Birthday

As usual, Lizzie makes sure that I have a wonderful birthday. This year was no different. We kind of turned it into three days of cool stuff. 

Saturday, the day before my birthday, Lizzie and the kids surprised me with a Crab Boil and gifts of fine spiced rum and beer, which is totally my favorite. We ended the night with a brutal game of Monopoly (which I won) the birthday luck was with me! 

Sunday we had a fabulous breakfast and we went to BJ's for dinner. 

Monday we took off to Seattle to have brunch at Americana. If you make it to Seattle, this place is bad ass and often has an hour wait. The maple glazed pork belly is off the charts awesome. We then hit two record stores for some new vinyl I ended up getting Alt-J, Russian Circles, and Slayer. I've always loved buying music. In between stores we hit a really awesome bar called Hazelwood which was a tiny old style European looking place with vintage cocktails. Then we went to dinner at Poquitos a sweet Mexican restaurant with awesome authentic tacos. Then finally we got to see the final Hobbit movie at IMAX and in 3D. I have to say seeing a movie like that is fabulous! 

It was a great birthday and as always it's a little sad to see the celebrations end but man, it was fun!

The Crab Boil complete with 4th child (Kaya's BFF and Elsa)

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In Seattle we stopped by Twice Sold Books for some neat used book finds

Lizzie in Twice Sold Books

Drink at Hazelwood in Bellingham

Lizzie at Poquitos

Tequila at Poquitos

Space Needle at night

HUGE 3D glasses for IMAX

2nd Anniversary

The last two years have seriously been the best years ever. I've shared those years with my ultra talented, shockingly beautiful and generally all around amazingly perfect wife, Liz. This year our anniversary fell on the same day that Lana Del Rey was going to be in town. So when we found out she was coming, (one day after tickets went on sale) we found out it was sold out. So we went on the massive search for tickets... Facebook, Friends, Family, Twitter, Craigslist... anything. Nothin... As the day arrived we had one lead but we had to take our daughter to a reading party at school and they wanted to meet at 6PM (right when the party was) so that ended up being a no go. Then out of the blue we got a call from Yuki. Wonderful Yuki had been at the Sasquach festival all weekend and was pooped and "banded out" so she hooked us up with her tickets. SO nice! We were able to meet up and get into the theater so see the concert, which was rad by the way. I know Lana Del Rey is kind of chick music I guess, but I have no shame. I think she sounds like sultry Portished. And to top it off, we ran to the bar area (they have certain sectioned off areas where they sell booze and you can see the show) and they ended up closing it off so we kind of got this cool little VIP area to see her play.

After the show, we headed over to The Octopus Bar for late night drinks/food. The place was super cool decked out in full on old school sea ship stuff everywhere and playing 80s metal the entire time. I knew it was on when Slayer's Angel of Death came on. (I actually heard Annialator We had fun flat breads and rocked out with our brewskies. It turned out to be an awesome anniversary and I'm so happy we were treated to such a fun evening.

Sold Out Lana Del Rey

Us after the show

Lana

The Octopus Bar!

Jeff Hanneman

I remember in 1988 I was at Camp Ocoee for the summer. I was 12 years old and I had just really gotten into music. I remember sitting on my bunk in my cabin with my Walkman on listening to AC/DC on cassette. We had a junior counselor there who I sadly can't remember his name but he was a metal dude with long hair and I thought he was super cool.

He had just gotten the latest record from Slayer, (South Of Heaven) and played me my first song that would change everything for me. It was "Behind The Crooked Cross". I'll never forget it. It sounded like fast horror movie music and it excited me, scared me, and made me feel something grand like I never had before.

From there, I wrote my friend, Will, and told him he had to check the record out, which he did and when I got home Slayer was basically all we listened to for the rest of the summer. This is a funny tid bit but I was so freaked out and overwhelmed by Slayer's awesomeness and evil at the time, I tried to like the ultra Christian band Stryper just to counteract my obsession with Slayer. Thankfully, that didn't work.

Anyway, Slayer has been a part of my life ever since and I have to say that they are my favorite band of all time. They made a few albums that not only stand the test of time but still have the same emotion and fury that they had twenty years ago. Pretty amazing, especially for a metal band.

My point to this is that one of Slayer's guitar players, Jeff Hanneman, died yesterday and so did one of the godfathers of the metal genre. Without Jeff Hanneman, the world would not be the same today. Pretty amazing legacy if you ask me. RIP Jeff.