Birdhouse in Your Blog

BIG props if you know where that title comes from.

Suggested Listening: Carry On Wayward Son by Kansas off their self titled album.

It's my last week in LA...until thanksgiving, Christmas, etc. I've been helping mom move back into her classroom. One big improvement over last year is size. Her previous class was 26 and this years is 20. That doesn't seem that big of a change, but lets look at the 5th grade crowd energy equivalence equation:

Go easy on me, I go to Sarah Lawrence.

let k= Kid energy at a 5th grade level (1 kid energy = 2.5 adult energy), a= normal full grown adult energy, C=Crowd size at an adult energy level.

equation for finding full sized adult energy equivalent found in a group of kids:
a= C(k)

a=26(2.5)

a=65

figure for this year:

a=20(2.5)

a=50

So, losing 6 kids equals a loss of about the energy of 15 grown adults. That's a lot of people to deal with...theoretically.

That equation probably has all sorts of wrong in it.

Ok I promise I will never do that again. You teachers out there know what I'm talking about. Except then there are the parents. (Ominous Music)

Back to the topic. Mom usually uses me to reach the tall places of the class room to staple decorations as well as plug in electronics and carry heavy books. I can't really understand how these guys do it. Their required book load for each day at school has to be...20 pounds at least. That's pretty ridiculous.

I found myself at a couple of concerts this past weekend. My buddy Ian is a rather avid ZZ Top fan. We were originally going to go sunday to the Aerosmith AND ZZ Top concert at the Verizon Wireless Amphitheater. Hoooowever (and I think the day Ian got the tickets) Steven Tyler took a nasty fall off a stage and Aerosmith had to cancel their end of the tour. ZZ Top kept on going though, booking smaller venues for their end of the act. In LA, they played the Hollywood House of Blues which is a surprisingly cozy and well put together venue. Its a chain so it's nothing individual about it (i.e. not a cool local spot because its technically not local) but good place to go see a show. ZZ Top is of course one of those old aging rocker groups your dad listens to (and me) but they still have their swagger. They don't really have that many fancy gimmicks, just some solid rock music. Still just as cool as they were at the start of their career too, and any group that does that spot on of a Foxy Lady cover gets major live performance props.

Did I mention their Encore set included Slash and John Mayer? It was that awesome. I'm usually sort of a casual observer type at a concert: arms crossed, tapping my foot, going "Hmm, nice." This made me break out of my shell. When music really moves me I laugh and laugh hard (ok well not like Beethoven but...). It's joyous to me when it really comes together.

I mean it was ZZ Top, Slash, AND John Mayer on stage at the same time! When they announced they'd be coming on stage I didn't believe it. I still can't rightly believe it. It's just too good to be true.

Rock geek out over.

Monday night took me to Spaceland: a club on Silver Lake in Los Angeles. It was good to go because it contains the highest concentration of hipsters in the Greater LA City area, prepping for my return to SLC. I went with my friend Frances for her "Frances is going into surgery tomorrow party."

an aside: Frances was hit by a car and her clavicle was broken pretty badly. Surgery went well but please keep her in your thoughts/prayers.

Only Frances would think to have a party before she goes under the knife. It was pretty laid back with only a few friends (it was monday after all) but pretty nice. The bands were pretty much all Oasis clones which is fine...if you're trying to be an Oasis clone. If you're trying to make it on your own as your own sound, then create your own sound.

Im not sayin, but just sayin, ya know?

I think the animals know I'm moving away again. They were none to happy about the amount of time I spent in New Zealand. They followed me around for a week and a half. All of them. Making sure I wasn't going to disappear again. Well they put two and two together when they saw a bunch of boxes lying around my room and began protesting.

This means sitting on the boxes. Rosie and Ninja do that the most. Ninja also follows me around trying to bite my ankles (but thats not new. He just does it more.) Sadie would find something that would get me to stop paying attention to packing and start paying attention to her.

Sadie: (running through the den) I HAVE YOUR SAANNNDDDLLLEE!
Me: No! Bad!
Sadie: Can I have a cookie now?

Sadie, once she figures out what she did was bad (or something), will lower her head, but not really know what to do so she still holds onto the object, just trying to hide it from us.

Tigger...however...has decided that he rather likes my bed. Newly retired from outdoor work he's been trying to take it over...while I'm sleeping in it. I kept having nightmares of being trapped in an incredibly small space only to wake up with Tigger happily purring sprawled across both of my legs. His two favorite moves to get me to wake up past the point of no return to sleep are to wait till I'm on my back lie on my upper chest inches from my face and purr or slowly take over the pillow. The other day he lay on the open spot of the pillow from where I rolled over and wrapped his body around the back of my head...and purred.

Yes it's cute but I couldn't sleep! It was 6 in the morning! Not like Sadie is helping either at that hour:

Sadie: HEY! People are SLEEPING! I shall protect my people, who are sleeping, from you! Whoever you are! Stay away!

Ninja's clawing at my leg right now. I should sleep.

I keep falling in love with my hometown. This past couple of weeks did it for me again.

Chris

p.s. Now is also a good time to shamelessly plug my twitter page.

www.twitter.com/seajaytogo

I'm a tool. I capitulated. It's fun though.

Closing music: La Grange by ZZ Top. Just imagine this song going on for 7-8 minutes including 2 solos each by Billy Gibbons (lead guitar for ZZ Top) Slash, and John Mayer. Nothing rocked me harder since the 1994 Northridge Earthquake (and I LIVED in Northridge at the time so that's saying something.) ...Ok Rock geek out NOW done.