The Ironwood

We had a nice show at the Ironwood last night :) It made for a warm start to the trip. Thank you to our friends that came out. You guys made the evening. And thank you to the Ironwood! The staff were wonderful, and the sound was great. Hopefully we'll have the opportunity to play there again. However, if so it will be at a new location. After years of building a solid reputation, the Ironwood is ready to move to a bigger facility with a rumored seating capacity of 250 (as opposed to the current capacity of 150). Given the name the Ironwood has built for itself, this can only mean new possibilities in drawing larger acts among the indie music scene. It's a strong private investment in the arts community for the city of Calgary, and something that I'm sure lots of people including myself are rather excited about. If you live in Calgary or happen to visit, I recommend stopping by the new location, which should be open within about a month. We'll be off to Lethbridge in the next couple days and then hopefully joining up with our friend Jessica who is currently fighting a cold. All our best to you Jess!

Happy New Year Everyone. We're looking forward to the days ahead.

With gratitude,

Tim

Gingerbread Houses

Hello internet. You black void that I have now turned into my write room. It really is a nice program this 'Write Room'. I enjoy writing without the distractions. However, it's also dangerous. Distractions, and the reality of where we are living are guidelines to our behavior. I have a white dotted line that runs on either side of my car when I am in motion. This stops me from hurting people. There are people that share our cafeterias, gyms, and restaurants. These people stop us all from yelling strangely like animals, muttering oddly, and eating rudely. And then there are icons on my desktop and on facebook that remind me not to write inappropriately. But the Write Room takes those distractions away. As though the world lay behind a curtain. Talking about it though, analyzing it - well I suppose that sort of ruins the mystery. It reminds me that this Internet was made for you and me. Otherwise, I'd just keep all these words taped up in a black void and just say, "Merry Christmas Void." Cousin Void. The void you talk to a few times a year. I need a better relationship with my void then that.

There are boxes mounting my walls, and lonely desolate cans of soup that lay idly in the cupboard. The cold billows through a still air in my living room, and the lamps are serving a utility rather than a comfort. I am moving. We are moving. We are packing our things and saying goodbye to things for quite a while. We are playing guitars and singing. We are writing. We are driving a lot. Let me repeat: we are driving A LOT. I will enter the realms of Vancouver three times by automobile in the next month. This will be made possible by a key replacement that I intend to conduct tomorrow. A very cold Edmonton was responsible for my trunk freezing shut this evening. And a frozen trunk was responsible for me accidently bending the key in the lock. I alone though am responsible for intentionally bending the key back into its original shape so that I might leave the shopping centre this Christmas season and drive myself back home. And so, I am alone responsible for the crack in the steel of my key. This is not a tragedy. These are small potatoes in the grand scheme of things. But the key to a car, that small piece of metal, certainly does hold the fate to the plans of one's holiday season. As such, I'm going to insert my cracked key into my ignition tomorrow, and drive somewhere in the hope that I don't arrive with one half of my key in my hand, and the other half of my key in the ignition of the car. And then, I will copy the key. I will copy the key so that I can proceed in driving to Vancouver. So that I can visit family and friends this holiday season. I will copy the key so that I can still look forward to playing lots of songs to people this upcoming January, and drive me and my wife to an airplane that will fly us somewhere rainy and new this upcoming February.

In cleaning a pantry I've discovered foods that I forgot about. This same experience can on occasion manifest itself in relation to the fridge or the dresser. All three storage compartments typically prompt a different reaction from me though. I will almost never consider a second greeting with a long-forgotten friend that makes a re-appearance in the refrigerator. Conversely, to find long-forgotten friends in the dresser is usually a delight, particularly in the seasonal sense. There is nothing better than a wave of warm weather coupled with the finding of a favorite pair of shorts & flip-flops. The pantry on the other hand offers a re-acquaintance with long-forgotten friends that are questionable at best. Does dry pasta go bad? You'd think not, but it might have a funny smell. How about hard candy? Yeah, that's a strange case too. For those items that can be given to the food bank this time of year in the middle of moving - canned goods - I say, spectacular. I never feel good about throwing certain things out. But other things beg the question, "Would giving this away be a charitable act, or just make me a bad person?" At some level, such a question becomes a question of science before any moral law.

My friend Jesse and I built a gingerbread house this holiday season. It was by no means a modest attempt. We spent probably close to 40 minutes staring down the bulk candy aisle. We spent our time planning to melt down hard candy for the formation of windows. We planned complex roofing structures. And we wrestled with the decision of whether or not to attempt the replication of existing structures, or build something more inspired by our own creativity. But, as our present gingerbread house would present itself, we should have spent more time considering recipes for good quality gingerbread, and cemented icing before any other lofty idea. What began as an attempt to build a multi-layered structure resulted in us finishing with a four-sided home, and undecorated to boot. There is a reason why older people typically build gingerbread houses, or at least act as the ringleaders in its construction. It is the same reason that you can buy gingerbread house kits: it's Really hard to make gingerbread homes. That's why we don't live in them. 90% of them would probably fall apart. Only witches that eat children are successful enough to be long-term homeowners in the gingerbread market.

An aside: I went looking to read Hansel & Gretel online, but the first story I came across was riddled with references to televisions and chinese food. . I'm curious how fairytales might look ten years from now when we read about the Three Bears and their meal of Muslix.

Goodnight Internet. I will write to you again soon.

First Encounter with a Labradoodle

Spaceships, Trains & Pants

I had a chance to visit Victoria this week while we were away for the trip... It feels really good to breathe there. There are leaves big enough to wear as hats. One morning I took a walk to campus. There was a thick fog covering the park as I walked through, and I was met by a baby deer with antlers. The fog - an exaggeration? No. That actually happened. Wizards? No. But it would have been cool. In retrospect, I think animals with antlers are likely something I would normally avoid. However, this one caught me by surprise. For all baby deer with antlers reading this post, I give you a warm invitation to visit me anytime you like. Bonus points if you catch me off guard.

Another thing I like about Victoria: everyone says, 'Thank you', when getting off the bus. I realize the possibility that this may be customary for lots and lots of people. However, I've sat on many buses where people do not say thank you upon their departure. To see people saying thank you stop after stop in Victoria... did it get old? Nope. If only the subway and light-rail-transit systems gave us the ability to thank the train operators. There is often a door in the way prohibiting our gratitude. In fact, I usually don't know what the train operator even looks like. I never seem 'em. While using the new train system in Vancouver recently, I was made aware of the fact that there wasn't a train operator driving the car at all - driving the car that I was moving in. After being made aware of this fact, my first thought was: this kind of set up seems like a bad idea all around. Like the bad sci-fi movie where thousands of people jump at the chance to trust the computers because the computers can do what humans can't. And then NASA launches the first spaceship ever to be boarded by the common public, and without a pilot to boot because hey, we can mount cameras in the side of the spaceships head - far superior to any man's peripheral vision. And then after the spaceship crashes and lots of people perish, Ed Harris smacks himself in the head for not having hired Admiral Ackbar who's peripheral vision is well complimented by an acute awareness for traps and mishaps. But then my second thought was: hey there's a fully certified professional sitting somewhere in an office nearby watching a dozen monitors for intruders of the rail. And he's got laser beams firing in all directions just in case damsels and other children fall on the tracks in distress. Not bad lasers. But the good ones that alert you when something is interfering. And that's when I got off the train.

I got off the train to beautiful soaking wet Vancouver. Sarcasm? No. I really do like Vancouver. And I really do like the rain soaking wet. I like it as much as I like rambling in a blog that I need to visit more frequently - particularly early in the morning. But Vancouver provided me with an insight: for those who tend to buy their pants ever-too long, you're probably going to be pant-less sooner than the next individual that happens to be more picky in his or her sizing. I'm referring to the classic pant on heel drag: when the back of the pant leg creeps up underneath the heel of your shoe and then gets tattered and tattered until it blows right through the hem and into an array of torn denim that goes, "Hey, I've had these pants a little bit too long". I do not know for sure whether or not this is more problematic in damp weather. I am neither a scientist, nor a pant doctor. However, all I can think of is that moment when upon taking off your shoes in a friend's house, you go to walk across the carpet and the wet cuff of your pants that once lay under your shoe moves forward to a position under the heel of your sock. And now, not only are you well on your way to having a blown out array of denim, but you are now a person with wet socks. And, you are likely tracking mud through your friend's house. My mom always told me not to track mud through the house of a friend. That's not true. But you shouldn't.

Kelowna has been very nice. We played to a new restaurant known as 'The Greenroom'. On our second night in Kelowna we played at the Minstrel. Thank you to all those who came out to support our music on the recent 'Sarah Cole CD Release' mini-tour. It was a really nice opportunity to meet some new people and see some good friends too. As of now I am looking forward to coming back home. Thank your transit operator, and if possible, choose to wear pants that fit properly. Abruptly, and sincerely, t.

Giant Pumpkin Questions

I have all kinds of questions upon seeing this photo:

1. How much does a pumpkin like this cost?

2. How does one safely pick up a pumpkin of this size WITHOUT the severe risk of: (a) killing someone; (b) puncturing the pumpkin; or (c) killing the pumpkin?

3. Is it big enough I could hide in it and surprise children?

4. Or is it ONLY big enough that a child could hide in it and surprise me?

5. If I rolled this pumpkin down the hill in Okotoks (a.k.a.) Centre Ave., what kind of cars would be in real trouble?

6. Can one insure a pumpkin of this size?

7. How many seeds will it provide?

8. How many pies?!

9. What does the hollowed out inside of the pumpkin sound like?

10. How big a knife would one need to carve the pumpkin?

If you have any trouble seeing the pumpkin visit the link below. #28.

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/10/autumn_scenes.html

Giant Pumpkin

Big Rock Candy Mountain