A few of Britton’s old high school friends (and now mutual friends) came in to town to visit from Oregon this weekend. We saw them on Wednesday and again on Friday night for Friday Fest with live music in downtown Greeley. Britton and I rode our bikes there, but when the rain storm rolled in, Britton offered to ride my bike and Matt rode Britton’s back to our place. It was pretty fun and reminded me of the days when we were young(er) in the summertime out with friends just floating along like a butterfly doing whatever we wanted. Plus it was great to get the gang all together again.
This week I have been setting up a training program at work. I had to get a QA (quality assurance) environment up and running using the manual (RTFM). I got it going which is good. Now I have a list of people that need logins to access. Once that is done I can learn about the very thing I just setup. How odd is that? Shouldn’t I take the training first?
I’ve learned that the way I thrive the best is ‘sink or swim’. It is a very painful way to learn, but its how I do it. Its how I learned to use computers, its how I learned to drive, frame basements, plumb, put in sprinklers, program computers, play guitar, and play video games. If I am under pressure to do something I can do it. There hasn’t been anything in life I haven’t been able to learn. This relates to the post about risks. I will do whatever it takes to succeed. Heck just the other night I rode a girls bike home in the pouring rain to ‘make it work’ for everyone. And you know what? It turned out to be a super cool night.
Here is a song that relates to what I am talking about. The style may not suit everyone at first; but I think the meaning and the energy matches perfectly. Tool – Aenima (right click and save as, unless you are easily offended…Seriously). Its odd that I think this will ‘scare’ some people away due to its intensity. It might. But that is what I feel before I attempt something I am unfamiliar with. I go all out. And when you look at the lyrics to the song, it is all about being able to do for yourself and not on the system and some false idol. Still, Cassie will not approve 😉
Fret for your figure and
Fret for your latte and
Fret for your hairpiece and
Fret for your lawsuit and
Fret for your prozac and
Fret for your pilot and
Fret for your contract and
Fret for your car.
Learn to swim.
I am not depressed or anything, don’t take it to heart. How else does a person get the energy to shovel by hand 10 tons of rock? These songs give me the energy to!
When Britton and I got back from our trip to the mountains, we checked our messages on the answering machine. My friend, Kelly, called to let us know that she was able to get us free tickets to the Kid Rock concert if we wanted to go. We didn’t have anything else to do, so we told her we’d meet her down there. We got ready and headed off on our bikes once again to the Stampede.
Me and my bike
When we got there, it turned out that the Weld County Sheriff, John Cooke, had the extra tickets for us. We got the hook ups! 🙂 So we asked for a picture with him.
Me, Sheriff Cooke and Kelly at the Stampede
The tickets were for standing room only, but that was fine with me. We ended up running into a lot of our friends including our friend, Al and spent most of the concert with him since Kelly and her husband already had seats outside of the standing room area.
Al and Britton at Kid Rock concert
I know a few of Kid Rock’s songs and he definitely appeals to a certain demographic that is an interesting marketing mixture of hard rock, country and rap. I had to laugh at the crazy lyrics of one song that I had never heard before: Low Life. Do people really live like this?? Often music, like art, reflects life, so I am assuming some people must.
Here’s a little sample of the lyrics and video (turn down your speakers):
I got my Cat Scratch Fever eight-track
My best friend’s in a gun rack
I’m a lowlife
I owe everybody money
I think racist jokes are funny
I’m a lowlife
I got a dirty mind, a gutter mouth
I’m makin’ time, I’m goin’ out
With your wife
Cuz I’m a lowlife
I’m a lowlife
I got kids I never seen
And their momma’s seventeen
I’m a lowlife
I take strippers out to breakfast
You can add that to my checklist
I’m a lowlife
Ahh the landlord called the rent is due
I spent it all on a Kiss tattoo
I Rock n Roll all night
Cuz I’m a lowlife
I’m a lowlife
I’m a lowlife
Livin’ the highlife
It’s also interesting how at concerts of the past for the slow songs people would pull out their lighters and sway to the music. Now, people pull out their cell phones! It’s quite the cultural phenomenon. I think I was one of the very few who didn’t have a cell phone. In this video you can also see the moon shining over us.
It began to rain toward the end of the concert so Britton and I saddled up our trusty bikes and headed off into the night with a moonlit backdrop and ringing ears. What a great day!
Greeley is an alright place. You need to have the right mindset going into anything. Tonight after work Cassie and I decided to saddle up the bikes and go for a ride into town. There is a place downtown called Patrick’s. Its a new bar that is in a 100yr old brick building. They had a bluegrass band called “Reservoir Rd”. I used to live by Reservoir Rd when I was growing up.
After that we went to the Relay for Life down at Island Grove Park. That is where I think most people in Greeley were at the moment.
It was fun. We rode our bikes for about a 5-7 mile round trip and got to see some people in our community. Summer time is great. The temperature was about perfect. I realized that not much has changed in 100years. This was most likely pretty close to what people were doing in 1896 when Greeley was founded.
There was one difference though. I got a page on my cell phone from one of our Unix Admins. Apparently one of the satilite servers at work took a dump and we had to switch to a backup for SSH / HTTP. I dont think that happened alot back then.
