Blog 2.1: Blogmouth Strikes Again

The roaches scatter.

Hello internet; it's been 332 days (478,080 minutes) since my last post. Oh, I know that's a bit longer than usual but I've been busy, very busy.

First off, what's changed since I was here last? (Not the decor, that's for sure.)

Well, when we last "spoke" I was a construction worker and, from what I read about myself, an unhappy one. Well that's one thing that's not the same. Last April I got a job at a fantastic little company that sells commercial doors, frames and hardware. I'm sure you're gasping in excitement, don't inhale bugs. I've been here for 7 months and I'm actually getting fairly frequent raises, promotions and bonuses. I've even been sent on a few trans-state business trips! It's the best company I've ever worked for, they really invest in and care about the employees and treat them as family the best they can. Unless I kill someone or burn the building down (or just slack off blogging too much....ehh...hm) I think I can probably stay at this company and make decent money for as long as I want/need to. I also work with my best friend Jacob (he referred me to the company) and I get salary, an hour lunch and I don't start work till 8am, a definite improvement over the 6am from construction. And, yes, that is my "Office Space Red" Swingline.

Next up, as you know from the past posts I've met the girl of my dreams and we're still very much in love, however now our love has a government stamp of approval! We got married! One month and one day ago to be exact, we've now got our own house, some stuff to put in it and some plants in the yard. Someday I'll post some pictures of the wedding, once I get around to scanning them, but I'll tell you this much: it was the best and most beautiful wedding that's ever happened ever and I've got the best wife there ever was. And that's a fact, with science! Anyway, I'm 150% happier now than I was a year ago and certainly much happier than I was when this blog started. So much good stuff has happened to us this year and it seems to keep getting gooder. Sorry, "more gooder".The only thing that's going to tip the scales on total happiness is coming to a Koeppen Family soon, very soon. In fact, as I count it it's about 9 weeks away.

Jenny and I are going to have a baby! We got preggers in (probably) May or early June and we're expecting our daughter Sophia Marie in the next 2 months. It's going to be one hell of a 2007. More and more on that later however as the feelings and thoughts on becoming a father and husband would take way to long to sneak into a blog while I technically supposed to be working. I'll just say that it's awesome, it's awesome SO hard.

In summation, now that life is good and I spend my whole damn day in front of a computer screen I decided I missed blogging. So, I can't promise there will be content every day, just as you can't promise that anyone will actually read the content I post, but I'll make the effort to keep the icy void of the internet up to date.

Until next time, and it's good to be back.

Blog 155: It's The End Of The Blog As We Know It And I Feel Fine

Looking back on the last year of my life as retold by this blog, I see the gentle bell curve of emotion swirling like an undercurrent of whispering dandelions in a fresh meadow of wild herbs. Ok, we all know that's a lie, and a confusingly ill-conceived one at that. Last year was a veritable crotch-kick to the nuts of my inner being and I'm glad I got to inflict it all upon you. The reason for this post, and it's fore-shadowing title, is this: This blog has acted as a support system for me in my times of doubt, poverty, loneliness and poor hygiene. Now that I've eradicated about 75% of those factors (still poor, but now with showers) I thus deem my crutch to be placebo at this point. With the full time job, the full time girl and many other tiny things eating up my time like a kind of time-eating bacteria I can't bring myself to babble about the inane things I do every day that not even I find interesting.

Things I do want to do:

See my Jenny
Have a beer with my friends
Take a shower
Go to the beach
Play in a band
Start writing again
Find out where that smell is coming from
Plus many more

Things I don't want to do:

Post it to the blog.

Since readership is down, as is my determination to make this a legend in internet
history, I've decided that if I ever have anything really interesting to say I'll just post it to my Myspace blog like all the other sexless teenage home-bodies. I have more control over who reads it there since I have direct nagging access to most of my friends right on their page. So, that will be all I suppose.

Thank you all for reading and making me feel important this past year. I don't take it lightly. May we all meet again some day in a cyber-sex chat room or something.

The blog is closed: You don't have to go to your home page, but you can't surf here.

-Justin "Puffmagic" Koeppen

P.S. Oh yeah, HERE is the link to my Myspace blog. Forgot about that...

Blog 154: Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Blog

Current Mood: sick as the hair of the dog that bit me. In other words I have a chest cold that sucks so bad it's condensed all the stuff in my room into a singularity.

I am home from work today, Jenny is here with me. We share in our misery, and now we'd like to share it with you. So come over here and let us cough on you.

Yes, the U2 concert was last night, and we'll get to that in a second. First I'd like to bitch, as I haven't had the chance to do so in quite some time. So, go go gadget RANT!

Last night after the show, we were both feeling rather shitty with colds and we left the arena got in the car and began the 40 minute glacial crawl out of the parking garage. Compounding the ill feelings of the sickness were the jack asses who would play the manifest detiny card and shove their vehicle into whatever 2ft gap there was between other cars and then look shocked when the other cars honked and threatened death. That and the sweet, open freeway was only 100 or so feet away and I could feel the freedom in my loins. I mean, ok yeah.. loins. Once we got onto it we were through Portland in no time, all the other traffic must have been going to Starbucks or something, and everything was fine until we reached the Vista Ridge Tunnel and Stella began to hack and wheeze as if mimmicking our malaise. We climbed the hill for about a mile before she finally breathed her last and died. At first I thought my transmission was shot due to the noises the car was makeing so after a few minutes of staring into space in a stress induced coma I called a tow truck. Mind you this is around 11:45pm. 411 hooked me up to no less than 5 different tow companies before I got one that actually answered the phone. Point of Interest: Don't use "All About Towing" if it's late at night. They were the only other company that answered and I get the feeling the guy was dead asleep when I called. He sleepily said, "We've had a long day, could you maybe call someone else?" That was the last thing he said before I jumped through the phone and killed him to death. Anyway, I got ahold of a truck, they dispatched, then after an hour of sitting in the ever colder night huddled up to Jenny they called back to say that one of their trucks got hit my another truck and that my truck had to go get that truck so it'd be another 30-45 minutes. Well, after another solid hour with no truck, both of us shaking from cold and cold, an Incident Response truck showed up and told me that we were parked by one of thier traffic cameras and they thought, since we hadn't moved in 2 hours, that they should go see if we were dead or something. Well, to make a long story a little less long, I ran out of gas, though my mileage calculations said that I had at least 60 more miles on that tank. Go figure. Anyway, he gave me gas and I was on my way, no thanks to whatever tow company it was.

So to sum up:

Good: It was only gas and not a major problem thus saving me mechanic fees and towing fees.
We didn't die.

Bad: Well, it just kept sucking.




Ok, onto the U2 show. Here's the official set list:

City of Blinding Lights
Vertigo
Elevation
I Will Follow
Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For
In A Little While... kinda (mostly sung over the last few chords previous song.)
Beautiful Day
Origin of the Species
Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own
Love + Peace or Else
Sunday Bloody Sunday
Bullet the Blue Sky
Miss Sarajevo (a high point)
Pride
Where the Streets Have No Name
One
Help (Beatles)
Instant Karma (Lennon)
-Intermission-
Until The End of the World
Mysterious Ways
With of Without You
-Intermission-
Yaweh
"40"

All totalled, about 2 hours and 15 minutes of rocking.
Our seats were in the 3rd balcony, about half way up on a 45 dagree andgle to the stage, from here we could see everything that was happening on the stage but not really much detail from the band, plus the height caused the sound to kind of echo and bounce around so sometimes it was a bit difficult to hear. But I didn't care.
Kanye West was the opener, I know it's odd, and while I wasn't really interested in it at least he was energetic.
I could go into every track and give my review of it but that's more time and energy than I have so I'll just give my thoughts on the show as a whole.

You could definetly tell that it was the last show of the tour, in good and bad ways. Bono's voice was going but it didn't stop him for a second, he still jumped around and wailed as usual. Their energy was high and the stage was awesome. They played a few songs I wasn't expecting, Bono singing Luciano Pavarotti's part in Miss Sarajevo was awesome, he hadn't lost all of his voice it would seem. During Mysterious Ways he'd come out dressed a bit like Micheal Jackson with a marching band type coat and what looked like a police officer's cap and brought two exstatic girls onstage to move with him him mysterious ways. They hugged him for like 5 minutes after the song.
The ended with 40 in the way they usually do, the song carries on and the audience sings the chorus as each band member slowly leaves stage one by one.
All in all, I give the whole show a B+. I would have liked to have seen someone other than Kanye West open and to have been a bit closer to the stage, but all in all I had a great time and I hope to see them again someday. If I think of anything else I need to say about it I'll post it later, right now I'm going to go die in a corner.

Blog 153: When A Problem Comes Along, You Must Blog It.... Blog It Good.

Many tidings of Yule! It's 2 weeks till Christmas and you know what that means? That in 14 days it will be Christmas! That's RIGHT!

I've just returned from a relaxing, enjoyable and kitchy weekend at the beach with my one and only Jenny. She picked out the place and at first I was a bit overwhelmed by the level of Scandinavian Sailor garb adorning every square inch of the cabin, most of it from a time before... time. I learned to make the best of it after Jenny beat me bloody with a sextant. I've learned to be more optimistic through training. She's a brutal good teacher. It actually was very cozy and endearing, though there was one old painting that pictured what appeared to be Rosie O'Donnell handing a flower to Jimmy Page.

After the ensuing scandal we actually got to have a really nice weekend eating ethnic coastal food while wandering amongst the sand and labradors. There was romantic romance, relaxing relaxation and traveling travel. We ate a dessert called Almond Joy Pie at the hip, seaviewing joint Kyllos which I believe contained Crack or Speed or X or something, cause both Jenny and I traveled back the the cabin in a daze of pure deliciousness. Good weekend.

By the way, my need for a suitable gift for Jenny has just been upgraded to "dire" as I've already found out my present and the sheer scope if it's awesomity is horrifying.

Supergirl got 2 tickets to see U2 on the 19th, a show that's been sold out since last spring!

Do you hear me? U-my-favorite-band-since-I-was-10-years-old-2!!!

How the hell am I supposed to compete with that!?

Blog 152: She Blogs Hard For The Money

...so you better treat her right. With pudding.

Yes, I know, it's been 10 days since I've posted, nothing's happened! WHAT?!

Well, regardless, if I, in fact, have any readers left I'd like to speak to them now regarding life, money, women and sexy cars.

Life = good. Meaning that, while I may not have achieved enlightenment or obscene wealth, at least I'm not being interviewed by Bill O'Reilly or housing any known parasites in my bowels. So.. bonus points there.

Money = Money? WHAT MONEY!? So yeah, it's lean. Cue the moths fluttering out of the wallet. In fact, I had to call my landlord today to tell her not to deposit my rent check because there's no money actually backing it. Luckily she was fine with holding off till the weekend so I don't have catastrophic money faliure. But that still means that I'm broke broke broke. Oh well, they print more money every day so I'm sure I'll get some of it eventually.

Women = Better than ever. In fact that's one of the contributing factors as to why you've gone so long with out your fix of me. Since Jenny lives down the street from me we haven't spent a single night apart since she moved in, meaning that instead of sitting at my computer bored and alone I'm now kicking it with my fly honey. So sorry, I love my blog but it's a small price to pay for the love of a good woman.

Sexy cars = Stella. Yes my Stella, whom you may recall has been disabled in a most unfortunate way for the last, I dunno, one hundred years, will be fixed - YES FIXED - tomorrow afternoon at the earliest and there will be a glorious reuniting involving no less than four trained elephants and probably a brief appearance by the Olsen Twins.
God will also be there.

So, to summarize: 3 out of 4 ain't bad.

Now a survey. When the first gift you give a girl is a personalized 4 disc set of love songs organized by season and clothed in custom artwork that you designed, and was regarded by her as one of the best gifts ever, what the hell do you get her for Christmas?! I think I may have screwed myself by setting the gift bar really high, but she says she doesn't care what she gets. In fact she's pulled the classic "you don't have to give me anything but your love" routine, which we all know is hogwash, cause wether it's true or not I'd still look like a power tool if I just didn't get her anything.

Am I over thinking?

Blog 151: The Curiously Strong Blog!

hwuufff! That's the sound I just made as I dunked my pasty ass into my chair to blog to you. Over the course of the last 48 hours I've eaten roughly 13 pounds of food. You think I'm exaggerating. I am. I didn't weigh myself pre and post food. But it felt like a lot. One full dinner of warm-up snacks, main courses and dessert trays followed by 4 cups of coffe and a liter of soda, then no more than 3 hours later I did it all again. That's two full Thanksgiving meals in one day. I'd feel ashamed if I wasn't living in America, where calories are king.

I'm about to begin day 3 of the 4 day ass-sit-a-thon and with each passing moment I lament that I have to go back to work on Monday. But such things must be, for I am broke and I need all the $ I can get. And if that means selling my body on the street or to science then so be it. Daddy needs scratch for Stella and she ain't gonna fix herself. But if she did it would really show some innitiative and she might actually get ahead in this company.

Not likely.

That's a cashew in my nose by the way.

Blog 150: It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Blog

Happy Turkey Murder Day! I give thanks for that.

It's almost 10am now and I'm delighted to report that I've just been asleep. And that I don't have to work for the next 4 days. It's almost fantastic!

Also, t'was blind but now I CAN SEE! I CAN SEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!! That's right, I DON'T have an ulcer on my cornea and I DON'T have to wear excema inducing glasses and I DON'T have a weasel running around in my walls! It's actually pretty amazing how much a simple prescription update can improve your life, I can see leaves on trees, street signs and oncoming headlights! Yay!

Jenny is all totally moved in but most of the stuff is still in boxes cause we're just NOT that into unpacking. But thanks to Alex and I she has a couch in her apartment, no thanks to the couch or apartments themselves, which as it turns out where both designed to fit so horribly within eachother that only a circus elephant and a dog sled team could get it around the corner, up the stairs, over the bannister, under the door, past the light fixture, around the other corner, under the other door, past the kitchen and into the living room. But we did it without the help of animals.

This is going nowhere and I need to get ready to eat food and get doped up in tryptophan. Eat well everyone!