Nate Houge

5March2008

Second Place

Posted by nate under: edumacation.

Grade 2, Highlights 2

#1  I was really good at Math.  By the second month of school I had moved on to the 3rd grade math books.

#2 Mid year we moved to Liberia W. Africa. 

An oddly dull entry.  Maybe if you comment on your second grade experience we can save this blog.  Good luck!

27February2008

on music on travel on bread on blitzen

Posted by nate under: music; travel.

we now take a break from nate’s riveting scholastic history to bring you an update on his equally riveting life.  EQuaLIty now!

i’m typing at my favorite internet cafe, the public library.  i like it because in the background i can hear a woman explaining to the librarian at the info desk that the Library is a sacred place and asking her if she’s familiar with the minnesota guitar society.  

i also like it cause everything is free.  even the coffee!

not really.   there is no coffee.

but the books are free for a limited time only.

enough! youd think being around all these books i’d be encouraged to use bester grammer – but not so – i rebel!

music- two great developments 1) i’m almost done with a children’s cd.  i started it around christmas cause i was a little frustrated with other recording efforts and thought it would be a nice pallet cleanser.  and it has, and it’s turning out pretty swell.  and the kids are going to love it, right kids?

2) longtime musical collaborator micah taylor and i are going in on some studio space together.  = complete unadulterated loud or quiet recording at any time of the day!  unheard of!  it doesn’t even matter if someone flushes the toilet!  (right now my studioito is beneath the bathroom so more than once a near perfect take has been altered by the sound of a ‘waterfall’ in the background.  i’m excited at the recording possibilities this has to offer.

on travel – this weekend – me and the fam go to fargo rock city!  houges gone wild!

on bread – made killer baguettes today – best (only) baguettes i’ve ever made but honestly they turned all wonderful and crusty and chewy.  so good that i’m not even annoyed that i totally shattered a pyrex casserole dish in our oven when trying to create massive amounts of steam at 500 degrees. 

on blitzen – only one more month till the kind of weather when you put on the ramones and drink pepsi and eat snickers.  bop!

18February2008

first things first

Posted by nate under: edumacation.

First grade’s a little fuzzy. We had moved back to Riverside, CA and I attended Immanuel Lutheran School €“ the school connected to our church. My only memory may be this. There was a boy named James in my class who’s birthday was on October 31^st. I spent many of the weeks leading up to Halloween trying to convince him that he and the devil shared the same birthday. If this had happened in 5^th grade it obviously would’ve been with malicious intent. But in first grade I was coming from a place of innocent and profound spiritual concern* – all I was trying to do was to warn him. Of what? No idea. Even if the devil and James did have the same birthday so what? My mom and Vanna White share the same birthday (coincidentally it’s today, Feb 18^th) and they’re happily autonomous. And anyways, if Halloween was the Devil’s birthday wouldn’t we call it Devilmas? Or V-mas for short? I obviously didn’t understand the erroneous implications then, and I sure as hell don’t have any clue now. I take that back, hell may be more sure of this than I am.

Either way it played out like this: I freaked James out. I felt bad, and was still concerned that with he and the Dark Lord sharing the same birthday he was probably at risk of eternal damnation so I stopped focusing on his birthday and put my efforts toward saving his obviously lost soul.

Luckily my dad was on the evangelism committee at church and happened to have a lot of tracts lying around the house including the ever popular, €œFour Spiritual Laws.€ I don’t remember what the laws were, but I’m guessing they were along the lines of 1) you’re screwed 2) Jesus loves you 3) you can be sure of this and bask in the promise of eternal life 4) say the Jesus prayer and we’ll seal the deal.

So I grabbed one of the tracts out of his desk drawer and took it to school. I gave it to James. He looked confused. He took it home. My dad got a call from James’ dad that night. I was informed that no, Halloween is not the devil’s birthday, and that I should hold off on the four spiritual laws until after I had mastered the Kennedy questions.

So do tell, if you died tonight where would you go?

Ya’ sure about that?

Call me if you want to pray about it.

*This may be a bit of a flaw in Jesus’ notion that we should be such as children. Sometimes children are such as dumb. A strong argument for W’s brand of Christianity. And yes camp counselors, go ahead and comment on the important difference between childlike and childish faith, I’m dying to read more on this fascinating topic.