Attacking the room part 2.

Gotta love my uncle

A Little Bundle Has Arrived

Angela has been volunteering at an animal shelter near our house for the past few months. While working there she fell in love with a bunny named Bettina. Bettina was found in a dumpster by a maintenance worker at an apartment complex. The worker took the bunny to the only person in the complex who had a bunny and said, "I found your bunny." The person said, "that is not my bunny".
the worker said "okay, I go put it back"

as in I'll go put it back in the dumpster.

Luckily the person who had her own Bunny new about the shelter where Angela volunteers and took her there.

I was not at first wanting to add another member to the family. It is hard enough to make ends meet as it is. I worry about unexpected vet bills and what not. I also worry about unrestricted travel. If it were up to me I'd probably worry the earth to stop spinning. It's better to do something than to not do it. So we adopted her. She is so super sweet. I've never lived with such an odd creature. She is not like a cat. She has her own language and I'm trying to learn it.

Simone our oldest cat, likes her already. They have bonded. Frusciante is scarred of her and hisses at her. She thumps the ground in warning to other bunnies when he is around. I've seen them looking at each other more lately though, and I think they are both about to come to the conclusion that neither one of them pose a real threat to the other.

We usually let her run around the house in the evenings when we are home. She has lived in a cage almost her entire life, so this new freedom is pretty powerful for her. Rabbits do a special jump for joy, a jump with a twist, it's called a binky and from what I read they do it when they are overjoyed. Angela witnessed her first binky yesterday afternoon.
Last night Angela was out of the house and I was home alone with her. Angela had the day off so Bettina had already enjoyed plenty of time out of her cage to run around the apartment. I had some music to work on and I knew I would not be able to keep an eye on her like I like she needs at this point in her new home. I decided to combine her cages and make one mega cage with many obstacles inside. She loved it. We haven't had the heart to take it down yet. I snapped some photos.

Enjoy.

I do.

More Work Than Predicted

I've been using much of my writing time on the re-write of "More Possible Than Perfect". I also started work on an S no S EP in order to motivate me to finish the above mentioned project.
Currently Angela has done more work on Turbo Sunshine this week than I have.

This past weekend was great. We had a BBQ at Hoagie's in Malibu and enjoyed a movie on the golf course by our house under the star.

I've been reading about Nikola Tesla again today.

It is hot.

Back to work.

I will blog again soon

Pavilion of wings

Sunny day smiley face

Checking in pool side folks. Its been a great a weekend. Show last night was incredible. Rock bands can be really on or they can be off, and last night we were totally on! So fun.

Sin and the City

I'm getting super excited to go play in Las Vegas this Saturday. I realize that I've never actually performed there. My old band played there right after they broke up with me so I missed it. I'm excited to spend a weekend with my good friends in a fun location. I think our set list is tight and ready and well thought out. The band has never sounded better then we sound right now. I love playing music and I love road trips to play music.

It's a sin to put miles on the earth in pursuit of mindless escapism. Thinking about the earth bleeding into the ocean as I drive many miles is sobering and sickening. I know this, but I'm going to do it anyway. Does this make me a bad person? There are a lot of hard questions we need to start asking ourselves about the way we live.

My evening work outs are getting harder. The sun is much more present at 5pm than it was at 6:45. Yesterday I ran hill sprints and skipped rope. I thought I might die for a moment but I suppose that is when it's working. I'm feeling better from it and my body is looking nicer. It's hard for me, to continue with a strict regimen I have to get in as many days a week as possible and I have a lot happening in the next couple of weeks. If I miss too many days in a row I lose a routine very easily and that scares me because I'm enjoying myself a lot right now.

Rehearsal tonight.

Luvers

So Dark It's Light

I did a fair amount of work on getting some Turbo Sunshine songs set up for rehearsals with my self and Angela. I transferred 10 tracks out of my Digital Audio Workstation on my computer and into my R16. I plan to begin jamming them out now to see which ones feel like they need guitar and which ones don't.

The rest of the weekend was spent really putting our house into shape. We should be totally ready for the arrival of my parents the weekend after next. That is exciting.

I missed the last 2 days of the week last week working out so I made sure to get in a really hard work out on both Saturday and Sunday. I did a low weight hi rep workout Saturday and a pretty hard interval work out on the elliptical yesterday. I'm sore, I like it.

I am excited about hitting vegas with Invisible Material this weekend. I feel like our set is down tight and that we will really enjoy ourselves. I love rock and roll.

This is gonna fix the water shortage

Different park today

Kansas lightning boot camp day 2

Second solo boot camp.
5 minutes rope jump
1/4 mile up hill sprint
6 minutes rope jump
1/4 mile up hill sprint
10 minutes rope jump
1/4 mile up hill sprint
Died.

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Nice spot

First solo boot camp nearly under way.

The Graduate

Friday night was the last boot camp. Robin showed up peppy and ready to work. After a very short period of stretching and hellos we got down to crunches, we did 200 of them right off the bat and I guessed quickly and correctly that his goal would be to get 1000 in. Robin was pushing extra hard through out the work out and I could not figure out why. Finally after just 40 minutes he stopped and told us we had all done a great job. He then walked over and picked up a bunch of dog tags and started to have a small ceremony to mark our month of work. He told a little bit about each graduate and then hugged us and handed us our tags. They say "Kiwi Thunder Crops." on one and "Boot Camp Graduate" on the other. It was cute and I felt really accomplished to have taken the time to go through the experience.
I packed my back pack this morning with work out clothes and shoes, almost out of habit. I plan to continue to work out as hard as possible and with as much variety as I can manage. I feel the variety injected into working out was perhaps the most useful part of the boot camp experience. That and being pushed hard. Tonight I plan to stop in Griffith park on my way home and do my own version of a boot camp work out. I want to continue to build off of my hard work and I also have found I really enjoy working out in a park. It will take a little bit of courage to be out there alone looking like a fool but I think it's worth while.

This weekend was short and I miss it. We got a good bit of work done and we had a wonderful time at the drive in last night seeing "Get him to the Greek" and "Iron Man 2". The sky was so perfect grey last night.

Who pulled his chain?

One last look

I'm on my way to the last boot camp. I just enjoyed a snack and now I'm going to sit here and listen to the birds as they chirp.

Over the final hump day and a movie about basketball

Boot Camp nearly broke me last night. About halfway through I started feeling that I simply could not keep up. By the end of boot camp I started feeling paranoid that I was getting sick, since Angela had told me the night before that she was feeling a bit under the weather. I almost sat out the last few exercises because I was certain that I was just making myself sick. After we had finished I was walking back to my vehicle with a boot camp veteran who told me that Robin always goes hardest on the last wednesday and thursday. I wasn't getting sick at all, It was just really damn difficult.
Angie wasn't feeling well when I arrived home. I showered and started dinner and then Angela did the fine tuning of the meal.
Angela fell asleep on the couch shortly after the meal and I tried to pry myself up to go and work on a bit of music, I failed to get to the computer. Yet another day spent thinking about the projects I want to work on and then by the time I get home there is nothing left. I hate when this happens.

I was just about to doze off on the floor when I remember we had recently purchased a nice sativa through a friend of the farmacy. I had a bit of this and suddenly I felt more awake, but still not energetic enough to create. Browsing through my DVR I realized that I had recorded several movies recently from Turner Classic Movies. I love that it's possible to record good movies commercial free with very little effort. I chose to watch the movie "Hoosiers", and boy do I have memories associated with this movie.
The movie apparently came out in November of 1986, and when I turned 8 in march of 1987 it was still playing at the theater in Hays, KS, the nearest movie theater to my home town. From what I remember, my mother and the mother of another boy who shared my birthday, and for some reason I seem to remember my Aunt Sharon, drove me, the other birthday boy and all of the boys from my third grade class to watch the film. I don't have a total memory of the occasion but I seem to remember it being a bit stressful for my mother.
I don't recall off hand if I liked the movie at the time, I'm sure I did since it was about sports, but there might have been at times too much "people" in the movie for my attention span.
I won't critic the movie from my experience watching it this time because I don't care and neither should anyone reading this. It actually just made me think a lot about my dad, and the world he grew up in. He would have been about 10 years behind the timeline of the movie, but still in a fairly similar world. He would have been the age I was when I first saw the movie at the time that the events in the movie took place. Watching it last night I realized that a lot of what I associate with my father's early life comes from movies like this. I am guilty of romanticising Paradise, Kansas in the 1950's and 60's. Of thinking of the world my father grew up in as something simpler and perhaps more wholesome. I wouldn't on most day's trade my experience for his, but I will try my best to honor and respect them.

It was an odd feeling last night, and I didn't fall asleep until very late.

Dwindling looks

I'm nearing the end of my boot camp journey. Back at my spot to kill a bit of time before going to devin and dylan's, who have returned from Kansas this very morning. Hopefully at least one of them will come with me tonight to boot camp.

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17

Yesterday was a long day, it was twenty four hours. I got up around 7:50 and Left the house with Angela. She drove me to my car and I drove on to work. Work was a typical first day of the month, I collected all the work orders from last month and in pencil I re-worked last months invoices to be this months invoices. I should be typing those as I type this.
After work I had some time to kill before boot camp and I had my guitar with me. I drove to Devin and Dylan's and had my snack. I then worked on figuring out how the bassline and the rhythm guitar work for wouldn't it be good. I played the youtube video over and over. The deeper I get into this song the more I realize the impressive pop perfection that makes it what it is. That bassline is masterful, subtle and varied. I realize I get so lazy with my basslines, I get the pattern and I tend to repeat, but there is so much more to really fine work.
I also started figuring out the Bassline to Wang Chung's Dance Hall Days. I have been considering recording a version of that one too. It's a bit easier and I've always loved how dark it is. I might change my mind about the easy factor once I start actually recreating it.

We were back in Runyon Canyon last night. It was nice to see most of the guys again, we all showed up with our jump ropes as requested. We were then divided by Robin in to groups of two for our relay teams. One team member stayed at the bottom of the court and jumped rope while another team member ran up the stairs to the fence and back. Your incentive to run fast was that your partner was stuck jumping rope for as long as it took you to run to the top and back, which is no simple task. We each did the stairs three times and jumped rope three times. At the end we were all beat but happy as usual. It's really a beautiful time of night in the early summer to walk back to your car after boot camp while the sky is in the gloaming. Feeling a bit proud of yourself for the hard work you just went through.

I have been driving Robin home after boot camp most nights, since he and Michelle share a car, which usually means she has it. Last night I drove him home but I was going to his house anyway for an invisible material rehearsal minus Devin. I played acoustic guitar and Ben played an unplugged electric and we played along to various recordings which robin had made in to a play list of our vegas set. It was nice to finally see Robin's apartment, since I've missed his last 2 parties. We jammed through the set once and then had a glass of wine and some smoke. Michelle arived home and we visited for a brief spell. I was starting to feel pretty tired and ready to get home and shower and eat.

I got home around 10:30 and walked Angela home, she had been visiting at our neighbors apartment. I showered and heated up my dinner and joined Angela on the couch. It felt nice to be in my comfy cozies and in my own home. I ate and then rubbed Angela's feet for a about 3 minutes, after which she fell deeply asleep. I tried to watch an episode of "It's Always Sunny in Philedelphia" but my recordings were calling. I started recording the intro bass part to "Wouldn't it be Good" that I had figured out earlier at Devin and Dylan's. It was slow going and I found myself doing a lot of Midi editing to even make it sound passable. I plan ultimately to play the line on the bass since it will then sound more like the original but for now I want it to be Midi so I can much about with the tempo of the entire arrangment. I finished the intro and started a bit of the 1st verse and then I happened to glance at the clock to notice it was already 12:45 am. Once I noticed that I realized I was rather exhausted and that I would need some sleep in order to do it all again in a 7 hours.

I did my nightly regemine and then escorted sleepy head from the couch to the bed. I set my alarm and checked the doors and turned out the lights. Frusciante was at the foot of the bed waiting for me and Simone was already trying to get on Angela's pillow for the night. I laid down and put a blanket over my chest so that Frusciante might climb up and purr me to sleep.

Zzz