And I was Doing so Good

Since being back from Europe my life has been on the less interesting side. However, I still thought I was doing pretty good on the whole blogging thing throughout January and February. Then these past two months sorta fell to the wayside. 

I have lots of excuses stored up to explain my absence from this digital community, but I think the most plausible one is the fact that the past two cold rainy/sleety days have been the worst weather we've had around here in a while. 

See when you're from Wisconsin, or anywhere in the midwest I guess, you don't take good weather for granted. The majority of the year brings icy road conditions and nipple-hardening temperatures that lend to months of indoor hobbies. Therefore, give any Wisconsinite a little bit of sunshine and temps above 35 degrees Fahrenheit and we'll have cook-outs and start tanning our pasty whiteness.  

That's my biggest excuse. I've actually been doing stuff. Such as back in March, I went to the zoo. Hence that lovely picture of the deer like creatures. It was a splendid day, but I think I enjoyed the zoo more as a kid, when I didn't understand how endangered many of these creatures are and how human beings are the cause of it. But that's a whole other topic for a different post. 

That same day a friend and I visited the bay of Green Bay. Despite the warmth and the pockets of thin ice, I decided it'd be worth walking on. Only feared for my life a couple times.

Anything else I did over the past two months that was exciting you can read about in the following posts!

Choo Choo: A Moue Review

Another review by yours truly. This time for a Swiss, 60's pop-rock band called Choo Choo. Worth a listen or two, even though the music isn't necessarily my favorite. 

Sick and Unproductive

A sinus infection has rendered me weak and unproductive for the past five days. I've had to rest my voice all day just to make it through my shows. Even then my throat felt raw and abused by the end of the night. So I really haven't been up to much lately.

This mix-tape I did for Moue Magazine made me feel like I've actually accomplished something. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go Netti Pot myself.

Kadman

Before I left for London, I did a small music compilation article for Moue Magazine. I'm looking to do quite a bit more writing with them, starting with this review of Kadman's debut album Sing to Me Slower. It seems they liked the review, so perhaps you will too. 

I'd post the review here, but I want Moue to get the traffic. So check it!

Blogging: Scrap-booking on Roids

Yes, I scrapbook. I am a heterosexual male, and I scrapbook. At least I used to / hopefully will be in the near future. In my closet I currently have three grocery bags, each containing a scrapbook which is either empty or near empty and all the "scraps" that I intend on adhering to the pages. Allow me to digress and reminisce for just a few paragraphs before I get to the point.

One bag consists of all the pictures, brochures, ticket stubs, and other junk that I didn't throw away from the summer of 2005, when I worked as an entertainer at Idlewild Theme Park in Ligonier, Pennsylvania. I played three guitar sets, two small group shows, and three nightly main stage shows a day. Plus every so often I had to do "live action" theatre with kids in the "Wild West" section of the park. We made the wee ones into deputy sherifs and had them help wrangle up some bank robbers. There were about twelve of us entertainers. We all lived in a ski chateau on the highest peak in the state. We were all in our early 20's and enjoyed a good time, so a good time we had.

Another bag contains all the accouterment for completing a scrapbook from the next summer which I spent in Maui, Hawaii. I worked as the arts & crafts director at a Boy Scout Camp in the West Maui Mountains. This little gig snuck up on me unexpectedly. The job was mentioned to me in passing by a scouter in the Wisconsin area. A completed application and a few emails later, I was on my way to Maui. Granted the job didn't pay the best, but after a couple months on Maui, I had completely broke even, including the flight. Not bad. The best part of the summer, though, was hanging out with my old friend and first ever boss, Scott, as he is now living on Maui with his wife and daughter. The beauty and attitude of this island is intoxicating. As is the feeling I get when I tell people, "yea, I lived in Maui...."

The third bag is even heavier than the first two, but it's content spans twice as much time. During college, when I moved into my first house at the beginning of my junior year, I began a scrapbook to document all the good times and a few of the bad. It's a great representation of the hard work I did at UWSP as well as a look into the intense amount of fun my roommates and I had at 1525 Briggs. This scrapbook is more complete because I tried the "create-it-as-it's-happening" approach. This method worked wonderfully until, just like my blogging at times, I got way behind. I have catching up to do.

Now, even though I have a little extra time on my hands, I do not feel compelled to complete these books of memories. The reason why is this little site of mine.

I took out the "college years" scrap book last week and attempted to put a dent into it. Nothing happened. I am now much more interested in this digital version of my life/memories. Paper, scissors, and glue no longer tickle my fancy like they used to. But it's easy to see why.

Lately, I've been reading a lot of blogs, friends' and some randoms as well. It seems to me that a blog has so much more to offer than a big book of scraps. Not only can you post your thoughts and words, but pictures, video, and audio as well. I'd like to see a book that holds all that (besides a MacBook....ha, get it?) A blog is also viewable by whoever you want to see it. Which for me is all the more motivation to do it. Sure, you can share a scrapbook with guests when they come over. But more often than not, I think that a guest feels obligated to look through my memories and he/she doesn't necessarily enjoy it. With a blog, on the other hand, whoever can read it whenever he/she wants, and if no one reads it, really that's fine too. But in the meantime, I'll just keep writing as if someone out there actually is reading.

So there, I love blogging. Is that the thesis statement I was aiming for with this post.... I'm really not sure. That's the other thing about blogging, well for me at least, it's total stream of conscience. For that, I apologize, but that probably won't change.

Though, I will add that I'm not completely giving up on the art of scrap-booking. I'll find the motivation to do those three books sooner than later. I think it's important that everyone keep in mind the physical world that we all once functioned in, whether it's completing a scrap-book or sitting down and actually writing a letter. It weirds me out sometimes this think of all the time and effort I've put into this digital life of mine, and to consider that with one server crash, it could all be gone. However a wise man once said:

What takes a lifetime to build can be destroyed in a night, build anyway.

In with the New, but Keeping the Old

As I sit on the fifth floor of UWSP's Learning Resource Center watching a kid get yanked around on a blaze orange sled, I think to myself, "I cannot wait for him to get whip-lashed off that bright piece of plastic...and why don't they just call this building a library." 

I believe UWSP goes for the three word building titles: Health Enhancement Center, Learning Resource Center, Dreyfus University Center, Debot Dinning Center etc. This way students can refer to them in acronyms, because life is too fast paced for anything but.  Acronyms help people streamline things, keep things in order. 

Over the past few months, this blog has helped me keep my life in order. I'm extremely pleased to go back and read things that happened just months ago that had I not written down, would have been lost to the black holes of my memory. 

I also just so happen to be at a crossroads of where I'm going in life. While I don't like to dwell on the past, we can learn from it. So I take time now and again to go back, see where I've been in hopes that it will help me determine where to go. 

Since I am going, somewhere yet unknown, that means change. Change that I am exited for. Along with a change in life come a change in my blog's format.

Basically this was just a long explanation of why I changed my blog's template....

Welcome to Planet Starbucks

10-5-2008

I’m caught up. I’m actually writing this date's entry on the date it’s happening (although I didn't post it till two days later). Currently, it’s 18:27 on this Sunday and I’m in a Starbucks getting caught up. Yes, I agree, it’s corporate America, but as Mike Wilson so elegantly puts it “capitalism is the new imperialism,” but that’s a topic for a different post.

Perhaps it was divine intervention because I went to that Fetish Convention yesterday, but as I was catching up on blogging, doing laundry, and trying to figure out what I would do today, I stumbled across the picture I took of the Westminster Abbey service schedule. Thanks to that picture, I took in the 15:00 Evensong, their Sunday afternoon service featuring the Westminster boys choir. My sister told me about this fantastic group and upon recognizing the title, I knew I had to see it.

Heavenly is the only way to describe their voices combining in unison to give praise to God. I’ll be visiting them again…maybe I’ll make it a Sunday thing. I haven’t done that in a few years. Bah, I have to get out of this Starbucks. If I do anything exciting tonight, I’ll revisit this post.

*The most exciting part from Starbuck to when I got home was that there was the cutest dog ever on the tube. She rested her head on my foot. Her name was Angel.

Let It Begin

Seeing as how I will not always be able to get on the internet everywhere I go, I will be writing as I go and posting it when I can. So pay no attention to the time stamp, rather, the day I wrote the entry will begin each post. Enjoy savoring Europe!

9-3-2008

If I’m going to have to pay for wi-fi in every airport throughout this journey, I’m going to be severely upset. But I better get over it fast, because chances are every airport, train station, or hostel will try to charge me this $9.95 a month fee which I suppose is sweet if you’re a business man doing most of your work in airport terminals.  However, I am a poor college student who just paid $5.25 for a Miller Light and will probably be going back for another in a few minutes.

So far, pretty sweet. Lovely people and looks like lots of good times ahead. Next time I write will be from Frankfurt, Germany. Prost!

It's Been a While

Failed. The whole blogging at least once a week goal I had going for me this summer, didn't happen (as you may have noticed). Believe me, I have a ton of excuses which I will write about in my next blog.

In the mean time, however, here's a guest blog I wrote for mouemagazine, an online blog magazine. Check it.... my musical blabbing

This is our weekly GUEST COLUMN. If you’d like to submit a Mix Tape, email Brandy at mouemagazine@gmail.com with “Mix Tape” in the subject line.

Tonight’s guest blogger is Shawn Connelly, musician/DJ/wanderer of the earth extraordinaire, who was gracious enough to share some favorites with us.

Over the past four years if I wasn’t in an 8ft by 6ft practice room working at becoming a better musician, I was keystroking my way through another pointless research paper. So when I heard I could be a guest at Moue and write about music, I leapt at the opportunity….that is a lie. Truthfully, I put it on the back burner as a definite “I’ll get around to doing that someday,” meaning a year or two from now, if ever. Then I was encouraged, rather cattle prodded, by a Moue blogger to get one in NOW. [He's overstating the case just a tad - ed.] So here I am, and in all honesty, I couldn’t be happier to do it.

I had a long drive last night and as I scrolled through my freshly loaded iPod Touch (gotta love Mac and their “you’re-a-student-have-a-free-iPod” policy) my only thought was, “what the hell has happened to me?” My music tastes have done a 180 and my car almost did too as I bounced along a bit too intensely to the beats.

From playing rock guitar at a young age, to joining high school musicals (truthfully to chase after a girl, but eventually loving musical theatre), to studying four years of classical music at the University level, and finally now landing on electronic and indie music after spending those same four years at a college radio station, I’ve mastered music appreciation (and also the run-on sentence).

Because it’s what I’m most into now, this mix tape will consist mostly of the electronic music and some indie that fires my pistons late at night, or any time of the day really. However, I’ll also toss in a few of those gems I’ve found from all sorts of genres that have molded me into the musician I am today.

Follow over the flip for the tunes:

Justice: Let There Be Light: Cross – Truth be told, this entire album makes me happy in all the right places. However, I found myself conducting along to this song in the car….yup, nerd.

Crystal Castles: Magic Spells: Crystal Castles – a head bobber, foottapper, whatever cliché term you’d like to apply to it.

Cut Copy: Lights and Music: In Ghost Colours - music + beats + singable lyrics = I’m pleased.

Daft Punk: Television Rules the Nation/Crescendolls: Alive 2007 – Daft Punk is nothing new, but this remix album/show (Lollapalooza 2007) took what they had and did something completely new with it. Another reason they rock - they don’t sue people for posting videos of their show on Youtube.

Hot Chip: Over and Over: The Warning – if this British electropop group doesn’t get you moving, check your pulse…in your neck and wrist just to be sure.

Hot Chip: One Pure Thought: Made in the Dark – taboo to put an artist twice in a mix tape? I don’t care. The contrast between these two songs yet their ability to stay true to their sound is worth the repeat.

Jose Gonzales: Killing for Love: In Our Nature- messed up music video, great musician.

Pat Metheny: Last Train Home: One Quiet Night – one cannot be guitar player and not appreciate Mr. Metheny, period..and I just played him on the jazz radio show I’m DJing right now.

Jason Robert Brown: She Cries: Songs for a New World – remember that musical nerd side of me? Well, this man began the new age of musicals as we know them, simply songs that tell stories that intertwine to make a stage show.

Joseph Stillwell: Bright and Energetic: Sonta No. 1 for Saxophone and Piano – academic music has given me a great appreciation for classical music. However, many are surprised to discover this post-modern side of classical music.