like a rolling stone

this video is so amazing. I can't stop watching it. bob is still making news.

the walkmen

the walkmen have broken up. well they've taken 'an extreme hiatus', which sounds like an old fashioned breakup to me. the walkmen are an incredible band. one that I know we will still be talking about 20 years from now. or at least, I will. highly underrated band. their first album 'everyone who pretended to like me is gone' was in major rotation in my first apartment over by the old summit/Compaq center. it was something I could put on at 2/3am and sit and have it going, slowly burning itself into my brain. it wasn't touchdowns and balloons from the walkmen. it was a slog through the muddle. but it was persistent. and sometimes there were glorious rejoices. this continued for a few albums and they started to sound different. not bad, just different, almost hopeful in a way. I would read about the members of the band getting married, having kids. that's never good for rock and roll, or I should say, it might only be good for a period. it is usually the beginning of the end. and it was for the walkmen. 'Lisbon' is something amazing and their latest/last album 'heaven' is great as well. I never saw them live and I could have seen them at twist and shout here in Denver, but for whatever thousand reasons a person can create, I didn't go. big regret. the walkmen are a major source of the soundtrack from my years living alone in Houston and even into my married years. there's still great music out there, but i'll miss these guys. great work.

oh and I can't believe I almost forgot to mention this. they covered, in it's entirety, 'pussycats' by harry nilsson. how amazing is that? and it sounds incredible! it's one of my favorite walkmen records. it's actually the first way I heard 'pussycats'. I'd never heard the harry nilsson version until recently. I can't believe I almost forgot that. it's so good!

summer work program pt. 1

these are from the summer fun work program we joined up to finish our basement. the top pics show the studs and framing going up. also, you can see dave's bus parked out back. that was part of the landscape for about three months. when he left, it looked strange to look out back and not see it. also, you can see the tub that still doesn't work that was installed back in august. we'll still trying to get a motor for this thing to work. i don't recommend buying anything from kohler. pass on them.

but i'll be posting more pics of our summer work as we go through the month. i finally got time to upload all my pics from my camera. enjoy! oh yeah. i had to add one pic of the hairy beast that was lurking in the basement. that's her on the orange tarp. she still lurks inside these walls!

sacred trickster

those cardinals. those stupid st. louis cardinals are in the world series. again. yea! for them. do you realize that they blew a 3-1 lead in the nlcs last year to the giants? so they could easily have been in 3 straight world series. do you realize how unlikely that is? trust me, it is. go back and look at world series history and see how many times that has happened. not many. the only consultation i can take from this is that we (the astros) poached jeff luhnow to be our gm. he came from the st. louis organization. i think we poached a few people which is great because as tough as it is to admit it, they are one of the best run organizations in sports. not just baseball. in sports. they passed on albert pujols. which to the rest of us made perfect sense but it had to be hard in st. louis to say," hey, we let albert pujols go and we're going to get better. oh, also, we hired a manager with absolutely no managerial experience. on any level." and guess what? they did get better. it was the smart move. most organizations don't make the smart move. they make the easy move.

anyway, either it's the tigers, which is a rematch of the 2006 world series which the cardinals won, or it's the red sox, which is a rematch of the 2004 world series which the cardinals lost. it's like old times. except in both of those years, the astros were competitive. and now the texans are in turmoil. i sure hope it works out for the rockets. things could get ugly in houston.

also, i finally broke down and bought volume 5 of the bob dylan bootleg series which is him live in 1975 with the rolling thunder revue. it's so good. today while i'm getting my office unpacked, i'm going to crack it up. bob live! redoing old 60s folk songs. can't wait. soon as i get the computer hooked up, i'll be able to get back to uploading pictures. mostly of the house.

oh mercy

i've always had a line in the sand with bob dylan. i've had it for a long time. i wasn't going to invest in any of his work post the 1976 album 'desire'. i'd heard a few things and didn't feel like it was for me. i've read plenty of articles that confirm the output was not up to par and this includes all the material from the latter half of the 1970's and the entire 1980's and much of the 1990's.

the album 'oh mercy' first came to my attention in the book 'bob dylan: chronicles'. the book is his first hand account of several important points in his life. the recording of oh mercy is one of those stories. it's hard to imagine bob dylan with nothing to say. but this is where he was at in 1989 when the opportunity to get back into the studio was broached to him. you listen to his output from the 1960's and it's unlike anything you've ever heard. the stream of conscious lyrics somehow plant themselves right in your brain and you understand what he's saying even if you can't totally explain it or understand it. the dropoff actually begins earlier than the late 1970s. it starts with the albums 'new morning' and 'planet waves'. these were the first bob dylan albums i listened to that i thought, what is going on here? nothing is really being said. they just exist. but for what?

he turned up the effort for 'blood on the tracks' and 'desire'. but it was gone after that. songs here and there turned up. but the misguided production efforts turned much of this material into the obvious work of a confused artist. oh mercy however comes to life. he worked with daniel lanois, famous for working with u2. the songs have strength. they breathe. these are bob dylan songs.

i'm going to keep exploring this material. i've already heard some of it that i know i'll probably never listen to again. but maybe 'infidel's', 'street legal' or 'slow train coming' have something i'm missing. it's bob dylan. it's worth the effort.

i come from the mountain

sports predictions have not been good to me this year. i missed on most of my baseball picks. the nationals will not play the tigers in the world series. the tigers might play somebody. the texans will probably not play the seahawks in the super bowl. the seahawks might play somebody. i guess that's not horrible.

it was a long summer, but summer's over. we worked on the house probably every day for three months. i packed, moved and started working on the house right away. the season flew by. now, like when i passed the test, like when i left pwc, i have time on my hands and i don't know what to do with it. i started reading again. i read a book called the dog stars. great freakin' book. i highly recommend it. i'm currently reading bob dylan's chronicles. really good so far.

i have a couple more months to play tennis before it gets too cold. i really enjoyed playing this summer. didn't get to play much, but i loved it. i have a new racket for the first time in literally almost 20 years. man. i tend to wait to buy stuff. but i found that the good stuff does usually cost more. the racket i got is simply awesome. usually amazing follows simply, but i rewriting things here. simply awesome. i love the racket. i still have the same tv i had in college, so eventually that is going to need an upgrade. i want to get one that's functional with the internet, because i'm pretty sure in five years, we'll be getting almost all of our media that way.

sofie is still cute and lovable.

i haven't made it to the mountains much. i miss it.

i have a nerve issue in my right knee. when i crouch or put pressure on the kneecap, a shooting intense, extremely burning pain shoots through my kneecap. man it sucks getting old. there was a great song/speech set to music called 'everybody's free to wear sunscreen'. i first heard it when i was 17. it was one of those things that i knew one day would make complete and total sense. in this awesome song/speech, there is a line that says 'be kind to your knees. you'll miss them when they're gone.' well mine aren't gone yet. but man, some days. it's a reminder.

i really like that song/speech. i try to listen to it once a month. i really do. it gives me hope. it did when i first heard it. i hear songs from that period of my life about '96-'02 and i can feel the hope i had when i was younger. i've accomplished a lot. but i miss those days. i'm glad i made the friends i did. i'm glad i did the things i did. it was fun. i'll probably never laugh more in my life than i did in those years.

the empty page

in a lot of ways, i'm a late bloomer. i recently got into sonic youth. i bought 'washing machine' way back when because of the song the diamond sea. great song. but i never followed up on the band. most of the people who liked sonic youth were really indie hipster kids and while our tastes often overlapped, sonic youth was one band i decided i wasn't going to follow. they were too experimental, too much feedback. too much noise. now this was when i was heavily into my melodic, baroque pop, brian wilson phase (i guess it's not a phase because i still certain songs/albums that make me stop in my tracks if they sound like late 90s flaming lips, mercury rev, spiritualized or sparklehorse) so i wasn't feeling their sound.

however, i started listening to them, along with other noise pop acts like my bloody valentine and jesus and the mary chain. but sonic youth has really impressed me. their albums daydream nation, rather ripped, murray street and sonic nurse are all awesome. i have none of them. i can't wait to pick them up and blare them in my office, whenever that will be. staying up late writing and listening to sonic youth. those guys are actually in their late 50s early 60s now. amazing. and they broke up like last year. oh well. better late than never.

the texans shuffle

i'm a little behind since the season officially kicked off about two hours ago. but i have my super bowl picks!!!

the houston texans will lose to the seattle seahawks in the super bowl. that's right. a texans/seahawks super bowl.

i want to pick texans against green bay again like i did last year, but i'm not sure about green bay. well i'm not sure about houston either. but to quote david puddy, you gotta support the team.

in other news, we have drywall in the basement and a new door. i took off a couple days around the holiday last weekend and worked all day into the evening on stuff around the house. it's coming together. i'm looking forward to just taking a weekend off and not doing anything except ride bikes and watch football. i also can't wait for it to cool down. it's been hot around here for like two weeks.

so yeah texans/seahawks. we'll see. who knows.

painter in your pocket

we have a floor. we have a radon system. soon, we'll have the beginnings of framing. the tub will be here next week. things are coming together. it's really remarkable how fast all of this is coming together. major credit to demitria and her dad. i'm kind of a slow process person. but these two are getting things done. i'm the brawn as i'm told, which i'm fine with that. i get to be the brains all day at work and i can come home and break stuff like i did tonight. i busted out all these shelves that were next to the coal room. that's right. the house had a coal room. when i was busting out the wall a few weeks ago, there was all this black stuff around the baseboard. it was coal. no need for coal now.

projects. projects. projects. i haven't taken many pictures. it's tough enough just getting this stuff planned and done. it's tiring. that's for sure. the summer of 2013 is a tired one. but at least it's not super hot. the high today was like 70 or something. so nice.

anyway, i'm ready for bed. goodnight.

rolling on a burning tire

i'm heading to greeley today to pick up my tire. i'm getting a tractor tire to do crossfit workouts. here's a sample of what that looks like. awesome right? by winter, i'm going to look like an inside linebacker. isn't that what everyone wants? i've got some strength going, but i can't get the fat off. probably because i eat too many chips and drink too much beer. but this tire is going to fix that.

in other news, grantland did a great piece about harry nilsson. my mount rushmore of artists changes constantly, but today, this morning, it's brian wilson, bob dylan, david bowie, leonard cohen and harry nilsson. i don't have to stick to four, do i? you can add a head. it's not hard. it's a mountain! there's room for one more. i love harry's music.

in other, other news, things are looking up at the house. we have a floor! we have a basement floor! soon the framing will start going up. the walls will start popping up. it's amazing how fast/slow it all goes. but things are moving ahead. i'm still kind of surprised i own a house, but i better get used to it. i'm going to be here a while. i have this great idea for a bookshelf that dem's dad said is possible. i can't wait to start on that. one project after the other.

in other, other, other news, the astros made some trades at the deadline. the rebuilding continues. i think 2016 we'll start to be good. maybe 2015. i doubt we're the worst team in 2015. but we'll make the playoffs in 2017 and win the world series in 2019. that's my prediction folks.

more than this

i had a rough night sleeping last night. i woke up this morning thinking the cat was peeing on my clothes. she wasn't, which was great news. but i had already been stirred, so i got up and went for a walk. i, and this is totally true, had to put on a long sleeved over shirt for the walk because it was 50 degrees this morning. that is awesome!! i got back and opened up the windows and made coffee. it's been a nice relaxing morning. i think i'm going to try and do this more often so i can have the morning time to myself. with all the activity here, it's tough to get some good alone time. i'd rather not wake up thinking there's cat pee flowing through my clothes, but if that's what it takes to get up, i can handle it.

also, roxy music is great morning music. i'm currently listening to 'avalon' which i have never bought, but always danced around.

false ending

i got a little obsessed with turning my pictures in giant red objects in the sky. i did one. and the next thing i knew, i had three or more. here are a few. the bottom one i like to call 'pink moon' for nick drake. i guess it's more of a red moon. more of bowling ball than a moon. was the bowling ball formed to resemble the moon? the similarities are there for sure.

pink, pink, pink, pink moon.
(piano interlude).

our house in the middle of our street

we're moved in people! we're officially out of the rent house. everything we own is either in the new house or thrown outside in the backyard. this house is about to pop already, but we've got work to do. once we get the basement finished, we'll have some breathing room. then we'll have a garage sale, even though we don't have a garage. i guess garage sales used to be for stuff you stored in your garage? i mean most of these sales have things that you don't put in garages. i guess the name just stuck.

demitria's dad is here and he's already knocked out some stuff like putting doors on our little shed and adding shelves in there so we can fit our garage stuff in there until we have a garage. things are moving along. i'm actually really excited about things. i'm sure once we start busting up the basement and i have to start paying people, i'll be less excited. but oh well.

the rent house was our first house in denver. that house saw lots of action. torn acls. deaths. lots of food. lots of studying. i watched the entire series of 'lost' there. but when we bought our house and we would go back, it didn't feel like home anymore. funny how fast that can change when you buy a place and it's yours.

so as you can see, it's been a while since i posted. that will probably be the norm now as i'm going to have a lot to all the time. weekends. evenings. work. work. work. and i have to go to work. so i would say the rest of the summer will see limited posting. just a heads up.

here comes everybody

so i'm about to buy a house. tomorrow is the day. tomorrow morning actually. i'm a nervous wreck. here's what i know:

1. we're going to be living in the same neighborhood. this is a great neighborhood. we've been living here since we moved in october 2010. the house is close to mayfair park. it's also close to a neighborhood restaurant and ice cream parlor. i've only been to the restaurant once and i didn't eat. the ice cream place is great. super ice cream. but we're also close to downtown, city park and stores and shops on colfax and colorado. great neighborhood. great location.

2. interest rates are low. considering the massive amount of money that the fed is pushing into the economy and artificially keeping rates low, there's a question of whether or not you're getting a great deal. if there is no artificial housing boom (such as now), then the price of the house would be lower. i know that. however, interest rates would be higher. so is it a wash? compounding interest is a scary thing. i'd almost rather have a bit more principal than a higher interest rate. the only worry is that once interest rates go down and the artificial housing boom is over, will the house sustain it's value? but hey, that's in 20 years or so. who knows anything at that point.

3. the backyard is great. that's a huge point. we love to sit outside. and since the house is small, we'll be needing to sit outside.

4. the house is small. this will be the smallest house i've ever lived in. obviously apartments i lived in were smaller, but they are designed that way. this is not texas. the houses here are small. it's forced me to rethink what i really need and get rid of a lot of stuff. just stuff. things i haven't looked at in 20 years. seriously. 20 years. i don't need it. i need books, cds (music) and a computer. that's about it. and clothes i guess too.

5. there is major work to be done. we have to finish the basement. that's going to be tough. we're going to try and do as much work ourselves as possible. we also have to build a garage. we won't be doing that. this is a 5-8 year plan. that's a long time. i'm nervous about doing good work and having a fully functional basement. i don't want to find out the basement wasn't done because if you finished it, the whole house would cave in or something like that. i'm also nervous that this is going to consume us, this unfinished thing sitting around waiting to be completed so we can expand into our new house. i'm nervous.

6. money. isn't that always a concern? what if one of us loses our job? what if we both lose our job? i think we have that covered. i'm not too worried about that. i'm more worried about one of us getting suddenly old and can't work. what do we do then? i tore an acl playing volleyball. i'm not a young dude anymore. i could break an arm or leg boiling eggs. it could happen. then what?

7. the neighborhood. back to number 1 eh? well yeah, what if the neighborhood doesn't hold up? what if that street becomes gangland central? i guess we move. i hope that doesn't happen. i like quiet. gangs are loud.

8. big decisions in life. who to get married to? where to buy a house? what house to buy? what major in college? so many big decisions. and with each big decision comes about a million little decisions underneath it that you don't see until you made the big decision and suddenly you open the door and you're drowning in little decisions.

yep. i'm nervous. i think that's obvious. i don't get excited about big decisions. i get nervous. and eventually i calm down and enjoy it. it takes time.

tick, tock.

never seen such good things

last month dad came to visit. while he was here, we headed out to glenwood springs and on the way back home, we stopped at rifle gap falls in rifle. there are three falls at rifle falls. those are in the bottom shot. i couldn't get a great straight up shot, so this from the side. the wildlife at the rifle falls is great. the birds, the chipmunks. they're everywhere. there were also a couple farm houses by the falls. i assume it's people who work at the fish hatchery, which is just up the road. so i took a few shots of those allowing me to get some b&w shots too. the landscape was beautiful that b&w just didn't work for it. i took quite a few. the color were far better.

i'm sure most who read this blog know that we're moving into our own house soon so the blogging, as it already kind of has, will be sparce for probably the next month. i'll try to take pictures of the new house and post those along the way, but the end of june and into july will be busy. it will be back like old study/audit times except this time, we'll have a house to show for it at the end.

no whammies, STOP!

this is an amazing story. because it's true and it involves one of the best game shows from my youth, press your luck. make sure to watch it each video, but be ready to turn the sound down, mine was really loud and the first lady really gets into screaming 'no whammies!', so it can be jarring.

and make sure to read the post-press your luck story for this guy too. if you listen to the audio, it's like the fourth story i believe. if you click on the transcript, you can scroll down to his story and just read it. that's what i did. incredible.

i don't remember this episode, but watching it even now, i was stunned at how he had mastered the game.

ghost mouth

i'm a little behind with some of my pictures. about a month ago now, demitria and i celebrated our five-year anniversary with a trip to mount princeton to soak in the hot springs and do a little hiking. the bottom photo is looking at mount princeton as we're leaving. the 14'er is down between buena vista and salida. it takes about 3 hours to get there from denver. we stayed at the mount princeton resort. it's more like a few cabins up and around the springs, which still was nice. we soaked in the springs the first day. when we checked in, we overheard something about a ghost town. the ghost town is called st. elmo. we went the next day. it took about 40 minutes to get there because about halfway, the road stopped being paved so we had to take our time. there wasn't much to the town, just the buildings seen above and a general store where demitria bought a hat. but it started to snow on us because we had climbed so high in elevation. so i took some shots that i think look pretty cool.

something else that was interesting was behind the resort, there was a creek. the creek was lined with old cars. the cars were set up to be a breaking point from any of the rocks tumbling above. but there were about 4 or 5 cars packed with rocks placed right on the creek's edge. we came up with stories of the creek having been a highway and the cars were trapped with an avalanche and were just left there or they were aqua cars that didn't work and were left in the creek. either way, made for some interesting visuals.

the trip was really great. we are breaking out of the usual this summer and hitting up parts of our new state that we haven't seen before. i have more pictures coming of my dad's trip.

in other quick news, the astros have won four in a row, including thursday night's game against the rockies. the astros were down 3-0 and tied it up at 3-3 before chris carter hit a 3-run home run off former astro wilton lopez to put it at 6-3. we eventually won 7-5 and took 3 of 4 from the rockies. we now we've won two in a row off the angels, to put us at 4-0. the team is on fire! get ready world series!

don't be such an ann hog!

yes! arrested development is back people! this weekend!

great article by the avclub giving quotes from the show that fans might be feeling. i super excited but at the same time, it's like having a loved one come back to life and hang out with you. it's cool and great to see them again, but in the back of your head, you're kind of worried they're going to eat you. that's how i'm feeling. it's either going to be the greatest thing ever! or the worst thing ever!

or it's probably going to be somewhere in the middle. which is fine. i'll take the middle. not the show called 'the middle'. i have no idea what that show's about other than something to do with being in the middle. i do know it has the janitor from 'scrubs' on it. good guy. i never met him.

in other news, i am 3-0 in rockies games this year. undefeated! rain, snow, sunshine. i've seen games in all three. i actually got a bobblehead at one of them. my first bobblehead. i now understand why they're so popular. they just bobble. it's great.

i have some more pictures to upload soon. nothing super great. just some shots in and around rifle gap falls in the great city of rifle, colorado.

things to do in denver

last weekend was our 5th year wedding anniversary. to celebrate, we went to zenga for dinner. it's an asian fushion restaurant here in denver. pretty swanky, but the food was great. after that, we went to an irish bar for coffee and donuts. then we patrolled the streets of denver. we walked downtown and then we walked through the highland, taking pictures of interesting things we saw. we'll have pictures of mount princeton soon.

goat's head soup

it's incredible what a day makes. this was yesterday. today, there is five to six inches of snow outside right now. but yesterday was nice. very windy, but nice. this is waterton canyon. it's a nice bike ride or walk through the canyon. we've been before. last time we had pictures of frozen water, mule deer and bighorn sheep. this time around we saw more big horn sheep. in fact, the one on the road was staring down demitria big time. we thought he might ram her. but he chose wisely. hopefully this is the last snow of the year and spring will be here to stay.