It’s the end of Wednesday and I swear I’ve done a week’s worth of hard work in this first half.  Between making up for my vacation last week and trying to get a little ahead to take the edge off my vacation next week, I’m cramming…

Random and scattered today, be prepared.

Today, I got re-excited about our hike for a whole new reason.  Turns out Ben has a pilot buddy who owes him a favor and is likely going to be in town next Monday.  In recompense, he may be willing to ferry Anthony, Ben, and I to a small airstrip in the Sierras close to our trailhead.  This would be a in six-seater twin-engine job, flying from here down there in a fraction of the time it would take to drive, and, probably more importantly, salvaging my marriage by taking the burden of the eight-hour roundtrip drop-off from Sharaun and Keaton.  I can just imagine packing into a private plane, all geared out for our hike, loading our packs up and taking off into the mountain skies.  I mean, it’s like a whole super-bonus beginning to what stands to be an incredible adventure already.  And, while it’s not 100% confirmed at this point, I would say we’re trending positively (sorry for the sawmill-speak, laymen).  So rad.

Late last night the new New Kids on the new New Kids on the Block album leaked, and today I downloaded it for Sharaun.  Oh man was she happy.  What?  Oh, you didn’t know the New Kids on the Block were back together?  Yeah, they are.  All their songs sound like the last Akon or Chris Brown song you heard on the radio, right down the the thinly veiled sexual lyics and robotic pitch-shifting voice effects ala Cher’s Believe.  But, my wife, whom I love to death, loves this band to death… and has spent ungodly amounts of dosh on concert tickets for their upcoming shows (where, in the apparent fulfillment of one of her lifetime dreams, she’ll actually be going to “meet and greet” the band).  Anyway, we listened to the album most of the evening - it was even our dinnertime soundtrack.  And, let me tell you guys… it’s bad.  Real, real bad.

Today Keaton and I had a teaparty with three of her dolls, Finny, Claudia, and Hannah.  Although, instead of tea we had coffee… and we doctored it with sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg (her idea, I promise).  We had “biscuits” with our tea, which were actually tiny pieces of plastic fruit (go figure).  Sometimes I like to play the big brother role and do things like pretend to spill coffee or “accidentally” knock over one of the babies… maybe you think that’s mean but I enjoy seeing how she reacts to things.  Sometimes her reponses to situations floor me, she’s so mature seeming in some ways (well, for a two and a half year old… or whatever).  Parts of my insides cry when I think how fast she got here though… so I want to enjoy as many teaparties as I can, while I can.

Goodnight people.

Tonight the JMT hike crew got together at my place to make some final arrangements and do our food shopping.  Several hundred dollars and tens of pounds of pack-weight later we were back at the house splitting things four ways.  The hike nears… the hike nears.

I actually don’t have much to write tonight… but I wanted to share something I thought was funny.  By way of introduction, if you’ve read this blog for a while you likely know I’m a music nut.  And, I find a lot of new tunes “online.”  In the course of this process, I occasionally visit one specialized (completely legal and blessed by the RIAA and whatnot) website in particular and, on this website they occasionally run random polls on the frontpage.  The other day, the poll asked, simply, “How old are you?”  Check out the results:

Looks like I’m sqaurely in the minority, huh?  Me and a bunch of college kids.  In some way, that makes me feel a little “tuned in,” and in another way not.  Either way… it makes me feel old.  Don’t old guys like music anymore these days?

Goodnight.

8:30 or so on this week-starting Monday, and work came at me like an avalanche today.  Who knew a week of work sandwiched in between two weeks of vacation would be stressful?  Everything to catch up on, everything to make up time on and get done early.  Ugh.

Sharaun and Keaton are out again, and I’m using every ounce of my internet prowess to once again play gumshoe in search of an old breakbeat mix I had on tape back in highschool.  I’ve written about the mix before here on the blog, and I’ve been searching for it now for something like ten years.  I feel like I made some more progress in recalling some tracks which were featured on it, but try as I might, I can’t seem to find mention of a “common” southern US DJ set featuring them all… I’ll never give up!

OK then.  Another entry about Keaton today… seems to be a theme of late.

Sharaun went to the gym early this morning, somewhere around 5:30am.  She does it a couple times a week when she can, since Keaton’s sleeping and I’m home with her doing the same.  She usually gets back to find me about ready to head out to work and Keaton still down.  This morning though, sometime after she left I stirred in bed to a noise in our room.  Chalking it up to the cat getting into something, I hunkered back down into my fetal position.  Right after that though, I jumped as a sleepy little voice said, “Hi Daddy.  I waked up.”  Opening my eyes, Keaton was there, staring up at me.

Noticing that not much morning light was trying to push its way through the cracks in the blinds, I grabbed the iPhone to see what time it was.  At the same time I reached out and tussled Keaton’s hair with my other hand.  6:03am.  She was standing there with her hair all mooshed and tangly and clutching her babydoll (it was Claudia, I have seriously come to know them by name).  I told her, my voice crackly with the first words of the day, “Keaton, it’s too early to wake up baby.  You have to go back to bed.”  And then, “Do you want to go back to your room and climb back into your big girl bed, or do you want to sleep her with Daddy?”

“I want to sleep with Daddy,” she replied.  “OK,” I said, scooping her and Claudia up alongside me and covering them with the comforter.  I had some doubts I’d get any more sleep, as bringing Keaton into bed with us has never worked in the past.  She ends up wanting to play more than she wants to sleep, and, eventually, she’ll actually ask to go to her crib to get some real sleep if she gets tired enough - she’s never slept a whole night with us in the bed.  But, she actually settled right down and I started to drift off.

Sometime later, I was roused as by a tiny hand settling over my mouth and Keaton saying, “Don’t snore Daddy.”  I chuckled, and didn’t move her hand as I tried to get back to sleep.  Over the next fifty minutes or so, she put her hand over my mouth (and one time a little bit over my nose too) and implored me not to snore twice more.  I thought it was the cutest thing, and secretly hoped Sharaun would come home and see us asleep there, Keaton cuddled into my armpit with her hand over my mouth - and sneak a picture so I could see what we looked like.

But, by the time Sharaun got home my alarm had gone off and I’d gone back to take a shower while leaving Keaton to watch a new Backyardigans with some juice and graham crackers (a Dad-style pre-breakfast snack, I suppose).  Owell.

G’nite.

Monday and I did nothing  — it was great.

Well, not nothing.  I finished fixing the sprinklers in the backyard (requiring another trip to the Home Depot) and put up the speakers stands I’d had down since we painted in here.  I also went out and picked up an ice cream cake for Sharaun’s birthday (which is today).

I got Keaton her own card to give her Mom, and we locked ourselves up in the bedroom with a box of crayons so she could decorate it and make it personal.  Was another low-key vacation day (it’s how her folks tend to “vacate,” and I can’t say I have anything in the world against it), and a low-key birthday for Sharaun too.  Enjoyable.

Friday, as I was about to leave work, a buddy sent me a mail about a new free application for the iPhone that he thought I might dig.  Called Simplify Media, it’s a program that you run on your “main” PC at home (or wherever) and on your iPhone.  The part that stays resident on your home machine talks to your home-based or main music collection and streams it to your iPhone.  That may sound trivial, but what it actually means is something else altogether: Size doesn’t matter.  I mean, guys… with this free application, I can seamlessly access and listen to my entire ~250GB music collection from my iPhone - even though it “lives” on a machine in our closet at home.

Anywhere I have internet, I have my entire music collection in my pocket.  All this time, I’ve been waiting for a bigger capacity iPod… and I never thought that all I really needed was connectivity.  Brilliant.  What’s even cooler?  You can share your library, let other people access it.  So, if you’ve got an iPhone, you’ve also got my ~250GB of music.  Honestly, this is just the beginning of the eventual… a future when you’ll have access to any piece of music, anytime, anywhere…

Folks around here seem to have the sniffles… Keaton and Sharaun’s mom both, and now I’ve got that telling tickle at the back of my throat that says something’s up with my sinuses.  Hoping this quasi-vacation doesn’t get stolen away by a cold.  Wish it with me folks: Let me not be sick; let me not be sick; let me not be sick.

That’s it, that’s all I’ve got.  I offer my apologies.

Closing in on 7pm Sunday and I’m about to sit Keaton down a for a late dinner (it’s OK, we shared some chips and guacamole after we woke from our naps a little earlier).

Today was an extremely lazy day, with the entirety of our post church activities being an Olympics-in-the-background nap. I broke down last week and hired an acquaintance who does landscaping to send a crew out and fix-up the slope above the retaining wall, adding some circular stone planters and new greenery - so they toiled out there under the sun while I napped inside… which made me feel a bit guilty. I mean, it’s not like I’m some rich landowner or anything… so sleeping while I pay folks to do labor that’s rightfully mine is kinda much even for me. But, the yard looks nice - and just in time for Sharaun’s parents to get into town next weekend.

Moving on…

Remember a loooong time ago when I wrote about Keaton’s “first song?” And then, a few times after that, I’ve written about how she has been able to sing along with it now for a while. In fact, she sings a lot now, and the number of songs she remembers the words to constantly impresses me. Tonight, after we all got done eating dinner, she started serenading Sharaun and I and we decided to get it on tape. After one unaccompanied run-through, I put the real song on the computer nearby and asked her to sing along with Paul. I liked it so much I wanted to share. Here, then, is Keaton singing along with the Beatles (well, Paul, at least - it was the turbulent White Album era) to the song I Will:

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I dunno about you, but I loved that.

Well then… I suppose it’s time to give up the bloggin’ for tonight. Monday tomorrow and, since I’m taking some time off next week while the parents-in-law are here - it’s a happy Monday (I just get excited the week before I know I get to vacate).

Goodnight folks, love you all.

Hi from Wednesday night.  Sitting here playing with an iPhone… yeah, I know I said I wasn’t going to jump on that wave, but when the sawmill finances it - it’s hard to deny.  So, on the bandwagon I climb…

Right now the iPod shuffled up “Morning Bell” from Radiohead’s brilliant Kid A album. I think I’ve written about it before, but this album brings back such strong memories for me. It dropped shortly after I started working here at my current job, when I was still the new guy and no one know what I should be doing. I can remember spending what seemed like interminable days simply browsing the internet, listening to CDs, writing, having absolutely no clue what I was supposed to be working on, and feeling guilty about it to boot. In fact, and I’m almost certain I’ve written this before, I can recall vividly standing in the bathroom after work one day staring at myself in the mirror, angry and ashamed for essentially stealing money from the sawmill.

I used my time as best I could: Spending it online researching various things, letting the web lead me from one topic of interest to the next. During those long months of being corporate flotsam, I became fascinated with alchemy (both the “let’s make gold from rocks” kind and the more metaphysical Jungian kind), brushed up on my knowledge of serial killers (no real explanation there), and did a good bit of “spiritual” research (I dunno, a phase, at the time). I listened to a lot of music, I wrote a lot, and I wondered what the hell this “career” I’d chosen was ultimately going to end up being. Looking back now, I can understand how things like that happen - and realize that those pointless months in the grand scheme of an operation as large as this really mean next to nothing. So I skated along under the radar, they’ve got me in a reverse-naked now and are wringing me for every dollar. Honestly, I prefer the crunch…

Anyway, just hearing this album reminds me of those days instantly. The environment then was so lonely. I sat isolated from most of the “team” I was supposed to contribute to, and I had bounced back and forth between no less than three managers (always a bad thing for someone knowing what the heck you do). The people who did sit next to me were in roughly the same boat, but I didn’t really hit it off with either of them - and wasn’t that interested in developing non-working relationships with them. I still think back to the time when I finally got transferred under a good manager with a team that was executing. From there it was a simple connect-the-dots to meeting the friend-base I have now.  Time, time, time… I suppose.

And, that, is what I have to say tonight.

Sunday afternoon and we’re back from a great weekend away.

Up the hills, across the bridge, and down the bumpy road we went.  We sidled up to the river and stayed a couple nights, staving off the heat of the day by playing in frigid waters and moving camp chairs with the shade.  Anyway, we’re back and unpacked and the dirt’s all down the drain with our bathwater.  Sharaun headed out with her friends for a nail appointment, Keaton’s napping, and I’m sitting here watching The Magnificent Seven on this humongous TV we recently got.  And even though it, like most of the things I tend to like watching, isn’t anything near HD (what do you expect for 1960?), it really seems somehow dustier and grittier and gunfightier.

I’m gonna talk a little bit about music, hope that’s OK.

Those of you who know me likely know that I am, in general terms, not a fan of country music.  Then again, those of you who know me a little better may know that I am a fan of some “roots” type country music like bluegrass and the early 19th century country-blues of the American South.  It’s just the “modern” country that I don’t like.  And, before you country people get all on my case - I’m not even talking about the whole “crossover country” thing that’s been going down now for ten or fifteen years; I’m talking about “traditional modern” country (I know, it’s an oxymoron, but it’s what I mean).  Anyway, I’ve always known that a lot of older “roots” country represents a large black hole in what I know about the evolution of music - I’ve just never tried to dive-in and figure it all out.  But, that changed a while back.

Sharaun and I were invited over to dinner with friends, and while we were there they were playing the “classic” country channel on Sirius.  Now, I’d always known I have some sort of affinity for rootsy, early-sounding “hillbilly folk” or “honky tonk” type stuff, as evidenced by the immediate shine I took to albums like John Prine’s self-titled debut and nearly everything Gram Parsons and the Flying Burrito Brothers did during the roots-country rennaisance of the late 60s and early 70s.  But, that night nearly every single track that beamed down from the satellite radio seemed like a gem.  The rough nature of the tunes reminded me of the same reasons I adore things like Robert Johnson’s scant recorded history, or things like John Fahey’s Blind Joe Death: in them you can hear the embryonic sounds of decades of music yet to come.  After enjoying the soundtrack to our evening so much that night, I decided I’d spend some time questing for a good “classic country” primer.

The problem is, to make a decent and somewhat complete introduction to the birth of country music is not an easy task.  At first I began looking for some sort of compilation, maybe Rhino Records has done something, maybe some budget-bin put-togethers that managed to put a bunch of old songs together on disc when their copyrights lapsed or something.  Turns out, though, that the history of country music is a huuuuge beast, with twists and turns and reels and reels of music.  I tried reading threads on hardcore country music message boards for tips on good catch-all comps, I browsed through Usenet groups looking for homemade lists of essential classic country, I searched the internet far and wide - and couldn’t find much.

At first, I had decided to try and make my own collection.  I would download the best-ofs from luminaries like Cash, Lefty, Hank, Willie, Mel, Autry, etc. and just cobble together my own thing.  And, that’s how I started, just grabbing (and by “grabbing” I mean exchanging cash-money for) all sort of stuff.

I didn’t get far, however, when I happened upon a description of a twenty-CD collection called The History of Country and Western. This enormous compilation spans the years from 1927 to 1951, and was put together by a German label (go figure).  After looking over the tracklist, I decided this was the holy grail compilation I’d been looking for.  Sure, there’d still be stuff stretching into the early to mid 60s I’d need (to complete my strange “bookmark” years of when I figure the music was “pure” and not the twangy lost-love crap it turned into), but this thing would give my collection a huge jumpstart.

And boy, I was right.  This is an excellent compilation.  I mean, there’s nary a bum groove on this thing.  OK so it’s nowhere near something everyone’s gonna get into, but it’s one awesome historical document of the birth of a genre.  I sat spellbound listening to them on my first run-through, which was unfortunately brief (I plan on hitting the thing hard tomorrow at work), each track a little piece of music revelation previously unknown to me.  Seriously, I recommend it to anyone.  The best part about it is that it’s dirt-freakin’ cheap.  Amazon carries it if you want to get one for yourself.  Again, it’s got the nod of my hat.

So… somehow, I’ve gotten into country (please don’t misquote me on that, and no Sugarland albums for Christmas please, I will throw up).  Makes me happy, really, because I know there are so many more rocks out there unturned - so much good music I’ve still yet to hear.  I mean, what’s next?  Reggea?  Disco?  Standards?  No, no, and no, most likely… but still, I love hearing new stuff.

Anyway, I’m about done now… that thing kinda took off and spawned more paragraphs than I figured it would.  So, I’m gonna go enjoy the rest of my Sunday evening, maybe throw together some leftover Smores ingredients with a bowl of vanilla ice cream or something… who knows.

Goodnight y’all.