Nothing’severgonnastandinmyway(again)

“I’d tell you the name of this next song, but if you don’t figure it out by the end of the song, you’re too stupid to talk to“.

That’s how Jeff Tweedy introduced the song that just happens to be the title of this blog. But that’s for later in this blog. First things first.

But before that, here’s another music entry. If it doesn’t interest you, then there’s nothing to see here. I’ll be back to regular training/racing entries soon enough, since this was the last concert for a little while.

Sunday night saw us driving to Nashville for our third concert in six days. In case you missed the others, it was Linkin Park on Tuesday and Kid Rock on Friday. Sunday’s concert was decidedly mellower since it was Wilco playing at the gorgeous Ryman Auditorium.

Sunday was another warm day, so after doing homework and turning in my exams, I was able to get a quick 12-mile MTB ride through the nearby park, checking out some trails and looking at the seams in the creek, anticipating them stocking it with trout in a couple of weeks. Time to get some new tippets and flies ready. Whoo hoo! A quick shower and a bite on the go and we were on our way to Nashville. We’ve been down there so much lately that Goddess and I discussed living there, if only gas wasn’t getting so expensive.

Anyway, after getting our tickets and poking around the Ryman, we made our way to the t-shirt tables. Looking to see what they had, I almost let out a yelp. I knew that Wilco was having a warm-up act, but I had no idea who. But up there on the wall were John Doe t-shirts. For those of you not aware of John Doe, follow the link and read how he was the guitarist and vocalist for THE seminal LA punk band X. For me, that makes connections to two great acts from my youth in one week. John played a mix of his solo stuff as well as a few songs from X, appropriately slowed down for the crowd. He was amazed that he was playing in the Ryman, an old church, mentioning that he would have to call Exene and gloat that he got to play “White Girl” at the Ryman.

After a short break, Wilco took the stage, fresh from their SNL appearance the night before. As soon as they took the stage, everyone stood up, which is understandable. But everyone remained standing the entire time. The Ryman’s way too small for that and Goddess and the Son had a difficult time seeing the show. Especially since the dude in the front of us was at least 8 feet tall (give or take a foot). It didn’t help that the folks way up front were standing, which didn’t make sense, since they couldn’t leave their seats and they had to crane their necks to see up on the stage anyway. I suspect it would’ve been more comfortable sitting. Anyway, since they stood, everyone behind had too as well, making it not nearly as enjoyable as it should have been.

Kluso, here’s the setlist:

1. Via Chicago
2. Blood Of The Lamb
3. Pieholden Suite
4. California Stars
5. Company In My Back
6. You Are My Face
7. Side With The Seeds
8. Pot Kettle Black
9. A Shot In The Arm
10. She’s A Jar
11. Handshake Drugs
12. Impossible Germany
13. It’s Just That Simple
14. Pick Up The Change
15. Too Far Apart
16. Nothing’severgonnastandinmyway(again)
17. Jesus, Etc.
18. Hate It Here
19. Walken
20. I’m The Man Who Loves You

Encore 1:
21. Someone Else’s Song (Jeff Solo w/o PA)
22. Misunderstood
23. The Thanks I Get
24. Red-Eyed And Blue
25. I Got You (At The End Of The Century)
26. Monday

Encore 2:
27. The Late Greats

While you’re at it, take a browse over at Kluso’s site. He’s an excellent musician, living in Okinawa and playing the local club circuit. You can buy some of his music on his site. And if you poke around the photo page, you might find one or two shots from yours truly. Kluso is the one who introduced Goddess and I to Wilco as he covered several of his songs while playing bars and other venues in and around Tokyo. We were his groupies for quite a while, tagging along and following him to some very interesting bars. Thank you so much, Kluso!

Also, if you look through his site, you’ll notice other artists. Kluso was very instrumental in introducing local Tokyo bands to the western expatriate community. Hands down, one of the best was Megababe, a trio of hot Japanese babes that would rock your (bleep) off while playing the hardest metal and punk they could find. Truly a hot show! BTW, one of my photos of them is in there as well.

Anyway, time for Bill to swing way back from his tangent. But in case you haven’t noticed, I’m a bright shiny object kind of guy. But I refuse Ritalin since I enjoy every second of the ADD.

The Wilco set was excellent. As you can surmise from the setlist, they played quite a while. Over two hours and it was quite a good show (other than the standing). If they swing by your area, I definitely recommend giving them a couple hours of your time.

From now on, less entertainment-themed posts…

The Pot and the Kettle

Well, I got called out for calling the kettle black. Luckily mother nature delivered today and helped provide a bit of motivation.

This photo has been in my head for quite a few months. I’ve always seen it just as it’s presented to you (yes, I always saw it in black and white) every time I cross this bridge on my long runs. I just needed a bit of snow to fall. We’ve had snow several times over the past few months, but nothing significant and certainly not enough accumulation to make this photo.

Had mother nature not cooperated, I would have dug back into the vaults a bit to answer the Kettle’s call. Not too far back, since I shot this a few weeks ago. But with work, school and myriad other things that make up this thing called life, I have yet to post any in my gallery.

These are the pews in the historic Ryman Theater in Nashville, TN. Home to the Grand Ol’ Opry for many, many years, it has since be refurbished and concerts are held their often. During the winter, they move the Opry taping over from the new house and record it here. Lots of history in these seats and on that stage. And it happens to be one of my favorite places to see a show, since it’s small and the acoustics are amazing.

The problem with the size is that seats sell out within minutes for big shows. For this upcoming Sunday’s WILCO concert, I was on the computer right when the tickets went on sale. I had our seats within three minutes and could only get the back row; the entire place was sold out in under five minutes. Shows like BB King sell out even faster.

While you’re at it, take a browse over at the Kettle’s gallery. The photos are both hers and her husbands. Amazing folks the two of them are. And if you look at this year’s gallery, you’ll see photos of her trouncing the competition in her cyclocross series.

On a final note, there’s one thing I can’t stress enough. When you’re viewing anyone’s photo gallery, you really need to be using Safari as your browser. I won’t get into the technical details, but Safari (both Windows and Mac) is the only browser that will display the colors that the photographer intended for you to see. The other browsers default to a standard colorspace, which I know typically washes out my photos and makes them quite drab. For example, the pews shot above looks significantly different in my Firefox versus Safari. Safari matches how I processed the image in Photoshop and that’s how I hope you’ll look at it.

Wreaths Across America 2007

Quite a miserable day here. 34F and pissin’ down rain. Throw in a stiff breeze and it was a great day to stay inside.

Instead, I spent a bit of time down at the local veteran’s cemetery to take part in/shoot an event called Wreaths Across America. No matter how miserable the weather, I try to keep it in perspective by realizing that the fine men and women that we are remembering would prefer to be in the weather than where they are now.

Click on the picture and it’ll take you to my gallery of shots from today’s ceremony.

Rushing

…headlong into all of my projects.

I’m slowly transitioning back to my normal schedule. After working two weeks of 13-hour night shifts, it’s been slow getting back to a normal schedule. Usually it takes me a day and then I’m right back at it. Two days later and I’m still wide awake at 2:30 am.

I sat back with my feet up on the desk, watching Ironman Live last night. I drifted off hearing about Macca’s run. Goddess finally shooed me off to bed and he still hadn’t finished. That should give you an idea of how early I fell asleep. I had hoped to see Sam McGlone’s finish, mainly to see how well she did in her very first Ironman (2nd!), but instead waited until this morning to read the recap.

The beauty of being wide awake this morning was being able to really flesh out my new photography site. A bit of patience to find old shots, realizing that my photo archiving over the past few years, while complete, was scattered all over the house and computer. A few of the shots were real fun to revisit and rework, especially the early ones. It’s amazing how a couple of years of learning the intricacies of Photoshop can turn something that I spent days working on years ago into a 5-minute project now.

Another advantage of being up this morning was being able to run my Massage Stick over my sore legs. After a couple of weeks of non-focused activity, I’ve ramped up my running to get ready for the Flying Monkeys next month. First off I was amazed at how tight my hamstrings got during those two weeks. I’ve been stretching and thinking I’ve worked them out, but at mile 9 into my 11-mile run yesterday, they really tightened up. So yesterday and today I’ve been hobbling like an old man if I sit for too long.

Late yesterday, Goddess and I went out for an easy spin on the bike. Part of the beauty of non-focused training has been the chance to explore the surrounding area, which is still new to us after moving into this house just two months ago. I found a wilderness area not 1/2 mile from the house, with plenty of paved and unpaved trails weaving everywhere. Matter of fact, I was able to run the majority of my 11 miles yesterday within the confines of the area and not have to backtrack much at all. There’s definitely more to explore.

So Goddess and I spun easily through the woods, enjoying the turkeys and other wildlife. We even took a “shortcut”, which meant that we had to carry our bikes up a steep ravine to get to where we needed to be. Goddess came out of that with a few cuts and a bit of blood. And she was smiling the whole way!

Looking forward to the next few weeks. Training continues to ramp up, a trip out to see the fall colors at Great Smoky Mountains National Park and then a half marathon. We’ll see how it all works out.

Hope all is well with you.

New Directions

Well, recovery is done.  It’s time to start focusing on dodging the flying monkeys on November 18th.

And that race gets me to wondering about my sanity.  Why can’t I pick a relatively flat course for my first time at any distance?  Especially since I’m not light, bordering on Clydesdale at times.  I’m not what you would consider a climber.

But that’s part of the challenge, right? 

The last couple of weeks since my DNF have been interesting.

- Juggling three college courses.  For some reason I decided that I could handle three at once, since IM training was done.  All three are keeping me quite busy.

- Last weekend saw by brother-in-law and his family visit.  We had a wonderful time with them, although the time was short.  The photos I posted last week were from a trip we took with them.

- Working on my new photography web page.  I had sold a fair bit of my photos online over the past couple of years, but I’m no longer comfortable with the company that I was using.  So I’ve switched companies and am starting the web page development.  It’s a work in progress, but if you’d like to browse over and have a look, please do.  It’s billanders.smugmug.com.  I’ve got quite a few more photos to upload as well as working the layout.  And if you see any that strike your fancy, there’s a purchase option, if you’d like.

- Last week and this have my schedule flip-flopped, covering 12-14 hour night shifts, so I’ve been sleeping the day away and missing the beautiful weather.  At least I’ll be done Friday morning, right before my two long runs this weekend.  Then my work schedule is back to normal.

So what does this mean?  Six weeks of focused running, with a swim and bike thrown in each week to keep the muscle memory alive.  Lots of stretching, lots of miles, but quite a decrease in weekly hours compared to IM training.  So it is a break.  Of sorts.

Hope all is well with each of you!

Autumn

My favorite season, anywhere in the world.

Cool and dry, it makes for wonderful runs and rides.

But it makes me also dig out my camera, since the crisp dry air really comes out blue, especially with some judicious polarization.

We’ve got family in town this weekend, so we took the kids out to a pumpkin patch. Here are a few scenes from around the patch:

<update>Click on each of the pictures, which will take you to a gallery of similar images.</update>

Yep, that’s a bicycle up there. Probably not tri-worthy, but a ride just the same.

Hopefully you’re getting out and enjoying the season.

HOW100

As you may or may not know, September is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

So why’s it in my blog, you might ask? It’s a topic that’s near and dear to my heart.

Some good people around this here blogosphere are doing some good things to raise awareness. One that comes to mind immediately is Brian, aka Triboomer, who will be carrying 500+ names of our friends and family that have been touched by cancer, during his quest to finish IMMoo this coming Sunday.

Another that comes to mind is my very own Goddess, who will try to complete her very first 29 mile ride this Saturday at the Hope on Wheels 100 (HOW100). She’s sat by, supporting me in my quest to complete my first IM-distance race. This one’s for her.

If you’d like to support her, you can through the HOW100 web site. If you click on this sponsor page, select the pull-down menu and select Jennifer Anders. We’ve found that the page is not Firefox-friendly, so you’ll have to use IE.

Alternatively, if you’d like to provide the great support that you all do through this page, just leave a comment at the bottom of this entry. She reads them all.

And what will I be doing? Of course, I will be there to support and cheer on my Goddess. It’s the least I can do for the one who has given me nothing but unwavering support. But I’ll also be working. I’ve signed on as the event photographer, so I can combine several loves in one event. What a deal!

I hope all is well with each of you.

Tagged

Although you can’t see it, I’m shaking my fist at Brad, who tagged me with his questions. What’s really interesting is seeing the similarities between his answers and what some of mine will be.

Jobs I’ve held-

• Paperboy (2x)
• US Air Force (past 20+ years) as a “professional liar”. The real job is weather forecasting, but you all wouldn’t believe me, since you wouldn’t believe my forecasts.

Movies I Can Watch Over & Over-

• Bicentennial Man. Excellent story of life, love and optimism.
• Koyaanisqatsi. I first saw it at PBS soon after it was released back in 1982. The music and imagery floored me. Just this past year I finally got to see Philip Glass perform live, which was amazing.
• Memoirs of a Geisha. I love the story, but really love the scenes, since I’ve been lucky enough to have visit many of them.
• Blazing Saddles. Actually, anything Mel Brooks has done. I love the double entendre’s and wry twists on words. Madenline Kahn was pure genius as Lili Von Shtupp, the Teutonic Temptress.

I will have to tip my hat to Brad’s choice of Repo Man. What a great movie for the time, with the soundtrack of my youth. That and Suburbia.

My Guilty Pleasures-

I’m not guilty. Not one bit. They are my pleasures and I apologize to no one.

• My lovely bride.
• Beer. The darker the better.
• Chocolate. Just like beer, the darker the better. Gimme a block of baker’s chocolate and a cup of coffee and I’m in heaven.
• Bourbon. Which explains why I’m a Maker’s Mark Ambassador.
• A good cigar. Especially with a good bourbon. They complement each other so well.
• Books. I continue to buy them and am currently reading about seven, although I don’t have time to read. I have no idea how many I have in shelves and piles that I haven’t read yet.
• Karaoke. Not the bastardized American version, but the real Japanese version. Forget standing up on stage and being the center of attention, because that’s not what it’s about. Instead, you’re packed into a small bar with 20 of your closest friends, passing the microphone around, drinking, singing and having a great time. Some of my repertoire: Marilyn Manson’s “The Beautiful People”, Green Day’s “Basket Case”, CCR’s “Bad Moon Rising”, John Denver’s “Country Roads”, etc.

Places I Have Lived-

• S. Bay, San Fransisco
• Norfolk, VA
• Reno, NV
• Yokohama, Japan
• Ridgecrest, CA
• Coronado, CA
• Chula Vista, CA
• Marysville, CA
• Okinawa, Japan
• Mountain Home, ID
• Oklahoma City, OK
• Exmouth, Northwest Cape, Western Australia
• Fort Walton Beach, FL
• Tokyo, Japan
• Clarksville, TN

Shows I Enjoy-

• Scrubs
• House
• Soundstage
• Austin City Limits
• CBS Sunday Morning. Damn I miss Charles Kuralt; that man lived his life.

Places I have Been on Vacation-

• Venice, Italy
• Hamburg, Germany
• Oahu, Hawaii
• Perth, Western Australia
• Sydney, Australia
• Kyoto, Japan
• Sapporo, Japan

Favorite Foods-

• Japanese
• Mexican
• Italian
• Greek
• Whatever doesn’t get to me first. My Aussie friends thought I was nuts because I carried a tube of wasabi in the glove compartment of my ute (pickup). Whenever we’d go fishing, I’d eat the mackerel as we cleaned them. Octopus too, although I gained a respect for occy’s and refused to hunt them any more.

Websites I visit Daily-

• My my.yahoo page. News, cartoons, stories and e-mail.
• My DeviantArt page. Just to see what sorts of comments I’m still getting on my photography, although I’m nowhere near as active as I was a couple of years ago.
• My Google Reader page, which is a repository for all of my blog feeds.
• And the myriad pages I need for work.

Body Parts I have injured-

• My tongue. As a teenager, while surfing, I hit a bit of chop and it knocked the nose of my board up, hitting me in the chin. I then bit the corner of my tongue almost clean off; it was hanging by a thread. I should’ve got stitches, but that would have meant visiting the doctor, but I wouldn’t have any of that. It eventually healed.
• My ankle. Rolled it so hard going off a diving board that the grip tape on the board scraped the top of my foot off. Again, should’ve gone to the doctor, but wasn’t having any of that. It eventually healed.
• I’ve never broken a bone or got stitches due to an accident (knockin’ on serious wood here). My total stitch count is still under 10, and those were all for elective procedures.

Awards You’ve Won-

• A few job-related ones (yeah, I’m cheating here).

Nicknames you’ve been called-

• Bill
• Billy-jo-bob-bob-a-looie (by a good Aussie friend).
• And I’m sure quite a few R-rated ones.

Pick 4 Other Bloggers…

A tough one. There are quite a few that I’d like to know more about, but know that folks like their privacy. So…

• Molly
• Karl
• Brent
• Jenny

Well, that’s about it. Off to bed early tonight. Tomorrow’s my race simulation brick, which means 112 miles on the bike followed by a run of unknown distance. The run ends when I hit 8 hours total time, so it could be anywhere from 4 miles to 10 miles. The beauty is that I get to drive out to the location for my September IM-distance race, so I’ll get a good feel for the ride and run courses.

My Photography

One nice thing about taking the week off after a race is being able to catch up on other things. Lots of beer and lots of work on the truck.

One addition to these here parts is a new page with a few of my favorite photographs that I’ve taken over the years. At the moment, it’s mostly photos from the years that we lived in Japan. But I’ll add some from time to time, as long as they become a favorite photo of mine.

To have a look, please browse here or click on the tab at the top of the page.

Thanks for reading.