i love this

i love this: katie herzig

 

Yep, it is about time for me to get out of my funk. And it is time for you too, if you have been in one of course, otherwise, carry on with your lucky self.

 

But seriously, the fog and gloominess of Sacramento has lifted and for that I could not be happier. Oh, and the daylight savings thing helps a wee bit too.  I mean is there really anyone out there that hates getting off work in the evening to have the sun still shining? Anyone . . . anyone . . . I thought so.

 

So to kick off the new season and, hopefully, more consistent posting on my part, I would like to share with you a song that is a complete 180 degree turn away from any music that I have posted in the past. Sometimes even I crave a dose of song candy.

 

This song, Hey Na Na, by Katie Herzig, is playful and fun. It is the perfect song for turning up and dancing around the apartment like a teenage girl um, an adult.

 

Enjoy!

 

 

the post-it

I am big fan of the post-it note. In fact, the day after I placed this post-it on my television screen, a co-worker made a comment while in my office about all of the post-its I have stuck to everything that will hold one. My shelves, my desk, my computer screen, papers, and so on. Most of my post-its are work related, but when I hear a song on the radio that I like and I want to remember the artist, I put it on a post-it. When I am at work and I remember that I need to go to the grocery store for something on my way home, I put it on a post-it. They are multipurpose, you can use one as a coaster for your faulty to-go cup or you can use one to make a tiny paper airplane.

 

You get the point, the post-it is like the baking soda of paper products. Thus, I am currently employing this post-it as a low-tech bad habit breaker.

 

Somehow January came and went and I just wasn't paying attention. Instead, I was busy logging some serious hours slouched down in my couch in front of my monstrosity, and doing nothing else. Yes, that is my nickname for my t.v. because seriously, there is such a thing as a t.v. that is too big and I can tell you that it is the one sitting in my apartment. My t.v. is a faux flat screen, it looks like a fancy schmancy flat screen from the front, but don’t dare take a look at its profile because damn, that thing has some junk in the trunk. When I go, it will stay; these are the terms of our relationship.

 

Excessive t.v. watching has always made me anxious so it is no surprise that it has come down to the post-it. I don't want to watch t.v. when I get home from work but I lack the motivation to do anything else. I make great plans but lack much follow through. I know that I am not alone on this one and the universal default is to turn that sucker on and not look back until, crap, it is time to go to bed and I was suppose to do the laundry, the dishes, and write those thank you notes, and well, maybe tomorrow. Or not.

 

I will blame my month long t.v. binge on sun deprivation and too much rain, but now that the weather has started to get better I still come home after work and the t.v. seems to beckon me with shows that I have started to "invest" time in. I am not so happy about this and my lower back is not so happy about it either (too . . .much . . . slouching!).

 

I read somewhere that it takes three weeks to start a new habit, or to break a bad habit depending on how you look at it.  Therefore, I have recruited the post-it note to assist me with this challenge. If this works, I can just imagine what my apartment would look like if I applied this method to all the other areas of my life where I have some room for improvement.

 

i love this music: greg laswell

Happy New Year!!! Happy year 0-10 (pronounced o, like the letter, and then 10)!!  Say it a couple times out loud, it is kind of catchy right? Yes? No? I think so. I stole this from my trusty friend Chad and I am going to make it stick damn it!

No? . . . Okay, moving on . . .

 

To start the new year off right I wanted to share my new favorite singer-songwriter Greg Laswell with you all. I believe this first song, What A Day, is a great song to start the new year with. It starts off true to the heart hurting genre that I love so dearly but it also has an optimistic twist to it towards the end. Take a listen.

 

 

(If you are not familiar with Paste Magazine by the way, I highly recommend it)

But the song that I really love is off of his new Covers EP. I will first say that I generally dislike most cover songs. I like the concept of a good cover song, but find that they usually just don’t deliver in the end. When I heard Laswell’s cover of Mazzy Star’s Take Everything however, I had to admit that sometimes a cover song can be . . . gasp . . . as good as the original. Maybe, and I am just saying maybe here, it may even be better than the original. Unfortunately, I don't have a good audio link for it but I still recommend you check it out on itunes or something.

Here is to a 2010 full of optimistic twists! Cheers!

i love this music: ahn trio

Oh the holidays, they have a way of sucking the life force out of you don’t they? I hope you all have recovered from Thanksgiving by now. But alas, Christmas is right around the corner.

 

One thing that is convenient about the holidays, however, is that they give me a chance to dig through my storage unit back home and rummage around for things that I have saved but haven’t touched in years. My interest in various hobbies tends to be cyclical, so when a hobby takes a back seat to something that seems more exciting or glamorous at the time, I simply put all of the related equipment or tools back into my storage unit and wait for the interest to resurface again. When it does, I make sure that I make a trip to my storage unit the next time I am visiting my family. I also beg various family members to do it for me when I know they might be coming up my way.

 

My recycled hobby of late happens to be playing piano and listening to classical music. So for a little inspiration I have been listening to Ahn Trio. Ahn Trio consists of three Korea born, Juilliard trained sisters that play the piano, violin, and cello. This may sound silly, but part of what I like about them is that they make classical music seem cool; this is not your grandma's classical music.

 

As their myspace page states, their music is classical/alternative/experimental. Their official website is one of the best designed websites I have ever seen (see link above), they are young and hip, they collaborate with other young and hip musicians, and lets not forget, they are uber talented. Below is video of Ahn Trio performing Michael Nyman’s "Heart Asks Pleasure First" from the film The Piano. The quality of the video is not fabulous, but you will get the idea.

 

Awesome right? Um . . . I feel like I should probably go practice awkwardly try to eek out pieces of music on an old keyboard now.

trying to love my new city: sacramento

I am trying, I really am. But I miss my old city very much. San Diego was sunny days and blue skies-it was classic California. It was comfortable and relaxed like sporting a cool pair of shades and drinking a beer outside on the patio. San Diego was home.

 

Sacramento, on the other hand, is more suits and state workers, bus rides and budgets. Sacramento is not so much a destination but rather a jumping off point. So, in an effort to open my heart to my new locale, a friend and I jumped off to Apple Hill in Placerville last weekend to get our fall season fix. While San Diego residents have Julian for all things apple this time of year, Sacramento residents have Apple Hill.

 

 

Apple Hill did not disappoint. We came away with, either in our shopping bags or just in our tummies, apple pie, apple butter, apple-walnut chicken salad, apple donuts, and apple cider. To our surprise, the apple donuts were actually our favorite apple food of the day. The fall colors were also amazing. We even got up close and personal with some Christmas trees just to get us psyched for the quickly approaching holidays.

 

 

(photos by i love this)

 

she makes you wanna tri

Anyone that still doubts whether women are as physically capable as men has never heard of Chrissie Wellington. Last month, Wellington won the Ironman World Championships in Kona, Hawaii for the third consecutive year. Not only did she win, but she also broke the women’s overall course record with a finishing time of 8 hours and 54:02 minutes. The record had been in place for the last 17 years.

 

So let me break that down for you. That means she swam 2.4 miles in 54:31, then biked 112 miles in 4:52:07, and then managed to run a full marathon in 3:03:06. In other words, in a little over the 8-ish hours that I will be hunched over my computer tomorrow at work (and probably snacking on leftover Halloween candy to stay awake) she can complete a full Ironman.*

 

After reading stats like that I can’t help but laugh at how I am feeling kind of sore from the 6-miler I ran this morning. Pain? I can’t begin to know what pain really is. And isn’t that swell, now I am feeling guilty about tomorrow’s fun size Kit-Kat bar and I haven’t even eaten it yet.

 

But seriously, Wellington is a pro. She trains 7 days a week for 4-6 hours a day. This is basically her job. But how cool is that? What is even more amazing is that Wellington has only been competing in triathlons since 2004; when she won the World Championships for the first time in 2007 a lot of people did not even know who she was yet.

 

As some of you know, I really want to train for and complete a triathlon. Since swimming, biking, and running is not in my current job description, however, my pie-in-the-sky goal is to finish a half Ironman (yep, I just want to finish). I know, I know, “just do it already!” is what I am sure some of you are probably thinking. I understand; I know I have managed to waste these precious last months of my twenties complaining about how horrible a swimmer I am but not doing much about it. To that all I can say is . . .  alright alright! But baby steps people! I am going to start with a sprint distance race in the spring and go from there. It might take me a couple years but I will get there. I guess I better get my butt in the pool!

   

*As for the men, Craig Alexander did not do so bad himself. He won his second consecutive Ironman World Championship with a finishing time of 8:20:21.

krakauer nostalgia

In recognition of Jon Krakauer’s new book, Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman, Outside magazine is showcasing some of the articles Krakauer has penned for the magazine over the years. Mark Foo’s Last Ride, published in the May 1995 issue was my first introduction to Krakauer.

 

Krakauer’s article gave a captivating account of the evolution of big-wave surfing and told the tragic story of the death of Mark Foo, one of big-wave surfing’s finest. Mark Foo had died the previous year while surfing Mavericks, the infamous big-wave surfing locale north of Half Moon Bay.

 

I didn’t surf back then, and I don’t now. But Krakauer’s article and the magazine as a whole opened my eyes to the world of adventure sports and the idea of pushing the limits. Even though the death of Mark Foo, or the more recent Shane McConkey, serve as a reality check that even those at the forefront of their sports are not invincible, their stories are still inspiring. For the rest of us regular folk, like myself who perhaps have chosen sports that score much lower on the risk scale, their stories still help us run a little harder, ride a little farther, and climb a little higher. 

 

 

*As an unrelated side note, last month's issue of Outside had this hilarious one-page article about why a guy should never let his girlfriend go on a trip overseas alone. Check out Never, Ever Let Her Go.

i love this music : bon iver

I listen to all types of music, but the music I return to the most is of the heart-hurting variety. And the music of Bon Iver is some of the best of this kind.

 

Here is a bit of back story about Bon Iver. Guy’s band breaks up, said guy-Justin Vernon-skips town to “hibernate” in a cabin for three months, in Wisconsin, during the winter, alone. Although for some this could have been a slippery slope towards becoming a creepy shut-in, the end to this story is strangely romantic in a bohemian kind of way.

 

In addition to doing Wisconsin winter type things like riding a tractor and chopping firewood, Vernon ended up spending much of his time at the cabin recording music using some old equipment and a few microphones. For Emma, Forever Ago is the nine-track album that resulted.

 

The song below, Lump Sum, is one of my favorites.

So I am hooked, and I have been for several months now. I can't seem to shake the Bon Iver blues. But these blues just seem to fit me, so I don't mind so much.

For an extra dose of heartache, I also recommend Skinny Love, or Blood Bank off of the newest EP, both of which can be found here.

Also, Bon Iver and St. Vincent’s collaboration on Roslyn off the New Moon soundtrack is pretty good too.

sand animation with a side of . . . Metallica?

Although my job requires me to spend copious amounts of time glued to the computer screen, I would consider myself somewhat behind the technological times. For example, I don’t have a Twitter account. And here is why: I have a difficult time convincing myself that anyone cares that I had a turkey sandwich for lunch today (like I do almost everyday) or that I sat across from a homeless man on the bus this morning who clearly had peed his pants sometime in the previous 24 hours. Since I am not a celebrity that is constantly having to publicly deny vicious and scandalous rumors day after day, my morning commute and my daily food consumption is about as good as it would get.  In fact, I see it as a community service to not have a Twitter account. (But then again, here I am telling you about it anyway-oops!)

 

Anyway, my real point to all of this is that I wanted to share this video of the winner of Ukraine’s Got Talent, Kseniya Simonova, and her sand animation. Many of you have probably already seen this since I am a wee bit less connected than some, but I think this is simply incredible. If you have not seen it please check it out. A friend of mine, we will call him Chad, sent this to me in early September and I was blown away. You can even see one of the judges and some of the audience members crying towards the end.

 

For me, this video just goes to show that if you think that there are no original ideas left, or that all artistic mediums have been exhausted or explored to their full potential, you are probably wrong. When most of us think of art we think of the traditional arts such as painting or sculpture. Heck, even photography has fought hard to gain respect in the art world. But would you look at this video and say that what she is doing is not art? I sure would not say that at all.

 

So if you are a struggling artist, don’t be so hard on yourself. Throw out your preconceived notions about what “art” is or should be and just get to it!

 

In this video Simonova is interpreting the invasion and occupation of her country from 1941-1945.

 

And if you listen carefully, you may recognize what I believe to be a familiar classical version of a Metallica song. I think the version above is the Apocalyptica version. (bet you didn't think you would get a dose of heavy metal rock band trivia today did you?)

boys that build bikes

(photo by benji wagner)

Much to my mother’s chagrin I have a thing for boys with tattoos. But my mother is precisely to blame for my thing for boys on bikes (bicycles that is). So it is only natural that I swooned when I picked up the October/November issue of ReadyMade and read the article about the boys that build bikes in Portland, Oregon. The tattooed one you see above is Jordan Hufnagel, of Hufnagel Cycles.

 

And in all fairness, they are actually men; I just like how “boys that build bikes” sounds when I say it.   

 

I am a runner at heart, but I have had several bicycling phases in my life. There were several years of my youth, circa mid-to- late 1990s, which I shall call the mountain bike years. My mother, a cyclist in her own right, took me along to watch several mountain bike races. My favorite was the Sea Otter Classic in Monterey, CA. We would watch the pros race, pick up all the swag, and I would get my butt kicked on the “family ride” they held for the rest of us wannabes.

 

But keep in mind I was a teenager at this time, and I was on vacation with . . . well . . . my mother.  So what made it tolerable was that male mountain bikers are often kind of hot. And it was our little secret. After all, I am not sure what my friends did on their family vacations but I do know that it was not nearly as cool as what we were doing. That was precisely when I fell in love with boys on bikes. See, I told you it was my mother’s fault.

 

Ten plus years have passed since my days at the races; and after a road bike phase in my early twenties I have not spent much time on the bike at all. Having recently moved to a new city with a noticeable bike culture I stopped into a local bike shop to see how much it would cost to get my nice but neglected bike tuned up. A later phone call to my mother went something like this, “I went to the bike shop today . . . I had forgotten how hot bike guys were.” 

 

So forget about getting my bike tuned up; after reading the article in ReadyMade I am convinced that I should just get a new one. I'd like a Tiffany's 650b Rando please. In olive green, if possible. You know, my birthday is coming up . . . and I will be turning 30 . . .and turning 30 is a big deal . . .it is the kind of birthday that warrants a shiny, new, customized bicycle. Anyone else convinced?