I’m adopting this as my new personal theme song. I’m currently listening to it with my sub-woofer turned up to the point stuff is vibrating off my desk. Join me.  Go ahead, you know you want to!

Today was a frustrating day on several fronts. I realized I needed a break this afternoon when I found myself sitting at my desk ranting at my computer. It didn’t seem fazed. At that point I had to laugh at myself and realize that I needed to go do something else for a while.

There’s a park across Elliott Bay from Seattle called Hamilton Viewpoint Park. It’s a highly recommended spot for photos of the Seattle waterfront.  I had been planning to check it out and today turned out to be a great day to do that! The weather was nice, it was quiet there and I spent several hours taking photos as the light changed from day to dusk.

It was just what the doctor ordered to sooth my frazzled nerves. A small selection of photos from today’s outing are up on Flickr.

Matt and I have been on a music free-for-all here lately in case you haven’t noticed! He passed this video I’m about to share with you on to me just today when he came over. Now, I have to tell you that my son has harder tastes in music than I do by far. Dark, angry metal, screaming vocals, etc.  So you can imagine I was a little shocked when he gleefully had me play this video for the first time… your kids just never stop surprising you!

I have to say I do like the beat. It’s the kind of song you can really get up and jump around with… not that I do that kind of thing.

My son recently picked up an EP by the band Sick Puppies. I assure you, I expected something radically different based on the name of the band. Their music is fairly mellow all things considered, though they still rock. I *knew* I had heard one of their songs before.  It finally dawned on me that they were the band that provided the music for the “Free Hugs” video. Their next full length album is due out in April.  I’ll be looking forward to it.

In the mean time, here is a live performance of the song “All The Same” from the “Free Hugs” video. Nice to see they’re actually talented, so many bands seem limited to the studio these days.

Updated 03/22: If you like this live video, a higher quality version plus three additional videos from the same performance are available here.

Can I just say once more, with feeling, that I dislike changing the time? *sigh*

I’m still not synch’d up with the rest of the world. Maybe after this weekend my body clock will catch up. It’s gotten progressively worse instead of better this past week though. I didn’t fall asleep last night until about 4am Saturday morning.  Then I woke up around 10am. Now it’s 10pm and I’m just now fixing dinner. This is not good!

I’m hoping for a little sunshine on Sunday. I’d like to get out on the bike to try out a new toy. Full report tomorrow if I manage to pull it off.

Also, let it be known that Peggle is extremely addictive… you have been warned!

I mentioned that I took Matt and his girlfriend to dinner and a movie this past weekend. I wanted to get to know her a little. She’s older than he is, and graduated from high school earlier this year.  She’s leaving soon for Air Force basic training, so we spent a good chunk of dinner talking about my own experiences with the same. I’m sure things have changed since I went through in the mid-80s.  At least I hope so!

Like my family, her family has a tradition of military service. Her father was Navy. Mine was Army. Every male member on my side of the family has served in one branch or the other. Matt has made noises about wanting to serve as well.

I have to confess I’m torn on that issue.  In general, I believe in serving your country, either in the military or some sort of civilian public service. I think it’s a healthy tradition. Unfortunately, I’d be incredibly leery of military service right now. I’m not a supporter of our Iraq invasion. I don’t think our leaders have a plan, a definition of “success” or much respect for our men and women serving in the military.

Fortunately, Matt still has a couple years ahead of him to make his decisions. I can only hope that things improve by then, but I don’t have much faith in our political leaders on either side of the aisle.

Thursday night, Lindsey had a concert at school. This is her last year in elementary school, so they’re still at the recorder and percussion instrument stage. It was actually a very pleasant evening! Normally I think you’d go into something like this expecting to hear a little squeaking and see evidence of stage fright and the like. Not here, the kids seemed very comfortable performing and they sounded very good!

Lindsey played in the large ensemble and then also had a recorder solo and duet. She also played in a percussion ensemble for part of the evening. She finished up with a recorder solo during the ensemble singing performance of “Penny Whistle.”

She’s also declared that she’s going out for flute next year in middle school band. I’m not surprised… more photos at Flickr.

You know, I get these dark moods occasionally… I don’t really know why. Could be biochemical, or related to the phase of the moon or maybe light deprivation living in Seattle as I do. When it happens, it’s like the weight of the world is pressing down on me. I get anxious and obsessive about all kinds of little things, but at the same time I lack the energy or drive to do anything about it.

The truth is that nothing is really wrong, the only thing that has changed is the filter I use to view the world around me. I find that if I just make progress at little things, soon enough it passes and things are back to “normal”… whatever that is around here. I think the thing that helps the most is just feeling like I can influence the things that are bothering me, no matter how tiny that change might be.

It also helps that the sun is out in Seattle today… a little warmth and light in your life never hurts.

Whew, I slept in this morning… planning to roll out of bed in plenty of time to log into Ticketmaster when The Police tickets went on sale at 10am PST.  The only flaw in my plan was that tickets went on sale at 9am PST.

I logged in anyway, even though I was sure it would be sold out. It took me about 30 minutes of reloading, reloading, reloading… can I just say the text verification system that Ticketmaster uses sucks?! Finally a ticket popped up.  All they had left was the uber, expensive gold hot seat package. I swallowed hard and bought it anyway. At least I’ll be close to the stage. And I get some kind of exclusive merchandise… no clue what it is!

I was really reluctant to pay that much for a concert ticket, but I figure when am I ever going to have the chance to see The Police in concert again? I never saw them back in the day, so this is a missed opportunity from my youth revisited. I can live with the cost from that perspective!

Anyone else manage to score tickets for the Seattle show?  We should get together before or after the concert and have a mini-blogger bash!

The only good thing about Valentine’s Day is you can eat gummy bears for breakfast and not feel guilty…