Slaying the Badger

What an awesome documentary. This is the best look I've had into this race, and into Lemond as a racer. Highly recommend it.

Pure Nostalgia, or Something More?

Is it just me, or is this new Pink Floyd record that everyone's snarking about actually pretty awesome to listen to?

Not much in the way of lyrics, but these days that's preferable to me. More and more I find myself listening to instrumental music, and getting this batch of Floyd sounds sans lyrics is kind of perfect. Built of outtakes and extras as it essentially is (culled from about 20 hours of music left from their 94 album The Division Bell, from what I gather), it's easy to agree that Pink Floyd is not breaking new ground here. But who cares?

This is totally enjoyable progressive rock music. It's a pretty lovely epitaph for Richard Wright, their original keyboard player who died last year and who's playing is integral to these songs.

It's familiar and bold without being ambitious or eager. It's not overly complicated. It's nice background music, to be perfectly truthful, but that's a compliment coming from me.

Wilco Rare Tracks Box Set: Happy Friday to Me!

Look what I got. This thing is absolutely beautiful. Very awesome.

Snow Day!!!

 

We woke up Friday to over 6"of new snow. That meant a snow day for this lucky kid.

He spent most of the day out in the snow with his pal Josie, his mom, and his friend Jennings.

 

Quite a huge change from last weekend's mountain biking outing for Jennings' birthday party.

  

Lots of tonka trucks caught unawares in the backyard.

 

I drove to work through unplowed streets, while Theo got french toast and cartoons.

It was a pretty nice day at work, with most people staying home and a steady snowfall out my window all day.

But a snow day would have been better.

Thinking About Henry

Henry died one year ago today. Theo still says he misses Henry. Often.

So do I.

A Winged Victory for the Sullen

Drone and ambient fans, or anyone who gets into Stars of the Lid, have good reason to be excited lately. A Winged Victory for the Sullen, a project of Adam Wiltzie of SOTL, released their second full length record last week. 

On the same day (!!), Wiltzie's partner in SOTL drone Brian McBride released a single with his project called Bell Gardens, ahead of a new LP out later this year. 

Good stuff, both, if very very different both from each other and from SOTL--and, really, from any of their other many side projects. 

Oh, and this whole flood of riches made me go back and watch this again and wonder what ever happened to that film...

Stars of the Lid . teaser 1 from ZF FILMS on Vimeo.

1,000 Miles

What a great project.

Backpacking West Fork Wallowa Creek, Eagle Cap Wilderness

They Want My Soul

Just got the new Spoon record. White vinyl. Man is it good. Thanks, wife! Happy Birthday to me!

Another Great Weekend

Baseball, barbecues, popsicles.

Happy Friday

Look what shipped today! Finally leaving the fixie ranks. Really looking forward to some quality coasting.

Theo's Sawtooth Weekend

Me and Theo and Uncle John headed up toward Stanley for a weekend of camping and fishing.

Theo was pretty excited.

He got really dirty and stayed that way. Dug holes, climbed rocks, ran around and had a ball.

And we went fishing. Theo caught his first rainbow trout! (I hooked it and handed him my rod, which he thought was about the coolest thing ever--until the fish jumped out of the water, all 6" of it, and he handed it back and put some safe distance between him and that fish.

It wasn't all fun and games. Theo got sick the first night, throwing up all over the inside of the tent. And it was in the low 20s F, very VERY cold. We had some gear, but we were prepared for summer camping, which made the night seem pretty long indeed.

These pics don't tell the tale, but he was not feeling well on Saturday, and got sick a few more times, so we packed it in and headed home. All in all a good trip, and bailing was the right choice for the sake of excitement at future camping opportunities. 

We'll be back.

The History of Typography

Pretty cool, if you're interested in such things.

Birthday and Bike Rides

Quite the momentous weekend at the Hess household. Cathy had a birthday, and Theo braved a pedal bike with no training wheels.

We finally made it to State & Lemp. I can't even begin to tell you how good it was. Well, yes I can. The scallop done sous vide in something called Chawanmushi, a custard made of eggs and peas served cold, set the tone. I hate peas. And this was some kind of an amazingly delicious dish that tasted of the most fresh and green pea flavor you can imagine. And I loved it. 

A hearty farro salad, an intermezzo of grapefruit sorbet on crushed up grapefruit merangue, sturgeon that blew the top of my head off with its pickled mustard seed tobiko, lamb with pickled cherries and black olive carmel and OH MY GOD it was so freaking good.

More to say. But I must finish this post.

I took Theo to see Planes 2: Fire and Rescue. In 3D! And it was so, so cool. I don't know which of us was more captivated by it, but safe to say we had a great time.

And Theo made a few valiant efforts at riding this bike with no training wheels. He had a good run, but a few tumbles while standing still and a movie we needed to get to meant we put another run off to another day. He will get it--he's very close. Can't wait to see him ride away.