Derby Girls Final Smackdown!


we were on the oakland outlaws side
Originally uploaded by Willo.

A bunch of us headed over to Oakland (East Bay Adventure!) last Saturday for the Derby Girls Final Smackdown!

i made gabe try to look happy.... he looks blissed out.

Our awesome friend Gabe arranged a huge group dinner @ the Pacific Coast Brewing Co before hand & then insisted we sit on the Oakland side at the Smackdown “for the full East Bay experience”. ha. Super fun night!

aww, this one is so cute! love it!

Afterwards we hit Abby’s Go Go Bday party – which I only took one photo at, so see Aubrey’s photo set for those – and then got pizza. woohoo!

View all the photos from this night.

frightened birdy


frightened birdy
Originally uploaded by Willo.

My kitty, Kazoo, brought me present today. At first I just heard him back come inside through the window, but then next thing I knew there was this major rustling in the kitchen and I thought “omg, what if it’s not Kazoo & it’s some other wild animal that just came in my house?”. So I ran into the kitchen & found Kazoo on the counter with a bird in his mouth & feathers everywhere…

Click here to view the photos & read the rest of the story.

ROCKtober is upon us

It even started a little early this year, considering I just went to 5 shows in 7 days. aww yaaa, BRING IT!

To review: Unfortunately I didn’t take any photos of Emily Haines & the Soft Skeleton performing (on 9/22), only a few at Cafe du Nord & Lucky 13 afterwards, which you can find right here. The Phoenix show, the next night (9/23), ROCKED and here’s my recent blog post & link to photos about that, in case you missed it. Sunday (9/24) after Buzz & Courtney’s beach bday (blog post) I hit the Ben Kweller show with Ryan & Mario. Again, sadly didn’t take photos because my card was all used up from the day at the beach, but I’m amazed I haven’t at least blogged about it because OMG it was AWESOME!!! One of my favorite shows this year I think, only because the ‘vibe’ (if I may use that word) was soooo awesome. I was also a little drunkle so that may have helped. :p But I heart Ben Kweller SO much! That whole day was insanely fun.

This last week we had Silversun Pickups w/ Viva Voce @ the Rickshaw Stop (9/28) and it was awesome. Of course. Except for that it was sold out, no thanks to Live105, and therefore there were a bunch of tools who are new to “our band”* and it took all the patience I could muster to deal with them. I pretty much was so fed up, especially with this idiot, that I vowed to just leave after they played Kissing Families**. To which I must document: After the song was over and the ‘in the know’ portion of the crowd had just belted out the lyrics with all their might, the fools standing in front of us (or the “stripey shirts”, as Ali calls em) shrugged & said, “huh, that must be on their first album or something.” *rolls eyes* And then they played Lazy Eye, and of course I had to stay for that.

*I know, I’m a snob.
**Kissing Families = My #1 favorite song of 2005.


I heart Silversun Pickups

Viva Voce, who was one of the openers, was great also! I’ve had their CD’s for awhile, not sure who turned me onto them originally (was it you?!), but I have been looking forward to checking them out live ever since. I had heard at some point that they were “San Francisco’s best kept secret” or something, so I dunno… that’s all I needed to hear to keep them close to my heart, give em a good listen and look out for when they were playing live. Perfect that they opened for one of my favorite bands. We were up front & I really enjoyed watching the drummer. What’s up with all the long hair & beards these days? I’m having a time warp back to the 70’s.

View all the photos from this show (on Flickr).

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This last Friday night started with a FEAST!!


Korean BBQ extravaganza @ the Wooden Charcoal Barbeque House

I have had Korean BBQ before, but not like this. It was very fun & I even came away smelling like campfire – wooohoo! haha. I was invited to this dinner by my friend Kevin (photo), who was my main contact at TicketWeb (ongoing client of mine) before he bought a round the world ticket & has been traveling ever since! awesome! It was great to see him & catch up, especially considering he’s going to live in London now & work between there & Barcelona. nice! I wish you the best, Kevin, and can’t wait to come visit you on that side of the puddle.

Next up was picking up my girls Ali & Jess, and meeting up with Aubs, Jordan, Ryan, Misty and Sean for the show at Slims with Division Day, Two Seconds & Birdmonster! I’m so into all three of these bands, and they were great, as always. A fun night all around! Great to see the Birdmonster boys back in town, and fun running into Elise and Mike & Anna, too! wooo!


rock show blur fantasticness. this is when division day came up
& joined birdmonster at the end of their set. awesome!

View all the photos from Friday night.

I’ll get to Saturday night at some point in the next few days. Time for bed!

think of fear as your guide

Today I was struck by a paragraph in the book I’m reading:

“You must do everything that frightens you…Everything. I’m not talking about risking your life, but everything else. Think about fear, decide right now how you’re doing to deal with fear, because fear is going to be the great issue of your life, I promise you. Fear will be the fuel for all your success, and the root cause of all your failures, and the underlying dilemma in every story you tell yourself about yourself. And the only chance you’ll have against fear? Follow it. Steer by it. Don’t think of fear as the villain. Think of fear as your guide, your pathfinder…”

From The Tender Bar: A Memoir by J.R. Moehringer

Two other articles that struck me this week:
Making Decisions That Stick
Maintaining Your Work/Work Balance

Btw, I’m feeling SO much better. This whole week’s been really challenging and yet today it’s finally reached the part of challenging that is exciting. Hope you all had a good weekend.

p.s. Big shout out to my pal, Dan, for being so awesome!

beach birthday!


hand in the sand (with slims stamp faded from the night before)

Last Sunday a ton of us headed up to Marin for Buzz & Courtney’s Birthday Beach Party and it was so fun!

I’ve finally posted all my photos, but there’s a ton more (of course):

Courtney’s
Aubrey’s
Felix’s

At some point I will get around to posting the hilarious videos I shot, too! stay tooooned.

surrounded by beautiful women


aubs & the birthday girl: jess!
Originally uploaded by Willo.

How lucky am I to have such beautiful, loving, fun, kick ass girlfriends!? So lucky! *group hug!*

The above photo is one I snapped at Jess’s Lucky 13 birthday party a few weeks ago & finally posted on Flickr. Aren’t they adorable!? :)

Seriously though… my girlfriends have been my absolute LIFELINE lately. I’ve found that in all the stress and overwhelm *life* can bring, I find such solace & extreme (often shrilling :p) happiness when I’m amongst my kick ass girlfriends. Thank you girls! xoxo

p.s. Check out Tantek’s photos from her bday, too!

phoenix @ slims


phoenix @ slims 3
Originally uploaded by Willo.

Possibly one of my favorite shows of the year. SO GOOD! I wasn’t a huge fan of Phoenix’s first release, Alphabetical, but honestly I think it was more due to who gave it to me that I didn’t give it a fair listen. That said, their latest release, It’s Never Been Like That has quickly become one of my favorite albums of the year. Most notably, the song ‘Napolean Says’. LOVE IT!!! Seriously in my Top 5* songs of this year. #1 being Hospital Beds by Cold War Kids, in case you’re wondering.

*That is if I actually get around to posting my lists… often they just tumble around in my head.

But anyway – thing is I was really stoked to see this show, and completely prepared to wait the entire set in order to hear my favorite song. But what did they do? They played it FIRST!! ak! I screamed & turned around to Ali & exclaimed, “OMG! Premature ejaculation!” hahaa. I freaked out, and loved every minute of it. The best part though? They encored with a little sample of it, too! Double O! haha!

*le sigh, frenchies* you put on a kick ass show. xoxo

View all the photos from this show.