Latest Project

A 19', 9" wide x 20' deep two car garage - part of our new Carlsbad town home.

Before:

After (excuse the horrible photos - there was not a lot of light at 6:30 AM):

Improvements so far include drywall, wall paint (eggshell finish), floor epoxy, two new four bulb fluorescent fixtures, five additional outlets (three in the trusses to power the two pictured lamps and one above where my workbench will be - no lamp shown). 

I can't take credit for the drywall work, due to time constraints* I had it done by an excellent crew of day laborers. One guy hung the drywall, another came by and taped and a third did a fantastic job matching the light texture that was on the existing, 37 year-old drywall and blending the sections together. It's really tough to spot the transition. 

I still have to paint the door and add some finishing trim around it. An access door for the cable junctions will be built for the large opening seen in the first image. I may add baseboards as well. But those will have to wait as I still also need some shelving and possibly some wall cabinets. Oh, and to move all of my crap in as well. Here's hoping I can cram it all in. 

*thanks to the fuckwad mortgage broker who sat on his ass for a few additional days and delayed our closing date by a week. I hate you. 

SpringSongs, Pt. V

This Tornado Loves You by Neko Case

Neko doesn’t write love songs, but this is about as close as she’s ever gotten, with the tornado being somewhat of an extension of her psyche. Well, that's what it comes across as to me at least. Tornadoes are, by far, my most-feared natural phenomenon. Spending thirteen of my formative years in the tornado alley of Central Illinois while living in a house without a basement, I vividly recall a few spring nights huddling with my family in the bathtub under heavy blankets while the wind whipped the house and the civil defense sirens screamed. The song opens with repeated guitar plucking and conveys the nervous energy that ran thick on those nights when a fast-moving cold front would crash into a warm front that was stalled high above the Central IL plains. Just add the distinct train-like sounds that a tornado creates.

Here’s a great YouTube video of her performing the song on Letterman: 

My love, I am the speed of sound
I left them motherless, fatherless
Their souls dangling inside-out from their mouths
But it's never enough

I want you...

Carved your name across three counties
Grounded in with bloody hides
Their broken necks will line the ditch
Till you stop it
Stop it
Stop it
Stop it
Stop it
Stop this madness

I want you...

I have waited with a glacier's patience
Smashed every transformer with every trailer
Till nothing was standing
Sixty five miles wide
Still, you are nowhere
Still, you are nowhere
Nowhere in sight

Come out to meet me
Run out to meet me
Come into the light

Climb the boxcars, to the engine
Through the smoke, into the sky
Your rails have always outrun mine
So I
Picked them up and crashed them down
In a moment close to now

Cause I miss
I miss
I miss
I miss
I miss
I miss
I miss
I miss

How you'd sigh yourself to sleep
When I'd rake the springtime
Across your sheets

My love, I am the speed of sound
I left the motherless, fatherless
Their souls dangling inside-out from their mouths
But it's never enough

My love
I'm an owl on the sill in the evening
But morning finds you
Still warm and breathing

This tornado loves you
This tornado loves you
This tornado loves you
This tornado loves you
This tornado loves you

What will make you believe me?

This tornado loves you
This tornado loves you
This tornado loves you
This tornado loves you
This tornado loves you

What will make you believe me? 

SpringSongs, Pt. IV

Stormy Clouds by The Verve

Building, surging, crashing, claustrophobic and imagined by a band that was chuck-full of high-test psychedelic drugs. While not their most-popular record (that would most certainly be 1997's breakthrough Urban Hymns), The Verve may have peaked with their sophomore release - 1995’s A Northern Soul. A superb record to listen to, alone, late at night and at high volume – especially a stormy spring night with the walls alive from a steady stream of lightning flashes. 

I wanted to tell you my story
How my life seemed to change in a matter of days
The heavens break, I am walking, no talking
How come change always seems to bring the rain?

But through it all

I feel no pain

Stormy clouds (stormy clouds)

On a new horizon (new horizon)
Come and get it

If you want to

So hop on the train 'cause it kills the pain
Blues player gone to another town
Believe me this boy here is sinking (just drinking)

And these streets, these times, they tie me down (I'm through with you)

But through it all
But I feel no pain

Stormy clouds (stormy clouds)

On a new horizon (new horizon)

Come and get it

If you want to

I'm tearing up inside

Don't be scared

Come on inside

She wears the winds

These new horizons

See through the pain

A new horizon

Stormy clouds (stormy clouds)

Stormy clouds (stormy clouds)

Stormy clouds

Stormy clouds (stormy clouds) 

A new horizon

Over me

A new horizon

Told you cheat

A new horizon (stormy clouds)

I'm a living freak

A new horizon (stormy clouds)

Over me now

The heavens are breaking

It's raining, you're faking

I'm walking, to the train and

This boy won't come back again

Say it one more time

Nothing on my mind

There's nothing on my mind 

 

SpringSongs, Pt. III

She Brings The Rain by Can

Closing out their 1970 Soundtracks record, avant-garde German rock artists Can bring a late-night chill in this atmospheric and nocturnal piece.  You can almost hear the raindrops strike the windshield as the car’s wipers swish back and forth on a cold early March night.

Yes, I care if she brings me spring,
But don’t care about nothing,
She brings the rain,
Oh yeah, she brings the rain.
In the dawn of the silvery day
Clouds seem to melt away,
She brings the rain,
Oh yeah, she brings the rain.

She brings the rain, it feels like spring,
Magic mushrooms out of dreams,
She brings the rain,
Oh yeah, she brings the rain.
So mellow yellow, grey disappears,
Flying on the raven’s wing,
She brings the rain,
Oh yeah, she brings the rain.
Yes I care, she brings me spring,
But don’t care about nothing,
She brings the rain,
Oh yeah, she brings the rain.
She brings the rain, it feels like spring,
Magic mushrooms out of things,
She brings the rain, it feels like spring,
She brings the rain, it feels like spring,
She brings the rain, it feels like spring,
She brings the rain.

In the dawn of the silvery day
Clouds seem to melt away,
She brings the rain,
Oh yeah, she brings the rain,
Oh yeah, she brings the rain,
Oh yeah, she brings the rain,
Oh yeah, she brings the rain.

SpringSongs, Pt. II

Although it was just yesterday when I said that I would not cop out and simply pick XTC’s Skylarking as the consummate Spring album (as well as one of my favorite records of all time), these two blended songs epitomize a SpringSong to me (and compromise 13.33333333333...% of the aforementioned record). I’d be a fool not to include them in the series. 

Pastoral and quintessentially English, the flawless Todd Rundgren-produced record has been a go-to for this XTC devotee for over a quarter of a century (or 60.24096% of my life). Yikes.

And to think, these aren’t even the best songs on the record – they’re just the two that best fit the series. The two together is also a textbook example of how to properly segue songs.

Ballet For A Rainy Day

Orange and lemon
Raincoats roll and tumble
Together, just liked fruit tipped from a tray
Pineapple wet heads
Watch new hairdos crumble
As scenery sunlight shifts away

Ballet for a rainy day
Silent film of melting miracle play

Apples and cherries
Are varnished in water
Despite, striped awnings bright dismay
I push my paintbrush
To conjure a new world
While this one is slowly washed away

Ballet for a rainy day
Silent film of melting miracle play
Dancing out there through my window
To the backdrop of a slow descending grey

When it rains it rains
All the colors in my paintbox
When it rains it rains
Tickets for the front row seats
Up on the rooftops

Orange and lemon
Raincoats roll and tumble
apples and cherries
Together, dropped in diamond disarray

Ballet for a rainy day
Silent film of melting miracle play
Dancing out there through my window
Behind the curtain silver falling
Ballet for a rainy day
Silent film of melting miracle play
Dancing out there through my window

To the backdrop of a slow descending grey

1000 Umbrellas

One thousand umbrellas
Upturned couldn't catch all the rain
That drained out of my head
When you said we were
Over and over I cried
'Til I floated downstream
To a town they call
Misery oh oh misery
Misery oh oh misery

And one million teacups

I bet couldn't hold all the wet
That fell out of my eyes
When you fell out with me
Now I'm crawling the wallpaper
That's looking more like a roadmap
To misery oh oh misery

How can you smile and forecast
Weather's getting better
And you'll soon forget her
If you let the sunshine come through
How can you smile and forecast
Weather's getting better
If you never let a girl rain all over you
And just when I thought that my vista was golden in hue

One million salt seas
Recalled from school atlas
Alas would be filled to the brim
Sunny Jim couldn't jump it
How can I be pleased
When I'm handed the keys
To a town they call Misery
Oh oh Misery

So with a mop and a bucket

I'll just say forget her
And carry on sweeping up
Where I've been weeping
The Jesters will creep in
To strike down the newly crowned Monarch
Of Misery oh oh Misery

How can you smile and forecast
Weather's getting better
And you'll soon forget her
If you let the sunshine come through
How can you smile and forecast
Weather's getting better
If you never let a girl rain all over you
Just when I thought that my skies were a June July blue
One thousand umbrellas opened
Two thousand umbrellas opened
Ten thousand umbrellas opened to spoil the view

SpringSongs, Pt. I

Another season, another series to bore my three readers with...

I could just simply say listen to nothing but Talk Talk’s intimate and lush The Colour Of Spring and XTC’s career highlight, the flawless Skylarking (both of which were released in 1986), but I’m not going to cop out with such easy picks.

I know it's quite cliché, but for me a SpringSong can be compromised of tranquil and impenetrable lushness or can conjure up imagery of  frantic, sudden and  calamitous storms – the kind that would often send me and my classmates scurrying to the perceived shelter of a long inner corridor in my Central IL elementary school. Other Spring Songs are breezy and lilting, reminiscent of throwing open all of the house windows on a warm March afternoon. The first selection, Nature Boy by Chicago’s The Sea And Cake is from the latter.

And lyrically somewhat nonsensical, but alive with spring imagery.

Some play in the sun you're breathless

You're laughing

Rain is salt it's matchless

Stay on into the sun

It passes on

Came on into the sun

We lost we lost your name

We don't knot tied up and down

Knots tied up and down

Prickly right after sleep

Breathless here false of bloom

Throw me into the sun

I'm in love with the sun

Up and down I should care

When I'm into the sun

Here comes the reddening

Watching all of the blooms

Would I lie what's your name

What's your name

I built this song

Sleeping under a low bridge

Breathing a truck passes by

Several coins in my homely pocket

Some brave some not

I should care

Soft spoken disagreeable

Another shift rolling passes

I count the hours on my watch

Ah here comes the reddening

San Diego Area, 1950

A cool Chevrolet-sponsored travelogue to promote tourism in San Diego and outlying areas.



Via the always-excellent, San Diego-based Just A Car Guy blog.

More Taipei

More Taipei randomness from some time spent out on the streets.

Some street doggies:

 (first time I've seen a Labrador retriever in Taiwan)

 Some Engrish:

 Angry onion:

 Hog:

Grocery store goodies:

 

 

 Seafood, Japanese-style oatmeal

Night Market treats:

Night market shirts with Engrish:

Actually

Vintage

Brilliant

Solutely

Superb

(actually French-ish)

1960 VW American

Minibus

Volkswagen

Germany's Volkswagen used its Czech

Subsidiary Skoda to start 

Full of dueaors

And full of Hopeb

I'm not even going to attempt this one.

Linsanity is on full display in the island nation.

A friend bought this for his son. Cost = NT$100 (about US $3.20)

Vintage Sneakers

Have I forgotten something?

new sneakers from my beloved

These Shoes Seen Everything

Here I Go Again On My Own, Going Down The Only Road I've

Only Road I've Ever Know, Like A Drifter I Was Born To Walk

Alone*

*the last three lines were poorly ripped from a horrible hit from the horrible band Whitesnake

Funnys Smiker on the subway

Homies For Life

(I've been called "Homie" or "Holmsey" by some for a large part of my life)

Dumpling man from the excellent Din Tai Fung dumpling restaurant.

Giant luumber ball (about 8' tall), in the Grand Hyatt Taipei lobby

One view of a grey Taipei from the rooftop garden of the Taipei Nangang Exhibition Hall:

And another:

Taipei 101:

Distracted cabbie (GPS, dash cam, dash TV):

Beware of aggressive blue crabs in this elevator:

This waitress' English name was "Doggy":

 Dolce & Garbana?

Year of the Dragon:

Taipei Street Walkin' - Xinsheng Park Area

During my recent trip to Taipei, Taiwan, I spent about forty five minutes of a nice spring morning walking around Taipei's Xinsheng Park Area with my silly little iPhone in hand. Here are some of the results...

more Taiwan pix to come...