quintescent cacophony

floorboards (she hates gourds)

2008-01-16T17:25:00.000-08:00

Melvin and Hannah helps us out on putting together our kitchen floor. Thanks guys

best albums 2007

2007-12-10T17:09:00.001-08:00

album art for bill calahan's, woke up on a whaleheart

top 10 of 2007

artists:
bill calahan
white stripes
st vincient
grinderman
okkervil river
thurston moore
deerhunter
various, "i'm not there" snoundtrack
the blow
arcade fire

honorable mentions
feist
lcd soundsystem
spoon
battles

watch annie clark shred in this video, she's amazing!

when a tree falls...

2007-11-19T13:36:00.000-08:00

...when a tree falls on a house and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? hell yes it does! it makes the sound of cash registers cha-chinging from the insurance money. and here we have our roof back. those cranky old doug-firs did there best, but thanks to state farm and bill, tony and guys at mastercraft construction we got out roof back

sunnyside

2007-11-16T14:04:00.001-08:00

some more pictures of the trusses from different views, a shot of our huge 5-foot garden window from the backyard and ashlee presiding like an angel. we had a sunroom put onto the house -- notice the large windows. with the trees that crushed our house gone, we have a pretty open sky to the southwest, so we figured we should take advantage of it. as bob pajich remarked, 'oh, looks like your new opium den." -okay, put me on the fda shortrack to get it going!

raindrops keep falling...

2007-11-12T16:14:00.000-08:00

sissor trusses are amazing! we now have almost 17ft of ceiling at the apex. much thanks to ace-architect, pat donaldson, up in portland with the spiffy suggestion. the rise of the roof will also match the front of the house, so it may actuallly look like a real house instead of the dilapedated tetris pattern of old.

back from the dead

2007-11-06T16:46:00.000-08:00

well, it's been a very very long time, but the anxiety and depression of our destroyed house was unbearable, so we've waited a long time to update this blog with any relevant news. of course a little laziness crept in and we have had some progress in the last few months. i'll fast forward through it as if it happened in a few days instead of ONE YEAR.

here are pictures of the exterior walls going up -- our first signs of progress after problems were found with the foundation, which kept any repairs from happening until the city could inspect, and engineers could devise..

Albums of the Year

2006-12-20T16:12:00.000-08:00

I think it is required that if you have a blog you have to have a year end top 10 of some sort. So here are my "Top 10 Albums of the Year."

1. The Black Angels- Passover
2. Neko Case- Fox Confessor Brings the Flood
3. The Thermals- The Body, The Blood, The Machine
4. Camera Obscura- Let's Get Out of The Country
5. Joanna Newsom- Y's
6. Jenny Lewis and the Watson Twins- Rabbit Fur Coat
7. Ramblin' Jack Elliot- I Stand Alone
8. His Name is Alive- Detrola
9. William Elliot Whitmore- Songs of the Blackbird
10. Gil Mantera's Party Dream- Bloodsongs

The new releases by Bob Dylan, The Decemberists, M. Ward, The Hold Stready, The Mountain Goats, and Beck are most likley awesome as well but I did not listen to them enough to be able to put them on my list.

DISASTER strikes!

2006-12-16T20:59:00.000-08:00

..and when i say say strikes, i mean clobbers! oh dear. the next few months will be interesting as our 'fixer-upper' has flabergastered into a 'fixer-way-upper' and certainly no longer a do-it-yourself endevour. looks like almost every rafter in the attic has been cracked or snapped completely. two trees total came down in a wicked wind storm that came across the entire pacific northwest thrusday night. two doug firs came down ontop of our house, one of which might likely having been the tallest in our neighborhood -- nearly 100 feet tall and other not small by any means around 70 feet tall. initially, the triage assesment called for a crain to pull the big guys off, but cranes are expensive and the arbor company is thinking of cutting small pieces off at a time. it will be an engineering feat in itself to remove the timber without causing more damgae. tomorrow will be revealing on that end. no one was hurt and by a mild stroke of luck both cars were out of the driveway, and somehow my motorbike dodged a bullet as well as ashlee's cute bicycle cruiser. not the same can be said for my cruiser and a thrid spare bicycle that took a wallop in the house's adjoined storage shed that suffered the most visible damage. the event actually turned itself into an oppurtunity to meet some of our neighbors and nearly one out of three cars driving by stopped and uttered something in the realm of of "...ohhhh my..." with some strangers even taking picutres. the local paper might come by tomorrow. what can i a say, maybe a glib paraphrased cliche, you need to walk through valleys/ to climb a great mountain/ so that someday you may see the view that inspires... -whew, that was a corny one.

-stay tunned the saga certainly will continue.

gobbeling

2006-11-29T20:32:00.000-08:00

new hardwood floors in our upstairs 'music room!' check out our cool new drum kit! RAWK!
i was going to post the picture of our thanksgiving turkey. although it looked, smelled and tasted great, i am not sure that a picture of a giant roasted bird is very appetizing. the dinner was really delicious and we had about ten people over. shane came down from portland bob from vegas. it was really great hanging out with two dear old friends. the next day the three of us and ashlee treked over to the coast for some relaxation and wave watching. one fun project we undertook was a message in a bottle. the contents consisted of some words of wisdom, one u.s. dollar, a cigar, some cigarettes, matches and shane's e-mail address. i'm pretty sure it went out to sea successfully -- we'll see if it ever washes up.

saftey first

2006-11-15T11:58:00.000-08:00

mandatory saftey meeting this friday. see you under the stars.

asbestos acrimony

2006-11-15T11:13:00.000-08:00

weeks have gone by and we've been busy. a wall in the kitchen and an old chimney were taken out. a whopping six types of vinyl flooring were found as we moved down through the floor with our crowbars and circular saws -- revealing the doug fir original. it's like a quasi urban archaeological dig. we plan on refinishing the wood and putting on a nice hard clearcoat.

here is a picture of me taking the bricks out from the old chimney up in our attic.

ashlee did a spooktakular job decorating for halloween and we had a small group of friends over on halloween as we passed out candy to the little kids. there was even one little boy who was actually afraid or our front door with multiple black lights fluorescing green and purple spider webs.

one collaboration i was proud of was a 'pumpkin-man' scene in the front yard complete with a decapitated head and pumpkin guts on the knife and severed head.

definitely a calvin and hobbes insipired idea

today i'm excited to be putting in our newly purchased oak hardwood flooring upstairs. ahslee's grandpa, melvin, will be over to help my hopeless soul. i can't thank him enough, he's been such a wonderful help to us.

here is a 'before' picture of the upstairs. stay tuned for the transformation pictures, complete with a newly purchased perl 5-piece drum kit with zildjian cymbals! whoo hoo!

union breaktime... check out my wintertime beard...

demolision and nippy nights

2006-10-26T13:50:00.000-07:00

the walls are coming down and so is the temperature. maybe it is because our house is shaded by 100 foot doug firs but it's always colder inside than outside. we need to prioritize and get some firewood this weekend. the kitchen is coming along okay. funniest thing happened three nights ago. i needed some room to pull a nail out so i tapped my hammer into the drywall that would be coming out anyway -- hit a pipe and water started gushing everywhere. i had no idea where the water turn off was and after running around frantically like a little sissy immitating a chicken with its head cut off i finally went out to the street and turned off the water main to the whole house. no shower the next morning and ashlee's grandpa and uncle came by the next day to repair the pipe. -i imagine this won't be the last time melvin and rob rescue some lame mistakes i'm bound to make.

still putting away clothes and paper. why do i have so much freaking paper? it's not like i even read anything...

i set up the PA system and guitars upstairs. the cold temps make my fingertips go numb after playing the guitar for only ten minutes but it was good to get things set up, because as anyone knows, when you want to rock -- there's no time to dilly dally setting up!

we've arrived

2006-10-16T14:06:00.000-07:00

oh how i lothe moving. but i'm glad it's over and now we can concentrate on a much bigger and more fun task -- fixing up the the ole abode. we took a hammer to a kitchen wall within the first hour of being at the house. what does that say about a house? answer: it ain't pretty enough to be hesitant to do such a thing. we also took up some carpet upstairs which has been designated the tv lounge.

2006-10-06T17:05:00.000-07:00

starting slow here. future site of fun abode demolition (and possible
rennovation/retro-rejuvination). who-knows what else. art rock
band formation -- molecular observations -- moto-fueled anecdotes
libation-fueled anecdotes -- et. cetera