Thursday, July 28, 2005

On the Air

...Or, rather, on the internet, I should say. As of July 1, more or less, the Boise Community Radio Project is webcasting. Check it out.

We've had our fair share of burps and glitches, and it's popped offline a few times in the last few weeks, but for the most part the bugs are being worked out and the webcast is running smoothly. The schedule is a bit odd and still very much in flux, but a pattern is emerging and new shows are coming in with increasing frequency and timeliness. So it's coming together, if a bit slowly.

My biggest surprise so far is in the relatively small number of people who are turning stuff in. I don't know, I guess it's just me, but I really thought we'd be overrun with folks who were dying to be DJs. I've always wanted to be a DJ, and at this point, when it's essentially making mix CDs to be played on the air, I have a hard time imagining why our schedule is not jampacked.

My show, Range Life (snappy title, eh?), is currently enjoying heavy rotation. I turn in 2 shows per week, and I fill 6 slots per week. Monday and Tuesday at 5pm, Wednesday and Thursday at 9am, and again on Saturday at 1pm and 10pm.

Soon we'll attach a blog with setlists.

Listen in and enjoy. And let me know what you think.

Wednesday, July 20, 2005

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah

Something about the debut record by this band just gets my blood rushing and my mouth smiling. Heard it yet? Any thoughts?

The guy Alec Ounsworth's got a freaky-annoying voice, and the music is nothing groundbreaking or earthshaking, it's just a re-envisioning of indie rock that is greater, far greater than the sum of its parts. The songs are buoyant and refreshing, balls dangling free and easy and joy to the world and screw you if you don't get it. Influences and comparisons jump immediately to mind (Talking Heads, Broken Social Scene, and VU spring forward whenever I listen, for what that's worth), but none of them hold up under scrutiny.

Apparently they're being pursued by the label lobby, and before too long I'd expect them to re-release the record, which they put out and distribute themselves right now (also available through Insound).

Monday, July 18, 2005

Back To It

Though I started this weekend fairly despondent over the fact that, again, I wasn't gonna get out of town. No Sun Valley, no epic mountain bike rides through aspen groves on super-skinny trail, no solo campout, no escaping the 100+ degree heat. Just another lame-ass weekend here in Boise.

Not so. Friend Judi threw a birthday party for Cathy on Friday night that was mellow and very fun. And on Saturday I ended up tagging along on a trip down the Main Payette. This time, though, friend Hillary and I would be two-manning an 11' raft. It was fantastic. We ran it side-by-side, one foot in and one out for most of the trip, retracting appendages as we hit whitewater. And hit it we did--like a cork, bobbing and bouncing through and over, aiming for the biggest bits and squirting through again and again. Great fun. And now I want a raft. Hillary, who spent some years guiding rivers in Texas, New Mexico, and here in Idaho, is shopping for a raft and looking for an appropriate person to share the expense with. Seems like a perfect situation. I get into a raft for half what it costs, and I get to go with someone who can teach me a whole lot about running rivers. It's expensive--prolly a cool $1500 for my share--but in the end I think it'll be worth it.

It was good to get back on the water, considering I hadn't been in since the 7/4 weekend, where I dumped in the top hole of the Raspberry and swam the next quarter mile or so, bouncing rock to rock, sustaining one serious leg wound and a mess of small bumps and bruises. Not fun. I was wondering how it'd affect my psyche, as far as getting back in the water, but far as I could tell from this trip down the relatively tame Main, I'm none the worse for it. A little nervous, sure, but I always am before a trip like this, so no big deal.

Sunday it was up to Stack Rock, this time with a group of 6 pretty strong riders. We'd planned to head down the Bogus Drop, but plans changed due to group constraints, and we ended up putting in a killer 3 hours between East Side and all the new stuff off the firepit trail. The sequence of trails I put together and guided everyone through was, I must say, superb, and the ride was a long series of medium climbs and screaming descents, spreading the work out through the day. Of course, in the end you always have to climb out, so that puts the bulk of the misery in the last 45 minutes or so, but it was well worth the lung loss. Great ride.

And at the end of it all, I was actually glad that I'd stayed here in town.

Thursday, July 14, 2005

No time for nothing

I've been in one of those modes lately where there is no downtime. No rest between commitments and activities, rushing from one thing to another without time to stop and breathe and just hang. It's all good, my time is being taken up by worthy things--work, radio production, radio meetings, trailbuilding, SWIMBA meetings, watching Le Tour (especially that)--but after a while you start to realize just how much you've let go, how many things have fallen by the wayside for days and days.

I usually follow up a period like this with a forced reorganization of my life. I'm about there now. I'd planned to go to Sun Valley and mountain bike for a couple days this weekend, but I think I'll put that off and stay home and tie up the bucket of loose ends I've got going. I'm dying to get out of town, but that'd just put me in this same position come Monday. Plus, the wifey is going to Iowa next week, so I should spend some time with her.

So that does it. No camping, but plenty of hammock time.