Team Boom Has Total Domination With Massive Kill Zone

What to do w/ this thing?

2010-07-01T16:47:00.000-07:00

I dunno--do we let this blog die? It started as a way to document our Seattle move and subsequent life. In the meantime, the internet has come out w/ all kinds of other ways to share pics and stories and whatnot and maintain some semblance of "keeping in touch".

I also think that I spend too much time online, so there's that. And Juli mentioned that our Seattle apt. is the longest she's spent in one home since her 10th grade year. So is documentation really necessary? Does it add up to something more akin to egostroking than updating? Not sure about this one.

Apparently Barack Used to Live on Our Street!

2009-04-06T15:03:00.000-07:00

First of all, can you refer to the president as "Barack" now? Or do I have to say Obama? Or Mr. President?

Anyhoo, looks like when said leader was in diapers, he lived a few blocks away from us when his moms was a student at U-dub:

http://www.capitolhilltimes.com/main.asp?SectionID=26&SubSectionID=248&ArticleID=27447

I know this isn't very pertinent info but I don't want to look at that gross breakfast pic at the top of our page anymore, and I'm sick and tired of building frames...

Updates

2009-02-17T23:02:00.000-08:00

Hmmm, updates. OK, recently I've been digging circular breakfasts:

What I didn't even include there was my circular travel French Press that Juli got for me so's I can drink tea and/or coffee in the morn. This was a short phase and more often I'm enjoying Irish oatmeal soaked overnight w/ some buttermilk and fruit, but the circular breakfasts are still choice.

Also, I started eating meat again after just over 12 yrs. of being veggie. I drove straight into the deep end and made meatloaf ("drove" was originally a typo, but I like the phrase now so it stays):

I also made liver, but it was foul and I couldn't finish it. Trying to still eat meat sparingly, but I'm glad that my options are more open now.

Let's be honest--both of those pictures are quite disgusting w/ all the grease (I think it looks worse than it was what w/ the camera flash, but still, that meatloaf was bathing in grease when I pulled it out of the oven). So to compensate, here's some recent artwork:

And here's what my desk has looked like recently:

All in all, I've got close to 40 pieces done, and maybe 10 frames or so. I'm doing it all, folks--cutting mats and glass, cutting, sanding, assembling/gluing, staining frames, the works. So yes, it's taking a LOT longer than I anticipated when I started this journey, but we're getting somewhere. As I've been telling everyone, it's been 2 steps foward, 1 step back the entire way, but that's still progress, and I'm proud of it. If there's a speedbump in the process, believe me, I've hit it, but we're almost there and hopefully stuff will be hanging on a wall in a month or so.

The frames, BTW, are ink-stained and the woodgrain still shows through, which I think is very cool. The ones posted above were Mom-and-sister-in-law specials, although they'll be available at an upcharge to those who want them. But I think the ink stain looks great and shoddy in a good way, so those will be the standard ones.

There are also white frames that are pretty much identical outside of the color (it's watered-down acrylic instead of black ink, and you can see one in the lower right corner of the pic), so multiple pieces hung together should look cool. Pics of finished pieces once I have them, but consider this a quick update to whet the proverbial appetite...

Um, also Jules helped me recover the speaker cloth on my amps, which I think looks quite bitchin':

I'm moved into the other bedroom now to have a place for all the music/artwork stuff (accumulating more tools than I've ever had before w/ all the frame work), and it's working out well.

That's all I got--mainly just letting you ones and zeroes know that we're still alive and kicking!

FESTIVUS!!!!!!!!

2008-12-25T01:05:00.000-08:00

Well, Happy Holidays from the whole staff here at Teamboom--we're happy that you've selected us to continually provide our services to you, and we hope that you'll allow us to do so again in 2009. From all of us to all of you, cheers and may you receive all that your heart desires!

Here on the homefront, it's been snowing enough to nigh turn us into cavedwellers, heads dancing with visions of eating our neighbors and drinking our own bathwater while we wait for the choppers to deliver more parkas and anti-zombie tablets!

So we went to a party:

...where Juli listened attentively:

...and we passed the time appropriately:

...and shared our knowledge with others, totally blowing their minds in the process:

And it kept snowing. And snowing. And snowing.

So we went sledding. And sledding. And sledding.

This person got us hooked by going 4 straight blocks on a toboggan:

We didn't have anything nearly that Northern or Nordic, so we used a tupperware bin lid and some cardboard:

Here's a visual play-by-play:

WARNING--you cannot use your sled to store babies:

But you can use it on the sidewalk!

Or headfirst!

Sledding causes severe happiness:

The next day we got up only to find more snow! So we went walking and tried to keep Zane from breaking his nearly-already-broken wrist! Huzzah!

And in our adventures, we found our sled again, several blocks away from where we first abandoned it! Hooray!

This makes for giddiness all over again! Hoorah!

Also, severe cackling! Hahah!

Juli sez, let's take portraits! Of her!

Of me!

Of Zane!

Of snowy palm trees!

Well, day 3 arrived and whaddya know, more snow. So we went out at night and sledded again (what else can you do, really?):

Our curbs have disappeared at this point:

A bunch of other folks had our same idea, and there were cookie sheets, inner tubes, and plastic wrap being put to good use:

Zane had the brilliant idea of using the bed liner from his SUV, which went REALLY fast ('twas awesome):

By the time we got home, I realized that I had forgotten my gloves, and I'm fairly sure I got minor frostbite. Couldn't feel me fingers until the following afternoon:

But, all's well that ends well! ( and yes, we probably will make this same face every time it snows):

When you've got this much life to live, the blog can get behind a little...

2008-12-13T22:01:00.000-08:00

So there we are, watching a movie when I smell smoke. We had cooked earlier, so I think nothing of it, and Juli is assuming that I burned sage again and is silently pissed. But then it gets worse, like when something gets stuck in a vacuum. Finally I say to Juli, "Do you smell something?" Of course she does, because by now our apt. is full of smoke, and we're running around the kitchen frantically trying to find what burner we must've left on w/ a sponge sitting on it or whatever.

Everything looks kosher, so I go down into the basement, which is full of smoke. I can hear our downstairs neighbor coughing, so I run around to the front and pound on his door. Nothing. Juli goes to the back door, which is open. She calls into the apt., but it's so full of smoke that she can't go in.

Long story short, we end up calling the fire dept. and they come over right quick. We hang on the sidewalk w/ our other neighbors and oh, by the way it's the first snow of the year. Also, fire trucks had already been on our street twice earlier today (once w/ a Medical Examiner paddy wagon, which is NEVER a good sign). Sorry, Dear Reader, nothing to quell the suspense as we never found out what the heck happened in any of the cases, including the fire downstairs. Life in the city...

So it's been a weird day, and then we remembered we haven't posted on this dang thing in near 6 months. Since we're learning first-hand how much can happen in one frigging day, imagine how much happens in HALF A YEAR. Yeesh almighty. There's no sense in trying to describe it--best to let the pictures do the talking. Feel free to make up your own story as you go along (maybe we'll post the best one if you send 'em to us!):

tulips

2008-06-02T10:47:00.000-07:00

The tulips were almost done for the season and so were we. Tired of the cold, grey winter, we waited for a sunny Sunday and headed up to the tulip festival, an hour north of Seattle. It was the last weekend so most of the fields were already gone, but we found this one and celebrated the Sun in it.

Aunt Jules & Uncle Con-Con

2008-03-30T14:16:00.001-07:00

Easter Dinner Time w/ Jules

2008-03-21T13:27:00.000-07:00

Not too much to report other than a conversation last night: Juli and I are sitting there, deciding that it would be fun to cook an old-fashioned dinner for Easter. So I say, "We can have mashed potatoes, corn, the whole deal. We can even bake a pie."

Juli goes, "What kind of pie goes with Easter? Like an Easter egg pie?"

An Easter egg pie, ladies and gentlemen. An Easter. Egg. Pie. It's my life and my wife, and I love them both.

If the pinky toenail turns black, that's bad, right?

2008-02-27T21:43:00.001-08:00

OK, now that the snow is pretty much gone, I've been running more. One thing you have to understand before I go any further--I have bad feet. I mean really bad. Flat, flat, flat. These things are like flapjacks o' flesh. When I cut a rug on the kitchen floor (cut a linoleum?), it sounds like Daffy Duck doing jumping jacks. I ain't got no arches, is what I'm trying to say. It looks like someone poured a sand dune of foot through the femur funnel of my leg.

Anyway, I have to love these feet, because they're the only ones I've got--at least until I find out if they have arch implants. So I grew up w/ sore calves, sore shins, sore ankles from soccer and whatnot. Then I got fat and stopped running. But now I have a newfound like--not love--a newfound like for trailrunning out here in the beautiful Pac NW, and so I've been researching options outside of the standard running shoe, which never seemed to help no matter how many times I had people videotape my gait and all o' that jazz.

I had heard about barefoot running before, and it appealed to me, but it never seemed to be much of a viable option in an urban environment until I heard about Vibram FiveFingers. Originally designed as a kayak shoe, it's been adopted by the barefoot running community, and has since been modified toward providing JUST enough protection from pebbles and broken beer bottles whilst simultaneously making it feel like you're jogging in your socks.

They look ridiculous, but I guess that's kind of my style these days:

I LOVE these things. They make me feel more limber and in touch w/ the ground, literally and figuratively. Can't lie though, the initial break-in was BRUTAL. They recommend running a mile or so, then switching back to regular shoes, and then gradually working your way up. Since I was unhappy w/ my running shoes anyway, I said screw it. The first 3/4 of my run was awesome--I felt like a FL boy running around in nature again. But then my calves seized up, the ankles rebelled, and I barely made it home. Ever walked a bit too much in beach sand? Multiply that by 100 and that's approaching where I was. Bad stuff.

Also, my pinky toes went completely numb, and the next day, they felt like they'd been hit w/ a hammer. Then the nails looked bruised and I got a bit worried. I think that your outside toes and accompanying tendons don't engage at all in most shoes, but w/ the FiveFingers, the pavement was throwing everything it had at these little guys and making them panic. But I kept stretching my legs, gave the tootsies a rest, and the next time I went for a run, everything went smashingly. And everything's continued being smashingly since then. Your legs and feet act really confused for a bit, but they adapt and seem really happy after the initial horrors.

I know what you're saying, what about when it gets cold and wet? That's what these are for, doubting Thomas:

I love my life.

Where, oh where, has my Beatle bass gone?

2008-02-21T02:25:00.000-08:00

OK, here's a blast from the past in terms of me playing bass for Loaded For Bear, fatter and balder. This is from the Fest 3 DVD (apologies for the cursing and loud noise, but we were excited punk rockers, I guess.)

Also, it's a last-ditch effort to try and find this cheap little bad-boy of a Beatle bass. I know, I know, how could I have forgotten who I lent it to? Well, who could have forgotten that I lent it TO them is my retort. A paltry, bushleague excuse, I realize. Anyhoo, if I could get this guy back, then Juli would have something to practice on--the short-scale neck is better suited for her tiny hands. Then she will play bass-licks on your grave. Help me find this thing.

Giving Thanks for More Food Than I Have Ever Seen

2008-01-07T13:40:00.000-08:00

Since we couldn't afford to come home this year, we decided to make the best of it and have an Orphan's Thanksgiving w/ other stranded folks. "Y'know, something casual," said we, "Not too much food, just good talk, good wine, the good life." "Sounds great," says everyone else.

So we get together at Garren's place because he has a basement full of wine. One of the good things about meeting folks from working at a wine bar is that you get surrounded by Foodies and Winos, all of whom were in attendance.

So the girls congregated in the front room, probably sewing barefoot and pregnant or something, while the guys got sweaty over all the food in the kitchen.

Because we are weird, we got excited by how much stuff we could keep stuffing into the oven already full of stuff (keep in mind this is after we took out the turkey, another stuffed dish full of stuffing, and I think something else, too):

I also got excited about eating seafood again. No offense to Gulf inhabitants, but the dungeness crab out here is unbeatable:

So I'm beginning to think that all that talk about a moderate amount of food went right out the window, but we keep cooking away. Turns out that for 7 people, we filled up three tables full of food. Juli and I brought the crab, some collards, a quinoa salad, and a broccoli slaw:

Absolutely delicious.

So then we sat on the couch and moaned and rubbed our engorged stomachs distended down to our knees and reminisced about that one time when we swore we wouldn't bring too much food. We tried some port as a digestiv, to limited success.

Eventually we helped each other off of the sofa like husbands to pregnant wives and decided to take a stroll down to here:

For those of you who have visited us, I'm pretty sure we've taken everyone down to Gasworks Park. Great cityline views and interesting architecture (see above). It makes Juli and I happy every time:

The sun was setting, and everything was golden and beautiful, and we ended up making an inadvertent advertising campaign for Washington wines.

Happy people, foreground and background:

All these pics need are taglines like, "Experience the Eternal Beauty of the Pacific Northwest" or "Bon Vivant Luxury at a Pioneer Price!!!", or something (this is why they don't let me into advertising):

We ambled back in the dark, happy as proverbial clams. Then Theresa tried out her kickboxing skills on Keith. It was time, I guess:

Eventually, as at all Thanksgiving celebrations, so full of timeless tradition and reverence, the flan and persimmons came out:

We spent more time than I want to admit balancing persimmons on our heads:

Once that happens, Juli and I are smart enough to know that it's time to mosey on home. Good times.

Seattle Samhain Pt. II

2008-01-07T01:23:00.000-08:00

Trying to get some of our pics up onto this dern blog o' ours:

This year for Halloween, we did what probably everyone else did, too--dressed up F.A.N.C.Y. and went to go see a local burlesque/musical/martial arts/circus group in an abandoned chocolate factory.

Here are the guilty parties starting out their night proper (please note Garren is not F.A.N.C.Y.--he is a 6 ft. carrot-top Catholic school girl [naturally]):

I am looking admirably at my stunning mate:

We are looking admirably at Garren's stunning asset:

Things started out somewhat under control. We're die-hard fans of Circus Contraption now. We first saw them almost a year ago and were hooked immediately--dirty jukejoint Tin Pan Alley band replete w/ ukulele and horn section backing up acrobats, jugglers, magicians, sword swallowers, you name it. Plus, they have a pole dancer. Automatic good times, in our book. Here we are, revving up but still w/ our senses about us:

Didn't take too long for this to happen:

And then this happened:

And then, dear Lord, this happened:

Here is the ringleader of said Circus Contraption, Armitage Shanks, looking fetching (and bloody):

There was also an INCREDIBLE opening act that did synchronized martial arts choreography over a soundtrack of classic Hong Kong karate sound effects. I keep trying to upload a video of it, but Blogger and/or Google is being grumpy, so please complain to them.

This is the aforementioned pole dancer sans pole for the night, looking decidedly more pale and undead. She climbs the rope:

And does a bunch of craziness like this (keep in mind this is 20-30 ft. up in the rafters of an old creaky warehouse):

So yeah, we had an awesome time.

BONUS OCTUBRE FUN TIME PICTURE!!!!!: Two VERY serious musicians contemplating their art, their lives, and the Universe itself:

The Immortal Shakeface

2007-12-13T01:33:00.000-08:00

I've been meaning to add these for a while, and I guess 2am on a Wed. night is as good as any. During our sojourn to Seattle that started this whole blog mess, we were introduced to a beautiful camera technique by one Mr. Kevin Connolly, formerly of Vegas, currently back in the Sunshine State. It's a simple method that yields untold HOURS of silly fun. Take camera. Aim camera at face. Take face. Shake face. Take picture. Hilarity ensues.

Since being introduced to this esoteric art, we've done our part to spread the wonders of documenting the effects of centripetal (centrifugal?) force upon the putty-like substance of human flesh cheeks. I've been privy to a veritable menagerie of Shakeface lunacy: band photos, drunken drooling, fireside intimacy, you name it.

What follows is a small sampling, and keep in mind that we've got near hundreds of these now. I'm glad to give additional samples should the need arise (also keep in mind that we don't even KNOW at least one or two of these folks...)

And as a special treat, here's Kevin's progeny showing us all how it's done:

Snow This Year, and We Know How to Handle It Now

2007-12-06T14:10:00.000-08:00

Last year, it snowed in November, and the Seattlers freaked. So we were waiting day by day this year, trembling in our lack of snow boots. And November passed, and we weren't sure if we were relieved or disappointed.

Then December 1st came around, and the snow came down. And down. And down. And then rain. And more rain. And then floods. And more floods. We were spared everything except for beautiful, blanketing snow, thank God. The Mayor said on the news that 3.5 BILLION gallons of water were dumped on Seattle alone over the weekend. 3.5 BILLION gallons of water.

Anyway, here's some pictures of snow, and no, I did NOT drop or break the camera this year.

Of course, we got a bit giddy, and went to a party (driven there by our friend Garren, who is from Michigan, which makes him better at this snow stuff than us), and some of this happened:

Labor Day 2007 - Big Canoe, GA

2007-10-15T19:35:00.000-07:00

springtime update late

2007-07-25T09:23:00.000-07:00

Oh yeah, now I remember! We have a blog! People read it! And maybe you want to know what's going on with TeamBoom.

We broke our camera! Again! We are no good at having intact cameras. But before we broke it, we took at least a few nice pictures of the spring. We had a lovely spring, with many cherry trees blooming up a storm. And we got to play with our friend Jeff. That's what the pictures are.

I walked to work this morning because the sun was shining and even though it was just a little morning-time-chilly, I barely needed a jacket.

We've stopped going out to brunch so much on the weekends. We now use my birthday gift - a french press coffee set with matching wee little glass cups and tiny black spoons. Conor has perfected his omlette skillzz. So if you come to visit, it will be like staying in a little resort.

Not much of an update, but I gave you some pictures to look at.

I ALMOST WENT TO CANADA AND IT WAS ALMOST FUN!!!

2007-05-03T22:31:00.000-07:00

Damn Canucks.

I feel a bit behind in the whole “get the heck outta the U.S. of A. for a bit” category, because I’ve never really gotten the heck outta the U.S. of A thus far. Juli’s been to Italy and Mexico, Grub’s been to Puerto Rico and Europe, and chances are, dear reader, that you’ve been somewhere foreign, too. Other than a brief day trip off a cruise ship to see Mayan ruins and a toddler excursion to the Cayman Islands, I’m a sheltered little boy. And ever since watching Borat (what the hell was supposed to be so funny about that fake-ass movie, anyway?), the panic’s set in a bit.

Which partly explains why I was so excited to go to Vancouver a few weeks ago. It’s just a few hours north, and for those not in the geographical know, it’s actually a part of Canada, which counts as foreign! Whoa! The reason for the northern sojourn was to see another gamelan group. Perhaps I should back up a little and say that I’ve joined a gamelan group in the past few months. Perhaps I should back up a little more and explain for those of you not in the musical know that gamelan is an Indonesian style of music, heavily percussive, heavily awesome. Lots of gongs and tuned metal percussion—and since our group is essentially Balinese, it’s LOUD and extremely rock n’ roll. Javanese gamelan (such as the renowned Gamelan Pacifica here in Seattle who we got to play with recently) is much more cyclical and calm, but Balinese gamelan is full of changes and clanging fun stuff. The name of my group is Padma Sari, and you can listen to a track or two at www.myspace.com/padmasari

Anyway, I decide to get in a car w/ three of these nice gamelan fellows, and we head North. The only problem is that I don’t have a passport yet, and I don’t want to be “that guy” (read: the person who prevents everyone else from having a potentially life-changing experience). But after a few panicked interweb searches and a few more “Quit whining” comments from fellow gamelaners, I decide I don’t have too much to worry about. So we’re all in a car, joking around and having a good time, somewhat like this (names are abbreviated to semi-protect the semi-innocent):

Me: “Guys! I don’t have a passport so I brought up all this!”

*holds up creased Social Security card, faxed and unnotarzed copy of birth certificate, voting card, and Washington driver’s license replete w/ scraggly-beard terrorist face mugshot on it*

Me: “You’ll probably have to leave me at the border! Hahahahahaha!!!”

J: “Quit whining.”

D: “Yeah! I have a passport but I also have a mohawk and look like a ne’er-do-well crusty punk rocking drummer! Guess you’ll have to leave me at the border, too! Hahahahahaha!!!”

JN: “Yeah! I have passport but I’m also Indonesian, as in born in Jakarta, as in a foreign place densely populated w/ Muslims! Guess you’ll also have to leave me at border, too! Hahahahahaha!!!”

J: “I really will leave you guys at the border.”

So you can see that we’re having a good time, this motley crew of us. We’re looking forward to seeing this group, who is supposedly the shit and will also supposedly be playing a rare composition by Pak Sinti, the renowned Balinese near-saint who put Padma Sari together when he was the artist-in-residence at UW and basically mentored all the gamelaners before me to near gurudom.

Then JN comes out w/ this whopper:

JN: “Did I tell you guys I got arrested at border last time?”

All: “Hahahahahahaha!!!”

JN: “Serious! They pull me aside and search my car! Then they make me get out and search my pockets! Then the woman takes my wallet and starts looking through, so I say, ‘You want me to pull my pants down next?’

*crickets chirping*

J: “Wait, what?”

JN: “Serious! They make me sign all this paper and then I can’t go in! I get charged with officer assault!”

Me: “Wait, what?”

JN: “Officer assault! It’s OK, I been through twice since then. Don’t worry.”

D: “Wait, what?”

So I’m thinking that I might not be the one who gets us stopped at the border after all. The car is ominously silent until all of the sudden we’re about one-half mile from the border. J asks me to grab his passport from the green bag in his backseat, and when I do reach into the green bag, I pull out rolling papers instead.

Me: “J! You’ve got *expletive* rolling papers in here!”

J: “WHAT?”

Me: “You’ve got *expletive* rolling papers in here!”

J: “Oh, man. When I used to smoke pot, I would keep it all in that bag. Rolling papers are still legal, right?”

So that pretty much sets the mood for our approach to the border. The former stoner, the mohawk guy, the Indonesian, and the just plan weirdo all try to look as straight as possible for the mannequin-like Canuck in the booth. He asks us a ton of questions in rapid succession: how do we know each other, why are we going to Canada, how long are we planning to stay, what the heck is gamelan (seriously), etc. We decide to let J do the talking since he was driving.

Guard: “Alright, eh? Just pull the car over here, then give your keys and this piece of paper to the border guards in that building over there, eh?”

So we pull the car to the side and all the other guys are going, “I’ve never had to do this before,” or some such variant there of. So we keep the straight façade going as we walk into this building.

Truth be told, I’ve never felt more Orwellian in my life. A full-on police-state terror-mentality was in full swing, replete w/ downright ANGRY guards yelling in foreigners’ faces while little kids do their best to entertain themselves in the waiting room.

So we deliver the paperwork at sit down. A particularly stern woman calls us up individually and asks us about prior convictions along w/ all the same questions the booth guy did. I figure we answer straight enough, but then she calls JN up. The other three of us sit and sweat as she gets extremely stern and starts laying into JN. We can see JN getting flustered and animated, which isn’t good. JN is an American citizen and an extremely sweet, genuine person, but English isn’t his first language and we were afraid of some miscommunication. JN comes over to us, frantic and upset.

JN: “She say I lied! She say I have conviction but I have no conviction! She say I’m a liar!”

We figure that she must be referring to his previous border incident, but he goes on.

JN: “When I’m 17, I have this stupid friend. I go to Target with him and he says, ‘JN take that tackle.’ And I say, ‘No, you are stupid.’ But he say, ‘JN, how are we supposed to fish, then?’ So I get stupid too and take tackle and get caught. They charge me with shoplifting and I do these things to get it off my record!”

Me: “So now what? What does she want you to do?”

JN: “She want me to think about it.”

Me: “Wait, what?”

JN: “She want me to sit down and think about it. Tell her my answer again when I think about it.”

What else can we do but wait? So we sit in this lobby for an hour, surrounded by tense, anal retentive, pissed-off Canadians in flak jackets. Every five minutes or so, JN says that he doesn’t understand what’s happening, and that he was just a teenager, and that it was literally 19 years ago, and that he’s a U.S. citizen now and he doesn’t understand what’s happening. We tell him that we’re U.S. citizens, too, and that we don’t understand what’s happening, either.

Another guard calls us up again and asks us the exact same questions, rifling through our wallets when we pull them out this time. We all sit back down. They search the car, and at this point, I can see that J is repeatedly looking at the clock and getting progressively more nervous. It’s 1 p.m., and we’ve been sitting for just over an hour.

The same angry woman calls JN back up and the scene repeats itself—she yells, he gets flustered and throws his hands all over the place. She points at us and he comes back over and sits down.

J: “What the hell is going on?”

JN: “She say I’m lying! She want to know address of Target! I tell her it’s in Fresno and it was 19 years ago and I don’t know! I tell her tackle was $0.75 and that my record is clear and she call me a liar! She tell me to sit down and think about my answer!”

J and Me: “What the *expletive*?”

JN: “Should I lie?”

All: “NO!!!!!”

JN: “I think she want me to lie. I should lie about answer.”

All: “NO!!!!”

This goes on for a while, and J is about to tear the place apart. It’s now 1:45, and the concert is supposed to start at 2. I can feel my blood sugar crash and I’m obsessing over the tuna fish sandwich I have in the car. D is ominously silent.

J: “If we miss this show, I’m going to sue.”

Me: “How long does tuna fish last in a hot car?”

J: “Seriously, I’ll sue.”

JN: “I think she want me to lie.”

All: “NO!!!!!”

D: “I wouldn’t eat it.”

Me: “What?”

D: “The tuna fish. I wouldn't eat it.”

By now it’s 2:30 and we’ve been sitting for almost three hours. I’m close to seriously losing it, and I’m daydreaming of kicking my foot through the glass doors and wondering what kind of international laws that would be breaking.

Me: “That’s IT!”

I stride over to Stern Woman #1 and tell her that we’ve missed the show, we’ve been sitting for an unreasonable amount of time, and give me and my friends our passports back because we don’t want in your dumb country now, anyway.

Stern Woman #1: “No.”

Me: “Wait, what?”

Stern Woman #1: “No. You’re not getting anything back until your friend thinks about what he’s done.”

I walk back and sit down, dumbfounded by the entire situation. D is near catatonic, and J is muttering to himself. JN can’t stop apologizing to us, and no matter how many times we tell him it’s not his fault, I can tell that he’s tearing himself apart over it.

I get the tuna fish sandwich from the car and eat it while glaring at all the guards.

Finally, over three hours later, another stern woman calls us over. We have to sign a bunch of paperwork stating that we were denied entry into Canada, and while we rant and rave and demand the badge number of Stern Woman #1, Stern Woman #2 keeps directing us back to our car. Apparently, JN’s little mishap appeared as burglary, so the tackle story seemed a little fishy (hah! Get it? Because you know, tackle, and…and, ow! Stop hitting me!)

We get our stuff back and get in queue to (hopefully) return to the U.S. Canuckers call lines queues, and if I wasn’t still angry, I would find that quaint. After waiting in another line of cars for 45 minutes, we pull up to the U.S. border guard, who literally has a plug of chewing tobacco in his lip (seriously). I pull my hat over my eyes and wait for the worst.

Cowboy: “What’d you get denied entry for?”

JN: “Stealing bait.”

Cowboy: “Wait, what?”

JN: “Steal—ing—BAIT.”

Cowboy: “Stealing BAIT?”

JN: “Stealing bait.”

He shrugs and waves us through and we return to our place of citizenship, leaving dumb Canadians behind us, along w/ a few broken dreams. JN won’t stop apologizing, and we all feel awful for him. He keeps pointing out that the documents we had to sign repeatedly referred to him as “born in Indonesia” as opposed to “U.S. citizen”.

All’s fairly well that ends fairly well, as we stopped at J’s dad’s house in Anacortes on the way home. JN was trained as a chef in both Java and Singapore, and when we stopped at the grocery store, he bought over $100 worth of seafood and beer. We grilled and drank and watched the sun set over a beautiful lake bordered by an Indian reservation, and after a while I didn’t miss Vancouver at all. Here is approximately ¼ of the food we actually prepared:

This is an extremely long post, and so here I’m going to stop, but I will say that my fellow gamelaners are great guys, and when it comes to Canada, who the heck cares?

I LOVE this girl.

2007-04-10T08:49:00.000-07:00

So there we are in the grocery store, temporarily split as teams are wont to do in order to independently hunt down the black olives and milk, when Steve Perry's "Open Arms" comes over the intercom.

So I'm cruising through the pickles, air-drumming and lip-synching to this terrible 80's ballad, just feeling it. I turn the corner into produce to look for my wife, and there's Juli, standing in the bananas, sporting that "I'm-Steve-Perry-and-I'm-in-pain-waiting-here-with-open-arms" grimace on her face and silently belting out the chorus.

I mean, I really love this girl.

CALLING ALL HALLOWEENIES...

2007-01-06T21:53:00.000-08:00

While the digital camera is still in giving-up-the-ghost status (Best Buy reneged on the Extended Warranty and Juli's Discover card doesn't cover the purchase), I figured I'd revisit the past by posting some pics we never got around to posting. So nevermind the fact that Juli just posted about New Year's and now I'm about to post something from two months earlier than that because chronology is overrated. Also, I'll try to be less smarmy from here on out, because, jeez, I just reread some old posts, and the pics were nice, but all the sass and excessive verbiage were just ANNOYING. Sorry about that--I'm winging this and verbiosity usually ends up a by-product (see this very paragraph for examples).

Anyhoo, I know it seems like our blog adventures revolve around drinking recently, but we truly have been cutting back in that dept. Regardless, we decided to get a bit shithoused for All Hallow's Eve and carve pumpkins, just the two of us.

First start w/ a bunch of seasonal microbrews and a $4 pumpkin carving kit (things just look better when you throw them in the fridge):

Then mix to frothy peaks and add the following:

Things will pretty much go downhill from there.

I tried to get arty...

...but then just ended up drinking a lot more and walking up to the Safeway. That was also a mess, as I ended up with some Dr. Scholl's foot pads...

...an Ace bandage (note the immediate buyer's remorse painted across the face):

...what I think are tealight candles (possibly the original point of the shopping sojourn?):

...some "THIRSTY" paper towels:

...and some day-old Halloween doughnuts that tasted as awful as they looked (they were on sale, OK?):

I really should have gotten a picture of the cashier's face as she rung all this up.

But all's well that ends well:

That's a broken heart emompkin and a Team Boompkin if you're keeping score at home.

Once the haze cleared, I realized that I'd calculated Halloween one week too early (seriously) and that our little emompkin and boompkin would be puddles before having the chance to chase away Samhain spirits.

By the time that real Halloween came around, I didn't have too much spark left. Juli had even less, but I made her paint faces w/ me and carve our bigumpkin. Hannah came over and took pictures:

Yes, that's a spermandeggumpkin, which the neighborhood kids just LOVED. This is how it looked from outside:

...and this is how I looked from the outside, courtesy of the Princess' fingerpainting on my face-canvas:

Juli got some bitchin' face-paintage in return, but she didn't seem to enthused about it (once she's over it, she's OVER it):

Jealous much?

Twenty-oh-Seven

2007-01-02T10:27:00.000-08:00

Exhausted from getting up at 3:30 am and travelling for 12 hours, we didn't feel like doing much for new years. So we made fondue together and at 10-till midnight, we filled our champaign glasses and headed outside to the our streetcorner, where we brag about having the best view on capitol hill. It was filled with people.

One block up the hill was a crowd of probably hundreds, completely blocking traffic and raising a fantastic chorus of "wooo"s and noisemakers. In front of us was an amazing, clear view of the space needle, blinking with little flashes of light. It suddenly lit up with fireworks, bursting out from the top and all around the space needle.

Our view was amazing, and the whole thing was so incredibly and unexpectedly beautiful. The energy of the crowd behind us was so celebretory, it felt just a little bit like the night the Gators won the basketball championship. We cheersed our neighbors as we all went back inside. Conor & I decided to have a new years eve party next year.

I felt sad much of the night. I miss Gainesville and all the people I got to see while I was in FL. But that fireworks show was special and lovely and I was happy to share it with my husband and best friend.

Happy New Year, everyone. Be happy and healthy and loving and loved.

IT'S SLEETING SLATES OF SNOW RIGHTS'NOW!

2006-11-26T16:28:00.000-08:00

It's snowing right now!!! First it was "sleet", now it's "snow"! I went outside to take lots of pictures before it all melted and the steps were slippery and I stepped on the slippery steps and slipped and busted ass and broke the digital camera! That means that we've broken TWO cameras in six months! I'm so angry right now that I can barely speak and who cares about all that snow and trying to be innocent and happy in falling frozen water and enjoy my surroundings when I keep breaking expensive things like my own ass and cameras!

I! AM! ANGRY! AND! I! DON'T! KNOW! HOW! TO! STOP!

HERE ARE WHAT MIGHT BE THE LAST OUT-OF-FOCUS PICTURES EVER TO BE TAKEN WITH THIS CURSED CAMERA! CAPS MEANS LOTS OF YELLING!!! WITH EXTRA EXCLAMATION POINTS FOR EXTRA ANGER!!!

2006-10-20T16:56:00.000-07:00

Today some co-workers and I took a coffee break as an excuse to soak up the sunny (yet chilly) weather. I work downtown with a bunch of architects who like to wander around and look at/talk about architecture. Here are some things we saw, photos courtesy Mark.

Remember stair-falling

2006-10-17T21:19:00.000-07:00

YEESH, WE REALLY NEED TO UPDATE THIS THING MORE...

2006-10-15T23:59:00.000-07:00

As you'll see below in a second, I got drunk last night and decided to update the blog. Seemed like a good idea at the time. Now it's the next night, I've been hungover all day, and I'm going to compress a few months into a few paragraphs to try and get this emeffer caught up. Juli thinks we should post more often w/ fewer pictures. She's probably right, of course, but obviously not right enough to stop watching football for a few seconds and do it HERSELF. So I have to make this quick, or else I'll burn her mimosa and her omelette will get warm and then I'll get a WHUPPIN'.

Last time we left our intrepid heroes (from my P.O.V., remember--I swear I'll stop harping on the odd reverso-chronological slip n' slide of this thing soon), they were celebrating holidaze and getting trumped by the Danes. What's happened since then?

First off, Juli, Ty, and I get in a huge fight over whose turn it was to iron the antique parka collection (and in hindsight, it WAS my turn--that's my bad, guys). Ty slaps Juli across the face, and while it was funny at the time, Juli and I are forced to throw him through a window in retaliation. So he goes through our window, straight into the window of a passing taxicab, gets driven to the airport, thrown onto a plane, and calls us later from Cape Cod. Weird. Juli and I have since passed the time by trying on all of Ty's clothes and then running around the house going, "Look at me--I'm TY! DUH! My shoes and jackets are so TINY! DUH! I will be upset when I find out that my roommates have stuffed my acoustic guitar with pancakes! DUH!" I don't know why we keep doing that.

So Juli and are are back to a duo, which is good in some ways and sucks in others. One of the ways that it sucks is that now our rent is split two-ways instead of three. So we call in for backup. San Franciscans arrive in due time w/ child labor in good supply, and we set them to work immediately.

First we start Danny training for long-distance marathons...

...the operative idea here being that first-place medals are made of gold, and when gold is melted down, it eventually cools into the shape, texture, and general likeness of gold, which can then be sold for $. Associated ideas involve writing a book like, "Make Your Kids Work 4 YOU--Turn Your Toddler into a World-Class, Money-Earning Athlete in 4 Short Weeks!". The pages of this book, BTW, would be made from gold, which could of course be melted down into gold and then traded for money (or more gold, you see--I'm confident you get the picture).

Supposedly, there's also money to be had in oil, so we make the kids hang around oil machinery for a bit. Then we sit back and wait for the money to roll right in:

The money doesn't seem to want to roll right in, but Leah, being the very perceptive little girl that she is...

...looks into the water and sees all kinds of salmon:

Judging by the prices on seafood at the market, salmon is stuffed full of gold, so we rent a hovercraft, throw the kids on it, and sit back to watch the money roll right in:

Again, the money refuses to roll right in. Unfortunately, so does the hovercraft, and the kids are presumed lost at this point. T.J. and Judy, understandably upset, leave in a huff. Nevermind the fact that we blew all of our gold-medal marathon funds calling in a Blue Angels search party:

Juli and I, ever the supportive teammates of each other through thick and thin and other sundry child-losing adventures, shrug it off and go down to the market for some wine:

It's nice here, so I decide to get a job. This is a picture of me at my job, doing my job:

Verily, 'tis quite a nice job, with much grog and wenches to be had. Unfortunately, the hours 'tis not quite so nice, and so I must leave.

I am sad to go, and Juli is sad to go, so we banish our sadness with many, many episodes of Deadwood. Although Deadwood is like Shakespeare mixed w/ an N.W.A. album, I get all inspired by the cowboys coifing their facial whiskers into odd shapes and decide to have a go of it myself:

I am now a man. Men have arrangements of facial hair that provide evidence for all the beverage quaffing and lip-sneering that they have to do. My fathers have moustachios, and my father's fathers had moustachios, and cops and sailors have moustachios, and now I have moustachios, too. Also, guys that live here on Capitol Hill and hang out at The Cuff, R Place, and the Manhole all have moustachios, as well. Go figure.

One more shot of that incredible whisker sculpture for the ladies:

AWWWWWWWW, YEEEEEEEAAAAH.

The one condition of my leaving the wine bar was that I had to participate in an exit ritual, which consisted of perching precariously above a vat of acid while former co-workers and bosses fired red-hot coals at my tender flesh. Fellow members of the Grande Order of Flavor-Saver Whiskey Whisker Mustache Men be not afraid--I stepped up to the challenge with much aplomb and manly bravery:

This is my boss, Jen, looking fearsome as she wields an equally fearsome projectile:

Her aim is even more equally fearsome...

...and this is a picture of my face melting off from her successful dunking of my tender flesh into said acid vat. Good times!

Luckily, I have bionically enhanced aim, and I am not afraid to use it:

After this, Jen's top came off and things became inappropriate for our younger readers. Suffice to say, they know how to party here in the Emerald City.

So that's all the pics we have up until now, ladies and gents. I'll get pics and descriptions of our current jobs up soon, and seeing as how the rains started today and we spent way too much money on Goretex crap so that I could ride my bike through the air-ocean to get to work, maybe we'll get some outside shots, too.

Oh, and the leaves change here, too--we'll get pretty pretty of that, as well. Feel free to write in w/ any suggestions, such as, "Y'know, it would be great if JULI could write something for a change..."

Kids These Days, They Move 3,000 Miles Away and Have the Audacity To Make Their Own Lives While Everyone Else Waits Patiently For Updates...

2006-10-14T20:56:00.000-07:00

So here's the deal: It's 10/14/06, and I/we have not updated in approximately 6,000,000 light years. WE'VE BEEN BUSY, OK? So now it's Saturday, the Gators lost, and I'm drunk. I'm predicting that you've probably gone through the more recent posts that I will compose in the FUTURE and only now figure out, "Oh, THAT'S why these have been all weird and rambling and incoherent--he's effing SAUCED!" That's right--I'm messing w/ the very fabric of time right now, writing while thinking about the FUTURE while my brain is swimming in HOPS. Y'all know how we do...

Here's what's happened since last we posted: Ty moved in and then moved out, I got a job, quit, and then got another job, the summer stayed absolutely perfect, Jeff and Nazik--some of our only Seattle allies--moved away for one last year of non-localness, cadres of O'Neills invaded in two separate attacks (not to mention a near sneak-attack from the Mitchell/Melinek clan earlier), and now the fall is threatening to move in on us (tomorrow we go to REI to get rain gear and desperately prepare for wetness). Methinks the best way to catch y'all up on things is to randomly sift through pics and try to recount the last four months or so. Here we go...

The birth of our country was celebrated way back at the beginning of July, and Ryan and Chelsea were good enough to invite us to celebrate it on the shores of Lake Union. Chelsea works for a sweatshop with a beautiful view right in the middle of the city. Ty, Juli, and I were much excited and much grateful for all the free alcohol:

There were fireworks and explosions...

...and helicopters and firefighting tugboats...

...and all kinds of Seattle big-city coolness that basically smothers any previous Fourth experiences. When Juli sees stuff like this...

...she goes "OOOOOOHHHHHHHOOOOOOOOHHH!!!!!!!!!!!" and it's so high-pitched and giddy that you have to duck because satellites and dogs lose their respective bearings and might crash down into your head or chew your neck off, again respectively. Also, Juli is reminding me that there were TONS of cheddar-cheese-and-onion-chips in ready supply (see first photograph). I ate approximately two-and-one-half bags of said fatty proto-potato-product. My stomach exploded immediately afterward (images edited).

Later in the month, we saw Torben Ulrich, who Ty and I had decided was the coolest man alive based on footage from "Some Kind of Monster", the true-life reinactment of Spinal Tap by the immortal purveyors of shit metal, Metallica. Torben is Lars Ulrich's father, and in addition to being the living reincarnation of Gandalf the White, he is also a spoken-word artist, Danish tennis star, and all-around hepcat genius of the 21st century.

We were walking through Pikes Place Market...

...when Ty's eyes got as wide as dinner plates. I turned around expecting to see Sasquatch playing the mandolin on a pink camel dancing the samba in the remnants of a matchstick-replica of the Taj Mahal when I gazed upon something even better. Torben EFFING Ulrich. Dude is so kvlt and trve it makes me sick. Here you can see him wisely stroking his wizened beard, which he is wont to do whilst pondering the mysterious mysteries of meatspace and chuckling softly to himself:

So I immediately shit myself and try to run away, and Ty is all, "I HAVE to say something." I've had a long-standing rule to not approach celebrities ever since my run-in w/ Hulk Hogan in a Winn-Dixie in Clearwater w/ my friend Jason Lazaro (we were 7) and I got his autograph and then I left it in the pocket of my jeans and my Mom washed them (true story!), because what the hell are you going to say that's going to mean anything at all? So I'm all, "Dude--NO", but Ty is all, "I HAVE to," so then he goes, "You're Torben Ulrich, right?"

So Torben--being the coolest, most Zenest holmes alive--goes, "Sometimes." "SOMETIMES", ladies and gentlemen. Does he have a speechwriter for this shit or what? So anyway, Torben responds, "Sometimes" and I'm all, "No way he just said that!" (in my head), and Ty is obviously thunderstruck by Torben's cool-as-ice comment because he replies with, "I loved you in the movie!" "I LOVED...YOU IN...THE MOVIE," ladies and gentlemen. Say it out loud right now and then feel free to laugh at our sum life experience thus far.

So then Ty turns to me and immediately goes, "I just said, 'I loved you in the movie' to Torben effing Ulrich," and I'm all, "Dude, I know," and we shook our head knowingly because Torben had totally rvled us with his kvlt and trve immortality. Then Torben sprouted wings and flew away to fight a dragon or something.

More in a minute (or actually this is probably the end because you've already read what I'm about to write here in the future which is now your past and oh my god my head exploded and a phoenix flew out of it and coughed up a rainbow bridge to Atlantis Xanadu Utopia).

2006-06-29T11:15:00.000-07:00

THE BOWER BIRD CONSTRUCTS AN ELABORATE STRUCTURE ON THE FOREST FLOOR FROM TWIGS, LEAVES, AND MOSS

We stayed with Kale and Hannah for the first few days, venturing out from the inflatable mattress every morning to try and find a place. We’d pretty much narrowed the search down to Capitol Hill, a very hip neighborhood next to Downtown w/ quite a few strips full of coffee shops, restaurants, bars, clothing stores, and organic produce. Heaven.

Long story short, we gave into the magic that had carried us this far (sincerely), and stumbled across a place for at least $200-300 less than everything else we had seen. Hardwood floors, TONS of storage, more square footage than anything else we checked out, and directly between 15th and Broadway, two of the major strips in Capitol Hill. Absolutely perfect (except for the lack of grounded outlets, squeaky floors, a neighbor upstairs that gets off on doing laps in her living room in high heels, and other things not worth complaining about). Here is our castle:

I think you can see a video that Juli made of our apt. and me scurrying around like a lonely specter here: http://s3.photobucket.com/albums/y69/julim/may%202006%20big%20move/?action=view&current=newapartmentmpg.flv

The weather, BTW, has been PERFECT. Exactly one day of rain—the rest of the time temperatures have been in the 70’s, clear skies, refreshing breeze with flowers in the air, no humidity, beautiful lakes and Puget Sound all around us, and the Olympics on the east horizon, the Cascades on the west horizon, and when it’s really clear, Mt. Rainier rising like our very own Mt. Fuji directly to the south.

I know, I know, just wait for the dreary winter with piss rain and then you all can laugh and throw sandballs at me or something, but for now I’m soaking it in.

Jeff Randolph has been our own little Emerald City angel thus far, taking us to all kinds of good food, good views, and good conversation. He and Nazik have fantastic friends and family who have already taken us in as one of their own. Good to have folk like that around…

Just so you can see how beautiful it’s been, here’s a recent jaunt to get incredible Mexican food in Queen Anne:

Though we look stoic, in actuality we are drunk on good weather. It makes you a content little zombie.

Seattle is divided up into all kinds of neighborhoods that each have independent farmer’s markets, festivals, and concerts. Recently, Fremont (where Toby and Adam used to live) had a Solstice Festival, which is famous for a naked bike ride. Kale and I got there late, but I have to say that we felt embarrassingly normal among all the body paint, stiltwalkers, and glitter-throwing.

It felt awkward to take too many pics of naked folks, but here’s one just to prove it:

The best part about it all? TONS of families around, showing their toddlers what a naked fat person loving life looks like. Very refreshing.

So after getting settled in a bit, we went to pick up Ty at the airport. He’ll be staying with us for the foreseeable future as he and I try to start a pop (!) band in earnest, which basically means overdosing on the Pogues and gospel music as we sit around with acoustic guitars and annoy the upstairs neighbor.

This is us arriving at the abode with minimal luggage in hand:

This is us chilling in the abode with minimal furniture surrounding us:

2006-06-27T11:34:00.000-07:00

WESTWARD, HO!

After the last night of depravity and another day of holding mail, dropping off house keys, and other inane tasks, we got up early, made Bethany and Juli cry and me almost cry (I’m fairly positive Jay cried into his pillow after we left), and then took this picture:

Then we forgot the iPod charger and something else and had to go back to Beth and Jay’s apt. all anti-climactic-like.

But after that, there were no more tears. Kind of unbelievable. Methinks Juli has been gradually leaving for weeks now in that secret way that she has from time to time. So even though it’s cheesy, we proceeded to be a great team yet again as we sojourned across this land that’s really just WAY TOO BIG.

Funny thing about that charger I mentioned earlier; we never ended up needing it BECAUSE THE EFFING IpOD BROKE THE DAY THAT WE LEFT. I was stuck listening to “Memoirs of a Geisha” (Thanks, Jaime) for half of the trip. The. Woman. Talks. Un. Bee. Leave. A. Blee. Ess. Ell. Oh. Double-U. For reals.

Made good time and got to New Orleans by the late afternoon. Stayed w/ Francesca and Andy, who are consistently the best people to have around when you need assistance. They have an incredible house in Covington, both exterior…:

…and interior:

It didn’t take much convincing on their part (read: a beer and a bed) to convince us to stay an extra night. We swang on swangs…:

…and sat on sitters to our collective hearts’ content:

This is Juli in a cat suit, impersonating a cat:

We also met Tom, who is an internerd friend living in NOLA and playing music and being genuine and all that good stuff. Juli keeps calling him my boyfriend, which is cruel and inhumane (to Tom). Big ups:

I could write five more paragraphs about how stuff is still all beyond screwed up in Nawlins, but I won’t because this is shaping up to be another mammoth post (but hey, these have been mammoth trips recently).

Suffice to say that we went straight through Baton Rouge-which is where my grandma lives—because she was in Gville at the time (where I was just two days prior). Just can’t get to everyone that you need to get to sometimes. She should be proud of me, though, because I found Coffee Call ALL BY MY BADASS SELF:

Juli INSISTED on beignets, so I braved the fierce winding highways of Baton Rouge on childhood instinct alone.

I felt oddly Southern this whole time, and could easily see myself on a big ol’ porch w/ a banjer and mint julep in ten years time. Guess it doesn’t kick in until you leave.

Juli goes, “That’s the Miss’ippi river.”:

I go, “Hush up and look awkwardly genuine.”:

This was supposed to be our trip mascot, but I broke his horn right after this picture was taken because I can’t do anything right:

We then proceeded to hit every truck stop in LA, TX, NM, AK, NV, CA, OR, and WA…:

…and NEVER EVER FIND A DECENT TRUCKER HAT ANYWHERE. What the HELL is wrong with Texas?

Luckily, Andy gave me a bitchin’ John Deere hat, which gave me the power to eat/drink/slurp slurpees w/ the wifey:

I also found all kinds of treats in men’s rooms, including the Bin Laden Condom (no, I didn’t actually buy it to find out what the hell it was):

Here is what the middle part of the country looks like:

Here is what our lunch looked like for the next few days:

We drove through Dallas into Denton the next night, which was decent time (shot for 500 miles or so a day). We didn’t take pictures in Denton because there is nothing worth taking pictures of in Denton.

We put a lot of hours into our backsides the next day and went all the way to Albuquerque, which meant a whole lot of this…:

…and more of the Asian. Woman. Who. Can’t. Seem. To. Speed. Things. Up. At. All. Ever. Ever. Ever. The iPod remained a stubborn, broken bitch-bastard.

Albuquerque ended up being VERY cool—we stayed in Old Town…:

…had a great dinner, and a BEAUTIFUL breakfast out on a patio (which is right up Juli’s proverbial alley):

The huevos rancheros were divine/to die for/delish.

Then we drove through A LOT of this:

Cool stuff.

Then we got to this:

Very much cooler stuff.

When we drove into the park, I was all, “TWENTY-FIVE dollars for the Grand Canyon?!?!?!? Does it come w/ a happy ending?” The park ranger informed me that the Grand Canyon does not, in fact, come with a happy ending. Now you know.

We have approximately 75 more pictures that look just like this:

This is Juli looking for a gelato stand at the bottom of the canyon:

This is me connecting w/ the Earth whilst simultaneously begging Her not to blow me into her gaping vagina with a gust of wind:

They have good beer and good-God-this-is-awful food at the Grand Canyon:

So awful, in fact, that the only thing that will eat the stale hard pretzels are these huge radioactive cave squirrels:

Of course, we were still ultra-pissed when he took the pretzel right after this shot.

Very beautiful, and begrudgingly worth the $25 clams:

We soldiered onward, heading west.

This is how to dry your washed apple and take an arty photo at the same time:

You can make a lot of money this way if you live in NYC and know the right people.

This is the set of the next Star Wars film:

Actually, it’s the Hoovered Damn, and it’s somewhat unimpressive when you’ve been driving for 50 miles w/ the needle below “E” and still no gas station in sight. Also, we went through a terrorist checkpoint to make sure that we weren’t going to blow up George Lucas’s wet dream.

We were going to take a picture of the state trooper because he looked just like Cheech Marin, but then we realized that we were damn lucky to get through seeing as how I have a bushy, burly, tribal-looking beard now and we also had a big crate full of wired metal boxes (read: guitar effects pedals) hidden under a tarp in the bed of the truck.

So we kept our damn fool traps shut and drove steely-eyed straight to Vegas, where we encountered this:

Kevin and Hillary are starting their own commune out in the desert and neon sin, replete w/ multiple progeny. Here is a shit-ton of cute photos of Teegan:

We ate great food and talked good talk w/ Kevin, Hillary, and Teegan, too. They’re really doing well out there and it felt fantastic to see Kevin in such a good spot career-wise, Hillary in such a good spot pregnancy-wise, and all of them in such a beautiful spot family-wise. They’re a good future example.

They also make awesome funny faces:

Of course, we are heartbreakers at our core, so we bid them fond adieus and headed for CA.

At this point we ran out of books-on-CD and had to get more BECAUSE THE IpOD WAS STILL BEING A REAL BITCH-ASS AND REFUSING TO WORK. We got David Sedaris, Herman Hesse, and that Kite Runner one that made me feel sad and awful:

Pretty crazy how quickly the landscape changes once you get into CA:

And don’t think for a second that we’ve forgotten about Copperopolis (see previous trip). We'll be snuggled between those rolling hills soon enough, working on a squeaky printing press in an old barn or something.

Also, we found the set to the next, next Star Wars film:

It’s either that or the Bio-Dome. Can’t be sure.

Here’s where things get less interesting because we’re six days in now and sick of taking pictures. We stayed with Tanya again in Stockton for a night and then thought about going all the way to Seattle (at least 13-15 hours) and then wised up.

We stopped in Eugene instead and were glad to return there (Juli considered grad school at Univ. of Oregon a few years ago, which come to think of it would have made this trip A LOT cheaper).

Very hippy-y and somewhat quaint, but we like it. They have REALLY good (read: dark and strong) microbrews there that you get to buy and take with you. Best invention EVER:

Got up at a decent hour, did some remote recording in the woods behind a rest area...:

...and then headed through absolutely gorgeous weather straight to our new home:

And all things begin as they end:

The iPod, by the way, started working the day we got into Seattle.

2006-06-27T00:42:00.000-07:00

DELICATELY EXTRACTING THE HEAD OF GVILLE (so as not to leave in the poison fangs)

I know that some of you thought that we fell off the face of the earth, which is of course preposterous because we’re really closer to continuously and relentlessly falling ONTO the face of the earth. In fact, I’ll lay my cards on the table and state that Juli and I have no where near the energy—collectively or individually—to actually combat the entire gravitational force of the planet and float off like the Little Prince or something. Stop being silly and wise up to the fact that I cannot fly, hover, levitate, float, soar, take wing, etc. for any extended period of time at all, and while Juli is intentionally more vague about her powers of flight (as well as her powers of flatulence, which are mysteriously missing for the most part), I assure you that she is firmly anchored to the ground for the time being. Glad we could get that cleared up.

Those of you that were at the going away party know that it was a little odd—parents hammered and talking to strangers on copious amounts of drugs (the stranger, not the parents), neighbors wandering around and lighting off fireworks (which when I walked over to investigate, I turned around to find that my dad had my back and was ready to throw down right then and there…), various siblings and friends in tears, watching a girl slip in puke on the stairs and then fall in it at 3a.m., and overall feeling a general sense of disconnect and detachment. Weird shit, and so appropriately, here’s a few weird pics from the party (starting with the moms falling through a big ol' tupperware bin, as they are wont to do):

Those of you that weren’t there can be comforted to know that you only missed out on a bit of strangeness. You are, however, expected to make yourself available to the Pacific NW that much sooner, so there. Your life’s not all sunshine and rainbows.

After the weekend debauchery we gave away the last of our furniture and then packed, and none of you (outside of Matt and Bryan) helped. Of course, that’s what we get for packing on a Tuesday afternoon to get a break on the price of relo cubes (that’s what big fucking boxes full of your belongings alongings with some blood and sweat are called in the biz):

Wasn’t too bad, actually. U-Pack is fairly convenient, and is about as much as it would have cost to rent a U-Haul and put overpriced black gold into its gaping maw every 100 miles or so.

Apparently we didn’t get enough weirdness at the party, so someone conjured the bright idea of going to Common Grounds one last time. Appropriately, shit got weird:

2006-05-05T06:37:00.000-07:00

So we're having a sendoff on May 20th. If you come, make sure you sign the contact info book that will be circulating around, unless of course you want to vanish like some ghostly ninja mist. Which would be pretty cool.

SAT., MAY 20th: IN THE COURTYARD OF OUR APT. COMPLEX (corner of SW 12th and 5th, catty corner from the Campus Credit Union). BE THERE OR BE AN L7 WEENIE.

2006-04-07T08:01:00.000-07:00

There seemed/seems to be some confusion about where we're moving, so let us be clear:

SEATTLE.

If you interfere w/ our mission, we will be forced to take stern measures, enact awful tactics, and engage in nefarious subterfuge.

WE CANNOT BE STOPPED.

2006-03-29T11:51:00.000-08:00

Recon report from Section B (Terragon Sector)—this is our account of a two-week trip to sow seeds of rebellion, revolution, insurrection, and insubordination across the power grid (posted in reverse order for your administrative perusal):

KEEP AUSTIN WEIRD

After a smooth plane ride into town, we may appear doughy and complacent, but rest assured, under our camouflage there are FANGS and CLAWS and POISON GLANDS. Juli in particular has the look of death in her eye.

This is an authority figure. Although he was initially confused by Juli’s snapshot, she sweetly waved at him and he put away his gun.

This is a denizen of Austin.

There are many denizens in Austin, some of whom have battle bikes equipped with a horned skull and some of whom do not. This pic was taken at Guero’s, where I had fish tacos and many beers and Juli had a quesadilla and many beers. This was a profoundly bad idea in hindsight when you consider all the Bonine we took for the plane ride. We decided to take a half-hour nap at the Motel 8 before going to Emo’s to see the Electric Six and ended up rousing ourselves from death-like slumber at 1am wondering what the hell happened. More on the Electric Six later…

This is an awful shot of the Whole Foods Super Duper Supermarket Extravaganza downtown.

Apparently, Whole Foods started in Austin, and this is corporate headquarters combined with a grocery store about the size of FIVE Sam’s Clubs put together. They had an entire AISLE of mushrooms, including fiddlehead ferns, which are allegedly edible (who knew?). You could also cut your own natural soap from a block the size of a filing cabinet. I want to live there, thank you very much.

After the first uneventful night at the Motel 8, we relocated our base of subversive activities to the Austin Motel.

This freak haven is directly off of South Congress, where we basically spent the remainder of our time in Austin goofing off, having an interview or two, and then goofing off some more. Our room was great and the entire place was quite funky.

Juli hit some shops as she is wont to do, while I took a nap, as I am wont to do. She came back to tell me that she found an antique shop right up my alley. Holy shit, was she ever right:

This place was CHOCK FULL o’ Freemasonry. All this weird paraphernalia is Oddfellows stuff from the early 1900’s. They also had books about pyramids and flying saucers, but everything was close to $100, which is about $96 more than I am willing to spend on things like that.

This was one of the houses directly behind the hotel.

Apparently, this fellow has traveled to the future, stolen my future truck, future house, and future occupation (we think he actually makes signs like the one next to his/my truck). I need to remember that I may have to fight this guy to the death in the future in order to reclaim the future as my own.

Gardening is odd here, though—I’m not sure if Beth would approve of rusty boxes for a lawn:

I continued to go crazy and find shamanic spirals in the walls of a coffee shop called the Green Muse (an obvious grail reference—check the poster):

We also decided that seeing as how we’re in the Live Music Capital of the World and I am quite a fan of the Live Music, we should actually go see some of the Live Music in the Live Music Capital of the World. The Continental Club was right across the street from our hotel, and we saw James Hand, who is a straight lunatic:

He says, “Thank you a lot” after every song. Go ahead and say that out loud: “Thank you a lot.” It’s just not right. Here is a sample of a James Hand song intro:

[Johnny Cash voice]“Well, thank you a lot, thank you a lot. Y’know, I don’t know why anyone would even want to come out and see me, I’m just a guy up on a stage. But back when no one knew me at all…”*face crumples up in teary emotion*“…these people here gave me a chance, and I thank them for that.”*deep breath*“Anyhoo, this is a song about a parakeet. 1, 2, 3, 4!”

And then the band would go right into it along with the best pedal steel guitar player I have ever heard and/or seen. I know it’s TX and all, but this guy was really outta sight.

This was our server, R.J. She stood about 6’4” in her boots, and is also a roller derby girl. She can beat up the rest of the planet simultaneously.

I walked into the bathroom and saw the typical punched-out mirror, feeling right at home.

So I go pee and check out the local stall graffiti, expecting to find stuff like “Kinky Friedman sucks a fat one” or “TX cops can go to Hell” or “Don’t look here for a joke, the joke’s in your hand”. Instead I find this:

These people seriously love their town.

The next morning, we did the hangover breakfast at Magnolia Café, which has an incredible dish called Love Migas. Migas is apparently a Mexican thing where you take your scrambled eggs, add a bunch of garlic along with other omelet-type ingredients, and then either add chopped tortillas or wrap the entire mess in said tortilla. I know that sounds just like a breakfast burrito, but it’s not, because it’s Mexican. Or maybe Tex-Mex. Or something.
Magnolia Café also has extremely cool artwork.

Here is a squinty-eyed impersonation of Clint Eastwood, just to let y’all know I’m keepin’ it real:

Also, we climbed Mount Bonnell (all of 99 steps) to catch a view of the city. Big effing whoop:

But we did still manage to look cute together.

Me like tree.

Me take bookjacket picture with tree.

So that was Austin. Weird, funky, and comfortable enough to let dudes wear dresses in the middle of Texas.

2006-03-29T11:19:00.000-08:00

STOCKTON AND BIG TREES

While in the Austin airport waiting to fly to CA, we saw a bunch of people lined up at the window. We smiled at each other, pitying these cowboy simpletons so mystified by human flight. But more people kept looking, so we moseyed over and took a gander and a look-see (I’m pretty sure that’s how cowboys talk).

Oh. Sorry that we made fun of you fine cowboy folk while you were watching one of our young citizens being loaded up in a pine box for political causes that no one can really adequately explain. Juli thought it was in poor taste to take a picture of this, but it seemed really resonant and important to me at the time. No disrespect intended.

So after that delightful interlude, we loaded up into our tin bullet. Just so you people know, the breaking point for the 6’1”/250lb weight class on an airplane averages around 3 hours. My own personal record is approximately half that, so we started a wonderful trip to CA by taking a flight that lasted approx. 57 hours.

The flight crew shoved us into the baggage storage compartment with a broom handle to make more room for the cadre of middle-aged, bleached, plasticked, almost-women on their way to “VEGAS, BABY!” for their collective 600th birthday. During the disembarking, the guy behind them finally lost it and tried to push through them. They attacked, and he parried with an under-the-breath “Bitch”. Their response? “Freako!” That’s right. “Freako.” Score one for the under-the-breath guy.

So we arrive in Oakland around 11pm to find that somehow, the rental car that I reserved wasn’t cleared for a Seattle drop-off. Big problem seeing as how we were flying out of Seattle 10 days later. So I frantically call Travelocity to see what the problem was (most likely my own fault) while Juli dug out some cleavage to talk to the guy at the Budget counter. After some tense negotiation with a machete, we got a rental from Budget for a decent price—decent being a relative term, of course. Relative to me saying, “Hey, I just bought a space shuttle for a decent price.”

At the tail end of our trip, I would try to drop the Budget car off at the Hertz parking lot in Seattle because I SWORE that we had rented a Hertz car—Reason #1,692 why I will undoubtedly end up in a jail cell or six feet under if Juli ever divorces me, as I have fundamentally become a non-functioning member of society. I do have a cute mad-scientist appeal to me, though, so no worries.

So we get to Stockton, where my teacher, Tanya, lives. The next few days were quite important and productive, but we don’t really have pictures of them. Suffice to say that Juli discovered she was a mermaid, I realized that I continually stab myself with ten swords, and Tanya was severely scolded for waking up her neighbors by pounding away on a drum. You can’t tell if I’m making this up or not, can you?
Here’s a shot of the University of the Pacific campus, where Tanya corrupts young minds now. These are her six sisters:

I don’t get it, either.

This is a shot of a house with a garden/yard that Juli took for Beth. I don’t know why, but maybe some of y’all like this kind of stuff:

This is the kind of stuff I like. These trees outside of Tanya’s apt. were incredible:

So after a few days, Tanya says (in Russian/Chinese/Italian/something-or-other accent): “You should take day-trip to Big Trees.” So we’re all, “OK. What are the Big Trees?” And she goes, “They are Big Trees.” I’m pretty used to this kind of roundabout talk, so we just get the road we’re supposed to follow and head out into nowhere, figuring there must be some big trees an hour or so outside of Stockton.

So we start driving and somehow end up in the middle of Ireland (possibly Scotland, I can’t be sure):

Absolutely beautiful area, and as soon as I figure out how to make money while living out in a place that looks like the Shire, we’re relocating to Copperopolis. You can’t tell if I made that name up or not, can you?

So then all of the sudden, I’m like, “Holy shit! Snow!” and I get all excited and keep trying to take pictures of it out of Juli’s window.

We figure we’ll see some snow on the side of the road, a few redwoods or something, and then head back to Stockton to drink wine and eat cheese like normal people.

Before we know it, we’re in Big Trees State Park (that’s what that blurry sign says).

There’s also signs everywhere screaming at us to put snow chains on the car, but the sunny Budget desk an hour or two away definitely didn’t give us those.

Needless to say, we weren’t dressed for snow.

A bunch of near-toddlers were smarter than us, though, and they bundled up appropriately so that they could take out their aggression on each other with hard water:

So we spent an hour basically peeing ourselves giddy over our little winter wonderland.

Like befuddled rainforest monkeys dropped off in Antarctica, Juli and Conor discover that snow is edible.

Brain freeze!

I am a sly trickster in the snow. And by “sly trickster” I mean “dumb ogre wearing a t-shirt under his coat, yet jovial about the basic physical properties of snow”.

So yeah, the trees are big.

It’s like we’ve never seen the color white before!

An opportunity like this doesn’t come along every day, so I do the prudent thing and make a snow angel. Be glad that I didn’t go w/ my first inclination of, “Hey, you know what would be REALLY cool? To do it NAKED!”

Then I split my pants. Seriously.

This is the Warming House. Allegedly, it is very warm. We never found out because it was locked. We did see burning embers through the window, though.

At this point, the crotch of my pants are ripped open, I’m bare under my suddenly inadequate jacket, and there’s an inch of snow in my Birks:

The temperature dropped over 20 degrees in ten minutes on the way to Big Trees. So to warm up, we went here and got drunk.

I walked out w/ two pints of beer in my stomach and around 100 paper towels in my shoes.

Juli fell in love with this place Angel’s Camp. It was quaint.

I fell in love with their Star Trek bathrooms. It was the future (check the upside down faucet).

These are my ladies.

2006-03-29T10:17:00.000-08:00

THE SAN FRANCISCO TREAT

It’s views like this that make people put up with exorbitant rent, consistent brownouts, and earthquake doom.

This is the first building that greeted us in good ol’ San Fran.

We shacked up w/ my cousin T.J. in SF, who proceeded to give us the most pleasant hard-sell of the city that we’ve ever experienced. His tactics were shameful, unethical, and brutal. How the hell are we supposed to resist stuff like this?

Sutro Park—a block from T.J. and Judy’s place.

Danny and Leah—cute kids that T.J. and Judy rented to make their familial façade that much more believable.

More expensive rentals—baby Dinah and optional Grandma Rutka attachment. Heartless bastards, this Mitchell/Melinek combo.

Juli giving her best thousand-yard-stare. A true professional out in the field. She can be my wingman any day.

My Spiderman costume from twenty-odd years ago didn’t NEED built-in muscles! I was a beast NATURALLY! Still am, punk!

We also stopped in to see old Gville friends now in SF, Marc and Lauren. They are slightly more sober and slightly more rich these days, hence the beautiful townhouse they just acquired in the Inner Mission district.

We considered going to see a show (can you believe I passed up going to see Oneida and Crime In Choir on the same bill?), but the Electric Six were playing everywhere, so we didn’t.

Continuing the ruthless assault on our senses, T.J. delivered the one-two combo of a backyard ocean view (trust me, it’s in there—look at the blue smudge in the middle of the picture) and a pizza oven.

Supposedly, we were supposed to be “roughing it”, as the kitchen was being remodeled, but utilizing a hotplate and an outdoor oven, we had everything from roasted artichoke hearts to grilled salmon to homemade hummus to roasted red peppers to stone-baked pizza. I, however, prefer the delectable brains of a young, unsuspecting child.

They have honest-to-God neighborhood coffee shops here, which is pretty much all Juli needed to hear to be 100% sold on SF. We walked there pretty much every day.

Before leaving, we HAD to see Sutro Park one more time.

I did some Qi Gong overlooking the city and a hawk followed me around for a bit. So I shot it.

We are so very cool.

We came in on this bridge…

And left on this one…

2006-03-29T09:50:00.000-08:00

PUKING IN PORTLAND

So we drive for 10 hours, see a bit more snow, eat bad Mexican food, and finally arrive in Portland, which is in a mad dash with Williamsburg, NYC to be the hippest place on the continent. Gville tries desperately—and fails miserably—to compare to this mecca of unwashed scenesters. Our kind of place.

We stayed at the Jupiter Hotel, which was a “rock n’ roll hotel” (what?) with a restaurant/venue attached to it, where—yeah, you guessed it—the Electric Six were playing. Juli was scared to take pics inside of the Doug Fir Lounge because she is a coward (and I’m not taking pictures because then she’d never learn, you know?), but if you use your imagination, you can see how cool this place is.

Here’s our great room, where we planned on spending a few hours to sleep and recharge before hitting the city.

Here’s our great room, where we ended up spending 24 hours straight while Juli puked her soul into the toilet.

Seriously, the sounds she made were inhuman, so neither of us got any sleep. I ventured out to find ginger ale and Saltines, but other than that, we hung out here.

So that was Portland! Hip, overcast, and nauseous. It did have a great coffee shop, though, w/ the best coffee of the trip, French Press style. It should be obvious from the picture that I have not partaken of said French Press excrement yet.

2006-03-29T07:45:00.000-08:00

EAT SHIT BARK AT THE MOON

After getting roundhoused by Portland, we trucked it straight to Seattle. I knew that we were going to have a good time after seeing my most favoritest “bumper sticker” EVER:

I thought it was so great, I drove the rest of the way with my eyes closed!

Juli kept trying to get a shot of Seattle as we drove in.

She failed miserably.

We stayed with Kale and Hannah, who just moved out to Seattle a month or so ago. They found a place but were jobless, so we knew we had plenty of time to wrap up our trip.

This is Orange Kitty. Kale is totally gay for it.

Seattle in many colors.

The Space Noodle ain’t shit.

Truthfully, we spent most of the time eating.

This is the remains of a Gordito’s burrito. It is so big that I cannot get a good scale shot of it with my hand OR with a quarter. Keep in mind that this is maybe half of what it originally started as. I know it looks like Juli’s Special Portland Souvenirs in the pic, but it tasted incredible. The best part? Gordito’s true specialty is the GRANDE burrito, which is literally twice the size of this one. Seriously—this specimen only uses one tortilla, whereas the GRANDE uses TWO. Just how gordito are you?

When we weren’t eating or drinking fine microbrews, we visited nature. Here is the trail one block from Kale and Hannah’s place.

Hannah in a Hobbit Hiding Hole (with bonus rainbow laser).

The trail leads to Puget Sound, where we frolicked.

We also relaxed.

We also played a little Brokeback Mountain.

This is the place where I need to find gainful employment ASAFP.

Yeah, a local Space Travel shop. It was closed, but you can see all the supplies through the window.

We also saw Bruce Lee’s grave. No Jimi Hendrix this time, but you can only see so many famous dead people.

Then we went and posed for erotic pictures, although only Kale ended up getting painted.

In actuality, Kale and Hannah are drumming and dancing in an Erotic Arts Festival (no worries, their performance is pretty tame), and so we went to a rehearsal. In a trailer. Full of erotic art. Under the interstate. In an earthquake zone.

We also saw a troll under a bridge. It twern't shit.

We tried to go see some live music on Friday, but surprisingly, there wasn’t much to see as it was St. Patty’s. Except for the Electric Six, of course.

We celebrated the last night of our trip as we are wont to do. We are wont to drink much wine, eat much salad, bread, cheese, and maybe some more wine. Good times. It really is a shame that we had to kill them with garrote wire lest they reveal our secret plans to the Enemy.

2006-03-29T07:30:00.000-08:00

HOME

We wrapped up in O-town after something like 6 hours of flying (please cut-and-paste paragraph 3 of Stockton post here), which should read more like “We collapsed in O-town after belly crawling over thumbtacks through 9 levels of Hell whilst being prodded by white-hot pitchforks wrapped in barbed wire and fed sandspur candy with cups of boiling vinegar.”

John and Stephanie bought a house, and the rest of the family came into town to gloat about all the hard work they were going to have to do. It really is a shame that we had to kill them with garrote wire lest they reveal our secret plans to the Enemy.

The next morning, we completed the last leg of our trip back to Gville, but not before stopping at the Dairy Farm (or something like that), where they continually waft human waste at you

but then you get a refreshing shake. A fair trade, although it’s a shame that we had to kill them with garrote wire lest they reveal our secret plans to the Enemy.

THE END.