Have a couple partners, a singer, and another woman who's got connections. We have a lot to do but we plan to be touring by next spring. So I pulled my Roland drum set out of the closet and set it up. This is the first time I've played in about 10 years.

http://knuckles.calpop.com/~ag/going_krupa.avi
 

Here's another shot from the wind farm, looking up the inside of a stanchion. The blue cable is a loop that is used to haul tools and stuff up. The other is for the safety harness.


 

Let me get the big one out of the way: I filed for divorce a couple weeks ago. No, it's a good thing, we both agree on, and we're handling it with a "no fangs" approach. Trying to set a good example for the kid - that you handle conflict peacefully, and that we're not breaking up the family, just the marriage.

I had been pretty depressed for a couple of years, isolating myself in front of various screens. My entire social life was spent on IRC bullshitting with people I know in SoCal. Then, about 6 months ago when it became clear that the split was imminent, I had a scary vision: sitting alone in an apartment with a vaporizor and a bottle of Jameson, playing GTA every night. I decided "fuck that" and shouted out to a local subreddit, asking where the best dives in town were. Next thing I knew, I was organizing events at meetup.com. Our group's motto is "Use the Internet to get off the Internet!"

Here's a shot from a road trip we did to the PSE wind farm, about 130 miles East of me.



Other than that, just keeping my head above water, trying to stay one step ahead of a smart-ass thirteen year old!

Who's next?
 

I just did another look and he's nowhere. It's amazing to think you can't find someone online these days. I even found "Burger" Joe Mielko on Facebook. He hasn't responded to me yet, but I found him. (He was camera 2 for the Brooklyn Army Terminal party.)
 

Nope. Sometime around 2003 I called the company he used to work for. They said he'd left just months earlier, and they didn't know how to reach him. I hope he's ok.

Last time I saw him was on the street in NYC, maybe 1991 or so. He asked if he could borrow money. I gave him a $50 I happened to have in my wallet (I usually don't carry large bills, so it was weird) and handed it to him and said "Keep it. To be honest, I don't expect to see this money again. If you pay me back, fine, but don't worry about it. Just stay safe." I wish now that I'd offered him a place, or gave him my phone number.
 

This has been around a while, but since Dark Side binds all us Parkies together in some way or another I thought it deserved a post. It's 'performed' on a Nintendo Entertainment System.

Check out how parts of On The Run sound very close to the original tones. It's funny, but in many ways the NES' synthesizer is more sophisticated than the gear they used to make the album.

http://www.geek.com/...ptune-ified-2011042/
 

Hey Martin. I thought I had gotten used to the quakes in Japan, but this was a whopper! I was on the fifth floor of a fairly old building and that sucker shook like a strippers ass for at least three minutes! It felt like a whole lot longer. The next shock came about ten minutes later, it was a 7.2, and that got us scurrying out of the building. We all jumped in my van and watched the building sway for the next half an hour or so.
I live in the mountains so there wasn't any worry about floods. We had a few rock slides, but for the most part the city fared well.
Aftershocks were pretty strong...still are, but whiskey makes sleep possible ;)

I ain't too sure if they are gonna let us back into the building....It's slated for demolition in a year and this might just have moved the date up a couple of months.

Thanks bro,
Dave.
 

Hey Hair-Bear.
Congratulations on surviving that! Ive felt a 7 so I can only imagine what that 9 was like. Then the floods....
Did the shaking cause the most damage or the floods where you live? How long did the initial shaking last? I know those aftershocks make it hard to sleep, no?
Take care, Martin
 

Hi guys.
I am OK. Scariest thing I've ever experienced!! I live about 150 miles from the city they probably showed on the news. We had no power water or telephone lines even the internet was down so I had no way to get in touch with folks. The city is pretty banged up and there are over 200 people dead. I am really lucky I am not one of them!
thanks for your concern,

David