Forsyth Family 2008 Christmas website update thing

just click here.

Sam the Cooking Guy

I like my new TV. So shoot me. I sometimes sit there and watch cooking shows late at night while Jaime falls asleep on me. Stop laughing. The other night, as she dozed, I found "Sam the Cooking Guy" on Fit TV.

I've been subjected to a lot of Food Network and plenty of cooking shows (do you know my roommate?), but this one stuck out at me. I remember several months ago telling Jaime that I thought TV was lacking a good, funny, realistic, down-to-earth but delicious cooking show. All of those things in one. She thought Alton Brown fit that bill. I think Alton Brown is a geeky hoser most of the time.

Turns out Sam Zien is in his San Diego home cooking tasty stuff with his kids and dogs running around, while someone rolls a camera. And Sam may just be old enough that I could fill his shoes when I'm ready for my mid-life crisis career change. Until then, I'm waiting for my craptastic stomach flu to be fully exorcised so I can make this.

Westy on a whim

Jaime and I have been talking about going to Europe together, more specifically Germany and Austria, ever since we were married. I've been slowly racking up the not-so-frequent-anymore flier miles with plans of cashing in on just that. After a bit of research today I realized that although I have almost 85,000 AA miles, we couldn't both get round-trip tickets to Europe with any kind of reasonable itinerary that agreed with my employer's "time theft" policy. Not to mention the weak dollar (and our weak budget) that would be continuously tapping us on the shoulder every time we we required any sort of lodging or transportation from city to city. I always stifled these roadblocks in my reluctant subconscious until I sat and did the math today.

I know we'll get to Germany someday. I'll show Jaime stuff I'm dying to see again, and we'll both experience things anew. But not this next year. Not without a very hefty Christmas bonus and another raise. Yeah right.

So I started thinking about other ways we could escape in '09. Where would American Airlines allow me to use my limited AAdvantage miles and what mutual destination would allow us to afford transportation and lodging? Oh, and it has to be distant and awesomely awesome.

Then it clicked, and I subsequently clicked around the interweb until a few hours hours later it was in the bag.

Nine days of September 2009 will find us on Maui, putting around in our very own (rented) VW Westfalia camper van. No hotels needed. No set plans. Just a bag of local groceries, a GPS and my camera. The flights are already booked, totally covered by points, with some to spare. Surf, dive, hike, swim, chill, nap, cook, eat, drive around, whatever. See the real Hawai'i. Get a real ocean front room.

I've been dreaming of renting one of these puppies and making a week out of it. Deutschland can wait, but I'll still be able to fulfill my Wanderlust in einem VolksWagen.

Stuff White People Like

I want something like this to happen to me.

All you want for Christmas (Hanukkah, Kwanza, and so forth):

All I really want for Christmas is to have powder days off work, and no car troubles for the next 18 months. Somehow, Jaime has packaged these up and placed them under the tree (which we economically "borrowed" from the church storage), because I spy wrapped boxes with my name on them. She's always pulling off the impossible, that corker.

So don't worry about me, but if you're looking for an original stocking stuffer for somebody else, I've got a few semi-obscure gift ideas for you. Give what they didn't even know they wanted, and they won't forget you when they're rich and famous. That's a campaign promise.*

Teresamia
Unique hand-crafted bags and jewelry for the ladies. I mean "unique" in the actual definition. As in, there is really only one of each item shown on the website. It bothers me when people use the word unique in a non-unique context. Or when they say something is "very unique." There's no such thing as "very unique." It's either unique or it isn't. I digress. No templates and duplicates at Teresamia. Just one of each. Teresamia was founded and it's creations are designed by my sister-in-law, Francesca Forsyth. Warning: One let-down is that they don't actually sell children on the website as the homepage suggests:

Waiting for Monday's debut album
For anyone that likes great music from good people. Rob and Kendall are a simple, yet perfectly refreshing acoustic duo and I love their new album. I used to share shows with these guys in the rock and/or roll mecca of Rexburg, Idaho, and I can vouch for their character - proceeds from CD sales will not go to hookers and drugs. I already picked up this CD, so I'm not just plugging my friends' music. I'm plugging my headphones into it as i type this very moment. Support good independent music and your karma and soul will support you.

The Things You Think You Need by Jay Nash
Jay is a friend who's fourth or fifth album (who's counting?) was released earlier this year. It's kind of amazing. This guy is an independent music trooper that has worked hard and it's starting to pay off. But I think he still needs more ears. The Things You Think You Need is on sale at Barnes & Noble as well as iTunes. I really like the CD packaging, so get the real deal shipped to you or pick it up at your local B&N.

Trees and Other Shady Things
If you're on a real musical stocking stuffer frenzy and you haven't got it already, my album Trees and Other Shady Things also has the physical benefit of being easy to hide until 12/24: It's very flat and specially designed to only be about the size of a "compact disc." And it often ships the same day you order it. How's that for excellent product and service in one?

Oh, it's going to be a good Christmas. Can you feel it?

*not really.

SuperHeroes

Every year, CP+B throws a ridiculously extravagant and awesome holiday party. Each year there's a different theme and coming in anything but a thematic costume is frowned upon. Last year's theme was "Circus," So we were circus animals, appropriately walking around on our "hind" legs. Jaime a bear and I a zebra:
The 2006 theme was simply "Red" on account that the Agency was holding some big raffles and donating a bunch of money to The Global Fund. We decided to turn it into a toga party:

This year's party is on December 18th and the theme is SUPERHEROES. Jaime's out shopping for fabric now. In true humorously wholesome and educational fashion, Jaime's excited to be WORD GIRL ("Word up!"), who I had never heard of until she told me last week. She wanted me to be WORD GIRL'S sidekick, "Captain Huggy Face," who - get this - is a break dancing monkey.

Tempting. But I had my heart set on one caped crusader: STUPENDOUS MAN (Friend of Freedom! Opponent of Oppression! Lover of Liberty!). If you don't know who STUPENDOUS MAN is you have some reading to do. I feel sorry for you, so I'll make it easy to repent. You can do that by clicking here.

Stay tuned for heroic images after December 18th.

the terminal

My last 6 days:

Friday: Denver to Philly. I took my guitar on the plane and Southwest took my checked luggage to Portland. Played two shows and came home on Sunday afternoon.

Monday morning: On the way back to the Denver airport well before the sun came up. Off to LAX. No more guitar. No more checked luggage. TV shoot for the VW Sign Then Drive spots. Stayed in the Inn at Laguna Beach and I highly recommend it. Back to Denver very early this morning (Thursday). Drove straight to the office. Work. Back to DEN at 7:30pm.

And here I am on a plane again. 9:26pm Back to California. SFO. Molly's wedding. With a new sweet tri-fold garment bag Jaime got me for my birthday. Or anniversary. Or some Saturday. I should remember. I don't at the moment on account of the fact that my brain is randomly bouncing between "acutely sharp" and "completely fried."

We'll see if Friday and Monday end up actually being vacation days away from my computer and crackberry.

At least I'm not bored. In fact, I haven't been bored in several years. Taking off. See you in SF.

Thinking

Thinking is nice. I don’t think enough. Between work, media, other responsibilities and simply staying alert in order to not miss opportunities life throws at you, there is little time for thinking. There are opportunities, but they are always cut short by the next thing on the day’s agenda, whether it was planned or a blitz.

That’s why I tend to go to bed so late. I finally find time to think and I’m being ask to shut my brain off? I don’t think so (no pun intended).

Here’s the irony. The lack of sleep and need to get up at a normal rat-race hour can leave me pretty tired. Not refreshed. And that’s not so conducive to good thinking. But it’s not completely detrimental, just not ideal. I think that’s why I justify choosing the lesser of two evils by sleeping less. I take Emergen-C and eat an okay breakfast to try and fill in some gaps for my brain and body’s defenses.

My recent Longs Peak climb was another opportunity to think. I was sometimes annoyed at the chatty nature of my hiking companions, but that’s nothing against them. I set myself up for some good chi harnessing time and it’s annoying when it’s interrupted by talk of something I consider less important than the silence it killed.

Still, I got some good time in. The physically repetitive act of trekking in a beautiful natural setting triggers my mind to wander and think about things that the hustle and bustle sometimes fails to.

When I do get a chance to really think, it always ends up in one place. Jaime is amazing. No thoughts about future plans, dreams, music, career, politics, money, food (yes, I think deeply about food, especially on the tail end of descending Longs), have any problem quickly finding their way back to this girl and how crazy I am about her. And since she pretty much always falls asleep before me, she has to live with the fact that her sleep will always be interrupted by a kiss or six on the face before I finally crash. ‘Cause that’s when I have time to think.

Work hard, play hard.

Jaime was in California during a pretty busy work week of mine last week. It's a good thing I brought Annie in to work with me a couple times, because those were late nights burning the midnight oil and she would have gotten pretty antsy had I left her at home during my 15 hour work days... I must say, Annie was a peach all week. She was great at home. She was great at work. Just a total perfect dog and companion.

I did escape before sunset one evening and got one good walkabout around Louisville's good old Davidson Mesa.



The way work was shaping up on Friday I wasn't sure if my weekend plans were going to happen. On top of some big work that doesn't seem to want to complete itself, I've been fighting a cold for almost 3 weeks now. But Saturday was slated to be epic and I wasn't about to miss it. Longs Peak is the highest point in Rocky Mountain National Park. A 14,259 ft. summit and 5,000 ft. elevation gain to get there on your own steam. To say this is a "hike" would be like saying Jaws is a fish. Jaws is a fish. A Fish that will eat you if you treat him like a trout, and may eat you even if you treat him like the man-hungry Great White that he is.

After two hours of sleep Friday night I met Alex Kayne and Josh Mantooth for a 2:30 am drive and a 4:00 am hike. I admit, it does start as a hike at about 9,000 ft. By the time you're at 11,000 there's no more trail. By 12,000 it's die-time. But a darn good time.

[Click on the images to see them in full glory.]





The boulder field. Get a glimpse of perspective when you look for the tiny people scattered further down the field:

On the summit:


The narrows on the way back down ("trip and die"):

Here are three photos I took and Alex stitched together into one panorama, taken from the back side of the keyhole:



Longs has a 30% summit success rate. We made it to the top, We couldn't have asked for better weather, and I wasn't one of the average of one people who die on the mountain each year. That's a good day in my book.

The ivory may very well be ticklish

I like this band. I like this song. And I really like this music video.

Boo. but i don't like how they disabled embedding of their YouTube video. Some people just don't know what's good for them. You can see it HERE.