Let Them Play the Music

I've taken yet another small break from even the thought of playing music as of late.  It's not exactly intentional; I simply have had no time.  First, I needed to deal with the stereo dilemma, of which I think is finally behind me.  I decided to keep the Outlaw Audio receiver, so therefore I returned the Denon DRA800H and I also just returned the Klipsch RP8000's.  It simply finally hit me that the damn things are way too huge for my studio room, and after extensive tests and flipping back and forth between the two sets of speakers, it slowly became obvious to me.  It's not official as of yet but I do believe that I'm going to keep the Polk R600's for I seem to really like them, and I'd say that they're a small step upward over my old JBL's.  Strangely, Billy Squier's "It Keeps You Rockin'" really sounds the most amazing on the R600's, of all things.  Now, why that's become my standard for good sound...well, I couldn't really tell you.

I will say that flipping between speaker sets is an interesting venture.  It's funny because it takes at least 20 seconds for your ears to adjust, meaning that no matter what speakers you "flip" to they always sound odd and worse than the predecessor initially.  I also learned by process of playing around with it that the critical sound that I wasn't liking was actually coming from the Denon Receiver, not as much from the speakers.  I did lose a little bit of that by going with the Outlaw Audio Receiver, which is a bit of a detriment for mixing and such, but my actual music listening experience will be a bit closer to what it was previously...which is good.  I was actually finding that I didn't want to listen to music as much with the Denon because everything sounded horrible to me.  Now, why exactly so called "audiophiles" want things to sound horrible...well, that's beyond me.

Apart from the stereo decisions, and I will say that it was quite a feat getting the huge Klipsch speakers back down the stairs and packaged up in their boxes (they weigh about 70 lbs. a piece), I actually finally ventured out again to see and hear live music.  First up, I FINALLY made it to the Hollywood Bowl, a venue I've been meaning to go to for literally 30 years but have never made it before.  The show?  Grace Jones...wow.  It was actually a double bill of sorts with Ms. Jones and Chvrches, the latter of which I will say I was fairly impressed with even though it's not exactly my usual sound (lots of strong 2/4 going on in an electronic vein).  Seeing Grace was amazing, though, and the most frequently heard comment was "...can you believe she's 74 years old...?"  No, actually I cannot whatsoever.  I mean, the woman shows almost no signs at all physically of aging, not in her looks, movements, etc.  Simply remarkable.

The Bowl is definitely a venue to visit, I will say.  It's not only historical and quite stunning to be at but the sound was also wonderful.  They built that venue in a truly amazing fashion, putting great care into the sightlines of each tier, etc.  The slope on the back of the venue as the seating rises up the hill is beyond words since the last row of seats is so incredibly high into the air (on the hillside) that it's hard to comprehend what you're looking at from down below.  And then, strangely, you feel like you're in the middle of nowhere...and yet you're smack just north of super busy and crowded Hollywood.  If you've never been there and you have an interest in such things, I'd definitely put it on your list.  I was also amazed by how easy it was to do a Park and Ride shuttle to get in and out of there, and so on.  Getting out was a bit more convoluted but getting in was super simple...and cheap!

Two days later, I went to my favorite local venue, the Belly Up Tavern, to see Cate Le Bon.  It was another great performance, completely different from the Grace Jones show 2 days earlier, of course.  Cate has a great stage presence and setup on stage with her band, and I must say that the show was even better than I had expected.  Cate's latest album "Pompeii" comes highly recommended from me.

I'm hoping to get back into the musical swing of things fairly soon.  I've had lots of ideas rolling around in my head so I've just been waiting for the time to actually act upon them.  More soon, hopefully.

No, I Haven't Given Up

I've mainly been quiet for the past 2-3 weeks since I was sick with some sort of persistent cold.  We're having work done on our house and, low and behold, it took a whole 3 days of said work for both of us to catch this freakin' illness from one of the workers.  The timing was great as always since I had planned to work on some vocal corrections that weekend, of which I still can't quite get back to even now due to persistent phlegm issues.

Upon feeling a bit better, I had meant to write up how I drove up to Irvine one Saturday afternoon to do an errand, and I just happened to be in the neighborhood of the one and only Taco Bell that was trying out the Cheez-It Tostada and so I made a point to stop in.  I must say that I was pleasantly surprised by how well it worked.  Also, if you hadn't already guessed, the Cheez-It base is actually much smaller than they made it appear in the pictures so it isn't some mammoth sized cheese flavored biscuit attempting to take over the world.  Oddly, I was expecting a true flagship Taco Bell location but it looked no different than any other one except that it's the first I've ever been in that you literally have to order through the tablets for there is no one on duty taking orders.  Apart from that, the seating was a bit more community oriented but nothing else really stood out as that different.

There IS actually a chance that I'll finally submit the CD order for "...Miss You Most..." this weekend for the redo of Track 2 is currently at the mastering lab for reprocessing.  Once that's complete and checks out, I only need to do a few more minor changes on the booklet and layout, of which I'm hoping to get completed this weekend so I can finally put this behind me.

Apart from that, I've barely touched Pro Tools or did any real mixing over the past month just due to either feeling lousy or being overwhelmed between work and juggling house improvement decisions.  There was also Wimbledon to contend with which is always a major distraction but a welcomed one.  I did manage to upgrade my Pro Tools version to be the latest 2022.06 and that ended up being more labor intensive than I had counted on but at least it's ready to go.  I'll hopefully have some real news on my next update.

Uncle Bob

We went to see Uncle Bob (Dylan) this past weekend.  It might sound strange but I've never seen Bob Dylan live before, and to be honest I'm not even particularly even a fan of his, but I figured he was one of a sole few living legends still left on the planet, and that he was somebody that I really should see before he passes on.  For the record, I can't quite remember who coined the name "Uncle Bob"...it wasn't me...but I know that I heard it somewhere and, well, it's just stuck.

The good news is that Bob Dylan is still alive and kicking!  The bad news is, um, I'm not sure how much longer he actually will be.  There were quite a few true oddities at this concert, to be frank.  The first one was that his name was not anywhere on the marquee, and instead it just read "Rough and Rowdy Ways", as if that was the name of the band we were seeing (versus the name of the tour).  We debated the reasoning behind this and could only come up with safety as an explanation, considering we're living in an age where random fans go up on stage with daggers and try to attack performers.  I would think Dylan is fairly protective in general so this seemed like the logical reasoning but who knows if it's actually true.

The next weird thing, that I actually greatly applaud, mind you, is that no cell phones were allowed.  In fact, if you brought one, it was locked in a secure case and could only be unlocked after the show.  It was like the olden days all over again with no one sticking up a phone in your view during the show (aaahh).  This was a rare positive for the night.

I was under the impression that Dylan was primarily a guitarist.  Except for the instrumental bluesy opening number, though, he never played guitar again through the whole set.  Instead, he basically stood behind an upright piano the whole show so that the only thing visible on him was his head and mop of hair or hat, depending upon the song, and then he came out 80% of the time from behind the piano once the song was done so that the crowd could see his entire body.  Once everyone clapped a bit, he would do a strange prance back behind the piano once again.  Personally, I've never seen anyone do this and the whole thing seemed a bit unusual.

We then debated why they'd have the piano positioned so that it blocked his entire body during the performance.  It was almost like it was helping him stand upright because when he didn't have the piano there he looked incredibly frail, like he could maybe fall at any moment.  He did actually sing one song just holding the microphone but he was incredibly fidgety and the song was abnormally short, like maybe only 3 minutes.  Again, kind of odd.  We therefore wondered if he wasn't actually able to stand or hold a guitar on him at this point, and maybe that's why he didn't really play one.  Who knows.

His voice is, well, it's what it is.  He almost sounds a bit like Tom Waits at this point and trying to understand any words coming out of his mouth was nearly impossible.  The sound system was also the lowest volume I think I've ever heard at a concert of this type, so much that it was almost completely pointless to even have my ear plugs in.  The little bit of guitar playing that he did do during the opening number was done nearly in complete darkness, and even though I thought that the lights would go on once the singing began, they really didn't.  I've never seen a darker stage in my life, almost to the point where you could barely make out Dylan's face much.  Again, very strange.

Lastly, his playing, whether it was that intro electric guitar or his piano playing, was quite underwhelming.  I mean, he played piano close to around my ability which is saying very, very little.  The sound guys seemed to constantly try to hide his playing by lowering the volume of his instrument, trying to mask it by the other sounds going on.  Even more disturbing, Dylan's entire backing band watched him constantly with just a strange look in their eyes, like they were expecting him to keel over at any moment, and that they had a contingency plan in the wings just in case that did happen.  The whole thing was just very odd.

Apart from physically seeing Dylan live on stage, there really wasn't too much to cheer for.  He never once addressed the audience and he didn't say a peep when the band left stage.  In fact, there was no encore, and it was almost like he was debating whether we were worth another song, of which we apparently weren't.  I'd say, unless you're a mega fan or like me and have never seen him live, there's not much reason to go now.  The guy is 81 years old, though, so I guess we need to give him a break and understand his limitations.

Still, it's hard to take it all in when you're looking at a living legend on stage, so I guess that's worth something.  The sad part is that I don't think Dylan would stand a chance today if he was young and just starting out, and that says way more about us and society than it does anything else.  Cheers to you, Bob!

Windows 11 and Other Joys

I just received a phone message saying that I have an eye appointment scheduled for February 21st at 8:35am.  This completely confused me since, if you happen to know me whatsoever, I would never voluntarily schedule an appointment at that ungodly hour of the morning.  Upon calling the office back, I told the operator that I was fairly certain that I did not schedule this appointment, and the reply was "we do this as a service to you to make sure that you stay on your annual schedule."  So, just to put this in perspective, this means that the burden is on me to a) call and cancel/reschedule the appointment and b) if I don't get the message, I'm fairly certain I'd get charged for a no-show.  Yep, this really sounds like it's for my benefit.  I promptly told them to cancel my appointment and that I'd most likely not be returning to the office...ever.

Yes, this is the world we live in.  I could go on and on, of course, like most everyone else.  It's gotten to an absurd level lately and I'm not quite sure how to get through a day anymore without getting angry and close to livid at least once or twice.  The worst part, of course, is that we all PAY to have this anger occur.  Wow.

For example, my fairly new refrigerator is freezing items in certain areas of the fridge.  No problem - just alter the temperature, right?  Well, in the old days, this would take about 2 seconds because you'd turn the dial and be done.  This new fangled machinery, though, has everything hidden within a digital interface that is completely non-intuitive.  Therefore, I need to take the time to find the manual, then find the right page and info (mind you, the info in the manual is usually either incomplete or incredibly vague), and then maybe, just maybe, I'll be able to accomplish what I set out to do originally.  If I'm lucky, it'll take 10 minutes.  Yep, from what used to be 2 seconds to 10 minutes (again, if I'm lucky).  Good deal, no?  And then, the likelihood of it even correcting the problem considering the lowered standards of all modern day appliances is beyond belief low.

In other news, I just upgraded my fairly new desktop to Windows 11.  This is a computer I purchased last year mainly for doing my Photoshop work and other odds and ends.  I'm usually the very last person to do an upgrade to a new Windows version simply because a) I see no point in doing the upgrade and b) I take no pleasure whatsoever in being the first person on the block to do anything, and why others see this as important is beyond me.  Initially, the download wouldn't take but it was because there were other standard updates that needed to be done first and were therefore blocking the upgrade.  Once I fixed that, though, it went fairly smooth.  The end result?  Well, it's pretty much what you'd expect.  Windows 11 looks out of the box a bit more like Mac OS which I would think is sacrilegious for Microsoft, but apart from that nothing that major has changed or been improved from a user perspective.  This is of course absolutely no shock from me since I personally thought Windows 95 was absolutely fine in every aspect, and every update since then has just been either fluff or completely unnecessary in terms of the user interface portion.  Basically, if you create and refine a product early on, why upgrade or change it?  Well, that's me at least.

Besides these complaints and various whines, I'm afraid I have no other real news to share.  I'm still dragging my feet in the music arena but I just got word that my Boss SY-200 came in today so it should be arriving within a week.  I'm excited to start playing around with it and hope it'll give me some new sounds to create with.  If nothing else, it's another box and gadget to take up space on my floor and closet.  Sigh.

Gearing Up

Another semi-wasted weekend has passed but at least it gave me a chance to get out a bit, do some shopping, and so on.  COVID lockdown seems to be letting up more and more each day, and whether or not that's a good thing remains to be seen.  I'm not doing too much, mind you, but after doing almost nothing for a year I am at least venturing out a bit more.  Sometimes it's out of a bit of necessity.  For example, my desk chair is essentially falling apart and so I needed to find a replacement.  It sounds easy, I know, but in this day and age good luck.  Items that have always been no-brainers suddenly seem to be impossible to find, at least where they last more than a month.

Also, with COVID restrictions lifting, I'm beginning to think harder about what kind of live music I would like to be playing.  My voice remains pretty unreliable and so I'm really favoring getting 2-3 different instrumental based groups together.  I'm hoping to get something started maybe later this year.

Over the weekend, I decided to venture out briefly towards the coast.  It was great seeing it again, with the waves wildly crashing against the shore due to the wind, while tons of people were out doing their thing at the beach.  It's gorgeous over here and it makes me so incredibly grateful to be able to live in such a beautiful part of the country; I only wish I took advantage of it more.

My eye situation is about the same.  It seems to fluctuate on a daily basis, sometimes leaving me where I have a very hard time focusing out of my right eye while other times it seems fairly normal.  No matter what the situation, though, the floater in that eye can be fairly prevalent, and after looking through it awhile it gets a bit maddening but at least it's hanging in there.  Luckily, my "other" medical problems haven't yet reared their ugly head anywhere near as much as they were earlier in the year.  For me, it helps to try to deal with only one thing at a time but we're rarely given that luxury.

Growing older is definitely hell.  It's at least been my experience that life post 40 years old basically consists of having some sort of weird sudden symptoms, going to a short series of medical appointments (that are pretty much always a verdict of "you seem fine"), and then, provided you're still alive, doing it all over again...and again...and again.  I can only imagine that this is the way life will continue until...well, you know.

Well, that's enough of that for now.  I'm hoping to get back to recording this coming holiday weekend so we'll see how that goes!

Things are Sort of Quiet

I don't have much of an update on anything at the moment since I'm still trying to get into the swing of things again.  My eye "healed", and I use that term loosely since I still continue to have trouble seeing out of that eye.  This is nothing new, mind you, for I've been having issues with it since 2005.  I am incredibly paranoid, though, that the retina will tear again and then this whole process will start all over.  Or, worse yet, what if I lose vision in it altogether?  These are the thoughts running through my mind daily these days.

As previously stated, I had to lie on my side pretty much the entire week after the outpatient surgery.  This sounds easy albeit a bit boring but it came with an unintended side effect:  it completely threw my back out.  I've had back issues much longer than I've had eye issues and this ended up being one of the harshest back pulls I've had in many years.  I'm still trying to get it back (hah, hah)...but seriously, my back has yet to completely calm down and return to what I think of as my normal weak back-ness/pain so there's a lot of sudden yelping going on as I move around the house.

Lying on your side for a week is actually a bit of a trick as well.  It wouldn't be so bad if you could lay down in a normal position but instead it's all about your head placement.  I needed my head to be positioned almost completely on it's side and trying to do anything in this position is quite a task.  Even watching TV is bizarre in this position.  Typing was almost completely out of the question and so lying there and doing nothing was pretty much the solution.  For once, it's fortunate that time passes quickly at my age and so it went by rather quickly.

That's about all I've got at the moment.  I'll try and write some more maybe in the next few days.

Torn

Well, everything's come to a grinding halt, at least for the moment.  I had plans to be productive this past weekend but alas I was not.  I'm trying to wrap everything up with the Jazz Machine album by July and the clock is starting to tick rather loudly.

So, why was I 'lazy'?  Well, I apparently tore my retina in my right eye :(  I've had issues in this eye since around 2005, and being a computer worker by day I tend to get a decent amount of eye pain and strain at various times of the years.  I've suffered from floaters in that eye pretty much my entire life but they got much worse in 2005, shortly after a minor car accident where I was rear ended, enough so that it totaled my car.  I'm now thinking that may have affected my eye issues more than I ever thought.

About 2 weeks ago, I was simply walking to the mail box when I thought I saw a bolt of lighting across the sky.  I found it strange because a) it was sunny out and b) we don't get a lot of lighting out here in general.  Then it happened again, and again, and then I realized that it was a large floater in my eye that appeared to be slightly lit up.  Then, my vision got pretty cloudy, more floaters came, and my concern grew, enough that I went to the eye doctor the first thing the following morning (which, btw, you shouldn't actually do...you should go to at least Urgent Care and not wait on it).  The eye doctor said he didn't see any retinal tears and that it was probably just aging.  Oh, okay...  And so, I went about my business, all the while with my vision severely worse than it's ever been and having a bit of minor eye pain.

It wasn't until a week later, this past Friday, that I realized that there was a fairly large black spot or hole in my vision in that eye when I looked to the extreme right (the spot was on the extreme left side).  It also felt odd when I'd do that...kind of hard to explain but it sort of felt like the pain of a muscle strain.  After doing a few internet searches, it sounded bad enough that I should immediately get back to the eye doctor.

I went somewhere else this time, which was probably a good decision, and that doctor found the tear after quite a bit of searching, and immediately sent me to the retina specialist, all against the clock since it was 4pm on a Friday and they closed normally at 5pm.  They got me in, looked inside my eye, and before I knew it they were jabbing my eye with a needle to numb it, then freeze it, and then place gas bubbles in there, a therapy that basically causes a bit of weight inside your eye so that the vitreous reattaches to the retina.  The whole procedure took about 10 minutes.  It sounds awful when you say or write it; much to my surprise, I really didn't feel a damn thing and it wasn't that bad at all, and this is all coming from one of the most squeamish people out there.

And so, I've been pretty much laying on my side ever since, literally for over 90 hours now, with only small moments of getting up and moving around.  It's been interesting to say the least.  The retina apparently reattached fairly quickly but it needs many hours in order to "cement" again inside the eye and hence I'll be lying here for approximately a week.  So, no guitar playing, recording, or even day job working...

If all comes out well, meaning I can see normally again, I won't really complain.  This does put my time line for Jazz Machine a bit in jeopardy, though.  I guess, at least for once, I have a truly valid excuse if I don't make it...

The 2020 Vote Is In!

 Well, I survived another year!  The 2020 Spirit Awards ballot is due today at 5pm and I just submitted my own personal ballot this morning.  Per my count, I watched 32 movies this go-round for the period of February 26th - April 8th.  It was actually one of the easiest years to do this since they gave us more time than usual, of which I greatly appreciate.  I think we normally only get about 5 weeks to watch the films and it usually forces me to do several marathon watching binges which I really don't prefer.

I'll post my 2020 film picks fairly soon but I have a few more movies to get through first that are not on the Spirit Awards list.  Overall, the gist of the 2020 Spirit Awards film selection is that 95% of the films were good to great, and that's kind of phenomenal, to be frank.  I usually sit through at least 3-4 that I perceive as real clunkers that make me moan in agony for one reason or another.  This year, the only movie that I would say that I really despised was the much applauded "Dick Johnson is Dead", and it was ironically the first film I watched, starting everything on a bad tone which thankfully didn't persist.  Perhaps it's a matter of opinion but I just don't understand why anyone would find that film either interesting or entertaining, and how you can overlook the exploited opportunistic aspect of the film is mind boggling to me, hence my low opinion of it.  It was this years' "For Sama" for me, a film from last years' list that really sent me over the edge that everyone else seemed to really like.

For more info on the films I watch(ed), please check out my page on Letterboxd.com where all the gory details exist.

New Sun Chips Chili Lime Flavor - the Verdict?

 I found these in the snack aisle the last time I was at a major grocery retailer.  I'm a big fan of Sun Chips, and anyone who knows me really well will tell you that I'm a sucker for trying pretty much anything new when it comes to weird flavors and such.  Since this checked both boxes, well, I immediately grabbed them off the shelf.

So, what's the verdict?  Upon tasting the initial chip, I was taken aback just a bit.  I felt like my mouth had been overwhelmed with salt and intense flavor which is a bit unusual since one of the things that I've always loved about Sun Chips in general is that they're not too terribly strong.  The new Chili Lime flavor apparently is breaking that tradition, though, and the flavor was, to put it simply, rather intense.

I try not to comment too much until I've really had a chance to digest something completely (pun intended) but I think I've formed my overall opinion on Chili Lime Sun Chips.  To be blunt, although they got a bit more tolerable the more I ate them, they basically taste like someone wetted a plain Sun Chip and then dipped it in a packet of taco seasoning meant for ground meat, enough so that it completely covers the chip and hence providing the overwhelming flavor.  If that idea appeals to you, you'll love them and you should immediately run out and make the purchase.  For me personally, though, I think I'll stick with either the plain or the other flavors.  Verdict = nogo!

You Belong to Me

 I think it's time that I made a rather terrible confession.  I...um...am rather obsessed with...um...Carly Simon.  Okay, there, I admitted it.

It's a bit embarrassing, I know.  I've been listening to a ton of 70's styled pop lately mixed with some early 80's pop.  Carly Simon.  Linda Ronstadt.  Stephen Bishop.  Jackson Browne.  Am I just showing my age?  Perhaps.  Maybe I've finally crossed into that land of being truly old.  Sigh.

Back to Carly...  I don't know what it is but there's just somethin'.  And, to be completely honest, I got my first Carly album, "The Best of Carly Simon", for free back in the days of the Columbia House/BMG 10 CD's for 1 penny days.  I kind of got it on a lark and never thought I'd actually like it.  However, about 2 minutes into the opening track, the classic "That's the Way I've Always Heard it Should Be", one of the true greats, in my opinion, and my jaw completely hit the floor.  This was back around 2000 maybe?  So, yeah, I wasn't really that old and I was already hooked.

I will never forget talking about this embarrassment back then at work with this much older lady named Margaret.  She immediately said, "Oh, yeah, Carly Simon!  I don't know what it is but every time she comes on the radio my husband goes ape sh*t."  I'm not making that up...those were her exact words, and this from a woman that I had never even heard swear before, although maybe she did a lot and I was just never around to hear it.  Regardless, I guess I'm kind of in the same club as her husband.

I just recently picked up "Boys in the Trees", now that I've fully accepted that I'm probably going to buy at least every single earlier album of hers.  I had "No Secrets" on my phone for well over a year and would walk almost daily to it.  I just never got sick of it.  Call me crazy but I think "The Right Thing to Do" is quite possibly one of my favorite songs of all time and I find myself singing it around the house almost daily.

My newest favorite which never fails to stop me in my tracks is "You Belong to Me".  I mean, what the hell?  Maybe I've completely lost my mind, I don't know, but I simply love this song.  I mean, I treat this song like other people would treat some hard rocking anthem from somebody like AC/DC.  I must have lost it.

She has tons of goofy and terribly cheesy tunes as well but somehow I can overlook it which is pretty unusual for me.  Strangely, I can't stand James Taylor, her husband back then, who happens to sing on quite a few tracks and what I'd consider almost ruin them.  It's just something about that voice of hers and especially her harmonies.  Did I mention that it all started because of the new age artist Andreas Vollenweider?  I got his album "Eolian Minstrel" also from the Columbia House days and there's a song on it called "Private Fires" that Carly sings lead vocals on.  All I can say is that it's been one of the most haunting songs to me ever since I first heard it around 1996 and this is what eventually led me to get the greatest hits album.

Maybe I've just always been an old soul?  I remember back in the early 90's, back when I was in my 20's only, where this guy I worked with did a massive double take when he asked what I was currently listening to at home, and my response was Al Stewart.  He laughed, thinking I was joking, looked uncomfortable when he realized I wasn't, and then said in a snarky manner, "You know, I just have a hard time seeing you 'rockin' out' to Al Stewart on a Friday night."  I thought to myself, well, you don't know me very well, now, do you?  I still 'rock out' to Al Stewart, in fact I still consider "Between the Wars" one of the all time greats.

Well, thanks for listening and allowing me to tell my deep dark 'secret'.  I feel slightly better.  I'm actually considering writing/recording a 70's pop styled album in the near future.  If that happens, then you'll know that I've completely lost it.

Spirit Awards Madness Returns Tomorrow

 As a member of Film Independent, an organization and membership that I simply can't recommend enough to any cinephile, we're about to kick off the 2021 Spirit Awards frenzy of movie watching tomorrow.  Basically, the Spirit Awards are sort of like an independent film version of the Academy Awards, and they're shown on IFC every year, normally around February.  This year, everything is pushed back a bit due to COVID and I believe they'll be shown at the end of April.  They're kind of unique because the members of Film Independent are the sole voters on what films get 95% of the awards.  Since I take film very seriously, I try to watch every single film that they send me so that I can properly vote, and that more or less means taking in around 30 film in 30 days each year.  It's a bit exhausting but also rather fulfilling since you watch things you'd probably never watch or know about otherwise.

What's my point?  It means that my time will be balanced over the next month with watching movies.  I know, just what I need, right?!  I have a hard enough time juggling work, music, writing, etc., and now let's throw movie watching in the mix.  It's almost like I'm punishing myself.

I have a few other blog entries that I have written in my head but yet have committed to the computer.  Perhaps I'll get to those soon before they altogether disappear.

Other than that, the "Mirror Land" artwork is basically done and I've been fooling around with coming up with logos and other odds and ends.  It's a lot to take in all at once.  I wish I had the funds to hire someone.  Wouldn't that be grand?

I'm Still Alive

No, the title of this post has nothing to do with COVID-19.  I mean, I guess it kind of does...I have not gotten COVID-19, etc., but it's more about the lack of posts over the (gulp!) last four years.  In truth, I've been meaning to transfer my blogging over to a different platform, and therefore stopped writing back in 2017 with that full intention.  Time got away from me once again, though, and so here I am, four years later, still touching this old volume of thoughts and observations.  I figured something is better than nothing at this point.  I also have a lot of news to share so I needed some sort of forum.

2020 was of course a very strange and trying year for us all on so many different levels.  Being an introvert to the max (I prefer the term 'home body', btw), the 'not seeing people' thing really didn't affect me that much since I prefer my alone time.  My creative spirit was in full force, though, and I made the goofy decision to begin recording yet another album, this one being an instrumental album, even though my list of unfinished recordings in the proverbial hopper is beyond words (let's just say that I run out of fingers when counting how many albums there are).  The good news is that the new instrumental album is pretty far along and I'm thinking it just may be released by summer.  I'm so far very pleased with and excited by the results.

In other news, I missed the 20th anniversary of my first recorded album/instrumental album "Lost Weekend" but I've been working diligently on remixing it.  I'm hoping to see it get the full treatment for the first time ever, hopefully sounding way better than the original (and maybe looking better as well).  I'll be talking about this more in days to come.

Lastly, the "Mirror Land" EP which has been sitting around waaaaay too long is my first and main priority right now.  It's only 3 songs and they're all from my very early days (would you believe 1989 - 91?) but I'm actually very pleased with it.  They're probably three of my favorite and best tracks from the early days, hence they needed to see the light of day at long last.  Look for that hopefully soon.

That's it for now.  Stay safe and be creative; it can be a real lifesaver. 

The Age of Age

It seems that I’ve finally hit that age where one of the first topics that comes up when meeting up with old friends is ailments.  You know the conversation; it goes something like this:

“How are you doing?”

“Oh, pretty good.  My back is driving me crazy and my knee needs surgery but pretty good overall.  You?”

“Not too bad.  I’ve had some weird ‘bouts of vertigo and stomach issues but not too bad.”

“Ah…good to hear!”

Now, this is a fairly modest example in reality.  The real conversation tends to lean more towards ailments like gastrointestinal issues, heart, fatigue, prostate, you name it…all the sorts of things that don’t exactly make attractive or polite dinner conversation.  If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the years, it’s that no one really wants to hear about your diarrhea problems while eating green curry at a Thai restaurant.

There also seems to be a bit of stigma around bringing up constipation issues while eating chocolate ice cream, albeit understandably so.  But then again, how does someone answer the question of “how are you doing” in any other fashion?  I’m in that age now that most of how I’m doing somehow revolves around which ailment I’m currently battling and there’s unfortunately rarely a time when I don’t have less than 2 concurrent problems happening simultaneously.  Judging from most of my friends, I’m clearly not alone in this category.

I guess that’s just aging, right?  Quite possibly.  I’ll openly admit that it’s not my favorite thing in the world and if given the choice I’d probably choose eternal youth.  Aging so far has come with so many various surprises, things that they don’t forewarn you about in school and such, and most of them come as a semi vicious shock.  For example, it seems like it was almost literally on my 40^th birthday that various things started happening.  40 seems to come with a variety of special birthday “presents”:  first, you may start to not see quite as sharply as before.  Next, you begin having issues focusing and start spending more time staring blankly at words and paragraphs, especially on computer screens.  Then, your memory starts to also fade a bit.  You might also experience some trouble sleeping or possibly trouble peeing.  And, if that’s not enough for you to already handle, you’re also suddenly thrown into the pool for the risk of serious diseases such as diabetes, cancer, heart attack, and stroke.  What more could you ask for, right?

One of the things that’s always puzzled me, though, is the weird silent internal body chemistry command that suddenly tells your various body hairs to start growing at an alarming rate and simply never stop.  I really don’t get it whatsoever.  What is this underhanded event that occurs that makes, say, an eyebrow hair suddenly not remember when to stop growing?  For 40+ years, it had no issue knowing it’s set growth limitation but, all of a sudden, it’s like your eyebrow hairs have lost their memory as well.  This is no joke.  It begins by these strange tickling sensations that you receive, like as if someone was pestering you with a feather duster.  In annoyance, you look at yourself in the bathroom mirror and notice that it’s actually you who is in fact tickling yourself, or more specifically an eyebrow hair has somehow grown so long as to tickle the earlobe on the opposite side of your head.  I mean, it’s insane!  The ear and nose hair is even worse.  I swear that I could probably grow one simple ear hair out and, by zig-zagging it across my head, I’d probably give off the illusion of a full head of hair.  I’ve pulled nose hairs out of my nose that I thought were cat hairs…from a long haired cat, no less.  The best part is that those same nose hairs grow so long that they tickle your nostril endlessly every time you breathe.  You end up looking like a lunatic frantically trying to find the offending hair.  People all around you think that you’re incessantly picking your nose but in truth you’re just madly searching for the offending hair.  Again, fun stuff.

Surgeries also used to seem more like unfortunate accident repair in the past.  These days, surgeries are more akin to tune-ups on your automobile except that your tires seem to be guaranteed only for about 1,500 miles rather than the usual 30-40k.  Doctor’s visits also often end with a shrug of the shoulders rather than any definitive solution.  More often than not, the diagnosis is something along the lines of “learn to live with it”.  Sigh.

One incredibly positive thing about aging is that I usually can’t remember to stay mad at anyone that long and so happiness seems to flow a lot easier than in the past.  It’s amazing how if you can’t remember negativity how much happier you can be in life!  So, I guess it’s not all bad after all.

Aging is certainly not for the weak of heart (pun intended).  Then again, considering the alternative, well…

I Have an Emergency!

I was recently in Target and thought I might quickly become a witness to the latest YouTube viral sensation of a customer throwing a tantrum.  Frankly, for a moment, at least, I kind of thought that a fist fight might break out between two ladies and wasn’t sure if I should be excited by the prospect or completely terrified.

It kind of happened like this…  The checkout lines in Target were particularly long on this day, especially since this very Target is one of the only low traffic Target’s I’ve experienced in North County.  I believe the time was around noon on a weekday and so most shoppers were probably there over their lunch hour, just like myself, trying to squeeze a few errands in before getting back to the office.

After waiting a short amount of time, I was eventually next in line after a woman that I’d guess was around my age or slightly older.  She was well put together, with lots of jewelry and accessories, and clearly made a decent amount of money in whatever it was that she did for a living.  I would say that she gave off the vibe of possibly being a bit snooty but not altogether unapproachable, if that helps any.  Just as she was about to be rung up at the register, another lady pushing a shopping cart containing a large child car seat frantically rolled up and started saying rather loudly, “I have an emergency…I have an emergency…”  She wheeled her cart behind our line, thus to the back of the clerk who was ringing up our purchases, and more or less tapped the young girl on the shoulder.  “I have an emergency…can I be rung up??!”

The young female Target employee who was probably all of about 16 years old looked rather confused on what to do and simply managed to mumble an “…uhhhh….”  After a couple seconds, she sheepishly said, “Well, the line is on this side,” pointing to where we, the woman in front of me and myself, were standing.  “You’d have to pay on this side,” meaning that the card reader wasn’t movable.

Upon hearing this, the frantic lady looked mildly put out but started wheeling her cart around the back of the lane, basically where you’d pick up your purchases after paying for them.  She abruptly stopped when the lady in front of me didn’t move away from the card reader and instead looked terribly confused, eventually asking, “Um…what’s going on?”

The frantic lady stated, “I guess I need to ring this up over here,” pointing to the side with the card reader.

The lady in front of me had a look of both confusion and complete annoyance.  She looked around briefly and pointed towards the back of the line saying, “The line starts back there.”

The frantic lady now looked desperate.  “But I have an emergency!  I need to go!”

The lady in front of me looked at the Target employee who simply shrugged her shoulders, in an effort to more or less insinuate ‘it’s your choice if you want to let her in’.  The lady in front of me simply stood for quite a few seconds, pondering the whole situation and clearly was taken aback by the nerve of the frantic lady.  In the meantime, the frantic lady again stated, “Please??!  I have an emergency?  Please???!!!”

We all stood with eyes glued on the lady in front of me, patiently waiting for the verdict.  Like a judge in a murder trial, silence hung in the room while the lady looked back and forth, pondering, considering, etc.  It then became evident that she was administering the dreaded thumbs down response.  She turned back to the frantic lady and repeated once again with more attitude this time, “The line begins over there.”

It was right about now that I thought a fist fight would break out.  The frantic lady was completely in shock by this response.  “Oh my god!!  I have an EMERGENCY!  I can’t believe it!” she said, all the while shaking her head in disbelief.  “The NERVE of some people!  Oh my god!!!!”  She then began pushing her cart away and yelled out, “Guess I’ll just have to go to self check out then!”

The lady in front of me simply smirked in righteousness and mumbled quietly towards the Target clerk and the rest of us in line, “…well, I only have so much time on my lunch hour too...”  It was apparent that she didn’t buy the “emergency” story whatsoever and felt that she had really “shown her”.

It was at this point that the lady behind me in line chimed in, “Some people.  You know, she was acting really weird when she came in, too.”  By the time my purchases were getting rung up, I said to the young female Target clerk, “Well, personally, I think I would have just let her ring the thing up,” in which the Target clerk gently smiled and agreed.

I can’t deny that I really find this whole event rather intriguing.  What I find so interesting about this situation is that apparently very few people can even believe that the lady could actually have an emergency.  I mean, this is how far we’ve come in our society with crying wolf, preying on other’s good will, and so on.  We’re apparently so used to the concept of ‘fake’ everything at this point that we can’t even handle the concept of letting someone cut in front of us in a Target line, lest we feel like a real sucker.  It’s quite sad, no?  Then again, how does one tell the true “emergencies” from the fakers, and better yet who’s to judge whose emergency is “emergency” enough to cut in a shopping line?  Just like with people who stand on street corners with signs that say that they’re homeless and need help, we apparently as a society no longer believe that anyone is genuine in their cry for help, and we simply assume that everyone around us is running some sort of a scam.  I mean, I don’t know whether the lady had a true emergency or not.  How could I, right?  Still, she wasn’t asking for money or anything…she was simply asking to cut in a shopping line, and that doesn’t really involve anything from anyone except perhaps an additional wait of about 2 minutes, considering she just had one item to ring up.  I guess we apparently as a society feel like that’s not worth the risk.  It’s just interesting…and very sad at the same time.  It basically sounds to me like if you’re ever in need of real help from a stranger, the best thing you can do is simply stay quiet and suck it up.  Perhaps that’s what our society has come to, and if so, well, that’s pretty depressing.

I’m not really suggesting that the woman in front of me in line did anything wrong for who knows what the real story is behind the frantic lady’s actions.  I’m simply pointing out the fact that she automatically assumed it was a scam, and weirder yet is the lady behind me who felt the need to point out that the frantic lady was acting strange on the way into Target and automatically tied that in to the scam mentality.  For me personally, I would have tied it the other way around.

Still, what kind of legitimate emergency involves the purchase of an infant car seat?  If someone was in that desperate need of help, wouldn’t you just leave the car seat behind and run out of Target in order to get to your destination as quickly as possible?  And why not just use self check out in the first place?  These are all very valid questions.  I guess there’s a small chance that she might need the car seat for the emergency but that seems slightly odd, no?  Again, damn good questions and who knows what the answers are.

In the end, after paying for my purchases, I pushed my cart out of the exit of Target and nearly got run over by a car that zipped past me going at least about 40+ miles per hour in what would normally be a 10 mph zone.  As the car whizzed by me and I stood there flabbergasted by the near miss, I noticed that the driver was indeed the frantic lady.  Perhaps it was an emergency after all?  Who knows.  I guess at least I didn’t end up BEING the emergency, with getting run over and needing to be rushed to the hospital for my injuries.  If that did happen, I think we can already bet that someone would have thought it was a scam.

Life in North County

And so, yes, I've moved, if you haven't heard and/or already figured that out.  It was quite a task, to say the least, but I think moving across country almost always is.  It's certainly a lot more daunting of a task if you move yourself but then again it's also considerably cheaper.  In hindset, just my 2 cents, of course, but driving the Penske moving truck was probably the easiest part of the whole process so I personally see little reason to pay someone else a large sum of money to do this fairly straight forward task.  Ah, but that's me.

The drive out in my car over New Years was pretty straight forward except for a possible weirdo that was following me for quite some time that really put me on my guard.  Guess where he was from?  Yep, Minnesota, per his license plate.  He even darted off of the freeway at the last second, nearly hitting the median, when he saw that I put my blinker on to exit the freeway and then proceeded to follow me to the gas station.  Not long after that, he struck up a goofy brief conversation at the pump and then proceeded to follow me into the bathroom.  I did my best to hurry out of the bathroom and gas station without looking too obvious but he once again followed me back to the pumps and then onto the freeway.  I've seen one too many movies like "Zodiac" that simply told me to keep my guard up at all costs, of which I did and then did my best to distance myself from him by slowing down and sticking behind another traveller.  He may have just been an overly zealous Minnesotan hoping to ride alongside another former Minnesotan but you just can't be too careful these days.

That was the weirdest thing that happened.  On the lighter side, I guess I will not deny that I let out quite a big cheer when I passed into the Iowa State border from Minnesota.  Iowa isn't really much more to look at but at least it was progress in the right direction, in my head at least.  It really wasn't until I reached Colorado that I truly started breathing a sigh of relief, one that was about 10 years in the making.  Leaving the midwest behind me was definitely a reason to celebrate as far as I was concerned, and no matter what the future holds, I really hope to not have to ever drive again with the midwest being my final destination.

Oddly, Minnesota, in it's usual "Minnesota" sort of way, is one of the few states I've ever encountered that not only has a "Welcome to Minnesota" sign but also has a "Thanks for visiting Minnesota" sign just slightly before the "Welcome to Iowa" sign.  It might just be my personal bias but this seems to have that typical Minnesota "we're the best at everything" sort of mentality, as if to say, "Um, you're about to leave the wonderful state of Minnesota.  Are you sure you want to do that?  Huh?  Huh??  And, why would you ever want to leave?!  Are you crazy?!!"  Yeah, that's pretty much how I view Minnesota in a nutshell.  The very amusing part is that Minnesotans basically look down on Iowa as a worthless flyover zone; in passing into the state of Iowa, it looks to me like, well, Minnesota, just without the attitude.  'Nuff said on that topic.

I also had my first ever emergency whizz off the freeway.  I was patiently waiting to get to a gas station and over about a 20 minute time frame, when no stations were in sight, it became literally painfully obvious that I wasn't going to make it.  I seriously waited until I realized that I was about to pee my pants that I finally pulled over and in broad daylight watered the desert shrubery.  The next gas station of course ended up being only 10 minutes away but I seriously would have never made it.

And so, how is life in North County?  Yep, spoken like a native!  I quickly learned that when you say "San Diego" people usually mean county, not city.  So, we're all San Diegoan's here, apparently, since everything south of Camp Pendleton is in San Diego county.  To differentiate, we're in the northern part of the county and so...  I'm sure you get the drift.

I'd say life is good in North County.  It's amazing how quickly you forget about snow, weather, etc., not to mention, well, Minnesota.  I've done everything I can to shed pretty much any tie I might have had with my former state, even going so far as to instruct new acquaintances to never say that I'm "from" Minnesota...it was just a mistake, 'er, I mean, place that I lived for awhile.  In fact, it's best that we simply don't talk about it at all.

North County is so far pretty much as I had imagined it, though.  It's not completely unlike the look of Phoenix, my former former place of residency, coupled with the look and feel of south Orange County, ala San Clemente.  So far, I have no mega complaints except for things like I wish the roads were a bit smoother and traffic wasn't quite as heavy as it can be at times.  I am certainly enjoying being able to eat decent food again, though, and I can't say enough how joyous it is to have chips and guacamole once again on a regular basis, even if it does give me mega heart burn and will probably eventually be the death of me.

Apart from that, I'm just settling in to my surroundings, getting things put away (ah, the endless unpacking), and so on.  Life in North County is so far so good.  Now, ask me in 6 months and we'll see how it's goin' ;)

Move, Schmove...

Well, it’s finally happened.  My time in Minnesota is officially winding done, and it’s California, here I come!  I have always wanted to live in California, pretty much from my early days of living in Arizona, and have often scoped it out over the years, done some mild calculations, and always come to the same conclusion – I cannot afford to live in California – until now.  Due to this, it’s a little bit hard for me to believe that this is actually going to happen.  I think it’ll take a few months for it all to sink in, most likely, and I’ll be really curious to see how I feel once that happens.

With yet another cross country move looming on the near horizon, I can’t help but have moving on the brain almost constantly, not to mention the topics of painful aches (due to moving), bad knees (also due to moving), Minnesota, California, and so on.

Let me begin by explaining that I was born in the western suburbs of Chicago, IL, and lived there until I was 13.  My father’s workplace at Western Electric was being closed down which left him the choice of either moving to a new location or finding a new job altogether.  He chose the former.  He had fairly decent seniority and therefore was placed high on the list, allowing him to pick his preferred relocation point before many others.  My parents discussed a few options initially but decided to hold out for Phoenix, AZ, which is where we ended up moving to.  We had been to Arizona only once before, Lake Havasu City, to be exact, where I still fondly recall our peanut butter melting in our 20 ft. Jayco travel trailer due to the extreme heat (108-ish, I think?), not to mention the formerly solid Crisco oil, and so on.  Apart from that, we knew practically nothing about Arizona and had never even been to Phoenix.  Upon my father placing his official bid, we drove (yes, drove….) out to Phoenix, spent about a week looking at houses, and at the end of the week my parents purchased a new build.  It was official – we were moving.

The real downside at the time was that I was just starting my 8^th grade year at the private Catholic grammar school that I attended, the only real school I had ever known.  We moved in late September and therefore I was only in 8^th grade there for a few weeks.  Even worse, at my new public school, since the school year was already well underway, it put me at an incredible disadvantage, especially being a very shy child.  Needless to say, 8^th grade year was pretty rough.  It’s the sort of year that you truly look forward to for what seems like forever, triumphantly graduating with these classmates that you grew up, but for me, though, it was rather anticlimactic and more of a transitional year.

This was my first and only experience up until then in regards to moving.  It was so strange seeing my belongings get packed up, carried off by some strangers, driven out by yet another group of strangers, and then finally being able to crack back into my belongings many months later since we kept them in storage while our house was being built.  There were a lot of “oh, I forgot I had this!” kind of moments.  It also meant that we had to move twice; once from IL to AZ into a storage unit, and then from the storage unit into the house about four months later.  One of the items that needed to be moved was an upright piano and I still to this day can’t recall how the hell we got that moved between my father and myself.  It was a pretty horrendous move overall because my parents also didn’t believe in selling off any of their belongings prior to moving, and so basically everything we owned had to be physically moved in one fashion or another.

Like most people, I’m sure, I then moved multiple times starting around my late teen years, all local moves from one end of the Phoenix area to another.  With each move, it seemed I was accumulating more and more belongings.  These tended to be awful experiences since I somehow always ended up moving in the middle of summer, when the temperatures were upwards of 100 degrees.  This behavior continued until I bought a house in 2001 where I remained until 2004.  In that year, being tired of the extreme heat, I decided to do the impossible…move across country from AZ to Indianapolis, of all places, and, on top of that, to do it all myself with only one helper and 3 cats in the cab of a Penske truck.  I had helpers to load up the truck, thankfully, but we drove straight through from AZ to IN with only stops for gas and food/bathroom breaks.  33 hours total, to be exact.  It was a nightmare, total freakin’ nightmare, almost beyond words, with cats howling almost the entire way.  There’s more to this story but I’ll save that for another time.

After finally getting settled, moving locally once more in Indianapolis and buying a home, I then decided that I wasn’t really liking it there so I moved to Minneapolis, MN.  I know, smart, huh?!  This took 2 separate moves of my belongings, and also one extremely loud and smelly car ride with 3 cats in their carriers, whining/screaming pretty much the entire time (again).  The drive is only 8 hours from IN to MN but with 3 howling felines it kind of feels like days.

And so, I’ve been in MN ever since, partially out of fear of doing another cross country move and also due to things just not working out in trying to move again.  I wanted to leave MN as early as 3 years in but then the economy collapsed, and I was suddenly underwater on my mortgage, and so on.  I was basically stuck for quite some time.  I did almost leave in 2013 but pulled out of the idea at the last second, mainly due to the circumstances surrounding it.  It just wasn’t ideal at that time and things just didn’t seem to be fitting into place, if you know what I mean.  I’m a firm believer that if life keeps throwing horrendous obstacles at you repeatedly for no real reason, maybe it’s just trying to tell you something.  And so, I listened.  This time around, though, things have been fitting into place mostly, or at least with a little bit of elbow grease.  This still begs the question, though, of why leave?

Ah, Minnesota…  Land of 10,000 lakes, the central focus in the movie “Fargo”, one of the coldest bigger cities in the continental US.  A very common question I hear, at least in Minnesota, is why would I ever want to leave?  This is about the biggest typical Minnesota question in the world and ironically partly explains why I’m leaving.  For you non-Minnesotans out there, it’s hard to explain but the typical Minnesotan believes that they live in paradise, akin to somewhere like, say, Hawaii, for the rest of us.  Of course, almost 100% of the rest of the country thinks that Minnesotans are completely insane in this thinking.  I mean, the weather can be rather horrible with very harsh winters, it’s loaded with bugs during the few months that have pleasant weather, it’s land locked, it’s so-called fly over country, and so on.  My theory has always been that Midwesterners have to make themselves feel better about living in the Midwest and so they concoct these strange, bizarre misconceptions about where they live.  This sort of thinking isn’t only in the Twin Cities area but it’s certainly on steroids here.  Per a typical Minnesotan, everything here is “the best…”, even things that make no sense whatsoever or couldn’t possibly be.  For example, in talking about California and the coastline, a Minnesotan might butt in, “…but you know, we have more miles of coastline than CA and Florida put together!”  By coastline, they mean, of course, the so called “10,000 lakes”, or, well, ponds/cesspools, as I call them.    I’m not sure how that compares with beaches and the ocean but…  Minnesotans also pride themselves on having the so-called best State Fair in the country.  Maybe they do…I don’t know, but I’ve personally never seen State Fairs as a reason to choose to live somewhere.  I mean, who does that?  A Minnesotan, that’s who.  There is just such an overwhelming sense of false pride in this area that it’s hard not to choke on it, although you’d only notice and care about it if you’re not originally from here, which explains also quite a bit.  The adage goes:  “Minnesota…you can’t get anyone to move there, and you can’t get anyone from there to leave.”  I’ve found this to be pretty much spot on.

Most people automatically assume that I’m leaving MN due to the weather, and whereas I’ll admit that after 20 years in AZ of not having “the seasons” and then having them again for the past 11 years, I find them pretty darn overrated.  I used to dream of fall when I lived in AZ and complained about not having it; in MN, though, don’t blink because you’ll usually miss it.  Fall tends to be about 2-3 weeks maximum, not the long, drawn out season that I falsely recalled from childhood, and depending upon the weather, it far too often goes straight from summer to winter.  The only real evidence of fall is usually the huge pile of leaves on your lawn that you’re not sure what to do with.  Then, winter comes.  Minnesota is the polar opposite problem of Arizona weather-wise, in my opinion.  Over there, I complained that the extreme heat (aka “summer”) lasted way too long, like 9 months of the year.  In MN, winter usually lasts at least 6 months, and sometimes it can last 8.  Maybe I’ll feel different in a couple of years but, at the moment at least, I feel like the seasons might be better experienced by simply taking a road trip rather than having to live in them.

Having said that, though, the weather really isn’t my main complaint.  First, there’s the “work” aspect.  Minnesotans and Midwesterners love their grass and lawns.  Why?  I really have no clue.  I’ll admit that the greenery is nice but it’s just grass, after all, and a huge pain in the ass, in my opinion.  People treat their lawns here like it’s some sort of work of art, like a canvas with the latest Jackson Pollock.  I think people tend to be more anal retentive about their lawns than almost anything else, and they expect you to be as well.  And so, you’re out there practically every week mowing the lawn, and for what?  Again, no clue.  Apart from the exercise angle, I think it’s a complete waste of time, especially since the lawns here are literally the entire yard.  No hills, no dividers, no nice looking brick pavers or anything…just wall to wall flat grass from property line to property line.  It’s a matter of opinion, of course, but I think it’s just about the most boring look possible.  Give me some stones and a nice cactus any day of the week!

One of my biggest complaints in Minnesota is the overall pace of life.  I’ve tried, truly I have, but I just can’t adjust to it.  People drive painfully slow and are overly cautious, as if a small child might parachute out of the sky at any moment and land in front of their car.  They walk about the same.  Try walking through Ikea at the MOA on a busy day…you’ll know what I mean.  The Midwest is also historic for being extremely slow to change.  For example, the typical house décor here seems to be 10-20 years behind the west coast.  I’ve seen “recent” décor here that I thought went out in 1985.  A lot of the attitudes on life move at about the same pace.  Change isn’t really accepted with open arms here and it’s constantly in a battle with tradition, with tradition usually coming out the victor.  I’m personally pretty big on change and not very into tradition.  I always say tradition is great but it should work for you, not just be some silly ritual that you do every year regardless of really wanting to or knowing why you’re doing it.  All too often, in my experience, people just go through the motions with tradition without any idea of why they’re doing it.  To me, this is more of what I’d call a chore and I’m just not very interested in it.

There’s also the food issue.  I moved here to open up my options on food; what I got was the exact opposite.  I thought I was moving to a vegetarian friendly town, which I guess it was at one time maybe but since has changed.  In general, though, let’s just say that I’ve never consistently had such horrible food over and over at different locations in my life.  For example, I was served jarred Alfredo sauce at an Italian restaurant - no joke.  We’re not really talking about differences in palette…we’re talking differences in quality, like getting served a plate of greens (salad) but nothing on the plate is actually green.  Half the time, we get something literally rotten served to us and no one seems to think anything of it.  It’s like that’s just normal here.  Ick.

And lastly, there are the people and the lifestyle.  I’ve honestly struggled greatly with these things ever since I arrived.  I quickly learned that there really is no “Minnesota Nice”.  Yeah, sure, people will stop to help you out if you’re in need, and they may wave you forward at a 4 way stop (even though that technically throws off traffic and confuses people even more), but if you pass them in the hall, don’t expect them to greet you with a friendly smile.  Instead, they’ll look down at the floor, act like you’re not there, etc.  Also, everyone made their body of friends back in high school and so now, as a newcomer, they’ve no room for you and so don’t expect to be accepted with open arms.  Plus, I think people are just naturally skeptical of newcomers, although I’m not sure why.  Someone once told me, “Cold weather = cold people.”  I don’t know if this is totally true but I’ve certainly experienced it time and time again.  Also, there are only a couple handfuls of lifestyles here and not a lot of room for anything else so if you don’t fit in, well, good luck.

As you probably guessed, I don’t fit in.  I’ve never really felt very comfortable here, to be honest.  I don’t fish, hunt, watch football, ride motorcycles, etc., so I’m already completely on the outs with one major crowd.  I’m also not a hipster, urban dweller, raging liberal, etc., and so I’m out with that crowd as well.

Please understand that I don’t think there’s anything wrong with Minnesota.  I know that everything I’m writing sounds the opposite but, in all honesty, it’s perfectly fine.  It’s just not for me, plain and simple.  I moved back to the Midwest looking for a more fulfilled life with seasons; what I got was much less fulfillment, tons more judgment, much shallower conversations, terrible food with practically nothing vegetarian at all, and seasons that just favor winter and chores like mowing the lawn and snow blowing (another joy, let me tell ya).  I didn’t realize what I had by living in the west, pure and simple, and it was a bad trade, for me at least.

Moving is pure hell, trust me, and at my age it’s really hell at this point due to a bad back, bad knees, and now a torn meniscus in my right knee specifically.  Still, I see no other choice.  It’s time to undo a wrong, something that’s haunted me at night for the past 11 years.  Quite frankly, when I left AZ, I went the wrong way.  California here I come!  Maybe it won’t be a total dream.  Maybe it won’t even work out and I’ll end up moving again.  Who knows!  All I know right now is that I’m greatly looking forward to the change.  I need it and dare say I’ve earned it.  People say to me all the time about how shallow people in CA can be.  My eyebrows usually raise since everyone I’ve come in contact with so far has been incredibly nice, even at grocery stores, coffee shops, etc.  Maybe I just fit in…who knows.  I guess I’ll find out soon enough.

Do You Ragu'?

This may come as a mild shock to some of you but I’m a bit of a, um, food snob.  I’m not sure that’s completely fair of me to say, though, considering where I live, which continues to supply me with an onslaught of absolutely horrible and disgusting food.  It’s gotten so bad at this point that I absolutely refuse to eat anywhere around here again that I haven’t already tried and “approved”.  Yes, you read that right; we actually keep a list of “approved” places to eat, and let me tell you that the positive list doesn’t seem to grow while the negative ran out of room a few years ago.

I live in Woodbury, Minnesota, where I’ve been for the past 10+ years, which is a suburb about 10 miles out of the Twin Cities.  I’ve tried twice before to leave/move from here and I’ll be trying once again very soon.  Due to this, I’m pretty much done trying any new food places around here, both because I’m hoping not to be around here too much longer AND they seem to be consistently disappointing.

For example, a new Ramen restaurant opened in our town not too long ago and we were very excited to give it a try.  Yelp! reviews claimed that it was ‘excellent’…we’ve since learned not to trust anything we read on Yelp! when it comes to the MN palette.  In any event, we went, we ordered, and I was served ‘wet horse’.  Yes, you read that right…’wet horse’.  That was pretty much the only way to describe my vegetable ramen, a dish that shouldn’t and probably didn’t have any meat in it.  To further explain, have you ever been around a horse?  Okay, great, now imagine dousing it with a hose for a while.  If you’ve ever done something like wash a dog with a hose, you probably know that the dog hair takes on a certain weird, musty odor that’s even worse than what the dog smelled like initially.  Apply that same logic to the horse and voila!  You’ve got ‘wet horse’, and that’s exactly what my vegetable ramen smelled like.  Appealing, huh?  Needless to say, I couldn’t eat much of it and it bears noting that I’m the kind of person that’ll usually eat almost anything unless it’s completely inedible (which it was, in my opinion).  Maybe all ramen dishes smell like ‘wet horse’…who knows.  If so, I think I’ll be avoiding all of them because I strangely just haven’t acquired that taste as of yet.

This wasn’t an isolated incident, though, and this sort of thing has happened to us more times than I can count now.  We ate at a Mexican restaurant in Minneapolis that was rated “the best of…”.  I ordered a chili relleno and I kid you not…it was made who knows how many days earlier, then frozen, and then put in the microwave right before being served to me.  No joke.  How do I know?  Well, they didn’t microwave it long enough so parts of it were ice cold, just like when you microwave something about 2-3 minutes shy of the necessary time.  Plus, there was a puddle of water around the food where the freezer burn ran off, not to mention that the food just looked bizarre, like as if it was someone’s doggy bag from the previous week.  Again, completely disgusting and inedible.  Oh, and did I mention that the salsa in the salsa bar was rancid?  The onions had definitely gone off.  This was vomit city.

The latest, though, is something totally new that I can’t recall experiencing previously anywhere.  We decided to try an Italian place in Woodbury for pasta.  We usually drive close to 15 miles to Pizza Luce whenever we want pasta and just bring it home but we thought we’d change it up a bit and try something in our neighborhood.  I knew from the start this was a bad idea, I mean seriously, I did.  Well, it didn’t fail to disappoint my disappointment.  I ordered the cheese ravioli and really wanted marinara sauce on it.  Being a vegetarian, I have to sort of drill wait staff about their food sometimes and this one sort of paid off.  I asked, “Is the red sauce marinara or meat sauce?”  The young girl replied, “Marinara,” and I was just about to order it when she paused and said, “We cook our meatballs in the sauce but then we pull them out.”  I hope you’re following the logic there.  It’s still marinara...not meat sauce…because they pulled the meatballs out.  Brilliant!  Um, no, not really.  Therefore, I had to order their only other option which was alfredo.

The food arrived and I kid you not…it was jarred alfredo sauce.  No, I’m not making that up.  We went to a restaurant and paid upwards of $10 for someone in the “kitchen” to open a jar of Ragu, Bertoli, whatever, and they poured that on the ravioli.  How do I know?  Simple – you can just taste the preservatives in it, see the funky texture, and as someone who refuses to make food at home with jarred sauce, I sure as hell don’t want it in a restaurant!  The irony is that we didn’t want to cook that night so instead we paid someone else to also NOT cook.  Crazy.

This is my life, folks...what can I tell you.  I’m just not sure how much more of this I can take, quite frankly.  Geesh.

And so, the next time you order food out, you may want to inquire a bit about what you’re eating.  If not, you just might end up with a wet horse drenched in Ragu, and if that doesn’t make you sick just thinking about it, well, you should eat around our neighborhood because it might be right up your alley!