Strange Pulse

But it was a lot of work.

So, last week I moved all our furniture around to make room for our windows to be replaced. Then they rescheduled our window replacement for this week. We had to live with all our stuff piled in the middle of our rooms for days. Actually, I had to move some of it back, and then move it again when they finally did come to replace our windows.

The good thing about all this was I finally cleaned some stuff out and moved some things around. It used to be my vinyl records were in the TV cabinet, floor-level, behind all of our dvds. So if I wanted to listen to anything, I had to get down on the floor, move all our dvds out of the way, and dig around way down low for the record I wanted. But since we had to take them all out to move the TV cabinet, I decided to get rid of some old books and make room in our large IKEA bookshelf. Now they’re at eye-level with nothing in the way!

I also decided to clean out and organize my bedroom closet. It’s all storage, but it’s all neatly in boxes now. I used to keep my cameras in big plastic bins and it was a bit of a hassle to drag them out when I wanted one. So I moved some cabinets that used to be in the dining room into my bedroom and voila, camera cabinets!

My latest camera purchase was this waterproof $15 camera from Sport Chalet. I haven’t tried it out yet—the pool is still a little cold. Daniel’s sister’s family is visiting in June for a couple days, though, so I’m sure we’ll have fun with it then.

The record that was still on my turntable when I moved all my records was the Psychedelic Furs’ first album (self-titled), so I thought it’d be a good one to highlight today.

I took my blog name from two of their songs, both on this album—”Susan’s Strange” and “Pulse.” (My cool older brother’s suggestion.) I couldn’t find either song on youtube, but here’s another good one from the album:

Saw them live twice in the 80s. Great band.

I figured I should do a good music post after my Shania lovefest.

I realize most bands that exist for a long time will evolve in their sound, like, say, U2 or the Who. But I’m thinking of bands that changed pretty radically. Here’s some:

Journey
Genesis
The Gathering
Everything But The Girl

Of course, most of these bands had significant line-up changes which affected the way they sound. Except for Everything But The Girl.

Journey - Have you ever heard early Journey? Before Steve Perry became the singer? I’ll post a song to the radio.blog. You won’t recognize them. I guess Neil Schon is the only member in the band who has always been a member.

Genesis - Did you know Genesis started out in 1969? With Peter Gabriel as the lead singer.

Way different, huh?

The Gathering started out as a death metal band:

But then they got a different singer and turned into…something else:

Everything But The Girl - One of my favorite bands of all time. There’s just two members—Ben Watt and Tracey Thorn. They started out—how to describe it? Allmusic.com says they were one of the leaders in the “lite-jazz movement.” Nowadays they’re an electronica band, I consider them rather trip hoppy, definitely club music.

Here they are in the 80s:

Here they are more recently:

Can you think of anyone else?

Not sure why I like her.

Is it because she’s so…Canadian?

Is it because she married Mutt Lange?

Is it her awesome, um, boots?

The amazing hair?

Yeah right.

I don’t know why I like her, but I do. (She’s what was playing when Elijah went off on anti-ballads.) I even like her stupidest song, “Man I Feel Like A Woman.”

Forget Madonna. Shania needs a comeback.

…It would look like this.

In fact, when we had a yard, it was just like that. I mean, it was that. That was our yard.

Daniel dug it all by hand. With a shovel. It started out small…

and grew…

and grew…

Nathaniel used to be quite the bmxer.

So was Daniel. (Note Nathaniel filming him with the videocamera.)

Elijah tried:

But wasn’t always successful.

But that didn’t slow him down much. (I’m pretty sure he’s actually holding the leg that he didn’t hurt.)

King of the Road says you move too slow:

Waiting for Dad…

Waiting…

Dad arrives!

Bonus points if you caught:

• Daniel’s bike has two different types of wheels (mags/spokes).
• Nathaniel’s bike has two different color tires.
• Elijah’s bike is one of those bikes for 2 year olds without even a bike chain—but the training wheels have been removed.
• Elijah is NOT wearing socks.
• All of our neighbors, except the one with all the piles of junk, had lovely yards. (You think your kids get dirty?)

Developed another roll of film. I’ve been slacking on the photography lately.

Dog beach:

It’s really fun to hang out there and watch the dogs. They’re in heaven.

From our trip to Hollywood to try to see Flight of the Concords at Amoeba:

My City Screams…Subway:

This last is my favorite. It’s our neighbor’s doorstep. I just put the camera on the ground outside our door and clicked it. I just wanted to use the last frame so I could develop the roll.

Our neighbor is a smoker.

My mom, playing videogames with my little brother in the 70s:

Things I notice about this picture:

• Under the TV are two little figurines my older brother and I got for our parents. One is a boy and one is a girl, both with their arms spread wide, and they say, “I love you this much!”
• My older brother’s shoes: Adidas.
• The game: Atari Combat.
• My little brother’s robe that my son ended up using when he was the same age.
• My little brother’s shadow: someone was using a flash.
• Stuff on the piano: my mom’s stereo; bronzed baby shoes; wonder what those books were?
• The pink towel with the flowers on it: my little brother just got out of his bath.
• The green towel in the foreground: someone else probably also just had a bath. Maybe even me. Or my brother used two towels.

My parents aren’t in a lot of our childhood pictures, so it’s fun to have this one.

Happy Mother’s Day, Mom!

My sister-in-law Audra tagged me for this meme.

3 Joys…

• Arguing over what movie to watch with the kids, when it turns into a massive laughing insult-fest over what movies we each like/dislike.
• A song that makes me marvel.
• Taking pictures.

3 Fears…

• Spiders.
• Heights. Well, not really afraid of them, they just make me dizzy, and that’s scary.
• Mosquito-eaters. They’re a lot like spiders, but they fly.

3 Obsessions…

• Music
• Music
• Music

3 Surprising facts about me…

• To some, it’s the fact that I’m Mormon. To others, it’s the fact that I love doom metal. (I just asked my son what’s surprising about me and he said, “You’re into doom metal. Oh, three things? Uh…you’re into funeral doom metal.”)
• Surprising to my blog readers? Hmm. That’s tough. I pretty much let it all hang out around here. Have I ever posted anything about myself you thought was surprising? How about that in person I’m completely boring.
• I have a shoe fetish, which is surprising when you consider how few shoes I own. I remember people by their shoes, too. Daniel laughs at me when I try to describe someone we knew in high school by the shoes they wore.

I’m not gonna tag anyone, if you feel like doing the meme, go ahead. Or just post your threes in the comments here.

I’ve updated the list of shows I’ve seen and posted it finally. I need to get back into keeping track of all the shows I go to—had to hunt around for ticket stubs and reviews and pictures I’ve posted various places to get this thing updated.

Here it is.

I’m sure there’s some I’ve forgotten.

Some favorite live pics I’ve taken over the years…

Opeth:

Low:

M Ward:

Goatsnake (Scott Reeder):

Players Club:

When you move it, it breaks.

We had to clear 3 feet of space in front of all the windows in our apartment today because they’re replacing all the windows in the whole building. Which meant I had to move:

• My computer desk, and the extra desk next to it.
• Elijah’s computer desk, Nathaniel’s computer desk, and their bunk beds
• Catherine’s computer desk and her bed
• Two cabinets in the dining room that our stereo is on
• The tv cabinet in the livingroom with the tv, dvds, records and videogame consoles on it

But I first had to clear everything out of the way—in the kids’ rooms, this meant garbage, clothing, junk.

In my room it meant cameras, spare computers, junk.

In the living room it meant taking all the dvds and vinyl records out of the cabinet and piling them on the table.

So, now everything that was in a heap on the floor of various rooms is now piled in heaps on our beds. And I don’t think they’re actually going to replace the windows today. So I have to move it all back onto the floor before bed tonight, and then pile it all back on in the morning. Ugh.

And oh yeah, the bottom trim on the television cabinet all broke off when I was moving it. IKEA sucks.

We just have too much stuff. Hopefully I can use this as a chance to clear a bunch of stuff out. If I have the energy.

Ugh.

In other news, I think I’m taking Nathaniel to see Tapes’n'Tapes this weekend. Dillun you’re invited. Although I think we might be better off seeing Elbow.

1. I’m home alone.
2. I’m in a hurry to leave–meeting someone outside.
3. The spider isn’t huge. Not small, but not big.
4. It’s in the hallway, where the first shock of seeing it sends me leaping into the nearest room, which was right at hand.
5. A shoe is lying at my feet. A shoe that DOES NOT belong to me.
6. The spider is in the perfect squishing spot—against the wall but on the floor.

I have a huge phobia of spiders. Huge. I’ve been known to pack up the kids (when they were small) and leave the house because there was a spider inside. As soon as the kids were old enough to kill spiders for me, they were. I cannot express how much I hate spiders. I’m considering deleting this post right now because it’s making me think about spiders for so long.

I killed a spider today.