Updates

Hello! Setting yet another record, I have yet to update in the past month. Lots of things have been going on to which I'll kindly and quickly mull over in random bullet point style for anyone who actually still takes a look at this site for something other than finding David Gray/Blue Merle mp3s (yes, my site is oddly getting a lot of traffic still due to the world's need for music from these... artists... of which one is , sadly, no longer with us [blue merle disbanded recently - fucking lead songwriter thought he could do better without the constraints of the band, but what does he know - story for another time])

Also thought that I should also say that I am proudly writing this entry on a macbook! Yes, after all these years I've finally given it a shot - Went to the dark side (or light side, however you look at it) and picked up a sleek mac - well, actually both "sides" are dark, so no matter - I never knew or believed how intuitive the mac OS is, and though I installed Windows via Bootcamp, I find myself drawn into and heavily utilizing the Mac.

Anyway - What's been up...

-I'm an employed third grade teacher! I work here.
-The last weeks student teaching were memorable - For once I was the talk of the town, how? By kicking some sixth grade behind in the annual sixth grade versus staff softball game! It was a great feeling to see my kids look up to me as if I were Jordan for a day. We also went on a field trip to the historical museum - The kids wrote a book for me each detailing something they fondly remembered about me which was just amazing. I'm so glad that I stayed until the end of the year!
-I turned a year older.
-I led sixty sixth graders, of whom were as tall or taller than me, on a campus tour of San Jose State University - It was awesome and amazing to see the looks on kids' faces who are underprivileged and are so amused at the littlest of things such as fountains! I think the exposure really opened their eyes to what could be their future and hopefully it is something I can work out with the school each year to bring the college bound culture to these kids.
-Plenty of concerts were enjoyed. Glen Phillips rolled into town with Jonathan Kingham playing backing - BFD showed me that Franz Ferdinand can put out the kind of energy onstage that they do in the studio. The Strokes, on the other hand, ... not really. The Yeah Yeah Yeahs are a band to definitely watch as a headliner and the Sounds, albeit not very deep and dense sonically, are joyful to watch. Neko Case & Damien Rice were a pair of concerts that showcased oddities in a concert that I hadn't seen before - The former performing at a converted movie theater (the Rio Theater in Santa Cruz) and actually verbally describing to us, the crowd, that , yes, indeed, they were to play an encore, and that , yes, they will be performing more songs and that, yes, they needed to tune in front of us first! Odd... The latter, Rice, performed at the Mountain Winery, a notable luxurious venue in the Saratoga Mountains where due to restrictions and curfews set by rich old people, concerts end at 10:30pm. So... Rice being drunk and all (he shot back 3 straight glasses of wine in a row during 'cheers darlin') he kept jamming during their last track only to have the power cut off the instruments at 10:32pm! That was it!
-Thoroughly enjoying Nick Hornby novels - 'A Long Way Down' is a hilarious take on suicide (not exactly an easy thing to do) that stresses on the theme of support. I'm currently reading High Fidelity, you know, the famous film that John Cusack was in with Jack Black. Except that it's americanized.

That is the gist and short version of a month. Lots more involved that I don't have the patience for memory to recall for.

Well, hope this isn't my last post for awhile - I do think about topics to write about often that typically are beautifully expressed in my head but when it comes to writing it down on paper (or in this case typing it), I lose all ability to self express. I should just mike myself up when I'm running.