I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day

This is a quick recording of an arrangement of I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day that I performed in Church for our ward Christmas program.

http://www.box.net/shared/80b4ubpyup

In the Zone

Yesterday was a 9 hour travel day for Tricia, me and the two babies. There was some ups and downs, but for the most part we stayed in the zone and had a pretty good time. One saving grace was the iPhone. While we were in line and waiting on the plane I kept Libby entertained by streaming classic Sesame Street clips. The clip below is my favorite, and I think Libby likes it too.

MacBook Mirrored

We are all about the MacBooks at Nevercenter HQ. These are a photos I took with the iPhone and processes with CameraBag, the application we make.

It Don't Have to Change

This is a John Legend song I put together for our Ward party. I think it's safe to say it was a little out of the norm for a Mormon gathering, but it was well received :).

Rockband Extravaganza

Friday night was the Rockband Extravaganza at my newly painted house. I was a little worried for a while about turn out, but we had seven four-man teams competing. Rhubarb Legacy came out the undisputed champions. They had several ringers and just about doubled the second place team in the finals. Below are the two venues, the top is the studio, my second bedroom, and the bottom is the front room.

Four Stars for Ugly Sweaters

The ugly sweater party I was planning on attending on Saturday Night was moved at the last minute to the Sheraton Hotel in downtown Seattle. Turns out a guy in the ward’s company had paid for the event, but could hold the party, so they gave 50 meals the Mormon, who they knew would have friends who wouldn’t run up the bar tab. The entire drive there Tom was saying it was too good to be true. The steak was one of the best I’ve eaten, and I’m interested to play the white elephant gift game I got (pictured below). It seems to involve lots of touching.

This is kind of like being a missionary in Peru

Some factual errors in this (only one missionary?), but overall pretty hilarious. And you can't go wrong with the white stripes.

Hangman

Things have been getting really exciting in Seattle. This was just one part of a magical evening on the UW campus.

No Disrespect Intended ...

But I thought this was a comical juxtaposition on lds.org today.

Turkey Bowling

I hit up the YSA Turkey Bowl this weekend in Husky Stadium. We had
quite the team of family and friends including brothers Nick and Brian
pictured above. We ended things with two losses and one bloody lip
(mine), but as our original team name indicated, it was stil
enjoyable. (Another team signed up as "Team Awesome," so we went with "The Canadian Tuxedos").

People Protesting Proposition 8

The protests that started in California and moved to Utah made it to Seattle today . In Utah there were 2000 people, we had maybe 50 outside Stake Conference. Most of them were pretty polite and said "good morning, shame on the church."

Copeland in Seattle

Tom and I went to see Copeland this week at the urging of some friends I met at Arby's, and after downloading some tracks and really enjoying them. It was a pretty phenomenal show. They have had 4 albums or so, but from what I've heard the newest is the best. I particularly like "Strange and Unprepared" (see the video I took below) and "The Grey Man."

Halloween as St. Francis

This was my Halloween Costume, minus the bullets. It may not be creative, but it was step away from the rapper attire (my costume of choice since 2003), and still baggy enough to keep me feeling like a thug. As part of the festivities we hit up Trolloween, a festival in Fremont where people dance in the streets to the skeleton drummers.

Duffy

I went and saw Duffy. My first concert in Seattle. She didn't stray too far from her songbook (I was hoping for a nice 60's cover) but it was still pretty solid. The opening act was a chubby white guy, Eli "Paperboy" Reed, who sings like James Brown.

Quality Time with Libby

I have been spending some quality time with my niece Libby and showing her a little bit about the important things in life. Like flat screen TVs.

Cross country journey

My days in Wisconsin are now done, so here are some final recounts and parting moments.

This was my Oregon Trail themed going away party. There was Apple II Oregon trail on the left and the Packer game (a dismal defeat to the Cowboys) on the right. To see the reaction to the Oregon trail (which severely annoyed the Packer fans) click here.

My last teddy wedger. A calorie laden treat available on the capitol square.

A final evening with folks from Epic. This happened to be creepy mustache and T-shirt night.

This is my Jeep and Uhaul trailer, both of which were bursting at the seams with my stuff.

Dad and I at Mount Rushmore on the way to Utah.

Westside Fool

I finally reached the Northwest in my quest to unrest the other MC's who think they the best. Keep an eye out for the hot tunes hitting porterlane.com, and also look for Tom and I to be hitting to the stage in the Seattle area and unleashing on the unsuspecting community.

BYU Volleyball in Wisconsin

I went with some friends to see the BYU ladies take on the Wisconsin women. When you and your friends constitute the entire cheering section in a room full of opposing fans you feel certain obligations (to be loud) and you get certain perks (like front row seats in the BYU sections, and the occational nods from team). I will say I the team performed better when they were on our side, but in the end we were not victorious.

Our Own Special Olympics

We had an ice-blocking Olympics for the Madison University Ward, which was pretty phenomenal, minus the hives and sneezing that came from the weeds we were riding through. I was proud to represent our neighbors to north, but disappointed with only a silver in the slalom. Lots of people were shooting video, unfortunately I wasn't one of them. If you didn't go to BYU and want an idea of what ice blocking is like you can check the video.

Farewell Old Friends-A Tribute

Those who have known me well over the past 14 years may have known these speakers. They have served as part of my personal stereo, as a mixing console, as a band PA system, as party speakers, and most recently as the power behind a stake dance DJ set up. They traveled across the country once, but sadly will not be crossing again. Repairing the blown woofer was more than they were worth (original price $10 at Deseret Industries), so I left them with St. Vincent De Paul on Saturday and I leave them with this brief tribute. It's been a good run.

Wisconsin State Fair

Summer in Wisconsin is phenomenal. I think mainly because people are so happy it's not -10 that they take full advantage of every moment. One of the supposed crown jewels is the Wisconsin State Fair, known especially for creme puffs. And they don't kid around, they have an entire building.





Also I had to throw this in. This device is good for lots of things as the sign indicates. It was also purchased by a member of the Randall family a fair circa 1992 and we thought it was amazing. Apparently it's kind of a fair thing. There were about 4 booths selling them.

Barcelona and back to France

Barcelona



Barcelona is Gaudi town. Lots of nice moderism including Park Guell (top two pictures) and the Sagrada Familia. Gaudi spent the end of his life working on the cathedral and a hundred years later and it's still in progress. And what was I singing the entire time we look at these? "We're From Barcelona" of course.

One thing I like about the modernists is their obsession with natural light. This is the stained glass ceiling at the music palace. It's a little blurry cause I had to take the picture on the sly.


Best part about Barcelona. We rented a moto and went all over the city.

Beauvais

Typical European male fashion. This from a store in Beauvais, near Paris. I have tried to incorporate as much pink on pink into my wardrobe as possible since returning.

Inside the Beauvais Cathedral. It is supposedly the tallest gothic structure ever attempted (160 ft. in some places, 20 ft. higher than Notre Dame) and it fell at one point so they have internal supports.

Southern France

We probably had the most fun on this leg of the trip. We started in Marseille, where we flew from Paris from there we went through Avignon to Montpellier by train then to Nimes and Carcassonne via rental car. (We would eventually take a bus to Spain to as to cross off all forms of transportation.)


Marseille

Arab Market surrounding the obligatory European triumph arch. Lots of Arabs and people of other ethnicities in this Port town. Kate has some better shots (although not all at the link) of the harbor and the Chateau d'If, where the Count of Monte Christo was fictionally held.


Kebab. This was my second that day from the same place.

Avignon

This is the Pope's palace at Avignon. Kate opted not to go inside and enjoyed the gardens. I thought it was facinating. The Popes were homed here during the 14th Century due to some issues with the Italians.

Montpellier

Kate and I met up with our friend Hillary in Montpellier where she was working on some sort of econ research. The city gets extra points for being famous for fountains made of moss.

We rented a car, which took some convincing since both Hillary and Katelin and have been driving with me before. The car we rented was supposed to be a Twingo (pictured) but instead we got a citroen C3, similar but not as good a name, thus not pictured.

Carcassonne

We went to Carcassonne mostly for the board game (secretly I was hoping they would be selling it everywhere ... they weren't), but it ended up being our favorite place on the whole trip. We were told it is one of the best preserved medieval cities in the world. Kate also has some great pictures of this place.

Pictures from Paris

We've all seen great pictures of the Eiffel tower and the Louvre (if you are feeling deprived, please download this application and type Paris into the Fliker search bar, it's amazing). Here are some of my favorite moments.

Immediately Katelin stumbled onto something that looked like home. We opted to eat crepes with nutella instead.





La Défense pictured above was probably my favorite place in Paris this time around since I had already been to the typical places. It's basically a giant box/office building big enough to fit Notre Dame inside the hole. We went to the top and they had a museum on the history of technology including this hard drive, which fit something like 32K.



Finding bathrooms was always a problem. I can attest to the statement from this photo taken in a mall on the Champs-Élysées. They also sold silver plated toilets seat and patterned toilet paper inside to subsidize the 1.5 euro per person entry fee.

Trip to Europe

I have out of the country for the last two weeks without computer, without smartphone and for the most part without the internet. I was starting to get a little jittery toward the end but after some time syncing my task lists, downloading drivers and catching up on my favorite blogs I am feeling much better. The trip of course was amazing. I was hoping to get more pictures posted as we went along, instead it's all after the fact. I hope you enjoy them, and Please leave comments if you feel so inspired. I'll be attempting to put up pictures over the next few days with a series of posts.

Citypass+Baby Libby = 8 p.m. bed time

Lots to see in Seattle including the Zoo, Aquarium, EMP (Experience Music Project), Science Center, a harbor cruise and the Space Needle. We decided to do it all, which only in retrospect seems crazy.

Not having mastered the "and not or" personal finance philosophy, Trish shows her angst about the $16 we paid to get 600 ft. over Seattle.


Short clip of typical band room hysteria. In this case induced by the jam room at the EMP.

Nun's in a box

Part of working with a Catholic organization is working with Nuns. These nuns happen to be trapped in glass cases.

Command Central - Situation Red

We were informed we shouldn't wear our red shirts for more than two 13-hour software support shifts in a row. I think I went for 4. There are only small ways you can fight back against the man when your life is in a hospital basement.

My iPod DJ Workstation

This is my new set up, the Numark iDJ. I got pretty excited after an invite to do a young adult dance and did some online shopping. I can fade between the two ipods or two external soures, so I have a computer to the right an a turntable to the left for scratching. The dance went off pretty well. It was the first time I'd scratched, but I thought it sounded pretty good. The sounds levels. however, pushed the speakers I have had since I was 16 to the limit and I think it may be time for some new ones. I also purchased the spinning light you in the top of this picture. I think I am getting a little ridiculous in my old age.

Wisconsin = Freezer Burn

I took this in my car looking at the thermometer. Yes that is -27 degress. I think it included wind chill, but still, this is pretty ridiculous.