wow, it's been a while. oops. i've done quite a bit since my last entry.

around thanksgiving my partner and i took a weeklong vacation to arizona. we hiked for miles around the scottsdale/phoenix area, hitting various trails we stumbled across while driving or that were within distance of our hotel. it's amazing how accessible nature is out there. you can park almost anywhere and within walking distance there will be an official trailhead, and the hike could go for hours longer than you intend. we were caught out in the dark several times because of our mistaking the amount of time it would take to complete some of the hikes. nothing can describe or compare to the feeling of loneliness and coldness of the desert at night. you cannot hear a plant blow in the wind or a pebble move under an animal's foot - it's absolute silence and stillness like nothing i have ever experienced. the unsettling shapes of man-sized cacti in the distant dark, lit only by what just happened to be the full moon, not to mention the 30-foot-tall ones and all the brush and elevation changes that would enable anything to hide just out of sight. it was amazing and chilling.

after returning from arizona we adopted a puppy whom we call Scarlet. she's a little fluffball with a carefree attitude and a ton of energy. a golden retriever/samoyed mix, she is slowly learning some tricks such as "sit," "lay down," "roll over," and more. she doesn't always listen and that can be frustrating but when she does she listens well!

i began uploading my music to "official" streaming services some time ago. there are currently only two songs of mine out in this manner, but i intend to keep them coming. "monomania" can be listened to at the provided link, and "aural decoy" likewise. they're dubstep tracks, and some of my best music. there is always more on my soundcloud. follow me on your preferred service to be notified when i drop new music! i have recently created a custom template in my daw (digital audio workstation) that enables me to quickly get to writing music instead of fiddling with settings, so hopefully i should have much more music soon.

as of writing, we recently traveled to electric forest (a music and art festival). this year was, unfortunately, perhaps the least-fun year of the five i have gone, but i still very much enjoyed the time i got to spend there. much of the time was rained out and several artists i intended on seeing had their sets canceled or cut short, which was disappointing but not anyone's fault, really (i doubt we had artificial weather control). i do wish there were more things like idm or ambient music or techno in the forest, and better trance - this year felt really lacking in "vibes" outside of funk or jam bands.

in my spare time i am continuing to learn levantine arabic. i have taken a bit of a break due to the hectic times around electric forest and the fourth of july, but i am going to get back to it. i have also begun teaching myself spanish, as in the future my partner and i intend to visit puerto rico, and besides arabic it is the most-spoken foreign language in my area. i learned a bit of it in school but have mostly lost it, so back to the grind i go.

thanks for catching up! if anything else happens, you'll find out here.

gt