Design Stuff, Music Stuff, Job Stuff, Exercise Stuff

I did a new design for my portfolio website and I really like it. It’s a lot better than what had been up there. I need to add more samples of my work, but that won’t take long at all. You might have noticed I changed the look of my blog, and now they look somewhat similar. I like the continuity.

Speaking of my portfolio website, I’ve sent out another huge round of resumes. I must have sent 100 applications/resumes out. Let’s hope something turns up, because I certainly need a new job.

There aren’t any big plans for this weekend, but I’m ok with that. I’ve got a new schedule for working out and running, so Saturday should be a long run, and I’ve been missing trail running so I’ll probably head into Pisgah to go on a long one. Plus, I need to start saving some money for this “spring break” thing that’s being planned. A long weekend in Florida staying in a place for free near the beach sounds great.

By |February 29th, 2008|Design, Work|3 Comments

Bluegrass Question

I enjoy bluegrass music. It doesn’t get played nearly as much as the pop punk that I normally listen to, but it has a regular spot in my rotation. One thing that has always bothered me (at least from the age of, I dunno, 13 or so) is that these bands, either in keeping with tradition or because they really like religion, tend to record about one religious song per album. When I first get the album, I’ll listen to the song out of some weird sense of duty or pure musical curiosity, but after that initial listening, I will unfailingly skip over that track. These songs annoy me to no end. I really don’t understand them. Three tracks earlier the band was singing a song about being a ramblin’ man or about laying as many girls as possible. The fact that it doesn’t fit just seems to bother me even more.

The other day I skipped another one of these songs (I think it was about Moses, you know the guy that talked to a burning plant while builing an ark and sailed it over the red sea with jewish couples onboard in some sort of ancient getaway cruise), and then wondered to myself whether there were any bluegrass bands that consider themselves an atheist band, or at least one or two that have recorded or played a song that could be considered atheist.  I don’t know.  I wish more people read this so I could possibly get an answer back.  I’m going to look into this.

By |February 28th, 2008|Music|Comments Off on Bluegrass Question

Sad Things

The other day, my sister and brother in law’s bassett hound Duncan was hit by a car and killed. He was an awesome dog. He was super sweet, goofy and playful. I didn’t get to spend much time with him because they live out in Wyoming, but I miss him nonetheless. Evan has more pictures and videos of Duncan on his blog.

Dunc

By |February 27th, 2008|Family, Photo|1 Comment

Breaking News

Crack Found In Man’s Buttocks

By |February 20th, 2008|Uncategorized|Comments Off on Breaking News

What do I do at work?

I’m sure you’re all wondering.  And thanks to the magic of digital photography and the internet, I’m going to show you.

First off, I actually do do work.  (haha do do)

Secondly I do things like draw stick figures, which I post places like so:

These stick figures generally look like this:

Take a nice long look at that last one.

Ok, it’s time to go.  What a day: three posts on here!

By |February 14th, 2008|Design, Work|1 Comment

Happy Valentines Day!

Since I’m single and not wooing any nice young ladies at the moment, I decided that I should still give out some valentines to someone. So, I’ll just put some on here for whatever strangers, friends and family members that actually read my blog to see.

Here they are: some of my favorite valentines.

What’s awesome is you have to click something to actually see them. You have to earn your entertainment at my blog.

By |February 14th, 2008|Uncategorized|Comments Off on Happy Valentines Day!

Fridge Cleaning Day!

It was a super exciting Saturday here in the Kerchner/Penn house so I decided to add even more excitement to the mix. The best way to do this, I soon decided, was to clean out the fridge. To keep you all informed on the important parts of my life, I took pictures so that you might understand the joy of Fridge Cleaning Day. Completely unrelated, but certainly noteworthy: I no longer have hair on my right hand, as it was burned off in an incident combining a bottle of lighter fluid, an enclosed space and a lighter. Enough chit-chat, here comes the food:

First up: Scott’s crisper (side note: we have our own crispers). Here’s some nice wilted celery:

Celery

And some tasty looking cilantro:

Cilantro

And in the “why the hell was this ever here” category is the cauliflower:

Cauliflower

Moving on to the shared crisper/cheese storage unit (I think at home we always used this for bacon and cheese and sandwich meat) we find a nice dried wedge of onion:

onion

We’re through with the veggies, so on to the real excitement. Don’t worry, the items get better and better. So after pulling a few things out of the fridge, I found this nice lone egg (perhaps there’s a joke about free range eggs in here somewhere):

lone Egg

Now for the carton of eggs that might have expired a little while ago:

Egg Carton 1

And the expired eggs themselves:

Eggs

So, now we’re down to the best of the worst.  What’s this container holding in it’s reusable plastic belly?

Container

Oh, it looks like some Thanksgiving gravy!  From Thanksgiving!

Gravy 1

Yep, it’s not seen the light of day for a while.

Gravy 2

Yum!

Gravy 3

Here’s what most of it looked like together:

Trash

I was reminded of that quote from Fight Club.

“A house full of condiments and no food… how embarrassing.”

By |February 10th, 2008|Photo|3 Comments

Man

Somehow I stumbled on a bio of former Congressman Leo Ryan and after reading it, I’m amazed I hadn’t heard about him before.  Also, it made me wonder if I could do anything half as brave as him.

By |February 7th, 2008|Uncategorized|1 Comment

I’m famous, and other news

A few things for you today.

Evan and I went to a Teenage Bottlerocket show in Laramie while I was out there for Christmas with the family. During the show, they filmed part of their new music video for In The Basement off of their new album, Warning Device. When they show the crowd shots, I’m on the far left and Evan is behind me (he has a beard and glasses).

In other news, I’ve finished the artwork for the new Jerks CD EP. I really like it and think it’s some of the best album artwork I’ve done. I tried to keep it really simple, and I think it worked.

CD cover, Insert, Back

We’re having them printed professionally, and we should also have our t-shirts made by the end of the week. We’ll have stuff to sell at our show in Georgia on the 16th. Also, there’s a chance (which I’ve been told is about 98% confirmed) that we’re going to play a show with Teenage Bottlerocket and the Copyrights. They’re two amazing bands and basically what I’ve been listening to nonstop for the last few months.

It’s supposed to get up to 70 degrees here today. I can’t wait to go on a run.

Last of all, I’m capturing all of the video from my drive last Tuesday. I should hopefully have this edited and up for you to watch by this weekend.

By |February 5th, 2008|Family, Friends, Music|Comments Off on I’m famous, and other news

Teenage Bottlerocket – Warning Device

A long time ago (and by that I mean a few years ago) my brother in law told me about this band in Laramie, Wyoming that he thought I might like. I’d never heard of them and thought their name was interesting enough to warrant a listen. Since that day I’ve loved Teenage Bottlerocket’s music. When I got Another Way, I played it over and over and over. It had these super stripped down, but still rocking songs. Then Total came out and with it brought Kody from the Lillingtons to the mix. It didn’t leave my cd player for months.

Just recently Teenage Bottlerocket put out their third full length record, Warning Device, and with it, they’ve topped their other albums. Now, I don’t mean to say that I don’t love every song off of Another Way or Total, but this new album is just done so damn well that I have to say it’s their best effort yet.

“Bottlerocket” starts the album off with a loud, fast, simple in-your-face 51 seconds of awesome, and I’m not sure if it’s intentional, but it could definitely be a one song description of their live shows; light the fuse and watch the bottle rocket go.

This album is about as strong an album as could be made. I had trouble deciding which songs stood out from the rest because there really aren’t any disappointing songs. It’s one whole, solid piece of work. There are so many standout songs.

“Pacemaker” is possibly my favorite on the album. It’s a little break from the normal Teenage Bottlerocket song. It’s a little easy going at first and you really notice the bass line and how it bounces it’s way around behind the vocals. Then the guitars really kick in and it slaps you in the face. Instead of just being another song about another ex girlfriend, but it’s a fucking great song about an ex girlfriend, and I have to say I think the lyrics are really really well written.

Another standout is “Social Life” with Kody singing. Another great song, and with references to First Blood part 2, it’s got a nice side of humor as well.

On My Own and In the Nuthouse are also great songs.  Really though, it’s tough to just pick a few and say they’re better than the rest because this whole album is so solid.  And speaking of solid, Red Scare made another song available for digital download only: I Know You Know.  It’s from the same recording session as Warning Device, and I think it really speaks to the quality of the album that a song as good as I Know You Know gets left off.

Go buy this album.   You’re going to love it.  And if you don’t, then fuck, what are you doing reading this review?

By |February 3rd, 2008|Friends, Music|Comments Off on Teenage Bottlerocket – Warning Device