Good Things #4: Northwest String Summit

Its official, festival season has begun! SO HAPPY!

Good Thing: Yonder Mountain String Band's 8th Annual Northwest String Summit was a great success this year. Randy, Suzye, Sydney and my brother Hal and I ventured down to Bob and Martha Horning's Property to see some truly amazing hippie bluegrass awesome extravaganza goodness.


Here Is a List of good things at NWSS:
-Stephie and Matt put together a truly incredible camp and I can't thank them enough for all their hard work, the food, shade structures, music and lights were the best in the whole venue!

-The line up was not as big as last year but still great. Highlights included the Infamous Stringdusters and Del McCoury.

-Yonder's Friday night set was, in my opinion, the best and totally set the weekend off for a hell of a time.

-Strings For Industry's Late Night set on Saturday night was totally deadly good. The played funk, swampgrass, and a girl led cover of "Layla" that almost burnt the trees down.

-The SPACE STATION! Thats right, on saturday night in the middle of Yonder's set the Space Station flew over clearly visible to the naked eye. The best part is that the whole show stopped and looked right at it in silence, thousands of people just staring at the sky in silence, the band started screaming, "CAN YOU SEE IT? CAN YOU SEE IT?!!!" and then when right back into the song, holy shit!


-Me and Sydney Got rings! They are pretty cool and they match and everything. They have two bands for the two of us!

-My brother's Blog Post on String Summit. He almost got hit by a tree!!! Check it out by clicking HERE

-Best Of All, I Was truly happy!

Good Things #3: West Seattle Street Fair, Thunderstorms, and Record Players

Since this blog is no longer a diatribe about my narcissistic life, I will spare all of you with some of the more frustrating details and challenges I am facing as culture shock has finally set in. Its probably better to settle on the good things anyways.

Good Thing: The West Seattle Street Fair. Not only have I never really been to west seattle/alki much, but I also didn't know that they have a thriving and beautiful community of great people there. And once a year they throw a big street fair with vendors, food, bands, and lots and lots of fun. I have to say, getting to spend time in West Seattle with Sydney has completely changed my perspective of seattle in general. I never knew this little pocket of very cool Washingtonian life existed. Next year put it on you list of fun things to do !

Good Thing: Right now we are having a massive thunderstorm in Gig Harbor. Not only is this rare for NW washington, it is even rarer in the Puget Sound area. I absolutely love it when mother earth rears her head and lets everyone know how tiny and puny they are. Hopefully I'll see some lightening today (hopefully not to close).

GREAT Thing: The record player. My parents got my brother a record player for his graduation, a vintage original turntable, receiver, and speakers from back in the day when my dad was young. Its sound quality is so old and authentic, the real sound of the 70's. Our family has actually been bonding a lot around the old record player as we stay up late listening to old records and discovering lost gems of musical history's past. We've even thought about starting a family blog all about music reviews of old rediscovered albums. What do you think?

Well thats it for now, internet connection is a little spotty right now so I apologize for the sporadic posting, hopefully you're still out there friends.

This weekend is the Northwest String Summit. I'm so excited to join Randy, Suzye, Hal, and my baby Sydney in their very first (and hopefully not last) NWSS. We will be camping with Stephie and the old String Summit Family so I totally can't wait.

Hopefully I can get pictures up as well as get up some Europe photos soon.

Happy thoughts to you and yours and get out and enjoy that sun!

Kale

Good Things #2: Oysters, Wild Berries, 4th of July

Ah. Summer. Good Things A Plenty. Here are a few I've discovered lately.

Good Thing: Oysters. Period. Syd and I went to Anthony's and had the oyster sampler before our meal and it was deadly good. Most people would probably gag at the thought of slurping a plate full of barnacle encrusted shellfish off a dirty looking shell but they were so good. They are also supposed to be an aphrodisiac despite the fact that oyster breath is a major turn off. Regardless, I love oysters and especially with tabasco sauce on the half shell. YUM!

Good THING: Wild Berries. Here in the Northwest the Salmon Berries are just finishing their run. I picked about a gallon this year at my parents house! The red huckleberries are coming in full and ripe right about now and the wild mountain blackberries will be about 2 weeks away. After that we have to wait about a month till the full blackberry season and the finally finish with the regular huckleberry finishing out the berry season in the fall. If I'm lucky I'll be able to find the rare black cap berries and of course there will be salal berries everywhere. My dad will be making a 6 or 7 berry all northwest wild berry wine this fall from my pickings and I am so pumped to see how it turns out.

Good Thing: The Fourth Of July. I think that it is kind of great that once a year Americans let their hair down and just allow themselves to be American without the guilt associated to be a wasteful, ignorant, global idiot. Americans grill food on the BBQ, get inappropriately inebriated, get sunburned and light off explosives all the while sliding down slip and slides, playing Bruce Springstein and swearing a lot all around a campfire. Hell yes America. Go get you some.

Summer is in full swing...Things are happening, my new place is almost all moved in, I'm settling in finally, festivals are around the bend and I am still completely in love with Sydney.

GOOD FREAKING THINGS!