Our weekend was extremely varied and exciting! Did a lot of new stuff, and something we hadn't done in ages.

So we knew this band-with-a-cool-name, We Are Hex, was playing at The Black Sparrow (best bar in all of Lafayette, perhaps the world) on Friday, but didn't know much about them. I'd tried to listen to their samples on my phone on Wednesday or Thursday evening but it wasn't working so I didn't give it much more thought.

But during the Evil Portion™ (work) of Friday, I get this Facebook update, "Lizz is attending We Are Hex @ Black Sparrow." Well, guess I'm going too then. ;) For the next 30-45 minutes we raved back and forth in chat about how good their sound was. Heh. Their sound is a bit hard to describe, but listening to a few of their tracks, we both noticed similarities to Siouxsie and the Banshees (particularly the lead singer's voice, and some of the guitar work), and a lot of other post-punk type music. But, making comparisons like this tends to make people think you're talking about a "clone" of the similar bands, and this band is not a clone of anything; they just have some similarities. It's very good stuff. So, we had to see them live.

Because the show was 11pm-2am, we knew we'd need a little refresher nap before the show, so Friday evening sort of began with a nice relaxing nap. Nine o'clock rolled around and we woke up, and were feeling a little crowd-anxious. Sparrow isn't exactly a giant concert hall; instead it's a cozy bar. Neither of us like crowds, mainly due to past trauma/uncomfortableness (long-time readers of the blog will understand). We talked back and forth for about 30-40 minutes and finally decided "screw it!" and went.

And "Bob" are we glad we did! Excellent show! We'd heard the band is, as they say, "going places," and after seeing/hearing them live, it's easy to see why. The vocalist really knows how to put on a show, and the rest of the band is top-notch too. I just can't say enough good about this band - you need to just listen yourself. After the show, we bought a pair of their albums, one on CD, the other on vinyl.

After the show, we stumbled home, raved about the show for about 30 minutes, and collapsed into slumberland.

Saturday AM was already blocked out for heading over to Wabash Mountain Farm to start building work on the poultry plucking machine that is part of the whole chicken raising plot I've been blogging about for a while. So we got up, had our coffee and got ready and headed over. There were a total of 6 of us working on it and we got a lot done! Lizz and I did most of the preparation of the tub. Measuring and cutting, then measuring for the 50 plucking fingers that go into it, then drilling holes and installing said fingers. Another team worked on the frame for the thing and other tasks. It was a lot of fun! There are photos up on Facebook if you follow me there.

After that, it was off to Delphi to get our cow share milk for the week. On the way we stopped at the antique shop in Delphi to look around. Some curiosities we'd seen there in June were still there, and we were still wanting to acquire them, so we did! If you're lucky enough to have Lizz friended on FB, you've probably already seen the pictures. If not, oh well! :D

Then we were back home for a relaxing rest-of-Saturday.

Sunday morning was Death of Guinea Fowl™ time, and there's already a blog entry documenting that. I would like to add that having witnessed and helped with the actual conversion of a living animal into food was a very good thing for me, and something I'd been wanting to take part in for quite a while. Will be doing a lot more of it, as we're part of the Chicken Raising Cabal™. ;)

The rest of Sunday proceeded nice and fun/relaxing. We had a very interesting conversation with someone while we were out, that then sparked a longer discussion between just us later on. We were asked how we knew a certain shared friend, and then the discussion led to talking about a huge parcel of land about 50-60 miles from here that is somewhat of a shared farm/commune (sort of!), that we all knew about. The person we were talking to said that if things "got bad" that's where he'd head to hole up/survive/etc. We sort of agreed - but that ended up being what we talked about later.

Lizz said she thought it might be better to stay in our neighborhood/area, and help make sure our neighbors and such are ok, and I agreed, with the added thought that it probably would depend on what level of "got bad" occurred. Neither of us believe the true SHTF is likely the way a lot of folks do, but we do understand that smaller, more localized mini-SHTF's can happen - that and large-ish natural disasters. So we basically decided that trying to hold steady in our own area would be best, assuming it doesn't come down to The True SHTF™ Which again, neither of us believe is at all likely.

There's also the issue of attitudes of people at this land/shared space. Are they ok with self-defense? Etc? We don't know. But, we've been invited multiple times to check this thing out, so we still might. If nothing else, would just be a fun road trip, and something cool to see. /shrug!

We also went to People's Brewing Company for a pint. Always excellent beer, and usually good conversations to be had there. Ended up talking about what it's like in Hawaii (the bartender was raised there), and the differences between annoying overly-rich people and "hippies."

Capped off the night by testing out some new backend features I'd been working on for Lizz's business - both of them worked flawlessly (for the most part) and will save tons of time (as well as hand-pain and frustration) for her in the future. Made me super happy to be able to help in such a direct way.

So, was a kick-ass weekend. I also got a decent amount of time in RIFT beta, but I'll make a separate blog entry about that.