Thursday, August 11, 2005
alright. it has been awhile since this blog has had a real post . . . sorry.so let's get started.
this is tony, jon, and i at the "summer camp" concert in bend. jon is in the nasty floppy hat that saved us from heat stroke. i yoinked this pic off of tony's blog (thanks man!)last week, tony stayed with us. he is an adventerous fella hailing from austrailia and currently living in vancouver, b.c., canada. he spent some time hitchhiking down through washington and oregon and stayed with us for one of his nights in portland. if you want to know more about his adventures, visit his blogs and i'm sure he's bound to tell you all about it!
friday was the memorial service for my co-worker's husband (see a few blogs below for my previous emotional meltdown). what an emotional day for everyone. i just wanted to crawl back under the covers . . .
saturday, we drove down to bend, oregon and met up with tony again for the indie rock fest, summer camp. the show featured all northwest bands including viva voce, pedro the lion, the decemberists, built to spill, and death cab for cutie. the only things that would have made the show better were: if jake, dylan, isaac, and barry were there, and if they hadn't made us pour out our water before we entered the gate and then wait in line for the ONE WORKING DRINKING FOUNTAIN in order to fill our water bottles back up. this caused us to stand in line during the entire viva voce set . . . not fun.
anyway, all of the bands were GREAT. pedro's set was a bit short but still classic. they ended with my first ever favorite pedro song, when they really get to know you they will run. i had never seen the decemberists before but i really fell in love with them! they have this fun, upbeat sound that feels like what might happen if bright eyes suddenly got a huge burst of energy, morphed into a gypsy, and became a bit more theatrical. if you had heard them you would know what i mean. they made us scream like we were being swallowed by a whale at one point.
built to spill played a longer set since they played second to last. they did their usual 20 minute long jam session on a single song. it was comprised of awesome. the lead singer of this band, i swear, he looks like he could be david bazan's brother! this was the only band not from seattle or portland. they hail from boise idaho.
one last thing about the show:
death. cab. ROCKED! it was awesome! the opened with "new year" and it was perfect. they played a lot of new songs from their album that will be released later this month. when they finished their set, they hadn't played THE song yet, so we clapped and clapped and said, "we wont leave till you play it." of course i knew they were planning to play the song as an encore, because no death cab show would be complete without it . . . the drummer walked back onstage alone and hit this thing (thing=don't know what it was called, but it was some sort of electronic drum machine) which started the whirring sound for "transantlanticism." it was a beautiful moment as the lights came up and the song began. a beautiful way to end the night beneath the stars in the middle of the oregon "desert."
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after the show, we went with tony to stay at his host's house outside of bend. they were this awesome couple in their 30s which tony met on hospitality club or couch surfers. they had just gotten back from a trip to southeast asia. they own camels and are into exreme sports. we sat out on their huge trampoline and watched the stars. we saw several shooting stars and could even make out the milky way. this city girl sometimes forgets what the stars look like away from the city lights where night is darker and the stars are brighter.
in the morning we met up with my old roommate calah and her son trey. she looked amazing and i couldn't believe that trey is already 14 months old. so cute!
we had a great breakfast and then set out on the road to get tony to the train station so he could get to vancouver and get home at a decent hour (didn't happen). on the way, i finished the latest harry potter book. i wont spoil the end for you, but all i have to say, is "what!?! now i have to wait a year or two until i find out what happens!! i have tons of questions, no resolution, and so much time to wait!!! ack!"
got home. went to a 1 yr old birthday party. went star gazing. went to bed.
these last two days, we've had two friends from germany and one from austria staying with us. they are also members of hospitality club and were driving down the coast from washington to california. the austrian had already been to new york and dc. the two guys were planning to go to las vegas and the grand canyon before returning home. i wished i could have just jumped in their rental car and gone with them! we had a great time the two nights they were with us, talking about everything from politics to religion to pop culture to language differences and abortion. it was so refreshing to have good friends, good conversation and enormous amounts of respect. tuesday night we went to mcmenamin's kennedy school courtyard restaraunt and stayed there until 1 in the morning! it was hard to say goodbye to our new friends when they left, but we felt so refreshed and encouraged by their visit and even more determined to improve our german language skills.
the new words we taught them while they were here included "stingey" and "flacid."
and yesterday was our red robin date with james and andrea. it was wonderful to see them. i heart the wood family.
and that, my friends is what i have been doing when i am not working, going to class, or blogging. thanks for taking the time to read . . .
say it don't spray it 9:26 AM
17 i heard that
