W. Nathan Lee

Favorite 2008 Albums

2009-01-01T11:48:00.000-08:00

In no order:

Sigur Ros - með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust

TV On The Radio - Dear Science

Bon Iver - For Emma, Forever Ago

Anathallo - Canopy Glow

Colour Revolt - Plunder, Beg, & Curse

Coldplay - Viva la Vida

Mock Orange - Captain Love

Calexico - Carried To Dust

Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes

Oasis - Dig Out Your Soul

Bonnie Prince Billy - Lie Down In The Light

Death Cab - Narrow Stairs

What a great year for music!

Sigur Tickler

2008-05-19T14:03:00.001-07:00

My wife and I are seeing this band on June 12th in Kansas City.

Lee Family Trip 2008.

I'm on Tumblr now.

2008-05-06T21:49:00.000-07:00

Friends,

I have jumped on the Tumblr bandwagon, but I'm still using my blogger account. From now on, http://wnathanlee.com will take you to http://wnathanlee.tumblr.com

The reason I'm using two separate blog accounts (and a Twitter account)?? I'll try to break it down for you, and I'll look nerdy in the process:

Blogger: will be used for text-only blogs, updates will be sent to tumblr and facebook.
Twitter: synched with facebook status.
Tumblr: photo updates; also used to import all blogger posts and digg articles. Twitter feeds are displayed, but not part of the RSS feed.
Facebook: importing twitter feed as status, importing blogger posts as notes.

The purpose of the separate blogs is to offer different levels of "reading commitment" to you guys. Tumblr is there for people who want it all, and facebook synching is available for the less interested readers.

Also, my band Maida Vale has been heavy on the tumblr updates lately. If you want some more reading material, go to http://maidavalemusic.com

Sahara...

2008-04-23T06:46:00.000-07:00

...is not nearly as fun without Tom Gustafson.

Our voices were heard - Pt. 2

2008-04-22T17:14:00.000-07:00

A follow-up to my Facebook note last week:

Saw this on the way to work. When will it end?! They apparently are not going down without a fight.

Shhhhhtrawberries.

2008-04-18T20:20:00.000-07:00

My wife buys strawberries, and she never eats them.

Don't tell her I said that.

Anything is possible.

2008-04-05T12:15:00.001-07:00

The sweatshirt of hope

2008-04-03T20:21:00.000-07:00

This time of year brings a new phase of denial into my life. I'll be brief - the seasons change and what was once mild to cold is now hot to hell. Florida weather is back, and is showing now signs of cooling off again. It's hot.

My car is my second closet, and during the winter, my car functions as a haven for my long sleeves. It's a nice feeling.

We went through March being cold and hot, sometimes in the same day. But now, it's just hot. My second closet has dwindled into one pitiful looking sweatshirt balled up in my backseat. This is where the denial kicks in. I know that I will never have a use for that sweatshirt now that it's constantly 85+ degrees in Tallahassee, but if I bring that sweatshirt inside my house, I lose all hope. It's that final goodbye to nice weather that I'm not ready to say.

So that hoodie is staying in my car as long as possible. I'm not ready to let go.

Happy Feet

2008-03-22T16:42:00.000-07:00

Mimi's

2008-03-16T08:03:00.000-07:00

Tasty!

Dutch Blitz

2008-03-15T08:29:00.000-07:00

You don't even know...

One Tough Cookie

2008-03-13T17:47:00.001-07:00

Evening Ride

2008-03-12T21:15:00.000-07:00

Maida Vale Rehearsal

2008-03-11T12:11:00.000-07:00

Is tonight.

Not a bad drive to work

2008-03-10T09:47:00.000-07:00

Radiohead Disc Box Unboxing

2008-01-17T20:10:00.000-08:00

About a month too late, here are photos of the greatest bachelor party gift, ever:

The newest addition to our home.

2007-12-13T11:28:00.000-08:00

Ladies and gentlement, I give you my wife Allison with our celebrity guest, Brendan Frasir.

I'm back.

2007-08-28T05:49:00.000-07:00

In more ways than one.

Today marks my return to Florida State University after five years of absence. In 2002 I received a letter from the office of admissions telling me I had to leave the University because of terrible grades. Now, things are looking a lot better.

At this moment all I can think about is how thankful I am the Rovetta building has great air conditioning. My bikeride this morning was long overdue.

Hello, iPhone.

2007-07-05T18:33:00.000-07:00

I am updating this from my roommate Matt's iPhone he got the day it came out. The keypad definitely takes some getting used to, but overAll its pretty incredible.

A real update?

2007-06-02T15:29:00.000-07:00

I’ve been trying to encourage myself to post a true update of what I’ve been up to. The more time that passes, the more intimidated I become. It’s basically been a year since I have posted any true writings on the internet, beyond stories of chapstick tubes and toilet paper.

I think the lack of updates is directly related to the fact that this time last year (to the day almost), Forever Changed played our last show. Even now a year later, I’m still adjusting. It might just be best to give you a timeline synopsis of the major things I’ve been doing since last June.

June ‘06 - Move out of my parents’ house (yes!) and in with Garrett Payne. Hilarity ensues. I start my first real job in three years at KUMC as a 3rd grade summer camp counselor. Looking back on it now, I don’t know how I handled being responsible for children. I think I just gave them some candy and turned them loose for eight hours.

July ‘06 - fill in with Cool Hand Luke on a few tours. It was a bizarre feeling to reunite with friends from around the country..and know that I probably would never see them again after that. To this day, I haven’t. Sometime in this month I also busted a pinata full of b-rated candy.

August ‘06 - this is where I finally felt like the next step was starting. I enrolled back into Tallahassee Community College (dean’s list every semester, so far) and began a job at the Dept. of Environmental Protection. Literally, saving manatees on an airboat all day...in downtown Tallahassee, FL. In all actuality, I sit in an office room all day by myself, doing work that quite literally, no one else knows how to do. Not that its difficult, its just no one has ever done it. I could not show up, and no one would ever notice. Your tax dollars at work.

Fall ‘06 - I become more involved in a ‘home-church’, playing in the worship band from time to time. Also I revisit my childhood and buy a bike...it reminds me how lazy I can be.

November ‘06 - I hit a deer with my car. I didn’t die, but the deer did.

December ‘06 - my girlfriend, Allison moves into midtown within walking distance to my house. Before she lived about 20 min away in the outskirts of Tallahassee....literally in a barn in the woods. More hilarity ensues. Lots of dinner dates.

January ‘07 - I start playing with a new band, The Twelfth Chapter. Originally just to fill in, and has now thankfully turned permanent. Shows have been played. Demos have been recorded.

February ‘07 - I am asked to loan/rent out my drumkit for the filming of a VH1 reality series called “Man Band”, set to air sometime this year. Members of N’Sync, 98 Degrees, LFO, and Color Me Badd (yes, Color Me Badd) live together in a house and write music together. When I asked the film crew if they wanted me to tune up my kit before I left from unloading, they said “honestly, we don’t even know if anyone’s going to play it. It’s just for show.”

April ‘07 - Wrap up Spring semester of classes at TCC. After sucking up to the right people, I get accepted into the Florida State Univ. College of Business with plans to major in Management Information Systems. I am going to lose a lot of hair in the next two years. My myspace account has been deleted. Facebook is the next target (although they just released some new ‘applications’ to add to my page that might keep me around a little bit longer).

May '07 - Join another band, Kingsley, with old bandmates from way-back-when and some other friends. Much different than The Twelfth Chapter. Music still developing, but I'm excited.
----------------------------
All the while in this time, I lost a little hair and gained a little weight. My diet and exercise routine up until June of 2006 consisted of hardly eating and sweating for an hour every night. Now, I’m healthy (and thankful for that), and with that, I’ve gained a few pounds. Most of my old tour t-shirts don’t fit me anymore.

And man, it’s been rad to be in a relationship with the woman, and actually live in the same town. No more late night phone calls from the back seat of a van.

I’ve become a little jaded towards music. I don’t like going to shows or checking out new indie bands. To be blunt, it makes me sad. And jealous.

I think what bums me out the most about then vs. now is that a lot of my friendships have faded with people I’ve met through touring, and even worse, relationships with people here in my own town and state have weathered away. Even people I would consider to be my best friends have become distant. One good thing about my friendships is I’ve made a lot of new friends, and old acquaintances have become more and more important to me. Things are definitely shifting. It’s weird. It almost feels like I’ve graduated high school all over again, which sounds really trivial to say, but looking back at HS, I was close to so many people that I honestly don’t even think about any more, and it feels like that movement all over again. I didn’t even get a yearbook this time.

H.A.G.S.
-----------------------------

So that brings us to now, June 2nd, 2007. There’s so much coming up that I’m excited about. I’m enrolled in my final classes at TCC and working my same manatee-saving job. I’ve got an amazing home life, a fantastic girlfriend, a home church, and an education -- these are all things that I never even really thought about until things changed for me last year. I put my entire life and every thought into the music of Forever Changed. There is absolutely no bitterness for the way things ended with FC, but man it’s been hard for me to deal with these changes, as good as they are. Any day I get a bad test grade, or work gives me trouble, or when I run out of money, I think about the band and how much I miss it. But, I’m here now, and I’m making the most of it. I’ve learned not to expect anything to happen tomorrow, but to take everything in and trust that the Lord has a very unique and amazing plan for me - most of the time, it’s not completely evident until I look back.

And...that’s all I got for now.

So now you’re all caught up. Who are you, anyway? I’m having a hard time gauging my audience. Whoever you are, I hope you come back. I’ve been challenging myself to be more creative and express myself, but in an honest way. Hopefully that will happen here.

Chello?

2007-05-24T15:40:00.000-07:00

I’m using an app called MacJournal - trying to figure out how to export this junk to my blogger page. Did it work?!

Yikes.

2007-05-08T20:42:00.000-07:00

I never use this.

Just as I thought.

I'm tired of the internet, in the ways that I used to be involved in it. I was a fake profile, in a way. I enjoyed who I was portraying. Now, not so much. All I have and want now are these words, and that's okay with me.

Life is crazy and busy and so much different than it was a year ago; even six months ago. I never thought I'd be where I am at today, but now that I'm here, I don't want to be anywhere else.

I'm not sure if anyone will read this. If that is so, it might be a good thing. If you are reading this, turn back now. Hit the back button and return to your last page...probably virb.com

In short, I start my summer classes tomorrow and I broke my bike today. I'm anxious about both. We'll see how long it takes me to post again.

Square One.

2006-02-27T21:50:00.000-08:00

And so it begins.

I'm not sure where this project will wind up on my list of internet priorities, but we'll see what happens. This might just turn into another one of my half-effort ideas that never really leaves the ground.

So maybe this is a goodbye before we really could get to know each other? We'll see.