing ever, but it's simple and straightforward and i really dig the lyrics. enjoy.

gobbledigook

iceland. it was back this weekend. denver hosted a reykjavik centric concert on saturday night and a film festival on sunday. we listened to icelandic bands and some of them were great. they were paired with denver singer/songwriters and some of them were great too. i actually met one dude and talked to him. he had this elvis perkins/fleet foxes vibe without the mountain man look. anyway, really nice guy. i bought one of his shirts. it has a fox's face on it. the night wolf! those of you who've come to visit will recognize the night wolf's face. i really enjoyed all of it. the music. the movie. before the movie on sunday was a promotional video to visit iceland. i saw it and wished i was there again. i don't think i've ever visited somewhere that felt as alive and as vibrant, but alone and isolated as iceland. the ground shakes and rumbles. it's alive. but the people are just there. a world away. i miss it. i wish i could get back there as soon as possible.

if you're interested, from iceland was lay low, mugison, petur ben and soley. from denver was joe sampson, julie davis, erin roberts and patrick dethlefs. patrick is the guy i met and bought his shirt.

here's a song from joe sampson. that's him at twist and shout. i saw him at the gothic theatre. cool place, but it smelled like feet. like old shoes.

it felt good to listen to and see iceland again. it's a new/old friend of mine. i'll see it again. soon. and maybe someday, i'll live there. we'll see.

hello seattle

i dig seattle. i could live in seattle. the weather can be a bit spotty, but when it's nice, like it was this week, it's a beautiful waterfront city. the farmer's market, where they sell tons of fish, produce, flowers. it's just amazing. the football stadium is nice with safeco, the baseball stadium, literally right behind it. i was up there for two days this week. on thursday night, we went to the stanford vs. washington game. washington upset the cardinals and the place went nuts. the bottom picture is everyone rushing the field after they won. it was awesome. great place, great city. glad i'm home though.

eyes of texas, pt. 2

i almost called this one. if only ben tate could have hung onto the ball and then of course the texans couldn't have scored because that would have ruined my prediction as well, but anyway, the final score was 31-25. way too close for me, but a win's a win. 3-0 for the first time ever in franchise history. the schedule doesn't let up in the next few weeks. i won't think about that right now. i'll enjoy the fact that we are the only undefeated team in the AFC. let's keep it going.

the eyes of texas

this is literally the biggest day in the history of the world. the texans will defeat peyton manning and the denver broncos. no wait, humiliate peyton manning and the broncos. no wait, annihilate peyton manning and the broncos.

i went to two stores this morning to try and buy a texans hat and i was laughed out of both. no texans gear. they really don't like the texans in this state. i mean the people, the state, the teams. all of the above. that's fine. we'll play a game of football and settle it all today.

the denver broncos helped to steal my childhood. the houston oilers were ahead 24-23 with about two minutes left. john freakin' elway converted two fourth down opportunities. then to end it, he hit vance johnson for a 44-yard touchdown. this was 1991. i was eleven. that's when i learned the good guys don't always win. and that stung. now it's mr. elway's time to cry at the hands of houston texans.

prediction: texans 32, broncos 13. it's close for most of the game before the texans pile it on in the fourth quarter with some choice broncos turnovers. 

misty mountain hop

pete came to town and we hit up some awesome spots around colorado. we hunted down the elk in the rocky mountain national forest. we hiked up to nymph lake inside the national forest. the lilly pads were a nice edition to the scenery. after that, we drove to colorado springs and took pictures of the rock formations at the garden of the gods. we were parched so we headed downtown and took pictures around denver, including the brewery, the train tower, the backside of the ice house and a little scene inside a bowl inside a glass case. the next day we drove almost to the top of mount evans. but we stopped short and took in some breathtaking views. the yellow ash trees are sprinkled in among the landscape. it looks like a bob ross painting. how he would add his 'little yellow' trees wherever in the landscape. it was a great weekend. i enjoyed it and pete enjoyed it and i hope he comes back soon.

also while we were in estes park hanging around the stanley hotel, i ran into my good friend john oliver.  i introduced myself and shook his hand. i don't think he'd heard of me.

the revolution will not be televised

five seconds

so the smart guys at the bluebird wouldn't let me take in my new awesome camera for the concert last weekend. i had to revert back to the phone camera. the show was great. twin shadow's first album was one i listened to endlessly when i first moved to denver and didn't have a job. so i would drive around town and pick up stuff from target or home depot we needed and listen to it. the second album is better than the first, which is a good sign for an artist.

in other news, pete's in town and we're going to hit up some mountain towns today. i'm taking my real camera, so look for pictures to come.

start me up

today is opening sunday. football is back. wednesday's game is like the opening of baseball in japan a week before the start of the real season. today is the real opener, so i still have time to make predictions. the predictions are easy this year. for the super bowl finale, they went like this:

houston vs. san fransisco
houston vs. new orleans
houston vs. chicago
houston vs. green bay

and thats's where it settled. the houston texans will play the green bay packers in the super bowl. i've been watching football since about 1986 and i've never seen a houston football team in the super bowl. i've seen us blow leads to denver (vance johnson), buffalo (frank reich) and kansas city (joe freakin! montana). the run and shoot brought me nothing but misery. warren moon, drew hill, lorenzo white, ernest givens. those guys didn't make it happen. video game wise they were amazing. the houston oilers won about a dozen tecmo super bowl championships. for some reason, those aren't as celebrated as real super bowls victories.

schaub, johnson, foster. these are the names that will bring us a real super bowl. go ahead and print the hats, the shirts, the sweatpants, the oversized jackets. it's time for houston to make their first super bowl appearance. 

golden light, pt. 2

golden light

seven year ache

the holiday weekend was one of travel, music and beer. saturday we hit up a "chili" festival, thinking we'd have sumptuous cups of chili to taste and eat. however, the folks in castle rock take their peppers seriously and the chili/chile festival was one only highlighting different types of peppers. cool right? but we were expecting chili as well. so we left pretty hungry.

the next day we took off for copper mountain. those are the pictures above with the exception of sofie sleeping in my workout bag and the blue moon we saw last week.  roseanne cash and the mavericks played at copper mountain. it was really a great show and the temperature was like 50 degrees or something. it was chilly. and fantastic. we had so much fun. our road trips into the mountains are probably going to get slim as we head into winter, so we were really overjoyed to get back out to the mountains. i had never known of the mavericks, but they put on a great show. it was energetic and cheerful. roseanne cash played a couple johnny cash songs, which was nice.

overall we had a great weekend. twin shadow is coming to the bluebird this friday. i'm going to try and get some awesome shots of the show. stay tuned!

sing another song, boys

i'm always fascinated at what makes some things popular and some fade away into obscurity. turbo graphics 16 didn't cut it. nintendo did. beta didn't cut it. vhs did. hd dvd is out. blu ray is in.

but these are all examples of technology. why is big star not bigger than three dog night? why is brian eno only mentioned when discussing u2? but we talk ad nauseum about elton john who never wrote a single lyric. scott walker? never a mention.

and this guy. leonard cohen. when are we all going to stand up together and nominate leonard cohen to be added to the mount rushmore of rock along with bobby dylan, lou reed and brian wilson? (the beatles have their own rock formation across the street).

this is his official nomination. leonard, i've stood by too long. there are artists that fade into my past and others that grow with me, marching slowly with me to my constantly unwinding clock. and leonard, i appreciate it.

settled down like rain

these are some of the early returns of the new camera. there are some pretty cool effects settings that i was messing around with this weekend. it's pretty obvious which of the pictures above are the effects ones. i was shocked at how much i could zoom in and see the moon. the camera has a 42X optimal zoom which is incredible. i like to zoom in which is evident from the above shots. hopefully i'll keep getting better and taking more and more interesting shots. mountains and huge landscapes puzzle me though. i have no idea how to do the scene justice in the camera. i need to work on that a lot. anyway, check them out.

the circle of death

wednesday night was the denver cruisers night. the denver cruisers are several groups of bike riders that start at various spots in the city and converge on the same park, civic center park, in downtown denver. we met up with a couple friends of ours and proceeded to head to our starting spot: brooklyns which is by the pepsi center. but first we had to get there. the ride there was nice, it was all downhill. but i kept thinking about the ride home. that was going to be all uphill. but we'll get to that.

there weren't many people at brooklyns when we arrived. we were kind of early. so we hung around and watched the people gather. there are theme nights for each week. this week the theme was angels and devils. not a ton of people dressed up, but that wasn't the most interesting part. people decorated their bikes in crazy lights and soundsystems that beat out my home stereo. at around 8:30, a guy wearing a clown mask told us to mount up and we were leaving in five minutes.

we started out on our journey following the guy with the loudest boombox. it was seriously loud. we rode through different areas of denver that i didn't recognize. but we stayed together and finally made it to civic center park. that was when the circle of death started. the circle of death is when people start riding in a circle, usually with people standing in the middle. the circle is small, but you're trying to ride as fast as you can. the pictures above are of the circle of death. it was raining that night, so there weren't a ton of people, but the circle of death was still going good. then they started the counterflow. the counterflow is the circle of death with people riding in the opposite direction. that was when i got out of the circle of death. that was too much for me.

the ride home wasn't as bad as i thought it was going to be, but it was still bad. the hills were pretty steep at midnight. but we made it. all parts intact. it was a ton of fun and i hope we get to do it again before the season ends. next week might be the last week to ride. the town is starting to cutoff summer activities as winter will be here soon. that's an odd feeling. the formal cutoff of summer. i'm going to miss summertime, but i'm ready for the winter and cooler temperatures and jackets. i love jackets.

like ice cream

hey sports fans. things have been up and down here lately. lots and lots of work. that's the down part. the up parts have been pretty good. i haven't traveled in like three weeks! i've been home hanging out in the backyard, going for cool night walks and checking out the local scene in denver.

i ordered a pretty sweet digital camera, my first real digital camera. i've had the point and shoot kind, but now it's time for a serious upgrade. so stay tuned for lots of awesome colorado pictures.

i also ordered the new flaming lips album and the new twin shadow album. twin shadow will actually be here in september playing at the bluebird. i will be there.

what else? i'm almost done with moneyball, the book. i have another book lined up, a fiction book. something about humanity curing disease, but now we have to figure out ways to provide shelter, food and facilities for people. sounds awesome.

brad mills was fired. that's too bad. can't win with that talent, if you want to call the astros players talent. hopefully with the call-ups in september, we'll get to see some of the prospects of the future play.

aside from all these things, times have been normal. the temperature is cooling down and the days feel amazing. i can't wait to be able to open up the house during the day and get a sweet, autumn breeze. those days aren't far away.

the fool on the hill

i received an email today noting that my CPA application was approved and it will be presented to the Board of Accountancy this Friday. they had declined it over some missing paperwork and one question about a class i took at UHD. but i resolved those issues and now it seems the long, arduous process is coming to an end. i started school in june 2006. i will receive my license in probably september 2012. how about that for a timeline!!

money for nothing

the times they are a-changin', pt. 3

now this is what i'm talking about!! trading chris johnson, a marginal big league player for two prime prospects from the arizona diamondbacks. this is outstanding. if you are a houston astros fan and you did not get up and rejoice when hearing about this deal, do it now. because this is brilliance. this is what we've been waiting for. someone at the helm who is willing to make the tough decisions. and this wasn't even a tough decision!! chris johnson kind of sucks. he's older and he has no real future. and we were able to trade him for two prime prospects. i mean, i keep saying it over and over, but i don't believe it. this is how you succeed in baseball. you trade when hot and move on. look at the oakland athletics. look at the season they are having and look at how they were put together. on the cheap. trading talent right before you pay them the big bucks for young, hungry, cheap talent. now i'm not saying we'll always have to do this. we're houston. they're oakland. we're a bigger market and should act like it. but the philosophy oakland uses is perfect for where we are right now.

however, i'm sure some of you will say: but kevin, oakland hasn't been to the playoffs in ages!! why would we want to be like them?? because you should check your internet before making outrageous claims. the last time the a's were in the playoffs? 2006. the last time the astros made the playoffs? 2005. now they have a chance to make it again in 2012. do we? not even close. we'll be picking number one again for having the worst record in baseball. which is fine with me. that's how you get better. 

i just hope we keep this going. see what we can get for jordan schaefer. see what we can get for matt downs. see what we can get for jose altuve. jed lowrie. trade them all!!! load up on prospects!! i feel it!! trade the announcers!!! trade the bench coach!! let's keep this going!! i've been waiting for this for so long!!! i don't know what to say i'm so full of joy!!!