Monday, April 30, 2007

Monticello

As I promised myself with my declaration of the new "Summer of Fun," I went to Monticello on Saturday.

There was supposed to be a whole group of us on the trip, but everybody bailed to go to some wine festival here in town. It was just Molly and me. No bother. I had a blast.
It was much cooler than I had expected. The house was beautiful. The grounds were amazing. Plus it was just really neat to stand next to Thomas Jefferson's gravesite.
That doesn't sound too morbid does it? I love cemeteries. Before moving to Richmond, I had only seen one presidential grave (Truman in KC). Since moving I've seen Monroe and Tyler here in Richmond, Kennedy and Taft in DC, and now Jefferson in Charlottesville. I don't think I ever visited Hoover's gravesite in Iowa, even though I lived nearby.
Saturday's weather was perfect to be outside. The was warm and half-cloudy and breezy, never hot. The views from the mountain were amazing. You could see for miles. I wish the pictures would reflect what it was really like.


As amazing as the house was, I think my favorite part was the flower gardens at the back of the house.

They had tons of cool flowers I'd never seen before. They were fully bloomed and beautiful. The guided tours of the gardens was going on during our house tour, so we had to self-tour it.

I'm really glad I went. My whole family has been to Monticello, except me. Pretty sad since I've lived here longer than anybody else. Next trip I'm planning on is a museum tour in DC. Of course I'll have to wait until after May sweeps.
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Sunday, April 29, 2007

Josh Hancock

Cardinals pitcher Josh Hancock died in a car accident in St. Louis this morning. So sad.

I really wish this would stop happening on my teams. So far this year we've lost Darrent Williams and Damien Nash. Now Josh Hancock. So very sad.
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Friday, April 27, 2007

Guilty

Greatest idea for a compilation ever!!

Just thought I would share.
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Tuesday, April 24, 2007

Cassadaga

Yesterday I finally got the new Bright Eyes. After my first mess with this album, I was really excited to finally get it. But I kept waiting. For a couple of weeks I waited. I wrote them an email on Friday to see what the deal was. They said they had misplaced it and would send me a new one right away.

So was the wait for Cassadaga worth it??

Not really. Nothing special here.
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Monday, April 23, 2007

James

Hurray!! James are back!

This news definitely excites me, James being one of my favorite bands. However, first they're releasing yet another greatest hits album. Eh, there are like three of those out already. Secondly, they are touring. Yeah too bad all the shows are sold out.... oh yeah and in England.

The good news..... they will be releasing an album of new material later this year!! That's better. Hopefully they'll be able to get an American release. It's pretty pricey being an American James fan since they haven't had an American release since Whiplash. I've been stuck spending tons of money to get their stuff imported. Oh well. I will pay about anything for a new album.
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Saturday, April 21, 2007

Florida

Been back from vacation since Monday, but things have been pretty nutty here since. Finally have a moment to myself so I figure I'd post a little summery of the trip. The whole vacation was just amazing. Starting in Charlotte.

Got to catch the Bobcats-Heat game. Pretty crappy tickets to start with:

Eventually John met up with some friends who snuck us to this bar area at pretty much courtside. Pretty awesome to see Pat Riley and Dwayne Wade that close. Too bad Shaq and Adam Morrison didn't play.

Next night was the trip to Florida. It was a hell of a drive, but we had a blast the whole way. We stopped to see Savannah briefly and had dinner in downtown Jacksonville on the river.

Very pretty. I saw a dolphin jump out of the water. I'd never seen a dolphin before.

We evenually made it to Cape Coral around 3am. We really took our time getting there, so we were definitely lacking in sleep. We never did recover that sleep at any point on the trip.

The house we were at was freaking cool. We had our own pool and a boat dock.

We each had our own bed. Plus it was cheaper than a hotel. Nice!

I spent plenty of time checking out all the weird wildlife in Florida. Some weird birds, all kinds of cool lizards, and some big-ass bugs.

I spent the whole time there looking for manatees. Never did see one though. The only disappointment of the trip.

Spent a day running errands and hanging by the pool. Then we got our drink on.

And we really got our drink on. I think I drank enough that first night to stay drunk the whole trip. Everybody was really hurting the next morning.

Didn't really get any good pix of the wedding, but it was really cool. Everything that whole day was just perfect. My own personal highlight was burning the house down singing "Ace of Spades" with Cory.

We tore that bastard up.

The aftermath.


All-in-all, the trip was perfect for me. Got to do all I wanted and had a blast the whole time.

Then I got home and the whole world went nuts. Work has been insane this week with the mess in Blacksburg. To add on to everything, I was the only early day director not on vacation so I had to deal with everything alone. Really stressful and tramatic week for everybody.
At least I had the new Andrew Bird to relax me after work.

It is wonderful.

Also while I was away, I must have missed that Kurt Vonnegut died. One of my favorite two living writers. Now I only have J.D. Salinger. Mother Night, one of my favorite books ever. I spent most of high school obsessed with Vonnegut. Very sad, I am Billy Pilgrim.
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Saturday, April 07, 2007

Snow??

The hell?? Wasn't it like 90 degrees out a couple days ago? It was hot as hell. Now I walk outside at 5am and it snowing like crazy??

That was weird. It snowed really hard all morning. Woke up from my nap around 1pm and most of the snow had already melted away, but it's freaking freezing out. Windy too.

The good thing is maybe some of this pollen will wash away. I've been dying here. Just look at this nasty pollen soup on my back porch:


Another casualty from the weather is that I won't be going to the Maymont Family Easter. Not that I had planned on it, but look at this ad from Richmond.com:

Look at that bunny!! It's the cutest thing I've ever seen! It's so cute I just want to squeeze it! I want to eat it!!!
Actually I really wanted to go because it'll be all little kids petting the rabbits and I wanted to be all impatient in line..... "Come on! He's had the bunny for five minutes!! I want to pet it!"
But no, the weather sucks today. I'll just stay inside. I've got both Little Miss Sunshine and Syriana to watch. I need a vacation. Maybe somewhere nice and sunny. Maybe I'll go to Florida. Hmmmm.
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Tuesday, April 03, 2007

SuSh 04.02.07 (Finally)

Finally have a full weekend and I'm all rested up and feeling great. Finally didn't have to get up for jury duty. Finally got to drink all night with my friends and not have to call it a night early. Finally get to have no responsibility. Now it's back to work tomorrow.

I'm kinda in a samurai mood after watching Kill Bill on Friday. I'm thinking about pulling out my Kurosawa box set and cozying up to some Yojimbo or something. Before that I may do something I haven't done in a while.


Current track count: 8721

1. Bright Eyes - "The Movement of a Hand" (Fevers and Mirrors)

(Now this is just a slap in the face considering my last post.)

2. Wilco - "Pick Up the Change" (A.M.)

(Sweet! I was just listening to this last night while bar-hopping.)

3. Mountain Goats - "Seed Song" (Protein Source of the Future...Now!)

4. Bright Eyes - "Blue Christmas" (A Christmas Album)

(My iPod is mocking me.)

5. Syd Barrett - "Golden Hair" (The Madcap Laughs)

6. Sufjan Stevens - "Redford (For Yia-Yia & Pappou)" (Michigan)

7. Big Star - "Hung Up With Summer" (In Space)

8. Billy Bragg & Wilco - "All You Fascists" (Mermaid Avenue demos)

9. Superchunk - "So Convinced" (Come Pick Me Up)

10. Rilo Kiley - "A Man/Me/Then Jim" (More Adventurous)

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