May 25, 2011

Passanger

It didn't quite turn out how I wanted it to, but it'll do. I tried to make it an 'acoustic' song, but it didn't quite work out. It would have helped if I could have used an actual acoustic, but mine is currently broken, so I had to make do with technology. Still not a big fan on my singing. Wish I could do that better....



Hope you guys are well!

143

_Kevin

And since I've been on such a roll lately, there's another one coming soon too!

May 20, 2011

Hope



I got bored so I recorded another song. There'll be another one soon.

143

_Kevin

May 17, 2011

5ves

Heya guys.

So you remember me saying I was feeling down? Well I found (well, I already knew about it, just didn't think to try it) something that makes me feel better; shooting. As you may remember, I inherited some guns from my grandpa when he died. So the other day Aaron (who also just bought a gun) decided to go shooting. We looked around and found an indoor range not too far away, and headed out. Stopped on the way for some ammo, and then got to the range. I was a little nervous walking in, because I had never shot in a range before. Usually when I would shoot, it would be at someone's farm or something, but this was more formal and kind of intimidating. Plus, it was a new gun, and I wasn't sure what to expect.

We went in, payed for a lane a piece and some targets. Then we walked into the range and got things set up. I was still nervous, but excited too. Once I got everything set up and loaded, I raised the gun, aimed at the target, and took a deep breath. Since it was my grandpa's gun, which he'd never shot, I said in my head 'this is for you, grandpa', and pulled the trigger. At this point, I'd love to say I hit the bullseye, but I didn't. Being a new gun, it took me a few shots to get used to it, but soon I started hitting dead on, or close to.

When I was a kid, I'd always go shooting with my grandpa. He was a huge hunter, and had dozens of guns. I remember the first time I shot a .22 up at the cabin in the woods with him. The same gun, in fact, that he first shot when he was about 10, that is now sitting in our gun safe. When I got a little older, he taught me how to shoot a shot gun, and then how to shoot clay pigeons. I have a lot of good memories of shooting with him. Although, not of hunting. I never was big into hunting. The only time I went, we went squirrel hunting and I didn't like it. I thought it was too much sitting in the woods being quite, and not enough shooting. I'd much rather spend a day shooting at targets than sitting around waiting to kill an animal.

We spent about an hour at the range and then called it quits. I never realized how expensive it is to shoot a hand gun. Over the course of that hour, I spent $50 in ammo, and only shot about 100 rounds. Plus the $20 for the range. Not something I'll be doing every day. But I walked out of there feeling really good. It was something that I never got to share with my grandpa, but it felt like he was there anyways.

On Sunday, my friend Josh and I went to the LynLake Festival. Basically, they shut down a major intersection of South Minneapolis and have a huge party all day. They have music, food, merch booths, and random activities. I had never been, because I'd always forget when it was, and remember right as it was ending. So this year I wanted to make sure I made it.

Picked up Josh and made it there around 3:30. We really wanted to see Heiruspecs play, which was at six, so we had some time to kill. We just walked around people watching and having a good time. Josh liked that it was one of the few times you can walk down the street drinking a beer, right next to a cop, and not get in trouble.

We ran into some other friends and staked out a good place to see the stage. While standing around, I caught sight of a very interesting billboard.


That's probably the funnest piece of graffiti I've seen. I think the Spitting Cobra's have been practicing!

Anyways, Heiruspecs finally took the stage, and blew my mind. I'd never seen them before, and had only heard a handful of songs, but I was very impressed. They're a local hip hop group from St. Paul, MN.

After their set, the festival was over, so we headed home. Shortly after, I got a headache, and my last post came about.

Today, I hung around with Erik for a while. Since his last day of work was last Saturday, he had nothing to do and was just hanging around. Once Demian got off work, the three of us went for a small bike ride around the city. We spent about an hour or so hanging in Loring Park talking and having a good time. Then we decided to bike down to the lakes for the sunset. We got there just in time, and saw it go down, which was pretty cool looking. We hung around for a little longer, then made our way home.

Tomorrow, Erik and I, and maybe Anthony, are going to go water skiing...Finally. I've been trying to go since the ice came off the lake back in late March/early April, but it just hasn't happened. Between my dad being out of town for work and the weather sucking, it didn't work out. But now that Erik isn't at work all day, and it's back to being nice out, we can finally go. But I'm sure I'll regret it since the water is still cold, and my body will hurt pretty bad on Wednesday.

Well I guess that's about it.

Hope you guys are well!

143

_Kevin



What's really cool about them, is the scratching you hear isn't done on a turntable like everyone else. It's done by voice. So the second vocalist you see is doing it.

May 16, 2011

More To Come...

...When I don't have a headache.

In the meantime, enjoy Isis



143

_Kevin

May 5, 2011

Clear The Air

Hey guys.

I guess I was a little too vague with my last post. Sorry. Didn't mean to make you guys worry.

I suppose it all started on Friday, when I went up to the cabin. I tried to be smart and go to bed early, so I could wake up early and drive up there. Well, that failed. I couldn't get my mind to shut off. I kept going through old memories, and how much it was going to hurt being at the cabin. So I ended up watching Top Gear until 5 AM. Then got up at 7:30 and got my stuff together. Finally left the house a little before 9.
I was pretty tired driving, but consumed enough caffeine to keep me going.

Over the winter, the owners of our cabin changed the locks, so we needed to get the new key. Since I was the first one up, I had to do it. I called him when I was about halfway there to let him know when I'd get there. Would have worked out too, except I hit a huge detour shortly after. I'd wanted to call and tell him, but by the time I knew how late I was, I had no cell service. So I just pushed on and made it to his work about half an hour late. Went inside and the receptionist told me I had missed him by about 2 minutes, and he had gone to lunch. Oh well. So I killed a half hour wandering around downtown Hayward. Not a bad way to spend a beautiful day.

Drove back to his office later and got the key from him. Then went back into town to get some lunch. I went to this nice little bar/grill place in downtown and sat outside enjoying the weather, and taking in the town. Since it was the middle of the day on a Friday, on a non-busy weekend, it was pretty dead, but nice just the same.

Finished up lunch and headed to the cabin. When I got there I had to open everything up. Turn on the water, power, heat, air it out and all that jazz. In the course of that I found a dead mouse in a mouse trap in the kitchen, and it looked like it had been there for a while. So not wanting to touch it, I went into the garage and got a shovel. I tried to scoop it up, but it was stuck, so I had to scrap it off with the shovel. Unfortunately, a silver dollar size piece stayed stuck on the floor. I think it was part of his stomach. Fucking disgusting. I sprayed it with some 409 to try and loosen it up, and left it.

I wasn't really sure what to do with myself. But it was really nice outside so I sat out on the deck and had some music playing. Shortly after, I decided it'd be nice to have a video of the lake, so I set up my phone on the railing and hit record. About a minute later a song came on that seemed really fitting, so I made it into the video that I posted. I continued sitting out there for a long time, and ended up filming the lake for 25 minutes.

I was reflecting on everything that had happened up there, and what it all meant to me, and all that stuff, feeling pretty bad. Then, another song came on, and I couldn't help but smile. I don't know why, but I just found myself with a small smile. Then I got up and went inside to read for a while.

I was really tired from not getting any sleep the night before, and I started to get a headache, so I went to bed around 9 that night. The rest of the family was showing up at different times the next day, so I knew I couldn't sleep late.

I woke up about 10, yes 13 hours of sleep, and hung around, mostly reading. The weather had turned and it was raining and windy. Finally about 2 Erik showed up with his dog, Kodi. We talked for a little bit, and then my parents and grandma showed up. We helped them unpack and then decided to do some offroading on the trails one last time. Right after we left, we passed my aunt and cousins on the road, so we turned back and brought my cousin James along too.

We spent a good 3 hours out on the trails having fun. We even taught James how to drive a 5 speed. I was impressed since he had no idea how, and we were off road. Headed back to the cabin so we could all go out to dinner.

We went to our favorite place, called the Sawmill, and had a blast. It was kind of sad, but more joyous than anything. I also taught my cousin Taylor how to properly play pool, instead of just hitting the ball as hard as possible. Halfway through dinner my uncle called and said he was at the cabin. So we hurried up and made our way back. My mom, aunt, and grandma got a little on the tipsy side. On the way back, we came upon a bunch of cop cars, a fire truck, and an ambulance blocking the road. My mom started freaking out, because that's what it looked like when she showed up at my grandparent's house when my grandpa first went into cardiac arrest. My aunt and grandma were in the other car, so we weren't sure how they were doing, but my mom was sure my grandma was freaking out too.

It turns out a car had rolled over and caught on fire. I'm not sure if the driver lived, or if there were passengers. When we finally drove past they were still spraying the car down. It put a nice damper on the evening though.

When we got back to the cabin, it had stopped raining, so we had a bonfire. My mom, grandma, brother, and I all smoked some cigars. Erik and I were smoking some of the ones my grandma had given me, that had been my grandpa's. So we thought it was fitting. Had a good time telling old stories and memories around the fire until about midnight. Then we went to bed since we had to pack everything up the next day.

I woke up feeling pretty bad, knowing what was coming. Got up, and everyone else had eaten and was already packing. It wasn't even 9, so I was surprised they were already busy. I tried my best to eat, which failed, and then half-heartily started to help. They had gotten most of the big stuff, so it was mainly gathering all the small stuff and putting it in bags.

My uncle ran into town to talk to the guy that was storing the pontoon, so when we finished packing we hung around trying to absorb as much as possible. I took one last trip down to the water and stood there taking it all in. The wind was blowing pretty hard, about 30 mph, but the rain was gone. I could feel my emotions starting to build up, but I kept it together.

I went back up to the cabin and sat with everyone else. I just started to space out and thought about all the old memories. Then I started to think how much it sucked, and how I was losing my refuge, and all the stuff I talked about before. My uncle came back, and then it was time to leave. My grandma wanted to be the last one out, so we all grabbed our stuff and said our last goodbye. We stood in the garage and waited for her. She came out crying, and we all said goodbye to each other, since we were in different vehicles and going different ways. I was the last one out of the garage, and then I closed the door and locked it for the last time. I had managed to keep my emotions in check up until this point, but as soon as I got into the truck and started to drive away, I started crying. The pain in my chest was much more than I thought it would be, and I thought I shouldn't be driving. But I kept on. Then I started to think about driving into a ditch. It wasn't good.

I think part of it was because of the reasons I listed earlier, but I think it was also closing the final chapter on my grandpa that made it so hard. I just wasn't in a good place, and I wanted out.

I did my best to get it out of my system by the time we drove into town. There, me and Erik stopped to poke around a little one last time, and my aunt and uncle and cousins stopped to get ice cream. We all ended up getting some lunch at the same bar I was at on Friday, and then we poked around. Again, it was sad, but in a retrospective kind of way. Then the kids started goofing around again, and I got out of my funk a little.

After that we started the long drive back home. It's not that long, about 3 hours, but the finality made it much longer. Got home and unloaded everything. Then just hung around until it was time for bed.

I've been doing alright with it the past few days, but that's only because I haven't let myself think about it. Every time I start to think about anything related to the cabin or my grandpa, I push it out of my mind. I just can't bring myself to think about it. Even writing this, I've teared up.

I'm sure it'll get easier with time, but right now it sucks.

Hope you guys are well.

143

_Kevin

Again, I don't know why this song made me smile, but it did.