Puppies...

Jill and I got two puppies in June and took them camping twice this summer. Once to Lake Sylvan and the second time to Bear Lake. They did a great job on the day hikes and at the camp ground they were well behaved. Here are some photos of them in the Rocky Mountains!

Jill Walking over the creek towards Smith Lake

Hiking in the Flat Tops Wilderness in the Routt National Forest

Camping at Bear Lake Campground

Stella

Porter

School year 09-10

School is in session. I began teaching at my new school this past Monday, Bear Creek k-8, in Lakewood, Colorado. My 4th graders have made the transition into the new school for me smooth and it has been a fun first few days of class. I am exhausted, but after having June, July, and most of August off, it will take a week or two to get back into the routine.

As I lay in the bed last night, ready t0 turn in for the night, I turned over and said to my wife, "Lets begin planning our vacation this year, after the first few days of teaching, Mexico, or back to the Caribbean where the grains of sand stick to your skin and every day you can taste the salt, sea, sun, and breeze and relax on the beach and read a good book in one sitting."

Don't get me wrong, I love my job, I love teaching children. I cannot see myself doing anything else. And when I was searching for work last spring, I was scared. I was scared and unsure of what kind of work that I would be doing this year. Fortunately, I was offered a job at a wonderful school in a great community, and fit into the school community quite well. The move to Colorado for Jill and I this summer was not nearly as stressful as it could have been if I had not had a job.

Part of what teachers look forward to, because they work hard for it, is the vacation time. Thus, discussing our next vacation with my wife, Jill, last night (the first week of school). The work that teachers put into the year, makes the holiday breaks, June, July, and August worth while. I look forward to the new curriculum, new projects, technology, staff, students, and all that Bear Creek has to offer this year. I just joined the Recycling Committee today! I am beginning a unit on Classroom Economy. It is exciting to be a part of molding students lives and it is gratifying to see the way that students look up to teachers. It is humbling when they grow and change and celebrate their successes and learn from their mistakes.

Listening to: The Skygreen Leopards album, Disciples of California

New Pearl Jam Album Promo Video

Pearl Jam - Backspacer Short

Vedder, April 2008

Live at UC Berkeley:

The Zellerbach

Eddie Vedder is the lead singer to the band Pearl Jam. Pearl Jam has been around since the early 90’s and they have grown significantly over the years and they have become a powerful quintet and they are beloved around the world. They established a dedicated strong fan base early in their career because of the energy that they put into their live shows. Each night they create a different set list from the night before and at each show, something surprising happens, Eddie will climb 35 feet up the scaffolding and atop the speakers and continue singing a song the band was jamming on for the previous 15 minutes, or Mike, the guitarist will rip into a Led Zeppelin instrumental cover and throw his guitar over the back of his head and solo for 5 min on that as a transition into the next part of the song, or any given night, they will invite a surprise guest onto stage, Ben Harper, Sean Penn, Neil Young, Jack Johnson,..the list goes on. In their musical career, they have released eight albums and they are working to release their ninth this year. Each album is arranged with two or three guitars, drums, vocals, ukulele, and bass. Some of these songs make you want to run around in circles in the mosh pit and slam dance and other songs are ballads and the vocals are soft and when listened to in a quiet room with head phones, a shivers may go through your body.

Last year Eddie came out with a solo album for Sean Penn’s film, Into The Wild. He created road songs, songs that fit the story and fit the life of Chris McCandless. Eddie’s process for writing this group of songs was very real. He wrote them with a variety of instruments including the uke, mandolin, guitar and banjo. Shortly after, he went on tour with these songs on the west coast and then the east coast there after. He played Santa Cruz and Berkeley where my friends and I saw him. Eddie came out on the stage with just a guitar and played some cover songs and told some stories. He strummed through the songs of James Taylor, The Beatles, Springsteen, and a Cat Steven cover from the film Harold and Maude, If You Want to Sing Out, he played on the banjo. After a set of cover songs, he played some songs from Into The Wild. Hearing them live, they sounded better than on the album because they had a raw sound to them, an organic sound, it was just Ed and the instruments that he brought with him and it went along well with the ideas and thoughts on life that these songs are about, Chris McCandless' life. After he performed the songs from Into The Wild, Ed came out with a vocal machine and said “this is, uhh, science”. He performed a song from Riot Act called Arc. In this song he loops his voice over and over again with different vocal structures and plays them over each other and by the time he completed the last loop, it sounds like an entire ensemble of vocalists.

It was a wonderful treat to see Eddie in this form, away from Pearl Jam, away from the large concert venues, away from the massive crowds. This intimate performance allowed Vedder to shine in his own artistic talent and gave him and the audience alike a chance to share and enjoy the masterpiece soundtrack of songs that he created.

Reorganize...

Since February of this year, I created a webpage that I attempted to use as a blog, post reviews of concerts and other media that I experienced. I have not been happy with the blog part of that webpage. I decided to go back to blogging on this webpage and I will use the other webpage as a place for videos and pictures. Here is the link:

http://web.me.com/tambrose3/Site/Live_Balanced.html

Noise Pop 2009

My good friend Daren and I have been long time fans of Josh Ritter. We have jammed on our guitars through half an hour versions of Me & Jiggs and Harrisburgh. We saw Josh first at the Independent in San Francisco in the early 2000’s. We found out about him through a complaition CD from Ireland called ‘Other Voices: Songs From A Room Volume 1’. On Other Voices, Josh Ritter has a live acoustic track called ‘Snow Is Gone’. The studio version is on his album called Hello Starling. It is a beautiful, catchy, and about love and the changing of the seasons.

Josh Ritter is one of the most talented singer-song writers today. His recent albums are thematic and they have many layers to them and they take time to digest after the first few listens. His lyrics are filled with many complex ideas that tend to reference historic concepts. Sample verse from ‘Thin Blue Flame’:

“I flew over Royal City last night,

Bullfighting the horns of a new moon’s light,

Caesar’s ghost I saw the war time tides,

The prince of Denmark’s father still quiet,

The whole world was looking to get drowned,

Trees were a fist shaking themselves at the clouds,

I looked over curtains and it was then I knew,

Only a full house would make it through.”

Last spring my wife Jill and I were a part of the lucky audience at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco to see him perform, for the first time, with a string quartet. The combination of the talented string quartet and Josh's powerful acoustic guitar strumming and picking made it an inspirational performance. The music ran through my fingers and up my arms and sent shivers down my spine. It sounded natural and earthy and organic like they should have been playing atop a mountain or on a river bank somewhere in the wild away from the loud city crowd; that is where they took the audience during the performance.

The video footage below is from you tube. Two songs called Girl In The War (with strings) and a song called Wolves, (not performed with the quartet). Highlights from the show were Girl In The War with the Strings, Kathleen with strings, and Thin Blue Flame. Josh played “I Ain’t Got No Home In This World Anymore” by Woody Guthrie without any plug-ins or mic’s while standing at the very edge of the stage singing at the top of his lungs to fill the room with Guthrie's powerful song about people and families who farmed, mined, and had to wander around the united states trying to find a job and place to call home,..all I can say to his rendition of this old folk tune is....wow.

It was a memorable show and if Josh comes to your town, go see him play.

New Web Page...

My new web page that I have finally figured out is now active. I created this using iweb in my Macbook. Here is the link for it and I hope that you enjoy it,..

I will post videos, pictures and updates of life in Colorado on that webpage.

http://web.me.com/tambrose3/Site/Live_Balanced.html

The World of Nick Adams,..

"It was not his country but it was the middle of fall and all of this country was good to drive through and to see. The cotton was picked and in the clearings there were patches of corn, some cut with streaks of red sorghum, and, driving easily, his son asleep on the seat by his side,.." - Heminway: Fathers And Sons

On Monday evening my fiancee, Jill, and I went to see a production called The World of Nick Adams; A series of Hemingway semi-autobiographical short stories put into a script by A.H. Hotchner. It was at the beautiful Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco. The production was a combination of many art forms including music from the San Francisco Symphony, literature, and stage acting. A.H. Hotchner created this script for on stage performance by combining many of the famous Nick Adams stories many years ago while Ernest Hemingway was still alive and with his approval, Hotchner successfully created the script.
The World of Nick Adams was on Broadway in New York in 2002 for another benefit and was extremely successful. It was in San Francisco on Monday night to benefit an organization that the late Paul Newman put together called The Painted Turtle, it is said to have raised 1 million dollars.
Gavin Newsom, the mayor of San Francisco introduced the show along with his wife. The actors that contributed parts to the acting and reading of the script were: Jack Nicholson (as Hemingway and the narrator), Tom Hanks, Bruce Willis (as the main character in one of my favorite stories the Battler), Sean Penn, Warren Beatty, Danny Glover, Annette Bening, Billy Crystal, Joaquin Phoenix Danny DeVito, and finally an acoustic song at the end performed by Bonnie Raitt.
It was not only fascinating to see this talented group of actors live on stage, but it was great to see how dedicated everybody was to Paul Newman and all the incredible things that he did in his life and the cause that this supported. At the end of the show, all of the young ones who attend the Painted Turtle Camp came on stage and lined up to give thanks to the crowd.
It was a magical performance and the combination of music, live reading and acting, and the timeless words of a Hemingway made it an unforgettable experience.

Listening to Neil Halstead

Long time comin'...

I have been away from blogging for a while because I have been discouraged about the amount of people that would actually read my blog. My good friend Daren updates his blog often and he told me that no matter who reads it, blogging is a wonderful outlet and a great place to go to when the urge to write strikes you. View his blog here.
I understand that and with technology, we can blog from just about anywhere in the world. I decided against blogging when I was on my recent trip to Peru. I wanted to enjoy the people, below is a photograph of myself on the left, Falvio (an 80 year old waiter who lit our cigs) and my good friend Adam who I traveled Peru with in August.

I wanted to also enjoy the surroundings and not have to worry about when I would be at the next internet cafe. The serenity of the mountains in Peru, and the the technology that the Incas used to create Machu Picchu is much more creative and inventive than My Space and blogs and facebook. Not that these new technologies and programs are not creative, but Machu Picchu impresses me more and I know that long after the human race is gone, Machu Picchu will live on and My Space will be gone.


We have so many outlets through technology and I have grown exhausted of digital connections. It is more real to talk to somebody, through the phone, but even on the phone, we are so disconnected. To be with somebody, to celebrate the day, to look down on our lives after a long hike to the top of a mountain, from where we can see the world pass by. Or to spend all day walking around ancient ruins or even here at home, being at an outdoor concert listening to Greg Brown and Taj Mahal while camping, really getting to know our friends, dancing, drinking, eating good food, swimming, this is what i enjoy. This is what I think of as spending time with the important people in our lives, not typing what we are doing now or what we want to be doing, as people do on facebook.

Don't vote,..no wait, vote!

Five Friends Vote (Uncensored) - Watch more free videos

3/20/03 - 3/20/08

NO MORE WAR,..it is hard for me to think differently these days, five years of this war has made me sick every day, all the damage we are doing and have done.
Innocent lives lost.
An irresponsible administration.
The above video and song is written by an artist I admire truly and greatly, Ed Vedder. He wrote this song for a guy named Thomas Young. There is a documentary that is coming out called Body of War and it is about him. He is one of many that are treated poor, under the policies for veterans by our current administration , upon returning home from war. He returned with major wounds and in a wheelchair.
NO MORE WAR!

Listening to She & Him

Momentum

The energy is flowing and building up, up, up and up. No one knows who will win the individual parties primary elections or in the presidential elections between the two parties in November 2008. I have been a strong supporter of liberal politics in the way of voting for the candidate that demonstrates they will help clear a path, a path of change. Nader 00’, Kucinich 04’, Kucinich 08’, oh wait; they would not let him debate or even run a competitive campaign. Obama 08’ is the next best, electable, candidate who will create change and he had and will have my vote.
The past eight years have been a living hell. The United States has separated itself from the rest of the world and our administration has cut off many ties to coexist in a global community. I am ashamed to call myself an American under this administration. How do I live in a country with an admin that is irresponsible in their actions? How do I live in a country that creates and supports endless war? And how do I live with G.W.B. as my president?
We have to change. We have to end this war. We have to open our conversation with other countries and react responsibly and peacefully in this universal, global community.
After living with war for this long, this election feels like all the momentum that Obama has built up and will explode like the bombs that George Bush ordered dropped on innocent villages and childen, men and woman, but different, Obama's bombs will be bombs of peace, they will be bombs of change, and they will be bombs of fresh air, a fresh breath of air. Obama continues to build up this energy, and with the positive change he will bring to our nation, and if he gets elected, I will be proud to call myself an American once again.

No matter how cold the winter....

Late January. Buried deep in work, buckets and pales and cans filled with print, type, hard cover books, soft cover books, and click click click of keyboard text typing. All of this and long nights spent going through material, extracting information from resources once unheard of and now understood. From seven a.m. through nine p.m. Monday through Thursday is beating me up like a street boxer beating a frozen raw meat carcass hanging on a hook at the local butcher downtown sometown. Only to sleep and wake to begin it again.

It is not that bad, just feels like that sometimes, but at the end of the day,..to truthfully describe what a full day feels like, I should reference a blue sky and a fine grain white sand beach sun tan, a cool ocean dive off the coast of Mexico, a couple cold coronas on ice and a bottle of rum, a winters snow and a hot coco, a long night sleep and a 6:30 wake up to coffee and toast and eggs and bacon and the paper and another cup of coffee, a brisk Minnesota morning walking with dog down the road into the winds of the farm land frozen over, Life is good and there is no boxer beating raw meat,..there is a spring time ahead.

Listening to The Frames - For The Birds

"I feel my wheels are turning,..I see the open road before us stretch"

Innocent When You Dream,..

Rough gravel,..
and a long journey through the desert,
without water.
Cigar smoke and scotch.
Chain smoke for five days straight without cough.
Corporate oil drilling spilled in the ocean by a drunken tanker.
God must be away on business.
A foreign accent speaks broken English.
Hot water in a cold, cold ground.
Apples crunching with white peaches.
Warm home and a broken window.
Soft sandy beach and a sun burn.
Long trail out to the wilderness and a grizzly growl.
A summer surf and a shark attack.
A duet with a tenor and Tom Waits.

Brewin',..

Brewing beer is something that my dear friend Daren and I have been experimenting with for the past year. We have made I.P.A., double I.P.A., pale ale, lemon ale, and most recently a Hoppy Red Ale.
Interestingly enough, brewing beer has been in my family for many generations. My great great grandfather was a brew master for Steam beer, which I believe is what we know now as Anchor Steam. My father has told me stories about tasting beer right from the vats at the brewery.

More recently, summer of 2003, driving West on highway 80, hills rolled on forever like waves that roll onto the coast. We were riding through Iowa, into Nebraska to visit Steve, my Dad's brother. My two Australian friends and I blasting the Chili Peppers, eating jerky, drinking red bull, smoking cigs...the reason for the road trip across this vast nation was to deliver a car from New York to Colorado for my old Boss.
We drove out of the rolling hills of Iowa into the flatlands of Nebraska. My uncle was extremely hospitable and my aunt and cousins welcomed us and it felt like we had just said goodbye last week, when it was really the previous year. We pulled the car into the drive way and walked up to the door, leaving the baggage in the boot. Stretching as we walked to the door, all the kinks of the road rolled out of our shoulders as we stepped into their home. After we settled in and had dinner, my uncle invited us downstairs. We went down into the basement and he offered us a beer that he had recently brewed. I do not remember much about the beer, but that it was a pale ale and it had a unique taste, a home grown, home brewed tatste. Maybe because he told me he brewed it, or maybe it is, as Greg Brown says about canned goods, "Ah, she's got magic in her - you know what I mean, she puts the sun and rain in with her canned green beans....'Cause these canned goods I buy at the store, ain't got the summer in them any more." Home Brew has a taste, a home made taste and this taste is not like anything your local grocery store sells, and trying this for the first time was a memorable experience.

Dave, my mothers brother, has brewed his fair share of beer, I believe since he was my age. He gave me a 5+gallon carboy to help me get started with my brewing. Two years ago he brewed a seasonal holiday beer to go with his annual Christmas party. It had hints of spices, nutmeg and cloves and a rich ale in the front. This year I am going to brew a winter beer for those cold California nights.

I know, I am brewing on a much smaller scale than my great great grandfather ever did, but I am carrying on the tradition and that is whats important to me.

Relax, have a homebrew.

Townes Van Zandt fills the room,..

Changes,..

I am a teacher. I have been for about a month and I love my job. I get to hang out with kids all day, it is tough and my head hurts at the end of the day and my body is exhausted, but it is a good hurt and a good exhaustion because teachers change lives and their lives are changed by students. But once I hit the trail on my bike ride home, I am rejuvenated and the positive energy is taken out of the exhaustion and hurt. What does it mean to have new change in life?
I have lived with my girlfriend since January, which has been wonderful and still is and I love her and she is an amazing partner in my life. We moved into a larger 2 bed room apartment in August from a smaller one bed room apartment. What does it mean to have new change in life?
Jill wanted to buy kittens, so 2 weeks ago she did. They are a positive influence to our living environment. They were new when we picked them up two weeks ago, but they have grown and now they are growing larger. Isabel and Sylvester arrived in my life a week to the day before my childhood cat died from cancer. She was seventeen years old and in pain so it was for the better. I pondered the irony of this over the past week, but new life comes and old life goes. What does it mean to have new change in life?
I am taking tomorrow off school to celebrate my uncle's wedding. He is a dear friend of mine and he is an important person in my life. We have traveled together, backpacked, camped, seen concerts, taken road trips and toasted many a drink. He is taking on a new exciting journey with Victoria. I am happy for them and they are wonderful together. Maybe one day we will figure out what all this newness means.
There is a beautiful world around us with opportunity to discover new ideas and new places and new people and cultures and music and friends and relationships. Opportunity to breathe a new breath each moment and to live a new day each day.
I remind myself that we only have one life. Only one life.
But what does it mean to have new change?

Ben Harper's new album lifeline is on the stereo.

every morning,..beatutiful

Crisp air,
muscles wake up.
mind, wind and body in tune,..
balance.
Eyes water and legs pump and petal.

Sun comin' up
crickets gone to sleep
sprinklers splitter,
make plants survive,
where in natural conditions,
they wouldn't.

The air is cool and feels good inside lungs.
The sky is ocean blue and the moon is faint.
The grass is freshly cut and the stars are still out.
Also, the sun rises and the daylight begins
but ends on the far side of the world.

Round and round the wheels
cut through the wind
and arrive at the destination
as a friend of the environment;
friendly, clean and no pollution.


Listening to David Francey

It's Far Away,..

"Everybody off of the train!" yelled the doorman with broken English and a big grin across his face.
"We have arrived."
I looked over at Josh, he had a puzzled look in his eyes.
"Tim," he whispered from the next row over. "Are we really here?"
"Yeah,..uh..I believe so." I told him, in thought that my confidence would make him certain that we were in the right city.
I could see the sky through the glass window of the train and beyond through the glass window of the station and it appeared to be a mix of Blue and Grey and the wind looked like it was blending them together. Clouds and clear and sun and faint moon.
"Josh" I whispered back with a hint of pressure in my voice.
"Grab your bag..." I paused and looked around the station once more to try and take in how real this was "...lets go."
Josh looked at me with frustration, he knew that I packed lighter than he did, and snapped; "Give me a second to get my pack on man, relax."
I began to walk away towards the entrance of the station, I knew I would find something there while he was getting ready.
As I walked down the row between the train and another empty track I listened to the sounds of pigeons above and the rats below.
Josh approached me and knocked me on the shoulder,
"Hey bro, let's go." He spoke in a mellow tone as he walked passed.
"Excellent." I smiled and looked back at the empty train and isle and beyond to the endless tracks where so many trains have arrived and departed.
We walked out of the station and paused as we looked up at the skyline of Shanghai...

Listening to Ali Farka Touré - In The Heart of The Moon

Marathon Training,..

Nobody ever told me that training for a marathon would be easy, but I did not expect it to be to this demanding. The running is not the difficult part, the lungs, legs and heart are fine while running. It is the recovery on legs after my longer distance runs; 10+ mile days that takes time. My longer runs occur on Saturdays, and it takes until about Tuesday for my legs to recover completely. The good thing is that Sundays are easy 2-3 miles and Mondays are cross training days, so I can swim or bike. I have a schedule that my brother, who is an avid runner and running the same marathon with me in October, gave me in June. Jill also gave me three different marathon strategy books for a Christmas gift that I still have yet to truly break in the spines of. Since June 25th, I have followed the schedule my brother gave me almost exactly. There was a three day period in July where a summer cold caught up with me and I stayed away from the schedule.

I am excited and nervous at the same time for this to happen because October is coming around the corner soon and come September, I will have an extremely busy schedule. As the weeks continue, the weekend runs will get longer and longer and I hope to be able to fit them in. I am confident that I will be just fine. My mind is prepared for this, come October, I hope that my body will be up for the challenge.

Listening to A Perfect Circle

Free The WM3!

Since 1994 three young men (at the time) have been behind bars for murders that they may not have committed. The West Memphis Three are Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley. I will sum up the story briefly and there are some great resources that will allow you to research in more depth.

A week after three eight-year-old boys were found dead in a creek in West Memphis, Arkansas, the police told the public that Damien, Jason and Jessie were the murderers. That they were defiantly responsible for these horrific crimes, with NO EVIDENCE!
Jessie Misskelley, who is mentally handicapped, was interviewed and questioned for a long period of time (12 it says on the web site) "without counsel or parental consent, audio-taping only two fragments totaling 46 minutes." The three of them were arrested on June 3, 1993 and convicted of murder in early 1994.
This is a quote from the website:
"Although there was no physical evidence, murder weapon, motive, or connection to the victims, the prosecution pathetically resorted to presenting black hair and clothing, heavy metal t-shirts, and Stephen King novels as proof that the boys were sacrificed in a satanic cult ritual. Unfathomably, Echols was sentenced to death, Baldwin received life without parole, and Misskelley got life plus 40."

It has now been 14 years and they are still in prison for these crimes that they did not commit. Damien waits in solitary confinement for lethal injection.

Within the past week, new evidence has come up linking NO DNA to these three men, however a hair has been found in a tangled in a knot used to tie up one of the murdered boys. This hair matches the DNA of the step father of one of the victims, I hope this is a step towards the WM3's new trial: Click here.

This is a tragic case and I take the stance that, since nobody knows for sure who committed this crime and the original trial was not a fair one, these three men deserve a new, fair trial.
Please view this website and look at the facts. Take a close look at what this means and what this is.

FREE THE WEST MEMPHIS THREE

Listening to Comes A Time - Neil Young.