hey folks

to those of you who are going to be in minneapolis over the holidays, please email me or call me and let me know what dates you'll be around. and particularly if you are available for new year's eve. party at brian's xmas night as well.

see you soon !

sneaky pete

sneak peek

felt.

i have always had an aversion to felt. that is, until about a week ago ! now it seems the wonders of felt will never cease !


belated santa fe fotos.

the pink adobe:


typical:


snow!:

the hurts

as many of my dear readers know, the hurt family is expecting their first child any day now. like really any minute now. i am anxiously awaiting the call...and as most of you have probably experienced i am really bad at answering phone calls. so i keep checking my phone to see if i've missed a call from andy.

let me say a few words about the hurts. andy has been a really close friend of mine since elementary school. he started dating missy right around when joe and i started dating, in 11th grade. andy and joe are also good friends. so our lives have been parallel for a long time. although they've lived in california for several years now, we've kept in close touch. our lives have diverged quite a bit (studying liberal arts vs. the marines) but that only makes our friendship more dynamic. and, we're all sort of cosmically related. for example, missy and i are EXACTLY the same age to the day.

andy is the most hilarious person i know. and he's going to make a fabulous father. and missy is very nuturing, caring and loving. she'll be a perfect mother. the baby is going to be so-o--o--o lucky.

don't start thinking that i want to have kids or anything--but it's definitely going to be awesome to see this little baby grow up (kinda like with reece, my little nephew).

so anyways i thought i'd share the excitement. yay!

december already

lots to report on, but haven't really felt like blogging. so it has been a while. first of all, had a nice time over thanksgiving with our guests. did a day hike in the organs, soaked in some hot springs twice, went camping, ate out a lot. etc, etc. it was so great to have time off. really great. i've had photos up from that week for a while now, so head over to flickr if you haven't in a while. here's a few:

katie in white sands:


dinosaur at our campground:


joe and jesse, prehike:


we went up to santa fe this past weekend to celebrate my birthday. it was interesting to (finally) get up there. we checked out some galleries and the museum of international folk art. mostly we shopped. looked around for xmas gifts but were not quite as successful as i would've liked. stayed at a bed and breakfast which was a luxury considering our budget. ate an indian meal and mexican the next day. it's about a 4 hour drive from here so lots of driving. oh yah, and it was snowy! which i liked, because that helped make it really feel like my birthday. took a few photos which have not been posted yet.

thanks to all who remembered my birthday/called me/sent packages and cards, etc. that was awesome. i bought a sewing machine last night with a bday gift card. woohoo ! fun stuff.

i'm working on some xmas gifts, little by little getting them done. our house is cold and drafty. joe good, cat good.

yar

well, the time has come again for my bi-annual cold. the kind where i go through a whole box of kleenex in 24 hours. the kind when i'm freezing but really burning up. the kind where it would be offensive if i tried to go out in public. yes folks, i am that gross right now. i could go into more grotesque detail, but nah. meds help a little bit, but make me loopy. an example: right when the cold hit, yesterday afternoon, i took some tylenol cold and thought i'd be safe to swing by a thrift store on my way home from work early. well, the meds made me not function properly. as i was leaving i literally ran hard--smacked, really-- into a glass door. really loud and embarassing. other things, most notably tavist-D, also have this floaty, moronic effect on me.

anywho, i am homebound.

so how bout them elections? huh ?

check out chase korte in these peacewalker clips. chase is an inspiration. he went out there and DID this thing...walked 1100 miles. the background story is scripted. it's a hybrid genre.

making of the film
a single step
1000 mile walk
at a pub

and, as chase dessert, check out his new commercial.

two things, for andromecus

i've had trouble posting comments to your blog...something about beta. i dunno, some sort of robot speak. so here are my comments:

1. whoa! the flying tomato? that's awesome.

2. regarding the use of cats:

city of rocks

we finally had the chance to try out the new tent this weekend. went camping at city of rocks state park, which is just southeast of silver city, about an hour and a half from cruces. the park is really cool--reminds me of a mini joshua tree. there are lots of campsites and they are more or less secluded from one another. each is named after a constellation--ours was 'casseopeia'. our site was its own rock pile on the far northern end of the park.


OUR CAMPSITE, IN THE MIDDLE OF THESE ROCKS:


the park itself is a bit of a geographic anomoly. the rocks were formed by volcanic eruption 35 million years ago. they are in the middle of nowhere. it looks like a cityscape with streets and rocks you can climb around on. really it's just a pile of boulders in the desert. the weather was of course very nice, 70s during the day, probably around 50 at night. Full moon last night was so bright that we couldn't see as many stars as we would've liked. the moon was great though, and we were thankful for its shine because we were unable to find any firewood for sale on the way up. so, we camped with no campfire. which is a bit weird.

we got there saturday early afternoon and spent some time prowling around for a good campsite, since each site was so unique. we set up camp and then went to play around on the rocks. it's not a huge place so we saw a good part of it in only a few hours. we worked our way to the southern end of the park to the botanical garden, which was mostly cactus, yucca, agave.



then we took the trail up through the desert and watched the moon come up and the sun go down.



we got back and made some spaghetti and had some drinks. the new tent worked out really well, and we tried it without the fly, mostly so we could see the stars...even though the moon was too bright for that! also tried out our new thermarest, which is way better than just sleeping on the ground.

this morning we got up at 7:30 and made some oatmeal and espresso. packed up and unfortunately joe didn't end up doing any real climbing because he woke up with a cold. before we left we drove up to the lookout point and played around there for awhile. that is where we found the freaky snakeskin, which was like 4ft long! joe was screaming like a little baby when he found it. After his initial disgust, he got friendly with the snakeskin:




we are getting excited to have jesse & katie and roy & nancy out for thanksgiving. only about two weeks away now! woohoo! also, we bought our tickets for xmas a little while back. going to be there dec. 22 to jan. 7. word on the street is that ben, jim, anna, howard, erin, chelsea, liz and chase will all be back in MN at that time too. hoping kate will make it out. joe and i are starting to plan gifts for xmas. since we are both broke we'll have to be creative.

i am going to try to post all of my photos of the trip tonight, so if you're interested, check out the flickr page.

.

finally, after arguing with the New York Times every single week since we arrive in Las Cruces, we received our first copy of the sunday paper yesterday ! i think the eleventh phone call was the charm. we were in the death throes of paper withdrawal, and altho we surrendered the fantasy of having the daily paper when we moved, we were told, week after week, that the sunday paper could be delivered in our area. so when we actually got it...on the correct day, no less... we spent a large part of our sunday reading it cover to cover. in honor of cet occaision magnifique, here is a roundup of some of the better articles in the Times yesterday:

--the 80 mph speed limit in remote Western Texas, the highest speed limit in the country (just so happens we were driving those very freeways last weekend, on our way to Marfa) oh and speaking of Marfa, check out joe's blog for details, if you haven't already...
--a business story about why friendster tanked while myspace flourishes
--a nyt magazine article about how elephants are eerily similar to people
--an article about immigration at the arizona border and its effect on the upcoming election
--numerous commentaries/speculation about the election...dems are hopeful
--an article about the decline of marriage and the increase in unmarried couples living together (score one for non-marriage!)
--an article about japanese young people living in the east village (ahem, ben!)
--a look at the profession of art advisor
--a scathing review of the new johnathan franzen book
etc etc.

other news from this rather boring weekend: they opened a new indian restuarant in town, and it's loads better than the other one, so hurray for good paneer! we also watched 'midnight cowboy' which is hugely entertaining, and dustin hoffman is great as a homeless, seedy cripple---but he just wants to be loved . awww. also we did laundry and grocery shopped (earth shattering news, i know) had a few drinks friday night, and i volunteered at the museum on sat. morning.

i will be working sundays at the museum for the next month or so for a big egyptian show they've got going on. that in addition to my usual volunteering for sat. art classes. and of course we're itching to get hiking again. joe's got a hike planned to the tippy top of the highest mountain around...hopefully we'll get to it this weekend.

that's the news from bizarro lake wobegon, where every entree has chile and they think 60 is cold !

marfa marfa marfa !

this weekend, we took a trip to the chinati foundation's open house in marfa, texas. i posted about a million photos of this trip. we had an amazing time, more description to follow...

the chinati museum in background:


in marfa:


chamberlain exhibit:


in the middle of nowhere: