Double Down

Tuesday I did not want to go to work. But I did. I ate a scone for breakfast.
Lunch came quick and I was rather hungry. I was on the brink of eating crap food just because, however I decided to go to Whole Foods and get an entirely plant based lunch. I bought whole wheat pita, black beans, a red pepper, hummus, avocado, and spinach. I made it into a pocket sandwich thing and it was the bomb. It was so good in fact that I ate it for dinner as well! I did not take a picture though, sorry about your luck.
After work I ate the above mentioned sandwich and then headed out to The Bongo Tree to hang out with Joe and Zach Daulton. We were going to work on tracks for Canoes live show, but we ended up just sitting around listening to tunes, drinking coffee and talking about everything you can imagine. It was a great time and I didn’t end up leaving until around 11. Whenever I am out there I always forget that I am an hour from my apt and I stay too late. I ended up getting back to my place around midnight and went to sleep.

Wednesday I had a bunch of regulars come in including Chris, PJ, and Jason. We sat outside talking for quite a while just enjoying the weather and our different coffees.
For lunch I ended up making a spinach based salad with all the same stuff from the pita pocket plus red onions. I toasted a pita and had it on the side. WTF, SO GOOD. I tossed it so that the hummus coated all the lettuce like a dressing. Stuart stopped by work at the end of my shift, and we shared iced americanos and sat outside as we watched the storm come in. I was going to cook for a friend, but they bailed so I cooked for Stuart and myself. I prepared pasta with zucchini and we bought rosemary bread at Whole Foods to go with. I put a ton of red pepper flakes in the sauce and they torched us. It was awesome. 

We watched some tv then Stuart went to study while I watched the mid season finale of Breaking Bad. Holy crap, it was so good. January can’t come soon enough. I fell asleep before 12 and had a great night of sleep.

Laborless Day

Monday morning came all too soon. I slept through all my alarms, and instead of waking up at 8am, I woke up at 10:20am. I rushed through getting ready, forgot to slap on deodorant, got gas, and started my drive up to Pickerington to see my friend Madeline. I arrived at her family’s house around 12:30. She was giving their Jack Russell terrier, Sampson, a bath.

Madeline had never been to First Watch so obviously we went there for brunch/lunch. I switched it up and had the bacon and onion hash. Ser gerd. After FW we drove to a trail which we proceeded to walk on. There is a huge tree that she likes and we went and sat on it, followed by a couple of swings. We talked about a lot of things and then headed back. A side note, while we were heading back to the trail I stopped and picked a couple black walnuts off a tree and told her to pick a tree across the field for me to try and hit. I threw the first one, it was off to the right. The second one arced high and looked as if it was heading to the right but then dropped and cracked on the tree. Bullseye!
Once back to her place, I participated in a game of poker with her family while she made a blueberry pie. I actually held my own in the poker match, I was pleased. I had to leave at 5:30 to head home so I went all in on a hand and lost. Driving home sucked for a plethora of reasons including being very tired. I stopped to fuel up and purchased a Monster Java. It was so sugary it made my teeth hurt, but it kept me awake for the remainder of the ride home.
I arrived at my parents house at 7:26 and they had started eating without me, even though I told my mother when I would be arriving. This kinda annoyed me a bit, and the fact that there were basically no onions for my cheese steak. I guess after spending time with Madelines family (they are amazing) I was excited about coming home to mine, but then it was like oh well we started without you, there may be some food left. Boo wah, I’ll shut up now about that.
After dinner we watched Jim Gaffigan and then I headed home. A good Laborless day.

Single Saturday and Sunday Funday

Saturday started with a quick shift at work, followed by breakfast at First Watch with Luke, Michael, Stuart, and Justin. I ate so much food, and it was amazing.
Saturday I literally just laid around all day. I played a lot of piano and took a nap as well.
I went to Crossroads at 6:30 with Michael. The service was fantastic, one of the best I have been to. The thought I carried away from Chuck’s teaching was, “What if we lived like everything was on loan from God”.
After church Michael and I went to Whole Foods and bought a list of items to make a new chicken recipe Derek gave me to try. It was a honey, dijon, soy sauce, beer and shallots glaze on pan fried chicken. The chicken turned out a little dry, but the glaze was money.

Michael then left to go hang out with some friends and I stayed home played some more piano and then skyped. At around 11:30 I went and met Michael at Habit’s then we went and ate Skyline before heading home. I skyped some more until around 2:30, then I fell asleep.

Sunday I woke up around 9:50, got ready and went to church at Journey. I had told Adam I wasn’t playing because I was going to be camping. Because of the show and work, I didn’t go camping but I still didn’t play. Service was good, Tom interviewed Brian in a series called Confessions which looks at the inner working of volunteers at Journey. I went to lunch with Michael and the Schermerhorn family at Westshore Pizza. Afterwards I went over to the parents and drank a tea while they ate. Soccer at 2:30 had a good turnout, almost 20 people and good level of play. It was very muggy, but we had a great time regardless.
After soccer, it was back to the parents where I took what Luke and I refer to as a “coma nap”. I was out for about an hour and a half, and when I woke up it was tough to get going. I drove home and took a shower straight away.
Adam and Jess were at Rusty Bucket with Justin and Annie, so I went over and had a buffalo chicken sandwich and a Rogue Hazelnut Brown. Heaven was obtained.
After eating we went over to Adam and Jess’s place, toured the new basement and then played a cool board game called Dumb Ass (pardon my french). Coffee was consumed and we left at 11:30, Justin and Annie drove me back. When I got back to the apartment, Stuart was watching Louis C.K. with JayPaul and Christy. We watched some more while they ate then we all just hung out and played games until real late. Sleep came quickly and heavy when I hit the bed.

Bubby Hux

Don't ask

Real Friday (It's pronounced Ree-al)

Friday was a real Friday. I worked. I ended up leaving work around 2:00 and went directly to the bank. I had intended to go home and nap after work, but I will jump the gun and tell you that it didn’t happen. Upon arrival home I made some lunch, leftover eggplant parmesan on two pieces of toasted sourdough. It was so good. 

I skyped for a little bit, then cleaned up and played some piano. Before I knew it, I needed to get ready and leave. I arrived at Madison around 6:15.
The Getaway decided to backline the show, so as the first band we set up in the cramped confines of a small front stage. We played at 8:00 and I feel like we played great. The sound at Madison is really solid and the stage sound guy, Blake did an outstanding job for us. This was our first show as a four piece and I could not have been more happy with the set. I really don’t feel like we missed the second guitar that much. Sure, certain parts may not have dropped as heavy, but the ease of it being just me and the 3 other dudes was the best. Luke left around 9, while Doyle and I stayed until the end of the night. My favorite two other bands were Radio Rescue and BoyMeetsWorld. Really great guys, and solid music. We left at around midnight maybe? I forget. From there Madison we went over to Dancing Wasabi and had sushi. I haven’t had sushi in forever and it hit the spot. 

After sushi we went back to the apt and hung out super late. Real Friday was a good day.

Real Thursdays (And The Truth Contained Therein)

Well here we are on an actual Friday. Not first Saturday, just plain old Friday. What is a five day work week? Can someone tell me how to function on this fifth day at work? I don’t know what to do with myself! I have just been numbly making coffee for customers on what has actually been a pretty busy morning. I think thats normal protocol for an actual Friday.
Since today is actual Friday, that means yesterday was an actual Thursday. It was a weird feeling. Work was good, I was out of eggs, so I ate some cereal with almond milk at work.
The morning was actually decently busy. At one point at 4 customers in the shop. Yes, you did read correctly, 4! At once! Lately in the morning I have been playing the same albums at certain times. This week, I’ll listen to something more chill like Band of Horses or later Copeland albums.
Then when I have coffee I kick it into gear with either Tokyo Police Club or Ra Ra Riot. I repeat Champ and The Orchard albums for several hours, often until I go to lunch. They are just grooving this week. As I type Champ by TPC is playing.
I took a lunch at 1:00 and FaceTimed for a few before sitting down at the piano and playing through most of the songs that will be on Canoes next release. It was very therapeutic and by the time I finished it was time to head back to work! I sat outside for a bit before trying to tackle the trim situation on our countertop with Mel. Neither of us know squat about wood working so it was quite the task. We couldn’t figure out the angles for the corners. By the time 6:00 rolled around, we had made little progress. Towards the end it was just becoming comical how much I sucked at it.
After work I went by the apartment, then hit up Panera for a loaf of sourdough bread, then Kroger where I grabbed a bottle of Ravenswood Zinfandel. Dinner was Eggplant/Zucchini parmesan that Derek prepared. It was out of this world. It was his “low fat” version as Rachel isn’t able to eat a lot of fatty foods due to some gallbladder issues.

Eggplant and Zucchini Parmesan  

Eggplant and Zucchini Parmesan

Wine.

After dinner we grabbed a Sierra Nevada Tumbler (Autumn Brown Ale) and sat outside with talking with the Midas and Levity (their two golden labs). I had to head out around 9:20 to meet up with Luke at Journey and load up the piano and his amp for the show tomorrow. We talked for a bit and I headed home. Doyle was waiting to pick up some tickets at the apt when I got back and we talked for a bit before I headed in to bed. I wasn’t there long before I started a Skype session and that lasted a while. A long while. I fell asleep around 2:30 happy as a clam.
Here are some pictures from yesterday of things I photograph often

Please look at how he is sitting on his back leg. So weird.

Daily iced coffee with cream picture pt. I

Daily iced coffee with cream picture pt. II

Afterthought: Yesterday morning I read a really great article and I wanted to pass it on. Its called Fifteen Ways Twenty-Somethings Ruin Their Twenties Enjoy!

Which of The Standard Lines Will We Use

I didn’t realize I had run out of chicken eggs until I walked into the kitchen at 6:45 to prepare them. This was quite the disappointment especially since I had plenty of turkey sausage crumbles! When I opened the fridge door I thought for a brief moment that I could hear whimpering coming from the sausage, as if it was longing to be mixed with eggs and eaten by me.
I was able to spend some time outside reading before some of the regulars came in. I saw this beautiful spider in its web so I snapped a few pictures.

My coffee was amazing yet again as I enjoyed my last pour over of the Klatch Costa Rica. I am anxious to get more really good coffee in the shop (I know I said that yesterday, blah blah blah)
Chris Arnett stopped in around 11 and ended up hanging out until I took my lunch around 1pm.
My lunch break was actually very productive yesterday. I worked out, showered, made fajitas, and talked on FaceTime. Huxley was all about cuddle time, so we did a bit while FaceTiming. He didn't want me to go back to work.

I didn’t end up going back until just before 3 and when I got back my Mother and sister Kate were sitting in the garden talking. I made an iced americano and joined them. 

I just love the way this looks. I literally put cream in this just for the picture.

Kate had to leave shortly after but Mother stayed and talked till after 4. I realized I hadn’t seen her since vacation, which ended august 11. Crazy. It was really nice to catch up about a lot of things with her.

After she left, I sat outside and read a bit, then cleaned up inside up until 6, at which time I left.
After my insanely long commute, with loads of traffic, I got home at 6:03 and played some piano, until Jarrod came over to watch Newsroom. We had to wait for Evan, so we watched an episode of Wilfred until he arrived. It was the finale of The Newsroom and boy oh boy was it great. Plenty of cheering and omg’ing from Stuart and I. It is going to be hard to wait until June for season 2. 
May I digress for a second? Thanks. Huxley loves Mac products. More specifically, laying on Mac products. His current favorite is Stuarts new MacBook Pro. At 15 inches, its the most Mac he can love on. He was kind enough to allow me to snap a few pictures.

After they left, I made some pasta with garlic parmesan sauce and some bread. I followed that up with watching a documentary called Forks Over Knives. It was about the benefits to replacing your current eating with a plant based diet. Very eye opening. I am already pretty close to this with the exception of fish, chicken and some dairy products. It would be an undertaking, but I am thinking about giving it a try. Go watch FOK, it was fascinating.
After I watched that I laid down in bed, anticipating a phone conversation, but ended up falling asleep, I was so tired!

Meanwhile, On A Tuesday

Good morning from Cincinnati, Ohio. More specifically The Coffee Garden in Hyde Park, Ohio.
I hope this morning finds you the reader (or myself in the future) well. Let’s talk about yesterday shall we?
The morning started off well, I only had 3 eggs left so I prepared them with 2 yolks instead of the normal 1. I enjoyed another cup of the Costa Rica La Manita Ben gave me Sunday, it is quite spectacular. Sunday’s coffee experience was a sort of awakening for me. I really want to bring better coffee’s into the shop. Right now it is just the Coffee Break stuff, and while its not the worst coffee one could have, it is nowhere close to the stuff I am drinking now. I want customers that come in here to at least have the option of experiencing coffee this way. I spent some time looking at different coffee’s that I would want to bring in as well as additional equipment I may need to really make our pour over bar pop. Groban likes his girls to pop.

At about noon, the shop was over-run with a group of women who paint art under the “Art Circle at the Essex Studio” title. I would say their ages range from 55-75 maybe even 80, who knows. 

They are opening their art exhibit “Blossoming” this coming Friday at the shop. I am super upset that Canoes booked a show that night, so I will not be able to make the grand opening! UGGHH!

I gladly took my lunch at 1pm and used the time to finish write out a song idea and catch a nap with my buddy Hux.
Afternoons at the garden tend to have two speeds, fast and slow. Yesterday afternoon was slow, thats about all there is to say about it. I spent some time outside reading. I decided to start reading through the bible. I am ashamed to say that I have never read it all the way through and as someone that claims a relationship with its author I think its about time. I want to get perspective and see the big picture. Lately I feel there has been a lot of “passage picking” where someone will take a verse or portion out of context and exploit in anyway they see fit. I see this by both believers and nonbelievers. So I will read it through, my goal is 90 days. I’ll try to update my progress on here. I didn’t read all of the “assigned” portion yesterday, but read some more this morning and plan to spend a chunk of the afternoon doing the same.
As I was leaving work at 6, Doyle showed up, and we marched back inside where I made him a hazelnut americano with cream which he seemed to enjoy. 

We headed back to the apt and started to watch a Sunny, but then Caleb showed up so we headed up to practice.
Practice went well, we ran through the set twice and I felt and feel really good about it. I played through the new song I wrote for the guys and I think we may try to work on it in the future.
Caleb wasn’t feeling well so we wrapped practice by 8:45 and hit the road.
Doyle and I watched two episodes of Sunny including Mac’s Big Break, which is probably my favorite episode right now. Doyle left and I watched two episodes of Wilfred before heading to bed. I was awakened by Ms. Clark’s post midnight call. This lasted about 20 minutes then I entered into a deep sleep.

Somebody's Got A Case of...WAIT, NOOO!

I feel real good about the past week of updating. I even wrote a post over the weekend, which I don’t know if I have ever done. I hope the pictures add a cool element, I think they do. That being said, I do not have any for today's post.
Yesterday started off as any normal weekday would, chicken eggs and turkey sausage.
I had my coffee around 10:00am which is kind of late, however I made a pour over of the Costa Rica that Ben from Crazy Goat had gifted to me on Sunday. It was really solid. Not as good (or fresh) as the Ethiopian from the day before, but very enjoyable nonetheless.
Between several text conversations, customers not paying at work, a caffeine drop, and several other thing I can’t remember off the top of my head, I had one of the worst days I can remember. I was reminded this morning that someone always has it worse and complaining doesn’t do any good so I will not continue griping. I was able to have two lovely vent sessions at the end of the day, one with Stuart and the other with Ms. Clark and that definitely made things a bit better.
I took an hour lunch and went home where I cooked up a chicken breast and steamed broccoli. Huxley was particularly excited about the chicken and we shared food together before heading back to work. (Huxley didn’t come with)
The afternoon wasn’t bad, we ended the day by painting another wall in the cafe, it looks real good right now.
Luke met me at my place at 6:15 and we shot over to Rohs St. Cafe where we met with Stephen Sargent from Moonbeam to talk about video ideas for Canoes. Tim and Dan showed up a little later and we ran through different ideas we had. We didn’t decide anything for sure, but it was good to put a lot of ideas out on the table.
Luke left right after and then I went to Kroger and bought bread and jelly. Bumped into Tyler Jones and his gf, I hadn’t seen that kid in forever.
When I returned home I made three pbj’s and ate them with some Wheat Thins while watching the latest Breaking Bad Episode. It. Was. So. Good. Wow.
I followed that up with talking to Stuart about our respective days which is when I vented to him.
Madeline called and we talked for a little bit before she had to jump off.
I couldn’t sleep so I sat at the piano and wrote until 2:30am.
Then I finally fell asleep.

Looking Up

Sunday morning started the way that every morning should. A cute cat coming into your bed and cuddling. Look at this little guy, his name is Eti.

I hauled myself out of bed around 9:50, showered and got all my stuff packed up.
I was heading to Pickerington to attend church with my friend Madeline.
Thanks to my lovely GPS, I ended up about 15 minutes from where I should have been and so arrived a few minutes late.
She attends Life Vineyard Church in Gahanna, Ohio(www.life-church-online.com). We walked in (I grabbed a cup of coffee) right as they started singing “Overcome”, one of my favorite current worship songs. The band was real solid and included a Rhodes, Telecaster, Gibson hollow body, Madeline’s brother on drums, Bass, and female vocalist.
The pastor is an Australian guy by the name of Simon Forsyth, and he delivered some wonderful teaching based around the idea of Version 2.0 for the church, taking it to the next level. Easy application for all believers even if not regular attendance at LVC. One of the passages was 2 Peter 1:1-15. One of my favorite things he said was in relation to community; “Community is not everybody trying to be each others best friends”.
After church I met a decent amount of her family and talked with Simon a bit (he was wearing a Spain national jersey btw). After about 15 minutes we headed out to the park right outside where the church meets and watched several people be baptized in the river. A very cool experience to watch these people go through the process, in a river no less.
We talked with her parents for a bit then walked over and had lunch at The Bag of Nails Pub.
After eating we went to her favorite coffee shop called Crazy Goat Coffee. The experience that followed was nothing short of spectacular. Before even walking in I saw that they served Intelligentsia coffee so I knew there would be a level of quality to start. Upon entering, my eyes were instantly drawn to the espresso machine, a dual group head LaMarzocca.
After talking to the barista for a bit we ordered. I decided on an Ethiopian from Klatch roaster (I forget the region) via pour over, while Madeline is in love with their (homemade) chai. The coffee was unbelievable and Madeline’s chai was probably the best chai latte I have ever tasted.
While we were sitting in the cafe talking Ben (the barista) came over and offered me the end of a bag of Klatch Roaster Costa Rica La Manita. This clearly only made me more excited about the overall trip to Crazy Goat. 

They closed at 4, so about then we headed out and drove back to her house as her parents were kind enough to invite me over for dinner with the family.
Her mom and dad were in the throes of preparing the meal, so we sat around and talked with her brother Dustin who is a really cool dude. They have a little Jack Russell terrier named Samson he all he wanted to do was play with his ball. This dog is insane. We talked in Dustin’s room for a bit after he showed me his recording set up before heading out to the main area where we watched youtube videos until dinner was ready. Madeline has two older sisters and one of them, Summer, came over right as the food was being put on the table.
Dinner was a family favorite called clam pasta. It was pasta with clams and mushrooms. I was actually pleasantly surprised at how much I liked it. Ice cream followed the main course, and then coffee after that. We had very enjoyable conversation through the night. Their other sister, Amy stopped over after dinner with her husband Eric, and we ended up playing some Scattergories until it was dark. I was going to leave around 9, but then Mr. Clark and I started talking music with Dustin and we talked till almost ten. The drive home went by quick. I was tired but the events of the day made it not even matter.

A Second Saturday to Remember

Second Saturday, oh Second Saturday.
Brett and I woke up around 10:30 and went to First Watch with Tom around 11:00.
I haven’t been to First Watch in almost a month, which is a long time for me. It was amazing. I ate the traditional as well as a belgium waffle.
Once we arrived back at the house, we hung out with the guys and they messed around on the guitar and drums downstairs in the practice space. Brett and I just sat on amps and listened.

Brett and Seth watching Tre drum.

Josh drumming.

Seth was enamored by Mike's custom baritone guitar. 

Seth and Mike grooving.

Brett had to go to an interview for a job was trying to get (he got it) and Tom and I sat around on our computers listening to music and talking then moved into the basement where we played music.
At around 4 I took a shower and when Brett got back they dropped me off at the stadium on their way to out to West Chester. Not as many people from Cincy came up it felt like, but there was still a decent group.
I will not go into the gritty details of the night, but after trailing 2-0, we came back and won 4-3 with goals from our new DP Higuain and striker Arrieta. It was amazing. We went wild in our section. We went to 4th Street after the game and I hung out there till about 1 before taking a scenic walk back to Brett's place where I stayed the night.

Your's truly with the Legend and Lauren.

Back to the Basics

First Saturday was a success. While I am sure you would love it if left it at that, I will go into more details. Also, this weekend I was made a conscious effort to take pictures, so you will see an increase, at least in the posts related to the weekend.
I slept in until about 11:30 but didn’t get out of bed for a bit. When I did, I made egg with peppers, onions, and turkey sausage and watched Due Date. Zach Galifianakis literally plays the same role that he does in The Hangover, yet it is still amusing.
Within 5 minutes of the movie ending I was asleep on the couch with my ultimate nap mate, Huxley. That dude knows how to nap.

I woke up around 4:30, I think. I headed to work to pick up my check and run to the bank, you know, First Saturday stuff.
Once back at the apartment I showered and got ready for Columbus. Stuart arrived home before I left and we talked for a bit. I ended up leaving at about 7:00pm.
The drive up to Columbus was perfect. The sky was beautiful, the air was cooling down, and there was no traffic. Something that afternoon made me want to listen to Dashboard Confessional so on the way up, I listened to several full albums including Dusk and Summer, The Shade of Poison Trees, So Impossible, and The Places You Have Come To Fear The Most.

I arrived in Columbus as emo and self reflective as one can get. Brett and Tom were out getting food, so I stopped at Cup ‘O Joe and got an iced coffee while I waited. When we all met up at their house Mike, their other roommate was hanging out and we all sat around and talked until about 9:50 at which time we headed over to Cafe Bourbon St. where Tyler was performing solo.
The opening act was a guy from Chicago name Seth Engel who performs under the name “Options”. He was actually really great, I recorded his set on my iPhone. He reminded me a lot of Ace Enders. 

Seth Engel is Options

Tyler played several songs from Styrofoam Plate Blues as well as some of his old Efficiency Demos. It was killer good, as expected. 

Tyler solo.

The other band was from Orlando and went by the name Great Deceivers. They harnessed a real cool sound with elements of Save the Day mixed in. 

Great Deceivers. 

I really enjoyed all the music from the night, it was a great show.

After the show we all hung around and talked, I picked up two cd’s and a t shirt from Great Deceivers.
We went back to the house and Mike ended up getting a call from the dudes in the bands and their lodging situation fell through and so they came over to stay at the house.
I already mentioned Seth, the guys from Great Deceivers were Max, Tre, Ben, and Josh. Super cool guys. Brett and I ended up staying up until 4:30 talking with Ben and Tre in the kitchen.
What a great First Saturday, and technically start to Second Saturday!

Your Thursday, My Friday

Thursday was actually a really great day. Work was pretty standard, I took a lunch at 1:15 and made a breakfast burrito with egg whites, pepper, onion, and turkey sausage in a whole wheat tortilla. I had a most lovely FaceTime chat while making lunch and ended up talking for the full hour and a half lunch break. The afternoon again, didn’t seem to exist. Derek stopped in and we had a really good talk about relationships and we decided to continue it over dinner that night at his place. Derek and his wife Rachel live about one minute from the shop and Derek often comes in after dropping their 22 month old Emily off at daycare in the morning.
My old friend Emily (not Derek’s 22 month old) stopped in around 4:30 and we talked through the rest of my shift. It was really great to catch up with her, I hadn’t seen her in quite some time.
After getting off work at 6, I went home and grabbed my wallet, then stopped by Kroger to grab some Oberon on my way to Derek’s house. We grilled out Tilapia with potatoes, zucchini and squash. The Tilapia was coated in fresh homemade pesto, and then potatoes were cooked with fresh rosemary from the garden, and garlic. Rachel took Emily to bed around 8 and I stayed and talked till about 9:30. It was a very enjoyable evening and we talked about doing it again next week.
When I got home my friend Hannah was there and we continued our marathon of Hell on Wheels. That show is so good. I was so tired from a full day I feel asleep during the last part of the episode and then went to bed.

The Best Things in Life (Are Often The Simplest)

Well here we are. The first entry in a long time where I will recap the prior day’s events. It feels good to be here, thanks for reading.
So yesterday morning I woke up and made my eggs as usual. This week I have started adding lean turkey sausage crumbles in my eggs and I am not exaggerating when I say this is the best thing to happen to my mornings ever. This week I have also added protein shakes into my regular diet, I have them at my 10:30 and 4:30 feedings. I mix chocolate protein powder with unsweetened almond milk and it tastes so good.
I had a pretty decent stream of regulars come in one after the other, so the morning was full of long winded conversations about everything and anything you can think of. Michael (one of my regulars) and I moved outside to to talk and then Chaz showed up and we all talked outside for awhile until Michael left. Then PJ showed up and joined Chaz and I in conversation, revolving mostly around fitness and eating cooking. This continued until about one when I left for lunch and they went on with their days elsewhere.
At lunch I had a mostly lovely skype chat, and Huxley was extra cuddly, but then my legs started to sweat so I had to move him off of me, as he is super fat.

The rest of the afternoon seemed to not even exist. Before I knew it, I was walking to my car at 6. I went to Whole Foods to get chicken and upon arrival at home, cooked it up for dinner. Doyle and Caleb came over and we headed up to band practice. It was our first band practice as a 4 piece and it actually went really well. Obviously losing a guitar removes some depth, but after a running through the set, we are barely going to flinch. Eventually we are talking about incorporating tracks, which could really allow our live show to take off.
After hashing out the set, we started messing around with a new song I wrote about Huxley. It actually started to take a cool direction, we’ll see how it turns out.
I was supposed to stay awake for one reason or another, however I fell asleep with my phone in my hand and woke up pissed.
I have been writing this entry for over 4 hours, we’ve been decently busy today!

Vacations Everything We Need

After seeing Coldplay we headed back to my Uncle’s place where we crashed for the night.
In the morning we went over to our grandmother’s house and visited for awhile before embarking on final leg of our trip to the Outer Banks.
Family vacation may be my absolute favorite time of the year. We have sort of adopted  mentality of “our only schedule is no schedule” over the years, and I don’t think I would have it any other way. For one week we eat a lot of food, drink a lot of coffee, spend time on the beach, watch tv, and never set our alarms. The weather this year was not the best we’ve ever had, but spending time together is what is important, so when it rained we resorted to watching the farting preacher on YouTube (literally everyday), the olympics, and out new favorite show, Downton Abbey.
Our dear family friends, the Haleys, came down from Raleigh and spent Monday thru Thursday with us. This is always one of the highlights of the trip. It had been two years since we had seen them but we picked up without even flinching, as always. 

The view from the front porch of our house for the week.

The waves this year were definitely sub par, our resident wave expert Kirtis made sure we were reminded of this. In spite of the smaller waves, we still managed to have a great time hanging out on our boards in the ocean. There was a pretty solid sand bar, and we were able to go out pretty far every day. On Friday there was a storm blowing in and the sand was whipping against our skin and so we were only on the beach about an hour before we headed in.

While in OBX, we had our family picture taken. My good buddy from Liberty Rich took them two years ago, but this year he was busy, so his in law, who shoots for him took them. I haven’t seen them yet but I think they are going to turn out great.
While on the trip I was able to hit every workout slot and that made the vacation a lot more enjoyable, rather than just blowing up all week.
As always, vacation goes by way too fast and as I sit here in the shop typing this out, I wish more than anything I had woken up in that crappy bunk bed and been able to walk upstairs to the smell of coffee and the sound of the family talking.
As we say every year, there is a good chance for that to be the last family vacation where we are all together as the original 10. This time it may be true.
Before I go and get sappy, I will end this entry.

The Musical Observation Portion

Let’s talk about me going to see other bands perform live.
After arriving home from Columbus on Tuesday morning I met up with my friend Allie and together we went to relive our HS days music at Vans Warped Tour.
It was pretty awesome. It was crazy hot. We are old and did our best to stay in the shade as much as possible. We were able to see some pretty solid bands and I will now list the highlights.
YellowCard (I teared up during Ocean Avenue as a wave of nostalgia washed over me)
Taking Back Sunday (Geoff from Thursday came out and sang on Cute Without the E and Make Damn Sure)
New Found Glory (relatively boring, if I am being honest, but still good)
Transit (just found out about them, they were awesome, bought their cd and talked with singer about musical influences for 15 minutes)
Let It Happen (my friend Sean’s band, they played an awesome set)
There were several other bands that I wanted to see and just couldn’t including Polar Bear Club, Title Fight, and Koji.
Overall it was a great time, and we survived! Post concert Zips may have been the greatest thing ever btw.

Ok so next up. Coldplay. Thursday I departed from Cincinnati with my siblings Karina, Khristian, and Kirtis heading to East Rutherford, NJ via Quakertown, PA. We arrived at our Aunt and Uncle’s house around 10:30 and after chatting for a few minutes hit the hay.
The next day we woke up and heading to a local Diner for breakfast with our Uncle Jon. We met our cousin Jason there and put away a large amount of breakfast food while catching up on each others lives. It was perfect.
We left around 4pm and arrived at the Izod Center around 6:45 just in time for the opening acts.
Colpdplay came on around 9pm.
Here’s the thing. I have seen Coldplay before, 3 years ago when they came to Cincinnati. It was probably the best show I have ever seen and it seriously affected my life. I thought perhaps this was largely due to not having seen them before (or even a concert that big), so this time around it would be good, but not the same. Boy, was I wrong.

Upon arrival into the arena, everyone was giving a bracelet, and when they opened their set with Mylo Xyloto they all went off. What happened to me at that moment can only be described as a “once in lifetime experience”. No one was expecting the effect it would have on us. The place went nuts, and I literally had trouble breathing as I grabbed my sisters arm and tried to process what was happening. You may think that I am over dramatizing this, but I assure you I am not.
The whole show was out of this world and the songs off Mylo were so good live.
I don’t really think I can go into any more detail, there isn’t much point. If you ever have the chance to see them live, ignore the price of any ticket and just go. You won’t regret it.

The Musical Performance Portion

I will attempt to fill you in on 3 or 4 things that have happened since my slacking. First up, Canoes playing at Madison Theater and me playing solo for the first time in over a year.
Well that pretty much sums it up. We played the “New Noise Band Showcase” on July 21 with the likes of The Yugos, Archer’s Paradox, and Public. There were 8 bands total, which is definitely too many, but we were really excited about the opportunity to play the Madison.
The stage is big and the sound is real good. There are a lot of really good bands that play there and thinking about that while on stage was just a cool feeling. Also having a Newcastle on stage was pretty neat as well. (If you don’t get why this is neat, don’t worry about it)
We seemed to have a pretty positive response to the set and overall night. It was a good time and we shared it with friends old and new. We actually just booked another show there on August 31.

On Monday July 30 I got text from my friend Chris who plays drums in a pop rock band called Aritso. He told me they were playing a show at Skully’s in Columbus that night and a band dropped off, he wanted to know if Canoes would be able to fill the slot. We tried frantically to get everyone together but in the end, one of the members just couldn’t pull it off. So I told him I would play solo if he wanted to and he said yes.
After work I packed up my keyboard and all our Canoes merch and headed up to Columbus.
Little did I know this would literally be one of the best nights in my life for so many reasons.
I loaded in with the rest of the bands and quickly remembered one of the reasons I hate playing solo: being referred to as the “acoustic act” or the opener before the “real bands”. I wanted to be like “Hey I AM in a real band, I promise, please believe me!”
I set up my keyboard on stage, but they were not ready for a soundcheck yet, so I went down the street to get coffee with Eric and Hayden from Aristo. Tom showed up and then I headed back for soundcheck.
I started playing at about 8pm. I had about 9 friends from Columbus come out, and almost all the guys in the other bands stood up front and watched. I was really excited about that and between the coffee, everybody watching, and a sipper Yuengling, I had a blast on stage. I played 5 songs from NMWA and then our new song, pimping the band between almost every song. I didn’t feel the need to limit talking in between songs, so I told them about how all the songs were about a stupid girl and made jokes that I thought were funny, etc. It seemed to go over well.

Afterwards, I made sure to talk/hang out with everyone that came out to see me, eventually I was just walking around talking to the dudes in Aristo and Tom, Jordan and Tyler. It was amazing.
We stood up front for Aristo and Tyler and I sang along to some of their songs. It was pretty awesome.
After the show I talked to a bunch of people, and met some seriously amazing people. Then I went to Brett and Tom’s house where I passed out on the couch from sheer exhaustion. (Brett, who was in West Chester that night picking up his new car, had just arrived home and walking in the door and seeing him was the cherry on the whole night)
The next morning I woke up and drove home. That’s a wrap!!!!