Checking in

I guess I didn't commit to this blog like I wanted to.  It'll come around.
Here's what I've been thinking about:

--Work is crazy as hell.  Four and a half weeks until our first race.  I'm quietly excited, but still pretty reserved.  Can't celebrate anything until we deserve to.  A lot on the line here, but I really believe we're going to pull it off.  I suppose I wouldn't have signed on if I didn't.

--Rose and I are planning our first move-in together for May 1.  She found us a nice place in West Addison, and the back yard is quite literally Lake Champlain.  We can walk up the driveway to one general store, or paddle a canoe over to Port Henry, NY to another.  Cows everywhere.  Small but pretty perfect for what we need.

--I love technology more and more by the day.

--I can't believe that poor woman Melissa Jenkins was killed up in St. Johnsbury in front of her kid on the side of the road.  I mean, I read about a dozen murders a day in big cities, but it's so rare in Vermont that it just hits so much harder.  I'm sure I know 20 people that knew her.  Absolutely tragic.

--The trip to Stony Brook with Ed, Pich', and Al a few weeks ago was just awesome.  We were gone for a total of about 26 hours but have enough stories from that day to tell for the next 26 years.  I am so proud to be a UVM Superfan, and we danced on the host floor in the host gym right in front of the host fans on national television.  When UVM wins big, all of Vermont wins big and the country takes notice because (not unlike the murders up here) it's so rare.  Love.  This  Team.

--I miss the ever-living hell out of Landon, and I can't afford to do a damn thing about it.  My son is almost six years old and I've seen him a total of one hour and 40 minutes since July 24, 2009, but for Christ's sakes, I'm worse off financially now than I was even back then.  "Be patient," I keep telling myself.  It sure to hell doesn't get any easier.  At least with my father, he's passed on and I know he's not coming back.  That doesn't make that easy, either, but at least that's a definite, final thing.  I got closure out of that.  I was there for his last breath.  The difference with Landon is that I was there for his first breath, and I want to be a part of his life every day until my last breath.  I guess I just deal with it for now by staying busy and paying some of my bills.  (By the way, I'm proud to say I've made full child support payments to the tune of $117.70 every week since the middle of November.  Then again, it's ridiculous that I should even be proud of that.)

--Speaking of patience, John Adams has got to be one of the most patient people I've ever met.  I owe the guy $200 and not once has he ever asked for it.  He knows I'll make good on it, and I will, but he'll never know how much I appreciate his friendship and understanding.  Times are tough.  He gets it.

--Back to Rose, she makes me feel like a man should feel.  Never really had that before in my adult life.  She doesn't have to have me around 24/7, she lets me do my thing and doesn't even really ask any questions, but she needs me when it's important.  And I feel exactly the same about her.  She's my rock, even if I'm away for ten days in a row.  She's truly my best friend.  I love her very much, and I really feel like I struck a gold mine by being at JP's to sing a couple of stupid karaoke songs in the middle of February a year ago.  She wasn't impressed, so I cranked it up a notch with "Oh, Darlin'" by The Beatles, I kissed her on the cheek, and that was about it.  More than a year later, it still feels like it's only two weeks old.  I'm a lucky guy.

--Can't stop humming Weezer's "El Scorcho" today.  Also, can't stop listening to Gov't Mule on the tape deck in the car whenever I drive these last two weeks.

--Yep, tape deck.  I'm friggin' exhausted.  Night.

VIDEO: Golden Claws at The Monkey House

Golden Claws playing at The Monkey House in Winooski, VT on Friday, January 20, 2012.

A Band You Should Listen To: Golden Claws

Band: Golden Claws
Origin: Vermont
Genre: I have no idea
Lineup: Graham Forward/guitar and vocals, Tucker Andrews/bass and vocals, Carl Irving/keys vocals, Brennan Mangan/percussion and vocals

These are all guys that I went to high school with, and while it's easy to want to like a band full of guys you know, the truth is I really "know" only Brennan, whom I would count as one of my closest friends since childhood. Brennan played drums, keys, and guitars in a band called Almost Perfict, in which I also played along with Christian Courtemanche and Andy Gordon. Brennan, at least in the school years, was the only musician we had who was worth a damn. Come to think of it, the same held true for the post-school years.

All that said, I truly enjoy Golden Claws' music, and I feel confident in saying that the band employs some of the most talented multi-discipline musicians I've ever heard.

It's hard to describe what they play, so I'll let them do it themselves:

"Golden Claws is an band from the cultural heartland of Burlington, Vermont. When all the 80's retro hipsters, 70's synth dronesters, and Noise evangelists have fallen out of fashion yet again, there will remain the likes of Golden Claws who make compelling music by utilizing whatever sounds and tools serve their vision. You can't pigeon-hole Golden Claws because they sound like themselves. They sound old and new."

Jazz? Folk? Electronica? Prog Rock? Radiohead on sedatives? Take your pick, because each is both correct and totally inaccurate at the same time. You can't, after all, pigeon-hole Golden Claws.

Check out this online sample of their work from Burlington-based Fundamental Frequency, and enjoy the hell out of it. "Broken Rolling Sun" should be playing on the radio all the time, and "Mel's Tearoom" is so catchy - but also so incredibly dreamy - that I can't get it out of my head.

Golden Claws are part of a four-band set playing this Friday at The Monkey House in my hometown, Winooski, VT, and you owe it to yourself to check them out. You'll either love 'em or hate 'em, but I doubt you'll hate 'em.

The year in phone pics: 2011

Looking back at some of the cool things I got to do in 2011, seen through the lens of my cell phone camera. You can watch the slideshow, or click on the photos to go to my Picasa album. (Clicking means you can see the captions!)

This One's For Me... And You, I Suppose

Hey there, I'm Justin.  You may know me from the 1,500 (give or take) articles I've cobbled together covering local stock car racing in the last decade-ish, or the radio programs I've done, or whatever else it is that I do in public.  I've been writing about race cars for a long time, but not really about anything else, and I'm tired of it.

Don't get me wrong here, I love telling racing stories and I don't see that changing, but I need an outlet for all my other ideas.  MySpace stopped being cool before it ever started being cool, and I refuse to go back to that for my blogging needs.  Facebook, meh, I could take it or leave it.  I do like the Blogger software that Google offers, though, and having been pretty familiar with it, I figured it was my best option.  (Wordpress is nice but it just takes too damned long to figure out what all the gadgets are.)

Anywho, this little blog'll be about whatever the hell I'm thinking at any given moment.  It may be about racing.  It may be about how much I love my girlfriend.  It may be about how much I miss my father or how awful the parental battle over my son has been for four years.  It may be about my undying love for this messed up little state that I live in (and I do mean Vermont, not anything else, sickos).  It may be reminiscing over good times, or looking forward to the future.  I may write poetry.  I may steal poetry and re-post it.  Posts might be funny, sad, or laced with swear-words and foul language.  In fact, I can almost guarantee the foul language, regardless of topic.

Balls and farts.  See?  It's started already.

The name "(802)zoom" is something I've been trying to find a use for for about three years now, and I might still use it for some other project down the line.  I mean, first of all, it sounds cool when you say it out loud.  "Eight-oh-two-zoom."  Bad-ass.  Second of all, it obviously means something to me because I'm an unabashed fan of Vermont, my home state (our area code is 802), and zoom infers speed or racing or whatever.  Third, when you use the parentheses as I've done, it becomes a title with a trendy, big-city, designer storefront douche vibe to it that might help it to catch on and get some regular readers who want to pretend to feel as hip as I pretended to feel when I clicked "publish".  Fourth, everything else I wanted was taken.  Fifth, I actually only tried two other titles and they were taken.  Seventh, I forgot how to count and I'd really like a sandwich.  Other seventh, I forgot what I was talking about.

So yeah, this is a start, anyway.  Thanks for stopping in.  If you wanna leave a comment, please, by all means, do it.