Videos 4/29/10...

I recorded a few videos of the Hi Dive show. Most of them are too long to upload on here, but we may try and upload them on Youtube sometime. You can find other videos of Ideal Father's on Youtube as well. Here is a random sampling of their show from April 29th.

*WARNING! It is loud and slightly static-y, because I was standing next to the speakers (don't worry I wear ear plugs). If you choose to watch the videos do so with caution and turn the volume down lower. 


Untitled from Erin Wilson on Vimeo.

Hi Dive Show 2 from Erin Wilson on Vimeo.

Hi-Dive 4/29/10...

Clash of the Titans.

Last Week's Hi-Dive show was an especially rockin' gig. Jesse was really feeling the beat and he definitely brought the energy in the bar up. The guys got more press (check here & here) and even got recognized by the headlining band, Solar Bear. Below is a picture of Jesse and the lead singer of Solar Bear (whose name currently escapes me, sorry). In the middle of the Solar Bear set they let there singer take a slight breather and do some talking. Apparently he was inspired by Jesse, so he called him out and had him come up on stage with them. Talk about an ego boost. I think Jesse was on a high after that. Afterwords the two got to talking and became fast friends. Solar Bear even invited the Fathers to preform at their CD release this month, too bad they can't do it since we will be out of town that weekend. Oh Well! The guys have agreed on doing more shows together in the future. This should be great for the Fathers since Solar Bear is a pretty popular band in Denver. It never hurts to have friends in high places.

 

I had a couple videos to upload with this post, but they're taking too long for me. I'm kind of impatient sometimes. Anyhow... I will be posting them at some point in the day, so look for them in a later post.

9 Health Fair...

In the last couple months I have found myself to be among the uninsured Americans, so this year Jesse and I decided to attend a 9 Health Fair. What is 9 Health Fair? you are probably asking. Well, 9 News is a local News station here that 30yrs ago decided to educate the public about their health and offer free or low cost medical screenings to anyone, not just the insured. Since it's humble start the 9 Health Fair has turned into it's own non-profit and expanded to cover the entire state and it's even beginning to trickle into neighboring states. While working at the museum I had an idea about bringing a Health Fair to the Children's Museum put on by older kids. I had the pleasure of partnering with the 9 Health Fair education department on making my dream a reality last June. I'm hoping they keep up the relationship and start educating the kiddos about their health from an earlier age. Anyhow... Since I am with out insurance this year we hit up the Health Fair in Golden (and yes it was @ the Coors Brewery). For $45 each we had 2 blood draws for intensive special screenings that should give us a full range of results and a good idea of our current health. We also met with a nutritionist, did the height, weight, & BMI testing, blood pressure, and a few other things. All of our results will be sent to us in the mail in the next couple weeks. There are many people here in Denver that have benefited from this wonderful program and I'm so glad that we could take part in it too. A friend of mine and her husband went a few years ago and he learned he was diabetic. He had been speculating that he was, but he had lost his job and they were with out insurance at the time as well. I am happy to report that he has a new job, insurance, and has is diabetes under control. 9 Health Fair is mainly volunteer driven program, so next year or maybe even later this fall when they do their family fairs I can give my time to help others with the program as well. I've also been really lucky in that one of the family's that I do childcare for has offered me essentially free health care. The father is a cardiologist and he said as soon as I get my results in he would go over them with me and help me out in anyway. If I am ever feeling sick and in need of a prescription he will write me one, but of course I will be paying full price for the actual prescription. Still... it's a really good deal and I feel lucky to have such great support and resources. Luckily though, for now at least Jesse and I are both feeling pretty healthy, but it will be nice to have the extensive results to prove it.

Another new toy...

Last weekend Jesse and I went for a walk to the local bike shop. I was told he needed to get a new light for his bike, but we ended up coming home with him hell bent on buying a new bike. He almost bought one at the shop, but they didn't have the one he wanted in stock. I naively thought that was the end of it, but later that night he told me he had bought a bike online. He sold his old bike to one of his band mates and went all out on his new one. It wasn't cheap, believe me, but he's never had a new bike and he really loves riding bikes, so I guess it was worth it. The bike arrived in the mail yesterday with some assembly required. Of course Jesse could not wait, so last night I dropped him and the big box off at Mike P's, the IF Drummer, house. Mike is an avid bike rider and he used to work at bike shop, so he has all the equipment Jesse would need. Here is a picture of Jesse's fancy new ride. I am sure there will be more pictures to come as he plans on getting his money's worth and riding it as much as possible this summer. He's even looking into what bike trails he could take if he wanted to attempt to ride it to work. That would be a ride that's just over 10miles one way. Yikes!

P.S. He's such a giving guy that he bought me a new basket for my bike. I've been wanting a clip on/off basket, so I can ride my bike to the grocery store & just use my basket forgoing bags & their not always clean baskets. I was thrilled. As a team we attached the basket to my bike which was actually kind of fun. I honestly think we couldn't have done it alone. Team work was essential.

B-ball...

Inspired by Henry, a 2yr old I babysit quite often, I talked Jesse into playing ball with me. Neither one of us are ball players by any means, but I remember having a great time shooting hoops with my brother & my father when I was younger. Plus, lets be honest we could use the exercise. Henry is a little ball player. He plays every kind of sport out there, basketball, t-ball, soccer, volley ball, etc. Recently he's been really obsessed with tennis, so he & I play with ball retrieval being left up to the hyper Ruby, his golden retriever. I had a blast playing. I told Jesse we should get a soccer ball, tennis equipment, a basketball, baseball equipment, etc. I'm not a big sports nut, but I do love getting out of the house and goofing around for while. Since we are on a tighter budge we are always looking for things to do that aren't that expensive. Jesse has a Denver Nuggets obsession, so we decided b-ball was going to be our first sport to tackle. Last weekend we bought a $10 ball from Target, not a bad deal for hours/days/weeks/months/years of entertainment. Totally economical. Unfortunately it's been rainy or we've been busy every night since. That is until today...

As you can see for this random sampling of photos we took while shooting hoops we definitely need to practice before we challenge anyone to a real game, but hey we got out there & had fun. That's all that matters, right? If you notice in my picture besides it being a terrible shot I got some air. Woo Hoo!  Jesse and I both managed to get the ball stuck in the net, we both swooshed some, and we definitely both shot some air balls. We tried the backwards shot and neither one of us was successful, although Jesse did one blind and it actual circled the rim. It was over cast, cold, and sprinkling when we walked to the park and started, but by the end the clouds opened up and the sun made an appearance. All and all not a bad morning for our first attempt at shooting some hoops.

Hopefully today was just the start of many ball games over the Spring & Summer.

*Next up I'm going to try to talk him into playing tennis with me. Wish me luck!

Good Bye Rental, Welcome home Mazda...

We got our car back this week, a few days earlier than expected. It was given a full inspection from the shop who fixed it, then from our Progressive insurance agents, and a two days later we took it to the Mazda dealer for it's 15,000 mile check up and had them inspect it as well. Call us paranoid, but neither one of us had really been in a big accident before and that car is the most expensive thing we've ever bought. The dealer appraised it for us post accident and said it's definitely worth several thousand less now. Great! We expected to get news like that, but it's still depressing. We are working on our diminished value claim, something neither of us had ever heard of. Thanks for giving us the heads up Dad! Hopefully we can get some money out of the other driver's insurance and use that to pay down what we still owe on our car. Cars are such a necessary evil and no matter how good you take care of them they always depreciate in value or someone else comes along and hits you. Oh well! What can you do? At least we have our car back. I must admit it was weird getting in our car for the first time. We've had the rental car for a month now and we sort of got used to it I guess. Don't get me wrong we are so glad to have our car back, but it was weird getting readjusted to our car after driving that beast for month. We are both definitely thrilled to have our car back in action. I haven't taken any pictures of her since she' been fixed, but in case you forget what her back end looked like pre-accident.

Here she is...

It pretty much looks the same now. They did a really great job on the repairs. 

We're only missing our license plate cover.

Record Store Day...

In case you were unaware April 17th was nation wide Record Store Day. If you don't believe me follow the link to find out more info. Denverites celebrated @ Wax Trax, the local independent record store. Think 1995's Empire Records only a little rougher around the edges. Wax Trax had a line up of 4 bands playing a free show in their back room for the loyal customers who braved the cold rainy weather. I'm sure you have already guessed it by now, but Ideal Fathers was one of those lucky bands. This was the 2nd all ages show they've played this month and the 3rd over all. I see this as a good thing since according to the polling on their You Tube videos they are most popular with 13-17yr old boys. The guys teamed up with their friends the band, Accordian Crimes to release a 4 song EP collaboration to pass out for free to their adoring fans, in hopes to gain some cross over fans.

Making the cover for their 4 song EP.

Crazy Flier by Adam

Misc. Pictures from the show.

Record Store Day from Erin Wilson on Vimeo.
This one is my favorite. 
I took several short videos in hopes of posting them, but I decided to post this one 1st since it's my favorite. I may post more later, but it takes a while to upload them, so bare with me.