It’s an interesting emotional sensation, stepping off of a plane to walk upon the ground you have not been back to in 15 years. Noticing just moments before, while you were banking to land, that the butterflies were building inside to an anxious frenzy. Seeing the farms and roads eek by at a few hundred feet above… Trying to reconcile them all with the past from an unfamiliar angle. Desperately trying to keep focus as the plane makes it’s final descent.

Your feet finally hit the ground and the rush of the Boise air fills your nose like a blast of fresh air that starts a chain reaction of firing synapses. Then, all the butterflies disperse to be displaced by utter peace and the realization…

“It still feels like home…”

I went back home this New Year’s weekend. Funny how it’s the new year but I went to the old. I have not had a vacation in many years and the timing seemed right (at least I don’t think rehab counts as a vacation). I survived the 3rd round of layoffs at my job and am the proud owner of a 10% pay cut. That however, is another post.

My family moved from “The Treasure Valley” many years ago. It is where I grew up. It is made up of the three thriving Idaho metropolis’ of Nampa, Caldwell and Boise with some incidental hovels thrown in for good measure. Growing up there was as it is everywhere I suppose. Good with the bad. It was a small town, but with that said I would trade it for nothing. It saved my life in the big city many times.

My journey’s purpose was to see Chris.

I met Chris a long time ago but the exact time escapes me. I am sure after some point it doesn’t matter but for generality it was in elementary school I think. He is the namesake of my son and if I remember correctly my son’s Godfather.  Neither one of us is Catholic but what the hell.

We quickly became the best of friends and started sharing the same brain. I am confident we were equal parts Beavis and Butt-head, Bill and Ted and probably a bit of Thelma and Louise thrown in for good measure.

At one point we lost contact after I moved away for the 2nd or 3rd time… For 13 years.

I saw him a few years ago when he came up from Idaho to Portland. I found him one day surfing the web and hunted him down. He came up for a few days and slept on the couch that reeked of black lab.

It was however my turn to go and see him.

Chris picked me up at the airport with his wife Lorrie. I have to say that the moment I saw them drive up to the terminal was powerful. It was as if the moment slammed into me bringing a rush of happiness so powerful it took me back just a bit. It was the kind of happiness that is more of a relief. The kind that makes you choked up and almost cry.

I can’t really give a play by play of all the events and don’t really think it would be right. The 4 days were a whole, each a unique moment that couldn’t live without the others. It did involve LOTS of good food (especially the burger and Shige Sushi). There were nights of staying up too late and discussing philosophical topics spawned by great movies. We went to see a couple of movies, one great… one ok.

We drove around to every place that we have lived, comparing the past to the present and snapping pictures.

I think most important for me was that I remembered. Swarms of memories swirled inside my head. My first bout of Alcohol Poisoning, my semi crucifixion on a stray nail, my first kiss, the first time I touched a girl. Remembering all the good and the bad.

The time we were drawing in the basement and a series of events triggered by me caused a large shard of a shattered light cover to slice into his anus.

There was the time I came to visit and spent 4 periods in the high-school parking lot putting Clorox in my hair because I thought that is how you bleached your hair. The rest of the day was spent inside one of his classes taking a test for the student I was pretending to be. I was reeking of Clorox with orange hair.

There was a drunken night at our boyscout jamboree, walking down the street with the boom box and Quiet Riot or Twisted Sister at full volume, getting swatted in the office for serious Idaho crimes such as snowball fights and vulgar poems.

The whole trip was awesome from start to finish. We laughed at the past. Lived in the moment. Talked about the future.

I cannot thank Lorrie and Chris enough for their hospitality and extending their home to me. They spoiled me.

It was good… To go home…

Hola! Here is a new song I just released.

After the Storm

Turn it up… Close your eyes and take a journey with me….

So here are a couple of little tunes I have created. I am still tweaking them a little bit but they will not noticably change other than Tiffany’s Song’s voice will be re-done… I would love to hear your thoughts…

Hey all… So here it is….

I gave up on my mortgage job. I almost lost my room, my car and my sanity. It was pretty close for awhile but I stumbled into a job I think I am really going to enjoy. I am working as a Cad designer for a pseudo-small company 15 minutes from my house. It isn’t web design.. not even close… It is however… creative and such. That is opposed to my previous 1 hour commute in conjunction with Mr. Bush’s wonderful gas prices.

I am seeing my positive efforts pay off and I can honestly say that through it all (for the most part) I kept a positive attitude. I will admit that it was stressful and scary but here I am. It could be that I have found the perfect job for me. We will see but I think that in any event, it is a job I will love.

In other news… I am trying to get to the Vesak celebration at my Buddhist temple. I have a previous engagement so I am not sure. I took the boy with me last time and we meditated together. How freaking’ cool is that?

Oh and I would like to invite a dude I met on Deviant art to join us. He is in Africa right now. He seems really cool. He is a really good artist and he has some expierences that would enrich this place as well. What do you think? He may be looking at the site soon… I don’t know…. He may not even want to be here. But I though I would ask you… My homies…

So in reading a post one day the thought occurred to me… Who are we?

We have a Buddhist, a Muslim, someone who practices Taijiquan (which incidentally sounds like a good opening line to a joke).

So… Let’s be honest… Who are you? What do you believe? Give a sentance or two…

The reason I ask is that I see that we are pretty worlwide here… We represent a decent cross section of humanity and yet we are one group of people, all friendly to one another and seem to co-exist quite peacefully.

And help me out here… A Buddhist, Muslim and Taijiquan walk into a bar…

Hey all… I have some changes to relate to you.

Due to the constant onslaught of spammers pushing their Phentermine, Ambien and Viagra I have had to make some changes to the site. We can no longer comment without logging in first. We can no longer just have people register willy nilly. If someone wants to join in please have them send myself or Ryan an email with their user name/password and we (or I if Ryan is unsure how) will get them set up with an account. I host another blog that is having an assault of the same magnitude and am trying something different. Whichever one works the best I will implement on the other.

I am very sorry that I have to implement this at this blog. This is such a relaxed enviroment and I wanted to keep it very freeform and un-structured for Ryan. However…

Anyway, on another note I apologize for not being present for a bit… Big doings and I will post about it soon. To hold you over here is a pic I have done…

Japanese Garden: Fountain by ~mysticsludge on deviantART

Just a heads up. I am migrating servers for cost reasons… The biggest is that I dont have any $$$ LOL.

Pray to the god of your choosing that it goes off without a hitch…

~Phil

The music is a little grating. But this seems to be appropraite for our site here. Being the geek that play’s with and writes the HTML, I enjoy the whole thing but I thing the last few seconds are the most applicable.

It is very long winded and I’m not sure how interesting it is. That said… This was how my day started

MORE NEW STUFF: Now you can rank every post with the little smiley system under the authors name. I dont know why… I just thought it would be fun. Comments now have gravatars. Yusef will have a gravatar.

There are now polls in the sidebar. The blogroll got jacked up because I upgraded wordpress. It’s ugly and I’m sorry… I’m trying to fix it.

If you like this stuff let us know… If you don’t… Let us know

~Peace