“88 Years and one mountain”

The first time I thought about climbing Mount Rainier was after I moved to Seattle in 2000. A recent divorcee, I wanted to start over a lot of things in my life. I was getting into shape again through running and was working towards a goal of running a half marathon and maybe eventually a full marathon.

A Dream of a Machine

My friend/enemy for the last 21+ years.

Dear Sony Corporation:

Yaaaawwwwwnnnn.

I’m not one to write “love letters” to corporations but I have to say that you got it right with one of your products.  I’m writing thank you for 20 years of “getting it right” for me on a daily basis.

“Celebrate good times, c’mon!” or “Love letter to the goons”

I just joined a Facebook fan group devoted to the one and only professional sports team that I still love without reservation, the Minnesota North Stars.

Personal Music Timelines

After talking with a friend and a Fernsehturm commenter this week about how we have changed our tastes in music over the years, I thought it would be a good topic for a blog post.

Famous musicians are always asked in interviews about the first album they owned was who were their musical influences. I’m no musician but I would consider music my main hobby since I was kid through listening, reading or talking about it.

The “WTF” album

Thanks for all of the comments on my previous post about your perfect albums. I will have to give a first listen to some of them!

Now, on the same theme of the bemoaning the death of the album, I want to talk about a type of album that’s not necessarily the opposite of the perfection but close.

First, I want to think of artists/bands that you like and have followed throughout their career. Their career should be long enough that they have a few (more than 3) albums under their belt.

Axis of Justice Tour 2009 in Seattle

I just came back from Tom Morello’s Justice Tour show at the Croc in Seattle. Guests included Wayne Kramer from MC5, Steve Earle, and 3/4 of Soundgarden: Kim Thayil, Matt Cameron and Ben Shepard.

The Perfect Album

Perfection is a state of being so hard to come by in any form. But, with music you can find it especially if you make your own rules about what musical perfection is.

Since the record album’s demise as a legitimate unit of music has been long talked about or simply declared dead because of the rise of iTunes and digital music,  I thought it would be a good time to reflect. In other words, since we’ll not likely see another surge in album popularity, it’s time to take stock in what we had.

Facebook after 4 years

“You don’t know about Facebook?”

This was the refrain from my classmates in my first graduate level communications class in the fall of 2005. It’s true, I had heard of MySpace but Facebook had yet to make its way to to me. At the time it was a social networking site for only students or those with an” .edu” address. I joined immediately and found only my cousin in Texas was on Facebook from my address book. Four years and 150 friends later, it’s an everyday event for me. Besides the normal crowd of local friends I have found a bunch of high school classmates that I haven’t talked to in 15-20 years. Most of these people I barely knew then and I’ve exchanged FB messages with only a few of them who I actually want to stay in touch with. The others just seem interested in increasing their friend numbers. I’m guilty of it, too. I just wanted to get “inside” some of their facebook pages to find out if they still lived in the hometown or got divorced or some other gossipy detail. Recently, I dumped about 20 of them. Only a coupole actually figured it out and requested to become friends again but I ignored them. I feel pretty good aobut it. I only so much time and energy.

Bacon Explosion

I give you Bacon Explosion.

Bacon is the man’s chocolate.

I wouldn’t let Ken Jacobsen WALK my dog

I live in the 46th legislative district in the state of Washington and we have a total crackpot for a senator. Senator Ken Jacobsen just announced a bill that would allow humans to be buried with their animals. Check the Seattle Times article here.

For the record, I have an 11 year old Black lab mutt named R.I.C.O. and I will miss him dearly when he dies. I’ve joked with friends that I’ll likely have to be on suicide watch because he’s been with me through thick and thin since 1997. With that said, I will give him a proper sendoff when the inevitable happens. I don’t want to be interned with him.

Also, in this year of economic downturn, Senator Jacobsen says this bill will not cost any money since it is a law that will affect private behavior. Except, of course, for all of the hours wasted in committees and so forth to consider such a dumb bill.

How about in this year of economic challenges, why don’t you not introduce bills that make you look like a jackass and make your constituents like me cringe.

My wife is encouraging me to run for the senate in my district to get this kook out of Olympia. My slogan could be “The Ken Who Isn’t a Krackpot” or something else appropriately stupid.