The Bushrod Chronicles

so before it was a vodka… vox referred to a spankin’ cool amp company… amongst others the beatles played ‘em…

the other day i had a familiar gotta-go-to-guitar-center-and-get-something-new itch… sadly i was lacking in the requisite funds to pull of such a caper… resourceful lil’ nipper that i am though i plundered the stash of stuff i don’t use any more and came up with some tradeables…

a short time later the kids and i made the pilgrimmage to the happiest place on earth… and came away with a vox da5 portable practice amp… one of the more impressive little products i’ve seen in a long time… sounds pretty great for it’s size… lots of groovy amp models and effects… and battery powered for a little les paul playin’ in the sunshine on the deck… spectacular…

here’s to the finer things in life…

the gibson…

and the gibson…

so my training regimen for the kirkland half marathon is going pretty well… from what i can tell anyway…

i’ve been running 2-3 times a week with one long run which i’ve been pushing up towards race distance… last week i did 12 miles and, much to my astonishment, felt just fine the next day… i kinda assumed i’d be a hurting unit afterwards… and the best part was that a couple of times during the run i hit the sorta auto-pilot runner’s-high feeling-like-i-could-go-on-forever zone… that was sweet…

i think this week and next i’m going to run the actual course… good training mileage and it’d be pretty cool to know exactly what’s coming on race day… then a week off of long runs to rest up for the actual event… i’m really really looking forward to it…

so in the couple of weeks since i last posted i have maintained my new super-aerodynamic shampoo-cost-cutting bald look… i dig it and i think i’ll keep it this way for a while…

the only issue is that it takes a bit more maintenance… gotta shave every 2 days or i look like a thug… err… more like a thug than otherwise i guess…

at first this presented a problem… having never done this before i had no skills… love-of-my-life karen steadfastly refused to have any part of the enterprise saying it “icked her out”… so it would take a long time… and i nicked myself a lot… it was generally just a big pain in the butt…

then one of k’s friends turned me on to the most bestest head shavin’ product ever… the headblade… a fine idea for the purposefully clear of pate methinks… now, with my headblade-assisted newly acquired mad shaving skillz, i can get that baby’s butt smoothness in about 5 minutes with no injuries… eez groovy…

so in my new-found semi-healthy-livin’ approach to life i’m scaling back a little on the whole red-meat-eating… a lot actually…

now i drink tons of water… eat lots of vegetables… and have a bunch of gas…

apart from the gas part (which i don’t mind so much and am actually sorta proud of (but my family thinks is funny)) it’s a grand rippin’ success…

so anyway… back to meat… i like meat… red is best… i’m a carnivore… screw the whole vegetarian ‘edamame for protein’ routine… that’s why there’s steak as far as i’m concerned… as a wise man once said (i think it was homer simpson) “if god didn’t want us to eat animals why did he make them out of meat?”…

and gosh diggity darn it when it comes to cookin’ the cow there’s nothing that rocks my world like pan frying…

i kid of course…

it’s the grill baby… as the charcoal and/or propane gods meant it… and quietly… humbly… without fanfare or celebration… i have become an above-adequate grillman… but today… today… i was a god among men with tongs in hand…

love-of-my-life karen is departing this eve and heading off for a weekend of tennessee-style debauchery with some amigas… to celebrate her (short-but-none-the-less-groovy) “vacation” we decided to have steak for dinner… the beef was procured…

and the beef, my friends, was rocked… to sing my own praises i must say that these t-bones of love were the best cow parts that i have ever taken responsibility for… the best of the best… the most wonderful of the wonderful… the planets - they aligned for these steaks… now all we have is the memories… good ones…

so i guess i still like meat…

we had one…

to start it off i shaved my head… with some help from our friend kristin… something i’ve wanted to do for a while… so that was good… three days in now and i’m diggin’ it… think i might keep it this way for a while…

on saturday i continued training for my first half marathon… 10 1/2 miles… decent time… felt pretty good afterward… i think in a couple more weeks i’ll be up to race distance and beyond so that’s pretty cool…

yesterday we went to the baptism of our lil’ amigo gregory… followed by a post-baptism party at our pals the wheelers’ house… lotsa fun indeed…

and to finish the weekend with style we dashed out for some mexican fried ice cream as karen hadn’t had it before and we saw some being made on a cooking show… i was more interested in the mexican cuervo 1800 and corona menu option… it was delicious… the ice cream was too…