About to head to the airport for Spain, Portugal, Morocco and U2. I'm keeping up with a blog while I'm there. Feel free to check it out if you get bored:

thejamesmiller.wordpress.com

So about a month ago whilst hanging out with some friends, two of us in the group (Erin and I) decided to see if we could sing and guitar it all the way through a random song. After trying out a few Beatles and Ray Charles tunes we settled on the one below. So after two very brief attempts at the first verse just to figure out what key to play the song in, we made it all the way through Leonard Cohen's brilliant 1984 track, Hallelujah. You may know the song better via Jeff Buckley's massively overrated cover.

The best part is the line, "The fourth, the fifth, the minor fall and the major lift" which corresponds perfectly to the IV, V, vi, IV of the chord progression.

Anyway...

So get this - a friend of mine saved a family from a burning building! My friend Mason was walking through his apartment complex when he noticed that one of the buildings was on fire ("noticed" probably isn't the best word). Anyway, he knew there was an old lady in that particular building so he went straight to her door. After a few loud knocks and no one answering, he stepped back a few feet and ran towards the door with all his might. It took five attempts, but finally he knocked the door in. He says the place was filled with so much smoke that he couldn't see six inches in front of his face. After a couple of minutes of feeling around the apartment he found the old lady. Upon getting her outside she informed him that her grandkids were still inside. So Mason goes back into the apartment. By this time, he says, the flames were starting to spread through the apartment. He found his way into the bedroom and grabbed both young kids, threw them over his shoulders, and carried them to safety.

Now you would think that I would be telling this story as a tribute to my friend, but no. I'm telling this story just to set up his last line when he relayed the story to me. Here it is:

You know how when you're watching movies, and some building is on fire, and you're screaming at the TV to the firefighter, "Just jump through the flames, you idiot! They're only an inch thick!" Well... I saw the one-inch curtain of flames, I knew those kids were on the other side of them, and Hollywood went through my mind. But the only words that came out were, "Uh Uh."

I guess you had to be there, but the delivery of that last line had me about falling out of my seat in laughter.

But good for him.
__________________

Do you ever start to make a post and then after your first point realize that you have nothing else to add? Just me? Oh.


Well, I did get my performance piece uploaded to YouTube, so I'll be posting a link to that in my next post. It's a bit of a voice/guitar piece. Though I just supply the guitar (for the most part). But I'll probably put that up on Monday evening.

On January 26 I wrote the following:

“I’ll try and post again before the week is up.”

Whoops.

Perhaps “I’ll try and post again before the quarter is up” would have been more appropriate (though still would not have been attained).

So what has The James been up to in the last 90 days? Quite a bit. And here’s a brief recap…
__________________

In mid-March my longtime on-again/off-again roommate decided to get married on the coast of Florida. Man, was I pumped.

Roommate and I made the drive out to Pensacola together (my wedding gift to him would be driving his car back alone) and made it in just over 10 hours. As a result of such excellent time, it turned out that my wedding gift to roommate was to not only drive his car back home alone but to also pay half of a speeding ticket that he received. Better than candlesticks, right?

Pretty much the highlight of the trip was… um, aside from the beautiful ceremony… was Clint and I trying to catch a shark. Word on the streets was that the waters just off the beach from the house we were staying in were good for sharks that time of the year. So Clint and I went to a local grocery store to find some form of meat with blood in it to use as bait. After searching aimlessly for a few minutes I decided to ask the butcher. So I walk up to the lady at the butcher counter and ask if they have anything with lots of blood in it, to which she replies, “What do you need it for?” After a moment of internal debate as to how ridiculous I want to sound, I give in and state, “To catch a shark.” “Oh, well you need to talk to Bill then.” At this point dual voices are heard as an embarrassed Clint solemnly pleads, "Please don't get Bill" right as the lady screams towards the back of the store, "Bill!" So out comes Bill and he looks just like the “He ain’t done yet” Old 96er butcher from The Great Outdoors. (If you don’t know who I am talking about then go HERE.) The guy turns out to be a real sweetheart, though. And after just a few minutes we’re walking out of the store with two buckets of chicken livers. I won’t bore you (or, rather, bore you more) with the rest of the evening, but needless to say when morning came around the only thing we had on the end of our fishing line was a dead stingray.

But anyway… on the solo drive home I elected to stop and spend a day in New Orleans to be a tourist (with Preservation Hall always a favorite stop) and then also to stop and spend a night in Houston to see some friends. All in all, probably not exactly how you’d want to blow a week of vacation time from your job, but c’est la vie.

(I know I probably sound bitter about having to go to one of my best friends weddings, but you’d have to know the back-story behind the last two years of his relationship with his now-wife to know why all involved were a little disenchanted with the whole situation. Though in all fairness, I hear the ceremony was nice. I wouldn’t know because I thought that wearing sunglasses would be inappropriate for a groomsman but it turns out that my retinas were burned by the white sand beach so I didn’t actually see anything beyond, “Who gives this woman?”)
__________________

Going back to the Barcelona trip, we did get our plane tickets purchased. They ended up costing half of what I was budgeting for, so that’s cool. The trip will glide lazily across four days in Madrid, three days in Barcelona, one day in Gibraltar, two days in Tangier (Morocco), and three days in Lisbon. Aside from the U2 concert, the plan is to see a bullfight in Spain’s most famous bullring (Las Ventas), take in the Prado Museum, visit the Cathedral of Santa Eulalia, hike the Rock of Gibraltar, take a ferry across the famed Strait of Gibraltar to Morocco, ride camels while in North Africa, and visit the port that Columbus sailed for the Indies from. And a few other things, I’m sure. My 2009 Rick Steves Spain & Portugal guide books should arrive tomorrow!
__________________

Let’s see… what else… I took my dad to the Rangers season opener this year. I’ve always wondered what the age is when your parents stop having to pay for everything and the kids instead pick up the tab. I think I’m about there. Being the one to supply opening day tickets was kind of weird. Part of me felt kind of proud (in a, “Hey, I’m officially not a mooch anymore!” kind of way – not that I’m a mooch, but you know what I mean) and the other part of me felt kind of sad. Kind of like watching the whole “cycle of life” thing from a distance.
__________________

Oh, yeah – going back to U2… did you get your Dallas tickets yet??? Looks like the show nearly sold-out in 12 hours (that would be nearly 100,000 tickets, a-thank you very much). You should go just to get inside the new Cowboys Stadium for less than the $30,000 seat license…

(Incidentally, download Magnificent & Moment Of Surrender from the new album)
__________________

I’ve decided to buy a new bike. One speed. Oh, yeah. While in Houston on the way back from Florida, my friends and I drifted around downtown Houston on some Mango Cruisers. I think I’m going to get a Trek Cruiser Classic. It’s black and has that great ‘50’s look to it. I want to start riding my bike to and back from work. Granted, I only live one mile from my office, but still…
__________________

Funniest thing I’ve seen in the last seven days: while at a fast food drive-thru one night the car in front of me in line pulled up to the window about six feet away from it. Both the employee and the driver of the car were fully stretched out towards each other from the waist up from their respective windows to exchange money/food. Got a good chuckle out of that one. I tried to get the camera out but just missed it.
__________________

Last five songs to play while typing this post:

Tower of Song/Leonard Cohen
My Brain Is Hanging Upside Down(Bonzo Goes to Bitburg)/The Ramones
A Letter To Elise/The Cure
Stand By Me/John Lennon
Who Knows Where The Time Goes?/Fairport Convention
__________________

Either later this week or early next I will be posting a video performance piece. So get excited. As if you aren’t already.

I'll try and post again before the week is up.

...

Been a while...

I'm sitting on the couch alternating between watching television, reading, listening to music and looking up websites.

Work is wearing me out. I actually worked on a Saturday for the first time ever last week. (Well, not ever, but for the first time in a job that contributes to a 401k.)

Right now Marvin Gaye's Trouble Man is playing in the background. If the first 45 seconds of this song don't make you feel like a different person in a different time then... well... I don't know what to tell you.
____________

The last time I wrote on here was prior to Christmas. So what has happened since then? I got a new TV, finally got a new stereo for my car (after likely destroying my hearing by listening to my iPod while driving around for the last couple of years), finally got the ISBE (after a recommendation from Evan), started teaching the junior high class at church (also, with Evan), shot a shotgun for the first time (not with Evan, though I'm sure he would approve), started dialogue with an academic advisor on going back to school to get a master's degree and seriously considered growing my hair back out. (That last one was a little weak but I felt I needed one more bullet point to complete the flow of the paragraph. For those that don't know, I used to grow my hair out relatively frequently and then shave it off. I'll see if I can find a picture to post for next time.)
____________

The new U2 single, Get On Your Boots, was released last Monday. Eh. The bassline is the best Adam Clayton has offered in a decade and the verses aren't bad, but after more than four years it's a bit underwhelming. But the album, No Line On The Horizon, comes out March 3 and I'll be taking the day off from work to listen to it all day long. Actually, I'll be buying it at midnight (most likely at Bill's) and blaring it 'til the sun comes up and then sleeping most of the day. AND...

While nothing has been confirmed, it looks like the tour is going to start in June in Spain, and I think I'm going to go. I've wanted to go to Spain and Portugal for a while and so I'm thinking a nine day excursion should work. Madrid-Lisbon-Barcelona. I've gone to the first show of the last few tours, though they've been in the states, and I don't see any reason to end that run just because the flight is a little longer.
____________

My roommate Matt is getting married in March and he and his future person have already bought a house so he is moving out in about three weeks, which means that I'll probably be moving out at some point in the next three months. I've been casually looking at places to live and I think I'm kind of leaning towards downtown Fort Worth (or surrounding areas). There's a lot of historical/renovated places that appeal to me. As I've stated on here before, and as anyone who knows me at all can attest to, I'm kind of old-school. I'll gladly trade 2,000 square feet for 600 if it means living someplace a century old with character and personality. Of course, none of that may pan out and I'll just get a room at the local YMCA. Wish me luck!
____________

Last six songs that have played since Trouble Man:

Last Kiss/Pearl Jam
Young Folks/Peter Bjorn and John
Reckoner/Radiohead
634-5789/Wilson Pickett
This Mess We're In/PJ Harvey and Thom Yorke
River Man/Nick Drake

Go find one to listen to. And then another.
____________

Tonight I saw an iPhone commercial demonstrating different applications to download. One of them came with the voiceover of, "Need to know how to figure out your share of a meal shared with five people? We got an app for that, too." My immediate thought was, "Doesn't the iPhone already come with a calculator?"

I'll try and post again before the week is up.