I've got a bike

...and I've been riding it this week in an effort to be more active. I rode 8 miles on Monday and 11 miles today! With my new job working nights I have some good daylight hours to work out before I have to go in. This is particularly good because I get much better results exercising in the day. I'm just more energized when the sun is up! I'd love to loose 40lbs in about 4 months, like I did several years ago... the last time I've had this kind of motivation.

3/3/2008:
OMG, I've gotten results already! On Saturday I discovered I can fit into my old 34" shorts and pants. It's been about 2 years since I've been able to do that :)

Sunrise Ski/Snowboard Weekend!

Hey friends, I'd like to plan a ski trip for a weekend coming up this month. Either the weekend of the 19th and 20th or 26th and 27th, depending on when works best for those of you interested. We would leave early, early, Saturday morning and drive to Sunrise, ski and board all day, stay at a hotel that night, ski again on Sunday, and drive back home that evening. The drive to the mountain is about 4-5 hours depending on traffic, weather, and road conditions. For those who need to rent gear you can rent it here or at the mountain. I'd recommend just renting at the mountain so there's less gear to haul. I've got my own skis of coarse ;) We are due for some storms soon so hopefully we'll have some great snow to enjoy!

So if anyone wants to join me please let me know so I can make hotel reservations. Might also consider renting a van if we get enough riders together. Let's do this!

Go Skiing Monday!

Hey Amigos,

Arizona Snowbowl is now open and has a 34" base. They've received 71" of snow so far this season! I'm headed up to ski for the day on Monday, since I'll have the day off. I'm also considering skiing Sunday if anyone wants to go with me that has to work Monday. My parents house in Prescott Valley is an option for crashing overnight and is much closer to the mountain than Tempe.

Who wants to go make some turns?

Vibration

I wrote this blurb today in a post I made for the upcoming event...

Vibrating in a sea of consciousness, we dance in order to explore.
Going beyond the waking world we discover new possibilities within ourselves.
To keep this discovery a secret would be a shame.
So we activate those with the courage to take the plunge.

Emergence review Part 3

Apparently I missed Professor X and Moksha Mind as I continued to get some much needed rest. My only regret of the experience was that I didn’t wake up in time for sunrise. But I did get up shortly thereafter and got to hear and dance to the majority of Cruz-Ae’s awesome set! This master of the CDJ skillfully selected tracks that kept the people dancing until 9am. This man sure knows his music and it was a pleasure that synchronicity brought him to our desert for a few hours of sweet trance! Another good connection was made and we plan to fly out Cruz for a future event.

Shortly after 9am the psytrance ended and the psychill began as Moksha Mind once again took the helm. This guy sure can mix. He doesn’t even need to be behind his laptop. He must do it with the power of his Moksha Mind! Seriously though, Rob delivered the right mix of chill-out tunes to unwind the remaining Trance Troopers.

Cleanup and teardown began sometime around noon. Many hands make light work! Thanks to everyone who stayed until the end and made it much easier to leave the space cleaner than we found it. The turnout for Emergence was one of the best that we’ve had in terms of quality and quantity. With support like this I’m really looking forward to see what manifests in the next seven Circuits of Consciousness events!

Namaste!
Tim Cat

Future Circuit events:
Circuit II: Mobilization - 11.25.06
Circuit III: Duality - February 2007

Emergence Review Part 2

Site preparation and the setup of the gear went well. The Overmind Works desert party machine is in fine operating condition. It seems to get easier every time we do it. But this wouldn't be so without all the great help we get from Arizona's Trance Troopers! Many thanks go out to Jack M, Chris, SunRa, and Z for arriving before sunset and helping with the setup, particularly the deco. That little grove was transformed into a Psychedelic Oasis! The final tapestries were hung just before the last of the daylight faded away. Hahn had arrived by this time and he started the sound check. Unfortunately we weren't up and running for sunset, but High Priest Dionysos Pan Eros went on shortly after and blessed us with some dubby goodness. This Journeyman Audio Navigator has come a long way in the last couple months! I'm very happy the Overmind has someone to fill the downtempo void that was created when Dr. Bones left Arizona. D.P. Eros has a great music collection and it's really nice to start hearing more of it. More people started to trickle in during his set and by 9pm there was already a serious party happening.

At one point I started to walk towards the road to watch the entrance for incoming trancers and what do you know, in drives Jacaranda, just in time for his set. The man delivered a progressive set that was just perfect for the time slot. A lot more people were arriving and getting down to Jack's mix of smooth and stylish choons. Ravyn played next and went right into the full on Psytrance! The crowd grew some more during his set and much stomping was done by myself and my fellow Omies. Ravyn's mixing and track selection were tight and a welcome part of the Overmind stage. His set reminded me of the days when Jay Eric was here to torment our brains and make us kick up dirt! During these sets I had the opportunity to meet several veteran trancers for which Emergence was their first Overmind event. Bj and Steph, it was so great meeting you two! Enoch and friends, you peeps are awesome! Our community continues to get stronger with every event. I feel this party will prove to be a catalyst for the expansion of the PsyTrance scene in Arizona. I’m hoping another production company or two will emerge from the connections made Saturday night.

Hahn the Barbarian followed Ravyn. A lot of the details from this time are not exactly clear to me. But I do remember that Hahn continued the Full On assault left to him by Ravyn for a couple tracks then got progressively darker with every track. About an hour into Hahn’s set I had to finally throw in the towel and head to the cargo van for a couple hours of sleep. I was awakened in a panic on more than one instance when the Barbarian laid down some sick and twisted, dark and evil, nightmare trance. It was awesome!

Emergence Review Part 1

After getting a proper 8 hours sleep it's time to write down my thoughts about Emergence last weekend. What a fantastic psytrance party it was! My account of the experience begins Friday night as Micah and I went out to the desert to scope out the location one last time before bringing out all the gear. All the roads were in great condition, the sky was cloudless, and the air was cool. Saturday night promised to have equally as good of weather. We checked out the "windmill spot" and found exactly what we were hoping for. No campers at that site nor anyone at another site within earshot of the sound system. Quite a bit of grass had grown over the whole site and it appears no one had camped there in quite a while. There weren't too many shot up appliances around and very few shotgun shells were on the ground. The area would need a little work, but site cleanup and preparation ended up being very easy. We then headed for our backup location to check it out. Again, no sight of campers anywhere. This camp site I've dubbed "Dos Saguaros" and will definitely be used for a future Circuits of Consciousness event. We then headed home with a glowing feeling about the following nights party. We arrived back at Overmind HQ to finish loading all the gear into the van. With the van loaded and locked it was time to get a few hours sleep before heading back in the morning.

I woke up around 8am and proceeded to send out directions. I loaded my personal stuff into Micah's truck since I would be driving the already packed cargo van. We then headed around the block to Water & Ice for of course, water and ice. Next stop, gasoline. We filled up the gas cans, the van and then stopped at Basha's for some last minute food and drink.

We arrived at the location shortly after noon. This time a truck was parked there but nobody was around. A couple minutes later the owner shows up and is obviously pissed off that we are there. He had been hunting for birds in the area. At this point we had not unloaded any gear and only Micah and myself were there walking around the site. We tried to have a conversation with the dude but he wouldn't listen. He told us he was going to call the game warden and the police on us for "encroaching" on his campsite. He then got into his truck and took off. Confident in our right to be there, on public land, we pulled out a couple chairs and I cracked open a cold beer. We wanted to wait around for a law enforcement officer to show up before we started unloading any "party" gear. During that time we set up campsite related items and built the fire pit. About two hours went by and the cops never showed up. It was decided that it would be fine to go ahead and start setting up the sound. So we did.