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I’m a big fan of gimmick rock. I loved bands like Kiss, who would use any excuse to set off a flash pot on stage - not to mention the awesome makeup that was imitated faithfully by the boys in my neighborhood every Halloween during my early teen years. I also loved the ‘glam bands’ of the eighties - the bigger the hair the better. Poison comes to mind, as perhaps the greatest hair band of all time, in my opinion.

I had a couple of ideas for gimmicks of my own. One was based on the ever-increasing trend to overuse bass in music production. Always one to jump to the logical conclusion of a trend (no matter how ridiculous), my plan was to invent a 5-story bass drum with a hydraulic hammer. In a live concert, the effect would be incredible, the sound from the drum literally causing everything within a square mile or two to vibrate. I’d call the new musical style (sure to copied by everyone) “Boom,” and a new musical genre (or fad) would be born.

My second idea would take a bit more work. Imagine a Youtube hand-held video of a deserted corn field somewhere in Kansas. Lights appear in the sky, a UFO descends, and an alien band beams down and plays a couple of alien-sounding songs, that somehow conform to the conventions of “Earth” music (I-IV-V chord progressions, instruments that sound vaguely like electric guitars, etc.). The only audience would be a small group of fifty people that happened to be driving by the corn field that night, and also happened to spread the word via Youtube or their own blogs. The goal would be to perform in an open-air stadium, complete with the UFO effect. I guess I should contact David Copperfield…

Hey, I’ve been gone for a while. I was hoping to blog about how I’ve found a job, and everything is A-OK, but this is not the case. My most recent interview was with Amazon.com, and while I thought I was a good fit, Amazon.com thought otherwise. I checked their whole site, but was unable to even buy a job. Seriously. But my job search presses on, and we are no immediate danger of losing everything we own and love. I guess I felt a little embarrassed about still not having a job, but it feels good to blog the truth - show my face again, warts and all. I can’t promise I’m back for good, or even that I will have interesting blog posts, but I’m here today. To my faithful friends who have tried to keep in contact with me over the last year, I’m sorry I haven’t returned more love until now.  Thank you all.   I have no idea of where I’m going from here, or what our little lives have in store, but the Black Eyed Peas say it best:

Boom Boom Pow.

Last weekend, Julia and I decided to take the girls on a little roadtrip.  We live in Western Washington, which is an incredible area of beautiful mountains, forests, rivers, and ocean shores, but we haven’t explored much of it at all.  We’d like to get out more, so last weekend we decided to do just that.  We set the bar low: no 10-mile hikes, rock climbing, hang-gliding, or survival hikes.  Just a nice stroll in a park we’d never been to.

Julia found the Flaming Geyser State Park out on highway 169 which looked perfect.  Not far from our house, and real flaming geyers!  Sounds cool enough.  From the state website, “The park’s most unique feature is its “geysers” (methane seeps)” fed from underground coal seams.  There are over four miles of hiking trails, and you can explore the edge of the Green River, which runs through the park.  It sounded absolutely perfect for us.  We embarked on our journey.

We never made it.

Apparently, highway 169 was washed out right at the park.  The road was closed, with a detour routing us around the park and back onto the highway three miles beyond it.  I never got to see huge vents of orange flames shooting three hundred feet into the air, with occasional methane fireballs scorching nearby mountain-tops, or feel the blast-furnace heat blister the paint on my car in the parking lot.  I was Disappointed.  But my beautiful wife saved the outing by finding a smaller park with access to the river, where we spent some time exploring.

The girls with Jo Jo.

Panda about to throw a rock into the river

Panda, puppy and me