The Terrible Twos

Happy Birthday, ACL! In some ways, I can't believe it's been two years already. In other ways, I can't believe it's only been two years! August 17th was my surgery date, one of the worst days of my life and also one of the best. It was the beginning of my long road to recovery from the physical injury, and more importantly, the mental. Sometimes you need everything to fall apart, to have the walls come crumbling down around you in order for you to pick yourself up and start again.

And what better way for me to celebrate the day where I changed my life than go to a concert? Tonight, I'll be going back to Brooklyn, driving this time so keep your fingers crossed, to see Hotel Lights at The Rock Shop. I'm excited because the venue seems cool and cozy and I've got a good friend as my partner in crime.

Hopefully, there will be a few pictures to show you!

Toby

Toby, our resident squirrel at Kettlebell Daily, was being very friendly today. I shared some sunflower seeds with him and he wanted to follow me back to my car. Trainer Steve came out and told Toby to stop harassing the clients, and I caught their little interaction. (See, I'm doing better with keeping a camera on me all the time!)

Hey there, little guy!

Hotel Lights: Girl Graffiti

Hotel Lights third album is out! I can't tell you how excited I am for this. I've only given it a quick listen, at about 1 AM when I couldn't sleep and realized that iTunes would let me download it seeing how it was officially August 16th. I need to give it a few more listens, but so far, I like what I've heard. I was really impressed with the wide range of instrumentation; no wonder it's taken so long for this album to come out! 

So check out Hotel Lights website. Do yourself a favor, heh heh heh, and download their newest album. Download all their albums, it's good stuff, I wouldn't steer you wrong! And read a glowing review of Girl Graffiti here. 

Oh, and if you live in the area, there's a CD release party tomorrow night in Brooklyn at the Rock Shop. I'm going to be there and I had to pull some major strings to get out of work early on a deadline day, so you have no excuse!

I really think this is what I should be doing with my life...

I don't know how I'm supposed to make this happen, I don't know how I could have forgotten how much I love doing this. It really is my passion, and I've dreamed of doing it since I was twelve years old. It doesn't matter to me who I'm shooting. From my work with Christina Abbott and my first published live album photos, to a local singer Maureen Hamil I covered for the Bridgeport News for my first official assignment for Hometown Publications, to Kate Miller-Heidke an opening act that won me over with their cheekiness, to a ridiculously passionate picture of Livingston Taylor (how can you not love a man in a sweater vest, plaid bow tie, rainbow guitar strap brandishing his guitar like a machine gun?) to Ben Folds as he walks off stage at the end of his encore. As anyone who's been around me in the past two weeks, I've been on a high as I reviewed my latest Eels pictures and processed them. I'm good at it, I'm progressing, I'm growing. I would love to do this for a living. I don't even care about the money aspect of it.

I've finally uploaded a slew of concert photos onto my main gallery. If you're curious, the best I can do is point you here. You have to then select the concerts folder. I know, annoying, but I can't link directly to folders because of the flash animation. 

What do you think, readers? Do I have what it takes? Am I just too scared to take a chance?

Grain Free Challenge: 30 Days, No Grains

Some of my grain free meals: grilled tofu and veggies, shrimp served over three bean salad with tomatoes and cukes, tilapia and stir fry vegetables with a black bean sauce, and eggs with grain free rolls.

Trainer Steve gave us a new challenge: no grains for 30 days. From July 5th to August 5th, I removed all grains from my diet. Here are a couple of links for you to consider.
Ten reasons to go grain free.

Why grains are unhealthy. 

I noticed a change within a week. I didn't feel as tired, sluggish or bloated. As long as I prepared my own meals, I didn't have to much of a challenge eating grain free. I substituted granola for a mixture of nuts and seeds for my yogurt because I have texture issues with smooth foods. Instead of my usual brown rice, I bumped up my vegetable intake.  I'm at work for the majority of my meals, so rotisserie chicken and frozen vegetables were my fall back meal if I didn't have time to cook.

My body did have a bit of a struggle with the increase of fiber in my diet. Heh, sorry to the new people following this blog, I'm sure no one is that interested in my digestive health. The lack of grains makes you, let's just say, more regular and leave it at that. Oh, and I noticed that my complexion cleared up quite a bit.

It's not all that easy to eat grain free at picnics and gatherings. Restaurants aren't bad at all, and are willing to swap out rice and pasta if you ask. I found myself trying a lot of food I wouldn't normally order.; seared salmon with pecans for example. The first family picnic I went to left me hungry. Everything besides the salad was either breaded, deep fried or both! Desserts aren't much of an option. Cake, cookies, pie. All out. (This is why I waited until after the fourth of July to start this challenge.) I found that I was happier if I brought small sides with me to picnics. Bean salads or fruit salads complimented burgers, without the bun of course.

I came across a great product at Whole Foods called Against The Grain. They make bagels, rolls and even a pizza crust all without grains, all the while keeping their ingredient count low and minimally processed. It was good enough to curb the occasional bread craving and I highly recommend them.

So, what were my results exactly? Nothing earth shattering on the scale. I dropped about 5 pounds, which I tend to fluctuate up and down that amount, and I dropped 1% body fat. As always, I don't worry too much about numbers, I judge my health on how I'm feeling. I'm down a pant size and I had a really good month at the gym. I felt like the exercises had a greater effect on my body, my muscles seemed to respond to the work. I don't know if removing grains really did that, but I moved better and felt stronger in general.

I did not cave during my weekend in NYC, even though I had a dream about getting a pretzel the weekend before I went. I'm totally serious; I actually woke myself up at how frustrated I was for not being able to eat the pretzel in my own dream! I did finally break my grain free diet for one of my ultimate temptations...

Crack Pizza

It's not really called Crack Pizza, it's pizza from The Colony. It's the best pizza in the world. I get sausage, while the majority of my friends go with the hot oil stinger. (I'm spice deficient.) We call it Crack Pizza because it's so good, you'll eat an entire pie yourself and will want a second pizza as soon as you get back to your house.

Yes, the pizza was incredible, as always, and I think because the crust is so thin, I didn't eat a whole lot of grains. The two things I noticed were: I could only eat half the pizza and my stomach made ALL sorts of gurgly noises when I was finished. And yeah, I became less regular and more gassy.

I haven't had grain besides this, and I'm going to continue to try to keep my intake to a minimum. Some occasional crack pizza or sushi won't be the end of the world, but I'm just as happy to avoid it.

Family Photos: Taste of Maine

Is there anything better than old family photos? I know I'm biased, I live for photography. On the left we have a fabulous shot of my brothers and myself from the 80's at the Taste of Maine. Twenty some odd years later, my brother took his family to the same restaurant.

Our lobster friend has had gone through some changes over the years, but he's still there. Story has it, the sculpture became a part of the Taste of Maine because the artist that created it got a flat tire and left the lobster behind. It got such a great response from people passing by the owners purchased it.

And twenty years later, my family is just as goofy. Oh, Grace, what will you think of us when you're older?

The Eels Second Look

I found a few more images I wanted to share from the Eels concerts.

Set lists: 

(I've put a • between songs from different nights)

1. Flyswatter • That's Not Really Funny
2. That's Not Really Funny • Flyswatter
3. Somebody's Watching You
4. Grace Kelly Blues
5. Packing Blankets
6. Prizefighter
7. My Beloved Monster
8. Fresh Feeling
9. That's Not Her Way • I'm Going To Stop Pretending That I Didn't Break Your Heart
10. Tremendous Dynamite
11. Love of the Loveless
12. I Like The Way This Is Going • Saturday Morning
13. This Is Where It Gets Good
14. The Look You Give That Guy • Climbing to the Moon
15. Hot Fun In The Summer Time
16. Band Intros
17. Knuckles Song
18. Novocaine for the Soul
19. Souljacker Pt. 1
20. I Like Birds
21. Beginner's Luck
22. Losing Streak
first encore:
23. Last Stop This Town • It's a Motherfucker
24. P.S. You Rock My World
second encore:
25. Fresh Blood
26. Looking Up

Fresh Feeling Collage

I was thrilled that they played this song and I thought it was arranged perfectly. I took two photos from the first night then added a band shot from the second night.

E watching Knuckles for cut

 PBoo and Tiny Al

I felt like I seriously shorted them on my first post, and it wasn't from lack of pictures. I was just geeking out over all the pictures of E and The Chet...

Jam

Upon second review of my pictures, I saw E's face in this one and it cracked me up. Classic Everett pout.

E and The Chet

Another fun interaction shot

 PBoo

Knuckles being introduced

I realized that I really didn't talk about the music at all in my original post. The first night, the two most important things in the world to Knuckles, besides drumming while simultaneously singing a song about himself, were: riding the L train aimlessly for hours and wearing ironic hipster t shirts. (Williamsburg is a very young and hip neighborhood.) The next night it got even more rough: bedbugs and counting bodies in the East River.

The Chet tuning

Not just a nice shot of his tats, but one that shows the Snatch Brothers turning their back to the audience. When there was a song without brass, they turned and faced the backdrop.

PBoo playing trumpet

Again, pictures that needed a little bit more love in the processing department. There wasn't a whole lot of light hitting the left side of the stage. Most of my shots with PBoo playing had the horn blocking his face. (Something I know all too well from my days as a trumpet player.) He played an interesting rendition of New York, New York during his introduction.

 E

Just had to throw another in of the man rocking. I was slightly bummed that he didn't use his guitar with the "E" on it, because I was so ready for that shot!

The Chet during Fresh Blood

This is the opposite of the shot from my previous post, where I missed on the strobe light, but I thought it was still noteworthy.

Tiny Al and E

This happened right in front of me as Looking Up began, and I kept waiting for someone to turn on a light. They never did. I knew I could get something out of the photo because I shot in raw, but it's pretty heavily processed. Just so you can see, the original is here:

Right side of the stage during Looking Up

In my original post, I mentioned that I completely missed certain things during the first night, and this would be one of them. The brass section and Knuckles had this awesome gospel choir thing going on and they were dancing up a storm on the right side of the stage. It had a very Family Feud feel to it with the addition of the brass.

Knuckles

Totally should've gotten more face time on my last post. I was somewhat surprised at how many clean shots I took of the drummer. (Thanks for moving out of the way, E!)

Solute

The second night opened up with what sounded to me like the opening to All You Need is Love and a solute. Again, not a lot of light on the band yet, so I had to pull a lot out of this one.

The rest are some interesting facial expression shots of E. I definitely ran of out steam the first time I went through my shots because there were some gems I'd overlooked. It's funny how differently I view pictures depending on my mood. At first, I didn't want any hands in any of my shots, so I passed a lot of them over. Some of them are fun, like the extended ROCK! hand near the end, that I think enhance the pictures.

 

 

 E Playing it up for the crowd

Another low light shot, but a keeper all the same.