Leaving on a Jet Plane

Well - today is the day. I'm a little nervous...but I'm a bit of a nervous nelly anyway. Picking up the random stuff around the house. The flight to NJ will suck, and then I have to hang there for awhile before I go cross country. Got book, got iPod.

I'm taking a digital camera as well as the 4x5, so I should be able to post some pics.

So, goodbye, farewell, auf wiedersehen.

Closer Still

The virtual packing competition with Trigirl40 continues. I bought the last of my supplies tonight (socks and ls t-shirts) tonight. Washed the few clothes I need that weren't clean. I've had some stuff in the suitcase for a few days now....

Last night was the big show at school. Funny as usual. I don't think we had backing tracks when I was a kid. And yes, I have it all on video.

Got my pants in. I need to get my pic taken in full power ranger gear. I look pretty silly, but it is safer.Wife is threatening to take away credit card. Might be wise.

So really all I have left to do is pack and gather up the stuff around the house. Download playlist to ipod. Not bad. Packing is going to be a pain tho because of the variable weather. We'll be out early to get good light, so the temps will be cool, and then get warmer. This is all compounded by the fact that I have to helicopter into the canyon and can't take too much.

Here is a photo of the camera I use. Apologies to the dude I stole the photo from.



This is going to be quite an experience for me. Besides my folks, there is a photog that is acting as guide and is also shooting with the same camera. He's bringing along another friend. I've barely shot in years, and now I'm doing it with published landscape dudes. Well, hope I get something good.

Biking, motorcycling, and every other hobby I have is put on hold for a bit.

And so it begins

For the most part, I'm one of those "the chase is better than the catch" guys. Whatever I do, I relish the prep. The getting ready, getting "the stuff", finally doing it. Then I'm done, time to move on. (Fortunatly, this doesn't apply to everything). I'm a list maker, a planer. Ok, lets face it, I'm anal.

So, tonight I pulled down the suitcase for my trip on Saturday.

Sure, I don't leave until Saturday, but I've got a lot of stuff to get together. Taking an extra suitcase for the couple of day excursion. Got the carry on pack, too. I've got a couple of coats for my parents sitting in a chair. There you go! I need someplace to put them! Might as well pack them. Need the suitcase for that, and I needed to go in the attic anyway to put away the camping gear.

See how easy that was?

I'm going to have to do a bit of laundry this week for the trip. I don't really know what to take with me. The weather is going to be up and down. Also, when we helicopter down into the canyon, most of my allowed weight will be in camera gear. Meh, who needs clothes on an Indian reservation? Maybe I need some of Annnnnnnnn's magic skin stuff to prevent chafing.

I'm thinking tomorrow will be a motorcycle day with my new robogloves. Pants on order.

The time is neigh

First - Richard, no, you don't go very far when your motorcycle is on a work stand. It is similar to a trainer tho. It is indeed a device which allows you to torture yourself. In this case it makes it easier for me to work on the motorcycle.

Got some new blingy motorcycle gloves. Now I look even more like a Power Ranger! I should shoot a pic. Still need some pants tho.

Yeah, so Friday was a school event. You know, how is it I can overcome hating crowds when I'm being pushed around at a concert, but stick me in a crowded school and I'm about to crawl out of my skin! But I managed and its all good.

Saturday morning brought "the ride". Again I find myself gearing up at an hour I'd rather not be. Don't get me wrong, despite my bitching, I love it or I wouldn't be doing it.
And Saturday, I geared up for sure. I added clothes about 6 times. Shorts, knee warmers, long sleeve jersey, heavier socks, long finger gloves, undershirt and a coat. So, by the time we met up with Annn, I was warm. I ditched the coat at Annn's car, thanks! Honestly, the rest of the gear, I was fine. Richard says I'm old, he might be right.

So, as usual Diane takes off fast. That's hard for me to do, I usually have to warm up some. It was a great ride. Annnnn decided she was going to lead and she took off. We had quite a pace going. I think she was up front for most of the ride. At the very end I know she was behind me, but that didn't last long. All these kids can ride, it really is fun.

Saturday brought F1 qualifying, with Ferrari at the front, but things looking good for Hamilton to be the: 1st rookie to win the championship; 1st black to win the championship; and the youngest driver to win the championship. Sunday was the race. And what a race. Hamilton blew it, and then had some mechanical issues to help him move backward during the race. I say he blew it. This guy is 22. First year in F1. He is so phenominal that when he makes a true rookie mistake, everyone is floored.

I won't bore you, but it was a great race. Kimi Raikkonen came from a longshot third in points to win the season. He drives for Ferrari. It was great!

The rest of the weekend was spent with dull tasks like laundry and planning for my trip next weekend. More on that later.

Uneventful

Slow week, nice I suppose. Still trying to catch up on the stuff I didn't get done over the weekend. Excitement has amounted to getting the new dishwasher installed and getting the kitty fixed.

Well, that last one might not have been so good for kitty.

Old photo



How can you resist that?

No photos of the dishwasher, sorry.

Got to the gym the other day. Didn't push it, but felt ok. May go tomorrow. Gotta be ready for Diane and Richard. Hard to get back in the swing of things. Like Richard, I need to get the trainer back out.

Had a revelation this week. I'll start by saying its good I didn't get a motorcycle until I was older. I rode to work on Tuesday. One truism of riding is that you are invisible to cars. Another is, you are ageless. You are cool. You are (insert your fave classic cool guy here) Steve McQueen.
So I'm cruising down the road avoiding traffic. I pass (what I hope is)a High School busstop where a young lady has stepped out of the crowd trying to thumb a ride with me. I just waved and smiled in my helmet, behind my sunglasses, all of which hide my age. Girls do love what they perceive to be dangerous boys, don't they. If I had any confidence when I was young, this could have gotten me into a lot of trouble.

As it turns out, I had no confidence, no motorcycle and no money when I was young. Perhaps I still had a slightly dangerous look, but that's as far as it went. I don't think many Moms liked me, which worked in my favor.

Anyway, since I have nothing fantastic to say, I'll close with a photo of the sex machine. Don't hit me on your way to work tomorrow, riders are people, too!

Whew!

Mom is home. It has been quite hectic.

We had an outage at work on Friday. We weren't fully recovered until late Saturday. So, Friday night was spent shopping, packing, phone calling, driving to the airport phone calling, emailing and finally sort of sleeping.

Saturday brought good weather and taking off for camping. We were in cabins, so there was no tent to set up. Just all the cooking stuff. After a brief lunch we went for games. We didn't do so well. There were only 4 of us, so we had to do everything 4 times because of the tribe with 16 kids. So, that mean we had to carry the kids a bunch. I think the dads were as worn out as the kids.

Afterwards one of the worst things that could have happened, happened. Mom brought her a little coin from her trip. One of those angels in your pocket things. She lost it in the field during the games. Her eyes were all red and I could just see me having to pack up and go home. A bunch of people helped us look, but no luck. I told her that I just didn't think we were going to find it. I was working on a story about the luck whoever found it would have, but, then she found it. I was so relieved.

The night was the usual grilling and the secret ceremony. I'm afraid I can't share what goes on there. :-)

Back to a roaring campfire. Kids in bed around 10. Dads in bed around 11. We're the wuss tribe. One of the dads did bring a little something for me to slip into my coke. Whew. It was good. Sleep was ok. Temp was awesome, but my bunk was less than comfortable.

The morning brought me making eggs which go over well. Eggs, bacon, milk, juice, doughnuts, some sausage left over from dinner, hot chocolate, and coffee, glorious coffee.

Came home, started clean up, went for some new cds, and that's about it. Oh, and dropping the camera gear off. Wow, I have no idea how I'm going to carry it. Guess I'll manage.

Now back to real life. Gotta get the lawnmower tomorrow. Need some sleep. Need to purge all the bad food I've eaten out of my system. Need to exercise.

Tired.

Almost!

Mom comes home tomorrow night! Woo hoo! It hasn't been as bad as it could have been. We've had a lot to do. Last night Red Robin with some friends. Bed time was fine until 11 or so. Then stomach hurt. Sent her back. Around midnight, again. I told her she could stay in bed with me.

This morning she said her stomach still hurt some. So, trying to be a good parent I let her have about a quarter of a little metamucil cracker. Cleared things up. :-) I do think that was a little bit of the issue.

Tonight we were sad after mom called. No idea what sets it off. Then, I made the mistake of talking about summer camp. Bad call. I was just talking about how fun it could be to be away from parents. Oh well. I recovered. You know, I really don't want her to grow up, but I would like her to be a little less tied to us.

About have everything together for camping this weekend. Hopefully that will go ok. Only fear is that Mom comes home late tomorrow night and we're leaving Saturday morning. The camping itself is fine, but there won't have been any Mommy time. Guess we'll see.

And, now I have to get all my camera gear cleaned up for my trip. My folks are taking the gear out on Monday in their car. I'll get out there in 2 weeks. Should be interesting to say the least.

So much to do....

10.07.05

You may want to come back later, this could be long.

I never know where to start. I mean, was it in college the first time I heard Motorhead? Maybe it was highschool. I bagged groceries and one of the VCU students said "hey, have you heard the Ramones?". The day at the skatepark over on southside when I first heard Van Halen doing "You Really Got Me"? Kiss' "Rock and Roll All Night"? The Sweet "Little Willy"?

See? Where do I start. One day I want to write a book, but who the hell would want to read a book about my life with music. It would be long, that's for sure.

So back to now. Today I got a DVD in the mail. It was taped at the 9:30 club two years ago. It was the last night of Bob Mould's "Body of Song" tour. I was there.

I'd seen Bob a fair amount. I regret that I never saw him in Husker Du or Sugar. Places, responsibilities. They get in the way. This night was different. This was the first time he played Sugar and Husker Du material with a full band. He's done them solo, acoustic and electric, but he would never play them with a touring band. It promised to be a special night.

I was not disappointed.

You could feel it in the air, everyone was excited. It was a great crowd. There were fans from every stage of his career. You could tell the ones who really only knew the new stuff. It didn't matter though. It was phenomenal. There really aren't words. Its that feeling that washes over you. Your spine tingles. You just can't stop moving. I heard Chartered Trips live.

I felt it all again tonight.

I'm not a big DVD guy, I only get a few things. This one was a must have, I just didn't expect it to be so great. At some point I'll end up looking at still frames to see if I see myself, but not soon. Its way too much fun to just watch. The mix is just awesome. The video is great, especially considering the circumstances. Looked like almost all of the cameras were handheld. The edit was great. Nice variety of shots, cameras worked great in the light.

I'm going to hold back the urge to try and put into words what music means to me. It would just take too long and wouldn't make much sense. Its easier to take it on a band by band basis. Lets just say that its the one time I'm free.

You'll read everywhere how influential Bob's work has been over the years. I can understand it. From Metal Circus to Body of Song, his work has been outstanding. He's able to communicate emotion like few other. Of course it just so happens that his noisy presentation trips the right triggers in my brain.

Whatever it is that floats your boat, I hope that you're able to feel like this.

Thanks, Bob. I'm looking forward to the new album and live performances in the new year.

You are the rock.

Relief

As a brief follow up, tonight was fine. She settled down. She had a full day, talked to mom and went to bed fine. Thank god. Now, if I can keep from waking up in the middle of the night feeling ill, it'll be a really good night.

I think it helped that I kept telling her how busy we'd be and I told her doing what. I'm just pleased.

Now, if only I can get my PC downstairs working right, it'll be even better.

Hell is for Daddys

Well, it started off ok anyway. Saturday ride with Richard. Its never as fast as it seems like it should be. I think its because of our cool down the last couple of miles really offsets our good pace. Its that math thing I'm not so good at. The other plus was my pedals. Seems maybe I just had my cleats placed wrong. We lucked out and didn't have to unclip the whole ride, but I played in the parking lot and it seems fine. Of course now I'll mess with them some more and totally screw it up. I also went to the Kool Stop salmon brake pads. Again, didn't really stop that much so I can't really say. I just feel like my brakes aren't as solid as they could be. Everyone uses these pads. We'll see. They're cheaper than new calipers.

After that there was some shopping, the dropoff for HSM on Ice (does it ever end?) and way more shopping for needed home implements. The evening brought Mom packing for a trip...and my daughter deciding she couldn't sleep. Hmmm. So, as usual I slept in her room. Today was dropping off Mom at the airport at 0 dark 30.

The event wasn't too bad. We walk back to the car and buckle in. Very little sound from the back seat. Soon, some sniffling. Then a full on cry. I'm driving, not much I can do. This lasts for the 30 minute drive. We got home and went for a nap. She hadn't slept a lot, nor had I, so the nap was good. Mom called and we were happy/sad. Afterwards, off to lunch we go.

At the usual venue, everyone asks where is Mom.....red eyes and tears ensue. Doesn't last long. We come home and its play time. The entire afternoon spent playing with friends. I manage to clean out a car and get some stuff out of the attic. I cook dinner and we watch some Hannah Montana to relax. Mom calls for goodnight. It goes.....ok.

Shortly thereafter I announce shower/bed time. The crying starts. I got her in the shower and it was ok. Until bed. I think she was there 3.2 minutes. Crying comes downstairs. I send her upstairs. Here is where I start feeling like a crappy dad. My daughter is pretty tied to her mom. This needs to not be.

As you would expect, things just go downhill. She wants to call mom. Everything hurts. Shes sick. Its too hard to sleep. I just keep sending her back up. I just feel like if we call, it'll only make things worse, so I hold my ground.

I finally give in a little and lay down with her. She's so tense and there really isn't much I can do about it. I know she's overtired at this point, which only makes things worse. So, after I laid down with her, she fell asleep in about 10 minutes. Poor thing. I sure hope the entire week isn't like this or I'm going to end up turning to booze. Oh wait......

She's Back

I retrieved my newest wheeled implement last night, a 2000 Suzuki SV650. I got it in the Spring and went through the MSF beginner class to get my license. This is my first street bike.

I rode dirtbikes forever as a kid. Never had one with a ton of power, just beat it around on trails. I loved it. I always wanted a street bike, but it was never really a good time. I'm really a car guy, so I always opted for a car as a toy.

Fast forward to a couple of years ago and the gentle onset of the midlife crisis. Last year I got a tattoo. I am planning some more as I loved the experience. Won't be going overboard but, I will do it again. Then, the end of last year I decided to get my motorcycle license. I signed up for class and came home and announced my decision.

The plan was to borrow my friends bike and ride around, see how I like it. Well, anyone that knows me well will understand that that lasted all of 2 days. I decided the bike I wanted (a friend has one) and I went off to Craigslist. Seems that anything older than about 3 days on Craigslist is probably gone. No one cleans up. In the end I really only found one. Of course I bought it. And, naturally I paid too much.

About a grand later I got it home. I rode and I loved it. Even though I have to watch out for traffic, it is like I remember it. You feel free. You fly. I can just go and go. While illegal, the advent of the iPOD allows me to jam while I'm riding. The only downside is that riding fast comes easy, and riding faster while listening to Slipknot is even easier.

Its hard to find time to ride, but I do it when I can. My bike was in the shop for about the last month. I've had a terrible time with screws and rear tires. So, I had bought a new one and took it to be mounted. They told me it needed a chain, so I forked out the cash for that. Well, seems there was a run on SV chains at the chain store and it was hard to find one. So, I brought it back home last night and took it to work today. Soooo much fun riding.

When I ride I feel.....cool. Everyone looks at you. I guess I like the attention.

Tomorrow a ride. And since all the Tri-girls are tri-ing, I get to ride at 8:15!

Thanks Richard!

Legs

Wow, apparently my squats did a little more hurt than I thought. Thighs still sore. No gym today. Trying to do a little test marketing so we were delivering fliers. Naturally upon getting home we discovered we messed up the phone number. Oh well, it was only 50 fliers. Just trying to get a feel. Maybe they'll email.

Good news today, my motorcycle is ready. Thing has been in the shop waiting for a chain for weeks. Yesterday I found some on line and was planning to call the shop today to tell them I'd supply the part...but its done. Missed most of September. Well, upside is that it has been hot so maybe cool, not cold, weather will linger.

Back to bicycle land, I've been considering some new pedals. Originally I had some Look knock offs. I never liked them much, but used them for a few years. Finally the cleats fell apart so I went to Times. I LOVE my Time ATACS on my Mtn bike. Best pedals ever. I've ended a ride with sticks stuck in the pedals and was still able to clip in and out fine. So, I bought Time RXS's. I've never been able to get these to work well either. In reading reviews I've seen many others that have trouble cliping in. I also read of lots of them breaking, but that hasn't happened to me. I have to STAND on the pedal to get it locked. I always figured its the location of the cleat on my shoe, but I just haven't had luck. I'm considering Speedplays now.

Got a trip coming up in a few weeks, so my anal tendencies have me prepping now. There is just never enough time, so I start early. So much to do, so little time.

Concert Review

Last week was probably the end of my show going for the year. Unless Bob does a show, I don't see much else coming this fall. Its been a good year for me tho.
Lamb of God twice, Hatebreed, Dropkick Murphys, the mighty SLAYER (where I drove to DC and back with a 102 degree fever), and last week Turbonegro. I feel like I'm missing something.

Anyways, Turbonegro. The first band sounded like Soundgarden. They were ok I guess, but not my thing. The second band I endured. I kind of feel like I might like them, but, they just didn't do it for me. TN was, however, all that they could be.

If you Wiki them, here are are their listed influences: Black Flag, Aerosmith,[1] Venom, Radio Birdman, Motörhead, The Germs[2], Circle Jerks, Ramones, Alice Cooper, Negazione and The Stooges . Of these, I've never heard of Negazione, but the rest are among my favorites. They claim their style is Death Punk, but I can't say I really get that.

Essentially what you have are some mid-30s Norwegian's that look to be a cross between Kiss and the New York Dolls. And oh yeah, they'll kick your ass live. Since the crowd was kind of light, I made the potentially life altering decision to stay at the stage. These guys have a great visual element so I wanted to see it.
NWS!!!!http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEJGk8qfAgI

While I didn't get that show, I got some great rock and roll. I also got bumps and bruises. Elbowed and kicked. I fell down and someone had to lift me up. Being alone freed me to sing with the crowd that was mostly 20 years younger. I was soaked in sweat (mine and others). These guys can play and they can for sure work a crowd. Seriously, only in rock and roll can an overweight dude, wearing some Clockwork Orange'sque makeup, showing more buttcrack than a plumber, get chicks. Why is it girls think muscians are hot anyway?

So it was well worth the long drive and lack of sleep.
Tomorrow, back to the gym?

Fitness

So I ride my bike all summer (maybe not as much as I wished I had) and feel pretty good about it. While I'm able to keep up at the end of the summer, I don't feel as strong and am getting dropped a bit more. So, I head back to the gym for the first time in months.

Ugh. I guess not going to the gym is bad. Honestly biking is mostly about legs and lungs, but the piece I started to feel was missing was *core* muscles (I hate that term core. Why must we always invent new ways to refer to the same old thing?). Basically while my legs had ok power, and lungs were fine, I felt I was working harder keeping my body up.

Well, only two visits in and I can say I feel a bit tighter already. Had to drop back on weight, but I think this will work out for me.