taco party fiesta!

Had another casual grill out night at my place on friday and watched Death at a Funeral which was pretty clever. I want whatever the 'pirate' from Dodge Ball was on - hahaha.

Saturday I went for a run in the morning while steph worked on finishing up the pinata for the evening's festivities. They have repainting all of the units in my complex, and they chose today to do mine, so when we soon became all sealed in when they covered the windows with plastic, kind of like E.T. We narrowly escaped with minimal paint interaction and headed to the bear to get ready for the Taco Party.

The party was well attended, and the tacos were kickin'. The highlight was of course the smashing of the pinata, which was filled with 5 lbs. of mexican candy and a couple dozen shooters. Soon after things descended into madness as it became necessary to wear the pinata as a mask and make a mess out of things in general. Success!



Cleaned up the debris early sunday morning. Then lounged around and watched the Young Ones while steph went off for a bike ride. When she got back we headed to the groves and swam. Later on we watched Semi-Pro which was semi-funny.

celtics win # 17!

Woohoo! The Celtics raise banner #17 after a 22 year hiatus. The fact that they beat the Lakers to win it only makes it twice as sweet. These finals brought back fond memories of their rivalry in the 80's - man, do I hate the Lakers.



In a related story, a friend of my father's was working at the Boston Garden in the way back machine and stumbled across Bill Sharman's white wool warm-up jacket. The thing is huge, like a size 42 or su'in crazy - it comes down to my knees practically. Anyway, it will be up for grabs at some auction at the Basketball Hall of Fame later this year - w00t!

black angels / father's day

Steph had another training run in the morning so friday night we chillaxed at my place and grilled up some dinner.

Saturday morning I cleaned out the basement and ran some errands. Then we headed over to the courts in Louisville and tossed some boules. I love playing on the clay with the wooden borders - great for bank shots. The kids in the park are always curious what you're up to, and it can be a bit of a pain with all their questions and hovering about, but they can also be handy by telling you who's closer to the mark. We stopped at that mexican resty by the tracks for lunch, then headed back to milo for a quick dip in the pool.



After regrouping, we made our way to Colfax, stopped at the atomic for dinner, and hit up the Black Angels / Warlocks show at the Bluebird. We walked in just as the Warlocks hit the stage. I guess they were having monitor troubles or su'in because the lead singer had a stick up his ass about it for a few songs until he finally chilled out a bit - overall a solid set. Next up, the Black Angels owned! Real heavy psychedelic dirge rock with the lead singer channeling Jim Morrison. Wicked! Their albums don't do them justice, they should really be seen live if you get the chance.





Sunday the fam drove up to Brainard Lake for a father's day hike. The road was still closed and most of the trails were still covered in snow, or soaking wet, so we just hiked up the road and around the lake which was a good couple of miles. On the way home we stopped off for a picnic at Barker Dam.

had some cake and ate it too

Steph came over friday and we grilled out and watched a little tele, before calling it an early night. Saturday while steph was out training, I went to sam's with paul and stocked up on some items. Then we went and got my old guitron, 'george' appraised, and he's aging rather gracefully I must say. Steph made some yummy bbq sandys for lunch then we headed up to the Grove for some poolside action. We took off shortly after the clouds rolled in since we had plans to meet up folks outside of chautauqua so we could poach the Cake concert. The hall there has great acoustics and they open up the side doors/panels all along the sides and back to provide natural air flow to the inside, so it's easy to listen to performances out on the lawn around the venue.

Steph prepped a nice picnic, and I had loaded up the backpack with key lights and ice packs while we waited for greg & lisa to arrive. The plan was to ride our bikes over, since there was a path of sorts not far from the Bear that connected over there. Having no sense of direction, I took the lead and led us up a hill then down, then up another one effectively blowing the 'short cut' plan. Luckily jacq & andy had arrived at our correct meeting time and saved us a nice spot in the back. During the agonizing female singer/songwriter opener, me & andy went down to the lower field and tossed some frisbee.



As the show started, it got mod chilly out. About halfway through the show, jeff et al showed up with a handle of jack and things deteriorated quickly. Then all of the sudden the show was over and the swallows of jack had caught up to me - I hopped on my bike, and promptly fell right on over onto the nice hard pavement. Never really regaining any equilibrium and covered in blood, I stumbled to and fro along, and mostly off of, the path back home while steph was kind enough to pretty much carry everything including my bike.

Sunday was 10X more casual since I was in the doghouse a bit. I made us a killer breakfast while watching some of season 3 of Weeds. We hung out with lauren & renn on pearl street for a bit, then I picked us up a pizza for dinner and we watched Atonement.

r.e.m. & m.m. @ r.r.

Left work early tuesday to head to red rocks with steph for the sold out r.e.m. & modest mouse show. We got there pretty early and had a little tailgate going when lauren, renn, and a couple of their friends joined us. The forecast had been predicting rain, but luckily we were in the clear all night.



The opener, The National, was decent enough, but entirely forgettable. Modest Mouse ran through a solid, albeit too short, set focusing mostly on material from the last two albums but threw in a few oldies for good measure, notably 'trucker's atlas' since it names drops good 'ol c-rado and all.

set:
Satin In A Coffin
The View
Dashboard
Fire It Up
Trucker's Atlas
Wild Packs Of Family Dogs
Paper Thin Walls
Education
Black Cadillacs
The Good Times Are Killing Me
Spitting Venom

R.E.M. hit the stage running and never let up the whole show. Playing songs off almost every album, Michael et al treated us to just under two hours of fine showmanship. Perhaps notable is their new touring drummer, Bill Rieflin, who is best known for his work as the drummer for Ministry alongside Martin Atkins back in their heyday. I was stoked because of the generous portion of material served up from Life's Rich Pageant as well as a couple of other of my perennial faves such as 'Welcome to the Occupation' & 'Feeling Gravity's Pull'. They also played most of the new disc with the unfortunate exception of 'Mr Richards'. The stage was comprised of LED lighting backdrops, and when the large panels featured below didn't look like a mutated Black Flag logo, they displayed assorted relevant images interspersed with live shots of the band and crowd. Sign the papers, stamp the ribbon:



set:
Living Well is the Best Revenge
What’s the Frequency Kenneth?
Welcome To the Occupation
Ignoreland
Man-Sized Wreath
World Leader Pretend
Accelerate
Cuyahoga
The Hollow Man
Walk Unafraid
Houston
Electrolite
The One I Love
Feeling Gravity’s Pull
Departure
The Final Straw
I’ve Been High
Let Me In
Horse To Water
Bad Day
Orange Crush
I’m Gonna DJ
Encore:
Supernatural Superserious
These Days
Losing My Religion
Fall On Me
Man on the Moon

tough actin chillaxin

As you may have heard, friday night was the Sex and the Shity premiere. I had no intentions of going, but I did reap some peripheral benefits and indulged in some cosmos over at jacq's before I dropped the ladies off at the theater. Then I headed home, drank porters, caught up on season 1 of weeds and passed out on the couch.

Lazed around saturday morning before deciding on a run and a then took a quick dip in the pool to cool off before heading over to steph's. We did a little shopping on Pearl Street and I made out with some cool new flip flops. Then we packed up a picnic and played boules for a while in bear park until we lost the cochonnet for a while. For dinner steph whipped up a tasty stir fry and we watched La Vie En Rose, the Edith Piaf biopic. I fell asleep before it ended, but I think I got the gist of it.



Sunday was another casual one. We planted some plants at milo, watched weeds, got some mexican grub, then finished up season 2 of weeds. Lazy style.