December 31, 2007
The year's over. The
trouble is that it seemed like not all that long ago it just
began. I hope that 2008 doesn't zip by this quickly.
I'd like to at least have some time to enjoy the year before I'm
standing on the edge of yet another one.
Oh, so last week was Christmas
and we celebrated it over at my mom's place where we had
 a
great meal, and then presents. On our way home, we were
driving by Look Park in Northampton and saw tons of Christmas
light displays set up. We turned around and discovered that
they had their annual
Winter
Wonderland light display up, and it was free! We had a
nice leisurely drive through the park, Christmas songs playing on
the radio, and fun/kitschy light displays all around. It was
a very cool way to end a nice Christmas day (actually it was
Christmas Eve, since I had to work on Christmas Day [cue the
Harvey Danger song]).
Speaking of Christmas, this
year we didn't get a Christmas tree (since we're living in
temporary quarters while we're waiting for our apartment to be
renovated), so we improvised instead. Behold...
...our Christmas Tripod
Tree! Clicky on the picture for a bigger, small picture.
When you look at the reflection in the window, it resembles a
normal tree.
Just because I'm going nuts with
pictures, here's one of Charlie Parker being all blurry...
What I'm listening to right now:
Guster - One
Man Wrecking Machine
December 30, 2007
This past Friday found me driving
out to Boston during the day, hitting lots of Geocaches along the
way (there's one at every rest area on the Mass Pike).
Before I started out on my trip, I stopped at a cache in the woods
of Lee, about two miles from Exit 2. I was climbing up a
very snowy hill, trying not to fall down too much, when I looked
back and saw two people starting to work their way up the hill and
following my footprints. A few minutes later I was
plundering the cache of its geocoins and travelbugs when the
couple walked up to me. It turns out they're cachers as
well, so we had a nice talk. In the past year of Geocaching,
I've never bumped into another cacher while out in the field, but
it was good to meet other people who are also into it.
Anyways, I drive out to Boston,
which gave me a solid almost three hours in the car listening to
some new music (this,
this,
this, and
this).
I met an old friend from college, whom I haven't seen in the past
two and a half years, and we went to the
Mighty Mighty Bosstones' Hometown Throwdown at the
Middle East in
Cambridge. It's been a while since I've been to a concert
that had a mosh pit, and wow, it was fun. I need to go to
more concerts.
The next day I had just left my
friend's house and my GPS told me there was a geocache half a mile
away. Since I was so close, I had to find it. The
coordinates lead me to the middle of the Waltham cemetery where,
after climbing atop a steep wooded hill (with a nice view of a
river, I might add), I found the cache. I no sooner got back
into my car when a huge, real-live wolf
(apparently spooked by a nearby car) ran by and up the hill I was
just on. I would have been just as surprised to see a
giraffe galloping by in the middle of a city like this. I
was thankful that my geocaching powers enabled me to find the
cache so quickly, otherwise I might have been face-to-face with a
scared wolf. Not that I couldn't have outrun it, because I
totally could have. Totally.
What I'm listening to right now:
The Arcade Fire
- No Cars Go
December 18, 2007
Today Kari and I amazingly had
the day off from work together, so naturally, I spent the morning
getting the oil changed on my car. While I was there they
said, "Uh...you've got less than 5% left on your brakes, want us
to replace them?" I then remembered something they said back
in September that went remarkably like, "You really need to get
your brakes replaced. You've got maybe a month's use left
before they're done." The next few moments were then spent
doing the math, Let's see, I've owned my car for a little
over 3 years now, so the remaining 5% would be...another 54 days
of driving around with my head happily buried in the sand
pretending that my car won't someday have a problem stopping!
Yes!
I stopped being an idiot for just
enough time to say, "Yes, please replace my atrociously bad
brakes." Well, I probably just said, "Yeah," or something,
but that sounds better than a mono-syllabic reply of approval.
We were going to go to the
hardware store and pick out paint colors for our new apartment,
but at the very last second, we sped off and spent the day in
Amherst and Northampton.
While both you and I officially
dislike those "top 10, end of the year" lists that seem to be
obligatory on every website, we still waste spend
precious hours of our lives this time of year gobbling them up
like three month-old Halloween candy found in the back of the
cupboard.
Just because I have awesome taste
in music, here's my top 25 most played songs of 2007 (according to
my conspiring iPods and iTunes)...
25. The Magnetic Fields - Reno
Dakota
24. Feist - Mushaboom
23. The Sheila Divine - Monarchs
22. The Deathray Davies - Release
The Squid
21. Dear Leader - Puritans
20. Sherwood - The Town That You
Live In
19. The Dresden Dolls - Girl
Anachronism
18. Whiskeytown - Turn Around
17. Yo La Tengo - Pass The
Hatchet, I Think I'm Goodkind
16. Modest Mouse - People As
Places As People
15. The White Stripes - Girl, You
Have No Faith In Medicine
14. Iron Maiden - Losfer Words
(live)
13. Ad Frank - The World's Best
Ex-Boyfriend
12. The Raconteurs - Steady As
She Goes
11. Yo La Tengo - The Room Got
Heavy
10. Minus The Bear - Drilling
9. The Mighty Lemon Drops
- Rollercoaster
8. Fastball - Airstream
7. Gnarles Barkley - Crazy
6. Saybia - Brilliant Sky
5. Broken Social Scene -
Anthem For A Seventeen Year Old Girl
4. The So And So's -
Please You
3. Saybia - Bend The Rules
2. The New Pornographers -
The Bleeding Heart Show
1. The Spinto Band - Oh
Mandy
What I'm listening to right now:
Ashley
MacIsaac -
Sleepy Maggie
December 10, 2007
Say hello to Benson*! He
was born under the name "Ziggy" and has lived since birth (May 1,
2006) in the beautiful hills just outside of Rutland, Vermont.
He's a silver and black, long-haired, dappled mini-dachshund.
This picture doesn't do him justice. He looks like a crazy
unkempt ADD-riddled puppy running around with his long, shaggy
hair. But holy crapoli, he's a wicked love-bug. If you
reach down and pet him, he rolls on his back and waives his paws
in the air wanting you to rub his belly. Very adorable.
Baxter's been having some
territorial issues here and there, but they're pretty infrequent.
They've really taken to each other and spend all of their time
curled up, wrestling, or chasing the cats together.
So yeah, we now have four pets.
Welcome to the Chixon Petting Zoo. Please keep all
appendages inside the car at all times, and whatever you do, don't
lavish attention upon the puppies. If you do, your heart
will melt and you'll turn into a puddle of mush.
*We're not 100% sure on the name.
For some reason I'm having problems remembering it, but hey, I'm
awful with names to begin with. Today, Kari said he looked
more like a Charlie, which I'm agreeing with more and more.
Then again, we suck at naming things, as evidenced by our cat,
NewCat. Just wait until we have kids, they'll probably have
names like Glidden**, Charmin**, or Schwa***. Kari's home
and we're discussing names.****
**Hmmm, these aren't so
bad...
***I've been tossing this one
around for a good long time, so you just wait.
****Update! His name is
officially Charlie. Charlie Parker Nixon.
What I'm listening to right now:
Betwixt - Mosquito Bites
December 6, 2007
NEWS! Our family is going
to get a wee bit bigger soon! More details later.
What I'm listening to right now:
Guster -
Airport Song
© 2007 Eric Nixon. All rights reserved.
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