raising heller

recently, while we were in soCal for a visit, our good friend ruth schultz posed a question that was to suck up a few hours of my life. “what influential band would you erase from history, knowing that not only was that band gone, but any bands that would spawn from their influence?” genius. too many times have we played the “what are your top 5 bands of all time” game, this was much more diabolical. from this, i’ve seen friend turn on friend. yesterday, this same question was brought back up via twitter and a few friends got involved. what resulted was an interesting twitter thread that i’ve recreated for you. i had to reverse each and every post from bottom to top to make it readable (as twitter has the newest posts at the top, like an email) which took a while, but was worth it.

a few things to know:

if you’ve never twittered before 1) start and 2) you’ll see posts that include @stevelucky or @notBrit. the symbol @ followed by a username denotes that that post is directed toward that user.

you’ll see a few links in the posts. unfortunately, i’m unable to make them active links. if you really want to check them out, you’ll have to type them yourself.

since a twitter post is limited to 140 characters, you’ll find a few abbreviations (mostly band names). those abbreviations are as follows:

SY = Sonic Youth
RHCP = Red Hot Chili Peppers
NY Dolls = New York Dolls
GBV = Guided by Voices
YHF = Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (a Wilco album)
VW = Vampire Weekend
DMB = Dave Matthews Band
BSP = British Sea Power
PJ = Pearl Jam

The people involved in the conversation (in order of appearance):

@stevelucky = steven heller
@notBrit = ethan smith
@jaydmcferson = jayd mcferson
@JaredCovington = jared covington
@NathanUsher = nathan usher

with all that being said, click the link below to read the entire conversation. it’s a 640k .png that’s a little over 9000 pixels high. have fun.

and while you’re at it, sound off below as to the influential band that you’d erase from history. the more inflammatory, the better!

Read more…

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So, our good friend Kim Dee is organizing a beach party with the Hellers Monday July 13th in Huntington Beach. Everybody is invited. Please go to the following facebook link for details and RSVP. BE THERE!

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=114542999896

Here are details from the facebook post for those of you not yet on the facebook wagon.

“Jana & Steve are coming to town and want to see everyone’s face at once. Bring your family and dinner and we’ll have s’mores for dessert. There is free parking by Jack in the Box (I’m not sure how available it will be) or you can just pay and head back towards Warner. We’ll get the closest pit to the free parking we can. I hope you all can come!”

Whether you’re able to RSVP on facebook or not, we’d love to see you out there.

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this has been one of the most all-american 4th of july’s we’ve had together as a family (and we’re not even done yet!). let me give you a run-down of our activities thus far.

we started off with a hike with some friends through cougar mountain. we hiked a couple of miles and the kids were pretty good about it. asher wasn’t too stoked to walk so we ended up carrying him for quite a bit of it. below is the partial map of our walk. i use an app on my iphone called runkeeper that fully maps out walks and runs and the like. it’s actually pretty rad. it will show you the route you took as well as your speed throughout the activity. it even maps out your elevation changes. i forgot to start the app until about 1/2 mile into our hike so it’s incomplete and at one point it shows our speed at around 900mph which i think is a little off.

following the hike we headed over to a neighborhood 4th of july party. it was seriously taken straight from a norman rockwell painting. there were gunny sack races and beanbag tossing and face painting… it was awesome. couple that with the fact that there was free lunch and i was SOLD! unfortunately, most of the pictures didn’t turn out as i had the ISO on my camera set way high and they turned out really grainy. there are the few i got that turned out okay.

all in all, it was a pretty great day. well, it’s not even over yet, but i don’t know what we’re doing this evening. if it’s noteworthy, i’ll post an update.

P.S. – here’s a pano of the park where we had lunch.

P.P.S. – we ended up going to the muckleshoot indian reservation or, “the res” as they call it, to watch a bunch of maniacs light fireworks. seriously, they were all crazy. here’s a pano of the scene, straight out of apocalypse now.

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so, a couple weeks ago i dropped and broke my iPhone 3G. it was heartbreaking to say the least. i decided to wait a couple of weeks until the new iPhone 3G S was released and upgraded to it. in many ways it’s the same phone, but it’s actually quite a bit faster and now it does video recording. i posted a test video to vimeo. check it out below.

iPhone 3G S test video from stevelucky on Vimeo.

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so, i had a crazy dream last night that i think bears sharing. i rarely remember my dreams and when i do they’re usually nothing special.

for this particular dream i was at some big park with a bunch of my family. it almost seemed like we were having a family reunion or something. the park was huge and they’re were all sorts of people just wandering around. i was on the other side of the park away from my family when i happened to see somebody that looked familiar. as i looked closer, i realized it was britney spears. for some reason i really wanted to talk to her so i approached her and just started chatting her up. she was being accosted by a bunch of people so i just played it cool. i didn’t want to fawn all over her or anything. i think she realized that i was the only normal one there so she kept talking to me. we talked off and on for a while before i decided that as much as i wanted to talk to her, dealing with the huge crown of people that was gathering wasn’t worth it, so i decided to head back to my family. when i got back to where everyone was gathered under a large awning, i noticed that most everybody was crying. i thought that somebody must be moving or going on a mission or something and everybody was just sad. that’s when i noticed that somebody was on top of my father giving him CPR. i realized that my dad was dying and i could tell that he wasn’t going to be around much longer. i pushed the person out of the way and tried to save him. he looked me in the eyes and all i could think of is that i should have been there for him.

so, what does this all mean? i’m not usually one to ascribe meaning to my dreams, but as soon as i woke up from this one, i think i know exactly what it meant. how much time do i burn in the pursuit of worthless goals? how much time do i spend away from my family in the name of mindless entertainment? how about you?

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so, a comedian just recently came out with a list of all the things he doesn’t need to do before he dies. an anti-bucket list of sorts (i won’t tell you what he called it, but it rhymes with “bucket”). so i started thinking about all the things that i have no desire to do. admittedly, i may end up doing some of the things on this list, but i really feel no obligation to do any of them. while this list may get revised/added to, here’s a start:

• write a letter to all those that i’ve offended
• learn to sculpt
• memorize the periodic table
• build a house with my own two hands
• own a chimp
• run a marathon
• live on a farm
• go skydiving
• learn how to change the oil in my car
• watch pride and prejudice
• learn a second language
• travel to all 50 states

i know there’s some more stuff that should go on this list but this is all i can think of right now. try creating your own “anti-bucket” list.

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here are just a few more pictures from the waterworks gardens outing…

p.s. – much thanks to ruth for the photoshop help.

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i know that jana has already posted her valentines day wrap up, but i thought i’d throw mine in as well (read hers first below, for reference). it was cool to be able to go on a walk as a family. it seems like with work and school and all of the different things that we have going on in our household, that we don’t have much time to just have FUN together. the renton waterworks gardens were pretty cool (though i bet it would be a little nicer in the summer) but, more than anything, it was just nice to get out of the house. the kids were able to run around and not worry about being too loud.

to jana: you’re by far the hardest working member of this family. i can’t even begin to fathom how you do all the things you do. my life would be a WRECK without you in it. you’re the bestest! I LOVE YOU!!!

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so, it’s Christmas and i have to say that i’m just a little bummed. the day started off great. the kids had a good time (they were crazy, but what can you expect), they got to open presents, ate candy and even found time to take a little nap. things were great. then came dinner.

jana prepared this great meat for french dips and went out and got some great french dip rolls and everything. it smelled gooooood. she made some yams for the side as well. here’s where our story really starts. i’m not a yam or sweet potato guy (they’re pretty much the same thing, right?). i’ve never even had them. i’m not sure what is is. it may be the texture, the color… i don’t know. well, jana worked hard on this meal and the kids already told her that they weren’t going to be eating anything as they had stomach aches (that’s their code for, “we don’t feel like eating as we’re trying to scam candy wherever we can”). i didn’t want the yams to go uneaten so, being the nice husband that i am i thought i would try some just to be nice. i sniffed around them a bit and decided that they didn’t smell too bad. here we go…

CRAP. these things are awesome. as soon as the first bite hit my stomach, i was also hit by the realization that i’ve had 32 years of a yam-less life. i could have been eating these things for 32 years. that’s 32 Christmases and thanksgivings and whatever holiday that someone decides to make them. i’ve seen them with melted marshmallows on top. that’s got to be awesome, right? i can’t wait to try those. on one hand, i get to have these experiences for the first time, on the other, i’ve lived my whole life without them. would i have been better off never to have tried them and gone to the grave ignorant? i’ll never know. but i’ll tell you what i do know. i’m going to get some more yams.

p.s. – it serves to note that jana used my mom’s recipe. this is significant because, 1. my mom deserves some credit and 2. this isn’t some new recipe that i just had the opportunity to eat. i could have been having this same recipe my whole life. crap.

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so, i came across a site listing out the worst band names of 2008. i’m not sure where they found these names, though i’m guessing myspace was a big help. i’ll give you a few:

under the “METAL (OR METAL-SOUNDING)” category
My Son My Executioner
Circle Of Dead Children
Distorted Impalement

under the “EMO” category
The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart
Blessed By A Broken Heart
Heart-Set Self-Destruct

under the “HEY, WE SMOKE POT!” category
Cannibis Corpse
Rosetta Stoned
Post Mortem Bong Hit

these are just a few in a VERY long list. you’d be amazed at how many horrible band names there are out there. then again, maybe you wouldn’t. for your enjoyment: 2008: The Year In Band Names.

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