missing ole levon, what a voice

topness

summer work program, pt. 2

okay! so it's been a while since I posted more pictures of the house from this summer. where we last left off, we had framed the rooms and I believe we either done with the wiring or we were still completing the wiring. but I don't any pictures of the wiring process, but it's boring. therefore, we have jumped ahead the insulation process! yes, we insulated the rooms. and boy did we. because now when it's really cold in the house and we crank up the heat, these rooms get super hot while it's still cold upstairs. but that's because we need to add insulation to the upstairs, which is a job for 2014. either way, you can see the bottom picture is the finished room even with the paper on the floor ready for the drywall to go up. and you probably guessed it, the next round of photos will be when the room is drywalled.

 

 

 

I realized I didn't have a picture of sofie doing anything during this process. so here she is in my old sock box, which originally was a hat box. it doesn't matter to her. it's small and comfortable. 

no more poetry

back early in December, we went to see jeff tweedy solo. we had 2nd row seats and we lucked out that no one in the front row sat in front of us so we had the perfect, unobstructed view of jeff tweedy. the highlight of the night though was when jeff talked to my wife. and it was unsolicited. she didn't call out and yell to him like most of the crowd. she picked her out of the crowd and asked her if she was wearing an avalanche covering. she was wearing a red vampire weekend hoodie that had a medic cross on it. I was shocked and couldn't speak because jeff tweedy was talking to my wife! the show was incredible. it was something i'll never forget. I think I got some goods pictures too. I mean, it was just awesome. I wish jeff would come to town every month.

this is for my own purposes, just so I have it documented in case I can't either remember or find it again on the web. but here was the setlist:

1. someday some morning sometime
2. laminated cat
3. ashes of American flags
4. one sunday morning
5. I am trying to break your heart
6. one wing
7. pecan pie
8. remember the mountain bed
9. a long time ago
10. bob Dylan's 49th beard
11. Jesus, etc.
12. born alone
13. you are not alone
14. the ruling class
15. new Madrid
16. box full of letters
17. California stars
18. so much wine (butterfly)
19. passenger side
20. nothing up my sleeve
21. I'm the man who loves you
22. a shot in the arm

the neutron dance

yesterday I didn't feel well. d's been sick for about a week and I think it just wore me down. I didn't feel horrible, just tired and a little stuffy. so I decided to take the day off and relax. sometimes on the weekend you're more busy than during the week trying to get as much done as possible. I decided to knock out a few movies I've never seen that are on Netflix and I added a couple bad Christmas time movies that I'd never seen. I first watched 'jingle all the way'. now why you would ever cast Arnold Schwarzenegger in a Christmas movie with Sinbad, I'm not sure, but it was not a great movie, but it was a good Saturday afternoon movie. I think Sinbad will go down as an underrated performer of his time. I've always been in the Sinbad camp. the guy is funny. also, the movie had the late, great phil Hartman, who I wish was still around to watch him perform. actually for most of the movie, it was a great commentary on the commercialism of Christmas before it dovetailed into a weird finale involving Arnold turning into the very toy he was trying to buy.

then I watched 'tommy boy' and it was pretty bad, so I fell asleep a couple times. I don't recommend it. i don't really have much else to discuss about this movie because like i said, i fell asleep a couple times. then I watched 'Beverly hills cop' which I'd never seen! it was the typical 80s movie that you just don't see anymore, I guess because it's not the 80s anymore. but it was fun and when eddie murphy was young, man he was good. he was funny and cocky and just great to watch. the music in the movie was awesome. lots of early 80s dance, synth r&b tunes. and don't you love judge reinhold? finally, we watched 'jack frost' which was probably the worst Christmas movie I've ever seen. the dad dies and then he turns into a snowman and a lot of other junk happens, but man, it was clunky and made no sense and was just bad. please skip this movie if you get the opportunity.

but now I'm going to try and act healthy today and get to the gym and lift weights and clean up the house and watch some football. I think I just got a little run down. it happens. it's been a long year.

top of the pops

it's that time of year again. we have the top albums of the year. I'm not going to put one together. this year I have a ton of awesome albums that I still need to listen to so the list would be pretty short and incomplete.

top albums of 2013:

hearya

rolling stone

consequence of sound

mojo

popmatters

and for a local perspective, we have the openair guys here in Denver putting their lists along with the awesome cools kids at twist and shout.

openair

twist and shout

this was the year in music. good stuff. bad stuff. it was not a great year I would say. but it was an interesting year.

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.