i'm back! summertime took over for a while there, but i'm back to report my goings on for the past month. aren't you happy? so, where was i?
oh, right. the job i mentioned in my last post. i did indeed get the job and it lasted for just over two weeks. it was a pretty cool shoe company, and i loved that it was only 12 miles away from my house! unfortunately it still took me about 45 minutes to get home everyday. crazy, huh? for one thing, i had to take a shuttle from the building to the parking lot. depending on the day that would take up to 20 minutes. bummer. then i would get caught in the highway traffic for another 20-25 minutes. sigh.
anyways, it was a nice job. different that what i normally do as it was all photoshop work. kinda cool change though. i worked on over 3000 images to create those 365 degree views of their fall shoe line. i also worked on images for the background of the website. i had to take each image and make it twice as wide as the original dimensions. and no, i couldn't just stretch it out! i had to actually create something out of nothing. there was lots of cloning, copying and futzing involved, but they turned out pretty good!
as for that weekend race, it didn't materialize. a few weeks ago, i decided to blow up my transmission in my race car. fun, right? yeah. so i tracked down another transmission and we got it installed just in the nick of time for saturday's race. we get there and i go to take my first practice run when i realize my two-step launch controller is keeping me from going any higher than 5000 rpms. which means i get a 16 second time slip at 85 mph. wha-whahhhh... it turns out that the speedometer cable was broken and my engine management didn't like that. needless to say, i didn't win the race that day. so boyfriend and i flew home to put the old tranny's speedometer cable back in before we make the trek down to new jersey for that sunday's race. long story short, it didn't work and we didn't go. boo! the worst part was knowing i wouldn't be able to race again until the middle of august because i will miss out on the july 30th race.
mom and i went to see a cool art exhibit at the peabody essex museum one night during the week. it was dutch and flemish art from 1400-1800. i don't think it was here favorite kind of art, but i think she enjoyed herself. i loved it! i like most artwork from that time period. we ended up getting there late (as usual!) so we were only able to see that exhibit, but we do plan to go back to the museum before the summer's over to see the rest of the place.
ummmm...what else has been going on? oh yeah, only the BEST DAY EVER! so boyfriend and i went to his aunt's camp in the woods for his cousin's high school graduation party. we had a great time and we were invited to stay over the following weekend (july 9-10) for a "family reunion" of sorts. so we got the bright idea to borrow step-father's pop-up camper for the weekend so there would be enough for everyone else to fit in the cabin. it was the first time boyfriend and i used one of them on our own and i have to say, i fell in love with it! i really want one for ourselves now, soooo much better then sleeping in a tent! ah, where was i? oh yeah. so that day some friends and i had planned to have a yard sale at my house. we did pretty good. i sold about half of my stuff and made $60, and they did well also.
by the time boyfriend and i got that picked up and the trailer packed it was after 3:00pm. it usually takes about an hour to get to the cabin and we made it there with minimal traffic, to my surprise. as we pulled up, we noticed that there was only a handful of people outside, not the crowd we were expecting. it turns out that the "weekend sleepover" had turned into "everyone leave by 4:30pm on saturday." great. we ended up staying anyway and had a really great time. we had some hamburgers and hot dogs, and then split up the strawberry-rhubarb pie i made and brought up for the party. it was delicious! then boyfriend and i set up the camper next to the house - where i impressed everyone with my mad trailer-backing-up skillz - even though the cabin was far from full. after that, we took a swim in the lake. the water was the perfect swimming temperature, just cold enough to make you reluctant to get in the water, but warm enough to not want to get out again. i love to swim, so it was really delightful. we chatted with the family and later on we started a game of rummy cube, a fun game i've only played with them. it's a mixture of rummy and dominoes which makes you think and stratigize (sp?) but have fun at the same time. around midnight, boyfriend and i headed off to bed in the camper. other than the mattresses being a bit thin, it was comfortable. i think we both slept pretty well.
the next day (BEST DAY EVER!) brought bacon and eggs cooked by his uncle with white(!!!) toast and butter. what a treat! i never buy white bread and it makes the best toast! after breakfast, boyfriend and i packed up the camper. it really was easy. i think i could do it by myself. gotta get me one of those...then came more chatting and swimming. i could have stayed in the lake all day. it was such a lovely weekend weatherwise. blue skies and low 80s. perfect summer weather! but we had to leave by 3:00 pm because i had tickets to a concert for that evening.
my very good friend got me two free tickets to see chris cornell and soundgarden at the comcast center in mansfield. OMG!!! i was going to see soundgarden live!!! chris cornell is my favorite singer of all time. i love everything he's done, from temple of a dog, to soundgarden, audioslave, and his solo stuff. i have it all. LOVE HIM!!! so you can bet i was super excited for the concert, especially since soundgarden split up in 1997, just a few years after i ditched the pop music for rock and roll. they were one of the bands that drew me into the awesome grunge music of the 90s and i never got to see them in concert. i couldn't find anyone to go with me because it was such short notice, and it was too late for boyfriend to stay out on a sunday night. he has to get up at 4:00 am for work, yuck. i ended up going with his friend from work, whom i had hung out with a few times with boyfriend. i was a bit nervous of the long drive there, but we had plenty to talk about. not too much awkwardness.
we got to the show on time at 7:30 pm (amazing) and found our seats. they weren't too bad. we were sitting in the last row under the roof of the arena. the open air seats and grass was behind us. we listened to coheed and cambria who was opening up for sound garden. i only knew one of the seven songs they played. man, was it loud! it was actually a little too loud. there was some distortion. i felt a little bad for the band playing to a half empty arena. everyone was waiting for the main event to show up. on a side note, apparently the bass player for c&c held up a walgreens a few hours before the show for some oxycontins, then took a cab to the arena. probably not the brightest move to take the cab. he was promptly arrested and the guitar tech had to fill in for the set. during the time it took to set up the stage for soundgarden, we walked down to the concession stands and bought two band shirts. mine was the live on i5 shirt which had a cool graphic of streaming car tail lights on the front.
a little before 9:00 pm, the guys from soundgarden walked onto the stage and the crowd, who had filled out considerably, jumped to their feet and roared to life. most of those people had been waiting for 14 years for that moment! oh, it was so worth the wait! they ripped into searching with my good eye closed from badmotorfinger, then launched into spoonman from superunknown and the crowd went nuts. i had never heard chris live before and i was very excited to see that his voice really was that amazing even without post-processing and editing. you can't say that for most singers these days. even though he's been performing some of these songs since the late 80s, he can still hit all the high, screaming notes and keep his smooth, yet a little gravely, tone that makes him one of the best rock singers of all times.
- Encore:
they played a great mix of the popular radio songs and the more obscure stuff. i think they satisfied the casual listener and the diehard "knights of the soundtable" superfans alike. i was in heaven, singing along with all the songs and watching my most favorite singer do what he does best. my date for the night was having a great time also. the band rocked the stage for just about two hours, which went by way too fast for my liking. that included the at least 30 minute encore, where they played some really old stuff like big dumb sex from louder than life (circa 1989.) the best song of the night was the last one they played, slaves and bulldozers from badmotorfinger. they kept the song going and going, just jamming along, for a good eight minutes. it was awesome!!!! at the end of the song, chris, kim, and ben started playing their guitars into the amps and causing some crazy reverb that made me think my eardrums were going to pop! but i couldn't leave because what if they did one more song? after a few minutes of that, chris left the stage and ben tossed his guitar into the amps. sadly, it was over. we got back in the car and i drove him back to his house, then headed home for the night.
it's been almost a week since the concert and i can still bring back the joy and excitement of that night. i still can't believe i finally got to see chris and soundgarden live! it was one of those "i can die happy now" moments. chris even grew his hair long just like it was back in the 90s. it was shoulder length, curly and gorgeous. i think i have a thing for guys with long hair. chris, brad pitt (sometimes), johnny depp...even boyfriend had longish hair when i met him! i have to say that chris is on my "list". you know the one. if you, for some crazy reason, ever had the chance to...you know...my relationship status wouldn't matter that night. hey, doesn't everyone have a "list"? they should : )
i found some great youtube videos from that night...
