Ginny Min

SPOON, Guster, marriage

ginny — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 16:26:52 +0000

Last night was my 13th Spoon show, in probably the smallest venue I’ve seen them to date. I can’t remember exactly how big the Cat’s Cradle is in NC, where I saw them for the very first time, but from my vague memories I remember it looking bigger than Red 7. The show was, of course, awesome, despite Britt Daniel’s constant mix-ups with his guitar chords (his vocals were still excellent). It was a bit surprising actually. You expect some hiccups when you perform songs you haven’t played in awhile or often (i.e. Vittorio E), but not on stuff you play all the time (i.e. I Summon You, Black Like Me). But whatever! It was still wonderful. Especially when they played The Way We Get By in the encore. Probably the best experience out of all the times I’ve heard them play that song.

Here is the updated list of Spoon shows!

June 2, 2005: Cat’s Cradle, Carrboro NC
September 30, 2006: Emo’s, Austin TX
November 2, 2006: The Parish, Austin TX (Britt Daniel solo)
December 1, 2006: Waterloo Park, Austin TX (FunFunFun Fest)
September 13, 2007: La Zona Rosa, Austin TX (ACL aftershow)
September 14, 2007: Zilker Park, Austin TX (ACL Festival)
December 13, 2007: Emo’s, Austin TX (Britt Daniel solo)
March 13, 2008: Auditorium Shores, Austin TX (SXSW)
October 13, 2008: The Parish, Austin TX
April 21, 2009: The Scoot Inn, Austin TX
October 7, 2010: The Mohawk, Austin TX
November 5, 2011: Auditorium Shores, Austin TX (FunFunFun Fest)
April 11, 2012: Red 7, Austin TX

And while I’m doing lists, I realized I needed to update my list of Guster shows as well. I’m up to 20!

October 1999: TRAX, Charlottesville VA
April 2000: Newcomb Hall, Charlottesville VA
Summer 2000: Norva Theatre, Norfolk VA
April 2001: The Tabernacle, Atlanta GA
April 2002: Mad Bowl, Charlottesville VA
September 2002: Browns Island, Richmond VA
May 2003: Rutgers University, Piscataway NJ
August 2003: Recher Theatre, Towson MD
September 2003: Performing Arts Center, Charlottesville VA
October 2003: 930 Club, Washington DC
December 2003: Starland Ballroom, Sayreville NJ
December 31 2003: House of Blues, Chicago IL
April 2004: Univ of Richmond, Richmond VA
June 2004: Wolf Trap, Vienna VA
May 2005: Univ of Maryland, College Park MD
November 2005: Sonar Lounge, Baltimore MD
September 2006: Austin City Limits Festival
April 2007: Stubb’s BBQ, Austin TX
April 2009: Stubb’s BBQ, Austin TX
April 2011: Stubb’s BBQ, Austin TX

AND… I’m married! March 31, 2012!

Wedding time! And yada yada…

ginny — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 23:55:58 +0000

In less than three weeks, I’ll be married! And amazingly, I think the “planning” is almost over. Well, it’s not over until it’s all over, but things might be in decent shape such that I won’t have to freak out at the last minute. The ceremony is planned out, the music selections are set, and I ordered 8 pounds of Jelly Belly beans today… I’m actually pretty happy with the current status, considering the fact that both Chill and I really don’t care for weddings at all…

Since the last post, this is what’s happened:
- We moved into a house in Barton Hills, steps away from the Grenenbelt!
- We got an Australian Shepherd puppy named Luna, as you could probably guess from the latest photos. Training her is my current obsession.

Climbing has taken a backseat recently, while I’ve been trying to run more. Ran a half marathon in February, and may run another one in August. Luna still can’t run long distances yet (we have to wait until she’s a year old), but our vet said we can run her for up to 2 miles, so that’s what I’ve been trying to do almost every day. She’s doing okay, though it’s obvious she needs to build up the endurance. By the end I feel like I’m pulling a lazy 40-pound sled!

SXSW is underway now. I don’t think I’ll be hitting up much, though someone in our neighborhood hosted the SF-based Family Crest in their living room a few evenings ago, and that was pretty awesome. I think next year I’m going to try to have a house concert here myself! The Shins are playing Auditorium Shores, and being that I love The Shins I’ll probably try to hit that up. Other than that, I may see if I can will myself to brave the crowds to see WMMF at one of their shows.

More exciting things: UVA makes the NCAA tourney as a #10 seed! And Spoon on April 11 at Red 7 (and I got 3 tickets, woohoo)!

And once again… I’m back

ginny — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 19:39:48 +0000

Another long hiatus. Another apology for being a lame blogger.

Fortunately, not a whole lot has been missed… well, sort of. Here’s a rundown of what’s happened since the last post:

Started doing yoga, and absolutely love it
Climbed a lot, and trained a lot… for climbing
Sent a few V5s and a bunch of V4s
Climbed at Hueco Tanks… twice!
Climbed at Horse Pens 40
Pull-up count is steady at 12-14
Got engaged!

Here’s a photo from Hueco Trip #1, on No One Gets Out of Here Alive. It took some time for me to get the beta down before sending it. The past Hueco Trip #2, I flashed it with a different start. Those couple of months of training in between really made a huge difference.

The weather is cooler, the running is nicer

ginny — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 14:04:59 +0000

My runs the past few days have been amazing, and fast(er). I don’t know why, but I’ve been feeling really, really good. Sunday was the awesome 10-miler. On Monday and Tuesday I did the 6.5ish-mile loop, where on Monday I probably averaged around an 8:45 pace and on Tuesday around an 8:20 pace. Then yesterday, I did 5.5 miles at an 8:00 pace.

So the 8:45 wasn’t way out of the ordinary, though it was still on the fast side compared to all my runs in the past 6 months. But the 8:20 and 8:00 were the fastest I’ve run since a really long time ago, probably dating back to my peak running days when I was doing 7 miles at 8:30 all the time (and when I ran the 3M Half Marathon at 8:15). And not only were these runs faster, they felt amazingly awesome. I didn’t feel like I was going to die, and the pace was almost easy. I was pushing myself a little harder yesterday when I ran 8:00, but I still felt better for that than a lot of days when I would do the same loop at just under 9:00 and feel like utter death.

I think the weather is playing a role - the Monday and Tuesday runs were in the morning when it was 55-low 60s degrees outside. Yesterday’s run was in the evening, but the high was 58, and it was windy. It’s almost like when I start my run, I feel cold so I want to go faster to warm myself up, and then for some reason I just keep going faster the whole time. I used to think I’d rather run in warmer weather vs. colder weather, and that I hated running in the wind. After the past few days though, I think I’ve changed my mind. I definitely don’t mind the colder weather (it definitely beats hot humidity), and while I still don’t want to run in gusting winds, a nice little wind (i.e. under 10-15mph) isn’t so bad at all.

We’ll see how the next few runs go and if I can keep up the feeling-better-and-faster runs. Who knows, maybe I’m suddenly back to my old days again… and maybe I’ll talk myself into thinking that I can train or a marathon again…

I never thought I’d be able to do it again…

ginny — Sat, 30 Oct 2010 19:43:48 +0000

But I did it this morning. I ran 10 miles! I started the run planning on doing the Mopac-I35 loop from the condo, which is around 8.5 miles. I felt so good that I added more distance past I35 while sustaining the 8:40ish pace that I was running. And it was such a great running day that the entire time I felt like I wasn’t expending any energy at all. I probably could have run a few more miles, but I figured it wouldn’t be a good idea to increase my mileage by so much.

Why is running so weird? One day you’ll try running 4 miles and you feel like death, another day you feel like you can run a marathon…

New job, San Fran, ACL, and my pull-up count is now at…

ginny — Sun, 24 Oct 2010 18:20:58 +0000

Its been awhile, so a few recaps:

New gig: a couple of weeks ago I started a new job as an Interface Engineer for Involver, a small a start-up based out of San Francisco. I’ll miss my colleagues at Pluck / Demand Media, but it was an exciting opportunity I couldn’t miss!

ACL: Made a last-minute decision to attend ACL 2010. Overall it was a very enjoyable and relaxing ACL (by choice). It was great to hang out with Nat and Allen before they headed out to Europe. Highlight? Muse on Saturday night, by far. Deadmau5 was pretty sweet, too, mostly because of the insane lighting.

San Francisco: My first week on the new job was spent in the financial district of San Francisco, working and meeting my new colleagues in California. I also met up with Messer for some sweet climbing at Planet Granite twice, and for the first time in my climbing life I was at a *real* climbing gym. That place was insane! Other SF highlights: waking up at 6:30am everyday because I never got off Central Time, running in the mornings along the Embarcadero, and walking around Chinatown, spending $5 on food for a full day including bubble tea. Oh, and of course, eating very good sushi and Chinese food everyday.

Climbing: So now that the weather is finally cooling down (sort of), our 3-or-4x-a-week climbing gym spree is now over as we are hoping to hit up outdoors from now on. I haven’t had much time to head outdoors yet, though on Friday we went to ARG for their 2 for $20 special where I managed to send two V4s and felt so much stronger than I did before. Yay for progress!

Lastly, this morning I ran the hardest 7 miles I had ever fun in my life. Well, maybe not in my life, but in a very long time. The last mile was pretty much torture as my legs felt like lead and I had absolutely zero energy left. But I still ran it! And after the run I decided to see how many pull-ups I can now do. The magic number? 14!

I know I am a broken record… but

ginny — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 16:28:41 +0000

I really do love Spoon. It’s been awhile since I’ve posted a non-workout-related post (or a music-related post), but when you see your favorite band play it’s hard to *not* write something about it. Last night’s show at the Mohawk was amazingly awesome, probably the best Spoon show I’ve seen to date. They sounded so good, and you could tell Britt Daniel was on. Plus, Ella and I got pretty close to the stage, and being close is always a plus!

First of all, let’s see how well my wish list did:

Everything Hits at Once - check. YES!
I Saw the Light - unfortunately, no.
I Summon You - check.
Advance Cassette (highly unlikely) - of course not. Sigh.
Got Nuffin - check.
Don’t Make Me a Target - check.
Goodnight Laura - no. Next time, please!
Metal Detektor - no.
Two Sides of Monsieur Valentine - no.
The Fitted Shirt - no.
The Way We Get By - yes, it was sweet!
Black Like Me - yes.
Anything You Want - encore BONUS

50% success, which isn’t too bad. I’m just glad they played Everything Hits at Once, and it sounded SO good! As did I Summon You and Black Like Me, Britt Daniel-acoustic guitar classics (I am a big fan of the acoustic guitar). The setlist opener, The Mystery Zone, was a Britt Daniel solo, also acoustic, which was amazing. But the best thing was probably the fact that they added in Anything You Want to the setlist during the encore because some people were yelling for it in the crowd. Sure, it wasn’t Advance Cassette, but it was still awesome.

They didn’t play Goodnight Laura or I Saw the Light, ones that I really like off their new album, so I’m really hoping they start playing those more and schedule more shows in Austin so I can hear them eventually. Speaking of, I should add to my growing list of Spoon shows:

Wow, I didn’t realize it had been awhile since I saw them last! Anyhow, looks like they are up to #11. Slowly but surely catching up to Guster’s 19. :)

Note to Spoon: PLEASE PLAY AGAIN IN AUSTIN SOON! And I love you guys.

What I am hoping for at tonight’s Spoon show

ginny — Thu, 07 Oct 2010 21:49:05 +0000

In no particular order…

Everything Hits at Once
I Saw the Light
I Summon You
Advance Cassette (highly unlikely)
Got Nuffin
Don’t Make Me a Target
Goodnight Laura
Metal Detektor
Two Sides of Monsieur Valentine
The Fitted Shirt
The Way We Get By
Black Like Me

An ultimate finish

ginny — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 21:42:03 +0000

This past weekend was South Regionals, and the last tournament of the year for my team, Beta Iota Delta. It was great to play teams we had never played before from all over the region, mixed in with some ultimate drama that, to put it bluntly, involved a team (that might be called Codename) having to cheat to beat us (i.e. thanks to a few major douchebags). All in all we finished 9th overall, which is considerably better than the original 14th that we were seeded going in, and more importantly, we enjoyed ourselves immensely. Best of luck to Jackie, who tore her MCL after getting undercut my a much larger dude (and still held on to her awesome catch in the endzone!), to Frosh for a full recovery from his broken hand, and to the rest of my teammates for getting their bodies back into a pain-free state.

As for a climbing update… I’m working on some fun V4s and V5s at the gym that involve more of an overhang, which will definitely help me get stronger!

Right back in it… a V5 is close!

ginny — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 20:59:24 +0000

Sectionals was this past weekend, and it was brutal. Seven games over two grueling days of super humidity and heat do not make for the most pleasant ultimate experience. But it was a super fun weekend nonetheless, filled with aimless driving around Dallas trying to find Whole Foods and Central Markets and football watching. Most importantly, BID finished 7th and advanced to Regionals, which will be in Austin in two weeks! We are all super excited to have the opportunity to play with each other for two more weeks and one more tournament.

Yesterday I took a break from cardio and went to the climbing gym to kick off one more month of hardcore training. It was a great session, though after a 2-week break, my endurance has gone back down to zero. But I was able to work on a V5 and am super close to finishing it, which is extremely exciting for me. There were some other cool new problems, and it was pretty neat to cruise through the new V2s and V3s during my warmup. I can’t wait until tomorrow when we go back!

The best part of the weekend was this… I love my jerky and my full side of bacon!