Music in 07

At this time of year every music magazine, blog, tv show, website puts up a list of the 10, 50, 100 best albums of the year. They're pretty easy to find. You can agree with the lists or disagree (they are usually pretty similar). I think it's a matter of opinion and personal preference, if you happen to think Kevin Federline's contribution is the best then that is your right (I know KFed's cd came out in 2006 but I couldn't think of such an undisputed 2007 equivalent). So I won't make such a list. What I will do is tell you which 5 albums I voted for on NPR's Music website. They have a large list and you can pick your five favorite. They obviously don't have every cd that came out this year, in fact NPR music is kind of elitist so they might not even have all the ones you like, I had to write one in. It's possible I may have overlooked some cd but I still think my 5 is a good representation of what I enjoyed this year. You only have a few more days so go rock the vote.

Here are my picks:

1. Band of Horses - Cease to Begin

2. Wilco - Sky Blue Sky

3. Spoon - GaGaGaGaGa

4. John Butler Trio - Grand National

5. The National - Boxer

Wish List

If you have a wishlist from Amazon and have recently moved, make sure you change your mailing address on your wishlist. My brother in law, David, recently sent me a gift off of the wishlist and I hadn't changed the address on the list and had to scramble to figure out where the package was sent. Luckily (and inexplicably) it was sent to my parents house, so no worries there, I was preparing my self with having to get it from my old apartment building. Like I said it all worked out in the end and my wishlist is currently updated - just in time for the holdays. Thanks Dave.***


*** Consider this your thank you note.

Slash

Photo @ Sarahinvegas

Last night I stopped by Borders in Oak Brook after work to pick up a book we needed. The parking lot seem to be filling up fast, but I didn't think much of it. When I walked in I realized why, there was a book signing going on. The lines were just about to start forming and soon lots of fans would get to meet Slash and have their books autographed (after purchasing said book of course). So I thought about picking up a book and getting in line but I opted against it. Mainly because I wasn't feeling very well I was developing a cold and had been pretty miserable at work all day. Ten years ago it wouldn't have been a question I probably would have stayed there all night to have Slash mumble something to me while signing my book. Instead I opted to head home, crawl in bed early and watch Ratatouille. Wow that's even more lame now that I read it - did I mention I was sick?

tech

I like to think I'm pretty tech savvy and I try to keep up with the new technology, but for a guy that likes gadgets so much I don't really make the best use of the technology at hand. Last night I got a text message from a friend asking for another friend's phone number. I try not to use text messages, especially while driving, either way this request was complicating things. I had to look up the number and remember it while I either texted back or called. I said to myself they should make it easy to send phone numbers over text. Sure enough some engineer several years ago had thought of this already because that feature is readily available on my phone which is nearing two years old. This just as big as when I discovered that I could search my phone book while on the phone - for when someone calls me asking me for someone else's number. I've sent phone numbers over bluetooth before, so I'm sure I've seen this option before, but it never really registered with me. I just used it for the first time last night. I'm sure I'll use it again in the future.

Ctrl V

Paste magazine is following in Radiohead's footsteps and allowing you to name the price. They are selling one year subscriptions for whatever you want over $1. A year is normally $20, which is still a good deal considering you get a cd filled with cool songs every issue. If you already subscribe you can also renew a year for any price. If you like music go get this deal.

Beeks

One of my good friends from college was recently featured in two design magazines and countless blogs regarding a recent exhibition he did in Chicago. All the press was focused on the lighting he designed using umbrellas, pretty cool stuff. Good work Steve.

The magazines are Urbis and IdN. Here are a couple of the blog posts so you can read more about it.

Inhabitat
Design Sponge

Home Hero

I'm becoming somewhat of a design nerd. I like looking at those hip design magazines and admire cool looking products. I happen to pass the fire extinguisher section at Home Depot and this item caught my eye. It's a fire extinguisher. It must be new they had it on sale and had a nice display set up, I also heard them talk about it on the overhead sound system. I bought it thought it would look very nice in our kitchen and plus it couldn't hurt to have a fire extinguisher around the house. I tend to get excited about new gadgets often, but never thought I'd be this happy and spend so much time admiring a fire extinguisher.

Looks like the Home Hero is only available at Home Depot, pick one up today - for safety's sake.

halloween craft

This past weekend our friends Jon and Jill had their annual halloween party which is always a good time. We had several good costume ideas but I also had a soccer game that night. Since we would only be at the party for an hour and a half, we didn't want to put a lot of effort and money into a costume. So we headed to the craft store and ten dollars later I had the materials for a pretty sweet costume.


I probably just like it because I made it from scratch but it might just be my best costume ever. I do need to thank my wife who handled the hot glue gun though. She also found a good easy costume. I think we did pretty good for a cheap, quick costume.

One of Many Long Overdue Posts

This is our apartment, we don't live there anymore. We lived there for two years and were fortunate enough to have a very spacious, modern apartment at a good location for a reasonable rent. We really enjoyed our time there and thought I'd share some pictures for those of you who never made it there. Unfortunately this tour is when the apartment was empty so you don't get our personal touches that made it home, but you know how stylin we are so I'm sure you can pretend. I'll be doing some posts about our new place and improvements we've made to it soon, so I thought it was only fair to showcase the Ovaltine apartment.




For those of you who are not from this area you may be thinking Ovaltine apartments is an interesting name - like the drink? Yes exactly. The main building was an old Ovaltine Factory which was abandoned ever since I lived in the area. It sits right next to a popular bike path, we'd ride it as kids and I remember feeling the incredible need to pedal as fast as I possibly could past the factory especially if it was getting dark. You see there were rumors and stories. Folktales maybe but also first hand accounts from friends brave enough to enter through the broken windows, armed with bb guns of course. The place did look spooky: broken windows, graffiti, unkempt premises. The stories say it was used for satanic rituals and it was haunted. Those who had been inside would testify to satanic markings on the walls, and further evidence. I never went in, I just whizzed by on my bike. I guess it was abandoned for about 15 years and in 2004 they renovated the factory and turned them into lofts, which are really cool by the way. They also put up about a dozen or so new buildings around the property. We lived in one of the new buildings so that should have minimized any hauntings. The large smoke stack still stands in the middle of the parking lot. I had to resist the urge to climb it many a time. I miss our Ovaltine apartment, it just wasn't our time anymore.

Interesting note: while looking online for old pictures of the abandoned building I saw that the property is now up for sale. I wonder what will become of it.

More Than Meets the Eye

As seen in a recent im conversation:

[15:36] Jon: did optimus prime call you?
[15:37] Bill: what?
[15:37] Bill: no
[15:37] Jon: weird
[15:37] Bill: what'd he have to say
[15:38] Jon: well i got a call from logan this mornign
[15:38] Jon: checked the vm
[15:38] Jon: it was optimus prime telling me that logan told him to call
[15:38] Jon: said that jill was a decepticon
[15:38] Jon: so be careful
[15:38] Bill: i KNEW IT

Transformers DVD comes out today, you can get in on the phone call fun here.

10 years already?

Had our 10 year high school reunion last saturday. It was nice to see people, many of whom I had not seen or talked to in a long time. Good to see what people are up to these days and who people married. Hopefully we can reconnect with people I've lost touch with and maybe make some new friends.

The reunion took place at McNalleys which is an Irish Pub about two blocks away from the apartment I used to share with some friends right out of college. We were there often hanging out, the bartenders knew us and took care of us. I was sad to learn that when we left and they closed last saturday, they were closing for good.

Here's to old friends, new beginnings and neighborhood hang outs.



Overheard at the reunion: "I didnt' know the Incredible Hulk was in your class" referring to an alrady tall classmate who grew about a foot and put on at least 100 pounds since high school.

Get to Know a Hero

Lt. Michael Murphy US Navy SEAL will receive the Congressional Medal of Honor, they don't give those out very easily. Lt. Murphy died in the mountains of Afghanistan in late June of 2005. He was leading a team of three other SEALs deep into enemy territory doing reconnaissance. Taliban forces found them and an intense fire battle ensued. The SEALs were greatly outnumbered but fought on for about two hours. Three out of the four died that day along with 8 more SEALS and 8 Army specialists whose helicopter was shot down while attemting to rescue the four. The One survivor was helped by a villager until US forces rescued him. He has since written a book about the battle. Read more about Lt Murphy here.



Ever since high school I've been fascinated with Navy SEALs. I often wonder if I could have made it through BUDS, the extremely rigorous training, not many do. I love to read about SEALS, watch movies about them and the specials on Discovery Channel etc. You don't often hear about their real operations though. That's why when this battle took place two years ago, it was reported in the media and provided an inside glimpse at the elite team. It wasn't very obvious, you still had to search for it but there was lots of information out ther on the battle and these men. For a while it consumed me. I was reading about their lives, memorials, honors, and later when The One survivor was made public details of the battle. There are rumors they might turn the book into a movie. I hope it honors these men well. If you look at my Myspace page you'll see under heroes I have listed PO2 Danny Dietz. He was one of the SEALs that died alongside Lt Murphy that day. I picked him because as I read about these men's lives I identified more closely with him, his family is even from the same denomination as my church. All of those men are heroes. PO2 Danny Dietz and PO2 Matthew Axelson, the other teammate that died received the Navy Cross along with Marcus Lutrell who was the lone survivor (whose twin brother is also a Navy SEAL), and now after a long wait Lt. Murphy will be recognized with the Medal of Honor. The medal will be awarded to his family on Oct 22 at the White House.

11 PULL

Going to Holland this weekend for the Pull. Here's this year's ralley video to get you ready for the action.

So I made these sunjars

IMG_0979
Originally uploaded by sr109

I originally saw these on some artsy blog like apartment therapy or cool hunting and thought they were cool. Soon there were instructions on how to make those yourself. I thought this would be a cool project and would be nice to have out on the table on the patio. They turned out pretty well. They collect the solar energy during the day and they have a photo sensor that turns the light on when it gets dark out. I'm still experimenting with different materials to better diffuse the light, but I'm pleased with the results. I've only made two so far but once I figure out what the best materials are I'll make the rest (i have enough materials to make 4 of these). I'll probably give some away as well.

Like Paolo

"I put some new shoes on and suddenly everything is right"

Got some new shoes this week. Puma Tempos, I think they're pretty cool, so they deserve a blog entry. I also had the song New Shoes, by Paolo Nutini in my head, so this is a good way to share both. Enjoy.

Puma Tempo Mens

José González - Sony Ad

I found a cool new podcast yesterday, it's called The Interface, it's music oriented. They bring in artists and interview them and they also play a few songs. They actually have a lot of my favorites artists on there already so I've downloaded a bunch of them and have been listening at work. One of the first ones I listened to was the one with José González. I first heard of him on NPR a while back and have enjoyed his music. In the podcast they mentioned his music was on a Sony commercial. I hadn't seen it before, but I'm not watching a lot of tv these days so I don't really know if its been running here or if it ever did. Cool commercial though, the clip I embedded is the extended version. You can hear more about him on his myspace page and his website.

bent wire art

I saw this guy's site on Make Magazine. He takes ordinary objects, bends some wire to go with them and creates art. He's got some pretty cool stuff. You can check out his site and creations here.

Everytime I see this one piece though, the song Atlas by Battles just comes to mind. I'll try to post the song along so you can hear what I hear when I look at this.

rolling shopping baskets

The other day Elizabeth and I stopped by a local grocery store to pick up a few items. We'd never been to this place before, but they had the coolest baskets. They had wheels and a telescoping handle. I had Elizabeth shoot some video of the fun.

he's gonna be a socca player

Photo by Elizabeth Serrano

So I'm on a soccer team this summer, The Henchmen. We have games once a week and we try to get a practice in once a week as well. My friend Kevin has been on that team and they needed more players so he recruited me. It's fun and its keeping me in shape, which is good because since we moved I have not been doing my running. I have a lot of excuses for not running, most are valid but in the end they are just excuses. I hope to get back into it because I'm way behind on the 100 mile challenge - of course it doesn't help that those other guys are doing marathons and triathlons and stuff.

Anyway the Henchmen are fun, I didn't know any of them before but they are cool, we're not the best team out there but we have a good time. I had to come up with a henchman name for the back of my jersey. I chose Dr Badvibes - anyone know what that's from?

Our next game is tomorrow, unfortunately with the US playing Mexico here at Soldier Field at the same time, a lot of the henchmen may be MIA. Thats the life of a henchman I guess.

A cicada in your hand...

Photo @ HappyMonkey

My little sisters graduated from High School last night, exactly ten years after I graduated from the same place. A lot of things have changed there, but a lot also remains the same. It was interesting to see so many of my classmates there. I guess the 10 year sibling gap was a popular one in our community. Anyway congratulations to all the grads. As their last act of defiance or just something to be remembered by each graduating senior handed the person who was handing them their diplomas a live cicada. We have the 17 year cicadas around right now and they are all over the place. They only come out every 17 years so the last time they were around these parts was the summer of the year most of the graduates were born, so it seemed like a good match.

I guess these cicadas will be around for a few weeks yet, you really can't avoid them if you are in an area where they are hatching. Luckily our subdivision is too new for them to be in our trees so we don't have any, but my parent's neighborhood is infested with them. They're all over the place and they're loud. I guess there is a lot of resemblance to high schoolers after all.

Moving Along

Photo @ mrjoro

Wow, it's been a while. We've been keeping busy. We bought a townhouse and are pretty busy with the move in process. We still have tons of boxes to unpack and lots of projects to do. Finally got the internet set up at the new place so I should be able to catch up on my blogs. I have my moleskine full of post ideas so I should get some posts off pretty soon. I also started a tumblr account, for quick easy posts, mostly things I will write about later on this blog. I'll probably post a link to it here soon.

Nike+ Second Run

Second day in a row running. Have I mentioned I'm out of shape? Although it does help that I just finished playing in a basketball league, so I'm not as bas as I could be. I'm still struggling though.

On my second run I ran further than I did on the first day. Even though my time is better than the first day, it shows I ran a shorter distance. Not cool. It seems I have to calibrate this thing. I was hoping it would be somewhat accurate out of the box, but I guess I'll have to do that before my next run. I also read that accuracy is imporved if the transmitter is actually inside the shoe like it was designed to be. Not sure if there's any truth to that - I'm pretty pleased with the outside of the shoe hack at least for now.

The 100 mile challenge is well underway but you can still join us, we're not too far ahead, a good week of running should catch you up.

more nike+

Like I mentioned I picked up the Nike Plus Kit. What I did not get were the nike running shoes that have the built in pocket for the transmitter. I followed the advice listed on the blog that John mentioned and bought a usb drive case. It works very good. I secured it to my shoe in between the laces and the velcro closure gives it some security.

Nike recently announced that all its running shoes will from now on be compatible with the transmitter, so that may be something to consider when buying new running shoes, but for now my homebrew kit is good enough for me.

First Run

So I ordered the Nike Plus Kit as described in John's blog. It arrived on Monday. I wasn't able to use it Monday or Tuesday because we were busy in the evening, but I went on my first run yesterday.

It was cool, I like having new gadgets so I was all gung-ho about going on a run. My first day's data is a little messed up because I didn't read the directions so I had to fumble with the ipod to figure out how it worked therefore the big drop in performance at the end of my workout. Regardless once I figure this out completely it will be a cool motivating tool. I'm currently involved in a 100 mile challenge with my friends just say the word if you care to join.

John's Challenge

My friend John has issued a challenge. John likes to run and he has one of those Nike+ devices which links up to your Ipod Nano and sends information about your run both to your ipod and your computer. You can upload all the information to a website where you can keep track and share that information with groups and friends. John's challenging everyone to get one of these things and we can keep track of how long everyone's been running. Basically we can race each other even though I'm in Illinois and he's in California.

By the end of the weekend John will have a marathon under his belt for the summer. He tends to do those things about every year, triathlons too, so it may be an uphill battle there. But I think its motivation enough to keep in shape. I already ordered the Nike+ Sport Kit and it should be arriving early next week. Care to take us on?

Librarything on Business 2.0

One of my favorite magazines is Business 2.0 It seems to be the business magazine for my generation. They cover all sorts of interesting startups, technology and big corporations with a fresh approach to business. I really enjoy each issue. I also read their blogs. This latest issue had an article on LibraryThing.

I've been using LibraryThing for about a year now. It's a site where you can catalog your personal library. When I first joined I thought it would be a good tool to be able to trade books with friends. Like other social networks you can see what books are in other peoples collections. I thought if some of my friends get on it I can see if they had any books that interested me and do a trade. I haven't really finished entering all my books yet, in fact I had a dilemma whether or not I should enter books that Elizabeth brought into the collection or just keep our libraries seperate, still haven't totally decided what to do about it although I have added some of her books.

I've had a widget on the side of this blog for just as long as I've been a member, it rotates between different books in my library. I feel that provides a small glimpse into who I am and what shapes me. It's a cool site. Let me know if you sign up so I can spy on your collection.

Entourage

Last week the first half of the third season of Entourage was released on DVD. Last weekend we watched all 12 episodes. It's definitely one of my favorite shows. We don't get HBO at home so now we'll have to patiently wait for the second half of the season to finish airing so it can be released on DVD. They just started last Sunday, so it may be a while. I wish they'd sell the episodes on Itunes like so many other shows are doing. Oh well, we'll just have to wait to see what happens to Ari.
Entourage

The Bell Tolls

Photo @ Hugo VT

Last sunday the wife of the founding pastor of one of the churches where I regularly play passed away. Last night they held a service for her. In a smaller building across the incredibly packed parking lot we were practicing for tonight's Maundy Thursday service at the church. As we started a song the church bells started ringing in a final tribute to Mrs. DeKruyter. I sat there playing the song but at the same time taking it all in. The gentle strumming of the guitars, the rhythmic beating of my ride cymbal interspersed with the melodic ringing of the church bells while the vocals softly sang:

You have redeemed my soul
From the pit of emptiness
You have redeemed my soul
From Death

Those words rang more true with every beat of that bell. It gave me a big sense of peace. Even though we weren't involved in the memorial service, I couldn't help but think about the family and my family and any other family that has gone through the passing of a loved one. The timing was perfect, the overall sound produced was a calming wave that filled the room. What a powerful moment. What a beautiful tribute.

sick weekend

I've been sick all weekend long, it actually started last thursday with what I assumed was just a common cold. but everyday it got worse and it also got worse during the day. I'd wake up with a few cold symptoms but by the end of the day I would be pretty miserable. So all weekend long I just spent laying around, which kind of sucked because it was the first nice weekend here with the temperatures in the high 50's. The good thing is that there was a lot of basketball on tv since all the conferences had their championship tournaments. Just gets you ready for March Madness. I stayed home from work today with the intention of going to the doctor. He wasn't available today so i'll have to wait till tomorrow.

Yesterday was also March 11th or 311 day. I usually celbrate by listening to my 311 cd's all day long, but this year I didnt partake mainly because I was sick. Speaking of 311 earlier this week I watched my first full episode of American Idol. Some dude sang a 311 song. None of the judges had heard the song but they seem to like it. Someone mentioned how it was good that the guy was keeping the competition current by involving this unknown song. Too bad that song was a hit more than 10 years ago, but what can you do.

A few months ago I wrote about high end bottled waters and how I liked their bottle designs. Well my brother in law Dave was in town last week doing some wine related events. One of the fancy restaurants he was at had Voss water in glass bottles, so he gave me a couple. Thanks Dave.

Burger King's Way

Photo @ jhmostyn

Two weeks ago I had Burger King for lunch. I haven't been going out to lunch a lot lately because I feel like I eat much healthier when I bring stuff from home. Anyway my friend Josh was going there and he invited me along. I decided to go just to get out of the office and I do like a good fast food burger every now and then. As soon as I walked in and started looking at the menu I started to feel a little guilty about the food. So I decided I'd get the whopper jr meal, which was one of the smallest burgers on the menu and also one of the cheapest meals. So I got up and ordered, "would you like cheese on that?" I decided against the cheese not because I don't like it with cheese but in keeping with my feelings of guilt I decided I shouldn't. The person at the counter either didn't hear me or was surprised at my turning down the cheese, so she asked me again. Again I declined. When it was time for me to pay I noticed it was a bit more than I expected it to be. I wasn't going to sit there and argue about a dollar so I just shrugged it off and waited for my food. When I got my food I noticed that by failing to say regular size, they had taken the liberty of upgrading my meal to a large size. Not only that but my burger had cheese on it and when I looked at the receipt sure enough I got charged for cheese even after I had said no cheese twice. Like I said I enjoy cheese on a burger and I enjoy burger king in general so I didn't make a fuzz there. What I did do was call the survey on the back of the receipt to inform them of my bad experience. In doing so I got a coupon code for a free whopper with the purchase of any drink. I'll make sure to stress I want a small drink when I redeem this coupon and see if I can finally get it my way at Burger King.

Sollight

I got this waterbottle for my birthday (5 months ago) and took this cool picture of it this past weekend so I thought I'd write about it. It called a sollight, it's your basic water bottle like a Nalgene, but it has a light built in to the cap, it also has a solar charger on top that recharges the battery which runs the light. The light doesn't look that bright when there's some any kind of light out, but when used in a camping setting it produces enough light to replace a lantern to light up your tent or to light your way on the path. I think it's pretty cool. There's also a different company that makes a cap to replace the cap on your Nalgene bottle which also has a light, but it does not have the solar charger.

retreat

We are gearing up for a high school retreat this weekend. We being the guys from the Sojourn band. We were asked to play this same retreat two years ago and we had a blast, so I'm glad we get the chance to do it again. We were practicing a few days ago and after we played through about 8 songs of the ones we are thinking of doing, Kevin noticed, "so right now we are all Crowder and Worship Circle" my response to that was "sounds about right". We seem to have this problem a lot. All the songs we do happen to come from those two artists. While shows our appreciation for the two it does mean we need to expand our repertoire a bit more. In an effort to remedy that I have been listening to KLOVE the last few days hoping to be exposed to a larger sample of worship songs. I have enjoyed listening and it seems that Christian radio and Christian music has come a long way, which is good. There's still some songs that are pretty stereotypical and I have to change the station, but for the most part it has been refreshing. I got to KLOVE while looking for a song I had heard at a worship service I attended two weeks ago. I'm sure we'll be doing some of those songs soon as well. I also got an email today from a friend who writes some songs, sharing his new ones with me, so hopefully pretty soon we'll be branching out more.

Snow Day

Woke up today to find a large amount of snow on the ground (large as in for the Chicago area, not 8ft New York snow). Normally a morning like that would hold promises of hours of shoveling snow, building a snowman or two, do some sledding and work on my snowskate skills, and maybe a nice winter hike wrapping up with a nice cup of hot chocolate and a movie. I saw a lot of schools were closed so I'm sure many are enjoying similar scenarios. Alas my current employer doesn't believe in snow days so instead I had to leave for work extra early to make sure I got in on time. It's now lunch time and the snow is still coming down. I wish I had come a bit more prepared and I could have used my lunch time to get out and have my small snow day. I may still get out for a bit but next time I'll be prepared. Hope you are enjoying the snow if you're at home.

Quotent Quotables

My sister on Clark Kent - "I didn't realize he was like an alien, I just thought he was a weirdo."

Needs some work

Slinky robot

BEARS!!!

Bend it With Beckham

To follow up on the previous post, according to what all the sites were talking about yesterday. The LA Galaxy, the MLS team where David Beckham will be playing this upcoming season, will be holding open tryouts. Start working out and practicing your corner kicks and you can end up on the field with Beckham every game.

We watched Invincible, with Marky Mark, over Christmas break with the Bos family in Florida, which seems appropriate since it was about a guy who showed up at open tryouts for the Philadelphia Eagles and went on to play in the NFL.

Also on the topic of open tryouts, my friend told me that the professional lacrosse team in Chicago will also be having open tryouts for this upcoming season. I'm guessing it's the Chicago Machine which is outdoor lacrosse, since the Chicago Shamrox's season is currently underway. This is the Shamrox's first season in Chicago and the Machine will begin their second season in the summer.

So to recap, we've got the media attack about David Beckham and the Galaxy's open tryouts, a movie about open tryouts in the NFL, and open tryouts for a lacrosse team. This should motivate me to continue my workouts.

Beckham

The big news yesterday was that European soccer superstar David Beckham was leaving Real Madrid at the end of this season and coming to the US to play in the MLS for the LA Galaxy. He is the biggest name to come to US soccer since Pele joined the Cosmos in the 70's. The 31 year old midfielder seems to be on the downward slope as far as his career goes(he's only started in 5 games this season for Real Madrid), still he has enough star power to give soccer in the US a boost. By that I mean that people who like soccer will make a bigger effort to watch a few more games, especially when the Galaxy come to town, but soccer in the US still faces an uphill battle. A lot of talk show hosts made mention to the big soccer news only to follow it with the predictable "WHO CARES?!" and then a jab at the sport. That's one thing I never understood about the attitude here towards soccer. If you don't like the sport don't watch it, don't talk about it, pay no attention to it. Why the put-downs? I'm not going to justify soccer here, I played it and enjoy it. I welcome getting an opportunity to watch one of the great soccer players when they play the Chicago Fire.

There's also talk that another big name may be leaving Real Madrid soon. Ronaldo from Brasil also seems to be past his prime for European soccer standards. No news of where he may end up or if he'll just retire all-together, but he would also be a welcome addition to the MLS.

Now for a player who has not yet reached his prime, Matias Fernandez from Chile. I learned about Mati, as he's known from Felipe who is staying with us. He just started playing for Villarreal in Spain. Virtually all of Chile is watching him and expecting big things out of him. The few clips I've seen of his play on the Chilean team Colo Colo really show that he's got some talent. I wish him the best of luck. I'll have to go look up Villarreal jerseys on ebay now.

Joga Bonito

How The Mighty Have Fallen

Congratulations to the Florida Gators for their impressive win over college football's powerhouse Ohio State to capture the National Championship. There were a lot of critics silenced last night, a lot of people had written the Gators off saying they didn't belong in the championship game. Last night they proved themselves. Their colossal win paired with USC's whipping of Michigan should put an end to the championship controversy that has been discussed this year. Personally I enjoyed Florida's season. Early in the season I became aware of Florida's quarterback duo of Chris Leak/Tim Tebow and looked forward to each game to see how the quarterback coexisting was working out. It was very entertaining to see them both do their thing. So again congratulations to Florida and thanks for another entertaining college football season.


In other news congratulations are also owed to my sister Olga and her fiance Ben who got engaged last night. Congratualtions to you both and good luck with the wedding plans.

myspace and worship

MySpace gets a lot of bad publicity, I'm not too sure how I feel about it. I don't like trying to figure out how to order my friends list, or deciding if I want to send out a friend request to someone I've met before but wouldn't really hang out with. It seems like it quickly becomes a popularity contest. However I have never had any problems you hear about in the news or talk shows, probably because I'm too old, but still I have not been harrassed on it at all.

That said there are some things about Myspace that I do like. It is easy to catch up with friends. I contacted some friends from grade school in Miami on there. I've also connected with my cousins whom I wouldn't really see or talk with often. I also like the music aspect, in fact that is the reason I joined myspace. It is easy to find new bands and new music, as well as keeping up with my favorite bands.

This weekend I found a new use for Myspace, although it's still music related. I help lead worship at two different churches. I'm always looking for new worship songs, we can learn and play. I found some new worship songs this weekend. I was looking at some of my friend's pages and on one of them I noticed a link from a christian band, so I checked them out. The music was very cool, but it wasn't really worship style, however on that page I saw another link that caught my eye. The picture had a guitar and a djembe drum, both instruments which I play in our worship bands. I figured that kind of music was right up my alley and sure enough it was. I looked through a couple of other bands and found a couple good songs to try out with our bands. I think it's great that these songs are easy to find these days. If it wasn't for myspace, these young songwriters would not have this kind of exposure. I'm leave you with a couple of links of some songs i'm hoping to learn and play with our worship band. First guy is Michael Hernandez from Bay City Michigan. The other is Chris Kohinga from Australia. Both are good song writers check them out.

First post in 07

Since it's the third day of the new year I should probably write something, if I want to keep this blog current this year. Today I finally transfered this blog to the new google log-in set up. I was hesitant to do it because I was afraid I'd lose some of the customization I've done to the blog. Sure my blog is not any fancier than anyone else's but I worked hard to figure out how to do the little things I've done with it, so I would be rather upset if I had to start over. I checked with some friends who've had blogger accounts and they assured me that nothing was lost in the transfer. Still I was skeptical. As you can see nothing happened, everything is just as I left it, we're all still here. Now I have one less login to remember.

I'm aware that I don't update this blog as often as I would like, but this time I actually had an excuse - I was on vacation in Florida last week. I did have access to a computer ( I mean it's the 90's) but I only sat in front of the computer a total of 10 minutes if that. I'm sure I'll blog about the trip in the near future, but I'll just say it was a fun, relaxing time.

Digi Upgrade

After a little over four years of faithful service I have retired my digital camera. The Canon Digital Elph S230 served me well. I found it to be a great camera, perfect size and good picture quality. Since I liked it so much when it came time to upgrade I just looked at the newer models of the same line. I decided on the SD600. Not the latest and greatest in that line, but a big upgrade and from all the reviews I read it is a very good buy. It's a 6.0 MP camera, which is more than enough for my photography needs, it's also slimmer which is nice. There's not much different from the front of the camera, but when you turn it around you see the big difference which is the much larger lcd screen. It also uses an sd card instead of the bigger CF. The only limitation my old camera had was the 30 second limit on movie mode. The new camera has unlimited video as much as your card can hold. I actually saw a blog where they documented their son's adoption on video using the same camera. Pretty cool stuff. I got a 2GB sd card from Fry's to go with the camera so I shouldn't have any problems with videos.
I'm looking forward to taking pictures with the new camera, but I will have to make a picture homage to my old camera which turned out to be a very good purchase. Elizabeth and I decided to give the old camera away so that it can help someone else make some good memories, I know it won't let them down.

Dec 12th

Today was my dad's birthday. We usually celebrate birthdays with dinner out somewhere, usually the birthday person chooses a restaurant. My dad chose Fuddruckers for his birthday dinner, not too fancy but good stuff. Fudd's is one of my favorite burger joints, I remember the first time I went to one in Miami I thought they were the biggest burgers in the world. One of my favorite things about it was the arcade room of course but the food was good too. Ever since, it has always been a place I associate with fun with family and good friends. It used to be a favorite hangout of the high school gang too, we'd go there after basketball games or on saturdays for lunch. I'm glad my dad picked it for his birthday celebration, it speaks a lot of my dad's fun and relaxed attitude. Hope you had a good day dad. Feliz Cumpleaños Papí.

Waterblogged

Earlier this week I came across the website for Fred water. It's a bottled water company that seems to have just come out the market. The thing about Fred is that it's pretty trendy, maybe even upscale. It has a very cool bottle design, cool website, it even has its own myspace page with friends. It's available in New York, I couldn't find any information of its distribution so I'm not sure if it's available elsewhere. I'm not usually one to buy expensive bottled water but with Fred I'd make an exception because of the cool bottle.

Then yesterday at a worship service my friend Thor had another cool bottle of water. Voss water which is from Norway. Thor being Norwegian (like the name didnt give it away)had to have it. Anyway Voss water is widely distributed and I'll be looking for it around here, although I'm sure it's pricey. So two cool water bottle designs in one week, made me do a search to see what other cool bottle designs are out there. There are a few I wouldnt mind picking up. If you see a cool one let me know.

Is that Google Maps in your pants?

I heard a commercial on the radio today. It was a Helio commercial, which is a new wireless provider. The commercial was a boy band singing a song about their Helio. The chorus of the song stated "I've got Google Maps in my pants". Anyway it made me laugh, so I looked it up to see if I could find it and came across this website that does a good job of breaking it down. They even have a link so you can hear it if you want.

America's getting a wii bit tired

I read an article in the Wall Street Journal that said that Nintendo has been getting some complaints about the Wii. The Wii, Nintendo's new console that came out last week has these innovative controllers that put you in the action of the game you are playing, for example in the tennis game you have to swing the controller as you would a racket. The problem is that Americans aren't used to being active while they are playing their video games and as a result are getting sore muscles and tired bodies. Not since the DDR craze have people worked up a sweat while playing their video games. People are virtual bowling, golfing and fishing for 3 hours in one sitting and they are using muscles they didn't know they had. Nintendo says they're simply out of shape. I think this is a great step for the video game industry. Nintendo sales seem to agree.

I've actually considered getting one. I never got into video games like a lot of guys my age did, sure I enjoyed a good game of Bond, Mario Kart or Fifa in the dorm just like the next guy, but I was never one to sit and play for hours on end. Which is why its hard for me to justify spending the $300 on the Wii, although it seems like a good price considering the pricier playstation 3 and the not as active xbox 360. I think if they came out with a lacrosse game on the Wii I would be ready to make the deal.

In the meantime I hope the Wii does well and inspires a new generation to pick up these virtual activities in the real world. Maybe they can find out just how sore their bodies can get out on the real courts.

build a guitar

One of my favorite bands, State Radio, uses a homemade oil can guitar for some songs. I always thought it'd be cool to build a guitar on my own sometime. Well today I saw this guitar on Make Magazine's Blog. This guy took the body of his original Nintendo system and turned it into a guitar. Looks like it could be a fun project. I'll have to raid my parent's basement and try to find my old NES console. Hopefully they haven't thrown it away. I wonder what other cool things I can find for a guitar body.

Ringtones

I've never been a big fan of ringtones. I did try it out when the ringtone concept first emerged, some 3 phones ago, but the novelty wore out on me pretty quick. Since then all my phones have actually rung or vibrated. The vibrate mode is actually the "ring" of choice for me, but my current phone is too thin and I don't feel it vibrate in my pocket. As a result I'm back to the phone ring.

Well this week I decided to try out a ringtone again. I created one from one of my favorite songs, and was pretty pleased with it. I couldn't wait to show Elizabeth, she wasn't as impressed.

So last night I was watching tv after dinner, and some car commercial came on. It had the same song as a soundtrack, and I thought ' this song is sooo cool'. But the weirdest thing happened. The song ended before the commercial did. I was a bit confused and then it hit me. My phone had been ringing. So I took my phone out of my pocket and glanced at it. Sure enough I had missed a call. Sorry Dave.

Summertime

We decided to brave the crowds at the Taste of Chicago on the 4th of July this year. Normally I wouldn't have considered this but the lineup for the free concerts was too strong for me to ignore. We went for Mike Doughty and My Morning Jacket. Ray Davies was there too, but I wasnt too interested in him. I know he's a legend and there are songs from the Kinks that I really enjoy, but I just wasn't as enthusiastic about him as I was with the other two bands. Anyway I'm glad we did it, we caught some good acts for free. On the way out of the concert we did a loop through the food stands. The food was good as always but the crowd was just too much. All in all though I think that was a good way to do it. We went straight in to the music area, got good seats, watched the shows and then got food on the way out - worked out well.

Last weekend some friends chartered three fishing boats on Lake Michigan. We went out for 6 hours on the lake. This was kind of a sequel to a bachelor party we had a few years ago. Seems like recreating bachelor parties is the thing to do this summer. I dont mind though, it's always a good time when you can get toghether with a big group of friends.

Napa Valley

We were out in Napa Valley last week visiting David. He showed us a good time. We went hiking in a little coastal town called Mendocino. It had a nice little downtown area where we ate lunch. Lot of hippie stores out there but it was nice to see. They had a store where they only sold green products, a lot of which I have been reading about lately. Then we hiked along the ocean. There were some really great views. The trip there was a little long but again the scenes were well worth it, it was a 2.5 hour drive through a redwood forrest.

We also went to Santa Cruz and met up with some college friends. Santa Cruz has a great downtown area too, but it's definitely more of a surfer town, which was cool. We ate lunch at a restaurant downtown (outdoor seating of course) and then made our way to the beach where we watched a surfing contest. It was definitely nice to see the surf culture up close. After the contest we went to the Bonny Doon Winery. This turned out to be one of my favorite wineries and it wasn't even in Napa. I think the main reason for that is that it is a very artsy winery. They have different artists create their labels. The label for their wine "Original Zin" was created by the artist who drew the cover for Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. The winery itself had a very relaxed feel to it too.

We did a couple of days of the Napa wine tasting and visited many of the Napa wineries. We got a nice insiders look at Grgich Hills, which is where Dave works, and then let him lead the way to some other wineries in the area. Some notable ones were Paradux, Clos Pegase and a sparking wine winery. In the evening we attended a party at the Steltzner vineyard. We met a lot of interesting people, the food was great, and we had a great view of the sunset out by the pool. The Stelzners sure know how to throw a party.

We also met some of Dave's friends. His friends were all very hospitable and generous with us. They prepared meals for us, invited us to their homes and parties, gave us a hefty discount at the wineries they worked for, and also showed us around town. We came back with a great impression of the people of the area.

One of the little things we enjoyed a lot about our trip was atmosphere of the place. They had a lot of local grocery stores and market type stores which were very enjoyable. They had a lot of prepared food, olive bars, organic foods plus your usual groceries. We picked up breakfast there a few days as well as some stuff for a picnic. We also grew an appreciation for cheese. They had all kinds of cheeses there but the nice part is that you could try it before you buy to see if thats something you'd like. Since we've been back we've been trying to find similar local grocery stores in the area, sure we have Trader Joe's and Whole Foods over here but we've visited some smaller stores like Caputos and Fruit and Produce Market nearby. We still haven't found our Sunshine Foods though.

Pretty safe to say we came in love with the area. We will have to make it back there again soon.

Sink the Boat

See my Tabblo>

Some of my friends from college rented a cottage last weekend. So I thought that was a good opportunity to try out this new tabblo website. Basically its a way to share pictures in a scrapbook form. What I like most about it is that you don't need to sign up to see a page - at least that's my understanding. Unfortunately I didnt take many pictures this weekend and they're not the best pictures, but I think I really like the program. I'm sure i'll use it more in the future.

As for the weekend itself, it was a lot of fun. It was great to see these guys again. I hadn't seen some for a long time. And its true that a lot things change but some things stay the same.

Ragoo Festival

As I mentioned earlier, I went to see State Radio a few weeks ago. State Radio is one of my favorite bands. They played a cover song which was really catchy. I had to go home and look it up. Turns out it was "The Harder they Come" by Jimmy Cliff. I didnt recognize who Jimmy Cliff was but I researched him anyway and bought the song off of Itunes. Turns out I did know another of Jimmy Cliff's songs, you probably do too - "I can see clearly now". Anyway as I kept reading up on him I came across an article on NPR. There was also another article there that caught my eye. It was talking about Dubside of the Moon, a remake of Pink Floyd's classic album. You can here a few songs on the website, I was hooked. I usually don't care for cover cd's but for some reason this one sounded like they really did it justice. Definitely a good summer cd. I asked around with a few of my friends to see if anyone knew about this and to my surprise a large majority had heard it and enjoyed it. Anyway this set me off on a reggae spree. I remembered a few songs I had heard on Pandora that I liked - Old Tattoo by Culture and Ring the Alarm and a few others, so I looked them up and got them from Itunes. Now I have to work on making a reggae compilation to take out to California at the end of the month. 

Earth Day

Saw a dear crossing the road today on my way to work. I was stopped at a light and about 50 feet in front of me the deer decided it was a good spot to cross. The first thing I thought of was "where there's one there's bound to be more". I've heard that many times, but have never seen more than one deer cross a road at the time. Still as the light turned green I approached the spot very cautiosly - and sure enough all of the sudden another one appeared and darted across. I was still driving slowly and was far enough away where it wasn't a big deal. But it was a nice thing to see this morning. I wonder where they were coming from, nothing but houses on either side of Ogden there in Hinsdale. It's weird to think that deer live so close to us.

Earth day was last Saturday. I can't say I did much to save the environment that day although I did get outside. Anyway as a way to do my part i've decided to buy a terrapass for our cars. The folks at terrapass have calculated the average amount of CO2 that your car emmits. Your terrapass purchase goes toward the technology that reduces the same emmission from plants and factories, therefore your car emmissions are neutralized. Every little bit helps. Please check out their website and consider buying a terrapass for your car.

I also bought a reel mower two summers ago. I hope to use it as much as possible this summer. I live in an apartment so I dont really have the use for it, but I'd like to be able to mow my parents yard with it this summer, that would also cut on the emmissions from the gas powered lawnmower. I'm sure you've heard that reel mowers are difficult to use. I found that they're really not that bad, sure if your grass gets very tall then it is a struggle, but it is doable. If you keep up with the lawn then it turns out to be easy and enjoyable.

There are several other things you can do around the house to do your part for the environment. The people at treehugger have set up a list that shows the 25 best things you can do. In an effort to keep the momentum generated by the Earth Day celeberations around the world, I encourage you to try to do something.

Easter Weekend

Easter started with a great Sojourn led Maundy Thursday service at CCOB. I really enjoy being a part of the band in that community. We then went up to Michigan for the weekend. Just spent the time realaxing. The weather was great - a nice spring weekend. Went golfing for the first time on saturday, went with my father-in-law and brother-in-law. They were very patient with me and it was a lot of fun. I'll need to hit the driving range a lot this summer so I can play next time we go up to Michigan again.

Also saw State Radio at the Beat Kitchen on friday. It was a great show. This is the second sold out State Radio show that I somehow manage to get into. Well worth it though. They even played one of my favorite Dispatch songs, Time Served.

work

Some cool changes at work. I got a new office, its nice. Kind of isolated but I like it that way, I'm not much of a small talk guy anyway so this suits me just fine. With the new office I also got some new furniture so that's nice. I do have a lot of work these days though, but I rather be busy than sitting around trying to make up things to do. Also got a new coworker here. Josh started working here last month, so that's been exciting. Josh also lives only a few blocks from our apartment so we've been car-pooling to work, which saves us on gas money and its nice to ride with someone on the way to work.