A vacation and a birthday

Well, as you can tell from last week, I took a little much deserved vacation over Thanksgiving. (Or should I say the pre-Christmas holiday formerly known as Thanksgiving, still bugs me that as a nation we skip over Thanksgiving now.) Due to football, volleyball, and the start of basketball my time has been stretched over the past three months. So I needed a few days off to recharge and hang out at home.

Over this holiday, my birthday came and went (Sloan still reminds me that I have turned 35 almost everyday since then.), and as my birthday goes, it was a really great one. Kristen surprised me with a membership in the Pearl Jam 10 Club, which was awesome, I got some Mets stuff, and played a bunch of video games to make me feel younger than 35. Sloan got me some ties and a nice shirt for work, and she picked them out and did very well doing it. Due to our schedules we had to spend Thanksgiving at home, which was strange for me. I always like doing the holiday thing with family and I missed not eating my mom’s cooking and I also didn’t get my green bean casserole this year, which just threw me off all together for thanksgiving.

So as of right now, turning 35 has been uneventful much like turning 22. I have to say having almost a week off was nice. I got to catch up on some movies and TV shows I haven’t watched. I got to play some new games I got which were cool. Also got to read a new book that I am almost finished with. It’s called “Under and Alone”, a true story about an undercover ATF agent in a motorcycle gang. I have to say this is the first blog I have written that didn’t have much to say. Sloan has started basketball practice and the best thing of all, Kristen is in her last week of nursing school, which is awesome.

Not much to write about this week or from last week. I am hopefully going to be getting to some new shows once Kristen is done with school. I am taking this time to relax before basketball season gets really busy, plus before I know it, it will be baseball season.

Music for this week:
Well I am actually still going through some music that I had stored away. Some of its old stuff, some of its new. Here is what I have listened to the past few weeks.

Bell X1
This band is from Ireland that has now released four albums. I decided to check out “Blue Lights On The Runway” to listen too first. I do have to say after listening to this album I went ahead and decided to listen to all of their albums. They do measure up to the acclaim they are getting. Check out the songs The Rib of a broken umbrella.

Blakroc
I am been waiting to listen to this album for a long time. It is a collaboration effort from Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney of the Black Keys (which is one of my favorite bands). They also brought in some great hip-hop names to put lyrics to their garage blues. This is probably one of the best albums that have come out in the past few months. Check out What you do to me.
Tegan and Sara-Sainthood
This is the sixth album from the twin sisters. I did like the album The Con they released before this album. So I decided to pick this one up, and I feel that the sisters from Canada are really putting out some great music here lately. Check out the songs Arrow and Don’t Rush.

Them Crooked Vultures
So this is the band I have been waiting for this album to come out for a while. I was a little upset that I missed them playing a few days before I went to ACL this year. This is the group that Dave Grohl formed with Josh Homme and John Paul Jones. I really like this album, it did leave me wanting a little bit more, but I am sure we will get more from these three before it’s over. Check out the song New Fang.

John Mayer-Battle Studies
I have always been a big fan of John Mayer, even to the point of seeing him live. He is a great guitarist and a great song writer. I have listened to Battle Studies a few times, and although most of it is a little slow, it is still a good album. I really like the first song Heatbreak Warfare and the song Who Says.