Hanson is mentioned in 6 posts, which ranks #73 overall for things. It is most often associated with these...

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Holy hell the Vespa is fixed. It only took 6 months, but they were finally able to find the problem. It actually took me losing my temper to get the job done. But I'm not sure I'm taking that as a life lesson. I was exceedingly patient throughout the entire process, and while it didn't necessarily shoot me to the top of their to-do list, it definitely ended up with them liking me. So now I feel like if I needed something I could just call them up because I know them now. They ended up finding a leak in the engine so they took the whole thing apart. And while they were in there they found the oil shaft was not properly tightened down and was just floating around, occasionally floating in the way of the gear shifter which explained another leak and the difficulty changing gears.

Now that it's all fixed, I'm a much better driver. Not only was the bike keeping me from doing things correctly, but it kept me from thinking I could do things correctly. It's amazing what a little confidence will do for you. Now that it works I can shift smoothly and seamlessly and accelerate like a normal person. Some of it wasn't my fault and that feels really good. I rode to work all 5 days last week. The weather has just been made for motoring. I think I might take a nice long ride today, too.

In other news we did The Walk with Hanson. One mile barefoot across the SMU campus. It was to raise awareness of the plight of people in developing nations who truly cannot afford shoes. And let me tell you this -- walking barefoot sucks. I mostly hung back and just participated in the walk but Lindsey was determined not to let this opportunity slip through her fingers. So she went about meeting each of the brothers. Zac is her favorite and she's been wanting to meet him her entire life so when the chance to sidle of next him arrived, she took it. And what she meant to say was, "Oh gosh, I've wanted to meet you since I was eleven." What came out of her mouth was, "Seven oh gosh." To which he replied, "Seven oh gosh?" and Lindsey, realizing she'd just gone over a precipice just said, "Yup." and Zac jogged ahead a little bit.

So not exactly what she'd envisioned but it didn't matter because she met all 3 of them and then we went to their concert at the House of Blues and they rocked. So mission accomplished. Another reason we walked barefoot to see how bad it is is to encourage people to do something about it. I've talked about them before but TOMS Shoes gives one pair of shoes to a kid in a poor nation for every pair that you buy. And they're pretty stylish. And I finally bought a pair -- the green madras ones. Very cool. They're not high quality shoes, obviously, but they're cool and comfortable, and make you feel smug. So check em out.

There's a new commercial that's flooded all of my favorite channels for the Teeter Hang Ups Inversion System. It's basically this pivoting table that you strap your ankles in and then lean back and hang upside down. I used to use one in my yoga class in college and always loved the way it made my back feel. So I went to the Teeter website. $400. Give me a fucking break. I was relaying this story to a coworker as we walked around Wal-Mart on a lunch break and decided to go look and see if they had an inversion tables. And they did! Gold's Gym brand for about a 4th of the cost. So I bought it.

It took like 4 hours to put together. And it comes with a chain so that you can limit the angle that you can fall back to. The manual suggested limiting it to around 15° to start out with until your body gradually gets used to being inverted. But I was like fuck that I wanna go all the way. So no chain. I got on, threw my arms back, passed the pivot point of balance and flipped in one swift motion 180° until i hit the cross support bar and then hung there unable to get up. I was terrified, laughing hysterically, and fighting the rush of blood to my head all at once. I screamed to Daniel and he came and rescued me. Only to decide he wanted to try it himself and suffered the same fate.

But now I'm gradually lengthening the chain and I really like what it does. It just feels so good. I wish the ankle supports were more comfortable though because that's what really limits the amount of time I can spend in it. My feet go numb and my ankles hurt. I may come up with my own solution. More expensive models have boots you wear and I can probably make some.

Oh, in other news, the Allistralian and her fiancee Dom are keeping a travel blog of their 13 month trip around the world. And they asked me to set up their blog for them since mine is so kick ass. And I didn't want to tell you all about it until it was done ... and I'm not sure it is ... but it's close enough. So go check out whileyouwereworking.com.

Today we're going on The Walk with Hanson and then to the concert tonight. We might get to meet em. Mmmbop!

On Tuesday night, Daniel, Lindsey, Lauren, Hunter and I all went to see Hanson at the House of Blues. Lindsey and Lauren were the kind of mall rat uberfans that made MMMBop a hit. I would claim that status except they were 9 when the song came out and I was in high school. Nonetheless, this was, in fact, my second Hanson concert because I went to see them once with Ashlee in high school. The show was incredible, of course. All of them are very accomplished musicians. They each took a turn on guitar, did some acoustic, and some acapella. Definitely worth seeing.

They also encouraged everyone to buy a pair of Tom's shoes. I looked them up on the internet and it seemed like a good enough cause that I would mention it here. If you go to tomsshoes.com you can read up on it for yourself, but the short story is that every pair of shoes you buy, they donate a pair to a kid in Africa. Now normally I don't fuck with Africa cause people there are starvin' and that ain't baller, but these shoes are also kind of cool. I think I'm going to order the pair of gray and black striped ones. Lindsey said that if you order a pair before Hanson's Walk Tour is over, you can just put "hanson" in the shipping info and it's free, or something like that. And the tour should be one for a while longer.

It's been pushed back a little bit because apparently Isaac Hanson had some kind of heart trouble immediately following the show and they rushed him to Baylor Medical for emergency surgery. I guess he's okay but it meant that they had to stay here a few extra days and cancel their Tulsa show. Lindsey wanted to go outside the hospital with posterboard and glow sticks and scream (and probably did, we haven't heard from her in a while) but ultimately we decided that might be in poor taste.

So, okay, buy some shoes, they're cool and it's nice and remember: Ahfon oopinda bee ting chesch ahfon oopinda ayesconsee.