Making amends with the past...Smakdab

So, last week I was loading up the iPod with new songs like I do every couple of weeks. I like to change them out and keep it fresh and with the depth of catalogue that I have that isn't a problem. Any who I decided to load onto the machine the Smakdab record. It had been awhile since I listened to it but I thought "you know this was a great time in my life and I really miss the people and the opportunities that Smakdab presented me, I only wished I would have been mature enough to see through the short comings of my age and mindset and stuck it out for the long haul". That's a lot to think about, then the next thing I thought was, why don't I create a myspace page for the band and see how much interest there is in it from the old scene and fans. But like a good Internet user I searched myspace first to see if there already existed a page, and low and behold there was. So I checked it out, it has the four songs they recorded with Johnny K (Disturbed) in Chicago after I had left the group, which was disappointing but understandable, it was their best material at the time. Any who where it listed band members it didn't list me, no big deal, when I left there wasn't a lot of "no come back we need you" and honestly I wasn't nearly as musical as I am today, hell I didn't even know where C was at on my keyboard, but where it listed Sounds it said various. I would have liked to have been given a little bit of credit since I did all of the keyboards on the first full length record and wasn't even an "official" member of the band at the time, which is a whole other piece of garbage that I shouldn't get into here or any where else. But none the less I'm checking out the site, I add them to my friends and send the page owner an email to see who is running the show, whether it's a friend of the band or a former band member. It's a former band member, and it's Eric running the page. I can't say that I was happy to see that, Eric was probably the main reason why I quit the band and he will probably refuse to give me any credit for what I did bring to the band, so I'm not sure how involved I will be with the Smakdab page, but it might be fun for old memories.

So this leads me to a conversation that Alexis and I had a couple of months ago about a Smakdab reunion show. Our die hard roadie and friend Todd at one time told me he would pay us to get back together. This was at an American Head Charge show and I really never thought that anyone outside of Todd wanted to see the band back together. But out of the blue Alexis asked me what I thought about a reunion and if I would be interested and what I said was this. I don't know about a reunion but I think it would be great to get Mick, Ryan, Alexis and myself back together in a room where we could shoot the breeze and talk about old times. At that time I left Eric out because I still wasn't sure where I sat with Eric and how our relationship ended. I will see how the emails go with Eric before I make a decision on whether or not I would like to be in the same room with him again. But I honestly don't think a reunion would ever happen. I know that Ryan is in Chicago working as a film colorist. Alexis is also in Chicago and is married with a one year old son. I'm not sure where Eric is at these days. Finally the last piece of the puzzle would be Mick.

So on Saturday I had been thinking about all of this for a long time. I had through out the years thought about Mick and his family a lot. Mick is 3 years older than me and we were the two old men in the band. Just before I quit his wife and he had their first child and we had moved practices to an actual practice space instead of Mick's basement. Mick and I were pretty close. We understood each other and we got along pretty damn well, of course we had our moments when we didn't see eye to eye but that happens. Mick had given up a chance to play in Slipknot after they got signed to stick it out with Smakdab and see where that road led us. Mick is a great guy that would give you the shirt off of his back if you needed it, but Mick could also be very quiet and could get quite angry when provoked. So on Saturday I out of the blue remembered Mick's home phone number, so I dialed the digit's and Rachel answered the phone. It had been close to or longer than seven years since I last spoke to Mick. It was great to talk to him. We chatted about old times and we chatted about our families, but I think the thing that we chatted about that made me the most happy was that Mick missed me too and we are going to get together this Fall. Mick now races cars as his hobby and when racing season winds down this Fall we are going to hang out and catch up. It felt good to talk to Mick, it had been a long time and of course it was weird at first, I was actually very nervous, but it felt good. The only thing that I didn't say to Mick which I will do at a later date is tell him I'm sorry. I'm sorry that I was so shortsighted and arrogant. We were all young at the time. I honestly can't wait to see Mick and his family again. It should be a great reunion.

So for a question for the rest of you, I know there are probably a few of you out there that read my blog that were a fan of my old band, would you be interested in seeing us get back together? Mind you this will probably never happen, Mick has since sold all of his gear I believe and picks up the guitar rarely which he actually told me. I still have all of my equipment, that was mine and my samples but I have no idea about Ryan or Eric or their equipment. And before anybody reads too much into this I'm not going to actively try and get the band back together, I'm simply interested in what fans of the band would think about us getting together for a show. Let me know what you think.

I found something new to love on the INTERNETS!

And there is more where this came from...

Carrots and Green Beans YUM!

Well I'm suppose to be writing a couple of scripts for clients here at work but I can't seem to get the motivation to make it happen so I figured I would write about my first favorite subject in the world. ASHER!

So we started Asher with carrots on Saturday. Carrie made them herself, not the carrots mind you but the mushed up carrots that we fed Ash. On first tasting he wasn't so sure but on about the third try he was slamming them down as if he was starving! When I get home I will try and post some pictures of the first carrot experience. I will tell you I was worried about it since it was something new but the boy took to it like a fish to water and he loves him some carrots. No lie. He just devours them.

So last night Carrie made green bean mush for Ash and low and behold the kid likes those too. We gave him his first bite and he was kind of like, this is different, it's green but my is it delicious! So he threw the green beans down like a man on fire. Seriously he ate a giant bowl of them for supper last night. I again was worried since it was a whole new experience for him but he didn't even bat an eye at them and devoured the bowl. I'm so proud of my little guy. I also got pictures of the green bean eating and will try and post those tonight or this weekend, when ever I have a free few moments.

Ash has crossed the 20lbs threshold as of last Friday so we needed to get him a different car seat. We got him the Cosco Alpha Omega Elite Convertible Infant Car Seat from Toy's R Us last night. We are going to try and instal it tonight and then have Jason's wife Gabby make sure we did it correctly. Carrie's cousin Jenny also gave us a convertible infant seat that is going to go into my car so I will have something for Ash in my car as well! Can't wait to try this out and I'm hoping it's not a ton harder to get Ash in and out of my car and Carrie's car than the one we currently have.

As for other things that are happening, my physical therapy is going great. My therapist is a friend of mine. We met in Lamaze class before we had Ash and their soon Liam is just 9 days apart from Ash in age. It was actually pretty funny yesterday I was at therapy and Dan was on the phone to his wife who was heading over to our house to hang out with Carrie and Asher! I'm laying on the table getting electricity pumped through my screwed up back and he's talking to his wife who is on the way to my house. Strange how this world works out ya know? As far as my back goes, it's getting better. I have good days and bad days so hopefully one of these days I will be back to normal. My buddy Jason here at work made a comment the other day that once you have back pain you have it for the rest of your life and I'm really hoping that's not the case, it would really suck to have to live with this pain for the rest of my life.

As far as the weight loss goes it's going quite well. I'm now down about 12 lbs and I'm feeling great. The exercise is great for my back and the dieting has been difficult but rewarding. It's the hardest at 9:00 pm when all I really want is a bowl of ice cream, but I walk away from the fridge and remind myself that if I want to live to see Ash graduate college and start a family I'm going to have to make sacrifices now and get healthy and get in shape. So there I am 4 mornings a week up at 5:00 am sweating like crazy on our elliptical blasting the iPod. It is working though and I'm feeling much better all around. It's funny too about the working out thing, a couple of other blogs I read namely Chuck Hoffman's and Dave McAnally's talk a lot about getting into shape again too. I'm older than both of those guys but we all come from the same rock and roll background. Maybe we are taking a lot of the misplaced energy of our rock and roll days and throwing them head first into something else we can devote all of our time to? I don't know but it's making me feel better.

I really want to start doing some creative stuff again. I feel it in my soul wanting to pour out of me. It was great when Jill was home, Deb and Jill would come over on a Sunday and give me uninterrupted time alone with my music to fill the void of creativity. Now with Jill gone and Deb's broken arm I am without that very appreciated convenience. I've been thinking about writing a screenplay though, unfortunately I have no idea how to do that so I consulted with one of my old professors Jay Edelnant about any books that he could recommend to me to get started. I have all of these ideas floating around in my head and I just don't have the time to get them out. I would really would like to start a new band that would sound somewhere in the world between Neurosis, Godflesh, Love & Rockets, Eyes of Fire and The Jesus and Mary Chain circa "Honey's Dead" ear or even the "Munki" era. But until Ash is much older I think the band dreams are going to have to be put on hold, and probably by then I will either have lost interest or be so out of touch that all the young bucks won't want to jam with the old geezer, but I guess the Rolling Stones and Ozzy are still going so maybe there's hope?

Well I should wrap this up and actually get some work done today. So...

Klaatu Verada Nictu

Just found this site on the interweb...

For more of these wonderful cats and their captions go to i can has cheezburger.com immediately!

Barack Obama called my son fat!

Well he didn't actually call him fat, he said, and I'm paraphrasing here cause I wasn't there, but it went something like this. "I think this guys under fed, you should feed him some more."

This was said to Carrie yesterday as Barack made a campaign stop at Overman Park here in CF. Of course his mic was off at this point in time and nobody seemed to get a picture of Barack and Ash but that's the story. Aunt Cindi was there to back Carrie up on this one.

Now before any one takes this the wrong way the comment was in jest, so please no CNN or Fox News people calling me for a statement. It was a joke, the same one everyone makes about our little guy Ash. He's a big kid ya know!

Carrie and I are still undecided on who we are supporting for President, but Carrie said Barack was really good to listen to and was very good on his feet. He also said something yesterday that I had never thought about. A question from the audience was of the nature "nothing ever happens in Washington and everything just stays the same" which Barack replied, "if that was the case a black man couldn't be running for President." I think the is one of the coolest things I've ever heard a politician say and I wish I could have been there to ask a question or two myself.

Any who, you really want to read about Asher any way don't you. Well yesterday Asher started pulling himself up on select items. Once he gets up he has no idea how to get down but he is making more progress. Not bad for 6 1/2 months eh?

I added a couple of things to my blog here, on the right you will notice a link to my Amazon.com wish list. My buddy Chuck Hoffman added one to his page and I thought that was a cool idea. Also I added a pole that is down on the lower right. I will be updating it once a month so check it out and vote. Lastly if you look all the way down at the bottom of the page I also added a store were you can purchase my music for .99 cents a song. Most people won't do this and I'm cool with that but if someone comes around digs the thirty second clip and wants the song, bang there you go it's all yours. I sell only very high quality mp3s do don't worry about sound quality, I rip them directly from the wav files of the studio mix and them rip them with the lowest amount of compression from wav to mp3. The files a little larger than most mp3s but you'll hear the difference!

That's all for now.
Klaatu Verada Nictu

It CRAWLS!

I wish I could write that headline in a scary Frankenstein font!

ASH STARTED CRAWLING YESTERDAY! No wounded soldier but a real on his hands and knees crawl and boy can he hustle! I'm so proud of my son! He is getting so big and he is so much fun to hang out with!

So now the fun begins.

So Aunt Brenda sent me some photos from our day at Grandpa's house so I thought I would post some of them for you all to enjoy!


Asher and Great Aunt Becky


Asher and Uncle Jesse


Uncle Jesse, Asher, Me, Grandpa


Grandpa and Asher


Aunt Becky, Uncle Boone and Grandpa

So there you go! Hope you enjoy this. And here's your quick post with pictures Carrie!

Klaatu Verada Nictu!

More Ash stuff...

So yesterday for Ash's afternoon nap, I put him down like usual and went off to fold laundry or do what ever and I hear some laughing coming from his room. I go up to the door and look in and low and behold here is Ash standing tall, holding on to the rails of his crib. He stood up all by himself and was quite happy with himself. I called Carrie and told her about it and all Ash did was laugh the whole time. Almost a bit maniacal if you will, kind of like a mad scientist who just created life for the first time! After that little trick I spent the next 40 minutes trying to get the boy to lay down and go to sleep. Not an easy task, and one that was met with a lot of crying and yelling. He finally did pass out and I know he had a true since of pride for his latest accomplishment. I know I was beaming with pride!

On Saturday, Ash and I made the trip to Dows to visit my dad for his 60th birthday. It was our first time out of town just he and I and it was successful. Ash got to see all of his family on my dads side and have a lot of fun being kissed and hugged by family. Ash was wonderful and really is a great baby when it comes to traveling and new things.

Ash is still throwing down the oatmeal like there is no tomorrow. On Friday night he ate four bowels of cereal. Mind you they got progressively smaller each round, but still we had to make four bowels. Since he is doing so well with the eating we have decided to make it with water instead of breast milk, to help keep that natural resource available to the boy when needed. We will start him on vegetables next week. Carrie and I discussed it last night and we both agreed that one more week of oatmeal and he will have this eating thing down.

Speaking of oatmeal, Ash's stools have changed quite a bit and yesterday was my first experience with them. No longer are they like baby poop, now they are more like grown up poop and it's rather disgusting. Carrie's cousin Jenny warned me about this, but did I listen, of course not and now I know what I'm in for. There is nothing like changing your first real poop diaper as a father, or parent for that matter. I guess as Prince said on his Gold Experience record "Welcome to the dawn".

Just a couple more quick things. I have stumbled upon perhaps the greatest website in the world. Comic Collector Live on this site you can download software that allows you to put your entire comic book collection on your computer with covers and all that good information necessary. Not only that but it also lets you create a store where you can buy, sell or trade comics that you have and want to get rid of or complete your collections. I spent all day yesterday loading my collection into the computer and then creating a wish list of comics I would like to have. The best thing about it is that they have a range of prices for each comic. It's great, and once Carrie and I get back on our feet this will be a great way for my to finish my Pitt, Spawn and The Maxx collections!

And lastly I'm down 9 lbs. Yeah, almost half way to my goal for October 13th!

Until next time,
Klaatu Verada Nictu

All the news that's fit to um...Print?

Good Morning All,
Some crazy stuff over the last week has happened. Let me lay it on the lines below.

On August 2nd I was in a motor vehicle accident at work. While in Decorah shooting commercials for clients we were at a stop sign waiting to turn on the corner of Hwy 9 and Hwy 52 and were rear ended by a college student who dropped his cell phone. The van suffered some fender damage but everyone was OK. By the time we got home my back was killing me and I have been seen by the doctor twice and am now going to physical therapy to help with the pain. I have been suffering from back problems coming up on two years now and was actually feeling better until the accident happened. So hopefully in the next couple of months I will be back in tip top shape.

I went and saw the Simpson's movie with my buddy Aaron (K9) from California, Willis and Joe last week. While it had some truly humours lines, "There's no answers in this book!", it kind of fell flat for me. I say wait until it comes out on DVD and then rent it.

Ash has gotten the hang of the cereal eating thing, but we had to try a different cereal. He detests rice cereal but oatmeal is the winner. Last night he ate four bowls of oatmeal before he finally cashed in. I was in awe. The kid put it away like he had never had a bite to eat his entire life.

Ash has also started crawling around. He's not using his legs yet, but he is doing what Carrie calls the "injured soldier crawl" or what I call the Army crawl. If you don't know what the Army crawl is find the nearest male whether he's seven or 70 and ask him what the Army crawl is, they can explain. Carrie's description is probably a bit more accurate though since he doesn't really use his legs to crawl and kind of drags them behind himself. With his new found mobility he has also reduced the amount of whining that he has plagued us with as of late. The dog and cat will never be safe again, which for the dog is terrifying but for the cat, who I now believe to be the reincarnated soul of the Marquis de Sade, it's a blessing cause she can lay down anywhere on the floor and the baby will get to her and pull her hair out or headbutt her tummy. The cat is a glutton for punishment for sure.

On Wednesday my dad turned 60. Tomorrow Asher and I are going to surprise him along with the rest of the family for a surprise birthday party. It will be my first trip out of town with Ash by myself so this should be interesting. And the reason I can write about the party on my blog is cause my dad doesn't use the internets, even though it's serious business.

I've started a diet and exercise routine and have set my first goal. I would like to lose 20 pounds by October 13th, the day of my brothers wedding. Needless to say I did a body mass index thing and it terrified me, not to mention what my ideal weight should be and what I actually weigh. Let's just say that Fat Albert and I could be friends at the buffet line. So I'm changing that about myself. I'm up every morning at 5:00 am working out for twenty minutes on our elliptical machine. I take Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays off but Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday are work out days. I've also started watching what I eat and cutting way back on portion sizes and trying to choose healthier foods. When you actually look at the calories you intake in a day it's terrifying considering we are only suppose to take in 2000 calories a day. I've been trying to stay close to that and even a little under that so I can get the weight off. So far I am down seven pounds over the last two weeks. The first week I lost five pounds right off the bat and the second week so far I've lost two pounds which is what I should be losing if I want to be healthy about it and keep the weight off in the long run. I'm very determined to do this. So determined even that last night I went to Dairy Queen with Carrie and Deb and I got the fat free low calorie Orange Vanilla bar. Only 60 calories and no fat, and it tasted great like Orange Blossom Ice Cream which was a favorite of mine as a child. Wish me luck.

Speaking of Deb, on Wednesday she fell taking the garbage out at our house and broke her wrist. I feel really bad for her, this is the second bone in 3 years that she's broken. She has a cast on from her hand all the way up to her shoulder. She seems to be doing really well with it and it's obviously not as debilitating as her broken leg was. The only sucky thing is it's her right wrist that she broke and she's right handed. We will see how it goes for her at work.

Back to Ash, I just thought about something he's been doing. At about one in the morning Ash was hollering, so I went in there to see what was going on and low and behold he was sitting on his knee with his hands wrapped around the bars of his crib looking out trying to see what was going on. Now I'm totally glad we lowered the bed by two notches or he would be climbing out in no time. Another thing he does that is pretty amazing. I hold out my hands and he takes a hold of them and then proceeds to stand up. First he uses his strength to get to his knees and then he gets his feet under himself and stands up. All the while I lift my hands at a very moderate pace to accommodate his progression. I am just amazed at the boys strength and determination.

I saw this commercial last night and was blown away with how much they get away with. Check it out and see if you don't agree with me. This is subliminal marketing brilliance.


Well I suppose I should wrap this up. I haven't had much time to work on music lately so nothing new on that front and I have started watching the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie. So far the animation is unbelievably good but the story is very been there done that. I am so wishing to see something new and original that will knock my freaking socks off.

Until next time...
Klaatu Verada Nictu