Silversun Pickups - Swoon

Every once and a while I just stumble onto some random song or band that turns out to be pretty cool. I love it when that happens. My latest find is Silversun Pickups - Swoon.

This album is pretty cool. It's got a 90's alternative feel, with some indie sounds too. It's mostly high energy, mid tempo stuff that has great grooves. Iv'e been enjoying it for the last couple of days and think it's really worth a listen or two. Or seventeen or eighteen...anyways, check it out. You can listen to the whole album for free on their myspace page.

Highlight tracks:

Panic Switch - High energy for sure. Kicks ass.
Draining - Moody, slower but nice and powerful.

Let me know what you think!

My Detailed Description of my great trip to Moab (part 2)

Ok, due to popular demand...here is the rest of my Moab trip.

After watching the boy get bit by the dog, we drove the 6 hours to Moab. We found a campsite in a canyon about 5 miles out of town and set up camp. It was about 2:30 in the afternoon and right around 100 degrees. We went into Arches National Park, and hiked a few short hikes that afternoon. The Park really is quite a sight to see. The rock just seems to cut right out from the dessert floor into the sky. I'm not sure any of the pictures I took can really do justice to the immense size of the rock formations.

We decided to do the two hardest hikes first thing in the morning, one on Wed. and one on Thursday. We are smart, becuase by 8am it is already near 80 degrees...

So Wed. we went to the Delicate arch, which is about 3 miles roundtrip. It was a moderately challenging hike, with great scenery and the ending payoff at the arch was awesome. I was surprised at how many people did not carry much water with them. John,Chad and myself all wore camelbacks, and carried water bottles with us. I drank all of my water by the time we returned to the car at noon. There were Grandma's there with grandkids who had a half bottle of water with them on the way up....good luck with that!

We hiked our butts off on Wed. We hiked all day up until about 4pm. We then went to the visitor's center, where they played a 15 minute movie about the park. We enjoyed/slept through 2 sittings of the movie as we enjoyed the air conditioning.

On Thursday, we went to Negro Bill's Canyon. (Yes that is the official name of it.) This was a great hike that is outside of the park, and is a must-see if you make it to Moab. It is a 5 mile roundtrip hike, that takes you down by a small river. You have to hike close to the river, and some serious undergrowth, and as you travel further in, there are places where you have to cross the river. Definetly some fun there. At the end of the canyon, is the country's 6th largest natural land bridge. It was awesome! We were dead tired by the time we got there, but it was really worth the hard work. There was a natural spring that cut through the rock, and you can tell that not many people hike back to that arch.

After we crawled back to the car, we decided to spend the afternoon driving to the canyonlands, which are about 15 miles from Moab. We drove into the park and stopped off to enjoy plenty of great veiws, even though our feet and legs were totally tired from all of the hiking.

That night, we decided to drink heavily and go to sleep. (Always a nice option.) I awoke at 4am to rain pounding on my tent. It rained from 4am to 8am that day. We woke up at 8, not ready to pack up yet, so we drove into town. We enjoyed breakfast at the "Pancake Haus!" (yes the exclamation point is needed..) Then we returned to camp, packed up the muddy tents and drove home.

All in all, a great trip. Definelty worth traveling to Moab and enjoying the outdoors.

My Detailed Description of my Great Visit to Moab

Ok, so it's probably not going to be that detailed, but the visit certainly was great. I went to Moab, Utah a couple of weeks ago with my friends, John and Chad. Let me kick it off by what happened during the first 40 minutes of the trip...

We decided to leave John's house in Morrison, and head up to Frisco where we would get a greasy gut-bomb McD's breakfast sandwich. Next thing I know, John decides he doesn't want to wait until Frisco and pulls off at the Idaho Springs exit. We find the Mcdonalds/Gas station, and get out of the car. A black volvo pulls up next to me on the passenger side as we get out. We go inside, the guy at the counter says" can I help you?" I said, "just a second, I'm deciding." Then I wait, and tell him I want my gut-bomb breakfast sandwich. It nearly instantly appears in my hand, as if God himself told Mcdonalds to have it ready for me. I paid, thanked the worker and walked by John and Chad as I went to the door. Here's where it gets interesting...I push open the door to see a wild scene....

There's a man in his 50's, standing in the gas station parking lot, with a good sized bulldog (I think it was a bulldog) in a choke hold. Yes that's correct, a chokehold. Standing next to him is an older hippie-looking stoner dude who is just looking at him and the dog. Next to him is his stoner looking hippie-wife ( I presume..) After my jaw hangs open for a minute, I realize that Chad and John have joined me, both with similar looks of astonishment on their faces. Only then, do I notice a 13/14? year old boy, who is sitting on the curb, with blood running down his arm. He is not screaming or crying, just sort of moaning to himself. Then I notice two other random people taking in the whole scene. Obviously, this kid was attacked by the dog.

My focus returns to the guy with the dog in the chokehold. He says to the hippie guy"Are you ready? He's about out cold and I'm going to set him down. Then he's all yours" The hippie guy sort of nods his head in some sort of stony agreement, and the man starts to lower to dog to the ground. Now, a couple of things enter my head. One, the boy seems to be ok, and I have no emergency medical training, so I am not going to focus on him at the moment. Two, the dog is NOT unconscious, and the man is about to release him. I'm thinking, "either that dog is going to attack the guy who had him in a head-lock, or he's going to attack myself or one of my friends. And all I have to fend him off is a greasy, soggy bag with my gut-bomb egg mcmuffin sandwich in it."

As the man goes to lower the dog, he looks right at me and says, "did anyone call 911?" I figured that one of the other witnesses had already done so, but I guess not. I walked immidiatly back into the gas station, and went to the counter. I asked the girl to "call 911 cause a kid was attacked by a dog." She looked at me and pointed to some dork who seemed to be the gas station manager. She said"he already did". I looked at the dork/manager, who had some white towels in his hand. I followed him back out into the parking lot where he attended to the still moaning boy. The dog was laying down on the ground next to the hippie guy, and the other headlock guy was giving him dirty looks and telling him he better "keep his f'ing dog inline." I couldn't agree more.

Now, John had made it into the car, and was waiting for Chad and I to get in so we could get the hell out of there. I looked down and saw the black volvo, with the rear door open, and a dog dish sitting on the ground. It was then I realized that the kid must have interrupted the dog as he was going to get a drink, and the dog was extremely upset. So he took it out on the kid's arm. I asked John to back out the car, so Chad and I could get in. He did, we climbed in the car and drove down the road. We looked at eachtoher for a minute....then we began to review the previous 4 and a half minutes of our lives. No one could touch his greasy gut-bomb sandwich.

We hit the interstate, and somehow our stomachs took over. We ate the gut-bomb sandwiches and left for Moab.

Camping May 2009!

I spent Memorial Day camping with my friend John and his two boys, Nick and Christian. We camped on the South Platte river, a few miles from Cheesman Resivoir. We had an excellent time! The weather was nice, a little rainy but not too bad. We hiked, played some fun camping games like; throw the pinecone at the cup and camping football. We hiked around Cheesman Resivoir and checked out the burned out forrest left over from the Heyman fire. (A woman started the Heyman fire becuase she was mad at her man....look out!) It was sad to see all of the distruction first hand, but it was nice to see how resiliant nature is and how the forrest is coming back. Please checkout some of my pictures from the trip on my FB page. (yes, i'm too lazy to post pictures on both pages..ha!)

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/album.php?aid=25114&id=1300096714

Hope everyone had a nice Memorial Day weekend, and that everyone remembers all of the soldiers who fought.

MOAB trip in 3 weeks!

Lost

Well, for those of you who watch Lost, I'm sure you enjoyed the season finale last night. I certainly did. I was chatting with a friend this morning about next season, and if I was sad that the show will be ending. I have always liked this show, and it will be sad to not see it on Wed. nights, but overall I will be glad when it is over. I think they did a great job of picking an ending date for the show. Many of the questions are starting to be answered, and I am glad. I'm sure that next season will wrap most of it up neatly and I look forward to it. For those of you who didn't see the finale.....it's a shame.

A Good Breakfast

There really is nothing quite like a good breakfast. I'm not much of a cook, and I don't really enjoy cooking overall, but I do enjoy making a big breakfast. Eggs, pancakes,bacon, french toast, hash browns. Who doesn't love that? There's nothing like brewing up some coffee, firing up the griddle and making it happen. I wish I could eat a good breakfast everyday, and not have to slam a bowl of cereal before I rush to hit the door. Someday when I rule my own country, large breakfasts and siesta's will be enforced by law. Hopefully you will all join me in Kilzland. Or the United States of Kilzerica. Or Kilzakestan.

Hope you all enjoyed your breakfast today.

K

Most Irritating

Let me tell you all what irritates me. When people have a headlight that is out on their car, and rather than fixing it,they drive around with their brights on! Seriously, I know that in today's challenging economic times it is hard to spend money on frivilous items, but a headlight is NOT a frivilous item! They really don't cost that much at all! If you can afford to drive, you can afford to buy a new bulb! I wish these lazy people would just drive to frickin' Auto Zone (in the daytime please....) and buy a replacement. They usually cost under $10, and there's a handy guide there to tell you exactly which bulb to buy.

Shut off your brights! It's annoying to people in front of you! It's also annoying to people drving towards you! Take the bus! Walk! Hitchhike! Don't leave the house!

I will continue to drive 10 miles under the speed limit if you are behind me until you pass me. Then I will drive right behind you so my lights (not my brights mind you...) will blind you in your rearview.

Fix them already!

That is all for now.

Kilzing you soflty with my words

Changed the blog name to "Kilzing you softly with my words." Thanks to Cameron for the great name. That's about it.

K

Watchmen

Watchmen (Kilzer's first movie review on the blog)

I saw Watchmen tonight. Let me say first, that I have not read the graphic novel(even though it is regarded as one of the best of all time, and I intend to buy it at work tomorrow...) and I didn't know much about the plot line. So going into it, I had little expectations. I was pleasantly surprised...

This movie really felt like you were watching a comic book. Not a cheesy comic book movie like George Cloony's Batman...but like a well written comic story that was actually turned into a movie. Now, I am a HUGE fan of Iron Man as well as the first 2 X-Men films. I think they were created with a "good" comic book feel. But I do believe that Watchmen was a more "direct" translation.

The characters were developed, but not overdeveloped. I was able to get a good sense for each character's life, history and purpose. By the middle of the film, I defiently cared about each person and their own personal struggle.

The fight scenes were great too. Not overdone or campy, but the right amount of close up action, mixed in with some slow-mo shots too. Other great action was the love scene between two characters....I won't give up the details of that!

One of the things I love most about super hero movies, is the point in the film where the hero suddenly realizes that he/she is capable of achieving great things, and then becomes an active participant. No longer someone who doubts themselves. Examples from some of my favorites:

Unbreakable - The scene where David calls up Mr. Glass on the phone and asks him what to do...Mr. Glass says"go where the people are". David goes to the train station and steps in to find his destiny...awesome.

V for Vendetta - When Evey is released from the "prison" and is set free by "V". She goes outside into the rain to realize she is reborn, and actually has a meaningful purpose.

Iron Man - The scene where Tony is repairing the armor. Pepper tells Tony that he is going to get himself killed and he needs to stop. He tells her that there is "no benefits. no art showing. there is only the next mission." Spoken like a man who realizes what he has to do.

The reason I write about these scenes, is that Watchmen has smiliar scenes/realizations too. Except these heroes are more of the fallen type. They have to remember what made them great and somehow dig down deep inside to regain the confidnece to do the job. I won't ruin it by giving away what happens, but there are fine moments.

Oh, there is plenty of violence, sex, nudity and cursing too. If that's not your cup of tea, then stay away! Otherwise, enjoy Watchmen. I certainly did.

R.I.P. Circuit City

So Circuit City officially went out of business. It really doesn't surprise me, I could have told you it was doomed about 10 years ago. The company was not run well, with poor leadership and upper management. But, as in any company, there are some great people that did work hard and now have unfortunately lost their jobs. That is sad for anyone. Good luck to all of those people, I'm glad I bailed before the ship went down....

But now I want to talk about all of the great people that I spent time with at Circuit. Some of you reading this will know some of these people, and you may not know any. Here's my short tribute to the people I know and love that shared time with me at Circuit.

Regan, Chad, Corey, Coltharp, Canino (hey Kilzie! Not only is she beautiful, but she's smart too!) Carrie, Holly Jo, Todd (Ha!) Dan, Dickey, Dorris, Jen, Janette, Terry, Jennifer, Doug, Amber, Josh, Mike, and so many others I sure I am forgetting. We all had some great times at Circuit and I hope everyone will remember those.

One small story to leave you with. I worked at the Fort Collins store for a little over a year in 1997/1998. A few days before I transferred, I was going to clean the dust off the baler in the back in receiving. I had a bucket with some cleaner/water in it, and a sponge. So the first thing I did was wet the sponge, and write "KILZ" on the side of the baler in large capital letters. Then, I was paged to the front to help load a TV or Fridge or whatever....and I never made it back to the baler to finish the job. The funniest thing about this story is....NO ONE made it to finish the job! It was never cleaned, but a representative from the baler company came in a few weeks later to re-paint it, and painted right over the top of my large "KILZ"! About a year later, I came to the Fort Collins store, and Dan and I went in the back to look at the baler. There on the side, plain as day, was "KILZ." Permanently written in paint. I'm sure that the baler company has reclaimed that baler, and put it back into circulation in another retailer. Funny that my name on the side of a baler lasted longer than Circuit City. I will always love the great memories I made there, as well as the great friends.

R.I.P. Circuit City

Trial and error

Well, if anyone finds my "unadvertised" blog, good for you. I wasn't really planning on doing any "blogging" or "blogging related activity", but I wanted to follow Cameron's blog. While signing up for my own "blogger" account, I started to build my own page. "The Declaration of Kilzpendance". I'm not really sure what that means, but it was the only other name I thought of besides, "The Kilz Sea Scrolls." I didn't think that was so great. So anyway, here we go. Hopefully there won't be any errors, and in any sort of trial I will be found "innocent" by my peers. Unless i'm accused of being super cool, smart, incredibly good looking and funny. Then I'm guilty as charged.