My Recording Vacation/Seclusion/Millionaire Fantasy Camp

Many moons ago, my parents told me that they would be heading to the Masters once again (as they always do), and this time would be going to Florida after, extending their vacation. "Can you check on the house a few times?" my mom asked. "Sure... how long are you going to be gone?" "Two weeks."

Holy lord, I thought- I can have an entire house on the lake in the middle of the woods all to myself for 2 weeks? Some people would see this as a formula for enormous parties, or romantic getaways, or drug-induced freakouts. I saw it as a way to finally, FINALLY learn logic and start recording music again. And I did. 

It was incredibly weird to be there alone, and I'm not ashamed of admitting that I was a bit freaked out pretty much every night for the first week. I bought a humidifier solely to add noise to my room at night, and most lights and at least one TV were on at all times. Call me a wimp all you want, but the house is old, SILENT, and in the middle of the woods. I was 100% completely alone. I've heard some weird animal sounds before (possibly a squatch), had a few "someone is definitely watching me" moments, and whether it's ghosts or just animals outside, I was praying I wouldn't hear or see anything while I was there. It's amazing how quickly one can revert to being a little kid afraid of the dark when you go from living on a busy street in a ghetto to trying to live in a huge house in the middle of nowhere. 

It was beautiful though- this was the moon one of the first nights:

My mom even left an easter basket for me with like 5 cadbury eggs (yes, this was that long ago- I'm pretty behind on blog posts):

So what did I do for 2 weeks? On the negative side, not enough. I got caught in too many sleep, internet or TV traps and didn't work as much as I should have. I'm a huge celtics fan, and there were like 14 games in the time I was there, so I watched a ton of celtics games, relaxed like a king, and ate like a champ. I took most of these for FATGUYFOODBLOG, but I never posted any of them since they are kind of just ghetto little creations rather than things people can go out and buy. Here's a few of my better meals: 

I had a bunch of these ghetto pizzas. I created these bad boys over one summer vacation in middle school when my mom was working, and I've missed them. White bread, spaghetti sauce, chopped up pepperoni and cheddar and montery jack cheese, toasted. You have to cook it a lot to make it crisp and avoid soggy bread, but these are so good, and the pepperoni spice really comes through. 

Ghetto nachos: Usually done with ruffles or wavy lays, I added a few tortillas to this to mix it up. But yea, it's just potato chips, cheddar and montery jack cheese, and instead of dipping in salsa, you dip in ketchup. So good. 

Here's my homemade Friendly's Turkey Club supermelt- turkey, american cheese, tomato, bacon and thousand island, fried up nicely:

And lastly, while a lot of you were having big meals with family on Easter, here's MY Easter brunch: 

My time there was basically "rich guy fantasy camp." I didn't have to do anything, and I had a big house on a lake. I  had zero reason to relax to the level that I did, but in this situation, it was really hard to get myself motivated to do anything. This picture says a lot- this stuffed animal known as Pillow Fighter, was a stuffed animal I grew up that was marketed to beat up. In recent years, he's become another pillow. One day that I got up way too late, I turned around and saw him gesturing to me, "come back mike- look at how nice this is..."

"go ahead, just lie down some more"

After a few days though, it started to hit me that I was wasting an opportunity, and I got my shit together- at least sort of. Here's a terrible panorama of the before and after of my Dad's office/mancave, which would become my studio:

I knew I wanted to buy an electric guitar for recording, as my current setup was a piece of crap. I went to guitar center and got an absurd deal that I couldn't pass up. I wanted a PRS like Hilton has, but his is like 3 grand. I had previously played PRS' cheap version of his guitar (the SE) but didn't love it. It felt cheap and the neck was really thick, making its play the complete opposite of what I liked most about Hilton's guitar. I had seen the Paul Allender model online and thought that it was pretty awesome looking- whereas Hilton's has beautiful birds on the fretboard, this one, since it was designed by the guitarist of Cradle of Filth, had bats. And it was deep blood red. I thought it was beautiful but kind of hilarious. And there it was at Guitar Center, for $350 bucks?! I picked it up, figuring it would suck, and was blown away. Truthfully, the action is too low and the top string buzzes, but a tuneup will hopefully fix that. Other than that, the neck was super thin and it was hilariously easy to play. A beautiful guitar that retails for 1200 bucks, usually sells for 800, and was in my hands for 350? Sold.

After initial recording and experimenting with drums and guitars, I finally admitted that I really truly did need to own a bass. So my new guitar got a brother a few days later. 

I eventually realized that since it would be easy to record piano at anytime and I was instantly so into playing with guitar sounds in logic, I put the keyboard aside and figured out how to record drums.

Here's the mess next to my computer- the mixer with a hundred cables next to all the stuff I had to move to make the studio, with a crate full of more crap, next to piles of papers to do taxes with (ppbbtt). 

And don't worry people who read this from apple, Deeteez came too. 

I had dreams of recording new emo songs mixed with some dongus bologna songs, but like my recording trip to Saratoga last summer, I wasn't prepared to do this. Except last year, I didn't know logic and tried to learn it AT Dustin's house. This time, I spent a lot of time before heading to Maine following the lynda.com training and basically knew how to record once I got to Maine. I figured out the rest of the key stuff as the trip went on, but I immediately realized why bands have songs already recorded in rough form before trying to do the real recordings. I always knew that, but it definitely hit me when I sat there wondering what to record that I had nothing. I had sketches of songs from waaay back, but hadn't played them in forever and didn't know exactly how to put them together now that I had everything in front of me. I also wasn't feeling quite stupid/hyper enough to make some really bad dongus songs. So, I kind of just messed around and hoped something would come to me.

The first night I found an amp setting I liked in logic (for those who don't know, logic is a recording program that is detailed to a level of true absurdity- you can do ANYTHING in it, and one of the highlights is the ability to play with preset guitar sounds, and adjust them by types of amps, types of cabinets, types of mics, mic placements, and can EQ everything to make a billion different types of sounds You can just plug your guitar right into the computer, no amp needed). I found a guitar sound that was very Brand New-esque, and wrote a crappy little guitar line in an attempt to turn it into something. I recorded a messy demo of it that night, then spent 4-5 hours the next day figuring out layers, beats, structure, etc. The rest of the details and the song itself are posted at the end of this incredibly long post.

After that, I decided the best way to familiarize myself with recording and to get back into playing music, writing layers and singing was to start a project I've thought of doing for years: record an album of covers of songs by women. Why? Not sure, I just thought it would be neat to limit myself to that, and to try and make songs I've always heard one way sound a lot different. I think the most fun way for me to bring these songs to the world will be to have a separate blog entry for each one once its finished, with all the disasters and details of the recording process. But I'll say this- the first one I did was of a Taylor Swift song, and it will be released in the next week or so. 

Here's what it looked like in the beginning. LOTS of vocal takes, and these weren't even all of them:

This turned out to be a fantastic way to get into recording again, and I recorded the basic parts to 3 different songs, nearly completing 2 of them. I guess I'll leave most of the details to when I post the songs, but boy, were they a learning process. From things like having ghost power on while recording vocals creating a buzzing, to learning to EQ things FIRST, then mix because EQing changes volume like crazy, to mic placement, the room affecting vocal takes, learning to record guitar both directly in to the computer AND with a room mic, etc, etc, etc. I'm still learning, but I'm getting there. 

This started to make a lot of sense after awhile- why make stupid mistakes and learn on my own songs that I'm investing a ton of time into when I can make them on stupid covers? 

As the days went on, my time spent working on music grew, but I learned that 5 hours was just about my limit before I hated everything I was doing. I also reverted to being nocturnal. Most of the ride home stuff was recorded overnight, from midnight to like 10 in the morning. By my last days, I went to bed at 6 or 8am, not really getting into the groove of music until around 12-1 after trying to start earlier. It's weird, but I've always kind of been at my best at weird hours. The last morning, I was belting out (fairly bad) vocals at 7 in the morning while our neighbors were leaving for work. Ahh, the life at reclusive millionaire fantasy camp. 

Here's Sebago Lake at 5:30 in the morning, saturated a solid amount by HDR: 

Here's completely blinding sun the next morning at 7- I literally couldn't even look at it:

And while I'm sharing HDR shots of beautiful Sebago Lake, here's the beach across the lake from our house. I pulled over for this one.

My last day ended in true Mike fashion, with me trying to record 4 takes of drums in the last 15 minutes I had before I had to go get Ben, my mom's cat, from the kennel. Once I got him, I began the sad process of cleaning up. It's been a dream of mine to have a studio set up like this for quite some time. I'm not good with taking advantage of a specific time- I am absolutely someone who gets randomly inspired- and the ability to just walk downstairs and play any instrument and record it/edit it, etc, was pretty glorious. It truly was living the dream, and I wish my Dad didn't use this as an office, otherwise I would have left most of this set up and headed home a lot more often. Maybe that elusive house with no neighbors and a nice basement will finally find its way into my life...

Here's a classic ball of wires that any musician knows all too well: 

Here's pretty much all of my musical equipment (minus mics and the mixer) in one picture. I have accumulated quite a lot over the years. It's kind of neat to look at this. I got everything other than the acoustic guitar for very cheap, but still- this adds up.

Before:

After:

When I was done, I went down to the lake to see the sunset and attempt to swim. I was sticky and disgusting, and exhausted from packing up everything. I swam in October last summer, so I figured April wouldn't be any worse- why not at least try to be able to say I swam in April? It turns out that having other people with you makes a big difference. This was about the same temperature as in Octobter, but with other people, it's a hilarious game of who can go farther, screaming obscenities at the pain, etc. By myself, it was just pain. So after 1 foot, I decided against it and headed out to get a pizza and watch the Celtics while Ben and I awaited my parents' return.

Satanic Ben:

I forgot to take a picture of my car loaded up, but with the added drum cases I bought, I was truly shocked that this all somehow fit in my Nissan Altima. An entire drumset, 8 mic stands, my imac (in the box), all recording gear, 88 -key keyboard with seat, drum throne, electric guitar, acoustic guitar, bass, huge tote full of other things, an overflowing bag of laundry, and an LL Bean bag full of everything else. I am the master packer. Let's just say that driving wasn't exactly comfortable.

In the weeks since, I've spent many many hours editing everything, including several calls to Hilton for help, which I always took very seriously. 

For an example of how maddening this is, here are 4 comped tracks of drums, opened up. This means that I recorded a take of drums, then another, then another, then another, with each take on basically a drop down menu for each individual track/microphone. SO, 4 takes, each represented by 8 different mics. The point of this is to mix together parts of different takes to get the elusive, studio-trickery "perfect take." This is only half of the tracks, and is fairly simple, and this hurts to look at. I don't like doing this- it's smart and makes sense for getting good takes, but it's a nightmare. 

Here is a screen shot of the nightmare involved with adjusting volumes. When you suck at recording, you hit drums way harder one second than before it, or strum inconsistently, sing inconsistently or horribly, etc. The trick to making a song sound good is to adjust volumes like crazy, and it's an absolute nightmare. This is where not sucking at recording would help a lot- most of my time editing has been doing this. And with 6 takes of vocals, trying to figure out what best 2 or 3 (or 6) work best together, then figuring out which one needs to be loudest, then figuring out which part of each track needs to be turned down or turned up, or muted entirely (I've found that my throat makes a weird sound when I'm done holding a note), etc etc etc: Nightmare. 

Here's an example of what one project can look like. This is basically final, and this is a simple song. Some ride home songs had 100-120 tracks. A lot of that was one specific sound covering up another (which is easier to fix now), but still. I'm terrified of what my future holds. 

So, expect cover songs to be posted soon. Expect more dongus bologna songs (and a full album) by the end of the year. And expect new legit music that I really am proud of. 

First experiment:

I never got around to doing vocals (I will eventually), but I think the end result of this jam sounds like Brand New mixed with some sort of post-rock heavy band mixed with 90's grunge. I had a blast putting this together, even though the song itself isn't the best and it's still a bit messy. I had to do several takes of everything in order to get perfect takes, and drums were a BITCH. It turns out that not playing for a solid year, skill level goes down a bit. I couldn't do what I wanted at first, but eventually found my style and was able to play pretty close to how I did when I played a lot, only much more messy and terrible. It was a struggle, but it worked out, kind of. Here's the in-progress "final" version (instrumental):

(if it doesn't play, go here) 

I'm proud of this and think it turned out to be a nice little post-rock grunge jam, but clearly, I'm still learning. The first thing I noticed was that the way I play drums doesn't work at all for recording. Mic placement was a BITCH, especially using SM57s, which are longer/taller than a lot of drum mics, but I eventually figured that out by putting the main snare mic pretty much in my crotch. But after that, I immediately noticed (and you can hear it in this recording) that when I hit the snare, I let the stick settle on the drum head (rather than pulling back the stick). Live (which is all I've ever really done), you don't notice this, but in recording, it rattles and records every subtle rattle/bounce as the stick sits there. This is one thing I clearly need to work on. 

The next thing is volume. I think I have volume of mics pretty much figured out, but when mixing, I turn everything up super loud, and as the song goes, it gets louder. This is clearly a problem, and not just for the fact that it shouldn't be slowly getting louder as the song goes. It's a main problem because I won't hear clipping at all in logic, but once I import it into itunes (where there is an additional volume controller which is always up all the way for me), the song clips like crazy. I actually remixed this entire song (no- not remix like techno remix, remix like redoing all volume changes), and I still screwed it up. Hopefully I'll get my act together on that, and maybe recording a super loud heavy song wasn't the best thing to try first. 

I did figure out a nice little trick though- making track 1 (and 2 in this song) be songs I think my song sounds like, that way I can compare the volume and prominence of drums or bass in their song to mine. Like, does my bass volume sound right here? Let's check to see what it sounds like in this Brand New song. Oh, ok, mine is still fairly quiet. I like this, and wish I had figured this out right away, rather than now. 

I think that's about it for talking about this song- I definitely need to figure out WHERE sounds can go so I don't have to just keep turning things up and down in order to hear them better. Do I attempt to figure out how to mix in surround sound, or do I just get better at moving things around on each side?

_________________________________________________________________________________ 

While this recording trip wasn't as successful as it could have been on paper, it was HUGELY successful for me as a person. One of my goals I set out to achieve when I started this whole new life thing a year ago was to reignite my passion for music. I played more in the last year, but not a lot. I recorded nothing. Now, even though it's just cover songs, I'm working again. I'm playing again. I'm staying up super late looping parts and writing layers. I've played more guitar in the last month than I have in the last 3 years probably. And I LOVE playing electric guitar through logic and making weird sounds. I love trying to make up bass lines (although finding the right bass note is much harder than I realized). As much as I'm still having trouble accepting what my voice sounds like (more on that later), I'm singing more, and I love the moment where I realize a made-up harmony works perfectly. The feeling of creating layers has always been my favorite part of music, and I'm doing that again. I have not only reignited my love for playing/writing music, but I've stepped into the future and (basically) learned a program that is not only fairly limitless and used by a lot of my favorite bands, but I also really genuinely enjoy playing around with it and learning. 

It turns out that a lazy 2 weeks of sleeping the wrong hours and barely going outside, eating garbage and getting sucked into internet holes can be insanely beneficial as long as you have just enough passion for something and a studio in your basement with the ability to play a billion different sounds though your computer. More soon!!

currently listening to: Owen- "I Do Perceive"

Best Albums of 1994

This was a good year, which meant I wanted to talk a lot about the albums. As long as this took me (from putting off doing it), I really enjoyed reminiscing about these classics, and getting my music-journalist on and writing WAY too much. I'm trying to get these out sooner. Hopefully 1995 will be soon, but for now, enjoy my musings on the wonderful year of 1994:

(click the picture for the link)

Whiteface Mountain (Belknap Range)

Probably a solid 3 weeks ago, I took advantage of some more unseasonably warm weather and decided to start taking down the Belknap Range (the small range of 12 peaks around Alton Bay that Mount Major is part of). My plan is to get all of these under my belt this spring as a warm up for knocking off 4,000 footers this summer/fall. I started with Whiteface, which is the farthest south and the smallest at only 1,664 feet high. I had read a few trail recaps at Franklin Sites (a great resource for hiking around here), and this one seemed pretty obvious and simple. 

You have to park at a small little clearing before a gate at the end of the short road connected to Belknap Mountain Road, then walk up a dirt road past peoples' houses, turning left just before the far white house in this picture. Certainly an odd start to a trail. I felt very odd walking pretty much through backyards with kids screaming in them. 

The trail is moderate but vertical right away. It's also incredibly boring. 

There was a nice surprise about 15 minutes in though, as there is a dilapidated old house off in the woods to the right of the trail. 

I ignored the KEEP OUT signs and explored a bit. It looked like maybe an old hunting lodge, but from a tree hitting it and the floor rotting out, it had seen better days. It now had the usual beer can/garbage collection, plus this, which I thought was pretty funny:

Here's an HDR of the destroyed side. Pretty cool. 

The trail had a few turns and downward parts as I got higher up. It definitely got more interesting and trail-like (rather than just a fire road through the woods), and before long, I reached a sign I wasn't expecting. Maybe I didn't read those trail reports very well. I only saw 794 feet of climbing and people saying they got to the top in 20 minutes, so I figured this was super easy. 

It was farther and steeper than I thought, and I had no idea this trail was also a route to Whiteface's neighbor, Piper. By maps, it looks like you can make it to Belknap and Gunstock by following the same route, but there isn't much for signage or info on these trails online. This frustrated me a lot, since it was getting dark (WEIRD that I would leave too late), and I was pretty much in the "wait, I'm not at the top now?!" mode. I followed the sign for Whiteface and instantly hit the land of "wait, I have to go all the way over THERE!?"

Admittedly, it wasn't that far, and this is still a pretty short hike. I'm just out of shape and was apparently not as prepared for this hike as I had thought. AND, call me entitled or unrealistic, but I have grown fairly used to mountains with signage on them, either with "the top of the mountain is over there" signs or mileage signs. I guess I shouldn't expect this of all mountains, but I kind of do- it would be very nice to know exactly how far I have to go, and exactly where I need to go to get there. To the left of this picture was a very worn trail into the woods that I first thought was to the summit, before I realized I wasn't actually on top of a mountain. 

From here on, the trail curved to the right and then wrapped around up the side of Whiteface. There were huge rocks and plenty of dirt/mud. The trail pretty much sucked, as it was clearly just a road that people went off-roading on. I like my trails to be thin and very deep in the woods or at least interesting/beautiful. This was neither. 

I got to the top though, and took the best shots I could on a super overcast, murky day. 

The last steepness before the top

Piper behind me

MERCUH (I joke, but this was nice to see)

I assume that this is a spot where someone camped and then got attacked by bears: 

(on the ground is a stove and some supplies, and high in the trees are shards of clothing- this was kind of terrifying). 

Here's a as-good-as-I-could-get panorama of the view from the top:

(as with all pics, click to see it bigger)

And here's a super blue HDR of where a jeep mudbogged the crap out of the dirt.

As a typical Mike-hiking storyline, it got dark pretty quickly as I was on the top, and I had to walk pretty fast to get back down before I was wandering through the woods in the dark. It also started raining pretty much at the division sign in the woods. Luckily it didn't rain too hard and the trail was easy enough to navigate, but I absolutely got to my car in full on darkness. And as Kevin said, only I would find a Ministry CD in the middle of the woods. In good condition too! I'm guessing it flew out of someone's jeep while it bounced off enormous rocks. 

This was a nice small hike, but other than the view below and the destroyed house, it wasn't much to get excited about. BUT, 2 of 12 peaks are in the bag, I got some exercise, and I finally listened to Bon Iver's first album with an overcast rainy trail and mountaintop as my backdrop, which worked perfectly. I'm planning on doing Gunstock, Belknap and Piper in a loop, Rowe on its own, then Kevin and I are talking about attempting to do the remaining 7 in one ridiculous loop (which will include Major again) sometime in May (I hope). That ought to be pretty hilarious/awesome.

Mega instagrammed view from Whiteface: 

currently listening to: The Mars Volta- Noctourniquet

Saltz McDrunkington's Summer Ski Festival 2012, part 2

I woke up on Sunday feeling shockingly decent. My legs had a little less energy in them, but my back was fine, and I wasn't anyway near as stiff as I had predicted. I am still shocked about this. Maybe Jake's basement couch is really THAT good. I don't know.

I went upstairs and as people got up, Tara went out and got the fixings for a huge breakfast, which, since it was the middle of March, we ate out on the deck. It was in the 70s again, and it was glorious eating out there. Here's a picture of Damien for no reason other than because I love Damien. 

After breakfast, I got to watch bedhead Wyatt stumble around the house and at one point, shove Damien aside, which was pretty hilarious. Damien then licked his fingers all over. It was pretty adorable and I couldn't help but think of all the pictures people take of babies with pitbulls loving them. This one's pretty funny- Wyatt looks drunk.

Wyatt, Kevin and I spent a considerable amount of time watching Yo! Gabba Gabba. This show is completely ridiculous and sucks you right in. I had always heard of it and even have a stuffed animal of the red guy I won at a fair on my desk, but had never known the Tim & Eric-like absurdity of it. It's pretty awesome. 

Most people left, and Kevin and I decided to accompany the Robertsons on a sweet ride alongside Lake Champlain. We always seem to go to North Beach when I visit Vermont, and this was awesome. Riding a bike when I thought I wouldn't be able to move was awesome. Riding a bike the day after skiing was even more awesome. Riding a bike in March was even more awesome than that.

It felt so good to be on a bike again- there's just a special feeling I get being on that god awful seat that only other people who love biking will ever understand. Of course I was on Tara's bike (the bike I flipped over and cracked my helmet on last summer), so it was a bit awkward (it's waaay too small), but it still felt great. We rode a few miles around the corner of the enormous lake, along paved walkways through millions of people. It was a lot like the Minuteman bikeway in Cambridge, only with an ocean-like lake alongside the entire way.

March!

Here's a sweet spot, all instagrammed up for maximum pretty: 

These dudes were playing bike polo, which I didn't even know existed. Judging by the looks of these guys, this is the most hipster of all activities.

There were a million people on the beach. No swimming, but lots of sunbathing, frisbee, drinking, etc. Typical beach stuff. So weird to see now. I really wish the building on the right wasn't there, otherwise this would have been a perfectly symmetrical shot by accident.

We had a very relaxing tossing of the B, 

(in a warped world)

Wyatt tried his hand at being cute,

and we headed out. This is what the beach looked like, instagrammed: 

pretty awesome.

Here's another shot I love of Damien: 

We headed back, unloaded bikes, loaded up everything in my car and headed out. Kevin and I had a painfully long ride home- there were stretches where he was in and out of sleep and I was so zoned out that I wasn't even aware of it. It seemed to take FOREVER to get back to his house, and I immediately knew I was screwed once I dropped him off. 

After somehow getting him to his house and back (and driving on the worst roads imaginable), I began the trek from Sanbornton back to Somersworth. I put on my favorite album of last year and blasted it. I hit myself with cold air, I headbanged, air guitared, screamed, did whatever it took- and it was all useless. I can't remember the last time I had this much trouble driving home. The entire weekend- skiing, biking, partying all night and drinking, sleeping like 8 interrupted hours of sleep across all of that- it all hit at the same time. I wasn't even fighting off sleep- no, that would make sense. I was, instead, zoning out for 5 minutes at a time, having no recollection of what had happened. I wasn't just autopilot driving, I was autopilot singing. I was singing every word to the cd, driving along all the right roads at reasonable speeds, I just barely remember it. It was BAD. I'm incredibly lucky that my autopilot driving is good enough that I made it all the way back in one piece. I guess jumping from nothing for months to a super epic weekend like this isn't quite "no big deal" anymore. I guess at age 30, these things destroy you a little bit. 

I woke up the next day and could barely move. Apparently it took 2 days for the skiing to catch up with me. Oh well. It's not like I had to get up early and go to work or anything! OHH!

This was a great weekend with great people I don't see enough. Thanks for hosting, Jake and Tara. Let's make this a yearly thing, ok?

Stolen from Hannah. No Kristy, Hannah or Tom in this one, but I had a blast with you guys too. 

currently listening to: Marilyn Manson- Antichrist Superstar (how much does that not fit this post?!)

Saltz McDrunkington's Summer Ski Festival 2012, part 1

On Saint Patrick's Day, most people have parties and get wasted... and that's about it. I went here:

That's the view from the top of Mount Ellen, part of Sugarbush Resort, where Jake works. Kevin spearheaded a little revival of Saltz McDrunkinton's, a party we had probably 8 years ago that I think the full name of was "Saltz McDrunkington's Irish Pig, Booze, and Graphic Design Festival." It wasn't a huge deal, but we got Dustin, Amanda, Adam, Kristy, me, Kevin and the almighty Mysterio all the way from CT to come hang out with the booming household of Jake and Tara up in Vermont. Jake promised "spring skiing" (i.e. no woods, just tons of slush and light jackets). It turned out to be in the 70s the whole weekend (and 80s the following week), so this turned out to be quite the rarity: Skiing in summer, while it's actually March (and still technically winter).

I hadn't skied in 2 years and was pretty bad the last time out- in fact, I threw out my back worse than I ever have before and sat in the lodge for 3 hours by myself, then lay on a floor for the entirety of the day after. Good times.

This trip started out looking like it may be the same. The night before, I got drunker than I meant to (damn southern comfort) and was completely robbed of the only thing that would help me out, sleep. A sick baby upstairs + a house with like 12 people in it + me sleeping on a couch in the dead center of the house= me waking up 40 times and sleeping probably about 4 and a half hours of interrupted sleep. I also stubbed my toe so bad when I went to bed that, after feeling blood dripping through my sock, I realized I had pretty much knocked off my entire toenail. GOOD START. 

The next morning I had a horrible headache, felt carsick from riding passenger to someone driving manual (always seems to happen), felt incredibly hot dressed in a sweatshirt when the sun was blinding me, felt stiff and hurt, and was extremely worried I was in for some trouble. When I put on my 15 year old rear entry boot and nearly screamed from the pain in my half broken toe, my nerves weren't exactly calmed. But somehow I made it to the top of the enormous mountain, and gave it my best shot. 

After 1 run, I told everyone I would be spending the day in the lodge, playing with my phone until it died. Nothing makes a man feel more like a fat slob than skiing for the first time in 2 years with in shape people who have skied all winter (or at least more than twice in 2 years). Turns out that I'm in pretty bad shape. And even if I wasn't, holy lord did I forget how hard skiing is when you don't normally do it. I completely forgot how many tiny little leg muscle twitches were required just to stay balanced and not explode on a flat spot, much less on steep, mogul-ey slush/ice terrain. My legs were on fire, worse than I can remember. And even though I'm a fat pig, I bike and hike- my legs are pretty used to this stuff. But not skiing, skiing is a whole different story. 

But, after convincing myself to give it 1 more run, then 1 more run, then "this trail has more snow, no moguls and is easier, I'm sticking with this one," I ended up being out there for like 5 hours and having a great time attempting to remember how to ski. I had sparse moments of feeling it and remembering what the hell I was doing, but most of it was me awkwardly trying to not explode. But it felt real nice to be out there again, and I'm very happy that it was a "it's spring skiing, it's just great to be out here" kind of day. That, and the fact that Jake, who rules at snowboarding, was skiing all day. He was surprisingly good for someone who hasn't done much skiing, but he was all for taking it easy and hung out with me on the wimpier trails for most of the day. And what a beautiful day it was. Here are pics: 

Mount Ellen is either the 4th, 5th, or 7th highest mountain Vermont (thanks internet), but it certainly felt like we were on top of the world- I haven't been on another mountain where I could see that far in every direction- where I felt like I was on the highest point in the world before. It was pretty amazing.

Jake t-shirt skiing. RONDO!

Here's Dustin shredding the end of an all mogul trail. I did not ski on this trail.

A lot of the trails looked like this- just huge patches of dirt, grass, mud, rocks, etc. I was surprised they were even open, but they did have enough snow to get from top to bottom, so I guess if people wanted to give them a shot, why not?

The section before the chairlift line became a small pond by the end of the day.

Here's muscle Amanda and Dustin having a good laugh:

And here's Jake right after a wipeout on our last run, that I missed because I was exhaustedly taking a break and staring at the ground instead of watching him eat it. Other than Adam messing around and falling a few times doing stupid stuff, I think this wipeout was really the only one of the day, and it wasn't much. 

Dustin's instagram of Jake, Kevin, Mysterio and I hanging out at the lodge. 

It was a good time and I knew by the level of exhaustion I felt, I'd be sleeping well that night. 

We loaded up, stopped at a sweet grocery store and bought way too much food, then headed home for BBQ and beers. I showered up, and by the time I got outside, Kevin had, instead of relaxing, set up a slack line in the yard. Apparently the point of this is to be able to balance on it, then eventually do jumps/tricks. I was exhausted and just wanted to sit down, so I didn't partake. It looked pretty hilarious though. 

I really like this one- a pretty girl in a meadow looking curiously towards her mongoloid lover:

I had to take a super fall-esque emo shot of Amanda against a tree. It only seemed fitting on a summer day in winter to take a fall picture. 

I also couldn't resist taking too many pictures of Wyatt. He's incredibly adorable. 

"Hey guy with a camera, I'm cute!"

"See? Even when I'm tearing up, I'm adorable."

"Ok, that's enough."

We finally sat down for some grilled goodness, which Jake cooked on a webber grill missing a leg, held up by rocks but still crooked, inside a full sized broken grill. We then took the party inside, as it became freezing fast. Damien threw a fit for attention, 

"LOOK AT ME"

then Jake and Adam did this, whatever this is:

With sick Wyatt sleeping upstairs, we took the party to the basement, where this happened: 

Kevin + alcohol= Kevin with no brain, and tonight was no different. As seems to be fairly standard with parties at this house, an art party broke out and some pretty awesome stuff was created. 

Something I've missed a lot at our little get-togethers has been being DJ and playing all the hits we used to sing along to in college. I brought it all back that night though, creating a spotify playlist to rival my best radio shows. So many hits, so much singing along, solid amounts of air guitar. It felt fantastic and was exactly what I needed to punch my lonely winter doldrums in the face. In fact, I was so busy DJing that I forgot to take any pictures of the completed art, which was pretty good. Dustin's involved sticking a squashed beer can to half a bottle of dripping paint on canvas. It was pretty sweet.

Tara partied with us until Wyatt finally woke up, which was great. She's been in mom mode for awhile, so it was real nice to rage it up with her. As the hours went by, people slowly fell to the night, including Jake, who fell asleep in a wooden chair with a beer still in his hand. Kevin, Tara, Kristy (who disappeared and came back with pizza, score) raged until Dustin got up from where he was sleeping 20 feet away, and turned off the lights, leaving me staring in silence at Kevin's glow in the dark dress. Looking back, this was the perfect ending to the day.

I honestly considered sleeping on my aerobed (which I took out of my trunk and un-boxed at 3 in the morning) in the garage, but I figured I would probably freeze to death, and it was just a bit too weird to sleep in the garage. So I dragged it downstairs to the basement instead, and when drunktarded Jake got up and wandered upstairs at 6 in the morning, I took his spot on the couch for a glorious but way too short 3 hours of sleep in addition to the 2 or so I got on the aerobed. I knew I would feel nothing but wonderful the next morning. It felt awesome to spend such a full day of quality time with awesome people doing stuff I hadn't done in forever, but I was fairly certain someone would have to build a people-sized spatula to scrape me off the couch in a few hours.

currently listening to: Bon Iver- For Emma, Forever Ago