Peruvian Nights and Jamaican Days

MUSIC FESTIVALS AND FIGHTIN' WEIGHTS..

Awhile back, Bennet was lamenting his scrawny assed-ness. It wasn't until recently that I realized how scrawny my ass had become. We recently got a scale, and when I weighed myself last week, I was a whopping 159 pounds of twisted steel and sex appeal. I know. This seems too light for my ~6' frame. But the curious thing is, I've never been any stronger than I am right now. Maybe I was close, during my undergrad days, when I weighed closer to 180 or so. But this summer I've been carrying a pack that was 45-50 pounds most days, and over 70 pounds when we had camping gear with (I know, because I weighed it). And it never really seemed like too much. This was usually at over 9,000 feet. So I'm not too interested in gaining weight, unless it's muscle.

I think I'm going to take a class offered through the outreach school this semester, entitled "Grappling and Striking."

Right...Woodstick..I forgot to blog about this awesome event after it happened last week. Centennial, Wyoming, is a weird place. The elevation is about 150 times greater than the population. 63 folk, or something like that. And it is an awfully random mix of people...crazed mountain man looking types, stoned hippies - sporting 'Centennial camoflage' (tie-dye), sunburnt ranchhands, average construction types, and yuppie summer homers. And they all seem to get along just fine. The rednecks and yuppies, stoned hippies and drunk carpenters. And anything that happens in Centennial seems a little cooler than it would be anywhere else, maybe because of the thin air, maybe because you're right at the foot of the mountains, maybe because of the aforementioned weird people.

So every year (starting last year, I think) they have this day-long music festival in Centennial, called Woodstick. There were a few folks on the roster I thought sounded good, particularly a guy named Peter Queal and his friends, who play some real groovy, lounge-type tunes. We also found out, the day before, that Maggie Simpson would be there. Not that Maggie Simpson. And she is always awesome.

Jenn was out of town for the weekend, and Rick was back in town, so it was me, Rick, and Abbie. Abbie and I decided Rick should be the designated driver, on what specific grounds I now forget. Well..it was good times. Our friend Dan brought beers, and taught us that you can bring in beers, to this place, which is sort of an outdoor bar, as long as it's one at a time. So this we did. We bought overpriced Busch Light (it appeals to my inner 10th grader) at the (Un)Friendly Store, just down the road from the Beartree, where the concert was.

So it was mostly good. Somehow or other, during Maggie Simpson's set, I ended up sitting by Maggie's mom. She was a sweet old lady, and we talked quite a bit. I didn't talk to her dad, Pete, of political notoriety, because he was sitting on the other side. One time, when Maggie's mom and I were talking she put her arm around me and pulled me in so as to hear what I was saying, and all the folks I was with had shocked looks on their face, and then Dan said "Is she HITTING on you?" And I said, 'I think so.' It was great, drunken times. Maggie kicked ass as usual, and Peter Queal's group did some rockin' songs. The only bad part was that the last few bands were kinda lame. Dan described one of the people in one of the final bands as 'Jimmy Buffet incarnate,' and I thought..'oh, for crying out loud.' There are about 5 things worse than Jimmy Buffet in the whole world. One of those things is the Eagles. This band did covers by both.

So all in all, it was a pretty good time.

This weekend, we're going to a music festival at the foot of the Laramie Mountains, and will camp out, and may have adult beverages. It's bluegrass, so there's probably little danger of us having to sit through one more awful cover of Hotel California.

-m