Monday of last week, 10HDG and I went to see little joy at the independent (of which I’m the mayor now).  It was phenomenal.  10HDG even said so.  He’s not so much into that type of music, the folky/beachy stuff, but G-D those guys are super talented; read: awesome musicians.

Fabrizio was not there,  rumors I’ve read said he’s off recording with his *cough* other *cough* band.  Not to knock them or anything, but I’m hoping that this little “side project” becomes more of his focus than his other bnd, they are soooo good.  Here’s one of their debut videos, so cute!

You know who was there though? Coldplay! 10HDG and I both read some tweets that “Coldplay is in the house.”  We both thought that it was just the music in between sets.  However, when we got back to my house, I checked the twitter, and sure enough, Coldplay was actually there.  They were saying how Little Joy is their new favorite band, well apparently Guy’s new favorite.

I tend to think that’s good.  It means that Little Joy will get more coverage, and thus more money, and then they can make more awesome beachy summer music for us to listen to.

I bet I know why Guy was there… I mean, I’m not a Coldplay fan or anything, but the guys are famous for a reason.  They are pretty decent musicians, and they have a good ear.  So, my thoughts are that Guy likes good music even though I’m not a fan of his music.

However, not only is Rodrigo an amazing guitar player, he can sing also. I think he doesn’t sing all of the songs regularly, but he did a very good Fabrizio impression.  The whole band sounded very together, I don’t think there was one sour note.  I was in awe of how good musicians they are. I can’t wait for them to come back.

Here’s the funny thing: for a while now, I had thought that this Rodrigo was the one from Rodrigo y Gabriela.  Except he’s not… I’m apparently a fool and this is the Rodrigo from Los Hermanos.

Little Joy was a side project that got started by Rodrigo Amarante, Fabrizio Moretti, and Binki Shapiro.  They decided to start this band after spending time together at a music festival in Europe.  I think there’s rumors that Fabrizio is dating Binki, not sure though.

The other guys that played with Binki and Rodrigo were also super talented.  Last time they came to Austin, I don’t believe that the other guys played with them, but I didn’t make it to that show.  They are: Todd Dahlhoff and Matt Borg from The Dead Trees (on bass and guitar, respectively), Matt Romano from Albert Hammond Jr’s band (drums) and Jack Dishel from Only Son (guitar, backing vocals) (via their myspace page).

Another thing that really struck me about how that space is well matched for that band was the audience interaction during the set.   In between songs they were talking to the audience, and checking in with us.  Binki and Rodrigo were both super gracious.  And that’s always an awesome thing, they know they’re thebusiness, but they’re still humble. They were full of thank you’s.

I was surprised that there were so many people there.  I think it was a sold out show, but I’m not sure, it was packed.  Especially compared to the C.L.U.E.S show that Jen and I saw later in the week.  That being said there were a fair amount of D-bags there.  It struck me as a quiet venue, kinda like the time we saw BSS at Bass. But there were these two groups of people near by us who would not stop talking.  I mean it’s totally one thing if the show was outside at Stubbs or something, but this was small, smaller than The Parish even.  There was a few moments when I almost turned around and asked them to stop taking, but I didn’t really feel like starting a fight.

All in all, the show was awesome. A little hot in the venue, but I think they’re still working out the kinks on temperature control.  The sounds was well balanced, and not crappy like Emo’s, sounded pretty full, I don’t know that I’d go with rich yet, but they’ll get there.  And One of the other best things about this venue is how close it is to Mexico (A.K.A my house).

So yeah, go to the Independent, and listen to Little Joy. I think you’ll enjoy both.

This week I was visited by the sinus headache from hell.  It descended upon me on Tuesday.  If only my desire to hang out on the floor in my dark bathroom was caused by a hangover.   I know how to fix that.

The sinus thing could be caused by a number of things.  Grass, pollen, mold, M’s dog,…  Then there was the weather.  A front was coming through. Actually, multiple fronts were coming though.  Sadly, I am a barometer.  It started around my eyes and by Wednesday morning it had progressed to my ears.

When it gets that far there isn’t much I can do except stay put.  I get vertigo when my ears are clogged.  It’s been awhile since I have fallen and blacked out.  I  know the warning signs.  It’s best to just stay on the floor to begin with.   That and pray for rain (or the barometric pressure to change).  The majority of Wednesday was spent in bed and on the floor.

By Thursday I was feeling mildly better.  The rain helped a little bit.  I braved the office for a few hours until the nausea hit.  I decided to go home at that point. The couch, lots of fluids,  and the Dark Crystal made me feel better.  I felt good enough to take the Real Jew’s advise and stalk someone on the internet.

Today was about the same.  Still feeling mildly icky. I can tollerate sunlight so that’s a plus.  I managed to watch 14 episodes of Arrested Development without falling asleep.  That was not the case on Wednesday.

Hopefully I can return to life off of the couch.  I do love my couch but really, this was a bit much.

Team Photos day, originally uploaded by Limorama.

So, you may or may not know this, but I help coach a kids climbing team. These are my kids. I really love them a lot. They all work super hard, are very motivated, and on top of all that well balanced.

Hanging out with them teaches me things every day. Yes, I am their coach and I do help them with climbing things, but the simplistic nature of how they look at things sometimes really is uplifting to me sometimes.

It’s like one of my girls said once, “In rock climbing, you can almost die, but if you don’t it’s totally a good idea to try it again.” I like that philosophy a lot. It’s all about being fearless. I wish everyone had that kind of fortitude.

So really this is just a shout out to my kids. Well, to other people’s kids who I happen to coach I guess. Thanks guys, thanks for showing me some stuff, and reminding me of things.

I know I said 8 second delay, but I like this post a lot.  Also, I feel like this isn’t really going to incriminate anyone or be bad in any way, so I guess this doesn’t need the delay.

So I was out with 10HDG last night, and he got me thinking about stuff. (I love that!)  It’s been a while that I’ve met someone I feel like I click with this well, outside of my dudes that is. As I was coming home from going out to get green curry and coffee/drinks and we exchanged a few txt msgs.

I’m not going to divulge the exact messages, but they were adorable, albeit off-the-cuff.  Even so adorable that it might make you puke if I did, so I’ll spare you guys that.

The main thing was that we’ve been trying to figure out how this happened.  Now, as a note, there is a part of me that says: if it’s working this well, don’t worry about it.  But, I also realize that there is some amount of reflection on these things that makes them work even better.

Sure, we did meet on the interwebs.  But that’s me taking control. Putting myself in a position that allows me to be happy.  I really set myself up to have the best year ever.  I set a place for me to start, and worked really hard through this year to maintain the standard I wanted to have.  Yes, I won’t lie, there were times I allowed myself to get a little down, and all that, but in the end, I really am getting it.

I’m not going to go all nuts, I have no worries about it, and thus no need to go nuts.  And I think therein lies the answer I’m looking for.  I’m so happy now because of a multitude of things.  I feel super grateful to have my life and my family (both here and in Chicago).  I’m super grateful for how well I’m doing in school.  And as always, I’m super grateful for having a medium to post all of this.  I’ve set myself up to be happy, so no need to worry, just work on the being happy business.

This was the year that I really took the reigns of my own happiness.  I spent a lot of time thinking about the crappy stuff that’s happened, but I am also realizing that I need to be more thankful for all of it.  I wouldn’t say that I believe in fate so much as making a general plan, a starting place if you will, and just going with the spontaneity of where it leads me.

This all happens because I was/am ready for this. This happiness, this life, this everything.  My spanish profesora said the other day, “When you let go of all the negative stuff, and live in your own bliss, people are just naturally attracted to you.”  That along with the thing my father said to me, “Have the courage of your convictions” have been some really important things for me to hear and internalize this year.

You know how you hear stuff, but don’t really get it?  This was the year for me to get it.  Finally realizing that I did have the courage of my convictions all along, makes me live in my own bliss.  Next year and succeeding years are only going to get/be better.  Thanks for entertaining my musings on this.

This post is kind of all over the place, it’s more a stream of conscious writing exercise for me than anything else.  Sometime you just have to get stuff out of your head.  So sorry if it’s a little wonky.

I’ll start with Jazz music:

You know how in dancing there’s some people who just understand the musicality of it all and how things are supposed to fit together?  Well I’m beginning to feel like that about life in general.

There’s some people who get the nuances, and the little breaks.  Then there’s just some who don’t.  This is about the time of year when reflection hits me right on the head.  These were a few past bad years for me.  I wouldn’t say that I struggled a ton, but emotionally, I think I went through some stuff that’s helped me grow a lot.

It’s kind of like a jazz song (A-B-A-B-C-B-A). Stuff’s going ok, it gets bad, then it goes good again then it gets bad, then something out of left field happends, and then it gets bad, then it’s all good again.    I feel like my life the past two years has followed that structure. Well at least loosely.

Now I move on to baggage and stuff:

I guess what I’m saying is that my interpersonal relationships have followed this pattern.  Maybe here is the place that I look back on thoes bad and good time and say thanks.  I’m not sure if any of my ex’s still read this, but that’s ok.  Writing this is more for me than them.

So, yeah, thanks to you dudes who’ve dated me in the past few years.  Through thoes relationships, I’ve learned a lot about myself and they type of people I choose to be around, clearly you were not good enough for me.  And also, I’m finally thinking that I’m getting to a point where I’m learning to let go of some of the anger and bad feelings that I’m harboring.  Don’t get me wrong, I still feel wronged by thoes dudes, but it’s just not an important part of my life anymore.  I’m downsizing, I’m not carrying my usual 3 rolling suitcases full of baggage, now I have just a small backpack.  I’m working on getting it into an even smaller train case, but that will take time.  Where I’m at I feel pretty good about.

I bet that some of this is because of the recent events in my life, but isn’t that always how it goes?   The ebb and flow of the daily stuff makes the grander stuff more bearable.  Like I always say, it’s an adventure, and I’m always good for an adventure.  In fact, I’m the girl you want on an adventure with you.  I don’t carry a ton of stuff in my bag, but I’m usually more prepaired than most people, and I’m super good under pressure and in extreme situations.

OK, enough ramblings from me, I just needed to get that out. Sorry if it’s messy or vague, but I understand it, and if you know me well enough you’d understand it too.

So you know how I’ve been spouting the drivel about how to figure it out?  Well today I had an epiphany.  I went to a talk at UT given by the co-founder of Kiva.org and it was amazing.  I’ve known for a while that I want to be involved in some capacity with politics and public policy.  Well, this was great.

Kiva.org is a website that is essentially set up like a social networking website.  They match loaners (you and me) with people and micro finance institution (borrowers).  The whole thoughts on the issue for me is that it’s globalization on it’s greatest most beneficial level.  It’s globalization at a grassroots network level.  I love it.  I think it’s genius, mostly because it makes the borrowers financially responsible, and makes them “dignified partners.”  It gives people credit and loans who would not normally have access to such things.

I got chills listening to Matt Flannery speak.  He seems down to earth with great business sense, but motivated by humanitarian efforts.  This is the benefit of globalization.  Sure there are many cons to the growth of globalization, but this is definetly the best form of it.  I’m so psyched about this program.

He also mentioned something called kiva fellows.  The organization sends recent college grads around the world to check on the MFI’s.  This is something that I could really see myself doing after I get the degree.  It’s humanitarian efforts with real impact on people’s lives. So rad!

Part of me wonders why nothing like this was around earlier.  I suspect that MFI’s have been around since the 70’s like grameen bank, but the repercussions of connection people in developed countries around the world with people in un(der)developed countries is why I’m a true blue democrat.  I get it now.

This is not spell checked, I’m just really excited right now, so if it’s got typos, I’m sorry.  I’ll fix it later, but please, think about lending through Kiva.org, they are a totally worthwhile organization.

Farmers Market, originally uploaded by Limorama.

Went to the Farmers Market this morning. It was gray and overcast, so it wasn’t prime lighting for shooting. Everything in this set looks a little cold to me, but I like the pics. I’ll hafta try again when it’s sunny. I photoshopped this a little to try and make it warmer, but… I don’t think it was enough.

Got some shrimp to cook on monday, going to make some scampi I think. I’ll let you know how it turns out.

Hope everyone’s having a good day!

After Party at the Loft, originally uploaded by Limorama.

Yay to meeting people and making new friends. I’m a fan. Yay to networking too! The only place to go from here is even further up! G-D I love my life. That might have something to do with the fact that I’m listening to the Knife right now too. Dang, I’m such a geek.

So M was complaining that there weren’t any photo’s of her on the website.

Photo by Disco Gerdes. Me and my hetero life partner M at Blackmail.

Does this make you feel better?  I just don’t take pictures that often.  Besides, I think that you prefer me to stay on top of coding and making cool things.  You are a much better photographer.  Remember I only have FIVE megapixels.  You also make a much better get away car driver.

So, why is it that I’m never in any of the pics on this site?  Oh yeah, that’s because I’m the one taking most of them.  It’s not to say that other people aren’t taking pics of me.  I just uploaded a ton of stuff to the flickr, and there’s not one single one of me in this batch of uploads.

I kinda pissed me off for a second, but now that I think about it some more, it’s ok with me.  At least I’ll get attribution for my photos, then maybe people can look for me by searching through things I’ve taken.

Speaking on that note, I have two gigs lined up.  I’ll be shooting on Saturday for a band.  They need new pics for their myspace and other stuff.  Then in February, I’ll be shooting a fundraiser event at the austin music hall.  I’m pretty psyched about both.  I’ll post some of the proofs on here after this weekend.

It also looks like there isn’t going to be much to shoot in the next week, maybe I can take some pics of turkeys….ha.  By the way: What are your plans for thanksgiving?  I think we might do a dinner in austin somewhere, if nobody plans one soon, I’ll probably get on that.  (yep, it’s late, can you tell that I can’t focus anymore? That means it’s time for me to be done writing.)

Good night readers!