Don't Let The World Bring You Down

Hey everyone.

Well I didn't make it to the battle of the bands last week like I wanted to. I was waist deep into a audio install in Cory's car, and didn't finish until almost midnight. Oh well. My buddy's band won, so they're moving on to the next level, sometime in July.

Wednesday-boring. Parents left for Idaho, and then I played some frisbee golf with Paul. That's it.

Thursday I was supposed to go up and babysit, but I got an early morning call saying Doug poked himself in the eye with a stick (don't ask) and he wasn't going on his trip, so I wasn't needed. Great. Had they told me the day before (when it happened) I could have gone with my parents to Idaho. So now I have nothing to do for the weekend, and I'm bored out of my mind. So I decided to go up to their house anyways. They didn't need me to babysit, so I just got to hang out all weekend instead. Still had fun, although I didn't make any money.

A few interesting things did happen while I was there though. Right when I walked in the door when I got there, Mik (Ryan's friend who is basically living with them now) runs up to me, shirtless, and gives me a big bear hug. He hugged me for a good 20 seconds before he let go. He's pretty cute, although his ego is a bit large, so that was a nice little surprise to start the weekend. On Friday we're hanging on the couch watching a movie, and Mik comes and sits next to me, shirtless (the a/c broke so it was pretty hot in the house), puts his arm around my shoulder, his leg over my legs, and kisses me on the cheek. Then he stays there and cuddles with me for the next few minutes watching the movie. Then he gets up and walks away, no words spoken. Weird. I don't think he's gay, but he sure is acting like it. I have no idea of what to make of it. But he's a nice kid so the attention is nice.

Since all the beds were full, I slept with James in his bed. Thrusday night was fine, other than him stealing the blankets all night, but again things got a little interesting on Friday night. He went to bed before I did, and when I came in I did my best not to wake him up. I failed, but he only looked up, and then rolled over and went back to bed. It was a little early for me, so I had some trouble falling asleep. After about an hour I got up to go pee, and when I came back and got into bed, James rolled over, spooned into me and layed his head on my chest. So I threw an arm over him and tried to sleep. It was pretty cute, I don't think he knew he did it. At some point I woke again, but didn't move. I was just laying there, when I noticed the bed was creaking a little, and kinda bouncing. Apparently James thought I was still asleep, because when I looked over at him, he was lost in his own world masturbating. Woah! Not what I was expecting to see at 3 AM. So I rolled back over and gave him his privacy. But I knew when he was done when I felt the bed shake and I heard a poorly stiffled moan. After that he feel asleep and neither of us spoke of it. I'm pretty sure he doesn't know I caught him, but hey, he's 14. He's always horny. At least I was.

And the last interesting thing, well more annoying than anything, was I managed to drop my cell phone into the lake while trying to untangle the tow rope for the tube. My aunt ran over the rope and it wrapped around the motor. So I tried to unwrap it, and it feel out of my pocket into the water. It was only a couple feet deep, but it was really weedy and it took us a couple of minutes to find it. I finally got it and ran inside to try and dry it out. I hit it with a hair dryer for like 10 minutes, but it still wouldn't turn on. Oh well, stuff happens. So tomorrow I'm going to Verizon to get a new phone. Could be worse I guess. At least I have a phone.

That was pretty much all the stuff worth mentioning that happened up there. I came home on Sunday and went to Wyatt's house to watch Slo-Mo record his guitar tracks. He got them all done that day, and we're all pretty happy with the results. We grilled up some chicken and then called it a day. Thursday Wyatt starts recording his vocals, so we'll see how that goes. After that, hopefully next Sunday, I'll lay down the bass tracks and then we're done. We're going to send it to Aaron's dad who will master it, and then we can release it. I can't wait!

Today, nothing. I threw a round with Paul, and went to the chiro. Then sat around waiting for my parents to get home. They got home around 6, and we hung out while they relaxed from all the driving. Pretty boring trip for them, except for some intense weather. Wedding was good, but short. They spent 41 hours at the camp where the wedding was, and 43 hours in the car there and back. They don't think it was worth it. But if I was there to do the driving, they probably would have liked it more.

I'm pretty much on call for babysitting, so I don't know when I'll be back there. Pretty boring week ahead. Now that my dad is back, we're going to get back into the headlight issue. I really hope we get them working. And a new phone hopefully tomorrow. And then some more chiro appointments.

You know, when I type all this out, it seems like I have a pretty boring life. A lot of the same stuff, day in day out. Well the weekend up north was a little different, but at home it seems the same. Sorry if I'm boring any one. You could ask me questions about myself, or something you want to know, and that might make things less boring. I'm an open book, just ask.

And finally, I would like to send my congratulations and love to Paul and Layna, who just got engaged the other day! I wish them all the happiness in the world, and may their mariage last a lifetime!

Late,

-Kevin

This might be more palatable for you to listen to. Not as much screaming or high energy. The problem with having as much music as I do, I find something really good that I haven't heard before, or haven't heard in a long time, and listen to it A LOT. So I've been on an Incubus kick this weekend. Here they are playing 'The Warmth' from their second album and Red Rocks.

Trans-Continental Hustle

On Tuesday I went out with Paul and played some frisbee golf. It wasn't my best game, but I am really starting to see improvment. Makes me happy all the effort I've been putting in is paying off. Later that night I was trying to download the new Gogol Bordello album, when my computer got a virus. Now I'm sure some of you are saying I deserved it for illegally downloading music, but what can I say? I'm a broke college student. Anyways, I tried my best to get rid of the bastard but it wouldn't go away. Finally I gave up and figured I'd call my dad the next day. I called him (he's in Wisconsin all week) and explained what was happening. Without being able to see what was going on, he talked me through what I needed to do and how to do it. After letting an antimalware program scan in safemode for two hours, it finally found the virus and deleted it. I was super excited and really impressed my dad could fix it from over 200 miles away and going off what I said. I have a decent knowledge of computers, but I never could have done that. So I was happy again, but still wanted the new album. Turns out my buddy Aaron (BP), who I just got into Gogol, had the new one and said I could come up to the station and get it. SWEET! Did that, hung out for a bit and went home.

Loaded up the new tunes and fell in love. If you don't have the album, the title of this post btw, or if you have never heard of Gogol Bordello, GO check them out NOW! The best way to describe it besides awesome, if Gypsy Punk. It's not what you would normally picture as punk musically, but lyrically it is. I don't know, it's really hard to explain. They dubbed the term Gypsy Punk though, so must be close. After that I went and checked the various blogs I follow and caught up on the day and a half or two I was gone. I wait until night to check them/this, so it was more like two days because I hadn't been on since Monday night. Pretty boring day all in all.

Today I took my truck over to the insurance company so they could inspect it and give us an estimate to get it fixed. Turns out it was $1,000 to get it all fixed including labor. We have a $500 deductable, but we probably won't fix it. My truck is completely drivable as is, once I get a new license plate holder. They said I needed a new bumper and shit which added up quick. Oh well. Later on I played another round with Paul, this time in a lite rain. Not too bad because there was no wind and the water kept you cool. Wasn't as good of a round as Tuesday, but still better than a few weeks ago.

I think I forgot to mention earlier that I just found out TOOL is coming to Minnesota in July, and they are one of my favorite bands. Tickets go onsale this Saturday at 10 am, so me and my friend Josh are going to go camp out at 4 in the morning to get tickets. We really want to see them, and tickets usually sell out in 15 minutes, so we want to make sure we get tickets, hopefully floor tickets too. So I'm picking him up from work tomorrow at 2 am, heading to my house for an hour or so to load up on caffine and such, and then going and sitting in the cold for 6+ hours. I just hope it doesn't rain and I'll be happy. Then going home and sleeping the rest of the day away. Sunday I'm going to my grandparents house for Mother's day which should be nice. Erik won't be there though because he and his friend Demian are heading up to Brainard for the weekend to go camping and buy some El Camino parts. Demian has a '79 Camino, and knows a guy up there with around a dozen of them and all the parts you could ever need so they are going to splurge. I wish I could go, but I'd rather get TOOL tickets. Should be a nice weekend, although maybe a little hectic with low sleep and all the realitives.

I'd also like to say hi and thank you to my new followers Rob and Eddie. Thanks for following guys!

My current favorite song from Gogol Bordello. (Same their name 5 times fast, or slow, it'll break your tounge.)



-Kevin

Am I Dead Yet?

Fuck. That pretty much sums up my week. Monday didn't go nearly as well as I had planned. Woke up for class with a huge migraine, so couldn't go to class. Spent the entire day in bed sleeping and hating life. Woke up Tuesday without a headache which was nice. Went to the chiropractor and then went frisbee golfing with my friend Paul. I just started at the end of last year, so I'm not very good. But Paul has been playing for almost 15 years so he has a lot of pointers to give which is nice. After that had dinner with the parents and hung out outside on the deck enjoying the beautiful weather.

Ever have one of those days where you just feel off? That was Wednesday. It started off pretty good. Went to the chiro, went discing with Paul again and ran into three of my friends at the course that I haven't seen in a long time so we joined them and had a good time. Then it went downhill. Went home for dinner, grilled pork chops and potatoes :-). One of my parents' friends came over for dinner which was cool. But my mom and him started socializing and drinking wine more than cooking, so the chops and potatoes got rather burned. It wasn't a huge deal, but kind of annoying. I love pork chops and had been looking forward to them all day, so I didn't get what I was expecting. After dinner, all my friends were busy so I had nothing to do so I decided to go for a drive and clear my head. With school coming to an end, I've been stressing really hard about exams and such, so it was nice to get out and spend some quiet time with myself (If you can count listening to loud music quiet time :-P). However, spending time with my thoughts wasn't as relaxing as I had hoped. I started thinking about everything that I have to do in the next week or so, and I started to get really overwhelmed and rather depressed. Not what I had in mind. Decided to go up to the BP and hang out with Aaron which was good because he's always in a good mood and helped to cheer me up. He's really goofy and always cracking jokes from movies or something. Once they closed and I went home, I was feeling realativily better, but still called it an early night and went to bed.

Thursday I had band practice. It started off incredibly good and we were really productive again. We nailed all our parts on the songs we've been having trouble with and there was a lot of positive energy. After a couple hours we took a break and had some KFC. Like always, once we went back to play, we were getting tired and losing motivation fast so we called it quits shortly there after and just hung out outside, again enjoying the weather. I went home not expecting to do anything for the rest of the night when my friend Kaija called my saying she and her husband Ian were back in town for a few weeks and they wanted to hang out. We decided to have an impromptu bbq and bonfire at my house. They and our friend Garrett came over and we grilled up some brats and beans and caught up on what's going on in everyone's lives. After dinner, we headed out to the fire pit and built a big fire. A little while after we got it going, my brother and his friends Yogi and BooBoo (Yes that's what we call them)came over and joined us at the fire. We spent the next few hours out there burning shit and having a good time. Around 1 AM it started to rain so we went inside. Ian, Kaija, and Garrett had to leave but the rest of us decided to watch a movie. They settled on 'A Scanner Darkly' which I've seen a few times so about halfway through I decided to go to bed.

Woke up today and went to the chiro, and now I'm here. Later today I have to go up to my aunt and uncle's house again and drop off my brother's dog for the weekend. My parents are having a dinner party tomorrow and with my brother moving in at the same time, we thought it would be too much hassle to have Kodi around. If he wasn't a 110 pound Rotweiller I don't think it would be a problem, but he is so it is. After that I'm helping my brother move more of his stuff here. Tomorrow is his last day to get out of his place so it's becoming a mad dash to get it all out. On Wednesday he came over and stole my truck and gave me his car so he could start moving stuff over after work which he's been doing at 1 am. As long as he gets it done, who cares.

So that's my week. Maybe not as bad as I thought now that I look back, but at the time it sucked, especially Wednesday. I probably won't get a post in until Sunday, but we'll see. I'm going to be running around like a chicken with its head cut off all weekend.

I'd also like to say thank you to my third follower, Octavius. If you haven't checked out his blog or his story, they're in my blog list and I recommend you head over there.

-Kevin