...I can't...stop...watching...

I love high speed photography and filming. It's just way fun to watch. So, with that, I'm glad someone finally put this up on YouTube.

I could watch this on loop for days.

...I feel refreshed and relaxed for the first time in over a week.

Yesterday, I had planned on going directly home to do some cleaning and go to sleep. The last week or so has been a whirlwind of not getting a lot of sleep compounded by other stress in my life. Over the last week, I have had an average of about four hours of sleep a night. Some nights were less than that. With school, work, Easter week services, and two shows since the 15th... I was pretty run down.

So, that was the plan. What ended up happening is I went over by the lady and spent some time with her just relaxing. She cooked me up a great dinner, and we just sat watching television and playing chess. At about 9, it was time to go home. After my 45 minute drive home, the effects of my non sleep routine started to really kick in. I won't get in to specifics. It was not pleasant. 

I got some really good sleep last night, and I dont think my body knew how to handle it. I woke up at 2am, and then at 6am. Both times I was ready to go and thought it was a super great day. I haven't had that in a while. 

It was nice to wake up and feel refreshed. Getting that "good morning, love" phone call on the way to work was nice too.

...I finished the interview with Caustic...THE LIGHTNING ROUND! (Caustic interview : Part III)

This is the final part of my three part series of the interview with Caustic. If you have not read the other parts, click HERE for part one, and HERE for part two. I had a great time doing this with Matt. He's a no bullshit kind of guy and he helps make my day. I've really looked forward to his responses over the last few days and they have made my day a bit better than the last. For those of you who are new to this blog solely because of the interview with Caustic, I urge you to become one of my regular readers. You can subscribe on the right side of the page. This is here mostly for me as an outlet where I can tell people what made my life better today. In a time where so many people put a lot of time and effort bitching about things, I am trying to do the exact opposite and shine a light on things that make me happy.


Now, for the lightning round... I asked Matt seven questions that for some reason I thought would be short answers. I should have known better than to expect a word association type answer to these...

...I whip my questions back and forth. The Caustic Interview (Part 2)

This is Part II of the Caustic interview. Part I can be read here.

The interview continues....

Falken: That's great that you're not limiting yourself though. I've listened to Pre-Golden Vag Caustic for a while now and taking a listen to the new album... I'm blown away. It's a great album start to finish that is probably going to be in my rotation for months to come now. That doesn't happen too easily, and not just because I know you.

What is your take on remixing music in general (yours or others)?

...I'm having a good little interview with Caustic (part 1)

A face you can trust.

Earlier today, Matt put it out there that he's up for doing interviews. Being a very curious person about all things music and what people think when they are making their art, I decided "what the hell, worst thing he'll say is no." 


Background, I've only "known" Matt since early 2010 when Dan Clark and Eric Oehler put together the Fading Belief tour and had am.psych and Caustic on the bill for the Madison/Milwaukee/Chicago shows. I must say, Matt is a riot, I love what he does on stage, and I wish I got to see more of his performances in my younger years. Great stuff. To this day, I get Lady Business in my head out of nowhere and just rattle off "boom boom boom, lady business." It scares people. 


Other than that, I just have good conversation with the guy. We hit each other up on Facebook from time to time, and I've even sparked his interest in possibly doing a cover song of an old 80's tune with me in the future.


So after the jump is part one of my interview with Matt of Caustic: 

...I'm working on something with Matt.

I'm working on something with Matt from @_caustic_ . You'll all see it very shortly. He made an offer, I took him up on it. It's not working on music or anything, which would be awesome. But, it's going to be just as cool. Keep an eye on this blog over the next couple of days.

...what started as a joke, is now something serious.

A long time ago, a friend of mine thought it would be funny if after every post I made he would put the line "rub one out" somewhere in the thread. Well, 6 months later it got shortened to r1o. Mistypes changed it to R10 and so on. There have been many variations of it. So, with that, I recently started really getting in to prog house. I don't know why. I just really like it. So, I have decided to take a stab at it and take Falken to a different area of music than I have in the past. Normally it's dancy/electro/wtf. But, I'm going to blend my own style of prog house with industrial low end nu-metal guitar goodness that I have become known for in to what is going to be a great project for me. I am actually excited. I've learned quite a bit on my own in what spare time I have managed to get together and I know my synths and drum stations better than ever.

So, now what started as a joke is quickly becoming something I enjoy. No longer will I blush or facepalm when I see R10 anywhere.

...it's nice and sunny outside.

Καλό Πάσχα

It's been real crappy lately and it has been affecting my mood. It's still cold, but at least there is sunshine! I'm happy about that. I woke up, felt recharged and ready to face the day. Having the sun out there helps. I do hope it stays like this for a few days. Easter is coming up which means that I'm in store for what looks like a tradition of doing Easter with the lady's family and her extended family. I did this last year after only dating her for a couple of weeks. It was really eye opening to see a different religion and how they do easter...and man, do they do it up big. Mass is held every night from starting with Palm Sunday. The mass itself is not too long (that's what she said.)

This is something I have actually come to enjoy. While I do not actually participate in some of the things that they do, only because I don't know the full meaning behind it nor am I part of the church itself, I understand what is going on. Anyone who has known me for any period of time knows my past with church and religion. So, this is a departure from what I myself have been "comfortable" with.

...according to the doctor, I'm pretty damn healthy.

The only "D" I'll willingly take.

I had my first physical for the first time in years the other week. I had a bunch of blood labs done just to make sure I was not deficient in anything that I really badly needed. With my change in how I eat and live, it was a concern. So, I called up today because I had not heard back from them in a while and lo and behold.... I'm pretty much a shining example of health... except for one thing. Vitamin D. I am pretty low on that. The clinic says they rate on a scale of 30-80. 30 being the low end of good, 80 being the high. *I* am at a whopping FOUR. Not a 4-0. Just 4. So, I am waiting for my doctor to give me a buzz and see what we are going to do about this. The nurse asked me if I was sleepy a lot, and I said "all the time." She explained that this could be the main reason for it right there. I should hear something soon, but I am on the right track of getting the body where it needs to be. And hopefully, I won't be so tired anymore.

...I am actually feeling like I am in control of things right now.

The last few weeks have been crazy for me. School, work, band, and home have all been pulling at me for my attention as of late. It's been a struggle at times. School has been the hardest of all of this. I did not really know how to handle this semester. But after today when we had our little get together about who did how much work in the class it was decided that I did quite a bit of work and that some one else did not. For this, I get my final grade for the assignments shifted up one full letter, while his goes down.

I busted my ass to cover for the lack of having some one there. At least the rest of the group agreed with it. I had the one participant a bit lower, but kept myself even with everyone else. I guess I was just playing nicely and not trying to rock the boat for the most part.

Overall, I think I decided to take over in things in my daily life. I can't just sit around and wait for it to happen. I have to really get after it from now on.

...I decided to set the record straight.

You can stop asking
"What do you eat?" now.

Over the weekend, I had a good friend of mine tell me that he wanted to have a discussion about me being vegan. He wanted to do it another time as it was late, but I said we should do it now. This would be the second time of the night that I would be explaining this.

During both discussions, I made it perfectly clear that I started this path, on my own, for health reasons. That's why I started it. As I have grown in to it, I have a greater passion to protect animals, no matter which ones they are. I also let it be known that I will NEVER push this on to anyone. If they ask, and want advice or mentoring because they want to do this as well for the reason I am have, I will be more than happy to do so. I'm not going to go and tell someone else what is right for them. That is their choice and theirs alone.

I have a couple friends who are vegetarian and vegan. My girlfriend is also vegan. Now, it was in my second conversation of the night that I had the question posed to me : "did you go vegan because of your girlfriend?"  This pissed me off to no end for the rest of this weekend. My friend, who at least had the courage to ask me, let it be known that it was something that was mentioned to him by other people I know and in conversations in general about me, without me there. I would like to state right here so that anyone reading this gets it straight.

I did NOT decide to be vegan in order to start dating my girlfriend. 

No matter what you hear from anyone else. I did it for ME. When I started on this, it wasn't even with her help. I had the assistance and guidance of another friend of mine. Grow some balls, stop spreading assumptions and rumor, and ask me.

Or, you can read this and know exactly why I did it.

I -=DID=- decide to change my lifestyle for the following reasons.

• I hated feeling like hell 20-30 minutes after I drank milk or ate any dairy product
• I hated feeling like I was going to die when I needed to use the restroom
• I hated not knowing when that sudden urge to use the restroom would happen and then I would get that urge to die as mentioned above
• I watched Food Inc. and was disgusted by our food industry and how animals that become food are treated
• I hated that my weight was ballooning out of control at a rate that I realized was not good at all, even when I decided to start eating a "healthy" omnivorous diet.

I have been vegan for over a year now. I feel better now that I have in a VERY long time. My weight is to a manageable 187 instead of 220+ at my largest (and I haven't fully killed my flabby belly yet). I've come to a point where I am not buying anything made of animal product. Food, clothing, or furniture. Guess what? That's my choice. Talk to me about it. I don't push it on to people as some sort of "agenda". I'm not a crazy PETA activist. I'm not going to run around and call you a sick person for eating meat/fish/dairy. My kids still eat meat when they are home with their mother. They understand why I did all of this. They get it. They even decided to cook with me and eat what I eat when they are here.

Now, I can fully respect people living life the way they want to... so why can't people respect the way I want, and need, to live mine?

...I am the best in the world at what I do.

I can haz halp button?

Ok, maybe not. Hopefully some people get the reference to this post... if not, well... here. Today at work, I realized that I do one thing VERY well. I get things done and I make people happy. I make the problems go away. I make sure that when someone hangs up the phone with me that I have taken care of everything humanly possible, or they know that I am going to track down whatever it is I can for them at that very second.

I have my moments where I slip, sure. But I have this ever growing passion to just help people. I don't care if I get recognized for it, praised in front of a group, I don't even care if I get a thank you. I just want to make sure the problem is solved and the department doesn't look like idiots.

Today we had an issue that came in with only 10 minutes left in the day. From there, an email came to me AFTER 5pm. I could have let it lie, but I made sure it got taken care of. This was a must. Deadline day. No way to really say no and I didn't. I tracked down someone and got it done and made sure that all was good before I went home.

I bust my ass on a daily basis for my job. I have to go in there with the attitude that I am the best in the world at what I do, but also know that I am human... and I make mistakes as well.

...I used my supreme navigational skills to get to work on time today.

I totally bypassed this today.

It always happens like this. I have to absolutely be somewhere for work at a certain time. Today it was 8am. When things like this happen, there is always one thing I can count on. Traffic. It never fails. I get up on time, everything is running great. I love the day and the birds are chirping and the sun is shining. Then it happens. I hit the curve and there is a sea of red lights staring back at me.

Many times this happens I am in between exits and I'm stuck for a couple of miles waiting for the next exit that everyone else is taking. I lucked out today. I got off the exit and got to the office only 4 minutes later than I was supposed to be there. My boss understood. It was no big deal to him. We just had a 9am meeting in another town and had to haul ass out there for it.

I'm glad I had my experience that I did when I worked for the ice factory. I learned the roads in three counties and I can get to anywhere just from people telling me landmarks. I'm trying to get someone else I know a bit better with her navigation as well. Knowing what exits are where, what the main streets are, that whole thing. I rarely get lost. I used to try to get lost. I couldn't. I would always end up somewhere that I recognized soon enough and then I just headed home again. 

At least I didn't have to sit and wait in that mess this morning.

...I got to sleep in my own bed.

I stayed at a hotel down in Chicago this weekend, I'm not going to say which one. But the bed that was there really beat me up. It was way too soft, no support for my body and when I woke up it felt like someone stepped on my head or repeatedly kicked me in the upper back all night.

I go to sleep in my bed last night though, that has really worked out a lot of the pain that I had from that.

So, with that being said, Chicago was a blast this past weekend. The lady and I went down just to get away for the weekend. We had a deal that we bought online a while ago and we needed to use it. This was the ONLY weekend we could. So, we went down there, got settled in at the hotel and just bummed around for a while. Then we wanted to eat. Eventually we ended up at Chicago Diner. As always, awesome food! The Karma Burger is fantastic. Love that place. The chili almost killed me though. Super spicy, couldn't finish the damn thing.

When we got back, we just kicked back and watched Airplane 2 through the wonders of using my phone as a wifi hotspot and connecting my computer to the hotel's TV. I'm way happy it worked. I didn't think it was going to.

The next morning, we woke up late, had to rush out the door and get our stuff to the car so we could head down Michigan Ave. and do some window shopping. I actually ended up getting a couple shirts for work, and the lady, well.... she didn't buy anything. She really wanted to though.

Side note, we were looking for a place to eat, and started going down Rush St. We're walking by this Italian place across from Giordano's and she goes "heh, Rod Stewart"... I stopped, looked at her and said "No, honey, that IS Rod Stewart." Sure as shit, there he was with his woman and what could only be their baby and some other younger girl. It was kinda funny.

After that, we went to the Sushi bar just past there called "Friends Sushi". It's a really nice place. Very clean looking, custom wood chop sticks. Very nice decor. I really like that place. They make their sushi differently than I am used to (they GRILL they asparagus for the asparagus rolls!) but it was all very well done. The presentation was nice and the staff was quite kind.

After shopping a little bit more, we started to make our way back to the car. It was at this time I was suckered in to a shoe shine. It just all happened so fast. The guy was lucky that I had cash on me. I didn't want to be that guy who gets pulled in to something like that and then not be able to pay. But, my shoes look better now than they did when I bought them.

Once we got back we cooked a simple dinner, I did some homework, and we started our venture back in to the Matrix.

But, the highlight was that I got to sleep in my bed last night and wake up in it with my lady again.

...I can't stop laughing at this.

Seriously, watch this video. Oh my god. Then watch all their other ones as well. I can't stop laughing at these. This is genius.

...things are looking up.

A few months ago, I couldn't say that. I had all sorts of things that would get me down on a daily basis. Work, not seeing the kids, not having time for anything fun, my house, bills. All of that was a huge stress pile of blah.

Home of the World Champion Green Bay Packers.

Now things are looking a lot better. April is quite a nice month for me right now as it stands. Homework and school aside, I know it will be good.

Tonight will be my 4th hockey game of the year, the third one with the lady. I really like that she can go to sporting events with me and enjoy them. We've been to three Brewer games, a Packer game in the luxury box, and three Admirals games just this year. It is a perk working where I work and getting free tickets to these things!

Work seems to be heading in the right direction now as well. The plan is slowly coming in to place. One more week and the whole building will be calling one spot for help. Just the way we want it.

This weekend is a trip to the big city, and what do we plan on doing? Whatever we want. Most of it will be spent in the hotel because it's a very nice one. We're going to just kick back, relax, watch movies, do our homework, and not think about life at home.

...I know I still got it.

We ran across an issue at work that could have been catastrophic. I seem to have this knack for being able to solve tech problems. I will work and research until I think I find the best possible solution, test it, then present it to the people who wanted the solution in the first place.

It's good to know I can still do the tech work after being put in to a manager role so many years ago.

...I was told a really bad joke. So I had to share.

I prefer mine Greek.

A pan of muffins is baking in the oven.

One of the muffins starts screaming "AAAHHHHH WE'RE BURNING UP!!!!"

Another one of the muffins, hearing the screaming yells "AAAHHHHH A TALKING MUFFIN!!!!"

...it was tattoo day!

I had a couple things going on today. I kinda crashed and burned in class, but other than that, it was a good day. Went to the doctor for the first time in years, hopefully now we are on our way to recovery for my knee. I have other things getting checked out too that have been a long time coming, so that is good too. But, one of the best parts about today was that it was tattoo day.

DEMON!

Tom Aldana does some awesome work over at Superstar Tattoo in Milwaukee. He's going to be the one to finish my arm. I went to him back in 2009 to have my phoenix done, and it's been awesome ever since. He got me to believe in color. I've been a black and red guy for a long time, but he made me break out of that shell with the tiger, and then coloring in the phoenix. I held off for a bit due to funds, but told him that when it was time, the demon needed to be next. 

It's not in a fun spot. I have most of my back done, an quite a bit on my arm. This one went on the inner bicep. It was fine until we started shading, then it got painful. I think it is the most pain Tom has put me through to date. That's a super tender area. I thought it was bad when the phoenix was done and got right on the tricep. This was worse.

So, now it's time to heal once again. We already started planning on the rest of the arm. My dragon needs a touch up, the koi do as well. From that point we start in on the backfill and get this thing done. Then again, for those who have ink... you never really are done, are you?

...music just has a way to make me feel good.

Falken

Music is the thing that moves me. It is my oldest love. One that will never go away. Playing live is something I just enjoy doing. It's an outlet for me. If I am sad, or angry, or depressed, I snap out of it right away.

It is something that transcends language. Take most of the German industrial and EBM bands that are out there. I speak English, but I still listen to the music. Why? It's the beat and the melodies behind all of it that makes me move. I'll be seeing Rammstein in May. I saw them the last time they toured the US. It's great music. I've watched countless videos of their European shows. But it doesn't matter to me that I don't understand what is being said in the words because it is being FELT in the sound that is pounding through me. KMFDM, AndOne, Quarashi, and many more I've listened to just because the music is that good.

Sometimes you don't even need words at all when you're writing. That is the approach I've used when writing my music. I tend to think music first, words last.... or never. All but one of my songs are instrumental. The song that does have lyrics, I'm hidden by a vocoder so people don't hear my voice and it sounds like an instrument more than a vocal line. It's just how I work (shameless plug http://www.myspace.com/falkensmind yeah I know, myspace, but that's where the music lives).

I'll be making more of my solo stuff soon. I have to. When? I have no idea. School is trying to take away all free time right now. But, rest assured. Falken is not going away. It's ever evolving.

Hopefully my music will spark something in a kid somewhere so that they learn to want to listen to everything they can and determine what they like.

The drive home will be great tonight, I already have my playlist ready...

...I realized I really enjoy writing.

As much as I hate to admit it, I like writing. I enjoy doing this blog. I had no idea I had a "style" per say when I started writing again for school back in January 2010. I've had a few people tell me they like reading what it is I have to say when I write. This is interesting to me. What is the reason? Do people think I am that interesting? I really don't have a whole lot to peer in to. I'm not divulging anything all that juicy as far as gossip goes. This IS a self therapy blog for me and I am writing it mostly for myself. It's made so I can look back at the moth, or any given day and see what was good about it.

Not my usual writing platform.

I used to do writings about the bad. But what comes from that? Why sit there and keep bringing up a bad situation if you can move on and talk about the good that is there instead? It is a shift in the way I think at times. I used to be "that guy". The one that would just spout off about all the bad things as they happened without thinking about what I could learn from it. 

I am going to keep writing this blog, daily. I'm sorry about the lack of updates this past weekend. Even if it was something small, I need to get this out there so that I don't forget anything about my life and record the good from the day. 

On a side note, I plan on doing some more writing outside of this. It might be short stories, or a novel, or even writing for games and just submitting my work. Who knows, maybe it will just be making another blog about something else I love, music.

...I had a great vacation.

Cheesy smile FTW!

The vacation was a good one. I spent a lot of time with my daughter. It was necessary. I had a few people tell me that the daddy/daughter bond has to be strong and that it's good that I am doing these things with her even without the mother.

I have done quite a bit for this one, I will admit that. I had my lady take her out on her birthday to go shopping and get all done up back in November...why? The girl needed a bra. THAT I am not about to do alone. No way. But, this one was easier. We watched a lot of bad movies and TV shows, but that is good too. It's fun time either way cuddled up on the couch. We cooked, cleaned, brushed our teeth, and just had a good time. I'm not going to complain one bit about what I did or did not get done... it was my vacation... and hers too. I'm glad she had fun on it.

Tomorrow, I go back to work semi-refreshed. There's quite a bit of email to go back to (I peeked, turned off sync at the start of the vacation so I wouldn't look but it got the best of me tonight) and things to sort out. I'm ready, recharged, and able to take on all tasks.

As for Friday when I forgot to post, quick recap....Great time with friends. De/vision, Mesh, and Iris packed the house. Always good to see Sega out and about. Very happy to share a stage with Iris at the WTII minifest 2 in June. The lady looked amazing in her new corset (even if it did crush her ribs) and many of my friends came dressed to impress as always.

...it was daddy/daughter time once again.

The other day I took her shopping for a dress and got her hair cut. Tonight we went to dinner. She insisted on Chinese. Who am I to say no? I love my Asian foods.
I have been spending the last few days with her which took away from writing, but I  think it's fair trade off. This will get back to a more regular posting starting tomorrow night.