An Unexpectedly Excellent Weekend.

Your Humble Bloggist (I no longer like the term "blogger". Bloggist is what I imagine Pepys would have called himself if there were blogs in the 17th century, and what better aspiration can a bloggist have than to be Pepysian?) remarked to the Official Awesome Breathing Partner (see the definition of aloha in the menehune blog below) of Your Humble Bloggist that the weekend beginning 9 March 2007 would be an uneventful one. She begged to differ and the idea came to me that if I passed through the weekend taking note of things so as to enter them in an Official Blog Project, it would make the days that much more interesting. So this is my first blog entry recounting the events of everyday life at the St. John-Smythe manor. There is a heavy dose of 1980s nostalgia below as well. You might find it tiresome. If you do, please click out of this site with no regrets; as always, I will not take it personally.

Friday evening

OK so it was 1981. Your Humble Bloggist was in his first year at his institution of higher learning. In the second floor west hallway of Hamilton Hall was formed probably the most kick ass air band of all time. If we had a name I do not remember it. There exists at our abode a photo of said kick ass air band. An APB is out. If it is apprehended, I will post it. What was the #1 album of 1981? Why, Paradise Road by Styx. Many an air band hour was passed pretending to play Welcome to Paradise as I recall. The photo is actually of us doing More Than A Feeling by Boston. I can just tell from Official Friend Flem's facial expression. Flem by the way was the Official Best Man at the wedding of Sir Charles and Official Awesome Breathing Partner (1987, more 80s nostalgia!!!). Did anyone who graduated high school in 1981 NOT have The Best of Times by Styx as their final prom song? I seriously doubt it.

Anyway, where was Styx on 9 March 2007? Still playing gigs. On that day it so happens the gig was in our unpretentious but worthy town. For the second time in six days yours truly and the OABP packed our protective noise reduction ear wear and took our fortysomething selves to the Shrine Mosque for a rock concert. (3 March was Moody Blues. Justin Hayward still does a faboo vocal. Unlike Billy Joel who judging by his Super Bowl performance has had one ciggie too many. It's the attack of the 80s in this blog entry I tell you!).

First we had a mediocre dinner downtown, the only saving grace of which was that I saw this smokin hot if-she-was-president -she'd-be-Babe-raham-Lincoln brunette walking next to me on the way in.










The warmup band was great and closed with Pink Floyd's Wall (1970s nostalgic outlier). Fernando and Robin were there to rock out with us.

There in front of us were Tommy Shaw and James Young, the only two original members. The bass player is unknown to me. The following I have learned from Wikipedia: The voice most associated with the big Styx hits is Dennis DeYoung, who left the group long ago for the customary "artistic differences". Tommy wanted to shred rock music while Dennis wanted to sell more pop hits. So there's that tale of woe, and neither one seems to have hit it big without the other, to say the least. I was a little depressed that they did not play Babe, which, don't hate for saying this, is one of my faves. Don't hate me! No hating the bloggist! Sappy elevator music pablum, yes, I know! Sorry!

Anyway, we got 2.5 hours straight of face-melting guitar solos and gut-busting drum runs. Thank you Dewey Finn for that phraseology. There were young folk making the rock and roll hand gesture which seems to have been originated sometime between the last Blue Oyster Cult concert at which I was present (1984-I was running the follow spot that day. It is an amusing tale that I will write someday, but only when I am in a mood of maximum self-deprecation) and 9 March 2007, because I have never seen it before.

Confetti happened.
Styx, even the pared down version, is rockin!

Saturday morning

There is a noble and trusty piece of equipment that is mine, that Cannondale bike which I acquired in 1989 (the 80s rock on!).

Shame I didn't have that on the lava fields. I think menehune care nothing about slow triathletes on 1980s vintage cycles. The local cycling club treated everyone who wanted to go to some chili and an organized ride out to the rural parts. The Chili Ride, logically. Trusty equipment and I met Jeff, awesome cyclist and triathlete for the forty miler. It is fun to take action shots while riding.

I promise that jersey is the only Ironman Hawaii souvenir I bought there. I don't have like this whole braggy look at me IM Hawaii tri wardrobe, if that's what you're thinking. No hating the bloggist!




Perfect day for riding and spring fever.

Saturday afternoon

You may or may not have heard of a vicious and calamitous ice storm which wrecked our town in January.

WHen it was cold and snowy our incredibly generous friends the Lumps came to help us cut and clear. The temperature being favorable this weekend, I set about stacking all the wood that I had chopped with my awesome new axe a few weeks back.
Did you see the huge piles of sticks in the dogsledding picture? This area is still buried in jillions of sticks (or should I say Styx? Bad, bad bloggist pun, atrocious really, but it had to happen you know).

Youngest Progeny of Sir Charles loves to help carry styx.


















Sharpening your axe is fun!

After stick stacking, you might want to throw around the disc in the front yard. Here is the forehand flip as we do it. That might look silly to those who know how to do it right. I have no idea.



















Saturday evening


There is an excellent indie cinema in our super downtown. Dude that owns it has an awesome blog. Eldest Progeny is highly desirous of seeing Pan's Labyrinth.

This is a pretty good flick from Spain, but holy moley there is much blood and gore, worse I think than The Departed, which was just... ick. I guess the Spanish Civil War was not fought in a gentlemanly way. I do not know why that surprised me.

A quick bite at our urban Quizno's


Dessert at your local ice cream parlor/pharmaceutical megachain

Then on to Local Prestigious Small Liberal Arts College for Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest, which is one of the most entertaining 1890s (kind of the reverse of 1980s, so sort of in the theme...ok not really) creations. There was satire and knowing laughter from the teenage Anglophile whose knowledge of things British never ceases to amaze her father.

That was a really busy evening.

Sunday morning and afternoon

Here is a trip to the orange store for bathroom tiles. Eldest Progeny has correctly guessed that I have asked her to come just to take photos, but if that's why a dad and daughter are together, it's not such a bad thing. At least that's the way I look at it.
Some cello practice. "Simple Gifts" sounds awesome on a well-played cello.




No Sunday would be complete without a social studies project.


Blog writing....






















Sunday night

The local microbrewery hosts a meeting of us dudes on Sunday nights. Tonight's topics of conversation included the coming crisis in the economy due to the shaky nature of the subprime mortgage market (seriously).
Of course, this led to discussion of the relative merits of the dollar coin. Consensus was reached that there would be more success in this initiative if the mint would put a woman hotter than SB Anthony or Sacajawea on it. But we could not agree, believe it or not, on an American candidate. Too bad Shakira is not American. They could put her on a coin. If she was American, you know.



Today we entered our lovable mutt Kona in the local Pet Idol contest. She was in the paper!





If you want to vote for her, I put the link below. You have to search for her number, 114!

http://php.news-leader.com/PetIdol/Gallery.php

Hope you liked it


So there is the first non-tropical dispatch from the life of Sir Charles St. John-Smythe. Every writer should have a nom de plume if he wants one. Mine is borrowed from James Bond's A View to a Kill (1985!). Hope it was readable. Knowing I was going to write about it made it a lot of fun for me. Aloha.