Journal

0416230022 Oblique Strategy: Be Dirty On the road again. In a few hours I am leaving on a roadtrip to somewhere. Heading west. I'm psyched, excited, and damn ready to go. The car is packed. I going to get some sleep and and and....

0111231349 Oblique Strategy: Question the heroic approach. Getting my 2023 goals set in stone, working on proper eating, and have gotten off all Apple OS devices for the time being except the phone, and my ipad air for drawing. Just getting my ftp ready and planning on doing a rework of the website to be simple, clean, and maybe make it to the first page of google search results. Giddy up, don't take the heroic approach, just get shit done.

1213221540 Oblique Strategy: Fill every beat with something. Christmas is in full swing. Joyce has a mile long list of things she wants and Amazon is at her command. Been getting very organized the last few weeks. Started to create lists of objectives and things that I want to accomplish. Just as in the early part of my work career. Damn if it doesnt work and it feels good to get things accomplished.

1110221718 Oblique Strategy:You are an Engineer So many weeks without updating my journal. I do tend to do that. Life has been very productive. I have upped my game on the MPC Live and pretty much been able to get it 80% mastered at this point. I have dozens and dozens of good beats, yet I do not know if they are good or not at this point. But, my desire to control drums, piano, and strings using the MPC has been attained. I am consistently moving from one things to the next all day. Attention deficit, but ehhh who cares. Jesse was home for about a week during Halloween and it was great to spend time with him. He will be back a Christmas. I have been working on a screenplay and a new web page to be announced someday. My art is in an accumulation period so I will see if I can get anything "finished"....don't see that happening before end of the year, but I sense I will explode with finished things in 2023. Finances and crypto have crashed for now. I am walking quite a bit and feel healthy and strong. I am happy even thought the days seem to race by. It's a Thursday night in St. Paul, probably last day before the cold of winter sets in. I am trying to convert my acoustic songs into beat driven lofi. Joyce and Barbie are heading out the IKEA, to shop and hopefully eat some Swedish meatballs. Max is in the living room just waiting for me to get him a slice of bread, so of course, I bunch together a half a slice, and toss it out into the backyard and make him find his food. On other news, I played a halloween party with my friend Lisa D with some of her sisters friends who also live in St. Paul. I was a bit agonizing since I have problems playing covers but it went ok. We sang songs by the GoGos, Nirvana, Pretenders, Joplin, and the favorite The Monster Mash. Christine and Jill are good musicians so it was fun overall. Just got some inspiration from the new Pixies album. It doesnt have the extremes of the early Pixies, but it still good.

0428222318 Oblique Strategy:Trust in the you of now. Listening to the Sleaford Mod. I saw them today on the Tim Heidecker how. They are too cool for school. What a great band. They are coming to Portland next week, I am not sure I can convince Jesse to go see them. Just put Sweetpea to bed, such a great kid, so smart. Kicks my ass in Wordle. Go to in my mind to Spur. It was a fun week visiting with Dave. I left on Saturday around 10am.....Ended up driving to the north side of Kansas City, before hitting heavy rain and a storm and decided to stop. All of the motels were sold out and I seriously needed a shower. I ended up sleeping in the car till 6:30am and then started the final 6 hours home. Hugs all around when I got home, I took a hot hot shower and chilled out for the day. My last fours days have been getting back to home life, and back into old routines. I don't feel like I accomplished that much. So, as far as todays Oblique Strategy is concerned trusting the in the you of now....the you of me now is relatively happy, so I will go with that. I didn't eat that good today and so as I write this tonight I don't feel that good. My tinnitus is off the charts, cutting through even the Mods on my turntable. I did get a chance to finish a small book that won the Pulitzer Prize: Tomas Transtrumer "Memories look at me".

0422221622 Friday Late Afternoon, Spur TX. Oblique Strategy:Do the washing up. That OS made me think that its time to leave Spur. I am a bit of a dusty dirty mess in need of a shower and a good tooth cleaning. But, fortunately I am in the middle of watching the movie Slacker...a classic from many perspectives. I love the flow of the storyline. Let discuss the path of my time for the last two days...in chronological order a day or two later. Late Wednesday afternoon we went to Dickens to have dinner at PJs. I had jalapeno sausage and noodle salad. Beautiful night in Texas, but pretty warm. Thursday got up, made my donut shop run for a ham and cheese croissant, and struggled to get much done throughout the day. I played my guitar quite a bit, talked with Jim Erickson who is heading to Florida next week, and told me to watch the Timberwolves basketball where they are in the playoffs. Wolves got blown out last night so not a ton of fun. We did go to Lubbock on Thursday. Dave decided he wanted to buy a couch with recliners. We picked it up from a young couple who were downsizing, and then stopped at a sushi restaurant in Lubbock near the Texas Tech campus. The ride back from Lubbock was super hot with no AC in Dave's truck, but we did get to talk with Pat Christy an old business associate and all around good guy. He was going in today for an angiogram, we heard the news a few minutes ago that things went ok and he is home with three stints.

0420221205Wednesday Noon. Oblique Strategy:Are there sections? Consider transitions Dave went thru a big transition today. He got his first social security check. He was dancing in the courtyard and felt great that he now had a budget to work with and live off of. His monthly nut is about $1200 living in Spur. He eats great and loves the solitude. Just ran into a friend of Dave's name Carla. She does odd jobs and clean up for cash. Very nice very texan. Got up this morning and headed to the donut shop got a breakfast sandwich and some donuts. Worked on Sequence 2 of the Spur-Bullant song which is really going for feel that I am looking for. They played guitar a bit to a old song idea Not a Care in the World, and spent some time doing my scales and trying to play A Day in the Life by Beatles. Love that song. Today it is going to get in the high 90s here in Spur. Last night I was able to get outside in about 70 degree weather and overcast, quite beautiful. It will be interesting to see how I deal with the 90s.

0419220934 Tuesday Morning, Spur Texas Oblique Strategy: Is it finished? Tuesday morning in Spur. Dave is sitting in a quarterly business meeting for a few hours. I started the day early with Alexa playing some music without prompting which was a weird way to wake up early...but maybe I will be lucky and reset my clock to earlier in the day. The drive to Spur was a bit grueling but as expected, but I made it 560 miles to a TA truckstop in Emporia Kansas. I just slept in the back of the Prius on a baby mattress, thus I slept like a baby, if that baby was cold and couldn't stretch his legs. Sunday was an early start with the truckers and I made to Elgin TX where I took a break for an hour or so. I ended up at the local high school parking lot and pulled out my guitar and sang some songs in the warm sunshine. This school was amazing, Texans sure know how invest in education. The sport field was like a small college field, with a field house full of high end exercise equipment. They had an art performane center, classrooms with windows, and everything was first class. Finally made it to Dickens after a nice talk with Jesse and picked up some grub at PJ BBQ. Monday was a restful day. I spent time with Dave at breakfast and then read a short story by James Joyce (A Little Cloud) I have tried his other novels but my mind cannot comprehend them just yet....but this short story did make me realize what a great writer Joyce is. Later in the afternoon I went up to a hill by the Spur school, and created the song Spur-Hill on the sampler. It reminds me alot of Bullant, but still hasnt quite turned into anything yet. On the other hand the song I did late morning called Spur-Morning is a keeper and I am psyched to get that posted in a couple of weeks, other instruments at home that I want to add to it. I am in a good state of clearing my mind and staying way from YouTube, I do miss Barbie and Pea. Today I am going to read some more, work on music, think about how great my life is, contemplate a future full of health and happiness, and go for a walk. Although it is cool (60s) in Spur today and rainy....tomorrow it hits 90s. So, back to the Oblique Strategy for they day: "Is it finished"...make me think about trying to determine when a song is finished. I love my songs so fast, they hate them a few months later. I sense that has to do with the song still needs work.

0414221606 Thursday Afternoon. OS: Balance the consistency principle with the inconsistency principle I was suppose to be on my way to Spur TX this afternoon. But delayed it till Saturday. Dave is going to head back with me on the 26th. Worked all day on the website optimization. Images are a real problem and the minute I get in there I screw the pooch some other way. Listening to Bleached album. It ok but I don't think most of their songs will stick with me long term. I need a serious rock and roll song about now. Weather is still shit in Minneapolis. High winds..ah...but did you really come here to talk about the weather. So back to my OS above, what is consistent about my life. I think it is the inability to get alot of time devoted to music. I have such attention deficit that it is a bit scary how much of my day can be impacted by my constant shifting things in my head. I blame YouTube, financial portals, bank accounts, Amazon, ....yeah that's about it. I need to find a full time person who will watch all my stuff for me and just point out things at a point in the day. Why dont you do that Terrence? Ok, so now I am talking to myself for a while. On the bright side...lets see..heading up in a few minutes to do the treadmill, that will feel good. Summer is around the corner and I can get outside more. More motorcycle this summer. I have been working hard on getting the major chord scale pattern up and down the neck of the guitar. Not just the pentatonic, but the whole scale. I can tell I am progressing a wee bit every now and then.

0408221722z Friday Night. OS: Left channel, right channel, centre channel. Been a while since I found my way back to the journal. I switched to online versus in a notebook. I don't like this as much. I like writing, but this saves a step. We just got back from a few days of spring break for Joyce vacation. Three days in Des Moines. Overall it was a fun trip. The EastSide of Des Moines is rather hip and cool. Located on Locust Street, we stayed at a Embassy Suites. Besides having a suite for a room, they have an amazing 8 story courtyard with rooms around the outside, and the lower floor has an open air restaurant, store, gym, and pool. Joyce navigated by dog paddling from one side of the pool to the other. We had a beautiful day when we arrived and Joyce and I walked up to the state capital building, took some pictures and they scouted out shops and restaurants to bring Barbie to the following day. Across the street from our hotel was a small sculpture of 8 large hourglasses that you could rotate with a hand wheel crank. When you cranked it music also played and it was great. Ambient moving sounds that were very modern, played with the rotating hourglass, in a tape loop. We found a modern pizza joint that we went to twice, and also found a great sushi restaurant. In down time I worked on three song ideas with the MPC live. I called the songs Des-Abandon, Des-City, and Des-Samples. Atleast one of them will show up on the Disregard Album in the music section. As are most vacations, the weather turned cold and the last day we had no desire to walk. We headed back toward Twin Cities around noon. Stopped in Albert Lea because Barbie wanted to stop at a shop that she buys from online.

0320222340z Late Sunday Night.  OS: Ask your body.  OS stands for Oblique Strategies. OS is a set of cards in a box created by Brian Eno which gives you some random thoughts in order to get you thinking another direction. I pull one of the cards everytime I open up my journal. Very strange weekend as they all seem to be.  I miss Jonny coming over on a Friday night.  We would play darts or do music, go for a walk, or just talk about something profound.  He was a great friend and I miss him so much.  Joyce had friends stay over all weekend.  Friday was Leo and Ahmed, Saturday was Naya.  She was having a blast.  My weekend was lost, puttering around, eating, watching YouTube to get my seratonin uptake, missing Barbie who went rock hunting both days, I did get one poem kicked out, came up with a few fragments of songs which just seem like scratches in the dirt, quite depressed that I accomplished so little.  The weekend ended watching a episode of Painting with John which was insprirational.  I noticed that he has limited run prints available for sale, so that is on my birthday list.  I am reading a book by Graham Greene called The End of the Affair.  I am not falling into the groove of this book yet.  I did finish a couple of good poetry books (Three Poems by Hannah Sullivan (very good) and Fur Not Light by Alexandrelli (also very good)).  John Lurie selling prints online inspired me to get my shit together and get some prints made. And, now that it is after Midnight, I need to do some Monday morning planning...I really need to have a productive Monday.  My todo list for tomorrow includes: Medical appointment confirmed, change the oil in Toyota, declutter the office by moving out the painting easel and a few books, get the mixing board setup for quick recording, shower, <2000 calories on Monday, walk 3 miles, cut my hair, whiten my teeth, do not open up YouTube or desktop until Tuesday (update on Monday: unless I am eating something at my desk...how addicted am I.  That should do it.  Maybe holding myself accountable to the zero people that read my journal should be a daily routine.  I havent talked to Bill in a while..hope he is doing ok.  So many friends I have lost touch with...I feel so introverted.  The weather in St.Paul was warm all weekend so I was able to get out a bit, but not enough.  Spring is around the corner.  I remember how much I liked last spring.  It funny how I do not talk to much about politics or the world online.  It all causes me alot of pain to see the wars in Ukraine.  I wish we had good relationships with Russia.  I hate the war, the media deception, pundits, greed, weapons, now throw in Covid and weird economics and it is difficult to find peace.  That is why I need a break from media, youtube, social, etc.  Barbie is hip deep in rock hunting, and she kicked out a nice piece of art hanging into out upstairs last week.  I did talk to Dave A over the weekend, that was fun. Found a new band Cuffed Up.  They sound a bit like Placebo.  Couple of good songs.  It will be interested to see if they grow.  Just now I am back to listening to Julia Shapiro album, and I am also liking the new Johnny Marr (3 LP).  One side of the third album feels organic and rocking.

0210221918z I've decided that I love poetry, more than ever. I picked up a few poetry books that are published on Burnside Press in Portland OR. The books are so inspiring and just seem to speak to me. Barbie seems to being having a tough day and Joyce is locked into her cell phone watching something. The highlight of my day was learning about the stoic philosopher Seneca. Turns out he was the teacher of Nero a historic emperor who didn't exactly turn out to be a good guy...in fact he eventually gave Seneca the option of being killed or committing suicide. One quote of his I like is: “We suffer more often in imagination than in reality”. I am guilty of that. The whole stoic philosophy resonants finally in my life. I sure could have used it the last 40 years or so. I have always been way to concerned with the outer world versus being content. The other part of my day was spent trying to finally get this journal moving on the website; handling some admin paperwork snafu's with medical dental providers, and getting groceries. Listening to Cat Power - Moon Pix. I have become a serious fan of Cat Power and have about a half dozen albums now, all of which I love. Speaking of the online journal. I stopped writting journals online back in 2006, July to be exact. So I will eventually get back to adding in all of the journal entries I have made in binders and scraps of paper for the last 15 years. A labor of love. Jonny Krow is missing in action. Marc Retish just bought a sweet new house. The punks are playing in Chicago tonight.

0701211449z Figured out that one of the first songs I would work on is "Easy Rider all the way". I love the tempo and the Kassolator rhythm. Ty says he wants to jam Friday night. Dave Alsbury called yesterday and then went MIA. Sweetpea is sunburn from swimming at Naya's. I'm going to run an errand and then go to a coffee shop and see if the writing muse is still around. To say I am happy and content is a pure understatement. My first day in my new written journal (I used an app to transcribe everything I wrote in a notebook). I decided to go to the Office Mac to get a good chair with arms that fold back so I can tuck it under the desk. I spent way too much money but pretty sure this is the last desk chair I will need after that I went to Caribou coffee to see if I could write a short story up or two but there's no vibe in the room coffee is too hot, I drop into a depression in and ponder this first day of retirement. Killing an Arab by The Cure hits my ears and everything is back to normal, the smell of coffee speeds up my pulse. The words I am writing flow like honey from the lips of God. Maybe this journal is flawed. What is the point of my feudal existence other than to keep my heart beating to the rhythm of the song "golden light" by STRYKR.

0502102026z Kind of an interesting weekend...it pretty much started with Barbie's birthday celebration on Friday night...after a rather long work day we ended up getting cleaned up and headed to Oceanaire....the food was excellent as would be expected and the whole beginning of the meal was great until I started talking about space aliens, questioning religion, and putting hypothetical scenarios about the end of the days.....Barbie has no tolerance for that type of thinking and the even slowly deteriorated until we just ended up going home....Saturday was much better although I woke up with a serious food hangover and an expanded waistline.  We set to working on the guest bedroom transforming years of grimey paint into a super duper beautiful space fit for a child of some sort.  Saturday night we went to the hospital to see my brother in law Bruce who has diverticulitous because he loves salted nut rolls and doesnt have enough fiber in his diet...so we brought him a bowl of bran flakes.....nice seeing him....although he has to go into surgery in two weeks.   We ended up the night at Ike's for some appetizers and then back to Saint Paul....stopped to see the band Patches and Gretchen.   Lulu, Jim, Pete, Brian and other scenesters were in attendence.  The band was great...bass player ruled, Gretchen had a great voice...Terri Eason's guitar lived up to Willie's acclaim.  I was obnoxiously present, talking too much, complimenting the band like a groupie.  Pete had a screenplay idea that we are going to work on.  I had three drinks total and my Sunday was lost.  Enuf drinking...when I cant drink enough to get a buzz why drink...hangover days are not worth it anymore.  Life is good.

0426100104z Flash forward 24 hours and I am at the same chair, same place, different day...working on the NorthWrite website.  I have no life.  I am working basically around the clock trying to get the new website off the ground.  Quite a few breakthroughs on how to use Expression Web but that is about it.  Barbie decided to stay over at her Moms tonight.  First night alone at the house in months.  Jesse is still in Portland until tomorrow night. 

0425100028z Wow...only three and a half years between updating my journal.  Am I really interesting in putting my life back out on the line...maybe...what the fuck.  Let's see...alot has happened.  I'm married, still at NorthWrite, Jesse is currently in Portland at a comic trade show, he is living at my home for the last couple of months, I almost have a new album out the door but I still need to finish up the artwork, I've lost some good friends for some reason..probably because I got married....I dont go out much anymore...I am happy...healthy...and much more.  I will update you more later.

0904061212z Well hasn't my life took a few twists and turns in the last six weeks. What exactly should I write down....well...nevermind....nevermind...I mean you never know who could be reading your journal...it could be some martial arts yoga dance instructor, or people that I don't even know, or people that I know but don't really want to acknowledge that I know....anyway...nevermind...sounds like a great name for a album by Nirvana...anyway...Jesse is in his drawing room finishing up the last panels of his Kramer Zirgot submittal, I have been upstairs working on thiscrazy song about a girl named Petunia...that has a disco beat, crossed with a 80s style happy song vibe, and trying to figure out how to do vocals better. I spent the day walking thru Harriet Island, Raspberry Island, and climbing the bluffs around St.Paul.  Then went for about a two hour motorcycle ride...it was perfect weather.   I posted another dozen stories in the story section.  I avoided work as much as possible.  Bill called and said he will be in town on Friday...which will be very cool cause he can see my house for the first time. Kari is coming along with him.    Then Saturday morning, I have to drive Jesse to Chicago to start school.   So a busy week.  I actually dont even want to think of all the work that I have to get done this week...its a bit daunting...but I will make it thru it all. 

0703062118z Jesse is sitting next to me on the floor being a DJ. He loves playing me music by Neutral Milk Hotel. My day so far has been quiet, productive, analytical, and frightful because of my first adventure on the freeway with brand old 1982 Honda 450 Custom motorcycle. I was just taking a leisurely ride today, ended up on a local highway which was ok because I could handle that...not a lot of traffic....I had the bike up to 40 without any problem...then without notice, construction signs everywhere with a sign that said -- exit here -- take Interstate 494 east or this direction for 494 west...no turning back....no turning around...take 494 west...shit...first time on a freeway...something I wanted to avoid...construction everywhere crossing the mighty mississippi..roads are diverted this way then that...change lane....uneven pavement...potholes...semi trucks fly by me going seventy...dont they know that I'm scared shitless and that's why I'm driving 45, which is actually the fastest I have ever gone...looking at the dirt on the highway I worry about skidding under a truck...seeing concrete barriers coming at me and curving and twisting.....only 2 miles to go....everyone is passing me...I wonder if they are waving at me or giving me the finger...no time to look up....finally I get off....I have to pull into a Burger King to take a mental break....back on the normal highway....going 40 mph seems like standing still now....I passed my first fear factor episode...biking rules...motorcycles are wonderful...it's freeways that suck.

0702060131z Things haven't been going that good for the last week. Wait...I'm super healthy...so things are going great, and Willie and I worked on some songs the other night and probably came up with about four new ideas, and I did get to see Tom Petty and Pearl Jam with Matthew, and Jesse is home from school, and I have a few beans in the bank, and riding my motorcycle is totally rad, and I have good friends. So what the fuck are you complaining about Terrence...well lets see...indecision, mixed up brain, feeling overweight, being told I am over weight, feeling like I've hurt people unintentionally, no one to go out with on a Saturday night...and I know why.....does all this seem vague...yeah...well...I can't talk about it right now because...because...so jump off...hey..wait..sorry...I wasn't talking about you anyway...I miss my good friends, Terri, Bill, Cindi, Gerard, and many more that live outside Minneapolis and I cannot see them...it sucks. Going to go read for a while...have a few good art books, westerns, philosophy, just to name a few. Found a cool band called The Magnetic Fields (No one will ever love you). I really need to work on music on my own for a while. Organize it all. Art is just so none existent in my life right now it totally blows...can't even bear to walk into the art room I feel so lost. But, that will work itself out. I need to do another push to make the house more livable. I mean come on Terrence...you are too kind...where is the madness that you promised me...where is the dream for which I paid dearly. I think its time to turn off my TV, go to the gym more, talk to people less, work on art and music more, sleep less, stop thinking that I need a female in my life, and to start thinking of the open road with the wind in my hair, as I walk down the streets of Paris on my way to the Louvre.

0623062256z Friday night...feeling tired....working way to hard at NorthWrite this week. We seemed to have a strong week, Minneapolis came thru, and I think we are close to getting San Antonio, Indianapolis, and Las Vegas.  Rode the cycle up to the coffee shop on Annapolis and read for about an hour.  Waited tonight for the band mates to show up but no one called, no one showed up.  Feeling a bit lonely over all but that's ok...my future looks bright....A.K.K.  Jesse went home so the house is unusually quiet.  Ended up cutting the grass and cleaning up the kitchen.  Its amazing to me how little I seem to get done in a day.  They seem to be moving really fast lately.  Looking back I'm feeling damn happy about my life.  Things seem to be going good now...on the phone with Marc today we both were pretty darn proud of the accomplishments of the last 4 months.  Planning on getting an early start tomorrow morning, get to the gym, and work on art.  Actually looking forward to the weekend.  John called and told me that Travis is playing tomorrow night so I will probably hang out with him.  I need to get some guitar strings for the acoustic.  Damn there is just so much to do, art, write, read.  Life is good.

0621061605z The fat lady sang today for NorthWrite.   The City Council of Minneapolis voted unanimously to actually allocate the funds for the CityWorkSite.  Lets see it only took 16 months start to finish to get this approved.  At the same time we have a dozen other cities in the pipeline.  Besides the fact that we are going to get so damn busy that I wont have any sort of life real soon, that's great news for the company and all of our employees.  Life is good right now.  I'm just about ready to head out the door to hit the motorcycle shop to see if they sell goggles of some sort or another.  Then a coffee shop to chill, read, and think.  Its perfect weather outside, Jesse is upstairs sleeping, I have the night free to relax and work on the yard...no rehearsal...and I'm happier than a monkey in a banana factory for some damn reason. 

0618060053 I really need to be working on the journal in real time.  So much has happened in the last month its a bit tough to go back and recall everything but here goes.  I think I need to go back to my birthday.  Oh yeah...that was the night I went to see Drive By Truckers at First Avenue.  It was a great show, the crowd was crazy about them, I was totally into them also.  I had a pretty cool spot to stand on the balcony stage left so I could see the band perfect.  The only tough part was my buddy John showed up at the show, was feeling a bit bored and hungry, kept talking to me for a lot of the show, so I was constantly distracted.  Finally when they were almost done, John asked to leave, I still had not heard my favorite song "My Sweet Annette", but what the hell I know the song anyway.  I figured John wanted to go get some decent food like he usually does, but instead he wanted to go the Club Seville.  A strip club no less.  Its only been about 5 years since I went into a strip club but what the hell, we knew a friend who was bouncer and he got us in the side door, brought us up to the VIP lounge and told the bartender to give us free drinks.  That wasn't the highlight of the night obviously.  The highlight wasn't even half naked females, it was the tater tots.  John wanted food, he asked a stripper what we should order, she said the Tater Tots.  She was right.  The whole environment was lame as usual.  Bad music, guys in suits throwing away money, and pretty girls constantly tapping on my should asking if I want "company"...yeah right.....the night finally ended, full of tater tots we headed home.  I had to get up early the next morning to go to the Grand Canyon.  The trip to the Canyon was incredible.   I went with 10 other people and a couple of guides and we hiked rim to rim.  28 miles across.  We camped for 6 days in the canyon, and the highlight of the trip for me (beside victoriously reaching the other side) was sleeping under the stars at night without a tent.  It was damn near religious.  I saw so many stars that I would just stare up at the sky for hours at a time, watching the big dipper move across the sky, I saw two shooting stars, and I am pretty sure I saw some sort of UFO because a bright green light crossed the full length of the sky in a split second, probably 50 miles up, it was so fast, such a straight line, different then a shooting star.  It was moving at such an incredible speed.  Other highlights of the trip include having one member of our group get bit by a scorpion and be quite sick for 2 days, drinking beer and lemonade at Phantom Ranch, and completely reading a book by Zane Grey called Code of the West.  Overall the trip was extremely hard to hike with a heavy backpack. Ok...lets see what else happened this last month.  I bought a motorcycle.  A 1982 Honda 450cc Custom.  I am now an official motorcycle badass.  I love it, I ride it around constantly.  It was a lot easier then I ever expected once I got use to riding.  I put on my backpack, head to the coffee shop, driving down country roads, its absolutely perfect with the wind in your hair.  I finally understand.     Jesse is back from college.  He is doing great.  He stayed here with me for about a week, then took a plane to Maryland to hang with Gwyneth.  They then jumped a bus and went up to NYC to go to MOCA (the comic book convention), stayed at a fellow comic artists pad in Brooklyn, then went back to Maryland.  Jesse is doing great.

0516061218z Typical way too busy Monday at the office.  Feeling a bit of the growing pain pressures of the company.  Reading a book called Iron John.  All I have gotten out of it so far is that I have spent the last 30 years of my life being a fricken wimp (ie nice guy, passive, do what I think they want) toward women.  Its time to bring out the wild man...I'm going to do what the hell I want and you cant stop me anyway bitch attitude back into vogue.  Sort of like Ronald Reagan meets Scott Carson meets arrogant SOB....as far as I can tell.  I do have a bit of pent up anger toward women as of late.  I think I do get a bit tired of being the nice guy and then get shitted on or taken advantage of....ie take me out on demand, stop everything you are doing and let me just drop over and use up your night because I dont have anyone else right now, do me a favor will ya Terrence, or I cant see you anymore I'm going back to my old boyfriend who was non committal and cheated on me...but I will always remember you...you are so sweet...or call me in September.  Screw that...I'm taking a big old break from the female half of the world for a while.  I get more satisfaction reading a good book anyway.  Its not ever worth my time recounting the events or people that led up to this revelation, so enough said.   Sunday I drove down to Chicago to pick up Jesse.  I met his very nice girlfriend Gwyneth, helped get her luggage and stuff out of the dorm and over to her new apartment in Logan Square, then drove home.  I made it about 4 hours and then we stopped at a motel and crashed.  Drove the rest of the way home on Monday.  Its great to have Jesse here, but as usual he spends his time drawing and sleeping.  He should live to about 200 years old at the pace he lives his life.  Getting ready for the Grand Canyon trip on Saturday.  Excited to get to that.  Should be an adventure.  I'm looking at it now as a healing process.  A total denial that women exist in the world.  I'm really not that bitter you see, its just that I'm tired of getting used.  Why do I do that to myself.

0503061301z The last month seemed to go by in a blur so I dont know exactly where to start.  As of today I am feeling incredibly great for a variety of reasons.  I am totally pain free in my eye and figured out the problem --- I don't wash my face enough to the point where I get a lot of movement underneath the skin and the pores clog up and my eyes don't get enough essential oils to lubricate my eye correctly so that it gets scratched by my eyelid when I blink and causes me severe pain on and off for the last four years.  The only good outcome is I now have a high tolerance for pain. So that was pretty much what happen the bulk of April.  Other great things that happen included meeting a very cool girl named Thelma Lou, more about her later, and another great musician named Willie McManus, who came to my house with an old musician friend named Scott Bukowski in tow.  Willie and I have worked on one song together called "More I can't remember", I'm going to post it up in the music section tonight.  I really like the song, it was a first take working together and the timbre of Willie's voice is great.  I like Willie allot, he feels like a brother or cousin to me, not that I would actually know what the feel like.  I mean come on, let me digress.  I do have a sister of course, one that I never talk to because apparently living in Plymouth and loving Rush Limbaugh is not my cup of tea.  But that is a long story, I mean come on don't make me go into the whole she treated me bad in high school because she was a cool cheerleader and never let me get close to her girlfriends, well..lets just not go there.   Anyway, back to Willie, he spent many years over in Ireland and has a bit of an accent.  I think the music will work really good together.  Let see what other strange things happen to me in the last month...hmmm...I remember one strange night going to see Lobster Boy.   Boomer, Mark Johnson, Bimson, Scotty, were in the house.  Bimson was stumbling around a bit. The band played good.  We left the place after the set, started driving home, ran into Scott Seekins and one of his friends and offered them a ride, they wanted to go to Ground Zero.  I decided to go inside.  I danced for a while then went home.

0409060053 Been at a loss for words lately.  Its kind of hard for me to believe that its been two weeks since I wrote anything in the journal.  The last couple of weeks have been focused on getting the CityWorkSite off the ground for work.  It been difficult to get myself motivated to work.  The lack of communications in the organization is profoundly depressing.  The lack of any sort of cohesiveness by the anyone is apparent, probably to everyone but nevertheless, it frustrating.   We seemed to have started to make some progress with Minneapolis, Denver, and Atlanta, so we will see what happens in the next couple of weeks.  I did have a bit of excitement as I went over to the MN state capital and testified to a few Senators about providing funding for Minneapolis.  On the home front, I ended up finding a free piano on Craigslist.org.  Paid about $150 to have it delivered and its great.  Its a 1926 Cable Co. piano from Chicago.  The day after I got it I had a piano tuner come by and it sound sweet.  Put it in the living room so I'm playing piano instead of ever turning on the TV.  The last few days I have been working on the yard, getting leaves raked, doing a bit of gardening.  Its great.  Finally got the 1st floor room cleared out for my new art space.  Tomorrow starts the first official day of doing some art at the new house.

0329061545 Sitting at my desk listening to a First Avenue live CD of The Cult.  John (Stumbles) Shandrak gave it to me a couple of days ago.  The Cult is such straight ahead rock.  It's not bad, not great.  I was asked tonight by a total stranger named Lola if I was real.  Such is the problem with Internet dating of sort.  I jumped on Craigslist.org the other day and placed an personals ad.  I started to get a few replies, actually more than I expected, but nothing caught my eye except this 4 word reply from one of the responders.   For some reason the short reply seemed more intriguing than a couple of replies where I got a half a short story worth of writing.  But it all just seems too surreal anyway.  So that little experiment will probably come to a close here.  Ended up figuring out that I can put a small reading room at the top of the stairs near the back of the house.  I ran to Home Depot tonight and got some boards cut exactly so that I could put new backings on my antique bookcase.  Ran to Wal-Mart to pick up Whey Protein drink that Jerry Hoffmann insists I start substituting for breakfast.  I'm not looking forward to breakfast tomorrow morning.  Lets see what else happened in the last six days since I got back from Houston.  Last Friday I went out with Carson.  We started out by going to Rudolph's BBQ for drinks.  I hate that place.  No music.  A bunch of pretty people sitting around drinking.  No vibe whatsoever.  Ended up running into this girl named Jody that I had a total crush on about three years ago at the warehouse.  She came over late night and I was totally whipped on her.  She was playful, talkative, pretty, spunky, high energy...basically kind of perfect for me at the time.  She looked a lot like Jennifer Aniston.  Anyway, we had a great time but it was going nowhere that night because she was totally in love with Tony O.  I tried my best to win her attention but no luck that night.  Anyway, so I see her at Rudolph's, she was as cool as ever.  The wedding ring on her finger kind of stopped me from asking her out.  Her loss.  After sulking because I hate Rudolph's, Carson told Micheal and his girlfriend that I am no fun anymore.  I found that to be a compliment.  I finally got Carson out of there and we went over to the 400 Bar and saw a rockability band called The Legendary Shack Shakers.  They were too loud, I was bored.  We ended the night at Nye's.   Nothing much happening, ran into Shelby and her very pretty Latino friend.  I guess the Latino friend likes me, but she is way too young.  I mean, what's the point.   The weekend I pretty much laid low, worked on NorthWrite, played racquetball with Jerry on Sunday and the band rehearsed on Sunday night.   Rachel came over and jammed with the band, she ran her voice thru a vocal processor and did all of these crazy voices.  I liked it a lot.  We got the PA system finally working in the rehearsal space so everything sounded decent and we had a really good jam session.  This week has flew by like a bullet, tons of work to do.  Patrick landed a nice job for about 1/2 mil with Sysco, so he is a happy camper.  Built a computer for Matthew out of all these odd parts and pieces.  Took me way too many hours but it managed to make me dig thru all the boxes in the downstairs office and get things sorted out.  I think I went for a walk with Rachel on Saturday afternoon.  We went to a garden store for a while.  That was very cool.

0317062211 I'm sitting in seat 20C of the Northwest flight from Houston to Minneapolis.   When I got on the plane the little old lady was sitting in seat 20A.  She had a twinkle in her eye, and a fun smile, and she told me she was from Billings Montana.  We waited a while to depart and as usual I closed my eyes on takeoff in order to avoid feeling disequilibrium.  All of a sudden she smacked me on the arm and said look at that beautiful sky.  I was a light blue and pink and was dramatic.  I was staring at the sky and she said she was an art teacher.  What grades?  "oh, I taught from early elementary all the way up to the college level".  I talked about my trip to Houston to visit my artist friend Terri Hallman and said that I was visiting my friend and working on art.  I opened up my notebook and showed her the 8x10 inch picture that I drew.   She looked at it and said nothing.  I put it away.  In a few minutes we leveled off and she pulled out a puzzle book.  You know the kind where you have a big block of hundreds of letters in rows and columns and you have to circle the words backwards, vertical, on an angle, etc.  She spent the next hour working on that.  I was a bit bummed that she didn't make any kind comment on my art.  I decided to read my book on Zen Guitar.  It is more of a philosophy book versus a guitar instruction book.  At the end of the book was a summary chapter which put into bullets all of the intrinsic and salient points of the book...the bullets were inspirational, spiritual, touching, and made me cry.  It was almost an awakening for me.  Being dissed by the art teacher in the seat next to me didn't hurt anymore. 

0317061655  My little road trip to Austin was really not worth the time.  Most of the time I spent in my hotel room it seems sleeping, playing a cheap Yamaha guitar that I bought at a antique shop in a little town.  The trip over to Austin actually had a lot of promise.  My first stop in a little town turned up the guitar.  Its a pretty nice little guitar, after I cleaned the strings and took some extra time to tune the thing it seems to have a lot of heart in it.  I ended up starting to write about 7 or 8 songs and recorded them on my laptop, it will be fun to see if any of them actually turn into real songs.  I splurged on a cup of coffee during the road trip and that started my eye into tweaking just enough to get me worried, although I never went into any sort of pain.   The highlight of the trip was taking a detour on a farm road and coming upon a farm sign that says pick your own strawberries.  I turned in and a sweet old farm lady gave me a box to pick berries with.  I started to walk away and she said "ya'all got to look close, da fields are kinda picked out".  Sure enough I started seeing rows and rows of empty strawberry plants. By the time I crossed about 20 rows I finally came to a row with some hope...sure enough I picked about a pints worth, gave her the money, and hit the road, throwing strawberry tops out the driver side window as I headed toward Austin.    I went into Austin around 9pm, with the plan on hearing some great music.  The South by Southwest (SXSW) festival was going on.  I hit 6th street in Austin which is about a one mile area of hundreds of bars and music clubs.  There was just a smattering of people and I was quite disappointed.   I finally came upon a block long line into one of the clubs and I asked the guy who was playing.  He said "No one, its a comedy club".  I sighed and asked, I thought there was suppose to be a ton on music for SXSW.   He looked at me and said "Dude, SXSW starts tomorrow night".   Saw am average rock band in a little bar, headed by to my hotel with a quick detour to pick up dinner...a tasty treat of pecan pie, and starburst.  Everything was closed, no lectures please.   Next morning I figured I would head out to find a music store, maybe get some new strings for the guitar, and find a park to rest in.  Instead I seemed to drive around for 3 hours, never find the music store, and get back to my room in time to make a bunch of business calls.   Wednesday night I went back to SXSW.  I ended up seeing a heavy rock band with a bunch of lame guys but they had Sabbath guitar riffs nailed solid, next was a band from NYC called Santain or something like that.  They had a excellent imitation of the Strokes down cold, so they should do pretty well.  A solid band with good songs.  I figure they have a 50/50 chance of success.  Went out to find more music.  The streets were full of rockers.  I would have felt right at home, except for the fact that I am at least 20 years older then everyone in the crowd, and my eye was still on the edge.  I walked around and found another street with music.  This street had more of the big arena type bands, and I stood out an outdoor amphitheatre where Belle and Sebastian were playing, or it could have been The New Pornographers.  No sure, but they sounded a lot like the Pixies, which would probably be an excellent show to see if I knew their music better.   Earlier in the night I got a phone call from Lizzie.  We were going to go out to dinner on Friday when I got home, but she cancelled the day before over email.   On the phone she said that she didn't think we should go out to dinner, that sounded too much like a date, and she didnt want to do that with me anymore, even though we haven't done that in at least a year.  I think that is the first sign that she is moving on with her life, and I think that is good, but for some reason it still hurt a bit.  Kind of like the final nail in the coffin on the relationship.  I hope that she is happy, I get the feeling that she is getting ready to go out into the world again and meet people.  So I think that kind of put me in an introspective mood when I was at SXSW, I was evaluating my non existent music career, my lack of a relationship, and it was all filled with a bit of anguish.  So I have managed to eliminate all opposite sex relationships at this point.  Time to take a deep breathe, take care of myself, and get ready to get back out there.   Just not right away please.   The trip back to Houston from Austin was uneventful, had lunch with Terri, and now waiting on a two hour time delay to Minneapolis.  Real excited to get back home, shovel all the snow, read my mail, and play some tunes.

0314061010  Just got packed up to go on a two day road trip around Texas.  Last night went to the Angelica Houston movie house and saw the documentary movie about the musician Towne Van Sant.  He was a country song writer with plenty of talent, wasted away on alcohol and drugs, and eventually died at 52.  It was a good story.  The last few days have been up and down emotionally.  Really enjoying the perfect weather and no eye pain.  Terri's house is quite nice, with a beautiful landscaped backyard and a most excellent work space for her art.  Its a radical change from her quaint little home in Louisiana.  At night you can here so many birds just talking non stop, owls, morning doves.  The neighborhood is kind of a gated community and it feels very safe.  The main streets a few blocks away are busy without sidewalks, so you have to walk on the grass for miles to get places.

0306061735 Leaving for Houston tomorrow to see Terri Hallman. I need a break, my mind is completely burnt out on the pain of the last 4 months, lack of any sort of art, marginal activity with music, and not being able to read is very frustrating.The good news is I do not take anything for granted any more, especially around my health. Without that, life seems a bit futile. Must find a way to get a hold of Dr. Kevorkian when I am finally over the hill...I figure that will be around 100...so I have a bit of time to find him or his son. How morbid. You could hardly tell from my writing that I am very happy with life overall...it just seems that this journal is a way to purge the negative.Just had a talk with Marc, he is such a good friend sometimes...such great common sense. He totally inspired me in a few different ways.  I think I have been depressed for so long now.   So I am starting to feel better about getting out of town and having some fun.  Marc handed me Tequila Stories idea, so I am going to try to go for that this week also. Brought some good books to read, going to try to forget about work at least for this week.  Got to run to the store, still feels like winter in Minnesota. snow is heavy on the tree limbs, no birds or squirrels causing trouble.

0304061542 Its fitting that this is Lisa's birthday because not only do I feel abandoned by her on a regular basis, but I seem to be isolating myself from most people.  My eye problem continues to bug the shit out of me although at the moment I am feeling pretty good.  The last two months have mostly been about NorthWrite.  Getting the new CityWorkSite business kicked off the ground. It started with hiring a guy named Martin who is a political animal, working very hard on a Homeland Security grant program that didn't actually yield revenue but kicked our message up to the next level and created a buzz inside and outside NorthWrite.   The highlight of the last two months was going to Washington DC to call on Chairman Peter King the US Senator from New York, Chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, and overall nice guy.   Evan, a great friend of Bill got the appointment for me and it was exhilarating to be walking the corridors of Congress, a very patriotic feeling.  After our meetings Bill, Evan, and Brian all got together over at Bill's casa...which was very sweet...played some pool, ate pizza, and hung out...it was great.  Back to MN to keep working the project and get approved for the Twin Cities.  We had a couple of individuals who wanted our software pushed out till next year.  Since then we have been making strides at the State Legislature and I expect that we should see some revenue soon.  We are also working in Denver and other cities.  My personal life has been solitary.  I did meet a nice girl named Jenny, and we went out on a few dates.   On our last day my eye started kicking in again, I was super busy trying to close the NorthWrite projects before the end of the grant period and everyone was under allot of stress.  On our last night together we went to a Rose Ensemble Hawaiian music thing that was fun but my eye started killing me about half way thru.  When we left I had to run home to get medicine, then Martin called me...since I had to take the call.....Jenny started complaining that I was not paying enough attention to her and that I had other priorities, although she was the one who could only go out on one night of the weekend, and not stay up late because she was a morning person....the combination of the pain and my exhaustion kind of pushed me over the edge and I realized and Jenny stated that I was probably too busy for a relationship at this point...I haven't seen her since.  Seems kind of a lame way to end things...but I dont know what to do at this point.

0107061514 The last three weeks have been one part pain, one part pleasure. Dont really know where to begin. Lets start with the pain. I have been battling my eye problem for about 2 weeks. Main reason that I haven't been on the computer. You can now call me Zen master Terrence.....after my first official acupuncture treatment, complete with Japanese music. It was a very cool experience.....I was in very severe pain all night and all morning....like a 9 on a 10 scale pain....when the acupuncture was complete...I had about 1 on a 10 scale pain....it was a very strange experience....very deep meditation while I was on the table....I have to go for another treatment in a couple of weeks....I'm psyched. My Christmas time was basically wrecked because of the eye. Jesse was in Florida with grandparents, I was home alone suffering.  I was actually looking forward to having some time to relax and read and chill out but the eye kicked in and I was done for about 5 days...  It cleared up in time for me to go to a New Years Eve party at Bimson's.   Bimson was blasted by the time we got there, I was with Becky and John.  Jesse was home but wanted to see the Peelackers at the Underground with his friends.  Tabitha and Rich were at the party and Bimson had a girl there that he was trying to date.  When I went to pour a glass of wine, Bimmy came over and told me not to drink the good wine.  Unfortunately there was only one bottle of wine, summit beer which I dont like, and a bunch of dirty glasses in the sink.  Bimmy wanted to save wine for later, although that was the last thing he needed.  I decided at that point to be designated driver for the night anyway.  We sat around playing guitars and piano, it was fun.  Tabitha and Rich are damn talented, so it was fun to actually get in a groove with other good musicians. After midnight and a round of kisses where Becky tried to kiss me a few times, we headed over to the northeast warehouse district.  the guys from Dumpster Juice and a few other bands were having a party as an excuse to play their loud music ala kiss, cheap trick, alice in chains...the place was filled with druggies and drunks.  Music was good at times, too loud most of the time.  It was a relief to finally leave the party and just get home.

1212051305 I'm alone I'm alone dancing around my house cranking the music watching the snow fly outside.  Only God Knows Why (Kid Rock). Last night I went out to dinner with Jim Erickson and Scotty.  Just like the old days in Minneapolis.   Watch Scotty get louder and louder, watch the Timberwolves on a small TV while eating sushi.   Stopped at the MN Music Cafe to have a beer with Steve Cook and a friend of his.  That was fun.  Steve is a great guy and former Honeywell employee.   I got home at midnight and figured I would get something done.  I did.  I slept.  Walked up the stairs and was so tired I crashed and woke up without a clock at 7am.  Patiently waiting for my friend Cindi to tell me she got the job offer.

1212051546 Saturday…have a 5 hour work meeting…then off to racquetball for 3 hours…..then the fun began…a rather inebriated friend named Laura called me half in the bag and said to come over to her place to hang out and partee with her and a friend….since I was in charge of taking Boston VP out on the town…I figured that might be a good starting point….I get home, shower, let him know that two pretty girls want him (he is 60, single, and total horny dog at this stage in life) and we are going to their house in 30 minutes….he puts on Old Spice and we are out the door.   When we arrive at Laura’s, she swings open the door to a extremely loud (it goes to 11) stereo blasting Meatloaf’s Bat Out of Hell album….we are handed tambourines, canastas, and wine are expected to sing along since I am a musician….seeing Boston VP go  into the first stages of shock…over the top Laura kisses him and makes him dance….I drank two glass of expensive Merlot that I brought within 15 minutes and then tried to stay up with the nonsense babble that Laura and her friend were blibbering….discussion topics ranged from pharmaceutical pot, dolphins, shoes, and 20 other things that I couldn’t make out because the music was blaring.   After about an hour of that I prodded everyone in my autobus and we headed to Nye’s….basically from one bad music environ to another….we snagged a booth up top and order drinks and food….after about an hour Laura went into full on devil mood from the Dewars, Wine, Vodka, excellent bud, state of mind that she was in and started to cuss and swear and wanted to leave.  Boston VP decided to walk her outside for a smoke and some fresh air.   They never returned.   My cell phone was dead.   Apparently Laura was flagging down imaginary cabs…so Boston VP finally hailed one and took her and Laura’s friend home in a cab, but neglected to tell me.   However, I was now mingling and being social and really didn’t care if they returned or not…but around 1:30 I figured they had cruised….I drove over to Laura's to find Boston VP sitting alone in the living room, while the girls/gals/drunks…slept it off….end of night.

1212050825 Damn, a week without updating my journal and life still goes on.   I am two days away from having the house back to myself.  It should be nice to be able to get some serious time alone and get back to working on art and music.  Terri left last Tuesday and Mark Peterson arrived on Wednesday.   Its continues to be a whirlwind.  Boy am I a boring writer in the morning.  I think this is my first morning journal entry ever.  .

1204050011I assume that anyone who reads my journal has figured out that the time stamp at the right says December 4th, 11 minutes after midnight. What if there was no clocks and we just said its 1,2,0,4,0,5,0,0,1,2 when someone asked what time it was.  Its very convenient since you would get the date as an added bonus.  Last night was kind of a strange night overall.  Mary Kay came over to my place, then John, we sat around all night and talked.  Terri and Mary Kay spend a good hour discussing the merit of well made shoes which was lost on John and I.  But apparently now that I have managed to add dish towels to my house my manhood is now fully actualized and I am now considered more of a man than I was a week ago.  I personally will maintain the dishtowels on an appropriate dish towel hanging device in the kitchen, but I have not crossed the barrier when I am going to believe that dish towels are better than box-o-rags.   I mean I never have to wash a box-o-rags.  They never sit around becoming dirt magnets.  Anyway.   We had a nice night of over communicating, eating assorted appetizers.   I slept like a log and spent the day just hanging around till around 3pm when I went out to play racquetball with my buddy Jerry.  Jerry was talkative as usual, and is thinking on writing a book.  Which would be very cool since he is actually the only Einstein level genius in my life and what he says will mostly likely be proven true in the 2525, if man is still alive, if woman can survive, they may find, that in the year 3535 ain't gonna need to tell the truth, tell no lies, everything you think, do, and say is in the pill you took today.  In the year 4545 ain't gonna need your teeth, won't need your eyes, you won't find a think to chew, nobody's gonna look at you, in the year 5555, your are are hanging limp at your sides, your legs got nothing to do, some machine is doing that for you, in the year 6565 ain't gonna need no husband, won't need no wife, you'll pick your son, pick your daughter too, from the bottom of a long glass tube.   Sounds exciting.   Picked up some deli favorites from the store tonight, stayed home and watched a couple of movies.   Saints and Soldiers, and Julian Donkey Boy.   First one was a good war movie, second one is by the director of Gummo, I had to stop half way thru, his movies are masterpieces at capturing the harsh side of life.  Not of the weak of heart, but everything frame of the movie seems like a surrealistic painting

1201051841 Something I forgot to talk about my night out on the town with Terri and John.  Doing my best to be the entertaining host I took them to my new local bar called the Brown Derby.  If within the next ten years I start to get real belligerent, swear too much, say nasty things, lose my job, and stop writing, you should probably go over to the Brown Derby and see if I have turned into an alcoholic.  The place was full of them.  Not only was there a lot of alcoholics, but there was a Latino band ( a band with 5 Latino band mates) playing R&B favorites by bands such as KC and the Sunshine Band, Santana, and Hall and Oates.  It made for a very interesting experience.  One of the better signs on the wall was welcoming Vikings Fans to partake in a 20 ounce beer, in a "keeper" mug for only $2.00.   The good news is that every time the Vikings score a touchdown, everyone with a "keeper" gets a free refill.  How great is that for the beer drinkers.  From there we went to the Minnesota Music Cafe where we saw an extraordinary band rip it up onstage.  They were so good they weren't even fun to listen to.  We ordered some tasty chips and salsa because the kitchen was closed, sat at the bar and John proceeded to buy Whiskey Coke, and a shot of Tequila for us.  At this point all I needed or wanted was a tall club soda water, so this morning I was nursing a wee hangover, which made my day a bit miserable.  I think after the drinks I was starting to get a bit over the edge and decided to buy John and Terri pull tabs.  I did so and we won a dollar.  Not bad for a three dollar investment.  I ended up talking to a nice girl a the bar, but Terri was not please with my discussion considering the girl a bit of an outcast type.  I just found her to be a nice person, so I spend most to the night lecturing Terri on the finer points of everyone in the human race being worthy of my attention and admiration at which point she probably called me a boner or something, so I left the main room and went closer to the music.  I was up at the crack of dawn and went to a meeting at the 3rd Precinct downtown where we got them onboard for NorthWrite CityWorkSite.   Things are progressing nicely at work and we are on our way to a record month in sales.   Mark Peterson and Patrick are coming into town next week.  So we are going to have a bit of a company Christmas party.   That will be great.

1201051224 Finally December has arrived. My favorite month, why you ask, Christmas presents. This year I want a brand new rectangle mirror for my entry way, a new vehicle since the Mercedes is constantly taking small change out of my wallet every time I drive it, a freezer full of Jimmy Dean breakfast scrambled eggs because they are so tasty, a nice treadmill so that I can put it in the exercise room and not use it, a few nice shirts that fit me perfectly especially when I avoid eating too much and actually feel somewhat slim, trim, fit, etc., a newer model Harley Softtail cycle and enough riding lessons from a independent instructor so that I do no kill myself in the future, a Gibson Les Paul Custom guitar, a three level keyboard stand, a music room desk that works, 7 more Trident Preamp racks so that I could run every instrument thru a separate preamp, three wishes from a Genie, a really quiet night when the snow is falling outside and there are no cars on the street and it is warm, and some of the new green Orbit gum. In addition, I will take a healthy dose of self esteem, perfect health, compassion for my fellow man, a reason to fall in love again, 32 hour day, no more war, extraordinary ability of any sort, a new friend name Calvin, a song in my heart.

1129052336 Work work work, work work work. go shopping for a couch and armoire. Buy couch and armoire and plan on getting them delivered tomorrow morning. How cool is that. Of course I will now have to pay for them. How cool is that. Have not worked on art or music for a week. Feeling the pressure of the frustration staring to mount. I need to get back at it. NorthWrite is pressing right now. A lot to get done but we are off the ground with CityWorkSite and we hope to get the City of Atlanta tomorrow.

1128052049 Terri Hallman just said He's here working on his computer, I'm just cooking some dinner.She was on the phone talking to Mary who I just met over the weekend.  "Oh I forgot to tell you, we are having a housewarming party for Terrence on Saturday" "Oh maybe a dozen or so people", it will be real easy"  Ok, so I guess I'm having a housewarming party.  If you come I am registered at Dayton's bridal registry. I need extra salad bowls, plenty of firewood, and a comfy sweater for me to wear during the cold nights of St.Paul.  Where should I begin...the last week since Terri has been here has been a whirlwind of buying furniture that I cannot afford right now, eating food that is way to healthy, and listening to Terri go on and on and on about shoes.  Anyway, Terri arrived last Thursday morning (Thanksgiving Day). I picked her up at the airport and we went back to my place where Terri immediately torn down 4 walls and replaced the bathroom upstairs with a mobile Jacuzzi all before 6pm when I went to pick up Jesse.  Thanksgiving was in full swing.  My friend John came over for dinner and we had a feast watched movies and did the usual fighting and yelling at each other as if we were actually family.   It was great to see Jesse.  He was quite relaxed after having a fast paced work week at school.  He was luck to spend his last day of one of his classes with his famous teacher Karl Wirsum, who was part of the Hairy Who group in the early 1960s developed a style that combines a graphic sensibility--vivid, flat colors, simplified cartoon-like figures--with a sense of humor evident in the works themselves and also in titles that second guess and play with words. Wirsum's imaginary creatures and super hero characters enact bizarre scenes. Figures from outer space perform domestic tasks such as mowing the lawn; space men happily orbit starry objects. His work exists in the buffer zone between real and imaginary, mundane domesticity and super hero powers, day-to-day existence and daydreams.  So Jesse was happy as a clam after spending around 3 solid hours with Karl one on one.  After dinner we goofed around in the kitchen putting things in my baby shopping cart and taking pictures, then watched the movie "You and Me and Everyone that We Know" which is a very cool independent film.  I am giddy in love with the main character and feel the movie has a lot to offer in the way of existential passion and reality.  Friday night, the team got back together again for round two of thanksgiving.  We called it sushi thanksgiving.  We honored all the dead tuna off the Japanese coastline and drank sake, and suffered thru the way too expensive bill.  Saturday was lets meet Mary day.  Mary is a friend of Terri.  Mary brought some of her very cool art over which we spend a bit of time looking at, then we all sat down for another nice meal.   Lizzie showed up also.  So it was a grat night.  Around 11pm Bimson and Jimmy Erickson drove over from Minneapolis, and we sat up till 3am talking, laughing, and listening to Bimson sing a song about truck drivers have sex on the highway.  It was a perfect night and my house officially feels like a home.  I am very proud.

1125050147 It was a successful Thanksgiving this year.  Ma and Pa did get in a bit oh trouble with the poolice when pa hit mama over the head with the frying pan, and little Suzy has learned her lessons about putting gum in cousin Marlon's hair, but the smell of turkey flowing thru the room was enough to make the rest of my trailer park neighbors dang jealous.  Cousin Terri was busy cookin all day.  She fixed up a big heap of food including turkey, ham, cranberries, sweet potatoes, wild rice, little white pertaters, and we all partook in way too much of the 2000 Mondavi Pinot Noir. Wine Spectator gave it a ninety one. Oh my thank goodness I have that useless information.

1123050149 Having to get back to work around the house. Tons of stuff to do before Terri and Jesse arrive. Money is flowing like water lately. I wonder just how much I am going to have to put on my credit cards.  This kind of stinks. I was getting ahead money wise, now this house and my new found penchant for being domestic and the occasional date are starting to put me into the red or black or whatever it is when your cash flow is not enough.  Must tighten belt.  Must tighten belt.  Anyway I went shopping for groceries and things to get ready for Thanksgiving.  Of course, not having pots, pans, plates, tends to add a a bit to your bill.   I was rather economical in picking stuff out and I think everything will be fine.  I couldn't bear the thought of putting a complete bird (Tom Turkey) into my oven.  It all seemed so barbaric.  Just thinking about eating meat sometimes was a bit much.  So anyway, I ended up buying a huge turkey tenderloin of some sort, with garlic and lemon.  I also got a pork thing...another tenderloin.  I guess I will have to cook them in the stove.  But, that is much better then having to put my arm in the middle of a turkey and pull out the gizzards and hearts and brains or whatever else they pack in there.  I suppose it makes for a good soup, but its just too much.

1121051628 Jesse has apparently spilled grape juice on his cell phone, so my days of agonizing about if he is ok are moot.  I am getting totally into the Holiday spirit.  Heading the grocery store later today to get all my final preparations for Thursday.  Having a hard time getting into the work mode.  My sleeping habits are totally out of sync.  I end up going to be at 4am and sleeping later and later.  I would really like to get into a decent sleep mode.  But I just lose track of time and get working on music or art and the next thing you know I am totally up late.  Yesterday was a odd day, I got up and was planning on maybe going to a coffee shop and reading.  St.Paul seems to be a bit devoid of coffee shops so when I went to the one that I know about on Marshall Avenue...it was closed.  That kind of threw me off and I decided to go for a car ride, but ended up waiting in line on 494 south of twin cities in serious road construction.  I was sitting and sitting and eating Arbys and getting fatter and lazier by the second, then got a bit depressed because I was somewhat bored and zoning out, not thinking about anything important. Finally ended up at a Borders and read for about three hours and that felt better.  Got home, went for a walk with Anne and Malachi, froze my toes, and spent the rest of the night just cleaning up emails and futzing around.  Kind of a useless Sunday, didn't work on music.  No idea where Tucker Get Down is headed, Matthew is still out to lunch.   I relatively happy with my doing my own music at the moment.   Although it misses the edge of performance which you get when anyone is around.  Think I might head over to Scotty's tonight.  I guess he is going to rage a bit, watch Monday night football.  Bimson supposedly had his gall bladder removed, so I should probably bring his a get well card with a picture of a gall bladder on it.

1118050143 I have decided to start to write my journal from this point forward like a complete narcissist, Let me introduce myself:  I like reading and traveling. I like dancing and shopping.  I like reading the paper today USA.  I can sing with my good voice.  I enjoy my job very much, and I really do well on it.  I am from China, a beautiful attractive country.  I am unclouded.  I will like to go singing. I will take my right woman to the beach.  I like to eat all the fruits.  I like to read novels when it is outside raining..  I like supermarket to go with you.

117052033 I had to take a bit of a break from da journal.  Sometimes it just seems a bit lame to be doing this, but at other times it seems to makes sense.  It has been eight days of extremes for me.   Let's see, starting from last Thursday.  I have been making progress in getting the house somewhat arranged.  I'm not real happy with the layout of the living room, the shape is more like a big entry way to me versus a living room.  But I was able to get the chimney figured out and built a fire and that was fun.  Last Friday I went out on a real time date with a woman named Mary Kay.   We ended up going to Moscow on the Hill, then to the Congo Room where I attempted to Latin dance for the second time in my miserable life.  Latin is just not that much fun to dance to if you ask me.  I love house and electronic like the old days at First Avenue, and I can get down mon with some reggae, but the hip movement  in Latin which reminds a bit of ballroom dancing just  seems so out of beat...even though I know that's not the case.   Talking about killing ones self esteem.  I was pretty much in control  of my emotions till I hit the damn dance floor.  After that, I reverted back to my insecure, I'm a fricken lame ass teenager mode, and it kind of un-nerved me for the rest of the night.  Not that there was a rest of the night.  We finished dancing and I ended up taking her home to get a ceremonial kiss at the door.  ah....dating...it truly sucks sometimes.   Its good to get it out of your system.   Mary Kay is a really sweet girl.  Very pretty,  Very in love with herself.  My intuition says that we won't be having many more dates.   Unless she of course breaks down my door and demands some sweet lovin....schucks...I thinks we wont be askin pappy for her hand in marriage.    By Saturday I had recovered nicely from the dating adventure and worked around the house, appreciated the world of dishwashers and washing machines, and got my music room set up to the point where I could actually create a few songs.  I will try to get them up on line one of these nights....I just want to make sure I give them a few days to make sure my mind warns me if I was singing out of key....my enthusiasm for a new song sometimes outweighs my judgment.   Last weekend I was bitten on the hand by a dog, then the dog (Malachi) preceded to go up my stairs pee on one of my art pieces.   Now I realize that my art still has a way to go before it makes it to the Met.  But, even a dog should know better than that.  The art gods have apparently taken a break from helping me to fame and fortune as an artist.    Last Saturday I went to the Turf Club and saw a very cool musician named Chris Mills.  He is from Chicago and his style reminds me of a lot of different influences.  Hard to pin down, he was pretty original.   Kind of reminded me of the Only Ones from England.   Last night I went to see the Brian Setzer Orchestra (Stray Cats) at the State Theatre with John.   He got a couple of passes from Travis.  I was worried about sitting down to listen to rockabilly, but my fears were unwarranted when the band started playing a dozen or so Christmas Songs in big band orchestra format.  Brian S. is totally built for Las Vegas and I have decided that when I turn 83, I am going to be able to get tickets to see Brian at the Bellagio or Circus Circus, and I will do my best to shimmy and shake.  I'm sure the shaking will be easier then the shimmy.  The band was really good.  So anyway...after the warm up band and before the main act came on John and I walked down to the lobby to get a drink.  I turned a corner and was literally stopped dead in my tracks by this incredibly beauty with a deep red dress, red lips, black hair, pale, total movie star.  My heart literally skipped a beat and I lost my breathe. She looked me in the eyes and smiled and damn....I was kind of speechless.   We got in line right behind her and her date, and it turned out John knows her.   I crossed by legs, looked at the floor, and avoiding having my lamocity shine thru.  She had like perfect teeth and well forget it....she was just incredible.   After a few pleasantries, they walk away, and John precedes to tell me that she is some sort of dominatrix at Ground Zero.   What !!!   Unless John is a lame ass liar, that's the word.  She works on Bondage a GoGo nights and spanks guys for money.  Dammit...I suppose I could be spanked once in a while. But...nah.     The warm up band from Sweden was three sisters and their dad singing rockabilly and old Elvis style rock and roll.   The pulled out an obscure song called Tobacco Road which I haven't hear in 30 years or so, and couldn't keep their guitars in tune, but they put their Swedish hearts into it.  Today I caught up with or should I say he caught up with me, Daren Klum.   Daren and I were friends in the old Atomic Record days.  We once did a Children's Hospital presentation to the board of directors getting them to sponsor a cross country bike trip to support Children's Hospital.   Daren ended up bailing on the trip and moving to Florida.  So that never happened.  At the time he was working at KQRS and got my band Red Shadow Chorus into the band contest that we eventually won.   He has moved back to Minneapolis so were are going to get together next week.  That will be fun.   Its kind of strange to be in St.Paul at this point.  No one really comes to visit me and the phone calls have died down a bit late night so that is taking some getting use to.  Makes me realize how much I miss some friends like Cindi, Terri, Gerard, and on and on..  Oh....and if you have not listened to the band The Mavericks.   Cross between Roy Orbison, Elvis, Chris Isaac, with a lead singer who may have the warmest voice I have ever hear.  Two standout songs include:   "I should have been true, Loving You.

1109050208 For the last two days I have had this really strange light flashing in my left eye.  The eye that is always screwing up on me.  I was driving home from Scott's acting showcase on Monday night and I saw a light out of the corner of my eye.  A few minutes later I see it again.  I look around and figure it is a cop car or something but nothing.  I get home and I see the light in my driveway.  I walk in the house and see the light flash inside the house, finally I close my eyes and I see the light flashing.  I get online and find out that flashing lights in your eyes is a sign of the onset of diabetes.  That totally freaked me out because I think I had a Aunt who had that, and she basically went crazy.  Maybe it was the whiskey...who knows.   Anyway, I'm bumming out for a couple of hours then get online and find information that the light flashing thing could be diabetes or it could be this thing that happens normally to your eyes as you get older.  Some sort of detachment of fluids from the cornea wall causes the problem.  It should go away in a week or two, if not I guess I have to go into the doctor.  Monday night at Scotty's showcase was fun.  He did a good job of acting with his partner Jason.  I saw Wagner, Idelkope, Mikey, Boomer, basically the whole gang was there.  Patrick has been in town for the last couple of days so we are working together and doing a bit of strategy.  Went out and met with Dan Miller and finally gave him is 3 month overdue wedding present.  I'm making some progress on the house finished painting the music room. Starting to move gear into that room so soon I will be back to recording.

1106052014 Sitting at O'Hare Intl Airport waiting to go back to Minneapolis.  I love the design of the United Terminal.  Its very futuristic, all steel and architecturally unique.   The trip to visit Jesse for parents weekend was great.  Beside getting two lame hours of sleep on Friday night, I made it to the airport when it was still dark, had an uneventful plane and train ride and caught up with Jesse and him Mom at the morning breakfast for students and family.   Part of the days activities include taking classes with Jesse's instructors.  The first class was with his Japanese Architecture teacher.  He did this incredibly good introduction to an Japanese architect called Ando Tadao.   I learned a ton of stuff.  For example, he showed how traditional Japanese architects moved you from a small room to a larger room in order to make the 2nd room seem larger.  The would traditionally make you walk down a narrow hallway, or something with a low ceiling so that once you entered the 2nd room you felt the smallness go away, and no matter what size room you were in, it felt big.  Ando also uses an cool technique of moving you in u-turns so that you have a feeling of a distance or a struggle to get to your destination, making the destination more important once you arrived.  After the lecture, we then went over to the Art Institute and toured a room designed by Ando.  After a lunch break, another class that Jesse wanted us to attend was animation.  The animation teacher that he chose is one of Jesse's favorites and is very focused on old school animation.  The technique of drawing each page, page by page, versus using a computer to do the in-between work.   A purist.   We watched some early 1900 animation and the class did a full animation project.  Finishing up around 4pm I headed over to my hotel and grabbed about an hours sleep, then we headed to the Open Walls reception.  The Open Walls is an annual event where the alumni artists (hundreds of them) take a small space on the wall and create a painting in real time.  Patrons of the arts, and family of students bid on the art in a silent auction.  I saw one piece by Karl Wursum go for around $3000.  Collette $2100 on the Wursum piece, but I think was relived when she didn't actually get it.   I loaded up on horderves and wandered around looking at the art and the people.  It was fun.  At one point, I took a break, went outside to talk with Bill Dunn.  I was correct the Dunn Family has a bun in the oven.  Bill talked about his trip to Rome. It was great to catch up.  We left around 10pm, I headed back to my hotel room to get to sleep early.  I turned on TV for a bit and watched a NBC Dateline show where they were busting child molesters on hidden camera's.  After the setup, the perv would walk into a house expecting to meet up with a young teenager, and instead would walk in, take a seat in the kitchen. then the reporter would walk around the corner and ask "What do you think you are doing".  They would all plea innocence, but sit there and he eventually confess, thinking that it was a cop.  After about five minutes of hidden camera interviews, the guy would say, "hey, you are free to go, we are not cops, we are from Dateline.  Then cameramen would walk into the room.  The guys would freak and bolt out the door.  It was like Candid Camera's for perverts. Sunday morning we got up, met for breakfast with the other parents at the Hilton Ballroom, after a poor breakfast of runny scrambled eggs and croissants, we headed over to the Art Institute and Jesse gave a tour of his favorite artists (Kandinsky, Picasso) and we spent the afternoon there.  Later in the day, Collette jumped on a train, Jesse and I went grocery shopping, I bought him a rice cooker, then we headed up to Damien Street to have some sushi for dinner, then to the coffee shop before I headed to the airport, where I am writing this now.  I'm looking forward to getting home and working on the house some more.  Big day at the office tomorrow and then I have Scotty's showcase tomorrow night.

1105052331 I'm washing clothes, clearing out more boxes and clothes bags, and getting ready to head to Chicago in the morning to visit with Jesse.  It's parents weekend at the School of the Chicago Institute of Arts, and I am a parent.   A proud parent no less.   Today was a bit of a struggle at work with a couple of very lame meetings, and then heading over to the coffee shop to work on the school project with Marc Retish and David Carnes.  I like David, he is a cool guy.  We are still trying to figure out exactly what our music multimedia school is going to be all about.  But, overall, I get the feeling that this might actually turn out to be something.   Tonight I brushing my teeth upstairs.  I hooked up a small radio and was listening to some random song when I swear I heard a voice in the house.  It sent chills up and down my body.  They are still there actually.  I am a bit freaked out living in a big old house all by myself.  Ghosts and all apparently. Matthew scared the shit out of me the first day I moved in saying that there was probably ghosts in the attic.  Im pretty much packed and have to go to the airport in about 5 hours.  Don't want to sleep but figure I should.

1104051251 The big event for me today was raking my lawn for the first time.  I was a perfect fall day and the leaves were brown and dry.  I just wanted to jump in them and play around.  I worked and opened and closed boxes for hours.  I worked on formatting a computer that I ended up giving to Kim Jacobson.  I stopped at the old loft and picked up my heavy duty broom from Nick.  He had his loft already sort out and was very happy.  I then went over to see Matt who continues to be depressed.  He is working real hard on his life and is bored with music right now so I am not sure if he will continue working on music.  Ended up getting the upstairs music room all taped up and ready to paint for tomorrow.  I am anxious to get stuff moved into that room so I can work on music some more.  Bill called me with big news.  Life is good.   Heading to Chicago on Saturday to see Jesse during Parent weekend.  He is stressed knowing that he has to clean up his room to show his Mom.  Going into the office tomorrow so I better get to sleep sooner rather than later.

1102051202 I am finally, officially, positively completely, moved into the new house.  I have been living in computer hell for the last two days trying to get a router and wireless configured, and get my laptop to stop giving me some really gnarly error message when I start up, but other than that, I love the house, I love having a dishwasher, I sleep better, I am totally happy.  Monday and Tuesday was miserable as I had to get all of the final stuff out of the loft.  Scotty was wandering around the building on Monday totally drunk and ranting and raving, totally funny.  At one point he was attempting to help me bring some boxes down the elevator, it was around 6pm and when he passed Bimson's loft pounded on the wall and yelled at Bimson to come out and help, even though we didn't exactly need his help.  Well, Bimson was sleeping and came out of his space yelling and cussing at Carson. Walked out onto the sidewalk and was screaming at the top of his lungs.  All the while I just kept working and ended up clearing out the entire elevator by myself.  Scott took credit of course for helping me so much because he is such a great guy.  Anyway, after 4 or 5 final trips in the car and two trips with Marc Retish's minivan everything is here and moved it.  I am just starting to sort out boxes and keep up with work at the same time.   Bill  Dunn left me a message and says he as some big news.  I think there may be a bun in the oven.  I got  to give Billy a call tonight.

1031050039 Can you say busy.....I am so damn tired of working non stop since the move I cant stand it any more.  On top of that I seem to have been barraged by all my friends who are in total lets catch up on what we have been doing for the last 3 months mode.  I am so lucky to have so many great friends so why the hell am I bitching, I think its because I just have to so much to do.  I don't think I have been keeping up with the journal for almost six days.  The move to St. Paul has gone really good, but brutal at the same time.  I will have to work backwards to catch up with everything.   Today, which is Sunday night I went and met Kim Jacobson and Pam ( a friend of Kim's) and we had dinner at the Yangtze.  The food is traditional Chinese but with the exception that it is exceptional.  Kim was high energy as usual, I came overdressed because I couldn't find any clothes around the house that was in between.  Kim ordered a rum 151 Pina Coladas and we went from there.  There was a bit too much discussion of past relationships, Pam it turned out was in a relationship with Kevin Morang.  A wild man that I knew years ago.  He has since moved to San Diego.  Kevin was a very cool guy until he got one too many drinks in him and then he just switched off.  Sometimes he would fight, sometimes he would rant and rave, but all the time he was out there.  He was strong as hell so you never wanted to be on his bad side.  He was always getting into fights because it was just his nature when he drank.  You could easily see him taking on 2 or 3 cops if they pulled him over for DUI,  and I'm not sure but I bet something like that happened, because I know he was in the workhouse for a while.  Something you would see on cops.  Anyway, Pam was not as kind as I am, she basically was totally dissing him, which bummed me out a bit.  No matter what, I have always liked Kevin.  But I understand how he could have been hard to handle.  Earlier in the day I was basically cleaning out the old loft in Minneapolis.  I still have all of my art work to move over, Marc Retish is going to help me with that tomorrow.   I found a ton of old pictures that Jesse drew when he was young. So that was great.  Got everything ready to go.  Should be able to get everything over in a couple of trips.    Saturday was a strange day.  I slept in till about ten because I was exhausted.  Ended up going to Target and Home Depot and picking up paint, brushes, supplies, groceries, etc.  I feel like I am building a nest for the winter.  I think I will end up staying at home a lot now during the week which will be cool.  Spending a ton of money on stuff.   Picked up very cool Beringer UltraCurve Pro for the studio at Guitar Center for a couple hundred.  That is going to really help to see the eq settings on vocals.  I have started build out the recording studio room at the house.  First things first.  I've written about 3 good songs in the last week and I want to get them going.  Scott and Bimson wanted me to go out with them on Saturday night   I was thinking that might be fun since it was Halloween weekend.  He said he would be ready to go around 10, which meant 11.  I wasn't feeling that good, just exhausted so it was really funny when Carson calls around 10:45 and says "hurry up and get over here, we need a ride" ...I'm not their chauffeur so I laughed off the idea of hanging with those guys.  Saw Carson this morning, he laughed, said I didn't miss anything.  I don't suppose I ever do when I hang out with those guys.  Friday afternoon at NorthWrite kind of sucked,  I had to let one of my employees go.  After I talked with him on the phone, I just sat there crying for a half hour and that was enough to screw me up and totally not want to work for the rest of the day.  Its so damn hard.  You can tell you just put someone into shock, they hurt, and the next thing you know I start to hurt too.  Its kind of like the books that talk about everyone being connected.  Sure feels that way right about now.  I just felt so much pain when I hung up the phone. Erik was a very cool guy, very likeable, a great athlete, but I don't think he was a perfect fit for the organization.  He needs to work at a much larger bureaucratic organizations, we need employees who sweat blood at this stage of the company as we move toward being a large company.    The rest of last week was kind of a blur.  It all started with the movers coming over on Tuesday.  The guys were great.  The busted there ass and worked damn hard. There were three of them and it took them 7 hours.  I have so much stuff its stupid.  I bought them lunch at Jimmy Johns and gave them each a $20 tip.   Nothing was broke except they knocked a bit of plaster off of one of Terri Hallman work.  I will have her fix it when she comes to see me in a few weeks.  Everything went as planned and my new living room and dining room are piled high with boxes. Other events worth mentioning include:  Talked to Cindi about her move in with Brian.  They found a cool place close to where Cindi usta live, I think it is West Hollywood.  The end of the house with Jimmy, Weegee, and Bobby is at an end, and probably not too soon for Sophie.  I will always remember my month with my roommates, it was a great adventure.  Terri's had me call one of her good friends and artist named Mary.  We had a really nice long conversation.  Mary is a very solitary artist who has been working on a mode of art for quite a while now.  I am anxious to see it.  She was telling me stories about how she cuts her own her by twisting it on top of her head then just chopping it off with scissors.  Mary was quiet and soft spoken and very interesting.  I am looking forward to seeing her art.  Terri and Lisa are coming up to Minneapolis over the Thanksgiving holiday.  On Thursday night I went and saw my favorite local band called Sons of Vietnam, Otto having probs with gear. But the set was still great.  After the show, Scott and I went to Rudolph's.

1030052311 Jesse called, he needs money.  On Friday night I had Lizzie for dinner, showed her my place, got kisses on the cheek.   Mystery Girl.  Walk around the neighborhood for the first time.  Going to the Grand Canyon with Jerry Hoffman in May.  Saw the Outlaws with John and Becky.  They were great.  The crowd at the Medina was all old guys my age.  It was scary as hell.  Becky and John and I were swearing at each other in Hillbilly voices all night.   No money, no cash machines worked for some reason. Saw a hip-hop band in hopkins with Kevin the sound guy - Bounce was the band.  White Castles for late night snack, then John ended up falling asleep the car.  He was so tired.  Great set of music on the drive back.

1025050156 I think I finally understand what good service is.  Because in the last two days I have experienced bad service.  It started Sunday morning as I went to the new house.  Excited to see it for the first time, pretty sure that the old tenants would do a half way decent job of cleaning up after themselves, I pull up to 504 Winslow and am greeted by a mountain of garbage of my front yard.  A bit of an eyesore you could say.  I go in the house for the first time and see a note apologizing for the garbage, but that BFI will be by to pick it up.  No problem.  I was in my new house, it was a crisp fall day in Minnesota, the sun was shining, and I was pretty psyched.  I wandered from room to room and notice things that I never saw when I first toured the house, things like extra dirt and grime, cracked windows, banged up doors and walls, torn carpet, and on and on.  It hit me right then that this was going to be a fixer upper.  I arrived exactly at noon because Comcast was going to install Internet between 12 and 3.  I sat down to wait and worked on some NorthWrite on my computer.  1pm, 2pm, 3pm, 3:30pm...I call Comcast, yep, we figure he will be there soon.  If he isn't there by 5pm, then we can do something about it, but not until.  Hmmm....wonder why they told me between noon and 3.  Oh well, being a patient guy, I waited, at 4ish the tech arrives, and he is a nice enough guy, does his job in about a half hour and leaves, but not before he has me sign that everything is working just fine.  I notice that there is no Internet connection, he says that will be good to go in 15 minutes, and hands me the pen.  I sign, he leaves and a half hour later nothing.  I call, they fiddle with some controls behind the curtain, and I start to get online.  I have to go thru a download procedure and the system crashes hard.  I call Comcast (its now 6:30) and state the problem.  She puts me on hold for few 15 minute periods, then promptly says she cannot figure it out, but a tech will get back to me in 24 to 48 hours.   Hmmmm.  This is sure wasting my Sunday.    I finally leave, grab some food, and go home to finish packing.  I have to be up early Monday morning because Molly Maids is coming at 8:30am.  I get about 3 hours of sleep, drag my ass back to St.Paul by exactly 8:25 and wait.  No food, no coffee, a headache, no internet.  I finally call Molly Maids only to get a dispatcher who cannot find my file, when she finally does she says someone will be that at 10am.   When they finally arrived at 11:45, the ring leader introduces me to her two assistances.  Its there first day on the job.  In fact, I am there first customer ever.  Cool, I figure they will be very detail oriented.  They get busy on the upstairs, I work on my laptop, and about an hour later I say to Molly...I'm going to head to Target to pick up some things.  Since they hadn't even started on the downstairs yet, I figured I had plenty of time.  I leave and 15 minutes after I arrive at Target, they call and say they are done.  Done, they apparently cleaned every detail of my home, all the draws, in the fridge, windows, floors, basement, attic, the whole damn house in less then 2.5 hours...how cool is that.  Wait, they don't actually do detailed cleaning.  They dust, the dry and wet mop, they vacuum, and they wipe off the counters.  All for only $150 bucks.  What a deal.  I cant wait to never use them again.  I eventually head back home, and start packing for the big move that will happen in about 5 hours.  I so fricken tired I could cry. They are suppose to be here at 8am.  So, of course I will get up at 7am, shower and be totally ready for them.  I bet they show up at 9am.

1123050328 First off I have to say that Travis is one of the best guitar players.  Ok...tonight was summed up in one word "Stumbles...that is my new name for John Shandrak who was totally tipsy all night to the verge of being on the verge.  After a very perfect day of reading at the coffee shop out in the sun, picking up my peavey tube processor at the Good Guys in St.Paul, stopping at the art supply store to get a drawing pad and some pens, to getting home and totally getting everything on my checklist checked...I end up going out to Mayslacks with John.   The Hillbilly Voodoo Dolls were playing and they did a great set of music.  The highlight was the Johnny Burnette song "Train Kept a Rolling" also done by Aerosmith, what a cool song.  It was one of those rare night where I actually liked myself and felt cool. Mostly because for one of the first times in my life I just didn't give a flying fuck about meeting a girl.   I liked the way I was dressed...totally down...and I loved the music.  I also totally stopped straight line drinking and instead had a drink then a soda water, then a drink.  I was nice not to get to over the top.  During one part of the evening at Mayslacks I felt all this pressure in my head...kind of feel it now too...kind of like caffeine withdrawal.  I don't like the feeling much and I hope it goes away tomorrow.  Anyway...John was funny as hell tonight.  He was telling the band they were out of tune, dancing with girl, then we ended up at Urban for last call and Tony Oliveri gave me the Likehell Video.  They are getting international distribution now and the funny part is in the credit they actually give me credit for doing the website....its totally a goof of a movie.  We ended the night a Pizza Luce where the guy let us in way ahead of others in the line...it pays to be from the hood.  Looking forward to getting some sleep and heading over to the new house in the morning.  Two reminders for the night.  I heard an awesome song by a band called STEN, and I promised to work on the LIKEHELL website and connect them up to the Amazon site to sell the DVD.

1122050137 I need to try to recover my steps, it seems like a long time since I left Louisiana already.  Terri and I stopped at the he Waffle House on the way to the airport.  I  don't think she was impressed.  Waffle House is not Terri's kind of breakfast place, but damn I do love waffles.  The trip home was uneventful.  I still think its funny all that you have to go through to get past airport security.  IDs, shoes, belts, etc.  I saw them take a blind lady over to the side and put her through  a real through inspection.  I  all seems so surreal sometimes.  I ended up reading quite a bit on the plane, then when I landed I was real hungry and went to Wally's Roast Beef and that filled me up.  I then went to the Dunn Brothers and worked till around midnight finishing up the business plan that I had to present to everyone yesterday.  I opted for a more innovation plan versus the stuffy 90 paper.  Patrick seemed disengaged a bit, and Shirley was not ready to put up a much of a struggle.  Finally Luther Krueger came over late afternoon and we talked with him for a couple of hours about CityWorkSite.  My work day was done and I now have marching order to really kick butt and take names regarding CityWorkSite.  Gerard called an stated that he had a apartment in NYC now because it made sense for business.  Hope I get a chance to visit when I go to the city.  Ended going out on the town with Carson and Bimson last night for a while.  I thought my friend Otto was playing at the Uptown so we headed that direction.  No luck, not till next Thursday...good luck.  I love the s\band Sons of Vietnam.  We ended up at Mayslacks.  I ended up seeing Ericka,  Matt's old girlfriend but didn't recognize her at first.  Kind of embarrassing.  She was nice and she talked  about getting a drummer.  Today was cool.  I slept in a bit, made a few calls, and then drove over to the new house to pick up my house keys.  I am going to put a picture of my new key  on my website, but not tonight, too tired. Then off to the Ramsey Courthouse to file homestead status documents.   Then off for the Dunn Brothers again to work all day and all night.  I worked till about 8am in the CityWorkSite website and its look good.   Then I worked on music for about an hours and I think I have a great song started.  It s going to take allot of editing but the content is there.  It may be a great song.   So off to bed now big day tomorrow.  I think I am going to watch the movie On the Waterfront again.  I like it a lot, especially in the scene with Brando and the girl where he say he couldn't live in the country because crickets make him nervous.

1018051858 One more night in Louisiana and I have to head home.  I wish I could stay longer. I wish I could spend some time painting.  I was only able to kick off one work of art this morning.  I like the direction it was headed. Started out my same old way of trying to draw a head, but ended up with a mailbox and a house.  Worked on it for about 3 hours took a break and then Terri helped me see a few things like shadow that I missed. It totally added some nice dimension to the work, gave it more depth.  Yesterday was a remarkable full moon day for a few reasons.  It started off with my meeting Mike Delahoussaye for the first time.  He is a interesting guy who is involved in homeland security and doing different things for the federal government.  He was introduced to me on Sunday by Troy and Wendie.  I talked to him a couple of hours on Sunday afternoon, then met with him Monday morning at his home.  I think a picture or two that I took at his house will end up in the photo gallery.  I arrived at time at Mike's house, a large colonial south of Lafayette.  He walked me inside the kitchen and I set up my laptop to present CityWorkSite to him.  His daughter showed up because she is in the software industry and he wanted her to see it also.   I went thru the pitch and he seemed to get it.   She was a bit bored by the whole affair and after about 20 minutes decided to leave.   Mike stated that he had a few doors that he could open up and that he saw possibilities for our software to work in Hospitals, and other places.  I tried to bring him back to the fact that I was more interested in opening a new market in Cities, and that if he was interested I would consider any help he wanted to offer in this area.   Mike picked up the phone and made some calls to some friends of his, but no one was available directly and he left messages.   Mike then proceeded to spend 4 hours telling me about his life, his work with children, how he has helped other the Cajun way, and how he is networked closely with allot of important people.   He showed me his workshop, showed me writing that he is leaving his grandchildren including poems, stories, lectures, and other scrapbook type things.   He made me some delicious gumbo and talked on an on for another couple of hours.   He seems to really love to talk about his life.  He is in pretty tough shape with some breathing problems and other health issues.   It was as remarkable five hours, even if I only got one hour of work done.  I guess I will see if he really has the juice and is able to setup meetings with me and some important officials.   I agreed to get him a personal worksite and to provide some training.   I left his house a bit exhausted, and headed back to Terri's.  After catching up on work stuff I headed over to Troy's for a motorcycle lesson.   He let me ride his Honda 350 and I did pretty good.  Got the hang of it after a few minutes and spent about an hour just driving up and down the highway that Troy lives on back and forth.  It was exhilarating and is getting me excited about my first motorcycle.  I figure I will get something next summer.  Probably start out with something small like the Honda and eventually get the Harley that I deserve.  When I got home from riding the bike, Terri and I went into town and had a meal at a Greek restaurant.  Good food, but they turned the lights on completely in the place half way thru our meal and it was strange.  When we asked them to turn the lights down again, they said "oh, that's ok, you can take all the time you want".  We just laughed.  Ended up at a bookstore and picked up a couple of business books.   Heading out for some Cajun food tonight, and leaving for Minneapolis in the morning.  I felt my first feeling of excitement today about the house.  I get the keys on Sunday, Cleaners come on Monday, Movers on Tuesday.  The adventure is almost ready to begin.

1016051850 Well I made it on my 24 hour fast.  It was a bit harder then I thought and not as bad at the same.  It was actually the hardest about 3 hours after I started versus the last three hours of the fast.  Since I wasn't able to get a frequent flyer ticket to go to Chicago then Louisiana without spending 90000 banked miles I only got to go to Lafayette for only 25000.  I arrived in Louisiana around 7pm on Thursday night and Terri and I went to a Cajun restaurant called the Blue Dog.  It has some art by a guy that draws nothing but blue dogs.  Since I was half starved at that point I wolfed down a seriously large shrimp dinner combo of shrimp soup, shrimp salad, 5 kinds of beat up battered and broiled shrimp.  Now I don't have to eat shrimp for a year or so.  We ended up back at Terri's and just caught up with each other.  Friday was a very busy day working on the CityWorkSite business plan then we went to a Cuban restaurant and Wendy and Troy joined us for coffee and dessert.    We ended up going to the Blue Moon after.  That is only one of the coolest Cajun bars in the world.   Its literally in an old house, you want in the front entrance, go into the backyard and the next thing you know you see a big deck and a band is playing.  The two times I have been there I have seen some of the best bands ever.  Friday there was a band that was a bunch of early 20 something but they could totally kick out the Cajun music and when you watch some of the dancers you are literally blow away.   Its a total art form just like Polka music.  People are happy, excited, and uninhibited.  You walk from the stage area into the back yard and they have swings and chair and everybody just chills.  On Saturday we got up and went and had breakfast with Wendy and Troy.  Saturday night, a friend of Terri's from St. Charles drove over and we went out to Tsunami for sushi, then to a Cajun bar in town with a gritty dance floor, cowboys, and a great sound system.  Terri and Lisa were a bit over the top drinking and having fun and getting way to frisky talking about shoes, purses, and sex.  I was only interested in the sex conversation, but was more interested in dancing to Cajun again.   I ended up on the dance floor with some local girl who taught me some of the moves and twirls and I was having a blast.   Terri and Lisa decided they wanted to leave so I said goodbye to my new dance partner, but when I caught up with Terri outside she said they were just going to take a cab since they new I wanted to stay.  I disagreed, but I got the feeling they just wanted to hangout alone, so I let them go and went back into the bar.  The girl I was dancing with had found a new partner, I got a drink at the bard and just listened to the band for the rest of the night.   I finally left and got in the truck, being a bit pass the legal limit, not having a clue where home was, and realizing that I don't have my cell phone to call Terri and get directions, I just start using my logic.  The streets were emptying out from the bars and there were cops everywhere.  I did not want to be driving.   I headed some direction that looked logical but ended up someplace that didn't look familiar at all.  I was getting frustrated, hungry, and a bit weirded out by the whole thing, when I spotted a Waffle House.  Thank you baby Jesus, waffles.  Delicious, syrupy  waffles. I went inside and sat at the counter.  This very overweight girl next to me had just ordered a ton of food including a double order of sausage.  We talked a bit, she was fun as can be, turns out she drove from St. Charles to Lafayette (50 Miles) to see a cowboy band play.  She seemed a bit tipsy, and I asked her did she think it was a good ideas to be driving on the freeway under the influence.   She said, "we get drunk, we go to Waffle House, we drive home...this isn't my first rodeo cowboy"   Turns out she was a computer geek.   I got directions and finally made it back to Terri's and crashed.   Today I worked most of the day on CityWorkSite again, have a big meeting with a guy connected with Homeland Security for Louisiana, worked on a piece of art that I hope do a bit more on tomorrow, and wrote this journal entry. 

1012050036 It's been a strange couple of days. I couldn't find any energy last night to write anything in my journal of substance. Lets see if I can come up with anything today. I feel like such a slob guy for the last couple of days. I hate taking showers in my loft, all of my clothes are a mess, no fresh air, and a lame diet, not enough exercise, and all I seem to do is wake up, sleep, work on NorthWrite, and do some recording with the Trident pre-amp that I bought. You can check out my first random song called Its Just Not Fair in the music section. Its just one of those totally melancholy songs that I write on a regular basis. I have used the melody chord progression for about 10 years now and it just feels real haunting to me. When ever I start to play it I get totally sad inside and just write about lost love. What I do like about this song is a lot of the found sound stuff I added. I took my cell phone and added a voice message that Lisa sent me yesterday. It seems so strange to me that she would just call me again out of the blue and give me some general information as if we are just a couple of buddies catching up with each other. Its not like its Gerard or Bill or Terri checking in with me...its Lisa. How strange is that. I had a nice conversation on the phone with Lizzie yesterday. She seems to be bored with work as usual and having a lot of writers angst. Jesse seems to be doing good at school. My eyes have been totally screwing me up for two days or maybe three now. Its kind of driving me crazy.  Every time I spend more than an hour on the computer my eyes dry out and then they start to hurt.  I went out and sat on the front steps facing the freeway this afternoon for about 20 minutes.  It was heavenly to get some sun on my face.  I was listening to the song by Kid Rock...Only gods Knows Why....and I think it is still one of the great songs written.  I listened to it about three times straight and got pretty emotional   My emotions are right on the surface lately.  I feel so close to crying sometimes and then once I start I just sort of catch myself and start to laugh.  The other day I saw this term in something I was reading. The word was ..damn I forget but it had to do with this incredible painful crying that happens to individuals when someone close to them dies.  It a wailing, agonizing cry...I will get the word later.  I think its an Irish term.  Tomorrow is the Jewish day of atonement.  Marc R. is going to do his sundown to sundown fast and I have decided to try to join him.   I don't think I have ever done a 24 hour fast.  I think the concept of fasting and asking yourself for forgiveness for the wrongs you have done to other is probably a good concept.  So I am going to see if I can pull it off.  I will let you know if I made it on Thursday at sundown.  I'm going to go see if I can actually do a rock song by myself with the new gear.  I am dying to see if I can get the vocal effects the same as Concrete Blonde.  I'm sitting looking out the window of my east side of the building loft.  I realize that I only have about 2 more weeks in this building.  Its been about 12 years in this building.  I think I am going to really miss it.  Its hard to imagine that I have actually lived here that long.  Its harder to imagine that I will last that long at the new home in St Paul. Sometimes I think of the St.Paul as a launch point for me to live somewhere else.  NYC near central park, and island in the Caribbean, a villa in Europe, or a palace in Moscow.  I wonder what the world has in store for me.  Heck,  I just remembered the Kid Rock words - you get what you put in, and people get what they deserve". I met this totally cool girl named Anne on Friendster a while back.  She is a musician and likes a lot of eclectic stuff.  We might get together and work on music someday.   She is got a lot going on in her life now as I do so I don't expect anything to happen anytime soon, but I get the feeling that after I move over to St. Paul and her life settles we might get to be friends-sters. Not hamsters.

1011050310 It way too late at night, I'm back to being a real night owl.  I just cant seem to sleep anymore. I'm quite exhausted.  I think what threw me over the edge was getting so much sleep on Sunday.  I think I slept for 14 hour straight.  Now I'm kind of all screwed up.   Today was a very busy day at NorthWrite.  I spent about 5 hours showing the tech team the 2006 business plan for CityWorkSite and after futile resistance by Shirley I think she finally came around.  Ended up in a good conversation with Patrick early evening.  One of the better ones that we have had in a year or so.  We were dreaming about the future and wanting to make more money and feeling like partners again.  I hope that feeling lasts.

1009050001 Last night I ended up going out to see Stockcar Named Desire with John Shandrak.  When we arrived there was a psychobilly band upon stage that was just awful.  They played way too fast and had no groove.   They had the standard three piece with stand up bass plenty of arm tattoos and rockabilly appeal but overall they didn't impress me.  I was anxious to see Travis.  On the ay over to the Whiskey Junction John pulled out a CD of Black Sabbath.  The first album with the song Black Sabbath.  He cranked it up on his truck stereo system which was great and it was like I was hearing the song again for the first time.  Sabbath was so incredibly powerful a band when they first stated.  There are sirens in the beginning of the song and it reminded me of Conspiracy Theory.  CT was such a great band.  I loved all the songs.  I realized that the sirens in the Sabbath song are similar to tone of the great CT songs.  When we got inside the Whiskey I ran into Dana.  Its always nice to see her because she is always upbeat and happy.  But for some reason she always wants to give me a full on lip kiss and it doesn't make any sense.  Its like kissing my sister I  imagine.  I was sitting there watching the band and some girl came up to me and asked me to dance.   I wasn't feeling particularly in a dance mood just wanted to listen to the band.  I politely said no thanks but she kind of dragged my arm.  I told her again that I didn't want to dace and sat down.   The waitress came up and asked if I wanted a drink, but before I could answer her the girl who asked me to dance started bitching to the waitress that I was a loser because I didn't want to dance with her.  She said even 80 year old men want to dance with her and she couldn't figure out what was wrong with me.  It was a very depressing scene.  I looked at her and said "why are you being mean to me" I just don't want to dance  All of a sudden you could see in her eyes that she figured out that she was wrong to be mean to me but by that time I was already walking away and left the bar and went next door to the Cabooze.  There was some hippie band on stage with about 9 members and the crowd was really getting into them.  I listened to about 5 songs and thought they all sounded the same.  By this time is was closing and I walked to the front door with John to leave.  The girl who was mean to me next door was there stumbling drunk asking the club to call her e cab.  I ended up at home and went straight to bed.  When I got up the next morning I watched the movie Kung Fu Hustle.  John had burned me a copy the night before.  It was a very cool movie.  Funny, entertaining. Reminded me of the Matrix meets Kung Fu, meets Abbott and Costello.  My friend Cindi sent me this really cool story today.  I like it a lot.  I kept seeing all kinds of parallels to parts of my own life.  It's late Saturday night, and I'm at home.  My eye is on the verge of feeling bad, I have a bit of a sore throat, and I ate way too much today to feel comfortable in my jeans, and all my clothes are dirty.  Its kind of a miserable night over all so I am hoping that I can just find a way to fall asleep and hopefully feel a lot better tomorrow.

1007052057 I just stood in front of the mirror and really chopped off a lot of my hair...the sides are so fricken short in spots I look like a concentration camp victim.  What a goof.  Having really bad hair is better then boring hair so overall I'm somewhat pleased with the results.  The Guess Who is on the radio playing No Time.  I remember really loving the guitar solo to this song in 10th grade at Bruce High School.   I usta sit in the bowling alley and play billiards by myself or with anyone who would challenge me.  If you won you didn't have to pay for the next game.  By the end of year I was winning on a regular basis so I played a lot for free.   When I did have some extra money which I would steal out of my Dads pants when he was passed out I would play song in the Jukebox at the bowling alley.   The bowling alley was the only entertainment in Bruce, Wisconsin that wasn't related to liquor.  4 bars and a bowling alley on main street that was it.  The other song that I was really in love with was Alive and Kicking - Tighter and Tighter.  My day was kind of cool overall.  I putzed around in the morning then met Marc Retish up at Herkimers for our second meeting of the new school project we are working on.  We invited Adam Levy from the Honeydogs, it was my first chance ever meeting him, he was a very cool, smart guy, and funny.  I liked him.  Afterwards I hit the coffee shop and worked on CityWorkSite the rest of the afternoon.  I was suppose to go out with Becky Stussy tonight but I think we both thought against  it.  She supposedly has an "open" relationship with a boyfriend who is away on naval leave.  I don't feel to cool about that actually and I'm sort of glad I didn't call her and she didn't call me.  Maybe she came to her senses.    Now that I have a completely screwed up do I figure its a good time to hit the town.  I know that Stockcar Named Desire is playing at the Whiskey Junction tonight.  I love Travis's guitar and rockabilly crowds.  The rockabilly girls always wear old fashion dresses.   Unfortunately I don't have a rock ability hairdo. but what the heck.

1107050201 My day started with a very strange dream where I was in my new house, and there were some friends in the house visiting and just hanging out and having fun.  I turned around and Jesse walked into the kitchen and he seemed very sad in the eyes.  I felt like he was bummed out about something.  But I was surprised to find him home from college.  I walked up to him and hugged him and kept giving him kisses on the cheek till it seemed absurd and that's what woke me up.  I was exhausted and fell back asleep for another hour, got up and went to get breakfast at Flameburger, my typical eggs and hash browns...quite the mistake. totally greasy food...I'm pretty much done with not having good food in life.  Anyway...it was getting around 11am and I was feeling guilty for not working...I ended up going to Dunn Brothers by Loring Park and working till almost 8pm.  I got a lot done on CityWorkSite although I felt very disconnected from Patrick and Shirley and the rest of the team.  I ended up going to Majers and Quinn and found a few books that I thought I would like, hit Lunds and picked up some groceries, and made it home.   It was 10pm and I jumped in the shower and went to the Gastoph to see Charlie and the boys in Lobster Boy.  I picked up Bimson, Carson, and Gummba at the Monte Carlo and ran into the she male Sharon Rose.  She once was a dancer for Bowie, and came into Atomick Records hoping that I would produce her / him.   She is quite beautiful but doesn't have  good singing voice so there wasn't much I could do for her at the time.   We ended up going to Gastoph and guys were buying me drinks so I was saving a few bucks.  Lobster Boy was off for most of the night but once in a while they sounded great.  The are a cross between the Replacements, the Gin Blossoms, and the Cars.  I ended up dropping Bimson off at Nyes Polinaise, and I headed home to watch the French film Breathless.  It a nicely filmed black and white film about a good looking con man who can seduce many women on the streets of Paris.  I ended up putting my picture up on Match.com today and I basically hated it.  I look so angry and unfriendly.  I wish I were more photogenic.  When I was at the bookstore I picked up the diaries of Anise Nin.  I figure sometimes that I am the new Anise Nin...what a joke...she was journaling for 15 years...who knows maybe I will still be doing this 15 years from now.  I've kind of made a pact to just completely say what is on my mind no matter what.  I mean what the fuck do I have to lose anyway.  It was nice talking with Jesse early evening today.  He is anxious to move back into the other dorms at school. I don't figure that I will actually write to anyone on Match.  But, if someone can see past my picture, and read my profile, and is willing to contact me that might be cool.  I am so tired sometimes have to be the chaser.  But who knows.  I miss Lisa again today.  I was hoping that she might call me and ask me to go to the art institute or something like that, but nothing.  My eye has been fucking up most of the day and that is very depressing.  By the way, I am not depressed, or sad, or anything bad.  Jesse mentioned that he felt sorry for me when he read my journal, but no need, I am very happy with life overall.  I can handle the sad times just as well as the happy times.  Heck the happy times wouldn't be happy unless there was as contrast with the sad.   I miss music tonight.  I want to get up on stage in front of a big crowd and go crazy.  I think my best friend Billy is in Italy for a couple of weeks, and and and..thats about all I have to say tonight.

1005051727 Ok, so everything was just cruising along fine...well not exactly fine, I was in my normal down in the dumps lately but other than that life was normal.  A friend actually commented to me today that she felt bad for me because I sounded so depressed in my journal, but I want to assure you that is not the case.  No matter how down in the dumps I sound, life is really cool and exciting and I love being alive and having music, art, Jesse, and my friends in my life.  Work has been tolerable mostly because I have been busting my butt lately and trying to get a lot done.  I have no choice in life but to work now that my loft is totally turned upside down and there is really no point in a home life.  Anyway, out of the blue Lisa calls me last night just to "check up on me".  She said she thinks about me in "snippets" which was funny because yesterday afternoon I was thinking how cool the word snippets was.  Thought it would make a good name for a rock band.  Lisa was Lisa, she made me laugh talking about her adventures at work, and it was nice to listen to her.  I missed her during the call and didn't know what to say to her.  I of course wanted to see her again because apparently I am one to chose self abuse or self esteem, but damn, I just liked her so much.  I was sitting at Market BBQ by myself around 11pm when she called, about a half hour later my plate sat there uneaten, and I lost my appetite.  I end up going home and straightening up the home a bit.   (Sideline - I'm in a Coffee shop now writing this listening to Natalie Merchant over the speakers.  I always like to listen to Natalie in a Coffee shop, its good background music, it rocks enough to be enjoyable, but not so much that it distracts).   Around 1pm Carson rolls in pounding on my door in his suit.   He is a bit lit just arriving home from Monte Carlo.   He was in rare form and I pulled out the digital camera and shot a quick video of him as he raged around the apartment swearing and cussing about an unknown girl, its classic Carson when he is on camera.  His language goes from PG to very harsh XX in no time.  Its like some sort of trigger in his mind goes off when he is on camera and drinking and acting.  He just becomes violent, angry, and overall very comical.  He is actually acting, but you would swear he is ranting.   I'm going to call the little film The Black Hammer.   It's in the film section, but if you offended by violent language, don't watch it.   Today I spent the morning with Marc working on the CityWorkSite business plan.  My friend Becky called and wanted to hang out Friday night.  Tony Wagner blew me off for dinner last night.  Erik Lindstrom had one of his lymph nodes removed today, and I sit here thinking about how I feel a bit better today than I did yesterday.   Kim Jacobson also called, he is thinking he might rent one of the rooms of my new house for a while.  He is going to be a pilot for the new Phil Michelson resort in Palm Springs, and will be flying out of the St.Paul airport.  Sounds like he will be gone two weeks a month.   I hope its fun to have Kim as a roommate.  He knows a ton about nutritional supplements, and macrobiotic foods so I get the feeling that I maybe able to turn my diet around finally.    Still trying to debate if I can get out of town and go see Terri in Lafayette.  I just dont know if I should drive or fly.

1003052116 Sunday night blues apparently.  I miss having a good rehearsal on Sunday night.  I just don't have a clue where Tucker Get Down is going right now.   This morning we bounced out of bed after getting practically no sleep last night, and went out to Matt's former brother in law and recorded in his home studio.  Not sure how the recording will turn out.  The drums did not sound that great from my viewpoint.  But we will see.  We stopped first at Embers for breakfast and I had a chocolate shake and toast.  The breakfast of champions.  I was just in the mood for that.  I seem to be eating  better and better all the time so once in a while its nice to just go on a tangent.  The studio was located in the basement of his house.  Everything was all set to go but for the most part the engineer was tired after being out all night at a wedding.  We made it back home and I crashed.  I had a dream that a really pretty girl gave me a very wet kiss but for some reason my mouth was full of food.  She also had a boyfriend who was a musician that I knew slightly, but here she was kissing me passionately and saying she liked me.  I was confused and frisky at the same time.  I just wanted to spit out the food and kiss her, but I couldn't find anywhere to spit out the food, so I was just frustrated and trying to talk with her while thinking that I was ridiculous.   Woke up and puttered around my total disaster area for a home and wanted to make a peanut butter sandwich but couldn't find the peanut butter or plastic knives.  I was starving.  Got dressed and ended up going to Leanne Chin to have noodles.  Then to the Coffee shop.  Beside being totally depressed beyond comprehension right now (could it be poor diet) I feel totally disconnected from people.  I feel so alone.  Reminds me of the days when I was in my early 20's and I would just drive around the city feeling sad and lonely.  It felt good to just talk to a clerk I seemed so pathetic.  I can make my mind work things out better now that I am older, but that feeling of being lonely is still there.  The Coffee shop was playing old Led Zeppelin.  What a great band.  Even after 30 years the beats are still killer.  I need to get home get comfortable and put some serious time into NorthWrite.  CityWorkSite is doing good but we need to get it to the next level.   Its time to kick some butt like Marc Retish has been doing lately and get this thing ready to launch in January. 

1003050323 Went to see Revolver Modele with John Shandrak.  It was fun, good band, good drummer and noisy guitar.  Reminded me of how good Red Shadow Chorus use to be.  After that we ended up going to Ground Zero and I danced to some hardcore Goth music for about an hour, it was great as usual, I wished I had tennis shoes on and black clothes...but nevertheless I felt great dancing.  John wanted to go to White Castle afterwards and we did.  It was the usual drunk crowd of guys waiting in line.  It was ridiculous.  Glad to be home, reading a good book called Thumbsucker.  It has been made into a movie.  I will probably go to the movie after I finish the book.  See how I like that.  Have to get up in 5 hours to go to the recording studio.   I'm feeling a bit tired, bored, talked to Lizzie, she is into her writing.  Missed Lisa a bit.  Feeling pretty lonely.  I wonder how Cindi's date at the NIN concert went.

1001051443 I'm weak as a kitten today, but I am a official homeowner, according to Marc Retish. Everything finally came together although the closing took about 4 hours. The couple that I am buying the house from cleared a nice $100K in equity and its official. I got home around 6:30 and worked by butt off getting the final stuff out of the nice loft and moved it over to the old loft. It was miserable work, tedious, and tiring. I had been at it for approximately 36 hours total and if that is any indication then the move to the house should be real intense. The old loft is crazy now it is so packed. There are little trails from the bathroom, to the kitchen sink, to the water cooler, to the chair to the bed. That's it. It is going to definitely going to be miserable living there for the next 3 weeks, but I will survive. I kind of feel like I want to get out of town, but not sure when or where. An all inclusive resort would be kind of nice right now actually. Maybe I will look up something. xI need a bit of pampering. I feel a bit depressed and lonely today. I went out with Scott and John and Eldon (El Dorado) last night. I like those guys. Scott smoked some pot and totally couldn't handle being outside anymore. He ended up going home.x Just leaving us there. I know how he gets sometimes. I actually left early too and got in the car and made a white castle run.x it helped my hangover a bit, but by this morning I still felt kind of miserable. I just cant drink anymore, and its not worth feeling like crap the next day. Days are way to precious to feel this poor, and this isn't really a bad hangover or anything.x Its just that I really like feeling healthy. I'm sitting up at the Dunn Brothers Coffee shop by Loring park.x Its kind of a hot muggy day in Minnesota.x Not sure what I want to do tonight. Tomorrow we go into a recording studio to record some Tucker Get Down songs. That should be fun. Last night I ran into Lori Barbero outside the Fine Line. She is in a new band. She was talking about how cool Billy Idol concert was a couple weeks ago. I wish I had gone now.

093050119 Well its not every day that you receive the Citizens Merit Award from the Major of Minneapolis and the Chief of Police. This morning at the Target Center I got the award for development of CityWorkSite. It was pretty cool. The whole team went with me and they gave me a very nice plaque to put on the wall at the office. It was almost a disaster because I woke up this morning exactly 19 minutes before I had to be at the Target Center. I showered, shaved, dressed, and speed walked to get their a minute or two late. The rest of the day was working and trying to figure out all the details of the home mortgage that I have to get all the paperwork in tomorrow. I just spent the last 5 hours working on the other loft. I have to get everything moved out of my current loft into the new one by Friday night. I think I will be able to get everything done. I found out today that Matthew is going to move into the duplex that his best friend Andy lives in. That is great for Matthew but finally kicks Nick out of the nest. Sorting thru all of my boxes tonight was a chore and a half. Had this real feeling of sadness when I found a bucket full of Jesse's old children's books that I usta read to him when he was a baby. I remember the favorite one was Katy the Kitty. About some kitten who hides under a hat. I bet I read that to him a thousand times. Also found a couple of old boxes full of Leslie's stuff that she left here. I imagine I might bring them out to her Mom's house one of these days. finally exhausted at 1am, figure I will try to get some sleep and really get it all done tomorrow.

0926050047 Just got home from LA. The trip back was darn easy. Read a bit, wrote in my journal. Nice to be back home even if this is the last week in my nice loft. I have to start packing tomorrow. Ran out to Rainbow foods to pick up groceries. Every time I go to the Rainbow in NE Minneapolis I think of Lisa. That totally sucks. Spent late afternoon at the Manhattan Beach Pier. Finished a very cool photo book written by the film director Wim Wenders. It was a total inspiration to read the book because for one thing I have a lot of respect for Wim Wenders as a film director, and then at the beginning of the book he made the statement "Every photograph is the first frame of a movie".   The book is called Once.   The rest of the day was a bit of a wash.  I ended up going back to my hotel room around 4pm and slept till 11ish.  I had a very surreal dream that I was in a movie theatre and had to rescue someone named George Ott.  The owner of the movie theatre pulled me out of the movie and told me I had to leave to help him.  I woke up out of the dream.  After five minutes and a drink of water, I laid down again and went right back into the dream.  Same outcome.   Last night went with Cindi and a friend of named....Kathy...no that's not it...regardless....we ended up going to the Knitting Factory to see a band called The Screaming Cheetahs.    The band was a good old school punk band, but the sound man was clueless and played way too loud.  I was having a fun time, but apparently to Cindi was I was a bit edgy, it seemed to bother her, I was in a basically fun Saturday night mood but it didn't work I guess.  Anyway the night was a bit tense on the ride home but we ended up back at Cindi's, hung out with Brian for a while and then we picked up a pizza at Ralph's and watched Scary Movie.  It was really funny.  First time I saw it.  Its pretty out there.  It was really fun to see Cindi, we had a really fun night on Thursday as we went out to Mansoon Restaurant in Santa Monica for sushi dinner, and I started to hear about her upcoming date with a tall skinny drummer.  I underestimated how excited she was to go to NIN next Saturday with this guy.   Earlier this week, weekend, I was at the national restaurant equipment tradeshow with E Control Systems.  It made me a bit uncomfortable.  Not sure exactly where the relationship or sales with them will go.  But only time will tell.  Being in California is kind of fun.  I feel almost like El Segundo is a second home.  Considering its a suburb of LAX its not exactly nice, but its convenient to Venice and Redondo Beach.

0917052102 I just watched the Legends of Poker which Doyle Brunson won all the while inventing Puzzles in Space.  The idea is to click on all the words in the puzzle put them together to solve the little story that I came up with.  I think I can probably turn this into something that might be cool.  I think I can probably turn this into something pretty cool.   Damn, another website to build, another thing to distract me, creativity rules my life for good and evil.  I kind of want to go out tonight but no one seems to be calling me so I guess my lonely existence continues.  I suppose I could get outside myself, but its not as much fun to try to go out on my own.

0917051614 Sitting in the Dunn Brothers Coffee shop looking out the window at Loring Park, and watching a group of six teenagers sit in a circle and play guitar and rap. One kind of heavy set girl broke into a very cool rap song as she sat with her pit bull. She is a cross between a girl and a boy. Standing about 5'8 wearing a doo rag on her head , a white tee shirt black sweat pants, with tennis shoes...a guess she was actually watching the pit bull for someone else. she leans over and gives a very wet kiss to a very pretty girl with a brit sweatband on her head. The whole scene was a total contradiction playing out in front of me. That's the way the last 24 hours have been. The last couple of days at work have been a struggle...the last week actually. Everyone was overworked. Everyone was mean to each other. It just didn't feel like a very fun place to work. I hate it when I push new ideas thru the organization. Everyone just gets overwhelmed and the next thing you know the stress levels raise and pressure mounts. Last night I went out around with John Shandrak and we went to a rock club way out north in Fridley. The Main Event. We saw a tribute band to Led Zeppelin called Zed Leppelin. Creative huh. They had three pretty good player with good gear but the guitarist although skilled was running thru a Line6 amp which has a very thin sound. While I was there I saw this really high energy blonde girl who reminded me of Lisa.  But, she was a total bundle of energy.  I never saw any girl move as herky jerky and fast and intense as her.  She was quite intriguing to me, anyway I was watching the band, watching her, watching the band, watching her.  I was just about to go over and say hi to her when she walked up to me and said., and I quote "if you keep staring at me I'm going to punch you in the face.  I haven't been out in a club in 4 years"....then she abruptly turned away.  I said I thought she had 'great energy"...she was kind of taken back and went and sat on a stool.   Here energy seemed to be gone.  I honored her request and kept my eyes on the band, but it was kind of  a sad feeling.  John and I went to Flameburger and pounded down biscuits and gravy.   I ended up going home, ran into Tony and two guys who work at Sex World  and Feiger who wanted to come up to my place and partake in some illicit street drugs of which I have no interest and stated I was just going to bed...they literally followed me to the door and begged to just come into my place for a while.  As they shared treats between each other Tony went kind of mental as I was sitting on the couch waiting for them to leave and started hugging and kissing me on the forehead.  I just wanted to get him off me but I was so damn tired I couldn't resist and finally he laughed.  They all finally left after about 10 minutes realizing that I was not going to provide them an all night launch pad.  I went to sleep and managed a good 9 hours.  Feeling good today.  Everything seems back on track at work and I look forward to the rest of my day.

0914051833 This week can best be summed up in three words Felix Hampton Brown.  It pretty much all started on Sunday morning.  I actually got up early for a change.  Had some brownies for breakfast and went for an all day bike ride.  As I rode into Loring Park I noticed some very cool art being drawn on burlap bags.  It was kind of primitive outsider art.  I stopped to look at it and started talking to the artist Felix.  It turns out that Felix is a recovering addict from East St. .Louis who is preparing for an outsider art show at Mall of America.  Felix is quite a charismatic character and laid out his life story to me in the first thirty minutes.  Turns out he was a Mapplethorpe model in NYC in the old days, is 47 years old, and does all kinds of art, clothing design in the form of hats, and a singer.  He loves Opera and Jazz.  With a big booming voice that he likes to shout to the world he yells and hollers and is fun to be around.  After I talk I felt like I had met a fellow artist.  I rode my bike to the Coffee shop, then all round Minneapolis for the rest of the afternoon. When I was on my way home again, I again ran into Felix.  He asked to come over to my place to see my art.  I had stuff to do, but told him to come over the next night.  He did.  He was blown away by my art and stated that he thought I should be in the show with him, in fact he insisted that I be in the show also.  We took about 10 Polaroid's of my work and Felix brought them to the curator the next day.  He called back, asking if I was homeless.  Being far from homeless, I didn't qualify to be in the show.   Apparently the theme of the show was the real show, not the art.   No big deal he did ask to visit my studio and see my art.  I stated I wasn't ready to show my art at this point. But I would get back to him.  I let him know that if he was interested in buying any of my art, the first piece was $1,000,000 and the second piece was $1.   I think I etched in his brain that I am a bit off center.  Felix thought the idea was crazy.  But, whatever. My art is priceless to me at this point.  I suppose someday I could see giving my art but to sell it for a $1000 or $5000 or whatever the going rate is, would seem sad.  After looking at art for a while I showed Felix my music room and we took to jamming on a very cool song.  Kind of a George Winston piano thing with Felix booming out gibberish opera music.  It actually sounded pretty good.  I will get a copy of it up on the web.   By the end of our night together I was in full blown marketing mode trying to figure out how to market our art and music together.  Felix has come cool coloring book that he wants to pull together, and the music thing might work, so I agreed to start working the marketing angle to the whole thing.  Another marketing plan...screw that.  I have enough to do with NorthWrite to be trying to market art.  I cant even get my own art or music marketed.  We will see where this goes.

0908052218 Saw the movie "Broken Flowers" by Jim Jarmusch.  A bit of a disappointment although it has tended to linger with me.  It had a bit of an existential ending which parallels my life right now.  Everything just seems so outside of me.  In a rather profound way.  I feel someone disconnected from people, things, music, art, etc.  Breaking up with Lisa probably had something to do about it, but it just seems that this has been coming on for a while now.  Life just has a slight ting of surreal to it all the time.  I sat up late last night on the dock at the cabin up north and looked out on Lake Milaca and just felt this awe feeling.  It was extremely lonely and that feeling has been hanging with me.  Now I'm sitting in Spyhouse Coffee shop in So. Mpls.  I think I have the new house in St.Paul.  I need to laugh at myself some.  I need to cry.  I need to get away to an island and just chill out.  Maybe I should do that this weekend.  Maybe not.  Probably need to save the bucks for now.  But I definitely will sometime soon.  Its funny how all of these people congregate at this rather cool Coffee shop.  Is everyone lonely.  Everybody hurts sometimes - REM.   I met someone on Friendster today.  She seems like a cool person.  Artistic.  That is kind of cool.   Talked to Lizzie.  She sounds like she is hanging in there.  Her Dad made it through lung cancer surgery.  She is writing more and taking writing workshops at the UofM.  Jesse is fully into cartooning at school.  The scudder just wants to cartoon so bad.  He is definitely going to have a great career as a cartoonist.  Its such a joy to see him so passionate about his talent.  I'm going to be working on Out of the Blue book tonight.  Just was thinking about Bill lately.  I hope he is happy in his new home.  Erik and Marc made fun of me over the last couple of days because I keep bringing up that I want to get a Rat Terrier when I move into the new house, and because I always bring up my Honeywell career in conversations regarding business.   The three of us watched the Agassi / Blake tennis match quarterfinals at the US Open last night.  It was great.

0907051407 Sitting in a wood panel room at Ruttgers Lodge in Central Minnesota. My company is attending the MN Engineers Guild conference with our tradeshow booth. Erik and Marc are upstairs doing their thing. I'm sitting in this very quaint room, although I expect to see a stuffed animal of some sort if I turn all the way around. This place is so Minnesota. Antique pictures mounted up by the ceiling of the graduation class of 1920. Another picture of the first main street of Brainerd MN with only about 4 buildings. Very wild west. There is so much to describe but it is basically way to boring and Norwegian to get into details. Life is a bit surreal as of late. I broke up with Lisa on Saturday. That was a stunner. It pretty much sucks to lose someone that you care about because they don't have deep feelings for you. I suppose that I will get over it, but I get the feeling I should take a good long break. I have enough on my plate right now anyway. Back to work.

0718052300 This is my story. The story of how I decided to decide to become immortal. It's late Monday night. I'm sitting in my favorite Coffee shop, The Spyhouse in South Minneapolis. Music is coming over the speakers. It's a cool night after a ten day heat wave.  I was going to possibly keep a journal of what is happening with my software company, or maybe write a short story or just use a pad of paper to make random notes.  But I wanted a higher purpose, a reason.  Something immortal.  So this is the office start date of my art career.  I am going to view the world as a piece of art.  Capture it. Love it. Hold It. To look at it close.  Actually the second before I wrote that last sentence a small fly landed on this laptop notebook.  He just sat there.  I touched him or here with my pen, but is seemed completely unafraid.  It (The Fly) seemed to be communicating with me in fact is seemed to state at me for a few seconds.  No, I am not on drugs.  Anyway, back to art.  I feel almost born again right now.  Like I'm at genesis for my art career.  Its time to put everything into action or motion.  A bit of a profound experience happened to me tonight.  I went for a bike ride up to Loring Park.  Loring Paris is a small downtown park, very pretty\, bad reputation, for being dangerous or a pickup place for gays.  Tonight, it was showing outdoor movies.  AI was on my bike and entered the park to about 500 hippie kids there to see the movie, hang with friends, site on blankets, play drums, twirl fire balls, hula-hoop, and other musical instruments very hippie or folksy.  I felt perfect.  After a hard last day of my career as a businessman ( I made that decision at the beginning of this paragraph, i.e.. this is the new or next stage of my life.  I felt happy and at peace.  I stopped on my bike to watch a girl twirl these globes of fire that were attached to two ropes.  Its kind of a coot think.  So I'm standing there and a young girl with a little nose ring approaches me and hands me a flyer for an art festival.  Something called the Fallout Art Festival.   She was very nice and soft spoken.  Her name was Lindsay.  She said she was living in a commune type house that focused on Jesus and that she lived and loved music and art.  She said that she was trying to write a zine about her experiences with God and how he has come in and out of her life when she needed him.  We talked some more and I told her how busy my life had been for six weeks.  Then she asked if she could pry for me.  She put her arm on my should and asked God to love me and take care of me, to make my life less busy and to give me more time to enjoy the world to and to work on my art.  What a coinkydink.

1230041729 Spent the last couple of days in Los Angeles.  Worked directly with Jeff Magann at DMS figuring out the AAA account.  I like Jeff, he shared some of his private life with me on this trip, found out that he has 1 year old twins, which really surprised me.  Its been a strange few days in LA.  The really bad news is the tsunami in Indonesia.  It is so terrible, almost incomprehensible.  I have spent the last couple of day just thinking and reading.  Finished a book called "Los Angeles".  Very easy read, dramatic ending.  Spent last night at Cindi with Jimmy and Ouija and their roommate.. Forget his name.  We had steak on the grill and a nice bottle of Pinot Noir.  It reminded me that I saw the movie Sideways on Thursday night.  I was a good movie.  Had a serious talk with Jimmy.

1226041615 Worked on a piece this morning after probably the best night sleep I have had in a year.  So relaxed.  Yesterday was Christmas, kind of another normal art day.  I didn't work on art yesterday, instead I played an acoustic guitar, worked on a couple new songs (My Friends, Hide You Inside My Heart), then late at night I was just fooling around when Terri was working on the computer and came up with a really good chord progression (Must Have Been) and I'm feeling really good about music at this point.  Yesterday Terri made a beautiful pot roast for dinner with a boy she knows in San Diego (Hair Boy) and Skip and Yvonne.  First Hair Boy backed out with some lame excuse which most likely killed his relationship with Terri, then Skip and Yvonne called 1 hour before dinner and said they were going to stay longer at friends house.  So it was just me and Terri contemplating future and we had a great dinner.  I watch a couple of movies, Jim Jarmusch "Coffee and Cigarettes" and another movie called "No Mans Land".  Today is Sunday and I'm feeling great.  My life is kind of up in the air at this point, but I'm happy.  Been struggling trying to get Flash MX audio to work in my website.  Drinking Mountain Dew and eating protein bars.

1224042330 Official start of my journal. A present to my self, a self administered spanking. Lets see how did my day go today you ask. After a sleepless night of tossing and turning, I ventured out of the temporary living shelter in San Diego and walked 30 feet to find Terri Hallman working on her art. I groggily started on my own piece next to her as she taught me the value of sanding off my art to bring out lower layers of color, using a brown black pigment to create shadow and bring out color, and using a razor to scrap away lumpy building up of paint. The temporary living shelter might be a bit misleading since I am writing from a beautiful home up on a hill in La Mesa (San Diego) California. Staying with my friend Terri for a couple of weeks to work on art, and work on NorthWrite (my software company) in the southern California region. I worked on art till about 11am, then read Wired magazine, and Red Herring magazine. Also, a book on color theory. Back to work on art for a while, check my emails, then off to the art store for supplies, To Jamba Juice for a terrible tasting orange carrot drink, and then to Starbucks for a nasty cup of Joe. The coffee made me tweak after a couple of sips, I got home and immediately took a nap from 4pm to 7pm, then had a nice dinner with Skip and Yvonne the home owners, and their kids I struggled my way thru a couple of songs for them on guitar, talked to Jesse on the phone in Florida, and after working on my website for a couple more hours I plan on watching the movie Coffee and Cigarettes by Jim Jarmusch. He is a great director. Should be fun. Santa didn't come to me this year, but I figure it was because I was a bad boy. Another lump of coal. Maybe next year will be different.

0606021145 I'm sitting on a bench in Loring Park. One of my favorite things to do in life. Groups of inner city kids are walking by me on the sidewalk probably on their last couple of days of school. I'm listening to Weezer on my MP3 player, just finished a roast beef sandwich from Subway with a Diet Coke. Matt Myers from Xcel Energy is coming over to the offices this afternoon.

0605021833 Sitting in a coffee shop - Expresso Royale, South Minneapolis. Just got back from dinner at the Lotus Restaurant in Uptown with Lizzie. Feeling a bit on the good side of life, although I must admit I am really in line for some change, mainly financial, as well as wondering what the hell I'm going to do with the rest of my life. It seems quite surreal to be 48 years old, gaining a bit-o-weight but still feel almost the same way I did when I was younger minus loneliness. I think I'm finally comfortable being alone in life. What I'm really wanting right now is some level of substantiated success. I'm only a couple of days away from being caught up with all my obligations to co-workers and myself, although I cannot seem to get certain things going...ie. music, writing, art, etc. I guess you could say this book, journal, memoir is a start. I'm really wondering what I should write. But whatever it is it will be important. Hopefully important to Jesse or Jesse's offspring someday. Ok, next is all the things that I want to get accomplished in the next 12 months. These see if I can get them done. Cut a CD with 12 songs, join a band, finish 8 pieces of art for Bar Deluxe, marry Lizzie, increase my salary to $7500 per month, be totally caught up with taxes, have no debt, weight under 190 pounds, be in a regular exercise routine, do a show on stage with Dan Miller, have 100 short stories written and printed, be able to do 50 pushups and sit-ups, start another business, do a short video film with six people in it, write a short screenplay, take digital pictures of all my friends, take 200 digital pictures of Jesse, go camping with Jesse, go on a road trip by myself and Lizzie, make one new friend, stay level headed in all business dealings, review this list everyday.

1989 There's a chance I may be the only one in First Class. A red eye heading West. 10:10 departure. I'm at the airport about an hour and a half early. I needeed to make car reservations at the last moment, so far so good. I'm on my way to Las Vegas. I have never been there and I've committed to winning $80,000 or losing $100; whichever comes first. I actually decided to make this trip at 07:30 this evening. Showered, shaved, out the door. I'm going to be using a frequent flyer ticket that expires in two days, so I just had to do this. Rather impulsive would'nt you say. I'm sitting at the bar at the airport, 15 minutes before I head over to my first class seat, window, first on first off. My mind picks up a vibration from the right, and my subconciouse imagines that I am a very impressive individual. I am certain that the love of my life will be sitting next to me. This feels like Deja Vu. I am looking at a pretty, blonde, thin, weathered, experienced, gum chewing, cigarrette smoking dame (my mind is in Noir mode), maybe a year younger than me, just sitting at a table 8 feet from me. She's watching the television, and likely aware that I have her in mind. I sense she is going to Las Vegas also. Hmmm, she needs to get to know me! She stares diligently at her red fingernails. After a few seconds of looking at her, she looks down, sideways, back, over, under, but never directly at me. Ah well, she likely was on the same wavelength as me but has already dismissed me into another dimension. No turning back for her. Time to board the plane.