-celebrating the pablo-

july 8th, 2009 i will be turing 33. or as i call it, old. so, lets celebrate! starting at 3 PM on Saturday July 11th there will be food and games, friends and family. so YOU should come.

Food: PLEASE bring your own food. i will provide a grill or 2 for all to use. IF YOU WANT to bring a dish or dessert to share you are more than welcome to, but it definitely is not a necessity. (i DO really like key lime pie. banana cream pie. and special k bars. :))

drinks: please bring your own drinks. whether it be pop or beer or whatever. i will have some coolers with ice sitting out on the deck.

games: bring a yard game. a board game. a deck of cards and poker chips. if it sounds fun to you and you wanna play it, bring it. i have a few yard games and all, but we could always use more.

a side note: bring friends and family if you want to. including kids. we have parks right across the street and 3 tvs that can be tuned into cartoons. north mankato fun days will be going on this same weekend and are only 2 blocks from my house, so wandering from here to there or vice versa is always an option.

and one more thing. UFC 100 is at 9 pm that evening. i will be paying for the pay per view. you are welcome to stay and watch if you want to. its gonna be a great night of fights. heres the details on the fights.

anyways...come if you can. even if its only to stop in and say hello.


heres a video preview of UFC 100

-burning fight-

there were 2 big shows recently that i really wish i couldve gone to. one in chicago and one in california. both were shows set up to promote the release of a book called "burning fight". its a book written about the 90's hardcore music scene. anyways, the reason i wanted to go is because it featured 3 of my all time favorite bands...and more specifically my 2 favorite minnesota bands threadbare (with Dustin Perry from Mankato) and disembodied. and yes i do realize most of you will hate this music...and maybe be scared of it. :)

heres disembodied's set in chicago (unedited) skip to the 3:05 point to see the 1st song. its their best.

Disembodied (Burning Fight, Phase 1) from hate5six productions on Vimeo.

"and now i realize all i could have had. and now you tell me all i could have had. and now you give me all i could have had. but i dont want it anymore. i dont need it anymore."



heres threadbares set, also in chicago (also unedited). "midas" is the song that really got me hooked on them. thats at the 26:15 point or so)

Threadbare (Burning Fight, Phase 1) from hate5six productions on Vimeo.

"a flame never burned as hot as the one that i lit today"

too much heat!

it is way too hot in this town. yesterday it got up to at least 95 with enough humidity to make it feel like it was over 100. today was more of the same until a pretty scary looking storm blew in and dropped the temp 20 degrees in about 5 minutes. i was working in my truck at work with my side door open and it was very very hot in there...all of a sudden a cool wind came through and i thought "oh no, this cant be good". so i looked outside and sure enough, here came the dark clouds. when the storm 1st came in i honestly thought there was a tornado coming. it got so cool so quick and the clouds looked awful. the wind just all of a sudden started howling. praxair is right next to the entrance to "the pit" in mankato. it was funny to see so many cars all of a sudden leaving the pit as the storm started up.

yesterday i had a really busy route. by the time i got home i had to shower and put on a whole new set of clothes. then it was on to softball. after softball i had to shower and put on a whole new set of clothes. it was just way too hot all around.

last Friday i got to see Joey Cape up at the triple rock. Molly, Cyndi, Fred and I drove up early to meet Ross and Monica. Ms Sarah Sylvester was also kind enough to join us. Ross just celebrated his 30th birthday so we wanted to get together with him. the food and company was all around good. the show was good, but disappointing in some big ways. mainly the length of joeys set. waaaay toooo short. his guitarist was late so the band before him played a longer set...by the time the other guy showed up it was not too long before curfue. so he only played a few songs. sadly the guitarist from drag the river was drunk enough to mess most of those up too. long story short- it was fun. but i was disappointed with the way joeys set turned out. but, oh well. that night i got home a little after 4 am. it seriously destroyed my weekend. i napped for 4 hours on saturday. Chloe woke me up sunday morning at 5:30 am...so we napped for 3 hours on sunday. i got very little done around the house. and what i did get done i did with a scowl on my face. this is one of the 1st weeks ever that its actually felt good to get back into the weekly routine.


oh yeah...the pic here. the pic is a storm that developed about 30 miles east of town. it dropped at least 3 (maybe 5) tornadoes and did some damage. this is always the case with pictures, but the picture doesnt show how big this storm really looked. and it cant show how quickly the could was expanding. it was so humid that you could just sit and watch the cloud expand. i dont think ive ever seen a storm build this quickly.

ummm. hmmm. i dont write here enough anymore. when i do i feel so behind that i dont know whats worth mentioning and what isnt. so for now...this is it.

-Chicago!-

last thursday i drove down all by my lil lonesome to Chicago. the drive really wasnt that bad. from my house to the hotel in schaumburg, it was a 6 1/2 hour drive. i did have to pay about 5 bucks in road tolls though. that seems pretty dumb to me. but i am not a road toll expert, so...

my original plan was to drive back today and go back to work tomorrow. but i couldnt take today off of work because someone else already had taken the day off. so i drove home yesterday. this morning i went in to work and found my truck has a "major transmission leak" and "is not drivable". so here i sit at home. i couldve stayed another day!

anyways, Chicago was a blast. Patrick Rew met me at the hotel on Thursday. he was nice enough to drive me into and around downtown Chicago on Thursday evening. a quick side-note: people in Chicago drive like overly aggressive idiots. im glad he was driving and not me. Friday we took the train into the city and walked EVERYWHERE. we honestly walked about 15 miles and saw a lot of downtown and the lake area. it was a blast. by the time we got back to the hotel i had blisters on my feet, sore legs, a sore back and a nice case of sunburn. but it was worth it. saturday we jumped on the train and went back into town. we took the subway over to Wrigley Field to see the Twins play the Cubs. it rained on us all morning...the forecast called for rain and thunderstorms for most of the day. but in an apparant answer to my whiny prayers it stopped raining at noon and the game started at 12:35. only a 20 minute delay! the Twins went on to win a tense game 2-0. soooo many Twins fans! it was cool to see that many people travel down to support the team. it was near a 50/50 ratio of twins/cubs fans. it was great to see Mankato/St Peter kids too!

sunday...i slept a bit...then got on the road at about 10 am. i stopped once for food and gas and made it home by 4:30. not too bad. the drive was so much easier than i thought it would be, that i am now thinking Chicago might be a nice place to roadtrip to on a regular basis. maybe.

tonight...i have 2 softball games. it'll be the first double header ive got to be a part of so far this season. 6:15 and 7:15. my favorite times for a double header. should be fun. but i will be sore and tired tonight and tomorrow. its just a guarantee.