Imagine No Possessions

The dogs don't entirely understand this "my dog bed" thing:

And some more cute pics of my favorite pair:

Back in the Valley, Back in the MMIX

Happy Belated New Year everybody. The Beck and I are back in the valley after a nice, quick visit to SA. The goings on to close out the year:

• Had a nice faux-Christmas morning in the usual family fashion on Wednesday. My extraordinarily generous parents got us a lot of stuff, including clothes, some beautiful framed wedding pictures, a cool digital photo frame, and some cash / gift-certificates for home furnishing projects. Combined with some gift certificates from Beck's parents and M/G, we've got some shopping to do over the next couple of weeks. Sweet, and big thanks to everybody.
• Found a pickup game down at Trinity on NYE afternoon, so Aaron and I headed down there to get in the last Ultimate of 2008. Pretty sloppy, no offensive formation game, and as luck would have it the teams were divided along hilariously uneven lines. The captain from Kansas University was there, so 'twas fun to play against a very talented / athletic youngin', but his team had the two other throwers and the other runner - our team was limited to Aaron and me in the skilled frisbee-player department. All of this was a wash anyways, because Aaron re-hurt his quad about 10 points into the game and had to sit out for the remainder. Boo. Ah, well, at least bro and I got to play together for a little bit.
• Had a fun NYE - Mom prepared sandwiches, Deb made some very-good-for-us cheese-and-beef dip, and we had a low-key, Sam Adams-fueled NYE celebration. Ron, Pat and Grandpa rolled in a little later (Ron & Grandpa left at 9:30 or so), and we spent the remainder of the evening listening to Aaron's true confessions and playing a funny game called Imaginiff. Beck impressively made it all the way to 11:5... we'll go ahead and give her credit for midnight this year. YEAH!
• Woke up early and went for a four mile run around the neighborhood. I briefly had some "1000 miles in 2009" type ambitions, but as my bruised feet, sore ankles and knees throbbed a bit that morning, I thought that maybe 20 miles per week not including Ultimate was a bit much. We'll see. For now, we'll post it as 4 miles jogged on the year (and to date, 3 hours of Ultimate played, counting Saturday and today).
  
• We went shopping for a short while NYDay; I got the 2008 version of the Best American Non-Required Reading series which has fared well in the past. We goofed for the afternoon - got some frisbee throwing done in the afternoon; Beck is looking awesome. Beck also made two kinds of chili for dinner that night, and we capped things off with some cutthroat Rook which, if you aren't aware, is a sort of Bridge-for-Dummies kinda game.
• After I taught my mom the wonders of Gmail on Friday morning, the lady folk went to get pedicures and we got a greasy greasy burger lunch at Culver's. Hijinks galore. Later, Aaron headed back to Austin and we spent the afternoon at the San Antonio Art Museum - quite a cool place and impressive collection housed in a converted brewery. We came home, packed, and hit up Taco Cabana on the way to the aeropuerto. A completely non-eventful flight - Beck watched Horton Hears a Who and at least the start of Step-Brothers, with Mamma Mia! being the to-SA selection - and we rolled back into the casa at 10 or so on Friday night.

So, a good trip, and now we're back to normality. As referenced above, I got in some disc Saturday morning at a casual game in Scottsdale and got in some rain-ridden 3 on 3 stupidity this afternoon. Interspersed with reading and sleeping and generally reorienting, I get back in the swing of things tomorrow. Huzzah - classes don't start for another two weeks, but there are grants for which to apply and websites to design. So, game back on.

Hell-o-2009.

Gruesome Scientology

Children, one more reason to hope your parents aren't Scientologists: not only won't they get you the medical care required to save your life, but after you croak they may leave you sitting around on the bathroom floor for a few hours, (allegedly.) That is what the Boston Herald is reporting happened to John Travolta's sixteen year old son Thursday night in the Bahamas. The boy had a history of seizures and according to some reports autism (which is not recognized by the cult of Scientology.) He was last seen going into the bathroom in his family's private suite at the Old Bahama Bay Hotel on Grand Bahama Island on Thursday night, a caretaker found him on the bathroom floor around 10am Friday morning.

Gruesome and tragic, our sympathies go out to all involved. All accounts say Travolta and wife Kelly Preston were dearly devoted to their son Jett.

SA Greetings

Hola from South Central... Texas. Beck and I had a pleasant flight down to ye olde hometown yesterday, and I am up way before everyone else here because of my stubborn internal alarm that says 6 o'clock? Time to GO.

(Before I forget, I was awoken by a bizarre dream in which Davey, Josh and I were playing Uncle John's Band in a guitar circle, and my guitar gradually transformed into a large spoon with soup in it. The last thing I remember saying in the dream was "Sorry Davey, I can't play anymore, the potatoes are no longer lined up." I know I'm not supposed to write about my dreams unless they're about you, but if anyone can clue me in as to what deep-seated self-esteem issues I have because my dream Martin turned into a dream Campbell's, I'd be highly interested. Naturally this led me to wake up thinking about the time Josh, Davey and I played "Paradise City" in a basement in Medford. Not only was this vastly cooler than that ridiculous crap in Can't Hardly Wait, it got me amped enough to come downstairs and blog).

We lounged about the house yesterday, just chatting in the dining room and out on the porch with Mom, Dad and Grandpa. Aaron eventually rolled in, so we busted out the frisbee and played a game of catch until sunset with Dad, Aaron, Beck, Deb, Mom and me in the backyard. We then hit up the Cafer for some Mexican food with Pat & Ron, and came home for some Spurs and hanging out. Aaron and I jammed a bit on his old five string and his new Takamine acoustic guitar. (Clearly this prompted the dream, though I had no soup today so I don't know what the hey is going on there).

Good times in the casa - I think we are having a faux Christmas morning on this fine NYE AM in a little bit (read: whenever everyone else wakes up, so probably several hours from now). There's actually some pickup later on today, so while I'll be sadly missing the Phoenix NYDay "Hungover Hat" tournament, I'll at least get to enjoy the rare opportunity to play with the A-Dog. So that'll be cool, and then it's more festivities tonight - movies, dinner, Auld Lang Syning, you name it. I am currently taking bets on the Beck fall-asleep hour - when making your predictions, keep in mind that we are an hour later than our internal clocks, so she has a bonus sixty minutes to play with. She made it to 9:00 last year, so given a little motivation and maybe a slipped dose of caffeine in there somewhere, we're shooting for 10:42.

I forgot to write about it - had a fun evening with D&C on Saturday. The Light Rail, Phoenix edition is now up and running, and Dan's personal crack dealer Stinkweed's was having a little concert / sale in celebration. We headed over to enjoy some acoustic stylings where Beck judged EVERYONE and then rode the train downtown for some excellent dinner at Wild Thai-ger (I know, they are HILARIOUS). For climatological reasons that no one can explain, it has been getting down into the low forties / high thirties at night in PHX lately, so I had all kinds of pleasant Boston flashbacks while waiting fifteen minutes in the cold for the train to arrive. We eventually made it home to watch a great little film (on Katherine's rec) called The Fall, which I will review at some other time.

Oh, and before I go curl up on the couch to wait the several hours for everyone to wake up - I maintained my yearly tradition (started around 2000, I think) of making my mom some compilation CDs for Christmas. Not Christmas tunes, mind you, just a mix of songs for her to rock out in the car on her way to work. I am happy with this year's batch as I managed to seamlessly incorporate the likes of Mötley Crüe, GPGDS, Ludo, Spinners, GNR, Philip Glass, New Order and Joan Baez, to name a few. Good times. It'll be a rocking new year's eve, indeed.

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Boring Shoulder Update
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Still hurts - may have a played a bigger part in waking me up than my soup guitar, actually. I think I keep rolling over it in my restless sleep. AH, well. It's definitely feeling better - the astute among you will have picked up on the fact that I'm planning on playing Ultimate today, and I actually played on Sunday, too. A little tough to suddenly lunge at anything off to the left side of my body and above my head, but otherwise okay - on Sunday, I skyed some youngin from Tucson and had a trailing edge layout goal catch, so things can't possibly be too dysfunctional. I'll let you know how it holds up.
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Grimmace

In this metaphor, Grimmace is both my face and my shoulder; I am the consumed toddler. Shoulder is still hurting a lot though manageable; getting sharp pains right around the biceps tendon insert in front and back just under the acromion (for all you anatomy-heads out there). I am getting actively livid with this as it seems that all I could have possibly done was sleep on it funny. LOL, Enter. Anyways, I think I am just going to grimmace a lot and bear it; hopefully I just strained some tendons in the capsule with my sleeping antics and all will be okay in a couple of days. I'll keep you posted.

Before I forget, here's the classic video of G'N'R at the Ritz performing Knockin' on Heaven's Door. This will give you an idea of what Mike was aiming for. Incidentally, I really like the Slash solo here and the ridiculous "just the play the same high D flat over and over" ending. Imho, this version is better than the one that ended up on UYI II, - just a little less gospel choiry and appropriately subdued, if a little sloppily played - though the call and response is vastly more ridiculous. Let this one be LOUUUUUD!

Dan and Christina's (with Wren, Tim & Naia) was fun last night - great food (potato leek soup, salad, mashed potatoes and delicious roast beef, capped by Beck's mousse, raspberry sauce and whip cream) and great times. Naia is running around like a maniac these days. We taught her to fist bump on their way out, so shes now sufficiently hip (if Dan's indie rock playlist didn't do the trick before that). Anyhoo, another fun evening; today we're supposed to celebrate the opening of Phoenix's light rail by partying at Stinkweed's, so more D&C-based fun in store.

That's about it from here - I'll leave you with some ore G'N'R content because hey, that seems to be the kick these days, and I'll even give you some bonus points if you can name this song before it is revealed when the video runs out:

MasterCook

Beck made Christmas dinner last night - Scallop Chowder, Challah Bread, Broccolini, Mashed Potatoes, Fillet Mignon, and Chocolate Mousse. Ridiculous, so good. If the world runs out of sick animals, she has easy back-up option.

We're headed to D&C's tonight for another holiday dinner w/ Tim & Wren (and others?). All's I'm saying, Xtina, is that the holiday meal gauntlet has been thrown! Ha, Xtina is also a ridiculo-cook, so I am sure I will be stuffing my face again tonight.

Otherwise, just getting some misc work done at the homestead today - Beck is back at her regular work, campus is closed, so it's just me and the pups today.

The only news of late is that I seem to have torn my left shoulder apart, and I have no idea how. Just started getting a searing pain every time I abduct or externally rotate yesterday morning. It's definitely on the superior / slightly posterior part of the joint, so either supraspinatusy or deltoid would be my guess. It calms down if I keep my left arm dead still, but this is of course all but impossible to do. I jerked it getting into bed last night and basically didn't sleep. Fun times. Of course, the ASU health clinic is closed today, and as I am within 25 miles of campus I have to go there before doing anything else. It's not an emergency, and hopefully I just bizarrely tweaked something and didn't really tear it, but damn, it's giving me that nice nocinausea every time I move it the wrong way. Very frustrating, because I didn't actually do anything - I went running on Wednesday, but that's it, no other athletic endeavors, and there was no acute lifting Wrigley above my head incident or anything that would warrant this amount of pain. Maybe my warranty has run out. I'm about ready to give up.

I know that doesn't make for fascinating reading, but thats what's up. I will try to press through with a healthy diet of naproxen and ibuprofen. Some icing, too. Ah, well.

I'll try to make up for this with a more interesting post in a bit. Sorry.

UPDATE
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Refined complaint: Extending and internal rotation . abduction causes maximal pain where the biceps tendon inserts. This is awesome. Not quite as awesome as reading detailed descriptions of it, though, I'm sure.

World Class Trash Talk

Props to this guy:

Jacques Cesaire

Regarding the Denver Broncos: "“They have bad teeth,” the Chargers defensive end disclosed Wednesday. “They have bad hair. They don't know how to cook. What else don't I like about them? They watch “Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman.' Who does that? Who watches “Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman?' That's what I want to know. I heard the Denver Broncos watch it. I'm just sayin'.”