Margin Call Trailer

the lehman story. but might be a good flick.

the end has no end

tonight witnessed an amazing feat. demitria is out of town and i have get by on my own. i made my dinner. it was awesome. i made some cheese dip. and i was able to get the chips, bowl and my drink to the living room without incident. of course, that was multiple trips. multiple slow trips. and i was able to get out of the car with my work backpack while talking on the phone without falling over. the amazing feats have no limits tonight.

now, i've eaten. and i'm getting ready to watch a couple documentaries before i go to bed early tonight. i have my MRI early tomorrow morning. i wonder what they're going to find in there?

home

i've been spending a lot of time at home since i messed up my knee. no working out. no biking. no jogging. no walking. lots and lots of couch time. i thought it was going to drive me crazy. and maybe it will in the coming months. there are still lots of trying times ahead. but i love being home. i don't have to fit in working out or whatever. i come home. i ice my knee. i hang out with my wife. it's actually kind of great. she's going out of town tomorrow for a few days. through the weekend at least. i'm going to miss her. i can't wait until she comes home again.

this bright flash

it's not great getting old. there are parts that i enjoy immensely: the going to bed early, the getting up early, the drinking of coffee, the feeling of 'i've been there' when younger people tell me stories, the appreciation of trees, winter and fresh fruit. the list goes on and on. what i don't like about getting old is that your body starts to become like an old radio. the reception is still there, but the thing requires these massive batteries if you've lost the cord. and if you haven't lost the cord, some of the buttons have worn off and the stickers you put on there at one time to be cool, now look old and kind of lame. i still have the first cd player i bought from sam's club in houston. the cd player does not work and there is a houston oilers sticker on it. really old. but the radio still works and it's my only working tape deck in the house. i think i bought that stereo/radio and garth brooks' 'in pieces' at the same time. i busted that out like a month ago. still has it charms.

saturday afternoon, i went hard to block a shot at the net. i was playing volleyball. i don't play volleyball very well. i did block the guy's shot though. kind of. it went out of bounds, but it looked awesome. what wasn't awesome was that when i came down, it felt like my knee exploded. i was having the worst pain i had ever experienced in my life. i had to carried off the court. eventually, the pain subsided. i hung out. drank a few beers and was feeling better. i decided i could walk home. so i stood up and put some pressure on that knee and i felt a shift in my knee that could only mean horrible, terrible things. i went to the ER, had an x-ray and found no broken bones. they referred me to a orthopedic surgeon for an MRI just to make sure nothing was damaged.

i didn't get the MRI today but the doctor spent two seconds moving my knee around and was 100% sure i had a torn ACL. needless to say, i will be having the MRI either tomorrow or the next day. but i'm pretty sure this guy knows what he's talking about so i have accepted the fact that i do in fact have a torn ACL. check out what is and what it means right here.

what it means for me is that i'll be having surgery. the first surgery in my life. i don't have to have surgery though. i can continue the rest of my life with a torn ACL and be fine. however, i will never be able to play tennis, basketball, soccer or anything else that requires a lot of stopping and starting. i don't think that's what i want from my life at 31. but on the other hand, i am scared to death of having surgery. i don't like knives or blood or scars. i don't think it's awesome to have stitches or stuff like that. i want my body non-carved.

but i have to do it. once the swelling goes down and once i can get some strength back in the knee, i'll be having ACL surgery on my left knee. probably will be about 3-4 weeks from now. right around my birthday. and then i can look forward to six months of being less than 100%. but i guess that's better than 50 years. right?

football rap

i'm not a hyper-reactive fan. i don't think major changes must be made by one or two game performances. but the time has come to fire gary kubiak. we cannot afford to go another game with him as our head coach. the offense is terrible and i know andre johnson is hurt and arian foster has been hurt, but the play calling is incredibly moronic and the team has no heart or passion and i think that comes directly from the head coach. leave the defense as is. i think the defense is starting to come together and can only hold the other team for so long before they get tired and start to wear down. but i've seen these games enough. every game is the same. it's time to go for kubiak. right now. don't wait. don't waste another season. let him go.

sleepless in seattle

i'm back from seattle. i didn't get out much because i was under the weather. i didn't get to the space needle or anything like that. however, my hotel was right by the water and right by the fish market. so i was able to take some time and walk around the fish market. the fish they had there were incredible. i wanted to sneak a bunch of salmon in my bag and bring it home, but i figured the fish with the suitcase with the travel might be a bad combo. i also walked around the occupy wall street: seattle movement one day after worked too. it was interesting because the people i was with are young and generally from wealthy families. they had no interest walking through the crowds. they were visibly uncomfortable. i was not. i walked around and took pictures. i didn't sing or chant. but i felt at home walking amongst the people. there is a group here in denver too. i might go down there and take pictures there as well.

waiting on a friend

i'm hanging in seattle tonight. i have a cold. yep. i'm out of town with a cold. so instead of hanging out and eating great food, i'm sitting in the hotel room watching baseball and eating potbelly. i picked potbelly because they don't have them in denver. but i found one in seattle. anyway, i love the avclub. as i sit in bed with kleenex in my nose, i'm having a blast because i'm reading an article about great 'bad' albums. i love that concept. albums by great bands that enter into a period of making great 'bad' albums and who better to dissect than the rolling stones. i personally love goats head soup. it's not their best album, it's not their second or third best album. it's not particularly lyrically great or musically great. but it's a great 'bad' record. this guy picks tattoo you as his great 'bad' stones album. i can't really disagree with his analysis. check it out.

frances farmer will have her revenge on seattle

i hope she doesn't while i'm there. i'm headed to seattle today for a week long training exercise. i'm going to try and hit up the space needle and something else. maybe the fish market? bring some fish home in my suitcase? i think that sounds very appealling. i don't know anything about seattle and it helps that i won't have a ton of time to get out anyway.

how about those texans yesterday? mario's out for the season. ad's out for another 2-3 games. the game ended with a schaub int on the winning drive. what has changed? i guess just the year.

demitria is making fried green tomatoes for me this morning before i leave. as noted in previous blog entries, we have a ton of tomatoes to pick before winter comes and most of them won't ripen because it's too cold now. so we're frying them up. well she's frying them up and we're eating them green. they're really good. i've never had them. i think for her birthday in a few years, i'll get her a cow. and then the next year, a chicken. we'll be living off the land in a decade. maybe a windmill too. and solar panels. and a lightsaber.

winter

it's here. it's about 32 degrees outside today. it's time for winter music. that means the following artists will be returning to my stereo:

1. scott walker
2. leonard cohen
3. the rolling stones
4. yo la tengo
5. lou reed

weird how 3 of the 5 are singer/songwriters, not bands.

has anyone watched the new office with andy as the boss? i haven't really liked the first few episodes, but this week's was pretty good. i watched it this morning. i woke up super early today, like around 7:30. now i'm pretty tired. i should take a nap. i don't like taking naps though because i wake up feeling like all exhausted and mushy brained, like i can't think straight.

is it impolite to say you don't want to hold someones baby? i'm not big on holding babies and i'd really rather not in most situations. there are a few where i would, like when ana had a baby. i held her baby. but like people you're not that close to, i would rather not hold their baby. is that rude? can i just not be in the mood to hold babies? is that an affront to the babymaker?

you say tomato, i also say tomato

these are our tomatoes. they are from our garden out back. i posted some photos of our garden about a month or two ago. this is probably the last batch of red tomatoes we'll get. we still have plenty of green tomatoes. the weather is changing and it's getting colder. they don't do great when it's cold. that's why we've had so many grow down here in denver. you talk to people in the mountains and they can't grow tomatoes. we had some strawberries too, but we eat those right out back. we usually jump and down in excitement while we eat them. they're about the size of a dime. tiny, tiny strawberries. they taste awesome though.

we saw 'the ides of march' last night for free. it kind of sucked. i love clooney. this was not his best work. the most entertaining part of the night was the people. there are people there who go every week and line up and stand in line for hours to see free movies. there was a guy who knew like ever fourth group of people. he went to every little group and told each group what an amazing cast this movie had. and then he would name each person in the movie and walk away. and i could hear him each time. he was loud and very excited. and then later, he'd come back and tell each group that he would save them some seats. it was great. i ate so much popcorn though. big time. too much.

death and all of his friends

i don't normally have dreams that i remember. last night was an exception. i don't actually remember the whole dream. i don't really know what it was about in the beginning.

all i know is that i was going to die. i knew it. i felt it. i was scared, but ready. when you die in dreams, you usually wake up. at least i do. so i don't think i've ever really died in a dream or at least i've never gone all the way through the process. last night, i did. i was lying in a bed. and as the time came, my body quickly tightened, not in a way that hurt or was uncomfortable, but it was as if my body made one last gasp. and then it released. and i was dead. my mind didn't stop though. i just left my body. and i think i spent the rest of the dream as a ghost.

but the main point is that i felt my body constrict and stop. i'm not absolved of all my fears of passing. but something about that dream made me comfortable with the process. of course, i could still slam into another car or something like that. i'm sure that won't feel great.

in other news, we went to estes park this past weekend. it was incredible. i love that place.

in other, other news, we had a mouse in the garage. we actually had two mice. one was killed in a trap we set with peanut butter. the other was killed by some poison we left out. the mouse ate so much of the poison, his scat turned green, the color of the poison. we found him in the back of the garage.

in other, other, other news, i took my test this past weekend and i was actual able to look myself in the face after taking it. i have never had that feeling before. i hope it translates into a passing grade.

do you realize pt. 2

it's official. both the braves and red sox are out. the only word is: wow.

do you realize?

do you realize that i could miss two of my preseason baseball predictions on the last game of the season? i had the atlanta braves going to the playoffs, as well as the boston red sox. i correctly nailed milwaukee, philly, ny and texas. i missed on colorado and minnesota big time. but i can't miss on both boston and atlanta too! and on the last game of the season?

i was hoping the astros would do me a personal favor and win tonight and knock out st. louis. yeah, the cardinals scored 5 runs in the 1st! nice way to end the season 'stros.

got to keep the faith that i'll go six for eight. because four for eight doesn't cut it!

does anyone want more youtube videos concerning silver manipulation? because i have them.

the daily mail

talk about a tale of two bands. i saw radiohead on snl. they were gross. then, i just watched them on the colbert report and they were awesome. incredible. whatever four syllable word you can think of. stupendacious.

i just rediscovered my love of peanut butter crackers. i've eaten like ten packs in two days. that's my dinner tonight. maybe i'll eat an egg too.

we're heading to estes park this weekend. no one in denver reads this blog right? well, no one with breaking-in tendencies. i take REG on sat. morning. i've taken it once. i missed passing by five points. i have studied my ass off in these last two-three months. i changed my approach. i accepted that i had to adapt to pass. i feel like i'm there. we'll see. actually the worse part is, i won't see until mid-december. that's a long time to wait. i'm ready. i feel like rocky after he lost to mr. t who's character was actually named clubber lang. he lost to clubber lang and mickey died too so he lost his fighting mojo. but then adrian confronted him and he realized he was afraid. and he and adrian talked and he realized it's okay to be afraid. you have to take that fear and use it as a strength. i was afraid of the test. i'm not afraid anymore.

there's so much you can learn from rocky i-vi. not much for part v, but still.

did anyone see ron paul on the daily show? i love ron paul, but i can't see how the free market is going to keep corporations from polluting and things like that. you need regulators because the market is never truly free. i agree with him on most everything else though. especially his thoughts on monetary policy.

hyman minsky said the market was essentially unstable.

Wilco - One Sunday Morning (Song For Jane Smiley's Boyfriend)

i can't stop listening to this song. i love the first few lines, "this is how i tell it, oh, but it's long."

speak into the rose

i purchased the new wilco album tonight at twist and shout. i also entered into a drawing to win some swag. i guess it's not swag if you have to enter into a drawing to get it. i also picked up the new girls album, the new aa bondy album and a used copy of the jayhawks sound of lies. good pickup.

must be in a good place now

twist and shout is an awesome record store in denver over on colfax. i've mentioned it a couple times with most people. i really like the place. the other day, they had an in-store concert. the lead singer of the fruit bats and the lead singer of vetiver played a little, intimate show. that's them at twist and shout in the bottom picture. so i met demitria there after work and the show was great. i had seen the fruit bats before at walters on washington in houston and i really like them. vetiver is good too, but i'm not super familiar with their music.

anyway, they had a drawing for the concert that night. both groups were playing at the bluebird. and guess what? we won! we talked to both guys and told them we won and we were going to see them at the bluebird. until the concert, we hung out and had a couple drinks. it was a great night. the show was awesome. we stayed out way too late for week night. but it was worth it. you got to get out and get lucky in life. and i think most of the time the luck just has to do with you getting out. plus it was bruce's birthday so i think there was some good karma in the air.

we'll be heading back to twist and shout on monday night. they're having a wilco listening party for the release of their new album and selling it the night before it comes out. i'm actually listening to it right now on npr.org.

nightswimming

another great REM song. definite highlight from automatic for the people.

it's the end of the world as we know it

REM broke up today. i'm not really saddened by this news. i feel more put in my place, if that makes sense. REM's music was never top notch to me. i liked them for sure. but i didn't love them. but they've been a part of the music scene since i started listening to music. i remember "shiny happy people". i remember the theme song to "get a life" was "stand". i bought "out of time" on cassette and let derek gosney borrow it. i never got it back. so i don't mourn the loss of REM. i will miss them because they've always been there. like when a building gets demolished. you don't really miss it. you just sense things are changing.

radiohead, wilco, the flaming lips. i'll feel it when those bands break up. but best wishes to REM. thanks for the tunes. man on the moon is my favorite REM song. i used to play it on the guitar late at night in huntsville after several rounds of drinks.

heroes and villians

november 1st! the smile sessions will finally be released. i've obsessed over this album for more than a decade. i used to put together my own smile versions when cd burning first appeared. i had all different versions. brian singing this song. mike singing that song. add in a barnyard. take out an instrumental. i can't wait to hear every note. every moment of studio banter. the greatest never released album is finally being released.