Halcyon Repose

I have had a few artsy friends, and one friend who is currently going to art school, so I have seen some really good stuff that has impressed me. That being said, it is really rare that someone’s work can blow me away like this guy’s can http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=511688&in_page_id=1770&ito=newsnow.

Juan Francisco Casas has more talent than most people ever dream of having.

It’s about time for a lot of things.

It is about time… I mail off this strange package I have. About 3 months ago, I received the queerest box from Amazon. I had ordered 2 HD-DVD movies, and the box that arrived weighed much more than expected. I opened it up, and to my amazement, the packing materials seemed to be a bunch of photos, letters and postcards. Amidst the mess, I found the two movies I had ordered, but the rest of the contents totally threw me off. I torn open the box at work, and all of my coworkers immediately began trying to figure out what had happened. It was pretty obvious that the pictures were all personal pictures, and there were even letters addressed to an Ali Prosch withing the jumble. I took another look at the box, which was in pretty bad shape, and I realized that I had somehow missed the post office tape on the top of the package that stated the package was received in damaged condition (yeah right). Apparently somewhere in transit, my box busted open, and Alli’s box blew up, and in an attempt to set things right, the postal worker stuffed everything into my Amazon box and taped it right back up.

I did some quick Googling and it turns out that Ali is a fairly well known artist type in the Florida area. Unfortunately my searches turned up no contact information. Since there was one letter posted to her from Feb ’07, that address may still be good. I need to actually write up a letter to poor miss Ali letting her know what happened, and mail the package off to see if it can find it’s way to her.

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It is about time… I finally got a real watch again. I have not worn a watch on my wrist for well over 12 years, not since I got my first beeper. It couldn’t have been more than a few weeks after getting my beeper, when my watch stopped working, or I lost it, or something catastrophic happened. Regardless, I remember that I deciding that since I had purchased a beeper, there was no real rush in finding a watch, and I could look till I found one I actually liked. Well I looked and I looked, and being the picky dresser I am, I never found anything that struck me as worth wearing. After I gave up my beeper, I had a cell phone, and then another cell, and yet another. Eventually I gave up on finding a watch ever. I mean, I would casually look at them in the store, but I never expected to find anything that I would like.

Fast forward to last month. I had lost my wallet, and while it was a total pain getting all my cards replaced, I also realized that I would also have to get a new wallet. I don’t like carrying around a lot of stuff, so I was looking for something small, smaller than what I had previously used. I was at the mall with my friend Jess, who was helping do some shopping with my South Coast Plaza gift card that I received from work. I had mentioned that I needed a wallet, and she suggested we hit up the Fossil store, since they normally have some really nice items. Sure enough, in no time flat, I had found a wallet that I liked, and while she looked for a one for her boyfriend Jeremy, I looked around the store a bit. It was then that I saw a watch that I would actually wear. I avoided breaking down and buying it right then and there, and I shopped around at some outlet malls to see if I could find a better price anywhere. It turns out that particular model was not as common as I hoped, and so a few weeks later I broke down and returned to the Fossil store near home and purchased the watch. I have not regretted it in the slightest.

Since you guys NEVER update your blogs, I will do it for you.

Jaime: Doing well. Still busy with fencing and working. In fact, I have been so busy with both, that I have not had the time to update my blog at all! I know! My friends hardly see me anymore and I just do not have the time to keep up with my blog so they can all know what I have been doing lately. Keyla was so kind enough to post a blog entry for me. Well, that is it for now. I hope you all are doing well!

We didn’t get much rain, but it was enough to clear the air of some of the worst smoke, and hopefully it helped put out some of the remaining fires as well.

Last night Brenden and I held the annual costume party. Attendance was down this year, but everyone still had a good night.

Also I don’t think I have made mention of it yet, but I have upgraded all of my photo galleries. I found a wordpress plug-in that totally rocks my world, and does everything I would have liked. The only feature that is missing is the ability for people to comment on individual pictures, but I don’t know how much use that feature would have gotten anyways. It also has a problem with the thumbnails it generates being in the dead center of the picture cutting off faces from time to time, but other than that it works wonderfully.

So I have spent the day home sick with some crazy fever. Most of the day was spent resting up, but I did manage to a good chunk of the day getting the pictures all finished up from my trips to Yosemite. The first trip being earlier this year for Ed and Frances’s Wedding and the second from my camping trip a few weeks ago.

I also finally took the plunge and created a Facebook account last night. Enough of my friends had sent me invites, I figure it was probably worth it just for the networking aspect of the site. All day today have been continually amazed at how many friends of friends in real life all sent me friend invites once I joined. Almost like they are constantly scouring the site looking for familiar faces. Connections are a good thing.

Heading out to Yosemite National Park tomorrow morning. I paid a visit to the valley earlier in the year for Ed and Frances’s wedding, but I was so sick, I didn’t get a chance to do any hiking. We are going to be there for four days this weekend, so I intend to make sure I get plenty on this trip. To the right is a picture of the main Yosemite waterfall, it is one of the few pictures I managed to take in between the bouts of chills that swept through my body.

Another trip to the House of Blues Anaheim, this time with Amanda in tow. Breaking Benjamin was the first thing I had found that I had in common with her, so it seemed fitting that she should be there with me for the concert.

We arrived at the venue at the doors on time, but apparently the VIPs got to go in first (those people that actually ate there that evening), and they had a line just as long as ours. Of course we did get inside well before the opening act even came on, so we got to spend some time scouting for a good viewing angle down on the pit floor.

The first act was RED, a rock group that hails from Nashville. That of course immediately piqued my curiosity. I never really expect much from the first opening band in a three band show, but I was totally surprised by their performance. The lead singer had a good voice, and the instrumentals where strong. I was really impressed, impressed to the point where I knew I would probably pick up their album after the show. I wish I known about them when I lived in Nashville. I don’t know if I would have been as into them back then (Alternative Rock is a genre I have only gotten into during the last year or so), but I know I would definitely catch any of their shows now.

Next up was Sick Puppies. I must admit, I was not to enthused with the name of the band, and I made mention of that to Amanda. They started off one strike down, and that was just from reading the ticket stub. Things turned around almost immediately when they came out onto stage. A three person band from Australia, and the bassist was a tall Asian girl dressed in a short catholic school girl skirt. What is there not to love? Not only was she cute as all get out, but she could really play her bass. You could tell she was flustered from the onset of the show though, they had her turned up extremely loud, almost to the point of overpowering the rest of the band, and she was not happy about it. There were many points during the show where she gesturing wildly to the off-stage crew to get her levels turned down. Regardless of her feelings, I thought they were fine, I could still hear the lyrics which is what I mostly care about anyways. Once I started looking beyond the cute bassist, I realized that I was REALLY enjoying the band for a lot of other reasons. The lyrics were a bit rough, but in a good sort of way. They weren’t polished like so much of the stuff on the radio, but it didn’t need to be. Just like the Arctic Monkeys, and so many other indie bands, they used their rough edges to craft their music into something that polish doesn’t get you. I think music can gain a great deal from having sharp edges now and again.

I know I have taken this far into a land of metaphors. Let’s just let’s just say I left with their album in my possession as well at the end of the evening, and it has since spent a lot of time on my iPod playlist.

Last up was the headliner, Breaking Benjamin. After the first two acts I was primed for this set. Unfortunately I can’t really say much about it, except that it was everything I wanted to see from the group. They put on a great show, and I didn’t feel like their albums were a misrepresentation in any way. They didn’t stand out in my mind as much as the first two acts, but that is not necessarily a bad thing. At one point in the show, lead singer Ben Burnley performed a cover for Nine Inch Nail’s “Hurt”. Deeply heart felt, Ben’s performance was touching, and stands out in my mind the most about the show.

At the end of the show, Amanda was kind enough to chill while I purchased some CDs for both RED and Sick Puppies. The best thing about picking up a CD from an opening band is that they are there to talk to the fans and sign your new purchases. Sometimes I wish larger bands did the same, but I can understand why they would prefer not to.

OOoo, after hours of looking through the theme database, I finally found a theme I like even better than my previous one. I have already made a few minor tweaks: got rid of the tacky post calendar on the sidebar, changed the dates to be more US friendly (and more readable), and all I really need to do is find a background I like better. I am hoping to find something with a bit more color to brightened up the page, hopefully I can find something that works without tweaking needed for the rest of the page.

If I wanted to totally write up a CSS page, I would have come up with a theme myself.

Update: Oh WoW! This theme has a whole administration page, including an option to set the background. That will make customizing this easier than I expected woot!

I finally took the plunge and upgraded the version of wordpress I was running this site on. I had visions of everything that could go wrong, but thankfully the upgrade was extremely smooth. It did of course default me back to the standard theme for the site, so I did some looking, and found another theme that I liked. It has some issues, and I had to make a few changes immediately, but it has potential.

I have the first of a few concert write-ups completed. I have a few more I need to put up, hopefully that will happen in the next few days.

Update: Since I have changed the theme referred to in this post, I thought I would link the theme originally mentioned for posterity’s sake.

Thanks to the glorious traffic provided to us by the Orange County Fair, we arrived a bit late to this concert. Buckcherry was already halfway through their set, but I did get to hear a number of songs I was looking forward to on the way into the venue. You could tell the band was obviously heavily produced in the studio, either that or the evening’s heat was getting to the lead singer. Album perfect harmonies are never a requirement for me, and I still found the group enjoyable. I would have liked to hear the whole set, but c’est la vie.

Papa Roach came on next, and they totally dominated the arena. The energy the lead singer put off was amazing and soon everyone was up and out of their seats. He is another example of a heavily produced singer, but his raw throaty voice fits the music style. I only recently got into Papa Roach (I picked up the album after buying tickets to the concert), but they mostly played their newer songs, or songs that got a lot of radio play, so I very rarely felt lost. Jacoby seemed a little irked at the restrictions placed on them by the venue, and he swore they would never be playing there again. I can understand the venue’s point of view, it was a part of the fairgrounds and there were many families out and about. In between hitting on all the pretty girls in the audience, Jacoby soon broke every rule he was able, whipping the audience into a frenzy.

Hot on the heels of Papa Roach came Hinder. Hinder’s debut album Extreme Behavior was an album that I had fallen in love with, and I was truly looking forward to this set. The album itself is obviously eye catching, more bands need a red longerie clad beauty on the cover, but I had managed to keep from picking it up from the Target racks for many months. I finally broke down and picked it up in one of my BMG orders, and upon receiving it, I immediately knew this was an album I could get behind. My only complaint, if you can call it that, is the subject matter. Beyond the the opening song, the entire album is composed entirely of break-up themes. Either he was trying to break up with a girl, or he had already broken up and was try to reconcile/move on. It makes for a bit of a depressing, melancholy listen, but a good one none-the-less. The instrumentals balance out the lyrics nicely, and provide for an excellent listening experience.

My first surprise when they came out on stage was how much their lead singer, Austin Winkler, was going for the Steve Tyler look, down to the knotted ribbons on the microphone stand, and singing poses. The atmosphere in the arena definitely fell a notch after they started, and as much as I dig their hard instrumentals, I feel the show was limited by the subject matter. The audience soon found their seats, and stayed there for most of the show, a marked change over the energy from the Papa Roach set. They tried hard to bring up the energy level, but somehow fell short, that is of course, until they performed “Get Stoned” during the encore. Partly because of the edge of the song, partly because it was a well known single, and partly due to the singability of the chorus, the audience rallied up to send off the band in true style. The set was enjoyable, but it was hard to reconcile the band on stage with the impressions I received from the album. If Hinder came back with another band I wanted to see, I would love to catch them again, but I would also be perfectly fine with just supporting them by purchasing and enjoying their albums.

After the show, we were allowed into the fair for free. We obviously used this opportunity to partake of fair food (the food of legends) and meandered through the fair. Not as memorable of an experience as I would have liked, but a fun night overall.