The Man and his Maiden

A couple of weeks ago, I had a little ditty in my head that turned out to be a catchy tune. Although it wasn't something that I would typically write as a songwriter, I though I might as well write it. Flash forward to last weekend. Hesitantly, I sung the tune to a friend and asked him if he thought it was good enough to record. His answer was an immediate yes. So my friend Travis and I began to organize the music so that it would be a complete song. We recorded the guitars, which sounded great, but only made it half way through the vocals. We literally couldn't do more because I hadn't finished the song. Honestly, I wasn't even planning on recording it that day because it was just an idea when I showed it to Travis. Luckily all it took was one week of writing and another session of recording and we have a rough cut.

The song is entitled "The Man and his Maiden." It's about a man who has it all, but needs a lady. I know that this is a far stretch from my typical Serus Victoria style songs, but I hope you all like it. To listen to it just go to the Porter Music link on the side of the page or just click here. Also, I have posted a few old songs, some new acoustic demos of past songs, and a new cut of "Little Eyes", which was also finished today. Enjoy!

Holiday Cheer Wrap-Up

It's always funny to look at the holiday season and look at all of the ways we entertain ourselves. Many of us have our traditions that we do, have particular movies that we "have to watch", or music that you have to listen to. For my family, we used to sit around and listen to Dr. Demento's Christmas Album and laugh at all of the funny songs about Christmas, drink eggnog and decorate cookies. As for Alli and I, we have some traditions of our own.

First, we literally cut our first Christmas tree down. Alli watched while I sawed. (I highly doubt this will change over the years.) This is definitely something that we'll continue over the years. The tree was still slightly fresh even when I was taking it down.

Secondly, for the fifth year in a row, we decorated the tree with white lights and silver ornaments. Ali loves it. I finally got up the nerve to explain to her that it just doesn't feel like Christmas without colored twinkly lights. Hopefully, having a kid in the house will sway the vote my way.

Third, Alli and I have things we love to watch. This year we watch...

1. The Mr. Bean Holiday Special (A Ben Tradition)
   
2. The Jeff Dunham Christmas Special (Too Funny!)
3. The Family Stone (An Alli Tradition)
4. Love Actually (An Us Tradition)
5. White Christmas (Us)
   
6. National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (Us again)
7. A Muppet's Christmas Carol (Another Ben Tradition)

I know, I know. No "It's a Wonderful Life". (Honestly, I can't stand that movie. Bleh.)

And lastly, we made our traditional turkey. (Actually they were cornish game hens) Rosemary, Italian Seasoning, Garlic Salt, Onion powder, and Extra Virgin Olive Oil all mixed up and used to cover the birds inside and out.

All in all, we had a great Christmas and New Years.

Got any of your own traditions that you just have to do during the Christmas season?

New Music

Over the break, I have had some time to record and write a little. One of the things I have challenged myself to do is to make recordings of all of the songs that we (the guys in Serus Victoria) never had the chance to get into the studio and record. So here is the first one...Shades of Color. It's definitely a love song that describes how you can love a person so much that you can't think or see straight.

I have also been able to do some work on my drop.io/portermusic site. Hopefully the changes that I have made will make it a little easier to navigate and get songs. On it you'll find new studio and demos of songs and even some of my favorite old SV songs. I'll also be posting lyrics to all of the songs that are on there (for those of you that like to know all of the words, help me make changes to lyrics, or just want to sing along :). Enjoy!

To get to the site, click here.

OCD! ARG!

A while back (I don't know when this all began...probably when I married Alli :) I began to become very meticulous about keeping things organized. First was all of the DVDs. There are "our" DVDs (all alphabetically ordered and numerically ordered by series), and my DVDs (Anime has a section all of it's own and is alphabetical, and there is a kung-fu area that is organized by actor and by release date). Then there are my comics (alphabetical and numerically ordered). And my games (All nice and neat and in their own box or case, which are usually organized by teams). Lastly, with all of this snow and major rearranging for future baby, Alli asked me, "What are all of those binders for?" They happened to be binders full of cards for a game called VS, which were already organized by set and number). And with the simple words of "Can you clean those up?", Alli created a monster. I know, I know. How can you organize them even more if they are already in binders and sets? Leave it to me to turn something easy into something completely difficult. So I proceeded to take out every card, place them in teams, by points, in alphabetical order and then put them back into the card sleeves, leaving no spaces in between to save as much space as possible. Needless to say, I now have this calm feeling just knowing that everything is now in it's right space (and changed from 8 binders to only 4 - Ha!) Here is what it all ended up looking like. I hope you're happy now, Alli.

Christmas Break Comes Early

People who live in other parts of the world, who know how to function during snow, must be laughing their heads off at us Oregonians right now. Today marks the fifth snow day in a row. In my mind, when the word snow day is said, I picture huge piles of snow. But here, all it takes is a little ice and schools close. That's all good with me. That just means that my Christmas Break officially started today. Yipee!

All I want for Christmas is...

Meat smelling body spray! That's right. Burger King has just released it's holiday scent...FLAME by BK. It's a meat scented body spray that's there for you when you think to yourself, "Hey, you know what? I really want to smell like a flame-broiled Whopper right now." (Feel free to insert your own play on words here.) I guess this is good for those men who are dating carnivores, but what about those who have vegetarian girlfriends will be out of luck. All I know is, if I can look as good as the King does in this picture when I'm his age, I won't need any meat-scented mojo-helping body spray to get my wife's attention.

Snow Days and Mixed Feelings

First of all, it's freaking cold up here. On Sunday morning, it began to dump snow on the greater Portland area and dropped down to the twenties over the last few days. Sunday was beautiful, but it came with some problems. Not only did Alli and I miss church, but we also were not able to go see My Name is Bruce on Sunday night. Bruce was even going to be there to talk about the movie. We even had tickets. ARG! Darn you, snow! But shortly after being disappointed with the missing of the movie, I was soon overjoyed to find out the Monday, and also Tuesday, School was canceled. Early spring break! Sweet. The only real problems is that it's still stinking cold. Brrrrr.

Things Sinking In

It's an odd thing to go into a doctor's office and finally get introduced to your child.  Sure, you get to see them in that initial ultrasound, but at that point in time the baby only looks like a little blob.  But when you actually see a little person in there, you can't help but be amazed.  Then there is that moment of shock where your brain actually snaps back into reality and you realize that the little, squirming baby on the screen will be here soon.  That's what this week has been like for me.  I think this is probably how it is for all men.  Since we can't feel the baby moving in the first half of our wife's pregnancy, it's all very abstract and out there.  Also, when you don't know the sex of the baby, the child is in the strange phase of being an it.  

Now "it" has been changed to "he" and everything is sinking in.  We can begin to settle on a name for him.  We can plan what his room will look like.  And now we don't have to take boy and girl hand-me-downs and wait to see what we're going to have.  It's also cool knowing that the family name will be passed down to yet another generation of Porter men.  Sure, life will change because he'll be in our lives, but at this point in time I really can't think of anything more awesome than what life will be like with him in our lives.  To say I'm excited would be an understatement.

Three words...

IT"S A BOY!!!

To see pics, click here.

Fresno Trip: Part Two

So to keep things fresh and fast, here are some pics with four word captions of what happened in Fresno after my grandfathers memorial service. All in all, it was really tiring, fun, and fast.

Mimi got engaged...

I toasted to them...

Met Jamie's dog, Lucy....

Hung with Jamie's kids...

Held Abi and Ethan...

Saw the Rojeski Family.

12:45 A.M. Scott, tacos, doughnuts...

Saw JT, Ash, & Quinn...

and Edo-ya with friends.