2009 was a great year for music, which makes coming up with a “Top 10″ list pretty hard, but I’ll give it a shot. I’ve mentioned a few of these bands on Facebook, so hopefully you’ve been able to check them out. If not, now is a great time to ring in the new year with the best of the last.
1.) The Hazards of Love – The Decemberists
I had the pleasure of seeing this album performed twice last year. First at Rock the Garden, an outdoor concert on a beautiful June day next to the Walker Art Center and then at the State Theater, a wonderful sit down venue. Individually the songs are great, but only when played together do you truly get to appreciate this album. “Rock opera” is the term most use to capture the album’s essence. As with all of The Decemberists work, the lyrics are depressingly morbid. Definitely my favorite album of theirs so far and one of my favorite albums of all time. I can’t recommend this enough!
In previous episodes, our hero was seen battling the horrors of air travel and participating in a wedding of epic proportions. And now for the thrilling conclusion…
With the happy newlyweds heading off to parts unknown for their honeymoon, we settled down for a relaxing week at our beach house. The house was amazing, with plenty of room for the Sweeney clan. It was great being so close to the beach and the wedding site. While it seems odd to have a pool so close to the beach, it was actually very nice. It was much easier for the kids to be in the pool than down in the ocean, or perhaps it was just easier to watch the kids in the pool. (more…)
And now the part of the story where things start to go well for our protagonist: The Wedding! In the previous episode, we navigated the horrors of traveling sick and experienced the wonders of Miami Airport efficiency.
On Saturday evening, we had the wedding rehearsal and the rehearsal dinner. The dinner was held before the rehearsal at the beach house my parents had rented. Lovely grilled chicken and as much real sugarcane Coca-Cola as one could ingest. The bridal party was a little late arriving and the rehearsal didn’t start until really late. Elaine fell asleep on the lap of the maid of honor during the rehearsal, but she got to practice her role as flower girl before she couldn’t keep her eyes open anymore.
I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m ready to go back on vacation. Nothing like going from 90° F and sitting on the beach to 0° F and shoveling ice/snow. It was an amazing time, with a gorgeous wedding, crazy reception, and many days of relaxing on the beach. However, even this vacation started off on the wrong foot…
It all started on Wednesday night (the 16th), the day before we were to leave. We were finishing packing and setting our alarm clock to wake us up at 2:30 AM (our flight was scheduled to leave at 6 AM), when I noticed that my throat was starting to hurt. Not a good sign, especially when I woke up at 2 AM with a fever of 102° and a very difficult time swallowing. Of course, there was no way I was going to miss our flight or try to wait a few days. With the wedding on Sunday the 20th, there was no time for delays. So I toughed it out, loaded up on ibuprofen, and filled up the taxi with all our gear. (more…)
A year and a half seems a bit much, no? Seeing as how my web host is charging me more per month, it seems only proper that I update this more than once a year. Of course, that is what I said back in July ‘08 so we’ll see how that pans out this time. I have a few ideas but I am not going to mention them now. All the previous times I mentioned ideas when promising to use the site more have resulted in disappointment. We could all use a little less disappointment, right?
The first thing to do, however, is put up a new theme. Ooh, fancy! Plenty of shiny things to get distracted with…
