In other news, no labs got back to me about volunteer work. Their loss, I suppose, however the experience would have been nice. In the meantime, I’m just riding bikes and ogling pretty Swedish girls, and watching a lot of soccer. Interesting – without even really thinking about it, I’m basically not drinking at all here. I went a few times in Stockholm, but other than that I can count the number of beers I’ve had since I’ve arrived on the fingers of one hand, possibly with some to spare. Might change when I visit Denmark.

I’ll be updating that blog most often, and will return to this private one to ensure I meet my moving-to-SF goals (only two months away now!).

For Home Made Carne Asada Fries.

With Guacamole.

Western Steakburger Deluxe (topped with gyro meat).

Cheese Steak.

Noodles and meatballs.

SIA Glass Knäckebröd Ice Cream.

(By the way if the last two posts weren’t clues enough, I’m safe in Sweden).

This is how you fit it in a box, with camping gear.

I owe a lot of help to the employees of Performance Bike Shop – they hooked me up with a full set of zip ties, fork stays and all sorts of derailleur protectors that they get with shipped bikes. Also to the dude at Adams Avenue Bicycles who had the relevation that it might not be fitting in my box because I haven’t turned the fork inwards. Bingo! Now, it all gets in there, and just in case there was a fear of all this + a box of pedals, seat, and tools weighing more than 50 lbs to get onto the airplane, let me tell you from first hand experience – it weighs exactly 49.5lbs. Sweet.

Thursday: I brought along, oh, I don’t know, the best beer in the world?

Friday Dan and myself went mountain biking around Folsom Lake. It was fun and not too intense for my beginner self, although I did totally take a sweet spill as I lost traction on a fire road.

Later that night we all had flannels lying around so we had a vato party. Note – the fake absinthe is really just plastic-bottle vodka with food color and licorice extract. Also note that it does not mix, AT ALL, with Diet Coke.

On Picnic Day morning after blasting the traditional Styx “Come Sail Away”, Dan prepped the huge hock of pig so we could have carnitas later in the day. Crockpots!

I make the best steak, bacon, onion, and cheese breakfast sandwiches ever.

Repping the best wooden spoon ever and some Hamm’s for added measure.

The parade is always fun to watch – here’s the international club’s Denmark (no Sweden this year), Peru, and then the Band-uh marching band, always eager to annoy with their pre-meditated “wackiness”.

Corey ventured out of SF for at least part of the day to model my sweet shades (see earlier post).

Megan ventured out of Marin to shotgun Hamm’s, like old times.

Posing on campus in front of the iconic Chem 194, where private footage of me drunk-dancing for my friend’s video camera were once aired in front of 200 people like so much dirty laundry.

And again, with Superbrendan.

There’s a new place that’s doing well in town called Burgers and Brew. It’s always super-crowded, but theburgers pass my stringent test of epic-ness. We somehow got a table there for lunch, and ex-roomateSophie posed with a neighboring table’s shit-owl sculpture.

And then I saw the MOST KICKASS DOG EVER…

It’s not a rumor – this is my absolute, bar-none FAVORITE crown gall on campus. I love these things and the strange bacterial infection that causes them that has been harnessed for biotechnological purposes – they remind me of how humanity improves upon nature every chance we get.

Here is the “Fast and Sleazy” with a line out into the parking lot. It’s the only liquor store in downtown Davis, so they pretty much monopolize the University Avenue partying.

We noticed a horrible painting of sad kids that hangs up in Little Prague‘s back room.

Later that night, walking back from Little Prague where I danced with some nice girls, there were 3 police cars, two whole fire engines, and two paramedics parked across the street from Dan’s (where I was staying) where some party had been. Paramedics and cops were talking to a kid in front – it looked like an occupant of the house, perhaps?

It turns out that 15 minutes before I got there, that same kid had broke into Dan’s house through a back window – even though all the house lights were on, people were home, and all doors were unlocked. He stole change out of a purse and a bottle of KY jelly from the room, and then proceeded to shit his pants in the hallway. Upon noticing these infractions, kid was chased down the street and tackled. When punched, he fessed up to perpetrating the hilarious crime and doing a crazy amount of acid earlier that night.

No charges were held! We had taken it easy up to that point, though, and it seemed to be the signifier to start in on some drinks. I got into my best cut-off school spirit drinking shirt, and we finally found a mixer for our fake food-coloring-and-licorice-extract absinthe. With orange juice, it all turns an unholy color, which is the best color for any mixed drink.

The next day, I met up with more friends for breakfast and then grabbed some gloves for playing catch in the park downtown. Then, the ice cream truck came! Hooray!

All in all, it was a very fun, exciting weekend. I should have slept more. Sorry about your carpet, Dan!

That said, it’s a pretty complicated, burly song. I don’t really expected many people out there would be too into it. The first half is very organ-heavy – I had an idea a while back that I wanted to write something with a slow, brooding organ part floating on top of a distant maelstrom of blasting drums – something about the juxtaposition of vastly different speeds and tonal qualities appealed to me. I think I achieved close to what I was imagining.I also wanted to explore some heavy organ riffing – call it an experiment; those parts ended up sounding a little stoner-rocking.

The last half of it is an ambitious tribute to the jazzy math-rock I’ve been listening to lately. I wanted a more jazz-informed chord progression with tons of key modulation, changing but catchy time signatures, and tasteful tapped guitar parts.

The performances went pretty well, I think. The only glaring errors are in the drumming in the middle when the clicktrack was ramping up tempo. The guitar parts came together in only a few takes, and I wrote and recorded the final bass part in two hours. I’d like to point out that the tambourine took only one perfect take!

Anyways, here’s the song.

http://rapidshare.com/files/108144784/jeff_gist_-_your_favorite_moons.mp3.html

I then helped my brother’s roomates hang up carpetting on their refinished garage. They turned an unpowered, bare drafty space into a pretty sweet practice space/studio with sound insulation everywhere.

And the finished product:

Not much happened during the mid-week, though – I “officially” put my notice in, is all.

The next weekend, some friends and I rocked some cheap beer and went to a house party show. Technical rock extravaganza. Here’s Witt. They’re all in high school, and they shred harder than most 60 year olds.

And Fever Sleeves just got some good news about some DC legend personally mixing their upcoming 7″. Here they are, destroying.

The next day I went to Balboa Park for the annual rummage sale. It was a zoo – I could only deal long enough to pick up some sweet old Swedish pint glasses (I don’t think Norrlands Bryggeriet is in business anymore) and a puzzle. Here was the 1/4 mile long line to get in:

I then went to IKEA for meatballs (call it a practice session), and then to the beach for a hang out session. There was some rad paraglider surfing happening. We played bocce ball and did flips off of sand dunes.

I bought a pair of glasses for the beach. Here’s Cassie and myself modelling them today at the pizzeria. And I made a new addition to the tip jar.

I’m going to try to hnker down and write as much music as possible over the next two weeks, when I’m not tying up loose ends at the ol’ job.

I paid rent for an apartment in Sweden today. I also decided to buy a new front rack that can accomodate my brakes on my bike.

I think these are good signs that I’m reaching my goals.

I still need panniers, bike tools, and apparently a new hard drive (so I can achieve my music goals).

I remembered why I haven’t been recording music lately – my DAW‘s harddrive is screwed. It won’t load Windows, and it’s constantly trying to spin up whenever I try to power on. I’m kind of sad that I had most of my personal pictures from the past year or so unbacked up, but if they aren’t salvageable, 2007 wasn’t that great anyways. I’m taking a camera with me everywhere this year, and am even considering a flickr account. A huge consolation is that I’m basically a genius and have all my recorded music on a seperate harddrive, so I hopefully haven’t lost any projects. I’m going to nab a 80 dollar Fry’s special and throw Windows on it, and reinstall what I need, and I should be back to where I started, minus a few pictures here and there.

Today I went to the Turf Club for dinner, an institution in my neighborhood. Knowing how rarely I’ve been visiting lately, I can’t say if I’ll ever be back (last week I went to my first bar in about a month and a half), but I’ll miss it and my friends who work there and stay smiling no matter how much attitude the greased-hair, striped-shirt, lost Gaslampers give them. Keep on trucking!

I spent about three hours trying to send my rent money to my new Swedish roomate today – Western Union is a terrible institution. I visited a location, and the teller had never HEARD of Sweden. It’s not like I’m trying to send money to Bhutan or anything! He couldn’t understand that I wanted to send an amount in Swedish Kroner rather than US Dollars. Failing that, the internet transfer back at home didn’t work for the third time in as many days. After an hour on the phone (how 1980s), talking with 5 different people, I was getting hopeful before I was instructed to hang up so they could call me back – of course they called the WRONG NUMBER, and according to policy, I didn’t pick up the phone, so they promptly cancelled my payment. Another call, talking to 3 more people, explaining the situation yet again. It would have gone through perfectly this time, except they told me after everything that the transfer was not authorized, and could tell me nothing else, except to try in person at a Western Union location. My two options are the gentleman down the street who has never heard of Sweden and cannot figure out why I want to send money in a currency other than the powerful USD, or the friendly corner liquor store down in the ghetto with a crudely handpainted shop sign reading “David’s FREINDLY Liquor”. I’ll try to find a reputable agent in the suburbs tomorrow after work.

Can’t wait to start recording!

I have plane tickets. I’m leaving on the 7th and arriving in Lund on the 8th.  The first thing I do after dropping stuff off at my place (all confirmed, just need Western Union to take my money) is head up the street to Willy’s to buy milk, yogurt, granola, ice cream,  and candy. Here’s what’s in store for me:

When I get a wild hair up my ass and decide to for once pay the exorbitant prices for milk here, I am faced with a conundrum: refreshing but admittedly watered-down 1%? Or creamy, delicious, frothy 2% that sits like some liquid kind of rock in your stomach for the rest of the day? Once again, Sweden destroys all other countries, EVER, in the dairy field. Introducing 1,5% Fetthalt. That comma is the same thing as a decimal, in case you’re wondering. They found the perfect balance of 1 and 2 percentage milks, while the rest of the western world is twiddling their thumbs and complaining about lactose intolerance.

For some reason, Sweden is the only country that does fruit-mixed yogurt right. Yoggi’s “light” yogurt doesn’t have the sweetener aftertaste that the Dannon’s does here. The current US dairy culture (YES I JUST SAID THAT) decrees that the health-conscious yogurt buyer may have either that artificially sweetened, “light” variety of yogurt, or a fat free yogurt bursting with high-glycemic index sugars. Yoggi takes the best of both worlds, takes away any shortcomings or compromises, and delivers the best yogurt known to man.  Note the ingenious Tetra-Pak-ing of the product. Real talk.

Sia are ice cream masters. Their knäckebröd ice cream is the most perfect dairy confection known to man. I’d bring everybody back some on the plane if it were possible.

See that yellow piece in the corner? The red ones are strawberry, the center is a creamy marshmallow-type candy, and by eating one you are looking down the flavor barrel of a JORDGUBB PISTOL. A Strawberry Pistol. I will (and have in the past) be eating these by the pounds. My favorite candy ever.

Other than that, I’ll be putting in my notice for sure on Friday. Nervous and happy (after today’s 16.75 hour work day).