New Digital Voyeurism

So I got this note from an old friend on face book this morning. It is a list of 25 things about him. You are supposed to one yourself and send it on to 25 people including the person who sent it to you. OK, kind of weird. Is this supposed to bring us closer together? Maybe, and it probably will just based on the details we'll find out, but it is weird. Here is mine:

OK Here Goes: 1. I'm feeling like this exercise is a little on the voyeuristic side. 2. But it also takes a little courage and what could be wrong with that. 3. I really love my family. 4. My little girls continue to amaze me on a daily basis. 5. I also really love where I live. 6. I feel lucky to be surrounded by so much natural beauty all the time. 7. I like to go outdoors and do fun things. 8. I like to ski and ride my bike. 9. I really like to catch big trout. 10. I play in a band and really like to play my bass. 11. I like to write songs and other things too. 12. I wish I could make more time for all of that stuff by mixing baking soda and vinegar. 13. I have two dogs that are great companions even when they don't listen to me. 14. I have a cat that doesn't realize how low on the totem pole he is at our house these days. 15. I admire the fact that he just doesn't seem to let it bother him. 16. I tend to be wishy washy about almost everything almost all of the time. 17. Sometimes I know exactly what I want. 18. I used to feel really strongly about politics in a black and white way, and I still do, but sometimes I feels the shades of gray crashing on my shores. 19. I like to build useful things with wood and then use them. 20. I like beer, and that's a good thing because I work at a brewery. 21. Did I mention I like beer? 22. Most of the time, I wonder if things could ever really be as bad as they seem. 23. I'm not sure if that makes me an optimist. 24. I don't spend a lot of time thinking about the big questions, but maybe I should. 25. I am officially remodeling my bathroom.

The Big Day

So today is a pretty big day in a lot of ways.  First of all, it's my birthday.  Second of all, it's inauguration day.  OK, just kidding.  It IS my Birthday but the inauguration thing seems a little bit bigger, only because 1.3 Million people were not on my front lawn before dawn this morning.  I was kind of expecting them, I left the gate open and everything, but they were a no show.  I guess they had something more important to do.  Our daughters we both so excited about today that they decided to wake up really early. Lucy was up at 1:00 AM, 

and Gillian followed at 4:00 AM.  

I've added their photos here in case you see them and want to reinforce healthy sleeping habits. Just remind them that it makes it really hard to focus during the day if you don't sleep at night. This seems to work well for me.

Anyway, I was pretty excited about the inauguration and even had CNN on at the house while Sarah and I tried to counter bleariness with large doses of caffeine and get everybody ready for our day.  By the time I got to work I had NPR streaming on my PC and they were doing a heck of a job talking about whether or not Abe Lincoln's bible had made it to the capitol for the swearing in and how nice the garlands looked on the nations capital.  Then we lost our Internet connection.  I did everything I could think of to get hooked up again to no avail.  Then, Mysteriously, right about the time that the stage had cleared, boom, I'm back up and running. And just in time to hear the commentary on how cold everybody there is and how they shouldn't expect to get home until early fall at best due to the large amount of humanity standing directly in their way.  Now I'm not much of a conspiracy theorist, but The bush administration did hold the reigns of power up until the actual swearing in.  Coincidence? Could it be that they were just giving me one more stick in the eye?  I'll never know.  

But I do know this: It's a heck of a day to have a birthday, and even if you think The Democrats are a bunch of sniveling badminton players you have to be proud of America successfully handing over the reigns of power for over two Centuries, and to an American of mixed racial heritage to boot.  Well I'll be.

       

OK, so I set this Blog up and then comletely ignored it for like a month.  I guess I was hoping that the long absense would draw my blog closer to me.  It didn't work.  And besides I was out of town for two and a half weeks with Sarah and Gillian and Lucy visiting family back East.  It was a wonderful trip in so many ways.  We visited with my in laws and got to see my brother in Laws family whom we hadn't seen in four years.  We had my whole family together which in the words of Robert Earl Keen is like "driving down teh highway at 60 Miles per hour and chucking the steering wheel out the window."  Of course he was describing bull riding and that definitely gives me a little perspective on my childhood.  A little advice for anyone planning on traveling across the country with a two year old and a 7 month old: I would seriously consider sedation, for everybody involved. I don't think the guy in the seat in front of us from our flight from Minneapolis to Baltimore would have been less happy if we were in a sedative induced comma for the entire flight.  One more thing and then I'll shut up about the trip.  If you do travel anywhere with said children of a certain age, just go ahead and leave your reading material at home.  You won't have time for it.  

  We made it back to Missoula on Friday the 2nd and were welcomed by a crap load of snow.  Just to be clear with everybody, I really like snow.  We went skiing on Sunday at Montana Snowbowl and it was spectacular and I feel really lucky to live in Montana.  I geta  lot less days on teh snow than I used to but I enjoy them more and hopefully will get a bunch more this season.  

On a more somber note, My Penn State Nittany lions got crushed in the rose bowl.  I'm going to leave it there to prevent the tears from coming again.  Luckily for me Football season is almost over.  I think I am about to get kicked out of the house.  

I'm a blogger now

So here I am, the proud new owner of a Blog.  It's all shiny and too fresh to have been ruined. To be honest I'm not quite sure what qualifications I have for this job.  I've never worked in journalism, although I have spent a lot of time shovelling manure.  I am somewhat opinionated, but that has never kept me from keeping my mouth shut.  The long and the short of it is that I'm just looking for a place to keep writing a little bit and air out some personal and not so personal ideas.  I do a lot of songwriting and I'll put some of that crap up on here. I'll probably tell lots of stories about changing diapers in the mall bathroom on one of those koala things and really insightful observations on lack of sleep and sugar intake for toddlers. Seriously.  As either of my dogs can tell you having young children moves pretty much everything but work into the back seat in a flash.  Luckily I have a wonderful wife who rocks consistently day in and day out.  She's like Mick Jagger.  Even my fellow band members (I play in a band called Stomping Ground ) realize that when they finally do see me again they may wonder what the scary looking zombie did with their bass player.  But seriously, I have two daughters.  Gillian (hard G, sorry sweetheart) is two and a half,  and Lucy is seven months.  And they are the greatest thing to ever happen to me and I really like being a dad.