Josh Gomez

Rocketline played a show on Saturday night in Tempe. The venue, Phase54, was an office park building slash music production studio slash club. Weird. After waiting through the two opening acts, and almost three hours later, Rocketline captured the crowds attention. Despite the weirdness of the venue, there was a great turnout and a responsive crowd. Rocketline opened up with Lunar Dirt, a familiar piece among their followers. I have heard several versions of it, and I think they revise it and tweak it each time they have a show. It was exciting to hear two new pieces, which both expanded on Garnet’s vocal super powers. It is worth mentioning that this was their second show with an additional guitar player, and a new guy on the keys. I am looking forward to see their roles grow into the band’s already solid form.

More on Phase54

Outside on the narrow balcony there was a bar full of novice bartenders, and a raised stage at the far end, opposite of the staircase entrance. Each band had to carry their equipment up the stairs, through the crowd, and heater lamps to reach the stage. Inside you could find marble tables mounted against wood paneled walls, and suck up the scent of old squishy carpet. The ceiling inside was low and complimented the other amenities so well that it completed the mobile home theme nicely. One last nag from me - the men’s restroom. Urinals were strange; one was too low, the other too high, and both had weird urinal tablets in them that were designed to ricochet your stream back at you.

I bought some new shoes for the court last week. They’re finally broken in and feeling good. No more sliding around, or cutting people. My old pair had some hard plastic detailing in the heal. After playing on the blacktop at the park the heal was worn down and exposed a sharp edge. Coming down from grabbing a rebound, my shoes cut a kid’s chin open at the gym. The next day I bought my new shoes.

My new pair of shoes are nice. Aside from them being black Air Jordan’s, they are lightweight, well ventilated and have a soft sole. I don’t know the exact weight, but they are as light as most running shoes I’ve had, and your feet feel free. The entire body of the shoe is ventilated with mesh vents, which let your feet breathe and make the shoe flexible, too. The sole has a built-in carbon fiber spring-back plate and bags of compressed air for comfortable cushioning.

Last Thursday, we ran the court, and won eight games straight. I think it was the shoes.

With the weather being chilly in the desert now, I have enjoyed extra time inside and less time running in the morning. Today, I woke up early and I was feeling refreshed. Although I didn’t go jogging, I knew altering my schedule would make the day different. It was different.  I renewed my gym membership.

It has been several months since I have played basketball, because no one goes to play at the park when it’s this cold. Tonight, I got to play. I expected it to be more difficult to keep up. I was gasping a few times, but for the most part I was doing alright. However I wasn’t concentrating on my play, I was just trying to keep getting up and down the court. We won two out of three, and I was burning. I was satisfied with my first day back to the gym. I can’t wait to get back.

Waking up early this morning made a considerable difference in my day. Keeping the momentum going should be easier now that I’m active again. I am hoping I can pull myself together and go running tomorrow morning.

Christmas was extra fun this year because I got a Playstation 3, and you didn’t. So maybe now we can be friends? Ha. You wish. Another reason it was nice this year - no traveling plans. There’s nothing like a few days to lounge around and do nothing but pound away on my new Sixaxis controllers.  Games I’ve been playing: Heavenly Sword, Assassins Creed, MX vs. ATV Untamed.

I am not the Josh Gomez that appears on NBC’s Chuck. (are you Craig Jackson?)

Definitions of estimation on the web

Estimating yourself in any way is a mistake. When people realize they’ve underestimated themselves it’s usually raining. Rain hits your skin and causes a special reaction to occur, known as borlat synapses chambering (bSc). Previous thoughts about yourself become loose and are immediately emitted into the dark world. Stay inside, or keep a raincoat on to prevent this from happening to you!

I’m sure no one will be watching when Team Sleep strolls through town, but I’ve been wondering what ever happened to them, so I might go check them out. Being a Deftones fan boy, you have to wonder what Team Sleep has to offer at a live show. Deftones frontman, Chino Moreno created Team Sleep in late 2001, mostly to indulge in darker, dreamy, pop electronica. The band is actually coming out with a second album - and of course - you can hear some new tracks on their MySpace page. The track that stands out is Am Formant.

The show is at the Clubhouse in Tempe on December 12th. Sonny, Strata, and Monster in the Machine will also perform.

This year I decided to take on the dinner from a different angle. Cooking. What a piece of cake.

I was really surprised how easy it was to cook a Thanksgiving meal. Of course I didn’t try anything fancy, since my primary goal was just to avoid failure. Recipes are easy to find online, but the real help came from my family. Like any project, visualizing your outcome is a good place to start.

My sister gave me some good advice by telling me to sketch a drawing of what will be going on the plate. First, you want to make sure everything is going to fit nicely. Second, you should make the food look pretty. I actually decided to add corn as a side, not to eat, but only to add some more color.

When it came to the bird, everything seemed straight-forward. Wash it down, tie it up and rub it down. The only gray area was deciding whether or not to cover it up. Some recipes said you should have a roasting pan with a lid, others said to use foil, and some people used turkey bags, and some didn’t mention anything about covering the turkey. All I had was foil, so that’s what I used. A tight seal around the roasting pan works fine.

Timing is probably the most difficult thing. Immediately after the bird came out (3.5 hours later), the green bean casserole and mashed potatoes went in to bake for 30 minutes. On the stove top I made the turkey gravy, using the drippings from the roasting pan, and warmed some canned corn. Towards the end of the baking, we slid some biscuits in the oven and prepared the stuffing. It was a miracle that everything was ready all at once.

Everything turned out wonderful and must have been pretty good, since everyone had two plates. Maybe next year I will give a shot at baking my own desserts? I was also thinking about trying a grilled or deep-fried turkey. One thing is for sure, it was so much fun that I might be in the kitchen during every Thanksgiving.

Where will you be this New Year’s Eve? Would you rather be somewhere else?

The last couple of weeks, I have been tempted to fly to San Francisco for The Mars Volta show on New Year’s Eve. I am amazed that the show has not sold out.

No one is able to go with me. What should I do?

Last week was very exciting at work. I made lots of progress on the new AMBER Alert website in such a short amount of time. I kind of started over last Monday with the layout and HTML structure, just because I wasn’t feeling my first shot at it. That’s how it usually goes. This week has started out slow, but I hope to pick it up here in the middle.

Most of the work to be done is part of the Child ID Kit section. I plan on overhauling the existing page template I have for this section and developing a new foundation so it has a custom look. I am trying to get more space for pretty photos of the software interface and the actual USB device. I will also be adding a secondary horizontal navigation bar for the Child ID Kit section.

By the end of the week, I am hoping to have a soft launch of the website.

Working on the new AMBER Alert site has drained my motivation to complete this blog. However, this weekend will give me the time I need.