A Pirate Looks at 30
I told myself that I would blog more, so why not start as I sit here during the last hours of my 20s?
A year ago, it seemed like such a big deal to close out this decade. I was kind of dreading it. I guess it will still be weird facing a new decade.
I thought I’d make a bucket list for 30. I didn’t really. There was a lot more activity in my life this year. A lot of running, a lot of hiking, etc. It’s been a good year for that, and I foresee more in the future.
I didn’t write the great American novel before I turned 30 but I’m okay with that. There are things I would have to have done by now, but I feel like I’m on track with life overall. Traveled to a lot of places. Got a lot of things done and I have time to do a lot more.
So here’s to 30 and another fun decade!
Hiking Crystal Cove (5/4)
Too lazy to post this twice 🙂
Hi
I’ve started a new blogging venture to keep me in line with exercise. Made me kind of miss this blog. I say that a lot, though. We’ll see.
New Project – My Soundtrack
I’m still trying to work out the logistics of my new blogging project, but I guess I should kick it off with a bit of an introduction.
I’ve been in a strangely nostalgic mood recently when it comes to music. Songs I listed to years ago have brought back poignant memories of what things were like when I was obsessed with those songs. The end result was that I wanted to turn this nostalgia into a fun project.
The goal will be to figure out my life soundtrack for every year going back until 1999. I go with 1999 because music really wasn’t that important for me. The lists for these years would be relatively short, consisting of mostly the one or two albums I bought that year, plus whatever Disney movie was in theaters. I might be able to scrap something together for 1998, but that might be a stretch. We’ll see.
Right now, I’m trying to figure out of if I have enough songs for each of those years and trying to catalog the songs to figure out what goes where. Songs from 2000 and 2001, for example, tend to blur.
So, look out for those posts in the near future.
Gilroy Garlic Festival
I went to the Gilroy Garlic Festival last week. After years of living in the Bay Area, you’d think I would have made it out there before now, but I haven’t. There was always some sort of excuse to miss it.
Exactly
I’m glad I finally went. The event has all of the community charm of a county fair minus the crazy fried foods and farm animal smells. Instead, you’re left with garlic. So. Much Garlic.
The other side shows how much money the festival has raised for charities over the years.
A non-update
For months, I’ve been trying to figure out how to give this blog a little kick start and start blogging again. The job has been keeping me busy, but I’ve done a lot of fun things along the way. I think I’ve come up with a small project to undo the writer’s block, but I’ll need to figure out how I want to do it.
Stay tuned.
Did you miss me?
Hi blog. It’s me. Maybe you don’t remember me. Life got busy. I got a job and that has been my main focus. Not that my life was particularly exciting before, but there definitely hasn’t been much to write home about of late. I am enjoying the job though. A lot.
So I’ll try to write more. I promise.
JJAMZ – Cafe Du Nord
It’s been a ridiculously long time since I’ve actually gone to see a show. I guess you can say Noisette counts because I saw the Dodos and Pillowfight, and I guess I saw a few other bands perform over the last few months, but they’ve all been part of some festival or other event. To actually go see a band or someone else perform? Embarrassingly, that might be when I took my mom to see Michael Buble. And before that, the New Pornographers in 2010. Inconceivable! This is a dry spell I’m glad to be ending.
In any case, learning about JJAMZ was a semi-random journey of chance. I’ve been a huge fan of bands like Phantom Planet, Rilo Kiley, The Like, Maroon 5 (when they wrote Songs About Jane), etc. ever since late high school. Seeing each of these bands either split up or, in the case of Maroon 5, slowly degenerate in quality over the years, has been a depressing process. Thus, when I learned that there was a band that sounded like a mix of these bands, I was excited. For whatever reason, I didn’t continue to look into the band until my friend, by chance, sent me an article about the band, whereupon I learned that this band sounded like a blend of some of my favorite bands of my younger years because it was made up of members of those bands. Needless to say, I bought the album almost immediately. The timing was perfect because they happened to be kicking off their tour in SF on Labor Day. Hurrah!
Drawing a Blank
I’ve wanted to post here more often, but I’ve been kind of a loss of things to write about lately. I guess there are a lot of reasons for that, but I’m hoping to change it. I will be writing about seeing JJAMZ tonight, who were a lot of fun, but I will do it when it’s not past midnight because I have pictures to upload. I actually set out just now to write a post about coming to terms with being a hipster, but it was one of those entries that sounded a lot better in my head.
In all honesty, my life has been fairly routine the last few weeks. Been watching a lot of Breaking Bad in an attempt to try to finish the show before what I thought was going to be the series finale yesterday. About halfway through season three at the moment. Been trying to get myself into a routine at the gym. Been watching a lot of soccer. Been having a lot of game nights. Work. Nothing particularly exciting, which has hampered my creativity.
Also haven’t been doing much that would require the use of my new camera. Have some fun photos that I’ve been meaning to post from the first few weeks I had it, but I just haven’t gotten around to that. I will. I’ll write more. I’ll take the camera out more. Yup.
Noisette (SF)
When I started this blog, I set out to write primarily about food and music. Several years passed, the interests that inspired me tended to change, and, well, I started writing about anything I felt like writing about. Leave it to Noise Pop to create an event that brings me back to my focus. Noisette, which was held at Public Works in San Francisco last Saturday, was an event dedicated to sampling food prepared by some of the city’s finest chefs while listening to great music. Really, who could ask for more? For the price of the regular admission, you were given a punch card to sample nine dishes, all while listening to music or drinking to your heart’s content.
Unfortunately, my arrival to San Francisco was slightly delayed so my partner in crime and I did not make it to the event until about an hour into the event. For the food, this wasn’t a problem as the plates were being served throughout the event. We did miss the first performance, however.
Music & Jjigae 