2005 - A Year in Review

Here's to a great 2005! A ton happened this year, so here's just a recount of some highlights:

-last semester at CSU. Graduated in Mechanical Engineering, finished up with our senior design project - actually produced hydrogen from our water electrolyzer - got to teach a couple classes filling in for one of my professors

-a job in town in Mechanical Engineering, actually putting my degree to use, working a lot and really enjoying it.

-lots of nights getting together with friends playing poker

-brewery tours at New Belgium Brewery, Odell's, Fort Collins Brewery

-lots of great movies: Garden State, Sin City, Napoleon Dynamite, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The Motorcycle Diaries...

-several fun graduation parties, great food, beer, music, friends, family...

-fajita parties, sushi parties, wine & cheese parties, bbqs... with friends old and new, just in town for a couple days or living here

-two incredible girls who made the year unforgettable (you know who you are)

-irish festival in Denver that I had a 'musician' pass to and got to hang out in the musicians tent and talk with a couple people who I really admire.

-countless days playing the game "Killer Bunnies" with friends

-several great books (and a couple not so hot ones) - Neal Stephenson, the Harry Potter books

-watching Nebraska football end on an up note for the year winning their last three games and beating Michigan in the Alamo Bowl

-a great week in the summer spent in Nebraska for a huge family reunion

-a lot of fun festival gigs throughout the summer playing with my dad in Second Wind

-opening up for Mission 19 at the Aggie Theatre with the Michael Waido Band

-countless gigs at Lucky Joe's, Connor O'Neill's, & Raferty's with the Michael Waido Band, having way too much fun, starting to recognize people who come out specifically because we're playing

-playing the Brewfest and New West Fest this year in Old Town

-a near win in a battle of the bands

-finally releasing our CD, "Fellowship of the Flood"

If I'm leaving anything out, well, give me a break, there's a lot that happens in a year! But overall, it was a great year, and here's to keeping them coming in 2006!

Cons vs Birks

I bought some new shoes Thursday. Which is weird for me, because I can't remember the last time I went out and actually looked for shoes for myself. All of the sudden I was thinking to myself, "I need to go out and get some Cons". Now I don't know why I suddenly thought that, I've never owned a pair of Converse in my life. And for at least 95% of the last eight years I haven't even had shoes with laces. I wear sandals pretty much up until there's snow on the ground and then I had these slip on clog type shoes. But Thursday I bought two pairs of Cons, brown and green. And they're awesome. It's rare that you put on a new pair of shoes and they're comfortable from the moment you get them. These were.

So then I got to thinking, do Cons and Birks mesh? If they met each other in a dark alley would they fight or would they go out for a beer? And if they fought who would win? You don't see a lot of hippies wearing Cons, and you don't see a lot of skaters wearing Birks, but Birks are worn not only by hippies, and Cons are worn by tons of people. So I thought I'd give it a go and see what happens. But I'll still keep them on opposite sides of the room ;)

New music

Recently a friend of mine and I have been turning each other on to different artists and different types of music, and because of that I've discovered some amazing stuff. I know that I can put all the bands that I'm into on my profile page, but there's so little room, and that's for the stuff that I've been into for quite some time. I'm not going to review any of these artists (already did that for the new John Mayer album), but thought I'd just mention some stuff if anybody wants to check them out.

KT Tunstall - just got her CD in the mail yesterday, so its been in my CD player pretty much constantly, with a short reprise of the Very Best of the Beta Band. She's a Scottish singer/songwriter with an amazing voice akin to Susan Tedeschi and a solid guitarist. Good stuff, really laid back chill music. The CD I bought is "Eye to the Telescope"

The Beta Band - Seen "High Fidelity"? There's a quote from John Cusack: "I will now sell five copies of the three EPs by The Beta Band" ... later someone in the store asks "Who is this?" "The Beta Band" "It's good" "I know."
Check them out. They're good.

Mates of State - Crazy band from San Francisco, the happiest music I've ever listened to. You just put it on and you smile.

Diegos Umbrella - Four piece group out of the bay area. The first time I heard them I described it as underground music I would expect to hear in an funky coffee house in downtown Philly (or I guess San Francisco). Really chill acoustic stuff with some spanish influence, hip-hop, and pop. Good music.

Ending the year with the Michael Waido Band

Last night we had our last gig of the year. It's crazy that we've been playing together for over a year and a half now. Lots of good memories and great gigs. I thought it only fitting that our last gig of the year was at Lucky Joe's, our hometown venue. We've had so much fun there and can't thank Joe, the rest of the people who work there, or all of our fans and family who come out to all of our shows there, enough. Last night was our sort of unofficial CD release party and I'm glad to say that we sold a lot of them. Thanks to anybody who came out and bought one to support us and what we do. We're booked throughout the next couple months with shows at Joe's (next one on Jan 27th) so check their website (www.luckyjoes.com) and keep up to date with our upcoming shows.

"Dot the I" review

This movie blew me away. I had no idea what to expect coming into it, other than a recommendation from one of my good friends who has yet to recommend to me something that I did not like. So I moved it to the top of my Netflix queue and watched it last night. Incredible.

10 out of 10.

I'm not going to say too much about it, because I enjoyed going into it really not knowing what it is about (the Netflix blurb on the case is not even the top of the iceberg, its like a penguin hanging out on the top of an iceberg) and I don't want to ruin it for you. I will say that the acting is really well done, and the characters and the story are very original. This is not your run of the mill movie, so if you're a big Rob Schneider fan or waited in line to see "The Fast and the Furious", it's probably not your type of movie. For the rest of you however, you need to check this out. The leads are played by Gael Garcia Bernal (young Che Guevara in "The Motorcycle Diaries" and Natalia Verbeke and actress from Argentina, who I hadn't seen in anything before. They both do an incredible job (Gael plays a Londoner, and pulls it off well, accent and all, and Natalia is quite attractive, which doesn't hurt) and the supporting cast is great as well.

If you're up for checking out a great original movie, put this on the top of your list.

Like avocados?

I love avocados. They make nearly every food better. Here's a little recipe type thing that I've been making recently. Credit goes to a good friend who learned of it during her stint down in Mexico.

What you will need:
1 avocado
1 can of tuna
lime juice
mayonnaise (or miracle whip)

Steps:
-Slice the avocado in half and remove the seed
-mix the tuna and mayo in a separate container (like tuna salad w/o all the other stuff)
-fill the two holes left by the seed in the avocado with the tuna and pile the rest on top
-squeeze a lime over the top of the tuna/avocado
-eat

It's pretty awesome and really quick. Makes a good unique appetizer for two people.

Michael Waido Band - Fellowship of the Flood

BIG NEWS!!!

After a long journey of hard work - but great times - our debut album, "Fellowship of the Flood" is finally done and available. The twelve song CD shows our variety of styles from high energy uplifting songs to get your toes tapping, to slower melancholy piano songs good to listen to with the lights down low in an introspective mood. For those of you who don't know, the band features Michael Waido on lead vocals and guitar, Pete Carlson on drums and myself Dave Wisbon on piano. The album also includes guest appearances from Dennis Bigelow on acoustic bass, Eddy Miller on violin, Maren Shanahan on background vocals and Marty Singer on drums for April Fool. Several tracks also feature Michael's old roommate Parker Hills on lead acoustic guitar.

So if you've been supporting us for awhile and have seen us live, you can get the CD at

www.michaelwaido.com

If you haven't heard of us, check out some sample tracks from the CD at

www.myspace.com/michaelwaido

We'd love to have your continued support, so buy the album and tell all of your friends about it!

Hope all is well,
Dave :)

John Mayer

Recently my taste of John Mayer music has increased nearly exponentially. Now I guess I've always been kind of a fan, because when he started it was the chill acoustic music that everybody was doing, and that sat well with me. Also some of his lyrics are pretty incredible and many of his songs bring good memories when hearing them (Comfortable, for example).

And then the other week I heard something that blew my mind. Eventually I was able to figure out that it was John Mayer and Herbie Hancock doing a song called Stitched Up off of Hancock's album "Possibilities". Then I remembered that John Mayer also did a sweet version of the song "I Don't Need No Doctor" with John Scofield off of his new album, neither song being the chill acoustic stuff I've been accustomed to hearing from him. So then I went out and bought the album "Try!" by the John Mayer Trio.

It is incredible.

On this album John is joined by Steve Jordan (a studio drummer who was in the Blues Brothers Band) and Pino Palladino (a bass player who has played with numerous bands on uncountable albums). These guys are tight. And John Mayer proves beyond a doubt to anybody who still thought that he was just another acoustic pop artist that he can wail along with the best of them on blues electric guitar. The song "Out of my Mind" is a long slow blues number with solos reminiscent of a Stevie Ray Vaughn or Eric Clapton laying down some slow blues riffs. Not only is his guitar right on, but the live emotion of his voice is incredible. He's putting everything into it. It's tough to come up with a favorite off the CD, but I would say that the three I like the best are the cover of Ray Charles "I Got A Woman", the Trio's song "Who Did You Think I Was" and John Mayer's song "Gravity".

If you're a fan of John Mayer, or a fan of good blues in general definitely check it out.

48 Degrees Celsius!

So I was driving by the bank today and their temperature display read 48C. Now it's been awhile since I've spent enough time in Europe to feel comfortable knowing what the centigrade temperature scale feels like, but even I know that 48C is really, really hot. And I also know that it didn't mesh with the Fahrenheit reading on the next screen that said 12.

Mitch Hedburg

So Mitch Hedburg came up in a conversation I was having the other day, and inevitability, we began to quote many of his one liners. His stuff always makes me laugh so I figured I'd share some of it as kind of a tribute to him.


"I had a stick of Carefree gum, but it didn't work. I felt pretty good while I was blowing that bubble, but as soon as the gum lost its flavor, I was back to pondering my mortality."

"I went to the park and saw this kid flying a kite. The kid was really excited. I don't know why, that's what they're supposed to do. Now if he had had a chair on the other end of that string, I would have been impressed."

"Mr. Pibb is a poor imitation of Dr. Pepper. Dude didn't even get his degree."

"I was in downtown Boise, Idaho, and I saw a duck, and I knew the duck was lost, 'cause ducks ain't supposed to be downtown. There's nothing for them there. So I went to a Subway sandwich shop, and I said, "Let me have a bun." But she wouldn't sell me just the bun, she said that I had to have something on it. She told me it's against regulations for Subway to sell just the bun. I guess the two halves ain't supposed to touch. So I said, "Alright, well, put some lettuce on it," which she did. She said, "That'll be $1.75." I said, "It's for a duck." And she said, "Alright, well, that is free." See I did not know that. Ducks eat for free at Subway! Had I known that I would have ordered a much larger sandwich. "Let me have the Steak Fajita Sub - but don't bother ringing it up, it's for a duck! There are six ducks out there, and they all want Sun Chips!"

A beekeeper, a magi, and a wind tunnel technician walk into a bar...

So what do beekeepers, magi, and wind tunnel technicians have in common?

(That's one of those odd triplets that really doesn't seem to belong together at all, isn't it?)

They all smell like frankincense!

Today we got an order of frankincense in at work (a sampler pack from India, Oman, Somalia, Estonia...) to test out how it would work in creating smoke for our wind tunnel applications. So I spent the whole morning with a little piece of charcoal dropping different samples of frankincense to see which one produced the best smoke or had the best scent to it.

For those of you who don't know, frankincense was one of the three gifts the magi brought to Bethlehem when Jesus was born (gold, frankincense, and myrrh). It is used mainly in religious rites (Picture the catholic priest walking down the aisle with the alterboys swinging the smoking gold pot behind him. That's frankincense.) but also goes by the name of bee gum. Beekeepers use it to charge their smoke guns when they smoke out the hives. The actual frankincense comes from the hardened sap (or resin) of the Boswellia tree.

So there's your nifty little tidbit of information. Whoever thought I'd be playing with frankincense in an actual engineering application? Learn something new every day.

Best usage of the word "masticate"

So I'm reading this book, Quicksilver, by Neal Stephenson (also the author of Cryptonomicon), and I came across this passage that I believe is the best usage of the word "masticate" that there has ever been and will ever be. I thought I'd share it.

"The Dutch Ambassador rolled his eyes and tossed the waffle back over his shoulder - before it struck the ground, a stout, disconcertingly monkey-like dog sprang into the air and snatched it, and began to masticate it - literally - for the sound it made was like a homunculus squatting on the floor muttering, "masticate masticate masticate."
-p232, Quicksilver