Category: Random Things

Sister’s wedding pigroast. :)

This last weekend was my sister’s Michigan wedding reception. What a great time! A huge pig was roasted. At least 150 showed up at the park across the street from my parents’. Much beer was drunk. I saw friends and relatives who I hadn’t seen in years…including my Wyoming grandparents who I hadn’t seen since I was 15 or so. (and that was 15 years ago…e-gad!)

We also managed to do other things including: met Margaret’s friend in Ann Arbor and had lunch (very nice); drove around Ann Arbor and remembered how nice it is there in the summer; visited with David, Kelly, Lydia (lil’ over one year old) and Colin (turns 5 next week). Lydia’s adorable and says “Hi!” every five seconds right now.

what’s up with Sac-town?

We had a meeting in San Francisco last week, then spent the weekend in Sacramento (aka Sacatomatos). Nice town. Quiet. Not even close to Austin in hussel-bussel-ness(sp?). But, that could be ok. It makes lots of sense for us to be in California. Sac is the perfect place to live for cool short road trips. There are great old neighborhoods that remind me of the mid-west…maybe some Chicago hoods. I’m thinking they probably have tons of Karaoke contests in Reno. I’ve got to do that some time. Sac seems like the kind of place where we could be hotshots without devoting our lives to being hot shots…where we could invent our own scene and maybe get some attention (which is really what it’s about for me). I’d like to start a bowling alley. Ask me again in 5 years.

Kathy’s Wedding, Cali, and recording

Just got back from another trip. This time to Vegas for my sister’s wedding (on June 30). Kathy and Jay got married at the Tropicana. It was great to see everyone there. The wedding was a quick vegas-style thing (but planned well in advance). The reception was excellent, with a very bad elvis impersonator (turns out he wasn’t really an elvis impersonator, they just asked the DJ if he’d wear the costume and he agreed.) Karaoke. (karatee okie, or what do you call it….just saw ‘Duets’, that’s what the Karaoke hustler–played by Huey Lewis–calls it.) Margaret and I kicked out the jams.
Oh, two weeks prior to the wedding, my brother came to visit and Margaret went to L.A. to visit the new Nephew. David and I rented a guitar and recorded some songs. see the Gunrack stuff or check out the 180 Gs!. Having David out here was an excellent time. I don’t get near enough of a chance to hang out with him as I’d like.
Back to last weekend….After Vegas, we flew to Portland, OR and visited Ken and Meg and Emily. Ken made fab ribs (and lots too). Then we went to their beach house in Lincoln City where I apparently became a legend at the Karaoke bar (are you seeing a pattern…my next career), I blew up lots of fireworks, we started a fire on the beach on July 4th (despite the 35 mph wind and cold weather) and I had a great time. I love small beach towns and Lincoln city is a fine one. We’ll be returning there.
This Thursday we travel to California again to train a client and to spend some time in Sacramento to see if we really like it. I’m keeping my fingers crossed, because I don’t know how much more texas I can stand.

Sacramento looks nice.

We went to San Francisco last week for business and to visit family. We spent quite a bit of time with Elizabeth and Paul. I’m glad we did. We’re seriously thinking about moving back to California. Probably not the Bay Area, though. Sacramento looks nice. I’ve never been there, but it looks nice: affordable, no earthquakes, cexercise/>lose enough to both the ocean and the mountains, has an airport, is on I-80, Amtrack, capital…hmm. Something to think about. We got back to Austin and there had been a very big storm while we were out that split one of our trees down the middle. We have to get half of this tree cut down now. sigh. We paid more for our house because of the trees, but we’ve spent a buttload of money chopping them down every time they threaten to fall on the house. What’s the point??

New York mistakes

New York was good. Today, though, I’ll catalog the mistakes we made.
1. We flew into Islip (on Long Island) because Southwest flies there, and we got the $99 fare. This wouldn’t have been a big mistake if we had gotten in a little sooner, so we didn’t feel like we were in a rush, and so we could have taken the train into Manhattan. Unfortunately, we were in a hurry and we paid $150 for a two hour cab ride during rush hour. We later found out that the train was $6.50 (plus a $20 shuttle to the train station) and it only took an hour and a half.
2. I made Margaret order the “National Dish of Brazil” which consists of smokey black beans and black, boiled meat. We’re not sure that there is any good food in Manhattan. We haven ‘t managed to find any yet, anyway. If you know differently, you can take us out next time were in town.

I think these are really the only two mistakes. The good points of our trip were:

1. The Paramount hotel, on W. 46th (about two blocks west of Broadway) is excellent, and cheap compared to the other hotels in the neighborhood. Small rooms, but very stylish….retro-cool sort of thing. Amazing furniture in the lobby. Go there even if you’re staying somewhere else.
2. We had good meetings and fully justified making the whole trip tax deductable.
3. The Metropolitan Museum of Art rocks.
4. We saw a taping of Late Night with Conan O’Brien. He’s not very funny, but it was a good pre-dinner thing to do. Vince has a friend who is a writer with the show, so we got tickets and a little bit of special treatment.

going to NY, movie-making, and recording

I’m working on a new Gunrack album. The new one will be very different from the original recordings. Much more mature….but still immature. One of the tracks, Bucket Head, has already been recorded and is posted at Mp3.com. Expect it the full album to be released sometime this summer.
Also, Margaret and I have a camera checked out of ACAC for the weekend of May 12, and we’re hoping to shoot enough footage for at least a couple cable shows. Stay tuned for an update on that too.

We’re going to NYC this week to meet with clients and go to the transformmag.com party. Vince has a friend who is a writer for Conan O’Brien, and he got us tickets to the show. So, we’ll be doing that too. That’s all for now. Peace and we outta here.

tassels of love

I had a dream where I was watching a band that consisted of a woman standing up and playing drums while singing, and another woman who just stood at the front of the stage and danced. They had several songs, but the one I remember was called “Tassles of Love”. I could sing the chorus to you right now, but I won’t. I will write out the lyrics, though, in case you want to use them on your next album.

Tassles of Love

Chorus:
See that woman there, over in the shadow.
She knows what it’s like. She’s standing in the tassles of Love.
The tassles of love. mmm mmm. The tassles of love.

Big easy

now for the latest news. We went to New Orleans over the weekend to meet up and hang out with Margaret’s Mom and sister. This was our first visit to the state of Lousianna…check one more off the list. My impressions of New Orleans are as follows: the french quarter night life could give a person (especially a married wierdo like me) a big headache. The food is very good, but you wouldn’t want to eat it very often. The buildings are interesting, and the city has a very foreign country feel to it, except for it’s also very american. The cemetaries look fascinating, and I’d like to check those out more on the next visit.
Regarding the whole swamp business…I understand that the location had strategic value in days of old, but they really should start moving people to somewhere else before global warming goes much further or their going to have some serious troubles. We took a swamp tour. Saw many alligators and held a baby one.