August 10, 2005
Lucinda Rocks the House
I forgot to put something up about the concert I went to last week with my sister Sharon. We went on Friday night to the State Theater (which I believe is part of the Rutgers campus) in New Brunswick, NJ. The opening act, Anna Egge, is also worth checking out in the future. She is a pretty good songwriter, and has a BEAUTIFUL voice. She ended her set with an a cappella rendition of Edelweiss that almost had me in tears.
Anyway, LUCINDA ROCKED! As expected. I actually saw her a few years ago in LA, opening for Willie Nelson. Man was that a show to remember. I was down in the pit staring up at her, just mesmerized. She sings with every last ounce of her GUTS. Awesome band, awesome songs. If you get the chance, you need to see this woman live. It’s just not the same as listening to her cd’s, which I also love, but some performers just beg to be seen in person.
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August 05, 2005
Party at the Manor, Dahhhling
There was a Cali Crew reunion this past weekend in Fairfax Station, VA, at Matt and Shel’s house… errrr… the Manor, Buffy dear. Erin flew from SoCal on Thursday afternoon, Mr. Jay Bartletti joined us a little later on that same day, and our great friend Suhail joined us much later that evening. We stayed up till about 5am, drinking, reminiscing, and being generally very immature. =)
Some of the better photos from that evening:
We hung out by the pool… (by the way, Matt & Shel just re-landscaped the backyard – dude, it’s like, awesome.)
Played some pool…
Laughed together…
Made funny faces…
Drank liquor…
And hung out with great friends some more…
Some memorable quotes from the evening:
ERIN: “Who cares if the place is haunted, it’s got a bar.”
ERIN: “Is that a barn?” SHEL: “Yep, and there’s a tractor in there!” JAY: “Knee slappin!”
JEAN: “Johnny Boooooze Cruise!”
FROGS: “RIBIT! RIBIT! RIBIT-RIBIT-RIBIT-RIBIT!!! RIBIT! RIBIT! RIBIT-RIBIT-RIBIT-RIBIT!!!”
And that was just the first evening. Friday was fairly mellow, we went out for Pho. It was a VERY LONG DRIVE to get to the Vietnamese restaurant. Jay amused himself while I drove:
We finally got to the restaurant (with Shel’s friend Amanda):
where someone proceeded to have the BEST BEANSPROUT EVER!!!
On Saturday, Matt and Shel hosted a Tiki Party to christen their new backyard.
I had the pleasure of meeting some of Matt and Shel’s friends, hopefully we’ll get to hang out some more! I was too busy drinking to take too many pictures, but here is at least one, of Erin in the pool with some youngins, probably explaining how to play a drinking game. “So, to reiterate, if you have a face card, you have to drink 10…”
And finally on Sunday we went see Elvis Costello and Emmylou Harris at Wolftrap. Matt and Shel’s friend Melissa joined us, she brought wine, grapes, and cheese, so she was automatically “in” with us. She also has great toes, which is always a plus. =P
So there you go. I had a great weekend, and hope to get back down there soon. I miss you guys already!!
Fall semester starts soon, so other than school-related stuff, I probably won’t have much to report for a while!
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Posted by at 3:48 pm | Comments (1) | Permalink
I'm In Love
... with my new guitar. =)
It’s a Peavey S-3 with hollow tone chambers. It’s the lightest electric guitar I’ve ever picked up, and it’s got a great sound, very similar to a Tele, slightly more mellow. 2 Carvin S60 pick-ups and a Seymour Duncan Quarter-Pound at the bridge, and graph-tech string saddles were put in after the fact. It’s a very pretty flame top (the pic doesn’t do it justice), and the sides and back are a nice deep transluscent red. It was made in 1993 (they only made this model for 4 years), but it’s in pretty good condition. Just some weird screw holes that were filled in a little sloppily on the front. The jack plug-in is also a little loose but that can be taken care of.
I LOVE playing this guitar. I still love my other baby (seen in the background), but this is a really nice contrast to the Ibanez, which has a real smooth jazz sound.
I also picked up a SansAmp Classic amplifier modeler this week, which really lets me rock out! Time to blow some doors off!!!
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Posted by at 10:56 am | Comments (4) | Permalink
August 04, 2005
Everything put into perspective... real quick.
If you’re the praying type, please put my cousin Steve on your list. He was in a terrible accident last week and is in bad shape. He’s a diabetic, and after not feeling well at work, he decided to go home. He passed out at the wheel and hit a large tree. Thank God he was wearing his seat belt. I won’t go into detail about all his injuries, but he has already had a couple surgeries, and is due for several more. Also keep my cousin Carol in your thoughts. She’s been taking care of Steven like she has taken care of everything else in her family since her mom passed away last year. She’s hanging in there like a saint.
I felt horrible when I came home from a weekend spent with friends and found out about Steve. I was partying and living it up all weekend while he was struggling just to communicate and open his swollen eyes. I know there’s nothing you can do about things like that, I just feel so bad for him. It’s frightening how quickly your life can change, in the blink of an eye.
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Posted by at 5:38 pm | Comments (5) | Permalink
