SE CO

surly monkey

Today I took off for La Junta. There's a pretty awesome skate park there, it's really big and has good flow. When I showed up there were these kids on ridiculous contraptions that were three wheeled scooters. No speed whatsoever and they ended up in the flats blocking flow. I had never seen such a thing.

I skated for about an hour. The local kids were super cool. They know how lucky they are to have a park like that there. It seems like they as opposed to the city are the ones that keep it clean and they were definitely enforcing the rules as far as park etiquette to the scooter kids. Not only that, but La Junta is one of the few parks I've been to in Colorado where the local kids actually skate the full park and take advantage of the pool aspect of the park. Those kids skate old school there.

This time instead of heading straight back to the Springs I headed down US 350 towards Trinidad. I stopped and took pics. Every town between La Junta and Trinidad no longer exists. It was pretty much the first time of seeing ghost towns for me (with the exception of Victor, CO which has no buildings whatsoever standing).

When I finally convince myself to leave the state of CO, this may be the thing I miss the most. Get in my car for a day and see the world change.

15 years

Today is fifteen years since I landed in Colorado. I guess it's an anniversary of sorts. I still vaguely remember getting off the Greyhound at the old Denver Greyhound station and walking down to the RTD station to catch a bus to Boulder. Strangely, I remember this Napoleon looking security guard that I would see the next few times I took the bus back to Indiana.

Sheesh, I was so much younger then. It's hard to remember what it was like back then. I know that I didn't really intend to move here at first, I was just coming to visit a friend for a couple of weeks. And yet I'm still here for the meantime.

Fifteen years later, and I'm ready to go back to the motherland. Even with the humidity and crappy winters. Don't get me wrong, I love Colorado but I don't love Colorado Springs. I could go on and on about why but I won't. And I'll miss it here when I finally heat back east.

And in fact I have this feeling if and when I'm back in Indy, I'll find myself looking to the west and putting mountains that don't exist in the skyline.

Bikes

I can't sleep. Melatonin isn't cutting it this week. Hell, vodka isn't cutting it. What's weird is that whatever it is that's keeping me awake hasn't surfaced enough in my consciousnesses for me to know what words to give it. It must be big because booze would usually work by this point.

It's almost like I'm afraid to go to sleep. And I have no idea why. Crud.

What's even more sad is that I think I'm doing ok. I started commuting to work on my bike back in April. Admittedly, I still drive about one day a week but it's better than I had been doing. And I can already tell I'm losing weight. That and I stopped drinking beer for the most part, which I think was not helping with the weight gain.

But this leads to me wanting to get a new bike as the mountain bike I've had for the last 13 years is no longer cutting it. Not that I want to get rid of it, it's been a sturdy steed and still has lots of life in it. But I'm ready for something different as an everyday bike. My desire is to stop driving as much as possible as long as I live in a place where it's possible to do so(I think I could commute to work at least every month of the year).

At this point I've narrowed it to either a cyclo-cross or touring style bike. And it seems to a degree there isn't that much difference between them these days. But what do I know, I'm new at this again.

Oh yeah, I saw Mogwai the other night. Awesome.

Laws of Attraction

For a long time I've had this suspicion that I'm destined to spend my life alone. Alone in the sense that I will have no true partner in life, someone to share the intimate portions of life. Most of the time it seems that I'm ok with that. The only time that I'm not is when I've tricked myself into thinking that this is not the case. There are times when I lie to myself, and allow myself to believe that there is a chance I may not have to spend myself alone. These are the times that I open myself up, thinking what I know is true is not and eventually get the equivalent of a dagger in my heart.

Oh when will I learn to accept that I am to be alone?

But tonight, I think for the first time I heard what the reason is that I am destined to be alone. I am not attractive. This is what I heard: "I'm not attracted to you, I tried, I really tried."

This is the key I think. For whatever reason, I am not attractive to the other sex. And it's not that I look like some kind of ogre. But I don't think it has anything to do with looks. I'm not a jerk, and the sad thing is, I think to be attractive as a man you have to be a jerk. So I guess either I'm going to be alone or I need to learn how to be more of a jerk.

I want to be a robot.

Back. In. Screw that.

So I'm sitting here listening to this Peel Sessions New Order record I picked up today, and it sounds nothing like the New Order I grew up listening to (ok, the last track "5-8-6" has some of what I remember). Admittedly, it was recorded a few years ago be for most of us over here in the States started listening to them. This was recording in 1982, most of what we know here in the States was recording 1986 or later. Curse the record store. And curse my next trip to Twist and Shout up in Denver.

I keep scouring the used bins. I've picked up what I hope are a few gems. Although I suspect that most of what I've picked up is not really that great. I get the sense that in Colorado Springs either anyone that had decent taste has either died or move away. For their sake I'm hoping for the latter.

As always I'm not sure what my point is here. I suspect I'm riding the waves of nostalgia. Especially since I just put on a record that was released the year I was born "Masters of Reality" by Black Sabbath, another score.

I'm avoiding the issue that I think I'm letting myself get hurt again. It's easy though I tie it all up with all these records again and no one really notices. The only one is me, and that's just because I have a strange sense of impending doom hanging over my head.

And I really think that Black Sabbath in the original line-up was way more hippie that we ever want to admit.

Know it all

So tonight I went down to the local watering hole. I was enjoying a myself just hanging out and talking to the regulars, when the local know-it-all/jerk guy shows up. This fellow is one of those guys that will try start an argument with almost anyone about almost anything someone says. The kind of fellow who will interject himself into your conversation and spout off his opinion even when he has no idea what is being said, he seems to latch onto a keyword or two. That kind of jerk irritates me.

Anyway, I try not to be one of those people. There's been plenty of times where I've just wanted to interject in a conversation but I stop myself. Thanks to social anxiety I never find myself doing that kind of thing. It seems to me that kind of behavior is a form of overcompensation for something. In this particular fellow's case I could see that it may very be the case. This guy (an most like him) is also a one upper. When he left the bar tonight, he made it a point to get the last word as he was driving away.

These people drive me up a wall. I seem to deal with them quite a bit, and usually just wipe it off.

I know how to bite my tongue, and I can't figure out why other people don't.

Oh well, I'll just laugh at them and get over it.

A roof and food

I'm lucky. I still have a job, I still have a roof over my head and I still have money to feed myself (and pay for this Internet connect, if I remember to pay the bill). There are times when I think we all forget how lucky we are to have these things. The scary thing is, if I were to lose my job, I would have about a month before I couldn't pay the rent and end up out of my apartment. And then what? I guess in my case I could head back to the homeland and stay with friends and family until I got back on my feet.

Others aren't so lucky. We probably see them every day and don't even notice. And the way things are going, there are going to be more Americans living on the streets or anywhere they can. Maybe.

One of the big fears I have in life is that I could someday end up one of those people we see walking around homeless and talking to invisible people. I doubt if I would really get that bad, but for some reason I see it within the realm of possibility for me. It would probably take a lot to get me to that point but who knows. I could swear I've seen visions of myself staggering through a city stark raving mad.

What set me off thinking about this was a post on reddit.com. The submitter of this post was not begging for charity, he was describing his day to day life as the newly homeless. And if you read through the replies, he hit a spot in the Internet. His means of surviving are not legal and he could get in some trouble if he gets caught. What's striking is that the community on reddit really came out with offers of support and suggestions. One of the suggestions he took to heart was to set up a blog that is starting to detail his situation. It is new, but an interesting look on the newly homeless.

I fear that we here in America are going to see more and more of this in the next few years. We just need to remember to take care of each other when we can.

Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy

Lurking around in the Internet you can find a lot of the bad and darkness in the world out there, sometimes in fact it finds you. But lately I've been trying to find some of the lightness and good. It started with looking at lolcatz and loldogz. And then it progressed to more things that could be considered cute. Now mind you, I don't spend all day looking at that stuff. I still read the news and get the bad news too (although I try to stay away from overly graphic stuff, unless it's fake). But I do try now to look at stuff that brings a smile to myself a few times a day. That leads me to articles like this. It's a story of a shop keeper in a small town in England who decided to take the day off but leave the store open with an honor box. He wasn't robbed. I'm trying to see the better side of humanity.

And then I run across this article today. Entitled "The Male Spinster", it makes me wonder if that may be what I am. After reading this, I'm wondering if that's the path I'm heading. Lately, I've started to think that I am destined for a life of solitude. I'm not sure if I'm completely ok with this, but I'm not sure if it's possible to fight fate (if that's my fate that is).

I've never really bought the whole "one true love" thing or the "there's someone for everyone" thing either. It could be that I'm just jaded, but I really thing I've never really believed that those two things are true. Over the years, I've just seen to many people in unhappy, unloving situations and yet they stay in them. Emotions and feelings change over time and I'm not buying that each one of us have a soulmate out there (ok, that sounds pretty jaded, doesn't it?).

But, if that's the life I'm to live (at least for now), then I'll just look at kittens and puppies to make me smile.

Poker, I barely know her!

Damn, well at least this time I wasn't very invested this time. Nonetheless, I'm beginning to get sick of learning by experience. Perhaps I'm phrasing that incorrectly, what I mean is, I seemed to gathered all of this experience and for once I'd rather be able to apply it rather than learn from more examples.

And I'm not even sure what if anything I learned this time. I'm sure there's something.

Yes, I'm being intentionally vague, I realize this. Put it this way, for once I put almost all of my cards on the table, and seemingly they were snatched away. Poor analogy I realize but I really don't want to go into much detail. This is a public space after all.

This time I'm really not that upset by it, like I said I wasn't very invested. But it doesn't change the part where I'm a tad hurt.

Anyway, enough crying in my beer. So the other day I picked up Wolves in the Throne Room "Two Hunters" on vinyl. I'd already downloaded the album, but liked it enough that I wanted to hear in on my turntable (and it does sound better). I was pleasantly surprised to discover that there was a LP only track on it. And of course the art is cool too.

After being pointed in the right direction by Hutch, I've started getting back in to metal, which at 37 sort of surprises me. One would think that metal is a younger persons genre. On that I am totally wrong.

Surprise! Or not.

Sometimes I surprise myself. Apparently, once in a while I can actually ask the questions I want answers to in a direct way. It doesn't happen that often, as I tend to beat around the bush. I'm not exactly sure why I do it that way but I do. Tonight, though, I asked a question the way I wanted to hear the answer (after failing at asking it subtly). And it was refreshing to get an answer to it.

Anyway, on to music, I guess. I have this feeling I've been neglecting this part. Tonight after the aforementioned conversation I went out to see my friends' band from Denver American Relay play at the Rocket Room tonight. I completely managed to space taking any cameras to prove my presence so you'll just have to believe me on this one. They played pretty damn good, and ended the show with a bit of a jam session with Reverend Deadeye and Becky Lee. It was pretty fun and I felt my body move a bit. Having only had a beer of two, that's a bit rare for me. But I guess with not having my camera, I didn't know what else to do.

I've been pouring over my music lately trying to come up with playlists. I find it a bit of a challenge. If I'm OCD about anything, it's sorting my music (and photos to a lesser extant), so it can get hard for me to mix genres on a playlist. Trying to make a mixtape/CD is actually hard. Not like making an actual tape back in the day (see Chuck Klosterman for the difference between a mixed tape and mixed CD). But nonetheless, it can be a struggle to come up with the best mix. Especially when you have 25 days worth of music on one hard drive.

Oh well, it's late and tonight I think I drift off with Beruit.

The distance

There's this person that I think most of us have in our lives. I tend to call it "the one who got away". It seems to me that most of us have one of those people in our past. Mostly in terms of relationships, at least for me and from what I've gathered from others. Now don't take this as pining for in my case, just pure curiosity (that was at least six years ago). But what I wonder is if they are in fact the ones that got away, why did we let them get away?

I know in my case it was mostly geographical distance and a general moving on. Through in some mental issues on perhaps both parts and you have a separation.

And through talking to other people about their "one that got away" is seems that the common theme is physical distance. Again I have to wonder, why is that we try to keep things going over long distance when neither party is going to leave where they are? I know once in my life I've moved to another place for someone and I'm still trying to figure out if it was worth it in the long run (I suspect it was even though I'm not with that person anymore).

Why do some of us insist on maintaining a long distance relationship, we do it because of the distance or in spite of it? I was never able to figure it out for myself. Some of us (myself included) can have some attraction to people who are unavailable. A geographical unavailability is about as unavailable as one can get. Or is one of those "all odds can be surmounted through love" fantasies that we've been fed over the years? Which I speculate clouds our vision of true nature of relationships.

Once again, I'm not sure where I'm going with this. Perhaps there is something I'm trying to work out here. There is a tendency on my part to be attracted to people who are unavailable in one way or another. I'm not sure if I'm doing it again (I'm not going into to detail right now), but maybe in the back of my head that little buzzer is going off this time. That's one of the things that bothers me about me, I'm never really sure what's going on inside my head. And trying to get it down can be a pain. Or perhaps I just found myself in a moment of nostalgia tonight because I put on Modest Mouse for the first time in years.

Was your daddy a thief?

Like always, I'm not sure how to start. That seems to be fairly prevalent in many parts of my life. Those that know me have a hard time believing that I'm actually shy, but I am. Or at least I'm shy until after the first the ice has been broken, and not always then. I'm one of those people who you see at the party who is kind of hanging to himself (that is if I don't already know anyone there). Oddly, I wasn't always this way. For a brief period when I was much younger I wasn't shy and I could just walk up to people and start a conversation. I don't feel able to do that now. Yeah, it's all a mind game I'm sure but for a lack of a better phrase, I have no opening lines when it comes to meeting people. I don't mean cheap pick up lines, but just simple phrases to start a conversation.

The thing is I find myself getting more and more insular as time goes on. For instance, I have to make myself leave my apartment on days that I don't have to work. And it seems that I'm pretty ok with sitting in here by myself not talking to anyone. But I know that I should leave and get out among people (even if I don't really talk to them), just for some sort of human contact.

It makes me wonder if I need to start talking to a professional about it, or is it just the way I am. To a degree I think I've always sort of been a loner. And I think I've always been aware of this. But there are times when I'm lonely and would like to be in the company of others. I'm not sure what that is, perhaps I just want companionship of some sort.

Anyway. Enough of that. My last Christmas package got here yesterday with a pleasant surprise. Hutch and Hilt got me a Holga camera, so now I have a new toy to play around with. I started playing with it today, but it's a film camera so I need to shoot off the roll tomorrow so I can get it processed.

Out with the old, in with the new

Yeah, I'm not so much on New Year resolutions. The standard still applies. I need to quit smoking yet again. I need to get my finances in order. I need to start going to the gym. Blah, Blah, Blah.

2008 was kind of a crappy year for me. I got hit by a car, I'm closer to bankruptcy than I've ever been and apparently I got hosed by the one woman I dated. Sheesh. Although I guess there were bright spots, I got pulled off the phones at work, which meant I didn't have to deal with a constant onslaught of customers. And I did discover a few friends here in Colorado Springs. Oh yeah, and I did get a cat, the little bastard is freaking out as I type this.

I can't tell if I'm starting to feel my age or it's just where I live. I can't seem to keep up on music, and I seem to have gained some weight. Back in the Steamboat days, I was at least in shape (good shape for a smoker) and I seemed to be current on music. Now I just feel overwhelmed, especially when it comes to music. But I'm starting to wonder if they are both tied into the fact that I'm just aging. I'm not even sure if I picked up an album that was released in 20o8 in the last year (I'm sure I did, I just can't think of one).

The one thing is, I did notice this was the year it seems I mellowed out a lot as far as music is concerned (except for my recent fascination with the Southern Lord label). I started the year digging the Postal Service and it descended from there. Crud, I'm getting old and mellow in my older age.

Screw this, my 2008 top ten in no particular order (well maybe the first one)

1. My Siblings. You guys rock. You dropped everything to come out to take care of me when I needed it. I may not have thanked you properly, but never think I didn't appreciate it. And that trip to the sand dunes my brother and I took was pretty awesome.

2. The Postal Service. They may be emo (I'm not sure what that means now) but that album was what I had to hear at the time. Yeah, my boy back in Indy called it gay but I don't care. I needed that shot and that album was the one I needed.

3. Health Insurance. Hit by a car. I don't really know if I need to go into detail.

4. Obama. I don't care what anyone says, we elected a black man as president. Yeah, he's black and he's white, but he spoke to a hell of a lot of us. I just want to see if he can carry it through.

5. Digg.com. You helped me waste hours that I could have wasted watching TV.

6. Emusic.com an awesome subscription based music site that supplies straight MP3 format downloads. No DRM. And a really deep library. What I didn't find on vinyl this year, I found there.

7. Stephen Colbert. He has finally come into his own. For years I was a fan of the Daily Show (still am to a degree). But this was the year that he finally overshadowed the Daily Show. His character is freaking awesome, and I'm really curious to see what he will do with it from now on.

8. Vinyl. My new hobby apparently. There's now a bunch of labels that will give you a download coupon when you buy vinyl off of them. Sub Pop, Matador, Merge and Saddle Creek to name a few. If you still have a turntable, it's not hopeless anymore. Although if anyone wants to but that Still/Young Band LP off me, hit me up. I'm just not into it.

9. Linux. Until about a month ago I was using the Linux distro of Ubutnu at home. I'd still use my Mac for music but that was about it. It's ready for the home user unless you're a gamer. The two most recent build of Ubuntu are pretty much flawless, I never even had to use the command line unless I really wanted to. If you don't want Windows and don't want to pay for a Mac, install Ubuntu. It's good stuff.

10. Metal. Especially what Southern Lord is putting out these days. I thought my metal days were pretty much behind me (with the exception of Mastodon and High on Fire) until I started hearing stuff off this label. Drone, Doom and Heavy all on one label. Lair of the Minotaur and Wolves in the Throne Room are two of my current faves off this label.

There you have it, my incoherent top 10. I'm feeling lazy so I didn't link everything. If I feel motivated I may go back and do so. Cheers to a New Year.