turning your orbit around

bowing out...

2007-10-24T13:21:00.000-06:00

howdy folks. it has been a long time since a post to this blog, and i think it's time to call it quits. i'm tipping my hat, walking off into the blogosphere sunset, and all those other old cliches. my life is so full offline - my beautiful wife, a regularly gigging band, and a hardcore flyfishing addiction - that i just don't have time to come up with creative posts anymore. you people deserve creative/amusing/ruminative posts, and i'm afraid i'm fresh out for now.

it's been three years this fall since i started this thing. my life has undergone some changes - almost all good - and this blog allowed me to track that journey and share it with you all. the fact that friends and family (and a few strangers) actually read this thing is humbling, and i want to thank all of you for your kind words and comments over the years.

so, what to leave you with? for starters, check out my band site every now and then. we have some audio demos on there of original songs, and a couple of video performances from this summer and last fall as well. we have a regular apres-ski gig at the ski area this season, and we're already working on lining up shows (and a few festivals!) for next summer.

also, if you do not know paul, you should. the blog he and his lovely bride to be maintain is pretty dang entertaining, all about living in the wilds of the wind river country of wyoming. and he was my original inspiration for blogging in the first place.

and, if you don't know timmy, you should. the blog he maintains - while light on textual content - is chock full of awesome images that are a result of tim's burgeoning interest in photography. my friend has a great eye, and it gets better with every picture he takes.

and with that, i'll leave you with some pictures of my life. thanks for reading, and be well!

3 beautiful ladies: mom-in-law, jenn, sis-in-law. SLC, 9/2007.

Shoeing on Rabbit Ears, Marley can barely stay still. Early season, winter 05/06.

All my cousins. Though I don't see them enough, I love 'em. 11/2006.

Me and the drunk chihuaha. Rizzle's going away party, 10/2006 (i think).

Dad with a gorgeous 21 inch rainbow on the White. 7/2007.

A Jebus flier done by a CMC student for one of our shows this summer.

Mom & Dad from waaaaaaaay back.

Jebus at Dos Amigos, 08.21.2007

2007-08-31T13:53:00.000-06:00

from left to right that's russell, brett, bob & me. puv's curse continues - our keyboardist never seems to make it into photos.

this was run in the local, steamboat's local alternative biweekly paper.

more news and ruminations

2007-07-18T09:59:00.000-06:00

ruminations:

* why do people continue to buy chevy suburbans and tahoes, ford expeditions, or - god forbid - hummers?! in steamboat's summer months, an invasion takes place of families who make a pilgrimage here to have their sons and daughters play in these tournaments. every single one of them drives an enormous gas-guzzling SUV. they ought to visit this site before they make their next car purchase.

* why do i love flyfishing so much? etymology, conservation, the pure science of it all - absolutely. but, ultimately, "the tug is the drug," as they say.

* is this the year of the harry potter zeitgeist? i think so. jenn and i are going to see movie #5 this week, and we'll buy the new and final book of the series this saturday (we'll probably have to buy two copies because neither of us wants to wait for the other to finish). if you wanna rock, go here.

news:

* fantastic news, folks! these two wonderful people are engaged! congrats to paul and kathryn! we love you both!

* the colorado DOW has asked anglers to not fish the yampa river, thus instituting the first "voluntary ban" on fishing the yampa since 2002. major bummer - read about it here.

* it's looking like jebus will get to play this event in september, where we will open for this band. we are very excited!

es todo, amigos. hasta la vez!

midsummer update

2007-07-09T17:59:00.001-06:00

well folks, it's been over a month since i last posted. it's officially the hottest summer since i've been here, and it really shows no sign of letting up. i'm looking out at a the valley through a forest fire haze, with smoke drifting in from the rifle fire and points farther west. it is scorching, it is dry, and it's been very hard on our beloved yampa river.

but i'm still fishing - in the mornings when it's cooler - and dad and mom are in town through the month. just yesterday dad and i caught a couple nice ones apiece, and he landed the fish of the day - a beautifully spotted, football sized brown trout that went 18 inches or so. he played him perfectly, we got him in and got the hook out quickly, snapped a pic, and revived him in time for him to swim off after being spooked by a bunch of tubers.

damn tubers.

anyway, here are some bullets for those of you still checking in from time to time:

my foot hurts! often. haven't hiked as much this summer as i'd like; think i pulled something that just won't heal.
my sister-in-law is moving to salt lake city. in her late twenties, she wants to go back to school for a masters but she's just not sure what for. salt lake will be a cheaper place for her to figure that out. she has friends there, and (perhaps most importantly) will be under 45 minutes away from world-class skiing. we're moving her this coming weekend.
dad is fully retired and no longer working on the textbooks. i'm proud of him - now he can fish and goof off as much as he wants!
jenn just completed another art in the park. it's a heck of an event that she pulls together with patience and endurance, and i'm proud of her. she took today off to relax and go up to steamboat lake with my mom and the dogs.
helped our lander friends move into their new house a few weeks ago; dug their little town, and met some great people, too; got to fish the middle fork of this river, a mere 5 minutes from their front door; bought this beautiful photograph that is now on our fireplace mantle.
pooper scooped for the public library's book cart drill team again this year, making the parade route an acceptably sanitary place to do book cart maneuvers for all involved. check out fellow library geeks from des plaines for an idea of how dorky this stuff can get.

that's it folks. well, most of it. i'll try and post a little sooner next time.

we rocked 12 people

2007-05-29T11:16:00.000-06:00

folks, in the very unglamorous world of bar gigs, sometimes you just wind up playing an empty room. there's no need to beat yourself up about it, no need to question why. sometimes folks just don't want to leave the comfort of their homes for a rock n' roll band, no matter how good said rock n' roll band might be. and playing clark, co (pop. 872) - 25 miles north of steamboat near the wyoming border - doesn't help your turnout much either.

but we had fun, we were tight, it was cool to be a 4-piece again, and we got paid. can't complain one bit.

jebus is a temporary 4-piece

2007-05-25T13:57:00.000-06:00

howdy folks. due to puv's absence over the next couple weeks, jebus will be a quartet tonight when we play the white bison pub in clark. just like the old days. and, now that he's gone, we finally got a staff pick in our local paper's weekend section. figures. we'll be good tonight, but we sound fuller with puv and his vintage fender rhodes.

anyway, thought you might find our setlist of interest.

clark show 05.25.2007

Set.1

Rodeo Clowns/J.Johnson
Cure for Pain/Morphine
Shamble On/Jebus
Mad Creek/Jebus
California Stars/Wilco
Black Water/Mofro
Empire Builder/M.Jennings
Invective Directives/Jebus
Rails and Rust/Jebus
What I Got...I Know You Rider/Sublime...G.Dead
Pagan Panda Bear/Jebus
Drug Buddy/Lemonheads

Set.2

Big Dipper/Built to Spill
BadFish/Sublime
Roses are Free/Ween
Ain’t no Sunshine/B.Withers
Waiting for Signs/Jebus
Rescue Blues...Get Whatcha Want/R.Adams...R.Stones
Portfolio/Jebus
Clean Escape/Jebus
I Never Learn/Jebus
Stop Blinking/Jebus
Don't Forge the Taint/Jebus
Golden Age...Black Napkins/Beck...F.Zappa

deron, dee, ugly pike, and 10,000 visits...

2007-05-16T10:00:00.000-06:00

folks,

for those of you who are illini basketball fans, pardon the backstory:

during the 2004/2005 season, the university of illinois mens basketball team made it to the national championship game, only to lose to an overpowering north carolina team. illinois finished that season 37-2, and in spite of their loss in the national championship many college hoops pundits consider that team to be one of the best in the history of NCAA basketball.

the heart and soul of that team were deron williams and dee brown (for those james and luther fans out there, i love 'em too). deron left his junior year and was picked third by the utah jazz. dee played his senior year and went in the second round to the jazz. the two most electric players every to hit the hardwood at the university of illinois are now teammates on the jazz. deron is in his second season, dee is in his first.

after a 41-41 season in 2005/2006, the jazz really put it together this year and are in the playoffs. as a matter of fact, they're doing very well in the playoffs, and last night clinched their second round series against the golden state warriors. why am i telling you all this?

well, deron has had a breakout season this year, and it's been a joy to see. but last night i was even more thrilled because dee played significant minutes as a rookie - in the playoffs - subbing for deron (who was in foul trouble early). and you know what? dee did a damn good job. he played 9 minutes, ran the point effectively, made a basket, dished out 2 assists and no turnovers, and did all the little things dee has always done to influence the game away from the ball. at one point he was fouled hard, and on getting up from the floor did some pushups.

i will shout it from the rooftops: i love dee brown. he's a scrapper, a winner, and a smart player. watching him and deron play last night was almost like watching the illini from 3 years ago. almost.

on another note, here's an ugly ass pike i caught from a local secret reservoir:

and finally, this blog is 50 clicks away from 10,000 visits. thanks to all my friends and family who have remained loyal readers. there will be a few more posts this summer, and then this blog will go away. but fret not - i will continue to have a web presence. i just don't know how yet.

thanks for reading.

mo' fishing

2007-04-30T10:40:00.000-06:00

well, folks, dad and mom did wind up coming up to steamboat so that dad could fish during this incredible little window of opportunity.

after a stop at the best damn freestone river in colorado (the river not to be named), they got here late wednesday night, and dad and i fished thursday morning, friday morning, and saturday. dad caught a couple nice ones on thursday, a couple more on friday, and only one on saturday, but it was the nicest fish of the week for anyone.

here's an account of that day i sent to my buddy paul. check it out:

bruce and dad and i had a great day on saturday, and it wound up being the last decent day for awhile. the cfs (cubic feet per second) was at 700 when we stopped fishing at 2:30. it's at 1,280 today!

golden stone nymphs were still the hot ticket, and we caugh six fish - bruce 3, me 2, and dad one. bruce caught a rainbow and a brown in the 16-18 inch category before we got there. we crossed the river at the KOA campground and went up to a nice plunge pool where dad hooked up with a pretty nice fish for about 10 seconds. it took off downstream and dad lost him. it was then my turn and i caught a fat little 12/13 inch bow on my first cast. nothing else out of that pool so we headed upriver to a really incredible stretch of water.

we shared a rod between the 3 of us and it was such a nice way to fish. dad went first at the next pool. he hooked into another decent fish and lost it as it headed downstream. we rested the main part of the pool and bruce fished the nervous water at the top where he caught a 10/11 inch bow. my turn next. we were giving each other about 20-30 casts apiece before giving up the rod. they started counting me down after about 20 casts, and on my actual last cast i hooked into a 19 inch rainbow. it took me 30 yards downstream and i netted him. beautiful fat fish.

dad was next, and after what was probably an annoying amount of coaching from bruce and me (he was working on location and mending for good drifts), he hooked into the nicest fish of the day on his 10th cast. he did everything right with this one - kept his rod high, moved downstream with it (but didn't walk backwards), and most importantly he had a great hookup in the corner of its mouth. after about 50 yards downstream i was able to net it for him. biggest fish he's caught in the yampa yet - we measured it in the measurenet and it was somewhere between 21-22 inches, probably pushing 4 pounds. a gorgeous rainbow hen. my dad's hands are huge, so the picture doesn't really do it justice, but it barely fit in his net.

it was a fantastic fish, and all three of us were whooping and hollering after we released it.

fishing right now...

2007-04-23T14:15:00.000-06:00

is outrageous. phenomenal.

because of the early thaw, the low valley runoff is done. but it's been cool enough the last week to keep the high mountain runoff from starting. the result is a fantastic little window where the water clarity is just good enough and the fish are hungry after a long winter.

an email to my dad from this morning:

dude,

the big bend behind and down from snowbowl is fishing as good as any hole on the white right now. i took this morning off to fish it again; i figured the fishing would still be hot since the weather has stayed cool (40s & 50s). let me recap my morning for you. in 2.5 hours of fishing, with a san juan worm and a #18 olive bh flashback pheasant tail, i caught (in order):

* 12 inch rainbow (sj worm)

* 16/17 inch rainbow that fought like hell and took me down to the next pool again (sj worm)

* 20/21 inch fat rainbow that went 3 or 4 pounds (pheasant tail)

* lost a 15/16 inch rainbow that jumped twice

* 13/14 inch rainbow (sj worm)

* 16/17 inch brown (pheasant tail)

* lost a nice fish at the head of the pool; it rolled and looked to be at least 17 inches

and, finally, on one of my "last casts", i hooked into something that at first i thought was a log. seriously. and then it started to move. i've never had that happen before, where i've mistaken a fish for a snag. this thing was big, and it had to have been a brown, since i never saw it. it lumbered around the pool for a few minutes, upstream and down, taking my line out at a leisurely pace. and then i lost it. i'm telling you, this was a big mammajamma.

life...

2007-04-16T11:37:00.000-06:00

and how we live it.

these past few weeks have been a blur. between a couple day trips to fish the green, an ever accelerating work schedule as the semester winds down, and a last-minute trip back home to illinois (which was initially for very scary reasons, but wound up being really quite lovely), well...

i hardly remember the first half of april at all.

illinois was wonderful. my best friend's dad wasn't doing so well, but now he's doing better; that in itself is cause enough to celebrate. everyone converged home, hushed and scared, hoping for the best. as the week went on, things improved, and we all were able to reestablish the connections that we hold so dear. highlights include:

*whiskey drinks and cigars on porches as the wind whipped across the stubbled spring cornfields.

*poker until one in the morning; the universe dealt tp some sweet cards, allowing the person who needed it most to win that night.

*breakfast at sammy's, the greatest greasy spoon in the state of illinois - kind but weird waiters, an armenian-american cook/owner, and a cast of regulars straight out of a sitcom (if you don't get your american fries with onions, well, that's just foolish).

*holding babies at bp's headstart program - we all needed some baby cuddling.

*down-home wisdom from mimi, 85 years young. example: "the only thing anyone should ever tell white lies about is someone's clothing."

our friends are so important to us. there is a very large part of my heart that will always reside in the vast cornfield expanses of central illinois. we miss everyone already.

another new song...

2007-03-28T09:55:00.000-06:00

this one has no music yet. it seems my favorite subjects of late are marginal men and seedy situations. let me know what you think. the rhyme scheme for the verses is aabaab.

holed up and waiting

There’s something in the change
An echo in the name
A ghostly neon likeness
Out the dirty window panes
Far across the bay
Don’t know the truth, can’t try to hide it

Knee shakes and earthquakes
Round the corner in the rain
Tobacco on the tongue
Cut coffee with cane
It’s all the same
There’s a grand on the table and a gun

I can’t think
I need a drink
Blink at myself
Over the sink
Splash cold water
And I’m back from the brink
I need a drink
I can’t think

An insurgent resurgence
Light it but don’t burn it
Self-righteous indignation
Paranoid with yearning
Tired of this burning
God’s getting just a little impatient

Blistered and raw
Rosin bow and a saw
Diluted dust in the air
The blow and the fall
A tailspin and a stall
A broken jaw and a thousand yard stare

Dirty tile creaky chairs
Waiting for shoes on the stairs
Streetlights slant in through the blinds
Just a little impaired
But why should they care
It’s their junk now and not mine

Knee shakes and earthquakes
Round the corner in the rain
Tobacco on the tongue
Cut coffee with cane
It’s all the same
There’s a grand on the table and a gun

I can’t think
I need a drink
Blink at myself
Over the sink
Splash cold water
And I’m back from the brink
I need a drink
I can't think

new song

2007-03-07T14:40:00.000-07:00

folks,

got a new song. the verse/prechorus is all set (a simple tweedyesque walk down from D to G with Bm F#m G as the prechorus), but i have no idea what to do for the main chorus. oh well, it'll come.

Imaginary Eulogies

-V.1-
Driving round
Sooty snowy streets downtown
I’m thinking about going underground
And I don’t know which is worse
Panic or pleasure
The music or the measure
Of this dirty melody we just found

-V.2-
Twelve degrees
Snow in the air like buzzing bees
Sidewalk litanies of car keys
And blinkers blink red
Stoplights turn green
A passenger pondering
Imaginary eulogies

-Chorus-
Brick walls pockmarked and scarred
Just another passing of the guard
Cover half the distance in twice as far
Just another passing of the guard

-V.3-
A frozen stream
Regret in the air like geyser steam
Half pint flask of bourbon Jim Beam
And this bench is cold metal
These papers water-stained
It’s these gestures that we feign
All scored by Coltrane’s Love Supreme

-Chorus-
Brick walls pockmarked and scarred
Just another changing of the guard
Cover half the distance in twice as far
Just another changing of the guard

-Outro-
Imaginary eulogies
Given away for free

feeling blurbie

2007-03-06T13:21:00.000-07:00

folks,

some blurbs about my life (and the lives of those in my orbit):

* becca (timmy's sister) is engaged. a hearty congratulations to a wonderful young woman - i look forward to meeting your guy, whenever that may be.

* robbie dudie is dating a swimsuit model. you stud.

* jebus had a gig in golden last week (that's on the front range west of denver), and one here in steamboat on saturday. they were both sloppy, but fun. we'll have another on saturday, 4/7, at pirates pub in steamboat.

* through a fairly fortuitous turn of events (and some fantastic sales), i now have a sweet 5-weight flyrod & reel that cost $75 to set up, which makes my quiver complete: a 3 weight, 4 weight, 5 weight, & 6 weight. make no bones about it people - i am a fly fishing geek.

* trout & kg visited this weekend, and it was a really great time. coffee was imbibed, donuts were eaten, jackets were purchased, and the fishing was unsuccessful but beautiful. very much looking forward to spending time with them in the 5400 this spring/summer.

* j is not the executive director of the arts council, and she's absolutely okay with that. the woman coming in is really outstanding, and j is very excited about working with her.

that's the latest. sorry for the infrequent posts - my life gets busier and busier. on a related note, i'm closing in on 10,000 visits to this blog; i'm not sure what its fate will be when we hit that mark. we shall see.

thanks for reading!

bill gates loves jebus

2007-02-16T14:38:00.000-07:00

hi folks,

i realize it's been a long time since i blogged, but i just wanted to update everyone on probably the most exciting thing to happen to me in awhile.

through a friend of a friend of a friend (thank you, snooks!), jebus's music has been chosen to represent the city of denver in a national microsoft online ad campaign/contest.

here's the deal - the contest is called ideawins, and it's geared toward entrepreneurs out there who think they have a great idea for a small business. the contest organizers did a 4-city tour to sample successful small businesses and kick off the contest. denver was one of those cities, and in keeping with the local talent ethos, microsoft wanted to use local bands as background music for the videos they produced in those cities. the videos are now viewable at the ideawins website. as a result of us letting microsoft use our music for free (we wanted to help out a struggling business like microsoft), they're providing a link to our myspace page from the ideawins site.

so here's what you do to check it out:

* go to the ideawins website.

* click on enter the ultimate challenge.

* wait a crapload of time for it to load (for those mozilla users out there, it's a little faster in IE).

* when the goofy guy sitting at the desk comes up on the screen, click on checkout the rv tour in the upper right.

* click on denver on the map.

* the first video should start once it loads. there are 3 other videos on the right. the link to the jebus myspace page is right below the video screen.

in other exciting jebus news, we talked to the guy today who runs steamboat's free summer concert series. he checked out our myspace page, dug our music, and is going to let us open for a big name band this summer. and when i say big name, i mean it. bands who have played this series in the past include michael franti, los lobos, galactic, matt costa, steel pulse, and others.

it's only a matter of time before jebus goes on a world tour.

we hope.

inactive and uninspired

2007-01-18T13:35:00.000-07:00

folks,

i have been an inactive blogger the past several weeks. sorry for that. mostly, i have just been feeling uninspired. i am not feeling terribly poetic; not very interesting; and pretty freaking tired most of the time. throw a sinus infection on top of that, and i feel lucky to make it home to the couch at the end of the day.

i was reading some of my earlier posts this morning, from a year and a half ago, and i used to really put some effort into this little page of mine. i want to recapture that, but i am not sure how. so until i can figure that out, this post is just a quick little update on the latest in my life.

* spent the holidays in az with ma & pa willis. shopped some, fished a little, ate some great food, did just one measly hike (dang!), and got to hang with my man robbie dudie.

* jebus played pirates pub on 01-06. we have another gig there on 02-10. and, get this folks, we have a 1 hour original music showcase gig at the buffalo rose in golden on 02-28. it will be the nicest bar we have played by a longshot.

* i have skied more days than i have snowboarded this year, and am getting much better at it.

* i am absolutely dying to fish, but it's not even a possibility around here for quite some time - a week and a half of subzero temperatures at night (and highs in the teens during the day) have the yampa river so full of ice you can't even see running water in some sections.

* p-dudie and i are planning a trip here some time in april. geno, you and gary want to join us? i'll pick you up in laramie.

* i've been tying flies like crazy. my nymph box is filling up, and for once i'm going to be fully supplied for the start of the season - let's hope it comes soon.

that's pretty much it. music, fishing and skiing occupy my brain during the winter doldrums.

holy thigh-high powder, batman

2006-12-21T12:50:00.000-07:00

jamie and i were in the gondola line by ten 'til 8 (it opens at 8:30). what a crazy scene that is - a bunch of amped up powderhounds hollering and smiling all around.

b.c. liftline down to storm peak express wasn't bad. storm peak opened at 9, and we were one of the first 4o or so chairs up it. that first run down storm peak face to cyclone was absolutely outrageous - one of my best runs of the last 2 years.

a couple runs in 2:30 trees, a couple more down the nice tree pitches off of tomahawk that the beginners never manage to find, and we called it a day.

this isn't me, but the steamboat photo of the day gives you an idea of the conditions.

phenomenal.

link o' the day:

wanna see the runs we took? check it out.

mozilla firefox freakin rocks

2006-12-20T16:23:00.000-07:00

open source software has come a long, long way. if you've never heard of mozilla firefox, it is a free internet browser you can download that will make you forget about the existence of an inferior product like internet explorer.

the coolest thing about mozilla firefox is that its users create extensions and add-ons that greatly improve your online browsing experience. i'm currently listening to matisyahu as i write this, and i'm controlling my volume, track selection, etc. with a little tiny interface embedded in the bottom corner of my firefox window. and how am i writing this, you might ask? from my new embedded blogging extension in my firefox window. i no longer have to go to blogger.com and log in. it's all right here.

i am such a geek for this kind of stuff.

link o' the day:

it is currently dumping in steamboat, so i don't know if we're going to leave on our trip early tomorrow morning. but whenever we leave, we're going to do this hike on the way into moab.

gonna buy five copies for my mother!

2006-12-15T09:41:00.000-07:00

folks,

in preparation for our show tomorrow night (the first in 3 months), the advertising blitz has begun. feast your eyes on jebus's second fifteen minutes of fame.

in other news, the annual border war between the illini and mizzou takes place this tuesday, 12/19. my new friend, coworker, and bandmate kevin has his MLS from missouri. it's going to be a shame for him when the illini stomp missouri on national television (espn, 7pm mountain time). brett (our drummer, u of i grad, and also a champaign native) and i will do our best not to rub it in too badly.

link o' the day:

interested in how regional politics affect a little southwestern ski area?

ranchers

2006-12-13T09:40:00.000-07:00

the day is gray. it looks and feels like a thick wool blanket in a cold house; like coming home from work late, a cold blanket wrapped around you as you get the fire going.

a coal train blows through town, whistling at crossings. it's a long one - 2 engines in the front, 2 in the middle, 2 in the rear. probably 200 coal cars or more.

pickups and sedans move up and down fish creek falls road; south of town around the curve on highway 40; like a trail of ants.

evergreens are black. white snow. brown scrub oak. rust red buildings downtown, left over from another era; now they're restaurants, salons, t-shirt shops.

this town deals in experience. its commerce is exhiliration. its end product is happy families.

but the ranchers, the holdouts, the 5th generation cowboys are its soul. they hole up in their houses 20 miles out, drop hay bales in the negative early morning cold, and come into town for groceries or prescriptions, only when they have to.

this valley is made of separate worlds.

jebus resurrected

2006-12-07T16:50:00.000-07:00

folks, jebus finally has a winter gig. we'll be playing at pirates pub, across from the torian plum plaza, in the heart (well, really the left ventricle) of steamboat's base village, on saturday 12/16.

it's hopefully a chance for us to develop a relationship with this bar, and get a regular saturday thing going throughout the ski season. direct jet service from 3 major airlines starts next week, so hopefully it will be a great crowd full of drunk and rowdy vacationing skiers.

so, if you're a reader of this blog and a steamboat resident, please swing by. we'll start around 10 pm. the more people we can get out, the better chance we have at playing there again. if you haven't been to the pirates pub, it's above the jade summit restaurant, behind dos amigos, across from torian plum plaza.

see you there!

quickie link

2006-11-28T09:43:00.000-07:00

peoples,

jebus has a myspace page with 4 of our originals on it. check it out here.

or here.

or type http://www.myspace.com/didvivknow into your browser.

think i linked to it enough?

more new lyrics

2006-11-27T10:45:00.000-07:00

this one was rhythmically inspired by an animal liberation orchestra song. don't have a chord progression yet for it, but i'm trying for something rhythmic and funky (timmy, any ideas?).

I never learn but I don’t mind

Fight the light and get out of bed
Try to grab hold of all that shit in your head
Sit up get your feet planted firmly on the floor
Remember what it is that you woke up for
Out the door down the stairs and into the car
The sky’s warming up but there’s still a few stars
Throw the pack in the back and turn on some tunes
Squeeze in somewhere between the sun and the moon
Down the street out of town and over the hill
There’s no breeze and the leaves are totally still
Look down valley at the fields of hay
Think of all the things that you wish you could say
Bugs hit the window and leave a mark
Your points were dirty but now you got a spark
It’s time to strike out for some time of your own
Time to turn off the phone and get some time alone

Looking out for number two
That means you (x2)

Over the pass and down the other side
Take your foot off the gas for that easy glide
Leaves are yellow and the creeks are cold
Neil Young’s still searching for a heart of gold
In a couple of miles you’ll make up your mind
North or south which way to what you need to find
It doesn’t really matter which way you turn
In either direction there are bridges to burn
But there are bridges to build and bridges to cross
Work hard love your girl go easy on the sauce
All you need is just a little bit of time
A few hundred miles and a few dozen rhymes
And in the end you return the same way you went
Dumber and smarter with your heart a little bent
Turn the key walk in through that front door
Determined to end your quiet little war

Looking out for number two
That means you (x2)

oh-wva-ky

2006-11-16T22:36:00.000-07:00

folks, we're in huntington west virginia visiting my relatives. i'm ashamed to say that i hadn't seen them in over 11 years, and jenn had never met them. it's been a great experience so far, and we also managed to squeeze in a trip to a national park to meet roberto.

here's a bit about our trip, extracted from an email i just sent my coworkers:

west virginia is beautiful and rainy. we saw the new river gorge yesterday and drove down into it. it was drizzly, and clouds encircled the hilltops and filtered through the bare tree branches, and the river was green like jade. my friend rob and i hopped around on gigantic mossy sandstone boulders and found a sycamore leaf the size of a serving plate. we ate funky wood-fired pizzas at a great little 5-table restaurant and we got to meet his wonderful boyfriend, wes.

jenn has met aunts and uncles and cousins and has really fallen in love with how different and cool this place really is. it's been really, really good to reconnect with my family - they're so kind.

we come back to the hotel after a visit to the places where my family lives in the hills and hollers, and pick mandolins and listen to bluegrass. we drive over the coal trains on the banks of the ohio, and the river barges full of the very same stuff, on our way back and forth between ohio and kentucky and west virginia. even now, in november when everything is pretty much dead, the biomass is astounding - so many plants, so much water, so many critters.

we took a picture of my mom and dad in front of the church they were married in 44 years ago. dad gave mom a kiss on her cheek.

to my loyal readers...

2006-11-10T08:21:00.000-07:00

all nine of you:

sorry i've been absent lately, and sorry for the infrequent posting this fall. it has been busy to say the least - i've been saddled with more administrative duties on campus this year, and i've had a record breaking semester for library instruction sessions. but i will post with renewed vigor in the coming weeks.

this morning is the first official day of the CAL conference, and i'll admit...

i am slightly hungover.

my coworker and jenn and i were so happy to be out of steamboat and in the big mad city, we stayed up a little too late and drank a little too much. but, today should be fun, once i feel better - really cool workshops, lots of fun swag from the vendors, and i am with my people.

geeks are cool.

2006-10-31T15:30:00.000-07:00

the library staff, from left to right: "the dude" from the big lebowski, cereal killer (that's me), yodasaurus, and a ghoulish zombie.

a newish song

2006-10-19T12:44:00.000-06:00

still no music for it, though.

Held up by Stilts

v.1

From quiet to loud

Ripped open like a rain cloud

That house is held up by stilts

Those flowers bloom and then wilt

v.2

Machinery roars downhill

Road graders scrape and kill

Metal clangs against the road

A strange and rhythmic morse code

chorus

You’ll either follow or you won’t

You either love me or you don’t

v.3

Plastic caps and aluminum cans

The detritus of modern man

Thrown from car windows into a ditch

Maybe we were just a glitch

bridge

You’ve got a real predilection for dereliction

I wince at its infliction

It’s an overwhelming collection of addictions

That perpetuates your convictions

-solo-

chorus

You’ll either follow or you won’t

You either love me or you don’t

jebus is now floating...

2006-10-11T10:53:00.000-06:00

out there in the ether of the world wide web.

our keyboardist took a video cut of one our originals and put it up on youtube a couple days ago. it's an instrumental called "would you like to see my portfolio."

check it out.

link o' the day:

for the entire show (all originals) from that weekend go here and click on the wmv jebus file that's 163 mb. it's huge, so download it overnight when you're asleep (and you may not even want to attempt it if you're still on dial-up).

the days pass time elapsed

2006-10-06T09:44:00.000-06:00

the rain is a suggestion
a tickle in the brain
barely visible
almost a mist

it is not a chill rain
but it has stayed for days

the clouds come and go
pass through like
distant friends
resurfacing after years

they slip into the folds
then up and over the mountains

and the river runs
below it all
through town
down valley
surface circles from raindrops
mayfly hatches hovering
swarming
mating
returning to the river
spinning dead
disappearing in the swirl
of a hungry trout

2006-09-26T10:30:00.000-06:00

cheesing it with mister rainbow.

fish o' the summer

2006-09-26T10:17:00.000-06:00

folks, what you see above you there is a big damn trout.

in the magazines, you're supposed to get as little of your hand around the fish as possible, and hold it out really far in front of you so that perspective makes it look very big. kind of like this.

i did not do that. but, it is safe to say that the rainbow i am holding in that picture is 24 inches or more.

the biggest trout i've ever brought to net.

i look slightly happy, don't i?

again, i regret to inform you that i am unable to tell you on what river this fish was caught. if i revealed that information, i'd have to kill you.

or at least cut out your tongue.

link o' the day:

i made up a word 90 seconds ago and decided to google it. lo and behold, snoogle is an actual product.

ain't the internet grand?

a couple things

2006-09-18T15:38:00.000-06:00

i'll tell you what, people - it's way too f*#king early for this. i'm not done fishing yet!

went to this event in denver on saturday. saw these nobel laureates speak, and it was incredibly inspiring. get out there! do something! donate even just a little bit of your time or money to an organization you believe in!

hope everyone is well. the start of the fall semester continues on at an impressively hectic pace. i'll return to longer posts soon, so bear with me.

link o' the day:

you know that evil looking fish at the bottom of the ocean in finding nemo? turns out they actually exist and they're called anglerfish. is that the scariest thing you've ever seen, or what?

one big rotting mess

2006-09-05T11:39:00.000-06:00

hi all.

the fall semester has started, and i'm crazy busy with library resource instruction sessions. i haven't blogged much lately, and won't be for another week or two. but i wanted to pop in and point you all to this story.

it has gone national in a big way (it went out on the ap wire and papers are picking it up all over the country), and is giving the justice system in our idyllic little town a very bad name.

obviously, if you plan on dumpster diving, don't come to steamboat.

link o' the day:

for a 9 second video of us playing at the oak creek dustbowl this weekend, go to our keyboardist's myspace page and scroll down a little ways.

you-koo-lay-lay

2006-08-22T09:19:00.000-06:00

last friday, my band jebus had a gig at mambo italiano at 10 pm. a couple hours before that, jenn and i went to see jake shimabukuro at the strings in the mountains tent. this dude is quickly becoming the bela fleck of the ukulele - complete and astounding mastery of his instrument, and he borrows from an incredible array of music styles and disciplines. just an amazing musician.

well, a couple hours after his concert, when we were almost done with our first set, jake showed up at mambo carrying his ukulele. you know in movies, when something dramatic happens in a room full of people and there's that low murmuring as people talk to each other about what just happened - that's what it was like when jake showed up. all the folks at mambo who knew who he was were telling folks who didn't know who he was, pointing at him, etc.

we asked him to play two songs with us early in our second set, and he obliged us. he was gracious, polite, all smiles, and we had a hell of a lot of fun. you'd think being as talented as he is that he wouldn't want to bother with a bunch of dudes in some small little mountain town, but it was quite the opposite - he took time out to make us sound pretty incredible that night. we were all absolutely thrilled, and it was definitely the highlight of my short musical career.

link o' the day:

watch jake play a ridiculously cool version of the beatles' while my guitar gently weeps (make sure you pay attention from around minute 3 on - wow).

i'm so tired of running away...

2006-08-17T18:46:00.000-06:00

i think i'll put on my war paint
and make a stand where others have before

i know two dudies out there who will be happy to hear that jenn and i saw the samples on tuesday night. those two dudies will also be happy to hear that seany boy's new lineup is sounding pretty darn good, and he finally has a keyboard player that can actually play.

if you're unfamiliar with the samples, they're the band you love that never quite made it (but you still pull for them anyway). after some serious buzz in the early nineties, lots of rotation on college radio stations, and an appearance on the jay leno show in '94, they had hit their zenith and began a slow and disappointing descent.

well, i should define descent: in spite of every original member trickling away from the band over the ensuing years except sean kelly, sean continued to write music, replaced those wayward members, and toured endlessly to support new albums; their original record label - WAR (What Are Records) - screwed them with one of those music industry nightmare contracts that just make you grimace; the band went bankrupt and in an unprecedented move actually asked their loyal fans to help them get out of debt (i think this actually worked in a small way).

after the fans helped sean out of debt, he put together a pretty good band and released a pretty lackluster album. still a great live show, though. three years ago, the members of that band trickled away, and sean put together his current incarnation, continues to tour, and put out a slightly better album last year.

a freeway never seemed so strange
rushing back and forth from a life
that i can't explain

sean kelly is the samples. and the samples are a great live band. i've seen them at least a dozen times, most of which have been with jenn, or timmy, or jamie, or robbie, or some combination thereof. in fact, mine and jenn's history is pretty firmly wrapped up in this band.

another day fades away
into the midwestern haze
a duster plane flies away
up over pastures of cattle

* the first concert jenn and i saw together was the samples, at mabel's, in 1995

* the first concert we saw together after we were broken up for a short time in the spring of 1997, was the samples in bloomington, il

* the first concert we saw together after living apart for a year in 2000/2001, was the samples in jackson, wy

* the first concert we saw together as a married couple was the samples, the day after our wedding in 2002, at mishawaka in colorado

jenn and i and our group of friends love this band. sometimes sean's lyrics can be overly sappy, sometimes they'll blow you away with their stark simplicity, but they are always a great live show. catch them if you can - who knows how much longer they'll want to grind it out on the road.

whoever stops to really smell the rose
where the columbine and the wild river flows
oh how i love her
i smile above her

postscript: if you want my opinion, the two strongest samples albums - from start to finish - are this one and this one. but don't buy the last drag, because that one's on WAR and the samples won't see a single red cent from its sale.

holy sh*t - a spinnerfall post!

2006-08-10T19:50:00.000-06:00

hello party people! mosy on over to spinnerfall for a new post - the first one since june! woohoo!

jebus at the june mambo gig

2006-08-10T16:15:00.000-06:00

sum pomes

2006-08-03T14:09:00.000-06:00

don't feel much like posting new content today, so here are a couple of old poems. the first is about our time in denver. the second is about a trip home i made 6 years ago.

josephine street

her scarves
are scattered throughout the house
they hang from coathooks
decorations made of
wool
and chenille

his books
are on shelves
tables and chairs
they are dirty
always covered in dust
and dog hair

in spite of new paint
the walls are pockmarked
scarred
plaster bubbling
in the corner
right angles disappearing
from an old house settling

chicago bus station, december 21, 2000

street derelicts
sitting out the cold
hoping to go unnoticed
chin on chest
looking out from under eyebrows
biting nails
nervous
paranoid

urban black men
cornrowed hair and baggy jeans

aged bearded hippy travelers

bald military boys
shoes patent leather shined
going home in their uniforms
full of pride

young angry kids
pierced lips and eyebrows
doc martens and wallet chains
long sleeves pulled down
to yellow nicotine fingers

and outside
the sun shines bright
negative wind chill cold
and one cannot distinguish
between cold vaporized breath
cigarette smoke
or bus exhaust
in the sooty
snowy streets of chicago

playing dives & finding campsites

2006-07-31T14:30:00.000-06:00

so this past saturday, the 29th, was jebus' first ever out of town gig. we traveled 92 miles south and east to play the downunder bar & grill in winter park, colorado.

what a dive. a basement bar, here's its list of ailments:

*the carpets were probably the same ones from its original construction in the seventies.

*there were 3 dripping pipes above where we played. whenever i'd back off of the mic, i'd get dripped on.

*noise complaints after our first song from the condos behind the bar.

*dingy kitchen windows that looked out on the courtyard; probably hadn't been cleaned in 5 years or more.

*no people! jazzfest was that weekend, and we were up against some pretty big names playing surprise sets at other bars that night. as a result, we really didn't have anyone other than our friends watching us until the last hour of our second set.

but they made a damn good burger, they paid us immediately after we finished, and they were incredibly generous when it came to our complimentary $100 band bar tab. they said we spent $99 on drinks for the band. there's no way - we were ordering beers and shots and mixed drinks right and left! god bless 'em.

the bright spot for the weekend was finding a fantastic free group camping spot on national forest land, right next to a beautiful babbling creek. a good crew of friends and a big group camp - my favorite part by far. jenn and i had a cozy night in our sweet new car-camping tent that we got for a steal at the sports authority. with a very thin moon in the sky, we fell asleep in complete darkness, looking up through the pine tree canopy at a gigantic slice of the milky way.

utterly breathtaking.

little fish and widespread traffic

2006-07-24T17:30:00.000-06:00

so with the heat we've been having, fishing for the big rainbows and browns in the yampa river has been slow at best. to combat these summer doldrums, and to get the dogs out on a hike with me, we walked into soda creek on buff pass on saturday morning for a little bit of brookie fishing.

brook trout are native to the mountain brooks and streams in the eastern part of this country, but were transplanted out west in the late 1800's. in larger rivers they can grow to 3 or 4 pounds, but they're also particularly adept at finding their ecological niche in marginal conditions. they do very well, and stay pretty small, in small mountain creeks where the water is thin and fast, and bug life minimal. very well indeed...

i caught 42 spunky little guys in about 3 hours.

i don't really count my fish (really i don't!), but i knew this was going to be a prolific day so i figured what the hell.

they are truly beautiful fish.

on sunday, jenn and i went over to winter park to post fliers for our upcoming jebus show on the 29th. we got to tabernash, 9 miles west of winter park, and promptly came to a halt, at which point we remembered that widespread panic was in town. after moving 200 yards in 10 minutes, we scrapped our plans, did a u-turn, and headed home.

i used this photo of sadie for the jebus flier.

link o' the day:

can't remember if i've provided an etymology of jebus before, but here it is according to wikipedia.

comments

2006-07-21T10:20:00.000-06:00

i recently participated in my first comments conversation, held entirely in a fellow blogger's comments section. essentially i challenged a fairly conservative blogger to rethink his interpretation of a scientist's statements. i also called him out on his own hyperbole.

here's the thing - i often complain about how polarized this country has become. attribute this to the proliferation of vapid cable news talking heads, the religious right's insidious insertion into politics, ann coulter, whatever - this country is on its way to an intellectual civil war if we can't find some common ground. and yet, when confronted with someone whose political views i think are off base, i feel the need to challenge/change that person's opinions. which, as we all know, is pretty much impossible. so i'm just wondering... why? why does it matter to me? why put forth the effort when i know that person is as firmly entrenched in their way of thinking as i am?

i have no answer for that. but i think the challenge for me is to maintain my views without becoming polemic. i guess that's everyone's challenge, right?

good f#%king luck.

link o' the day:

john squire was the phenomenal lead guitarist for my favorite band ever, the stone roses. he has a site for his artwork, and there are two new instrumental tracks from him that play on it. check it out.

weekend update (without tina fey)

2006-07-18T09:25:00.000-06:00

howdy. just wanted to post an update on last weekend.

*the denver crew made it up friday night. they had a couple other folks in tow, who we got to know pretty well in two days, and it was just a fantastic time. i got mad love for my denver homies, yo.

*frak, timmy-2-ball and i fished saturday morning, and it was damn hot - the temperature, not the fishing. i caught a couple and lost a nice one, frank caught one, and timmy-2-ball got skunked - which has been happening to him for the last 2 years. but he had one on, so there's that at least. baby steps - next step is to get a fish in his net.

*the saturday night gig wound up going off, and snookum sat in on 4 songs with us on his djembe. he did a great job, we were all excited, and he was phenomenally thrilled. he was fearless, for his first time ever playing in a band situation in front of a crowd - just fantastic.

*next gig might be at the rio this friday if it pans out, otherwise we're in winter park at the downunder bar and grill on the 29th.

that's all for now folks.

fo' ten

2006-07-13T13:22:00.000-06:00

hello avid readers!

well, tonight at 8 pm marks the end of my 4/10 week (4 ten hour days as opposed to 8 five hour days), and it's been an outrageously busy week at that. i plan on going home, eating a small dinner, passing a little gas, and watching this, which is either going to be cheesy like a big hunk of gouda, or pretty freakin' cool.

the denver contingent of frak nasty, big daddy snookum, MB and j-dog are coming up this weekend. jebus was set to play saturday night (which i was really looking forward to because snookum was going to sit in with his djembe), but now it's looking like it might not happen. the guy who books acts for the restaurant is a flake and a F%#ktard (my new favorite word), and he booked another act in our place. one of two things has happened here. either:

a) he simply forgot we were booked on the 15th, in which case we'll demand that he call the other band and tell them that saturday is our night; or

b) he is intentionally dicking us over, in which case we'll call him an a**hole and be done with it.

wish us luck, and if you're in a band - get a contract! (one of my goals next week is to write up a one page contract for jebus that safeguards us against this type of idiocy.)

link o' the day:

this site is full of some of the weirdest, funniest video streams i've seen anywhere. people are friggin' crazy out there!

some stuff

2006-07-07T10:11:00.000-06:00

howdy folks! jebus plays the annual art in the park festival tomorrow. we play a 50 minute set, starting at 2:30, and we're going to do all originals. the rainbow gathering - held north of steamboat above a little town called clark - ends today, so some of its 15,000 smelly dreadlocked wanna-be hippies will be rolling through the festival tomorrow when we play. i say wanna-be because most of these dumbass trustafarian kids are so far from the original hippy ethic they don't even know who ken kesey was. but hopefully we can get them to boogie in that stoned, swaying way of theirs.

the setlist:

shamble on
would you like to see my portfolio? (new instrumental)
mad creek
waiting for signs
pagan panda bear
stop blinking
the arsonist (if necessary)

fishing through town has been phenomenal. i'm reporting on yampa river fishing conditions for a new site called flycurrents. you have to be a memeber to get reports, but it's way affordable. for a recap of fishing with p last weekend, go to his post on the subject.

michael franti and spearhead play the free summer concert series tonight. the stage is at the base of the ski area about 250 yards from our front door. sweeeeet.

link o' the day:

the utah jazz picked dee brown early in the second round, thus reuniting him with his old backcourt mate from illinois, deron williams. holy freakin' crap is that awesome.

tomorrow... we fish!

2006-06-29T17:26:00.000-06:00

that funny f*%ker trout is coming down from the 7200 tomorrow morning, and we're headed over to the greatest river in the state of colorado for what will hopefully be a rousing day of "hauling them in," as they say. we'll pick up my buddy bruce in craigamerica on the way. by the way, craigamerica sucks, and bruce will readily admit it. their city website ought to give you an idea of how far behind the rest of the country - nay, the world! - this place really is.

you may be asking yourself, where is this "greatest river in the state of colorado"? i am sorry, but you do not get to know. it is serious business to fish this river. you must be indoctrinated into the cult - there are hazing ceremonies with hoods and flagellation, farm animals, and copious amounts of beer.

just kidding. about the beer part.

link o' the day:

mmmmmmmmmmmm. chee pudding. (that one's for you, kathryn)

beautiful brokendown bukowski

2006-06-21T09:31:00.000-06:00

hey folks, i haven't been in the bloggingest of moods lately. between a trip to the telluride bluegrass festival (holy crap is this town gorgeous), and my folks hanging out with us for awhile, it's just been go-go-go. but i did come across a charles bukowski snippet recently on how to be a good writer, from the poem of the same name, and i wanted to share it with you.

"get a large typewriter
and as the footsteps go up and down
outside your window

hit that thing
hit it hard

make it a heavyweight fight

make it the bull when he first charges in"

wow, i really love that.

jebus summer tour dates continue to solidify. here's what we're looking at for the next couple of months:

saturday, july 8th - 2:30 at steamboat's annual art in the park; 10:00 at mahogany ridge

saturday, july 15th - 10:00 mambo italiano

saturday, july 29th - 10:00 downunder bar & grill, winter park, co (yes, we're finally traveling!)

saturday, august 5th - 10:00 mambo italiano

saturday, august 12th - 10:00 downunder bar & grill, winter park, co

more dates to come, hopefully. and next post i'll tell you the crazy story about how we got the winter park gigs.

link o' the day:

winter park is another colorado ski town just under two hours from steamboat. check it out.

2006-06-09T11:02:00.001-06:00

the milwaukee art museum. an absolutely breathtaking building. just as cool on the inside.

2006-06-09T11:02:00.000-06:00

the back stairwell at a very cool milwaukee used bookstore.

2006-06-09T11:01:00.000-06:00

jenn's gonna be mad i put this up here, but i just think she looks so cute. lunch at the milwaukee public market.

2006-06-09T11:00:00.001-06:00

the best dog in the whole wide world.

2006-06-09T11:00:00.000-06:00

i love this picture. christmas 2005.

2006-06-09T10:59:00.000-06:00

jenn and roberto, christmas 2003.

2006-06-09T10:58:00.000-06:00

from the 2005 ncaa finals (i hate you north carolina!)

five more funky minutes

2006-06-05T09:21:00.000-06:00

apparently, i can log back in with my one week visitor's library card. so, where were we? ah, yes - highlights:

*the muehlings came up. love 'em. my best friend's mom and her husband are also two of my best friends. good times.

*that hippy dippy shop on farwell. i love coming out of a store smelling like patchouli incense.

*flipping through used cd bins on historic brady street, followed by a jimmy john's sub (i love you jimmy john, you tubby obnoxious b#*tard).

*have i mentioned lake michigan is gorgeous? you can't see across it - i thought you could. as a result, milwaukee feels like an oceanfront city.

*we saw this guy at the riversplash festival. it had to be one of the most entertaining shows i've ever seen. ever.

*there's a hofbrau german beer house in milwaukee not 4 blocks from the hotel. this beer is good. very, very good. timmy, you lucky chump. you live in the country where this stuff comes from. anyway, we sang polka there the other night after several maibocks and weissbiers.
that's all for now, folks.

five minutes of funk

2006-06-05T09:16:00.000-06:00

i have just been informed by my computer here at the milwaukee public library that my session will end in five minutes. for those of you who don't pay attention, jenn and i have been here for a conference of hers since thursday of last week. we leave tomorrow. here are some highlights.

*the milwaukee public market - what scary corporate health food store whole foods market wishes they were in their organic hippy dreams.

*thai food. can't get it in steamboat. you can get it in milwaukee. i'd freeze dry some and take it home with us if i could find some dry ice.

*indian food. can't get it in steamboat. you can get it in milwaukee. this place is awesome.

*the lake is so beautiful i can hardly stand it.

okay, i'm out of time. more to come when i get back to steamboat.

hello hip flexors

2006-05-31T13:43:00.000-06:00

jenn and i had a fantastic weekend of hiking. we did mad creek on saturday, and it was gorgeous. the weather was just cool enough, the skies were clear but with high clouds that kept the sun at bay, and all the aspens are leafed out in beautiful shades of green. this is the trail where the dogs blew out their paws last year, but thanks to a spring of yampa core trail walks, the dogs were just fine.

on sunday i fished the stagecoach tailwater. caught a couple rainbows, the first one as big as that picture on the page i just linked. but, alas, i broke both of my rods that day out of sheer clumsiness and stupidity. but that's another post.

jenn and i hiked to upper fish creek falls on monday. this is a gorgeous trail, and the creek is just pumping right now so the falls were spectacular. it's probably 1600-1800 feet of elevation gain to the upper falls, and i'm very proud of us for doing it, but dang am i sore.

these were our first real hikes of the season, and there will be many more to come. next up - the sarvis creek trail, to catch those brook trout i saw in that big pool last summer. after that, when the snow is gone, the spooky devil's causeway. and then, by august - a fourteener.

link o' the day:

jenn and i are going to milwaukee for 5 days for a conference of hers. here's where i plan on spending some time while she's conferencing.

2006-05-23T15:02:00.000-06:00

purty!

silverthorne, how i love thee...

2006-05-23T14:56:00.000-06:00

the cold clear waters of the blue river, soaring mountain peaks, the smell of convenience store nacho cheese mingling with pine sap, and the roar of the interstate humming in your ears as semis fly past over your head.

what a weird fishing experience, but when the browns are this pretty i guess i can deal with it.

link o' the day:

if you fish colorado (dad!) you need to go here for reports.

there is no hell...

2006-05-19T10:14:00.000-06:00

like entertainment tonight or e!news.

additionally, i fart in the general direction of people magazine, us weekly, and star magazine.

i have finally admitted something to myself. i hate celebrity worship. i hate 99% of celebrities. i love movies, but i hate most of the people who act in them. i hate the sycophants who report on celebrities (yeah i'm talking about you, ryan seacrest and melissa rivers).

who f*%king cares what beyonce wore at cannes?

if i see one more picture of eva longoria, i'm going to make a voodoo doll in her image and start stabbing pins into its eyes.

i don't give two shits about brangelina and their f*#king adopted babies.

and tom cruise can take his scientology and "psychiatry is a pseudoscience" and stick it right up his uptight bunghole. he's an idiot.

they're all so clueless, so vapid, so... so... needy.

i hate them.

man, do i feel better.

sorry for the absence

2006-05-16T15:19:00.000-06:00

hi all.

i'll post something more here later this week, but for now head over to spinnerfall for a report on fishing the green river with my good friend p, and bb and his stepson, nicholas. a great three days.

un mas cancion nuevo

2006-05-02T16:09:00.000-06:00

what follows is already a new jeebus song - we're in a very productive period right now. and it looks like we'll have a gig in may at old town pub, a new venue for us.

Shamble On (Getting Over on the Under)

Taking stairs two at a time
Cracked his shin at the top but he’s feeling fine
His ascension is invention, y’know he tries to climb
Up from the dirt and the dust and the grit and the grime
His smile is star spangled but his spirit is in shambles
He’s been here and gone for so very long
He’d gamble and he’d ramble if it was something he could handle
Instead he sings torch songs and tries to belong

It’s always near the end of the week
When the sun is sinking and he’s wishful thinking technique
There were 4 months there where he could barely speak
Now he’s blinking away the years slowly drinking the creek
There are holes in his jeans he drinks too much caffeine
He takes care of the dogs from up the road
Waving to his neighbors trying hard not to belabor
His own strange and unspoken moral code

To someone else it’s one big mess
This is what you get when you miss the show
So honey put on that evening dress
And if you don’t want him let him know

There’s dust on the television screen
The coffee table is unstable the magazines obscene
He’s been smoking toking weed since he was nineteen
Getting over on the under somewhere in between
He plays guitar when he’s bored he knows six chords
When he thinks about them they’re all the same
He’d feel more cunning if he could just see it coming
But he was never really good at this game

Sometimes the stars will sink low, low enough to know
That the night will arrive just a little too slow
In the heat of deep sleep he’ll murmur a hushed hello
And slowly groan as he atones it out of his bones
He forgot what he came here to do too soon
But it’s all right, it’s okay, it’s just fine
In the morning he’ll rise wipe the sleep from his eyes
And go to work at a quarter to nine

To someone else it’s one big mess
This is what you get when you miss the show
So honey put on that evening dress
And if you don’t want him let him know

link o' the day:

say what you will about actors involving themselves in political causes, but george clooney is doing good work, plain and simple. he recently visited darfur, and is getting senators to listen to him regarding the atrocities in that region. check it out.

the first performance...

2006-04-26T12:26:00.000-06:00

of sideview mirror took place last night at the campus open mic/haiku slam. except i'm no longer calling it sideview mirror; its new working title is jalopy heart blues. click here for an mp3 of it. and click soon - it's just over 5 megs and i don't know if my leep site administrator will allow it to stay up for very long.

other than almost forgetting my chords at the beginning, and almost blowing a lyric a third of the way through, it went okay. let me know what you think.

here's my haiku i read, which did not win the twenty dollar grand prize. i was robbed.

i think this haiku
is the very best haiku
you will hear tonight

link o' the day:

the gospel of judas is public domain. national geographic doesn't want you to know this, and would rather you buy their printed copy for only $15.95. as a result, they have buried the actual text on their website pretty effectively. but if you click here, you'll go directly to the pdf. happy reading.

new song

2006-04-21T15:39:00.000-06:00

hey folks. here's a new one i just got done with, and it's definitely making the band's setlist.

Sideview Mirror

Driving round downtown
Each stoplight an endless wait
Pavement cracked, you pick up the slack
But you should’ve probably just stayed
The dashboard’s split, all along you’ve known it
Somewhere streets turn to gravel
The clutch is past its prime and it’s time
This whole thing began to unravel

Carburetor, catch you later, metal-flake paint and some chrome
Carburetor, catch you later, down the street a hundred miles from home

The trees are green, the avenue bleeds
You plug it and make a left turn
Between what you want and what you need
You smoke a cigarette while you burn
So you name your car and take off the tar
With rags and some turpentine
The echoes stay and yesterday
You stopped asking for some kind of sign

Carburetor, catch you later, metal-flake paint and some chrome
Carburetor, catch you later, down the street a hundred miles from home

You’d sockhop from rooftop to rooftop
If you thought you only could
After a rolling stop you see a cop
He knows that you’re up to no good
It doesn’t matter that your seats are in tatters
You’re already good as gone
Imitation ain’t flattery, just a jumpstarted battery
You’re done with the pros and the cons

Carburetor, catch you later, metal-flake paint and some chrome
Carburetor, catch you later, down the street a hundred miles from home

we'll get there eventually

2006-04-14T15:08:00.000-06:00

click here for a loose, sloppy, but fun cover we did last friday of uncle tupelo's "the long cut."

i don't put our best tracks up here, y'know - i only put the ones that fit the 5 mb or smaller requirements of the server space i have access to.

have a fantastic weekend, people!

too pooped...

2006-04-11T11:03:00.000-06:00

this morning to write much here at turning your orbit around. but i did post over on spinnerfall, so go check it out.

link o' the day:

as you can see from the graphs on this usgs site, spring runoff in the yampa river is starting in earnest. fishing in town may not happen again until june.

what's gnu

2006-03-30T17:09:00.000-07:00

*didn't go on my bighorn fishing trip because i'm still under the weather. but bb has vowed to get me out fishing this weekend if i feel up to it.

*there are some new links to other blogs over on the right. check 'em out.

*our company's been gone for a couple weeks now, and jenn and i have miraculously managed to keep the condo spotless ever since. amazing.

*the ski season ends april 9th. snow total as of today: 409 inches.

*the bummer is that the doctor told me not to ski for at least a month. so, technically, i'm not allowed to go before the season is over. but i'm feeling better, so we'll see.

*my tough, funny, talented uncle fred was recently diagnosed with emphysema. please everyone say a prayer for him if you get a chance.

link o' the day:

my favorite local fly shop.

where lies...

2006-03-23T12:52:00.000-07:00

the soul of a country?

i just discovered the following poem in an "ode to denver" piece by alan prendergast, my favorite journalist for denver's westword and husband of a former DPL coworker. check it out:

High treason

I do not love my country. Its abstract splendor
is beyond my grasp.
But (although it sounds bad) I would give my life
for ten places in it, for certain people,
seaports, pinewoods, fortresses,
a run-down city, gray, grotesque,
various figures from its history
mountains
(and three or four rivers).

José Emilio Pacheco

wow, i really love that. it looks like his published works are fairly difficult to get ahold of, but there are some sites out there with a few translated poems on them. check out this one, and read the bleak and dramatic "the elements of the night" while you're at it.

link o' the day:

i'm quoted in an article from today's steamboat pilot.

verizon can bite me

2006-03-22T15:02:00.000-07:00

seriously. they can totally bite me.

my old phone crapped out on me, so i ordered a fancy new nokia open face phone (i.e. not a flip-phone) that had a camera and video capture features.

they sent it to me without a battery cover.

upon calling them, they told me my only option was to buy a new one that they would ship to me, and they'd then credit my visa when i sent them back the one without the battery cover i already had (which wouldn't happen until the next billing cycle). they wouldn't even consider just sending out a new battery cover. that's retarded.

so i told them i wasn't going to pay for another phone when i'd already paid for this one. they told me my other option was to drive down to silverthorne (90 miles away) where there was a dealer that actually had the phone i ordered in stock, since no one in steamboat did. i could then just swap at the store. so i drove down to silverthorne last weekend, where i promptly found the store i was supposed to go to was closed saturday, sunday and monday for a "much-needed vacation."

you know that scene in national lampoon's vacation where clark w. griswold punches the statue of wally the moose, then promptly takes john candy and the entire amusement park hostage so that he can have his godd%mn family vacation?

that was almost me.

instead, i drove home. halfway to steamboat, i stopped at a bar in crappy kremmling and listened to some redneck badmouth everyone in town to his drunk-ass friends while i watched the illini give away a game they had won to washington in the final 5 minutes.

i called verizon on monday and raised hell. they called a local dealer where i finally got this phone for 10 bucks, and they promised me they'd refund my card as soon as i shipped back the other phone (which i did yesterday).

this phone doesn't have a camera, but i don't really care; besides, i have since heard that camera phones get crappier reception anyway. it's tiny, open-faced, and it was ten freaking bucks. i love it.

that was my phone saga.

i'm headed to the bighorn river in montana wednesday through sunday next week, with my denver buddy frank coyne and his flyfishing club, for hopefully some fantastic fishing.

link o' the day:

this show is awesome, and the dudes on these boats are crazy nuts.

a pound of curry in my gut

2006-03-16T16:55:00.000-07:00

so folks, remember over the new year when i had my stomach flu in arizona?

it turns out a severe stomach virus can set events into motion that may eventually lead to appendicitis. and that is exactly what happened to me.

at 2:00 in the morning last tuesday, i was admitted to the ER at st. anthony's hospital in denver with accute appendicitis. at 4:30 later that morning, i had an emergency appendectomy. it did not rupture, but the doctor said that it was "well on its way."

jenn and i were down that monday to get the subaru fixed, since it had crapped out on her the day before on her way to a volleyball tournament. we got it back late monday afternoon, and decided to drive back to steamboat the next day. we had thai food for dinner, watched a movie, and went to bed around 10:30, at which point i was pretty uncomfortable. after a half hour of feeling like someone was taking a hot butter knife and stabbing me in my right side with it, i woke jenn up and she drove me to the ER.

what a shitty week.

but, i am on the mend, and putting in about 5 hours a day at work. i'm sore, i can't move too quickly, but the incisions are healing and my insides are feeling better and better.

it was my first surgery ever, and i was freaked out. but jenn, god bless her, was so calming, and so confident. i love my wife a whoooooooole bunch.

thanks to everyone who called or emailed with well wishes. i should be back to posting semi-regularly in the coming weeks.

david

life moves along at an impressive clip

2006-02-22T11:39:00.000-07:00

hey folks. not much to update on. frak and snookum were here last weekend for what turned out to be a really great day of skiing on sunday. we started around noon in a light snow, and as the day went on it progressed into a steady dump. by 3 we were hitting 6 to 8 inch powder stashes on morningside and hooting and hollering on the way down. fun stuff.

upcoming:

*jeebus, formerly big pants, has a gig on saturday here at the college for the ncaa rocky mountain regional ski championships. there will be 19 schools from 7 different states, a total of 190 people counting competitors and coaches. if even half that number show up to the banquet we're playing, it'll be the biggest crowd i've ever been in front of. i'm excited.

*uncle john and his fam will be skiing with us early in march. he couldn't have picked a better season to hit steamboat. best since 1996.

*pdiddy and his cool new lady will be with us starting march 10th. pdiddy is a port-drinkin', guitar-pickin', dr. evil impersonatin' wild man.

*the rackles will be with us starting march 15th. jenn grew up with jill, and it's funny hearing stories of jenn's misspent teenage years from jill.

*jenn's cousin nick and his posse of college homeboys will be joining us later in march.

when you live in a ski town, lots of folks visit. we like to think they're coming primarily to see us, but i'm sure the skiing/fishing/hiking might have a little to do with it.

link o' the day:

save love monkey, the best 1 hour drama about the music industry ever.

new song

2006-02-09T10:30:00.000-07:00

predicting the future in puget sound

we were easy peasy
feeling a little sleazy
you were halfway there
and i was feeling it too
and in the early morning light
i forgot about last night
i wished we didn't have to leave
so soon

the fog rolled in from the sound
in a city built on coffee grounds
the sheets twisted
around your skinny legs
awake we walked the street
and took a tattered seat
in a diner
where we ordered bacon and eggs

and i'm swimming
i'm skimming
the morning paper
i'm stirring
sugar
into my tea
and i'm grinning
i'm beginning
to see you
i'm hoping
that you
see me

the streets were grimy
and we were stymied
we were lost
looking for record stores
flipping through used CD bins
iron and wine and the shins
i spilled cafe au lait
on the floor

-solo-

and i'm swimming
i'm skimming
the morning paper
i'm stirring
sugar
into my tea
and i'm grinning
i'm beginning
to see you
i'm hoping
that you
see me

our rental car on the beach
the sunset overwhelms speech
we'll fly home
on the red eye tonight
you'll look out into the black
and i'll reach into my pack
as denver
rounds the corner into sight

and i'm swimming
i'm skimming
the morning paper
i'm stirring
sugar
into my tea
and i'm grinning
i'm beginning
to see you
i'm hoping
that you
see me

link o' the day:

if you served in NCCC, or AmeriCorps, or if you just don't think NCCC should go away for good, visit this site.

a hypothetical meeting...

2006-02-07T17:35:00.000-07:00

between FDR and dubya:

dubya: well gosh, mr. president, it sure is an honor.

Roosevelt: f*#k you.

in case you hadn't heard, dubya's new budget has some serious cuts in it. some programs are being shut down entirely, one of which is the national civilian community corps (NCCC), a direct descendant of roosevelt's new deal baby - the civilian conservation corps (CCC). NCCC is the organization j worked for while we were in denver.

it is now gone. kaput. current NCCC employees will lose their jobs at the end of the year.

all of our closest friends in denver are jenn's former coworkers (or friends of jenn's former coworkers). they are reeling.

a program that did wonders for communities across the nation, that was often the first on-the-ground federal response for national disasters... is no more. and it only warranted a bullet point in corporation for national and community service ceo david eisner's letter to his colleagues.

i'll leave the political discourse out of my blog, other than to say that this is so disappointing, and seems misguided.

link o' the day:

for a case study in delusion and narcissism in the wilds of alaska, watch this movie. timothy treadwell was one crazy SOB.

recap

2006-02-06T11:32:00.000-07:00

while you may be expecting a dour mood from me in response to the illini's ridiculous loss at home to penn state (penn f*#king state!), i have decided not to concern myself with it. with a 21-3 overall record, and 6-3 in a very tough big ten this year, i'm going to allow myself some satisfaction.

so, moving on, here's a recap from thursday onward:

thursday: jenn asked me to tend bar (wine pouring and beer bottle opening) for the annual arts council report to the board meeting. met some cool folks and had some incredible food from the caterers, in spite of their questionable practices.

friday: came in early for an hour of work, then took the rest of the day off to fish with my good friend double b - along with my dad, the man most responsible for my fly fishing obsession (and just as obsessed as i am, i might add). we went over to the brown's park area on the c section of the green river. i caught a 17 inch rainbow/cutthroat hybrid called a cuttbow, and an 18 inch brown trout. bruce also caught a nice sized brown. the weather was brutal - 30 mph wind gusts, 40 degree temps, and snow spitting every now and then. we caught fish in very difficult conditions (on flies that i tied!), and i thought that was pretty cool.

saturday/sunday: jenn and i drove down to grand junction for a couple days out of the cold and snow. we shopped, tasted wines, and went for a sunny red rock hike in the colorado national monument.

now: jenn and i have to finish our flat stanley project, to send back to olivia (the daughter of our friends alex and debby reynolds).

link o' the day:

if i can swing the time off, i might be going here at the end of march.

and dumping

2006-02-01T17:37:00.000-07:00

in case you're unfamiliar with the highly technical levels that gauge how hard it's snowing, here they are (in ascending order of severity):

dumping (smallish flakes, i can see 3 miles down valley from my office)
puking (flake size is irrelevant, volume is picking up, can't see 4 blocks)
nuking (we've achieved light speed in the millenium falcon)

folks, it's somewhere between puking and nuking right now. heavy snow warning in effect until 6 am friday morning. here's our forecast:

tonight - widespread snow, accumulation 2 to 4 inches.
thursday - snow, accumulation 4 to 7 inches.
thursday night - snow, accumulation 2 to 4 inches.

but really, if storms hit like they're supposed to, it can be a whole lot more. some folks are saying two feet.

i love this stuff, but i need a break. jenn and i are headed down to grand junction this weekend for a 15 degree increase in temperature, and a 300 inch decrease in snow.

link o' the day:

if you ain't heard of mike the headless chicken, then you must live under a rock.

it just keeps dumping

2006-01-31T11:09:00.000-07:00

folks, i've lived in ski towns before. a year in crested butte at the tender age of 20 (booze, bonfires and 80 days that season), a year in aspen after i finished my undergrad (3 smelly boys in a shitty 1 BR basement apartment that has since been condemned to make room for more ridiculous hollywood homes), a year in jackson after i finished grad school (a great library and jackson's worst snow year in a decade)...

but i'm here to tell you that i have never seen this much snow.

ever.

some stats and anecdotes to give you an idea of the magnitude:

-the ski area measures its snow in inches at its midmountain gondola station. as of today, we have received 298 inches. that's almost 25 feet of snow.

-to put that in perspective, the mountain's season average is 377 inches. the season runs through the second week of april. we have already received almost 80 percent of our snowfall total and it's still january. traditionally, the heaviest snow months in colorado's high country are march and april.

-i've been snowboarding 12 days this year. 9 of them have been powder days. 3 of those powder days have been incredible - 24 inches, 18 inches, and 12 inches respectively.

-there's almost 5 feet of compacted snow in our condo's front yard. the pile in front of our door that has resulted from shoveling our porch and walkways is over 7 feet tall.

-monthly snow totals: 15" in october, 83" in november, 105" in december, 95" in january.

-snowpack for the yampa and white river basins is 124% of average.

-the town is running out of places to put plowed snow. seriously. they're trucking it out of city limits in dump trucks and putting it in open fields.

-guess what folks? it's snowing again. 3 inches overnight. 4-7 more inches by midday.

i've worn my garmont backpacking boots every day since november except for a few here and there. i've cleared so much snow off of the cars this winter that i have developed a system for doing it (thank you OCD). the river remains frozen over in all but a few places. marley and sadie have developed packed game trails through the yard, and can only poop when they're on a trail. they don't even bother getting into the yard for peeing, but instead just go on the snowpacked sidewalk or parking lot.

truly, this is pretty incredible.

link o' the day:

geno sent me this link.
it most certainly does not stink.
it helps you find rhymes
when you have some spare time.
and you might really like it i think.

been awhile

2006-01-24T09:55:00.000-07:00

hey folks. it's been almost 2 weeks since i last blogged. here's what's happening...

band practice continues to evolve. we're practicing at bob the bassist's house. he has a moog. it loops on itself in a way similar to "teenage wasteland" by the who, but with more low-end (becuase it's a moog). we had lots of fun with it last week, going off on some serious improvisational tangents. if we can muster the cajones to do that stuff live, it might be pretty freakin' cool.

started taking my flytying class last week. so far, i've learned to tie this, this, this, this and this (with different coloring). those last two are really difficult, and i'm not sure how good a flytier i'm going to be right off the bat. i think what will happen the first year or two is that i'll get really good at a few basic patterns, and tie a ton of them until i get sick of them, then start to experiment with other stuff.

jeff tweedy is doing a solo show at the gothic theater in denver on thursday, february 16. i love this man - he is my personal musical hero. jenn and mary (jamie's roommate) and i are going, and snookum and frak from denver are meeting us there. i am very, very excited.

wendell gee is in town, running a conference. she's been ripping it up daily, and i plan on riding with her on friday.

link o' the day:

a greater feat than wilt's 100? i don't know. i certainly have no love for kobe (narcissistic, philandering, whiny, dimwitted man-child), but his 81 points on sunday was absolutely ridiculous.

willis out!

are we in concept album territory?

2006-01-12T11:25:00.000-07:00

i'm not sure. but it was fun writing the following song about a man bent on the fiery destruction of a city he hates. and, i'm happy to say, this song is worked out and in the (insert band name here) rotation.

the arsonist

take the number 12 bus straight downtown
remember them and remember me
there are tunnels buried underground
secret rivers running to the sea

an avenue of awkward strangers
empty driver seats and all red lights
the city is empty but full of danger
out of mind and out of sight

a dollar here and a dollar there
counterfeit bills, phonies and fakes
movie soundtracks hanging in the air
a road to pave and lines to paint

pressure builds and buildings burn down
gospel choirs sing from every door
hit the freeway take it out of town
headed nowhere i haven’t been before

see the skyline from a different view
rooftops flicker in the haze
no one here ever tried to be true
no one here ever held my gaze

link o' the day:

where my sweetie works.

apologies and a headache the size of a mushroom cloud

2006-01-10T15:48:00.000-07:00

folks, i'm sorry for not posting much over the past two weeks. between holidays and traveling and a stomach flu that made me feel like a nest of angry fire ants was living in my gullet, well, i haven't had much time to post.

in fact, i don't really want to be posting right now, since i have a headache the size of a mushroom cloud, but i thought i'd dash off a quick one before i head down to instruct new adjunct faculty on article database usage and the absurd intricacies of fair use copyright law in the classroom.

fun.

y'know what was fun, though? seeing timmy and robbie over the new year in arizona. even though at least one of us was puking or pooping our brains out because of this tummy bug the whole time we were there, we did manage to get some fun in. like frisbee in a backyard in tempe on new year's eve, and perfectly mixed yummy extra spicies, and hikes in the white tank mountains, and fishing for stocked trout (in arizona!!!) on the verde river up north. my friends (and myself, for that matter) are crude, obsessive, silly men who try our damnedest to crack each other up in new and creative ways whenever we're together.

good times.

link o' the day:

cool, weird music, and probably the coolest band name i've ever heard.

update...

2006-01-04T11:37:00.000-07:00

i am indeed the dumb ass. i somehow forgot to pay our yearly renewal to ebsco for our print subscriptions. oops.

but ebsco still sucks.

tummy flu, bowl games, and ebsco sucks

2006-01-04T09:23:00.000-07:00

hey all.

well, i managed to get very sick while down here in arizona. physically, i had one of the worst nights of my life 2 nights ago, and spent all of yesterday recovering. i made it 31 years without having viral gastroenteritis (stomach flu), but my luck ran out. and to top it all off, i got geno sick too. i felt awful, but today i'm feeling a heck of a lot better. i'm hoping this has run its course, because i'd like to enjoy the rest of my time down here.

last night's orange bowl between penn state and florida state was ridiculously good. 3 overtimes, kickers missing field goals left and right, tired and banged up players being taken off the field after every other down, and a crowd that just seemed to exhaust itself by the end of the game. i'm not a huge college football fan, but last night was truly one of the great games i've seen.

ebsco, our magazine subscription vendor at the library, says that we didn't pay our renewal fees last fall. but we did. we did! (and if we didn't, then i'm the dumb ass). ebsco sucks.

happy new year everybody!

2005-12-22T15:50:00.000-07:00

"when do you think he'll let us back in the library?"

pals

2005-12-22T15:29:00.000-07:00

hi all. it's sadie and marley again. dave's worried that people will think he's a big dork by letting us take over his blog, but we told him not to worry.

actually, it's sadie typing, and marley is just goofing off.

(marley) "shut up, sadie! i'd type, but you never let me."

anyway, dave's got us here at work again. it's been a fun day - we got to meet the other sadie over in the bookstore. she's a pretty golden retriever, and was just rescued by the bookstore manager. she's 6, like me. and then we went over to tommy's office and saw little ernie jenkins and little joe bender. tommy names his dogs after his favorite people (i know - weird, huh?). actually, joe bender is a cranky blue heeler mix, but for some reason he's sweet on marley. thank goodness it's not me - he's a hairy, ill-tempered old fart and i don't like him. but marley brings out the best in him - lord knows why.

(marley) "i heard that!"

after we went over to the other building, we saw erin's dog izzie, who just had a cancerous growth removed from her stomach. she didn't seem to mind, though - her tail was wagging and she was happy. and then glenn brought up his dog pumpkin, who turned out to be a real alpha bitch. but maybe i'm just saying that because i'm the same with other females.

(marley) "damn right."

and up until now, we've been kicking it out on the balcony, watching steamboat hustle and bustle beneath us. tomorrow dave and jenn are taking us snowshoeing up on the pass, and then on saturday our grandparents are getting here. hopefully they have some christmas presents for us. and then on january 1st, i turn 6 years old. actually, we don't really know if that's my real birthday, but it's dave and jenn's best guess.

all right, folks. dave wants me to wish our family and friends a happy christmas and merry new year.

(marley) "that's merry christmas and happy new year, sadie!"

"shut it, marley!"

magnet poetry redux

2005-12-20T14:17:00.000-07:00

well, it continues to snow - a foot yesterday. i've never seen anything like this. jamie and i are headed up on buff pass with tommy tomorrow morning for some snowmobiling and snowboarding. i feel bad about the noisy 2-stroke engine, but it sure is better than hiking for turns.

the students are gone, and there's little to do except inventory books and compose magnet poetry. so, without further ado, i give you my latest refrigerator magnet poetry masterpiece (again, keep in mind that i am working with the goddess set, and am therefore creatively limited to melodramatic words about earth and power and beauty).

chants and murmurs

shine and chant them
to their brilliant sordid carnival
as they
moan through falling moons

will you murmur across the road?
dream beneath a summer of language?
soothe and celebrate her delirious heart?

live think imagine
remember an america
when death rose from the soil

link o' the day:

in case you're unfamiliar with magnet poetry, check it out here.

the sweet lowdown

2005-12-15T17:20:00.000-07:00

*the book talk went well. 15 people turned out on a night when we had 5 inches of new snow and it was already 0 degrees by 7 pm. no mormons or ex-mormons, which surprised me, but those who were there were willing to springboard into larger religious/philosophical issues. no one screamed at anyone or stormed out, so i think it was a success.

*the semester is effectively over tomorrow, and it couldn't come any sooner. it's been a very, very busy 4 months in this library.

*band practice on sunday. our gig monday night was great. the originals are really good, and i'll get them up here if i can.

*snowboarded yesterday morning for 3 hours and made sweet, sweet powder turns in shadows and closets, and the glades skier's right of two o'clock. incredible.

*really looking forward to catching some arizona trout over the holidays with geno, playing tennis or pickle ball with nan, and getting lost in the desert with timmy and robbie.

*will do absolutely nothing tonight except watch that crazy s.o.b. tom cruise in war of the worlds.

link o' the day:

denver's alternative weekly, westword, does a ski resort guide every year. it's well written, and kind of fun to read. select steamboat and learn more about where jenn and i live.

faith and weather

2005-12-13T13:25:00.000-07:00

first off, it's snowing again. 4 or 5 inches already, and about that much more expected tonight. i may take some personal time tomorrow morning and get some runs in. roberto, i hope you enjoy the "frozen granular" on your upcoming trip to sugar mountain. poor bastard.

secondly - tomorrow night is my book talk on krakauer's Under the Banner of Heaven. i've finished reading it for a second time, and am overflowing with questions of faith:

are all prophets and gurus inherent narcissists?

what differentiates the prayers of a common person from the delusional missives from god that a schizophrenic receives?

doesn't every set of beliefs - secular or spiritual - start off outside of the mainstream?

as joseph campbell argues, all religions have stories that borrow from mythological archetypes that have existed since time immemorial - does this fact discredit religious dogma?

et cetera, et cetera. i hope to focus on the role of faith in our modern world; the fascinating cast of religious characters in history (joseph smith in particular); and, ultimately, what faith, prophets and gurus can inspire people to do - both inspring and horrific.

there could be 5 people attending or 50. my challenge is to mediate, and to help people - faithful and questioning alike - approach religion (and mormonism particularly) in a new way.

yikes.

i'll let you know how it goes.

link o' the day:

if i were a mechanical man (which i'm definitely not), i'd convert my subaru into a greasecar in a heartbeat.

book talk

2005-12-09T11:11:00.000-07:00

link o' the day:

i'm doing a book talk next wednesday on "under the banner of heaven" by john krakauer. here's the story in the paper about it.

have a great weekend folks!

my boogers are frozen

2005-12-08T09:21:00.000-07:00

folks, when i woke up this morning, the thermometer in the kitchen window was at 29 degrees below zero.

let me repeat that, in case you thought you read it wrong - negative 29 degrees farenheit!

now, i've lived in some cold places (gunnison, co; jackson, wy), but nothing compares to this. i've experienced 10, 12, 15 below zero, but when you start approaching negative 30, that's a whole different kind of cold. it's offensive!

i walked outside to start the cars at about 8:30, and my feelings were hurt. (thank you, i'll be here all night)

seriously, though - i had gloves on and my fingers were almost numb in about 4 minutes; it hurt to blink - my eyelids felt like sandpaper; and it feels like there's less oxygen in the air when it's this cold.

the yampa river, which runs at about 40 degrees in the winter, was putting off so much steam that driving on the valley floor was like navigating through a pea soup fog.

there's ice inside the first floor stairwell of bristol hall, where i work. ice inside the building!

okay, i'm done ranting. link o' the week:

even though college students worldwide overuse wikipedia, it is still an awesome free resource on the internet. check out the thorough wikipedia entry for my favorite band ever, the stone roses. (timmy, read the last bit about reformation - very interesting)

oh...my...goodness...

2005-12-06T13:00:00.000-07:00

more snow folks. here's some numbers:

9 inches have fallen as of about 2 a.m. this morning. still dumping - i can't see downtown from my work window.

the ski area has the most snow in the state - 134 inches have fallen so far this season at midmountain. to give you some perspective, that's already more than 1/3 of our season average, and it's only december 6th. if you count december, we still have 4 1/2 months of snow to go.

15 inches in october, 83 inches in november (snowiest november on record for steamboat ever), and 45 inches and counting in december.

largest compacted summit base of all colorado ski areas at 69 inches.

midmountain numbers - 20 inches in past 3 days, 45 inches in past 6 days, 58 inches in past 8 days, 86 inches in past 10 days.

(as an aside to my man roberto - you need to get your ass out here, and bring your bandit B3's with you, sucker!)

link o' the day:

these pics represent what my past 2 days on the mountain have looked like. absolutely, positively epic conditions.

i'm not sure i remember...

2005-12-01T14:18:00.000-07:00

what life was like before a constant barrage of snow.

it's been dumping here since 8:00 this morning. and i mean dumping. no breaks, just a steady stream of snow. 8 inches already, easily, and it's not supposed to stop until saturday afternoon some time.

wow, this is just one heck of a start to the ski season. and people here are so jazzed - everyone here loves the snow. whether folks want to play in it, or whether they are business owners looking forward to increased skier visits - people are just excited. giddy, even. every time i stopped next to some complete stranger on the mountain on sunday, we'd just grin at each other and say something to the effect of "holy crap."

link o' the day:

this link is a librarian's tool. if you buy books online, why not compare prices and availability from several different booksellers, all at one time? this page allows you to do just that. just in time for the holidays! happy spending, folks!

ummmm, what grass?

2005-11-30T14:57:00.001-07:00

i've been parking by this sign for a week, and only just started to appreciated the glorious irony of its message when i got to work this morning.

so i took a picture.

(in case you were concerned, link o' the days will return with the next post)

2005-11-30T14:57:00.000-07:00

he he he....

it's beginning to look...

2005-11-28T11:17:00.000-07:00

a whole heck of a lot like christmas.

18 inches saturday night, followed by 5 more inches sunday morning.

sunday on the mountain with my sister-in-law, jamie, was right up there with the day rob and i had at monarch 2 seasons ago. i mean, wow. waist deep, super cold, low moisture content snow. i choked on it a few times when making big turns. check out the picture of my iced-out beard below.

16 more inches on the summit last night. that's around 40 inches on top of the ski area, in 48 hours, from this storm.

wow.

2005-11-28T11:14:00.000-07:00

just an unbelievable day.

the coming five days

2005-11-22T16:26:00.000-07:00

the next five days for me will resemble the following...

wednesday - sleep late (9:30, maybe 10 if i'm lucky); tidy the downstairs of the condo; fish through town from about 11 to 2, since that's the "warmth window" when trout will be most active; clean upstairs of condo so that we have a nice clean home for thanksgiving break; greet jenn with a big smooch when she gets home from work.

thursday - ski on opening day for a few hours; soak in hot tub; help jenn with thanksgiving side dishes; eat thanksgiving dinner with jenn, jamie and her roommate, mary; loosen my belt and watch "a christmas story," a thanksgiving tradition.

friday - maybe fish, maybe not; maybe a home improvement project with jenn, maybe not; jenn and i will probably go over to russell's in the evening and have some drinks with russell and lexie, brett and kate, and tommy and sarah.

saturday - no idea.

sunday - no idea.

happy thanksgiving to my friends and family! i love you all, and hope each of you have a wonderful break.

link o' the day:

if you have a high speed connection, and like to download live music, check out this site. it has thousands of shows from hundreds of bands, in wav or mp3 format. lots of favorites that will keep you coming back (ryan adams, keller williams, etc.), and hundreds of great local bands you've never heard of. as of this writing, i think the server is temporarily down, but hopefully it will be back up soon.

i have officially crossed over...

2005-11-18T14:13:00.000-07:00

to the scary side of obsession.

folks, my good friend bcb - and fellow fly fishing nut - fishes in the winter. fishes with gloves cut off at the fingertips. fishes with 2 pairs of long underwear and 3 pairs of socks on under his waders. fishes when it's so cold that ice forms in the line guides on his rod. fishes when a good day is catching 2 trout.

and now, so will i.

if all goes as planned, i'll be joining bcb on a super-secret stretch of a colorado western slope river on sunday. i will be cold, and i probably won't catch many fish, but dammit... i will be fishing. with good company, too - bcb has good fish karma, knows what he's doing, and can be gloriously, inappropriately funny.

link o' the day:

folks, there's a comic strip dedicated to libraries that's actually pretty funny. combine the cynicism of dilbert and the whimsical, good natured mischief of calvin and hobbes, and you get unshelved. or maybe i just think it's really funny because i work in libraries. anyway, click on comic strip archive at the top, for previous years.

here's my favorite one of all time.

major dumpage

2005-11-15T11:06:00.000-07:00

well folks, the mountain is reporting 16 inches in 24 hours. not a bad start. the ski area will open next wednesday, the 23rd, with hopefully a good bit more skiing than the single run it opened with last year. today's high is expected to reach 25 degrees, but it's 11 am and still in the single digits. as a result, i can look out my window and see the mountain - and howelsen hill, for that matter - blowing smoky snow against a perfect blue sky.

winter is here. just like that. we left for my library conference in denver last thursday to blue skies and 55 degree temps. we drove back sunday night to a foot and a half of snow on rabbit ears pass. the storm started in earnest just as we descended off the pass and into yampa valley.

link o' the day:

like most folks, i love good food. also like most folks, i like to laugh. jason sheehan, the very funny food critic for westword - denver's weekly alternative newspaper - makes me laugh while writing about food. check out a recent column.

a decision has been made

2005-11-14T16:29:00.000-07:00

folks, i've decided on what i'm going to do with my blog that's new and different. at the end of every post, i'm going to give a quick little annotated link to a website/article/news story that i think is funny or weird or brilliant or whatever.

all right, i guess that's not really all that new or different. but maybe i can help people get to the really cool or really absurd stuff on the internet a little easier than if they were doing it on their own.

first link:

when you search the keywords "miserable failure" in the google search engine, you get the official whitehouse.gov biography for george w. bush. read the bbc news article about it.

i love google bombs.

new mp3...

2005-11-09T14:50:00.000-07:00

well, folks, i bit the bullet and paid the $14 required by my favorite mp3 ripper. they gave me a 30 day trial, then took it away from me and told me to cough up. i had refused to pay for awhile, but couldn't hold out any longer. i know some of my tech-savy readers will tell me there are still free ones out there, but this one is just so damn easy it was worth it. fourteen bucks for life - i can handle that.

anyway, here's a very sparse version of rodeo clowns from russell and me. to get some of the rust out, we played for the kiddies at lunch last week.

the new incarnation of big pants is doing well. the new bassist is holy-crap-good, and we've got about 20 or so songs (including 2 new originals). we're recording a demo on thursday of next week, which we'll shop around to bars to see who wants us to play this ski season. i'll keep you posted.

possible new names for the band:

the misunderestimated
ro-tel romeos
avian bird flukes
scooter libby experience
the pandemics
the polemics
armed with vegetables
rove is burning

water on the brain

2005-11-08T09:10:00.000-07:00

new song, folks.

explain away

wash me in the sound
don’t let go until I drown
drag me on the beach then walk me around
wash me in the sound

the leaves will fall all over me
red skies breathe over the sea
and I never really know just what you mean
but the leaves will fall all over me

let the rip currents take them away
until they’re too far out to be saved
i didn’t want them in the first place, anyway
let the rip currents take them away

it’s a war between water and stone
always changing in this tidal zone
and all these people wanna share their hearts and bones
it’s a war between water and stone

the bluffs fall away at my feet
and the waves keep time with my heartbeat
and there’s no sense in trying to be who they want me to be
i just can’t explain away what I’ve seen
i just can’t explain away what I’ve seen
i just can’t explain away what I’ve seen

fun with pictures

2005-11-03T11:14:00.000-07:00

hi all...

still struggling on where i want this blog to go. but in the meantime, look below for some pics i found as i was cleaning out old emails this morning. from last winter and this summer respectively.

it is a gray and blustery morning here in the mountains. the clouds are blue bottomed and layered, and they pass quickly over the valley, out of sight behind the ski area. the wind makes its way up the hillside across from the college, moving the grass in waves and cycloning dead leaves from the gambel oaks.

beautiful, but unfriendly. no precipitation yet, but it's the first day that actually looks and feels like winter.

hope all is cozy and warm with everyone.

2005-11-03T11:04:00.000-07:00

me getting my ass kicked in a game of awale with russell's son arik. he is one bright kid.