Chris

I ate at Butch Cassidy’s Restaurant in Montpelier, Idaho tonight. I just wanted something a little different than the regional McDonalds ripoff, Arctic Circle (although Arctic Circle is better than MickyDees in my opinion). And it was a good excuse to get out of the hotel room and get one last gulp of something local before flying back to Nashville tomorrow.

I walked over to Butch’s, across a snowbank, since its next door to the Super 8 I’m staying in. It was a little slippery tonight, as it had been raining and snowing most of the day. The front façade had a western flair to it, with a wooden porch along the entire front of the building. A sign on the door advertised steak specials and an upcoming Valentine’s Day Dinner. Oh, and you can get your lottery tickets here too.

So I walked in and to my left was a cash register area, and assorted western travel gifty like things, candy bars, sodas, and other useless nick nacks. In front of me was a long dark wood hallway, with a sign above that read Restrooms… and something else I can’t remember, since I was trying to take everything in at once, and it was all a bit overwhelming. But thinking back, the hallway was a bit odd, since it kept going and had quite a number of unmarked doors to either side. All this while I was trying to decide in a very brief moment whether I should attempt to figure out where to sit, wait to be seated, or calmly but quickly turn around, walk out, get in my car and drive a block down to the Arctic Circle.

So off to my right was what I now consider the dining area. The room was lit by plentiful fluorescent lighting in the beige colored drop ceiling, leaving nothing to the imagination. There was a low counter, with old chairs along it. The vinyl on the chairs was cracking, exposing the yellow foam padding within. There were about 4 men seated at the counter, all very rugged and local looking. But they could also have been regular truckers, since the Super 8 advertised truck parking, and I can see where this could be a way-stop on hwy 89. Behind the counter was a young girl in jeans, t-shirt, and some of the largest hair I’ve seen on someone that young. She was very comfortable conversing with the guys at the counter. As I walked in, trying to make my ultimate dining decision for the evening, I got… The Stare. All eyes turned, evaluated, and wrote off in one smooth not so quick motion. I was safe for the moment.

There were some booths along the wall, with cowboy and Indian prints on the fabric, so I occupied one of them. Cigarette smoke filled the air. As soon as the waitress was done talking about how she had unsuccessfully tried to become an electrician, she came over with a blue plastic cup of ice water, and what looked like a small town news paper. She laid both before me and said, “That’s your menu”, and walked off. I looked it over and was surprised to find steak dinners for 18 dollars. I guess because of the décor I wasn’t expecting to find a meal for that price here. I glanced quickly through the newspaper and found a basket of chicken fingers and decided to go with that.

When the waitress came by to take my order, I asked for the chicken fingers and some fries, and asked if they had any beer. She said yes, so I asked what kind. She said she would have to go ask, since she only knows the “basic stuff”.

A larger older woman came over and said, “Okay here’s how this works. We have wine, beer, mixed drinks, but nothing on tap”. I asked what kind of beer she had. I guess at this point, to really get into the moment, I should have just asked for bud. But due to habit, and a wild curiosity at a “what if” kinda scenario, I decided to go for it. She scrunched up here eyes and started thinking. “Well, we got bud, bud light, miller, and… that cuervo… I forget what it’s called, you know the one you put the lime in? Amber Bock…”, “Ooo, I’ll take Amber Bock,” I said. She returned a minute later with the bottle, and a couple minutes later, my dinner arrived, just barely long enough to open up the bags of frozen items, dump them in the fryer and let them cook a bit.

My steak fries were completely unsalted, but generally cooked through. The chicken fingers where a little thin on the meat side, but had plenty of breading to compensate. There was a pickle sitting on a rather sad little pile of wilted lettuce to one side. I forced down a couple fries, and ate all the chicken, dipping the lot in the small tub of whatever the cheapest BBQ sauce was at the local grocery store. You know, the kind where just by looking at it you can tell one of the major ingredients is some sort of thickening agent?

I enjoyed 2 beers, and soaked in the ambience, listening to the conversation between the guys at the counter and the waitress. Something about probation, and a friend’s boyfriend that didn’t seem to garner much approval from those gathered. I left a tip, paid for my meal in the gifty area, and walked out into the cold dark rainy night, back to my hotel.

Well, looks like i screwed up my record of posting once a month. Skipped a few. Oh well. Firstly, the latest news is I won a prize for my Cider in a homebrew competition! My Apple Cider (with a little pear) won 2nd place in the Music City Brew Off homebrew competition. Its a nice dry cider, and its got a deceptive kick to it. I am quite excited.

In other brewing news, I brewed my 1st solo all grain a few weeks ago. I’m hoping to bottle it tonight and get a wee taste of it. It was very fun doing all-grain. relatively simple, but just a few more steps, and more time on brew day. But worth it all.

I just came back from a business trip to Arkansas last week. Lots of friendly people. And dry counties. Hmmm… Have you ever been in a Chili’s with no bar? It’s sorta spooky. The Ozarks were pretty fun to drive through. Especially when your rental car is a convertible, and the weather is amazing.

I’m working on my own album currently. Its actually coming along well. I’ve got basics down on all the songs, starting to do final vocals on some of them. I plan on having it ready for the holidays.

Well, work calls me back, so I must sign off for now. Oh yeah - and its First Flannel Day! Just cool enough in my home office with the window open and a nice fall breeze to justify the donning of the seasonal flannel shirts. Even though I’m still wearing shorts and no shoes.

Looking back, it appears for 2008 I’ve been posting once a month, so I thought I’d at least try to keep up with that record! So here is just a general update on whats going on.

Kim and I just got back from visiting family near Atlanta. I brought back a bottle of Happy Ending Stout from Sweetwater Brewing which I have not tried yet. And on the way back, we stopped in Chattanooga for lunch at Hair of the Dog (http://www.hairofthedogpub.net/) pub. Kim had a fried cod sandwich with a slice of cheddar on top, and I had a chicken salad sandwich with cranberries, and other things I cant remember on wheatberry toast. Kim had the Wittekerke Belgian White and I had the Boulevard Lunar Ale (http://www.blvdbeer.com/lunarale.htm) All was very good, and we sat outside on the deck under an awning and watched the great early summer weather over the ‘nooga skyline. Oh, and to prove just how cool this pub is, on the menu they had Cup Of Bacon. Yes, thats just a cup with bacon in it. How cool is that?

On the music front, I believe the artwork for the eagerly-anticipated-imminent-almost-no-really release of the Trevor Goodchild CD is done. That means the CD should go to duplicators Real Soon. It sounds great! (Honest!)

Job - I am loving my new job. I am working from home and learning alot about Biztalk and WinForms programming. Not much to report except its fun and there is a lot to do!

I have a Belgian Saison fermenting right now. Um, at least thats what it started out as. I sorta overdid the malt for the wort, so this might be a bit bigger/darker for the style. I think i scared the belgian yeast i put in it, since it didn’t really attenuate much at all (not sure what OG was, but after the belgian was ‘done,’ i was only at 1065!). I added another round of yeast - this time London Ale yeast, and it is merrily bubbling away now.

I currently have ready my 1st lawnmower beer - thats just a term for beer that is light and refeshing enough to have after mowing the lawn on a hot day. It turned out really good! This was also my first partial mash - theres corn in the recipe, so to get the sugars out of it, you have to mash some other malt that will provide the enzymes that will actually do the starch conversion. It was alot of fun, and the result is great, so I think my next batch might be all-grain.

Well, thats it for now. Just saw Cloverfield and Hellboy this weekend. Good movies. Um, thats it.

I was just going through some old emails, and stumbled across this snippet from an email from my previous job:

“With resources as they are, this is a great opportunity to examine opportunities to derive efficiencies and coordinate efforts in order to get the most from the resources we have and to streamline the customer experience.”

My translation of the above: “We’re saving a few bucks because we just hired some schmuck as an intern to work for free.”

Kim Jeff and I went to see John Vanderslice at the Mercy Lounge in Nashville last night. Great show! I was right at the front of the stage, and about 8 feet away from the band. They played a great selection of new and old tunes, and of course totally rocked. They were all great solid players too. The bass player doubled as violin player (or maybe the other way around?). The drummer triggered some loops on a couple tunes on some old boss unit. The keyboard player had a wurli of some sort, a Moog Source, some old rackmount Ibanez unit (delay?) and played el. guitar occasionally.

John played acoustic guitar and a Gibson ES-335 type electric. Not sure what was going through what, but the stack consisted of a National old-timey looking amp on the bottom (I believe the Gibson was going through this, as he admitted to kicking the mic accidentally on that amp when playing that guitar), above that was a Mesa Boogie cab, and on top of that was some crazy little tube amp of some sort. Couldnt make out what the logo was.

For the last tune, the band grabbed some instruments (john-ac. gtr, drummer - floor tom?, violin and toy accordian?) and walked to the center of the crowd and did a little acoustic jam. Very cool way to end the show.

After the show I bought a pink John Vanderslice Official Pillow Case. Crazy. Then, a couple minutes later, Kim spotted John at the merch table, so of course I asked him to sign my pillow case. He was very friendly, asked what my name was, and signed the pillow case to me. He also complimented me on my jacket - I had on my weird 70’s-ish jean jacket.

A great show by a great group of musicians.

I’ve decided to participate unofficially in the rpmchallenge - write 10 songs and record them in the month of February.

http://www.rpmchallenge.com/

I’ve been pretty dry song-writing wise the past x years, and I passed on this opportunity last year. So this past Sunday, I just sat down, started playing, and in a few hours, had a pretty cool instrumental written and recorded. This might turn into an entire album of instrumentals - so what. As long as I’m actually creating something, thats better than what I’ve been doing. Maybe some lyrics might pop in here and there. We’ll see.

I say unofficially participating - I’m not (as of this point) actually officially signing up at the rpm site. I’m just following along with the rules anyway, using it as a kick in the arse to git’r done.

So, I’ve got one in the bag. It’s mostly guitar through my PodXT, so I might want to redo a couple tracks on it with some real Tele through the Twin. We’ll see. Once I get that where I want it, maybe I’ll put it up on the site for download.

It was a lot of fun creating something that I really like and in such a short time. I must do more! I’ll try to keep updating me blog with my progress.

So Kim, Greeter and I went to a park Sunday to get out and enjoy the amazing day. It was 72, sunny, slight breeze, just the right puffy white clouds in the sky. This park is right on the lake, and across from a marina with big beautiful expensive boats. And right near a dam with a lock.

So we’re walking around the park, right along the lake. Looking out across the lake, there’s someone trolling in their yacht, with a couple sea-doo’s lazily zipping along beside.
A little further beyond, a barge is waiting for the lock to fill so it can continue on up-river, and I daydream about how cool it would be to pilot a big tug of coal and sand, just watching the scenery scroll slowly by. The park is outfitted with a nice-sized pavilion, and some local church decided to enjoy the gorgeous weather and have service at the pavilion. They are singing church hymns merrily.

At this point, Kim and I agree that its almost surreal, like we stepped into Tom Sawyer, but updated for the millenium.

As we continue along the lakeside, Kim excitedly turns to me, and says, “Dude! Ninjas!” I am of course perplexed at this exclamation. I turn slowly to gaze in the direction Kim is pointing, and there, on top of the hill overlooking the river with the sun glinting off the peaceful small waves, were three Ninjas! Two are dressed in the obligatory black pajamas, and one looked to be incognito as a normal human, even though he was skillfully brandishing 2 kama, slicing some unseen opponent in his mind. One black-clad figure was mimicking his master’s moves with his own kama. The other twirled a bo-staff with great agility, creating a whirling circle of doom for some unlucky soul to walk into.

We stopped and stared for just a few seconds. I dared not gawk too long, as I did not want to become the target of a Ninja attack! So we continued on our stroll, sat down for a few minutes and watched the barge troll into the lock for the next stage in its journey. Behind us, the peaceful scene spread out in the park, with Ninja’s practicing their deadly art, overlooking the small congregation lost in their hymns. Maybe the church-goers felt just a little more safe, knowing that a group of Ninjas was close at hand, ready to slay any unmentionable evil that might creep out of the depths of the lake.

We eventually made it back to our car and left, still in amazement of the beautiful, but very odd day at the park.

There’s been alot going on at Lovefish lately. Mainly we’ve been working on 2 projects - Anna Ross Project and Trevor Goodchild.

The Trevor stuff continues. More overdubs. And then maybe some more overdubs. And maybe just a few more. Hhhmmmm… lots of stuff to try and fit together. Should be fun at mix time!  We got final vocals on Always and Never. This was also my first try with the ART Tube MP. Amazing sounds. Very different from the Joe Meek or Mackie mp’s. Jeff’s vocals really tied that song together nicely. Johnnys guitar parts are all done. Just need to finish up Jeff’s vocals and some keys. Then mix.

Anna Ross Project has come by for a second recording. We recorded them back… last year I guess? Great sounding band, and of course Anna is a great songwriter and talented vocalist. These are coming along pretty quickly - 6 songs. Main tracking was done a month ago. Electric guitar parts are all done except for 1 track. Acoustic guitar tracks are done. Vocals on 1 track are done. Need some more vocals and keys, and its on to mixing.

And then I try to fit in my stuff when I get the chance. I’ve been borrowing Blake’s strat for some different tones. Fun stuff. There are actually a few tunes that are just about ready for mixing, oddly enough. I just need to get some keeper vocals down.

So I finally bottled my Big Brew Day beer last weekend. It turned out great!!! I let it sit in the 2ndary fermenter for a month. Its quite hoppy, yet has a nice balance with the malt. I was shooting for an English Pale Ale, but after a little tasting and consulting the style guidelines, I believe this more closely resembles an American Pale Ale. The main difference (to me) being the late hop additions making the hop character quite assertive. Although the hops are taming a bit after being in the bottle a week. I will be bringing out some more bottles of this for the 4th of July. I will also be brewing my next batch that day - my first Hefeweizen. And it will be my second outside brew on my turkey fryer system, but 1st time in my back yard. Should be fun.

The Music City Brewers and Boscos hosted the Big Brew Day at Boscos pub this past Saturday, in celebration of Nat’l Homebrew Day. So there was about 20-30 homebrewers in the parking lot, brewing beer, inluding me! It was alot of fun. And I used my new portable brew setup for the first time. I got a $30 turkey fryer from a sports store, and a tank of propane. Thats it. It worked great. I think I might brew with this instead of the stove top from now on. It seems to boil alot quicker and better, which hopefully makes a better beer.

Boscos and the club supplied the freshly made wort, hops and yeast. So all I needed was the equipment.  I finished up, and pitched the yeast at home. The next morning, there was alot of action going on in the fermenter. It almost looked like it was boiling. Oh yeah, and i got a glass carboy for primary fermentation, so I can actually see the process now.

And, after all my worrying about my Rye Pale Ale, I think its going to turn out pretty good. I had a sample last week, and even though its not conditioned yet, its actually not bad.