A little time off...

I've taken this week off from work to get several things done - relax, do some painting around the house, reading... things like that. Just a nice time to think of things other than work.

I hope everyone had a good Christmas time. It was time well spent with friends and family for me. Since most of my immediate family is FAR from here, I usually spend time during the holidays with friends that had sorta "adopted" me into their families. It's nice how that works out. This year, I was over at Kevin's with Stacey, Kailyn and Zachary. I have a special attachment to Kailyn - she's the first kid that I've been around regularly (as an adult) since her birth. Just watching her grow up is exciting! A few weeks ago we were all getting ready to go and do some shopping together when I asked her to put this ziplock bag of crackers in a pocket or something instead of them just flailing around everywhere. She replied "This coat doesn't have any pockets" and went on about her business. OMG, that is a complete and totally correct reply. That's so, so cool. If I ever have kids, I'll have been spoiled after seeing how Kailyn is growing up.

Enough baby talk.

Kevin was one of the lucky ones that got his hands on an XBOX 360 for Christmas. I'm not a big console game fan anymore but the 360 might change my mind. The Need For Speed game was my favorite. Call of Duty 2 was just tough for me though because I'm used to playing games like that using a keyboard and mouse, not the joypads and such on the XBOX controllers. Can't wait to try out Project Gotham Racing once he gets it.

I've successfully been able to dodge getting sick the past few weeks but I now seem to have come down with a slight sinus thing. That coupled with the fact that I also seem to have developed an allergy to cats. I used to have cats myself without any problems so this is a new thing for me.

Merry Christmas!

No white Christmas for us though, just rain and cool temperatures. I've had a nice couple of days leading up to today. Spent time with my sister and brother-in-law last Thursday evening exchanging presents then having a delicious dinner at Simp McGhee's.

Friday I was off and I spent most of it just laying around and resting. That night I headed to Jeff's new place for this "Festivus" get together. I'm no Seinfeld fanatic like Jeff and Kyle are but I figured what little I knew about Festivus might cause some funny things to happen. I took several pictures through the night, some of which will prove to be pretty funny. After the "airing of greivances", we played a game of Cranium. During the game, I learned that the monk responsible for doing DNA tests with peas was Gregor Mendel. My answer of "St. Francis of Assisi" was waaaaay off. Funniest though was Shane's pronunciation of "famine". He had never seen that word before and pronounced it as "fuh-MEEN". We were all rollin'!

The Festivus at Jeff's attendees. L to R: Me, Matt, Kyle, Shane, Melody, Jeff, Bunny and David.

Been a week already?

Okay, so much for trying to get back to a regular posting schedule... not that anyone's losing sleep over my lack of posting. ;-)

Last week was a busy one with a brief pause on Wednesday while I fought off some kind of ailment. I wasn't feeling all that great Monday evening. Tuesday was on and off. Wednesday was miserable. I stayed in bed and rested. Drank plenty of orange juice and several bowls of chicken soup. Thursday I got back into the swing of things. Glad I nipped that in the bud. Being sick over the holidays is a major downer.

Did some of my Christmas shopping Friday with the Burns since I needed the use of their SUV for a large object I was aquiring (heh). We made quick work of the shopping then headed off to Outback Steakhouse for dinner. The Burns crew stayed in the car while I waited on a table at the bar inside. Ordered something to drink and got asked for my ID. The guy said "whoa!" and asked one of the other bartenders to guess how old I was. They were way off... in a good way. At least I have that youthful look going in my favor these days. When we finally got seated, I had an awesome dinner - 9 oz. filet along with a grilled lobster tail and fresh veggies. Mmmmmm! That was delicious. We all left their stuffed.

Saturday rolled around. I was lazing around in bed thinking about what if anything I wanted to accomplish that day when the phone rang, it was Kyle. I knew he had a video job scheduled for today taping 2 performances of the Nutcracker Suite. I figured he was calling to ask me to run a camera. Well he did, sorta. My camera. Seems like the photographer that was lined up to shoot the event for the studio came down with the flu. They really only needed me for the evening show and not the afternoon matinee but because of the challenging shooting conditions - low light and fast movement, I thought it would be time well spent to take light measurements and test shots to be ready for the real deal at night. I was right.

A funny thing happened as I was getting situated before the evening performance though... you see, in the program there's a male Chinese dancer playing the part of the Sugar Plum Cavalier. His name is Wei. That's all you need to know. Now, I'm there in the floor of the center aisle checking all my camera settings and laying out my stuff so I'll know where to find it in the dark when an elderly lady taps me on the shoulder. "Could you sign another (show) program for my grand daughter? She must have laid the one you signed before down somewhere and someone picked it up." For a moment, I wasn't sure what she meant. Then I realized... oh, she's confusing me with the dancing Asian. I politely mentioned (and I'm laughing inside at this point) that I didn't sign the progam before to which she replied "Are you sure?". Sigh. I was so busy during the performance, I forgot to look back at her to see her reaction when Wei came out to perform. Oh well. Funny stuff.

Back to normal.

Hopefully, I can get back to a more regular routine of blogging. Been pretty busy the last few weeks and dropped the ball on posting.

Did any of you hear about the brouhaha regarding Sony's rootkit thingy? If you played one of about 50 different recent titles on your PC, some software was secretly installed on your PC to hide the presence of Sony's anti-copying software. The bigger problem was that this same techniqe Sony used could be utilized by hackers to hide stuff on your PC as well. I had one CD - Chris Botti "To Love Again". Good sax player. Gonna see him in March at the Princess Theater here in town. Luckily, I didn't play the CD on my PC, just in my car. Now theres a big recall of all the CD's that had this software on it and Sony's getting sued left and right.

Anyone there have a lot of spare cash around and want to buy me some camera gear for Christmas? Doesn't hurt to ask. There are a few lenses I would like. First, a wide angle. Canon's 10-22 is nice as is their 16-35 2.8L. On the long end, I'd like Canon's 70-200 2.8L IS lens. Lately, I've found that I've needed a wide lens quite often and have resorted to using my office's Nikon since it has as 12-24 mm lens. I don't mind using it but I'm used to how my Canon works and would prefer it.

Oh... also on the photography side of things - some of my drumming photos can now be seen at Drummerworld. I have photos in the Steve Gadd, Akira Jimbo, Thomas Lang, Johnny Rabb and Chester Thompson pages.

The other part of the lunch bunch - Cracker J., Kailyn, "Evil Eye" Kevin and part of Stacey's head.

Part of the lunch crew. Me and the Rose wimmens.

The Gala

Last Friday was the date of the annual Decatur General Foundation Gala. It's considered the biggest social event in town hands-down. I wish I could have taken better photos but all I brought was my pocket camera and not my big digital rig. The flash on the small cameras is pretty much useless if you get more than a couple of feet away from your subject. The picture of the group below would have turned out awesome otherwise. Oh well.

Dinner was delicious. The salad, the filet, the dessert... all very good. The best part was seeing so many friends and clients there. The tuxedos and evening gowns had everyone (for the most part) looking stunning! After all the formal honors were done, I danced with friends well into the night.

Woke up for the 2nd time Saturday around 1:00PM with a bit of a headache. Nice. Spent most of the day doing things around the house until around 4 when met up with Lesa as she was trying to take some photos of a friends decorated home in the older part of town. Once that was done, met up with Kyle and Jethro for some food at Hooters. Ran into Larry there from the gala the night before. I heard from him that one of our group had wiped out on her way from the bathroom and got all bruised up and chipped a tooth in the process! Yikes! This was after Ellen and I had left. I'll have to check on her tomorrow and see how she's doing. Kyle started making noises about needing to get in bed and Jeff pointed out how it wasn't even 9:00 yet. We did end up going to shoot pool for awhile which was a nice way to wind things down. Driving to Huntsville just to eat at Hooters and drive all the way back to Decatur would have been a waste. Even so, my wings there were good.

Today at church, all the band fun was exciting to watch. I wasn't drumming today so I got to smile at the stuff I'm usually involved in. One of the funniest parts was during one of Kyle's solos... he took off like a rocket and left the band behind... he was movin... I later found out that this was better than what happened at the earlier service where he finished his solo several measures in front of the rest of the band. See - church can be fun and exciting! Kerry had a mishap when the battery to his in-ear monitor died before one of the songs. He didn't get his battery changed out in time so when Kevin turned around to cue him to come in - as Yoda would say "ready not was he". LOL! Even so, it all came out good in the end. I've definitely had my share of mishaps too but I try to keep them to a minimum or COVER THEM UP really well. ;-)

Had lunch with a bunch at Applebees. Good times. Tried to return my tux today and found out the shop was closed on Sundays. Great. I'll have to do that tomorrow now I guess.

Oh, I made a dreaded trip to Wal-Mart tonight for supplies... water, dog food, detergent and softener (fabric, not stool) and light bulbs. Suprisingly, it wasn't crowded and I got through the checkout in like 3 minutes! Amazing I tell ya.

Some of the ladies gettin down on the dance floor.

Last Friday just a little after 6 at Steve and Lori McNutt's home. Several of us that were to be seated at the same table at the gala got together for some cocktails before the main event. From the left (standing): Melissa, Ron, Steve, Linda, Brian, Me, Michelle, Larry. Seated are Lori and Ellen.

Appalling

Wow. I just found out that one of my friends in the food service business got propositioned by a "regular" to sleep with them for $2000. When she declined, the offer came back for a kiss for $500. She declined that too. We all joked that for $500, a kiss wouldn't be too bad. While that's funny, I admire her for what she did (or didn't do in this case).

Anyway.

It was COLD this morning! Had to let Kelsey in last night as the temps dropped into the teens. She's such a good dog. I let her in and she goes straight to the back spare bathroom and curls up on the floor. That's my girl.

After work today I was tired so I laid down to rest for a bit before venturing out. I did some Christmas shopping and also picked up my tux for the thing this Friday. Saw Nikki pimpin' panties at Vic's Secret and talked to her for a little before heading on. Guess I'm in for the night - another cold one.

Soggy Sunday

I went to bed briefly last night only to be awakened by the sound of strong wind and driving rain at about 1:00AM. Normally, I'd just roll over and go back to sleep but it sounded kinda severe so I got up to see what the news was saying about it. Immediately they had a radar image up on screen showing the storm hitting my area at 1:13AM, just a few minutes away. I unplugged all my important stuff and watched the storm go by. The winds were reportedly blowing at about 70 MPH. From what I saw I could believe it! Luckily the worst part of the storm passed by in just a few minutes and I crawled back into bed.

Woke up to find I had received an email from the webmaster of a drumming site over in Switzerland. Remember the Steve Gadd clinic I attended earlier this year and took photos at? Well, turns out some of my photos ended up on this guy's site. I ran across it by accident when I visited and saw a photo of Steve that looked VERY familiar. It looked familiar because I took it! Anyway, I emailed the webmaster and explained the situation. He was very gracious and credited me for the photos which was all I was asking. Nice folks those Swiss.

I had to play the bongos for one song today in church. It probably wouldn't be a bad idea to practice with hand percussion regularly so that when I have to do it, it wouldn't be so uncomfortable. When we were warming up, I started playing and realized the humidity had allowed the heads to stretch and now the bongos were SUPER flat and way outta tune. I got it tuned properly before we had to play "for real" but I'm glad I discovered the tuning problem in time or it would have really taken away from the song.

Had a good funny moment right at the beginning of the first service when Kevin turned around to me and mouthed "eight beats". I had that deer-in-the-headlights look for a moment until I realized that he was reminding me that I was supposed to do count off 8 beats at the beginning. Sheesh... getting old. Everything turned out okay though as it always does.

Rain, rain and more rain. That was the order of the day. I snuck in a nap since I didn't get as much rest because of the early morning storms. Showed up for our church's holiday dinner along with a whole bunch of others. Dana had asked me to bring along my camera which I happily obliged. From what I've had a chance to look at, I was able to get several good shots. Should make everyone happy. Now I'm stuffed. Time for bed again.

I'm right over here...

So much for regular blog updates! With the holidays upon us, I've got all sorts of things going on leaving very little time to blog as much as I had in the past. Anyhoo... let's see what's new:

Remember my friend Brian with the #20 Home Depot car? He ran weekend before last at Daytona assisted by Bernie and Bill, my partners in crime back when I was doing time at Intergraph. Anyway, going through the tri-oval on the track the car reached 208 MPH. That's right, TWO HUNDRED EIGHT miles per hour. (That's 334 KPH for my readers using the metric system) Fast no matter how you look at it. Congrats to Brian and the rest of the team for their great season. I wish I could have been there!

Earlier this week, I had that "feeling" you get right before you get sick. I immediately kept myself extra warm, ate chicken soup, lots of juice and rested. It all worked as I'm doing fine here several days later. I'm doing all I can to take care - staying warm, staying away from sick folks and washing my hands frequently. Speaking of sickness, here's a little health nugget I picked up this week: when visiting the Dr's office, bring your OWN PEN to sign in with. That makes complete sense to avoid handling something that every other sick person there has touched! Sure you can get sick other ways but that's one big source you can try and avoid.

I had some excitement Thursday night when Kyle hauled me along to a drumming clinic he was videotaping over in Huntsville. Had a good time and came away with a free Zildjian t-shirt and a drum pedal. I would have rather won one of the snare drums they were also giving away but hey, what I got was better than nothing right?

My weekend is shaping up to be a busy one - been shopping with my sister all morning then have a dinner theater to attend tonight. I play in church tomorrow then have our holiday dinner tomorrow night. Food everywhere. Yum!

4-day weekend GONE!!!

But not wasted. That's the important part. What did I accomplish? Let's see, I washed my car (for real, not cheating at the spray-off car wash), got the front yard raked, cleaned leaves off my side driveway and patio, changed heads and re-tuned my drums, bought a wok, got Kelsey chasing frisbees now instead of just tennis balls and figured out my color printing gremlins to my Epson printer from Photoshop. Oh, I did laundry too as always.

I also said "hi" to my neighbor's kid. That's new. I have some strange neighbors. I can't complain though because all in all, they're good ones. My only gripe is that the one to my right (if you standing on the street facing my house doesn't take care of his yard worth a crap. Not that my place is the botanical garden or anything (and it's not, believe me)but these folks had crap growing that are just plain weeds but they let them get out of hand and let them turn into a messy hedgerow. Last week, a family from down the street I think, worked in my neighbor's back yard and cleaned up all the mess. My neighbor and his kids never came out during all this so I'm not exactly sure what was going on. All I know is that there's a HUGE brush pile in front of both our houses now waiting on the city to come pick it up.

Got an interesting weather day tomorrow - supposed to be around 70 degrees and stormy. There's a front moving though the area that'll mix things up a bit. What a way to start the week huh?

Ah... Friday after Thanksgiving.

Hope you all had a good time with family and friends yesterday. Thanks always to my friends here who make me a part of their family's get-togethers. That's always a good time. The afternoon was fairly warm, around 60, so I went ahead and washed my car. There's only so much you can do with the spray guns at the carwash. You've got to get in there with some elbow grease to get it REALLY clean though. Spent a lot of time on the front bumper where bugs were firmly stuck. A little bug and tar remover later, they were gone!

I chose to refrain from participating in the Black Friday shopping hoopla this year... mainly because there wasn't anything in particular I was needing or wanting. How about that!?! Back a dozen or so years ago when I worked in retail management I used to loathe this day. On your feet for 10-12 hours straight, wolfing down lunch and dinner standing up and having to deal with some rude folks. That's right, even the Christmas shopping spirit isn't enough to keep the worst in people from coming out sometimes.

I stayed in during the morning hours debating on whether or not I want to start raking leaves or not (jury's still out on that) and watching some TV. I got hungry and was too lazy to cook so I needed to venture out. Good Lord, traffic everywhere. Luckily, I live just a few blocks from the busiest road in town. I can normally be at the mall and any type of restaurant that we have here in less than 5 minutes. It was a little slower today but bearable. Ended up going to Burger Thing. Suprisingly, that meal hit the spot.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I hope you all have a terrific holiday and get to spend it with family and friends!

Runnin' around.

Last night I checked out the XBOX 360's that I had hear so much about. Console games have come a long way - even from some more recent ones like the original Playstation. Still, there's something to be said about the original Atari 2600. Armed with a 1-button joystick, you pretty much knew how to play any game on the Atari without reading a manual. Now, I have to thumb through a manual to know what all the controls do. You've got left and right versions of triggers, D-pads, joysticks and of course, the diamond-shaped set of four buttons. I AM getting used to the more complex controls though. Still, I typically prefer playing games on the PC instead of a console.

Today was filled with photography for a client's website. I was having to deal with on-and-off sun with the heavy cloud cover we had. I got some useable shots I think but overall, I wish the day had been just a little bit sunnier. I can't really wait though as these were outdoor shots and I needed to get them before the trees were completely devoid of leaves. Got a bit chilly when the wind blew.

Me and a mess of probably the hottest gift of the holiday season this year.

Whew! Made it to Saturday.

Sorry for the lack of posts! I've had a very busy week running around, My days and evening have both been full. Got my tux picked out for the Gala coming up in 2 weeks. Ellen went along with me to make sure I match her dress like I planned. Got a long jacket black tux with a cream vest and bowtie. Cute girl at the tux place but that's another story I'll have to investigate later.

Went to a a social meeting at the country club Thrusday night where I ran into several friends and clients. Had a good time chatting and enjoying the food and drink. I just came home and crashed after that. I was tired.

Oh, a few posts back I mentioned a light meter I was wanting for my photography work. I found what I was looking for on eBay and picked it up for $100 less than what it usually sells for online. It arrived Friday. I'll probably bring my camera along this afternoon and practice with the meter a bit.

There's an Ansel Adams exhibit going on at the Huntsville Museum of Art that I plan on checking out shortly. I need to finish up some laundry and get a shower before I take off. I also need to wash my car but it's cold out. Maybe I can find some hand wash place to clean it as I don't want my car getting scratched up in those places using the twirly brushes.

Talked to Kyle last night. He's enjoying his Hawaii trip immensely. I assured him he wasn't missing anything back here. Check out the cool pictures on his blog. He's been posing several a day.

Grab it, brush it, fluff it all up.

Went to my first ever dog show this weekend over at the racking horse arena in Priceville. Line after line of LUXURY buses and motorhomes crowded the parking area. This wasn't a bunch of folks thowing Rover in the back of the car and toting him to the fair, this was a serious event it seems. I know nothing about the pet show circuit but I'll tell you what, it's alive and well. There were dogs everywhere getting pampered like you wouldn't believe. Brushing, massaging, blow-drying... it was really a spectacle to see. Kyle observed one guy brushing on his dog for 45 minutes STRAIGHT. I was scoping out a spot on the perimeter of the arena I was needing to get a photo in. A friend was showing her dog there and I promised her I'd take a few shots. Suprisingly (or not), I ran into a few people I knew there. They were probably more suprised than me though.

The dog show thing actually happened in the middle of a photo shoot I was doing with some other folks. I had told them beforehand about the show so they took a break while I did my thing there. Beautiful day for being outside for sure. It was in the low to mid-70's and breezy. Just fantastic I tell you. Had some funny moments as I struggled to fold up my oval diffuser panel, the one I fixed last weekend. I folded it up once but didn't have luck after that much to everyone's amusement. (I later did find instructions online on how to do it - a better way than I THOUGHT I had learned before and got it put up)

What a day for football fans. Alabama lost a heartbreaker to LSU, Auburn pulled off a win against Georgia. At the end of that game, they showed the faces of some of the Georgia fans - they were pretty sad I'll tell ya. Good to see the Alabama teams in the mix though even if I'm not a fan of either one. I'm a Tennessee fan back from my days working at Neyland Stadium selling cokes and popcorn as a teenager. They're not doing so hot this season. Sigh.

Church was good this morning after a rough start in warm up. Kyle was WAY off on the Coldplay song we were playing until Jack showed him the key we were playing in and that fixed pretty much everything.

I can sum up my afternoon in 2 words: Nap Laundry

Falling leaves...

Even with the weird weather... mid-80's and breezy, the falling leaves do give away the season. This weekend may be the last weekend for the best leaf colors I'm told. As such, I plan to be out, camera in hand this weekend. I have a few projects lined up so there's a pretty good change I'll have some good shots to show for it.

Band practice this week - after a much needed few weeks off, I'm back behind the drums this Sunday. The long break was nice but I do miss playing a little. It's been probably a month or so since I've had to so it's time to get back into the groove.

On another note, Ellen and I exchanged emails about what dress she would be wearing to the Gala this year so I would have some idea of what tuxedo style I should lean towards. This is really a fun event... not only that but it's for a good cause too. There will be several friends and clients there so I know it'll be a great time. I'll have my small camera with me for any photo ops that will arise (and they will).

Break out the summer clothes again.

The weatherman predicted a high in the mid-80's today here. It's November 8 and I'm having to get out summer clothes again. I'm not complaining though. The humidity's low and the days have been gorgeous.

I was over in Huntsville today around lunchtime and met up with buddy of mine over at Surin's. It was my first time eating there and I wasn't disappointed. 7 pieces of sushi, half a chicken and shrimp fried rice. MMMMMMMM.... Delicious. Their sushi was very good - fresh, nice color and texture. I'll have to keep that place in mind for a dinner destination.

Anyway... I've had trouble sleeping the last two nights. It seems I just lay around and don't really get into a deep sleep. I wonder what's up with that? Despite my perceived lack of sleep, I've made it through the days without getting tired or sleepy which is good, but odd.

The new Harry Potter movie is coming out soon. I've seen and enjoyed all the others so I'm looking forward to this one as well. Any other HP fans out there?

Weekend's done.

I started Saturday by having breakfast with a few guys from church. It was a welcome change from my usual breakfast of oatmeal and orange juice. I went all out and had "Momma's Pancake Breakfast": 3 pancakes, 3 scrambled eggs, 4 slices of bacon and of course, orange juice. That filled me up.

Went on over to the spray car wash to see if I could get by without having to scrub my car clean with a full-on get the bucket and all the car washing crap out type of deal. It worked! I was really surprised at how well the so-called "spot free" rinse worked when I skipped the hand drying stuff.

With that out of the way, I went to work at home fixing this 40" X 60" light reflector thing I broke earlier this week. This is one of those things I actually wore protective glasses and gloves for. This reflector is held open by a 1/2" wide steel hoop that's about a 1/8" thick. Due to stupidity on my part which I won't go into, I broke it. Now I had 2 ends of the band protruding through the stretchy fabric that would normally cover it. Nice. The only way to fix it would be to drill 2 holes in each end and use screws to fasten them together. This is where the glasses and gloves come into play. After a bunch of pulling, squeezing, drilling, bad language, sweat and pinched skin - I got it fixed. I do NOT want to have to do that again.

Ate at JW Steakhouse that night. Looks like things have improved since my last visit, but my food still left something to be desired. My steak was too salty. I guess it was either the marinade was too salty, it was marinated too long, or both. My baked potato was good though.

Kyle headed on over to Applebee's for dessert (yes, our lives here typically involve action around mealtime) while I swung by my house for a minute. I get a text message from Kyle that "S and M want us to take them out tonight". I knew who "S" was, but I wasn't sure who "M" was. By the time I arrived on scene, Kyle was irritated and S & M were heading to a local bar (one I would not be interested in going to) with some other dude. That was just as well though since they were just needing someone to buy their drinks for the night. Anyway, hung out there for awhile before calling it a night.

Today after church and lunch I decided to get out and do a little shopping instead of taking my usual Sunday afternoon nap. I needed a casual winter coat to wear for when it's wet and yucky out. I've got all the other bases covered with one of my other 12 coats/jackets/fleeces (heh). Drove to Huntsville's Jones Valley and hit up Alabama Outdoors where I found a nice Marmot fleece/shell combination I liked. It was on sale too so that made it even nicer. It's one of those 2 piece deals where you can wear each piece by itself (the shell or the fleece liner) or zip them together for nice heavy protection from the elements. I drove around the area looking for photo spots as there are several hills in the vicinity that were thick with colorful trees. Even though I had my camera with me, the light just wasn't right so I didn't bother getting it out. Went over to Parkway Place to look for jeans and some shoes but had no luck.

Back at home, I thawed a bunch of king crab legs out then went over to Kevin and Stacey's where in total we steamed 4 lbs. of legs and 2 lobster tails. There were some other, smaller lobster tails but those tasted ULTRA bland. Yech. I went to eat my tail after steaming it and found it not yet done. Great. Instead of fooling with more steaming, I got out a pan and some olive oil and sauteed both tails. That did the trick.

What a good weekend.

It's uh, gonna be almost 80 today.

Ok, it's the 5th of November and we're gonna hit almost 80 today?!? That's crazy. It'll at least give me a chance to get some fertilizer down in the yard to prep for next year. I like my moss green you know... LOL! I still have this lingering problem with moss in my front yard. Hopefully I can get rid of that crap in the coming year or I'm just going to put sod down and be done with it.

Had the first oil change done on the new car this week in time for a quick trip down to Birmingham. While I was there, I did manage to get lost in the malfunction junction cluster. It's frustrating to not know where you are but I soon saw something I recognized (the airport) and knew how to get home from there. It's time like that I wish I would have sprung for the extra $2K to get the navigation system for the car. As it stands though, I'll probably get one of those Garmin or Magellan portable nav systems so I can use it in my car or in a rental when I travel. Anyone had experience with any of those portable systems? Let me know if you have any suggestions.

While I was in B'ham, I stopped in a camera store and looked at the Sekonic light meter I've been thinking about purchasing. It's pricey, but I've been using a Minolta meter a friend loaned me and it rocks. You see, I typically do most of my shooting in manual mode instead of automatic because the latter can be too much of a hit or miss operation. Using a meter along with manual mode gets you dead-on the settings you need to properly expose a scene. I used the meter I borrowed for my forest and home interior shots earlier this week. It just takes all the guesswork and trial-and-error out. Anyone want to buy it for me?

That's it.

I've decided that I'm carrying too much crap in my pockets on a day-to-day basis. Even right now I have a wallet, memory stick, chap stick, eye drops, cell phone and car keys. Thankfully, I don't have my small camera on me at the moment. I have gotten away from attaching my cellphone to my belt in *most* situations and carrying it in my hand or in a pocket. Trouble is, there's a good chance I'll end up forgetting it somewhere.

At a minimum, I need my wallet. My ID, permits, credit cards and insurance information is in there. I need my keys, obviously. The rest of the stuff I can leave in the car or someplace I can easily get to like my briefcase or camera bag.

What do you carry in your pockets?

A good chunk of the crew of our local Applebee's dressed up for halloween. There were a few still missing from this shot though.

Fall back.

Today was the day we do our weird practice of "falling back" where we move our clocks back an hour so we'll have more sunlight during the day. This will help it from still being dark outside at 6:00 AM - the time I typically get up. My body clock doesn't adjust that quickly so I was up at about 5:00 this morning and was stirring around. I got a load of laundry going then went online and played a few rounds of Battlefield 2. I also adjusted all my various clocks and timers to get them to the new time. Thank goodness my VCR sets its time automatically coz' that a pain to do manually. I got sleepy again but didn't go back to bed until I could put the laundry I was washing in the dryer.

My home phone rings at about 7:55. I'm half asleep but one thought runs through my head - the drummer for today at church didn't show and I need to be there in 5 minutes to warm up (we warm up at 8). Caller ID shows Kyle calling from his cell. As it turns out, he just needed to borrow my in-ear monitors as he left his in another person's car. No biggie, I can just remove my earmolds from them and he can put on his foam ear things. Don't wanna trade ear cooties you know.

It's cold this morning.

The Kinlock falls really intrigued me so I got another, closer shot of them.

Bordon Creek, one of the many creeks in the area.

Downstream from the falls a little. I had to step carefully into the middle of the stream to get a good spot.

Kinlock Falls

Outta shape!

That's the thought that came to mind as I felt winded from a short WALK in the woods today. My plan was to head out to Bankhead forest this morning to shoot some nature stuff. A big thanks to Eric for driving me around out there especially since he knew his way through the trails. His jeep was handy as well. He and his girls showed up right around 7 and we headed out. It was a crisp morning for sure... about 34 degrees. After about an hour drive we got to our first location. I scouted around a little to find a good spot to shoot from. That's the tough part. I also realized that if I do more of this, I need to get a backpack for my gear instead of my regular photo bag as I really need to have both my hands free to shimmy around the terrain without busting my ass on a rock or falling into the water, both of which would suck (in a bad way).

Had a good time talking about all sorts of stuff and laughing about past experiences. Eric's knowledge of the area was a great help as he explained the different places we visited and some of the background behind them. I'll definitely be going back.

Spent the afternoon doing laundry, washing the car and working on photos. Check 'em out.

Dining area.

One of several bedrooms.

Entry foyer.

Den

Media room.

Bizzy....

This week has been a whirlwind. Ever since my last post, it's been a running all around working on projects, meetings and photography. I did have an opportunity to try some interior home shots, some samples of which I'll post.

Tomorrow morning, my plan is to get out to Bankhead Forest and see what sorts of spots I can use for photo locations. That's gonna happen kinda early - about 7:00 AM.

Dinner tonight was interesting. My food was jacked up and had to be re-done. After waiting 45 minutes to get my food, I wasn't in the mood for another wait. I was told, "oh, it'll just take 6 minutes." Well what the heck happened when it took 45 minutes to get my food in the first place?!? Anyway, that 6 minutes turned into about 15. Grrr.

The night ended with an impromtu game of Twister played outside the restaurant with one of the waitresses. How bout that for excitement?

Tired, pooped, whatever.

LONG day today. Busy morning at the office then off to Huntsville for lunch with old co-workers. As always, it was good to see them. While I was there, I snapped a group portrait that will be given to my old manager as a parting gift to remember the crew by. Glad to have been able to help out.

After a busy afternoon, I then headed off to 3-hour photo session at an event nearby for a client. That went well. Saw lots of people I knew and also got some good shots I think. I'll download them tomorrow and look through them.

Over and out.

Quote of the day: "So she's a ho, huh?"

It's cool.

No really, IT'S COOL. It's in the 40's right now and predicted to get down to 36 tonight. (That's 2 Celsius for you JaG!) As usual, a nice spread of temperatures since we almost got to 90 a few times last week. I've got the furnace on now so I'll see some charges for gas on next month's utility bill. Again, let me just say how happy I have been with the gas heat instead of electric. The house just heats up so much quicker with gas.

When I got home from lunch this morning, my dog had struck again. This time the victim was a rabbit. Luckily I spotted it right away instead of a day or two later when it would be even more unpleasant to deal with. The cooler temperatures helped also.

Oh, guess what I found on my car today? A couple of aphids. Imagine that. They must have blown out of the trees since it was quite breezy today with the cold front moving in. Those little green bugs are what have caused me so much frustration with keeping my car clean. I'm seriouly considering a carport cover but I'm not settled on where I would have it installed.

I was lazy today. It was fantastic weather this afternoon and I should have gotten out with my camera. Instead, I did other crap that I could have done during the week. I did make plans to get out to the woods next weekend though with Eric. He's been out hiking in different wilderness areas and knows where some cool spots would be to shoot. If the weather cooperates, I hope to have some new stuff next week.

As the seasons change, it's time to turn my projects indoors here at la casa. I need to strip wallpaper in my hallway and repaint. Once that's done, I'll need to put carpet down or something. I'll make my hallway match my livingroom color just not using texture paint this time. After that's done, I'll either tackle the kitchen or main bathroom next. I'm leaning toward the bathroom as I really hate how it looks now. Sigh.

#%$*)@ aphids...

The roof, hood and some of the trunk on my car was COVERED with brown spots from that pesky aphid "honeydew". I thought I'd try the easy way out and go to the spray car wash to see if that would get rid of it. NOPE! Had to use old fashioned elbow grease and Bug & Tar remover. What a pain in the rump I tell ya. Took about 2 hours just to get all the spots off. My concern was that these spots would stain the finish if I left them on there for too long. Anyway, that's done for now. Hopefully I won't have to do that again anytime soon.

Lots of football on the tube today. I'm a Tennessee fan so I'm a bit disappointed over our loss to Alabama. Suprisingly though, we only lost by one field goal. With Alalbama currently ranked 5th and Tennessee 17th, you would think the gap would have been bigger. It was a good one to watch anyway. Auburn lost to LSU in another exciting game. Auburn's kicker (Cross?) wasn't on his game and missed all kinds of kicks.

Hung out with my sis for awhile today and helped her get some furniture moved to her place. Also made my monthly visit to WalMart. Ugh.

That's it for the cotton shots. When I was on my way back into town, I saw the Delta Queen paddle-boat had docked so I stopped and got some shots of it too.

The inside of the module machine. It spreads out then compacts the cotton. The end result is a huge "block" of cotton. I just now realized I forgot to get a picture of one of those.

Another picker taking a dump. (LOL)

Dumping the bin into the module machine.

Out the top of the tubes and into the collection bin.

View of the heads from standing on the deck beside the cockpit.

Okay - on the picker, cotton gets picked up by the heads in front - the heads have these spinning spikes with teeth that pull the cotton off the plant then push it into what I would call an airway where it gets blown up the two tubes the the left (in the picture) of the cockpit and out into the bin in the back.

Cotton about to be pulled into the heads of the picker.

Okay, Brian's heading my direction now. I actually was riding around on the picker but hopped off so I could get some shots of it coming and going. I was actually tough to get around. The cotton stalks are stiff and a little over waist-high.

Cotton EVERYWHERE.

Parting shot of a cotton picker humming along at about 3 miles per hour.

My morning started out with this plant... COTTON!

A fantastic day!

Ever since the Gala last year, my friend Brian L. had invited me out to their cotton farming operation when he learned I was interested in it. I've been living in the South most of my life so it wouldn't hurt me to learn more about the crops that grow so plentifully around here. Today was the very last day of their harvest. We had been missing each other when we tried doing something earlier but as luck would have it, I needed a cotton field shot for a work project so things worked out perfectly. Weather was superb too! I needed to enjoy the weather as much as possible as things are supposed to go downhill by the end of the week.

Enjoy some of the pictures from today.

Rested.

Ended yesterday not feeling all that great. Woke up this morning not feeling much better so I took the day off to rest - which is exactly what I did. Sometimes I just have to force myself to take it easy and just lay around because I always end up doing SOMETHING.

Here's one of the reasons it's hard to not get sick in this weather, it's forecast to hit 90 degrees tomorrow... on freakin October 19th! Good grief. I went ahead and turned my attic vent back on again since the temperatures went back up. Oh well.

Funny story today about Danica Patrick. She races in the Indy Racing League for the Rahal/Letterman team. Seem she and Jaques Lazier had a wreck and they both rode back in on the same ambulance. Apparently Danica poked him on the temple repeatedly saying "YA GOTTA USE THIS!!!!". LOL! Too funny. You go girl.

In other racing news, my favorite team (Renault) and driver (Fernando Alonso) won both the Constructors and Drivers championships in Formula One. The constructors championship is for the car builders and the drivers is for, well, the driver. Congrats to them. It'll give me more reason to wear my Renault stuff when I get the chance.

This weekend, it looks like me and my sister are going to get together and do some cooking. It's been quite awhile since we've cooked anything from our native country of the Philippines so we're gonna take it upon ourselves to whip up a good meal or two. I'm kinda looking forward to that as she and I don't get a chance to hang out as much these days. With my brother in law down in Louisiana with his tree crew helping with the hurricane clean up, now's a good time for us to catch up. Gotta come up with a list of dishes though so I can be sure to gather up all the ingredients in time. Some stuff ya' gotta track down.

A minor change.

After people have asked me for a link to my blog a bazillion times, I finally got tired of having to explain the old link to them... "www.jonathanmoral.com/web/weblog/blogger.html" not only was that a pain to tell someone about, it's even tougher to remember. Now, blog.jonathanmoral.com does it. MUCH easier.

Now for a small rant. I've been reminded in the past few days as to how many people don't have a clue how a 4-way stop works. Case in-point, this woman in a pickup truck pulls up to the stop first and everyone in-turn pulls up and stops as well. It's her turn to go. She doesn't. She's busy yakkin to someone in the truck. One cycle of people go through the intersection. It's my turn to go - she pulls into the MIDDLE of the intersection and stops. Everyone now is stopped just waiting to see what she's gonna do. Finally she turns. What an idiot.

In other news, I'm still having that "I'm gettin a cold or something" feeling. Instead of going out to eat tonight, I actually stayed in and had some chicken soup... and animal crackers. Mmmmm.

I need to get busy straightening up my place this week in preparation for guests. More on that later.

I'm finally awake.

I woke up this morning uncharacteristically early - 5:30. I was WIDE awake so I decided to get going on a load of laundry and watch the Formula 1 race I taped the previous night. The newspaper showed up around 7 so I got it and read through to see what was going on in town. Draft beer can FINALLY be served here starting Nov. 1st. Geez. After all that fun, climbing back into bed sounded like a good idea - so I did. Woke up a little after noon and missed church. Whoops. I had all kinds of weird dreams during that last sleeping session. Freaky.

Ate lunch then stopped in at EB Games to see what was new. I tried out Virtua Tennis for the PSP. I may have to get that one. Graphics were really nice and gameplay was smooth.

Speaking of gameplay, stopped in at Kevin's where the youth group was getting together for video games. He's got ALL the stuff over there... X-Box, PS2, (sonn XBOX 360), Nintendo 64, plasma TV, etc. Anyway, the funniest part of the night was when I mentioned playing Super Mario Kart and Kevin hopped in to play with 3 other kids.

Kevin: Let's put it on the DK Mountain track.
Teen #1: You sure you wanna do that? (arrogant)
Me: Uh oh, I hear some trash talk...

The unsuspecting teen did not know that Kevin is 30-something and has no job - playing video games IS his job. Kev obliterated the kids with ease while I laughed my hiney off in the foyer. That's just some funny stuff right there.

(Actually, Kevin has a job but it leaves him plenty of time to do other stuff - heh.)

Just passin' through.

Remember my day of not really doing anything? Well, it got busy kinda abruptly. I was enjoying my morning by sleeping in but finally decided to get up and moving around 10. I watched some TV then hopped in the shower. I decided that I'd run up to Tennessee and pick up some Powerball Lotto tickets since the jackpot is up to $300 Million. That's quite a chunk of change. Despite astronomical odds, I figured I stood a better chance of winning if I HAD tickets instead of didn't. Kyle went along also to throw his hat into the ring. On the way to Tennessee, he gets a call from Shane regarding a wedding Shane was supposed to be filming at 2. He's running late and wonders if Kyle can cover for him. Kyle already has to be at another wedding at 3. We keep on going to TN and get our tickets since that was the plan. On the way back (and it's around 1:00 and we're 20 miles from home) Kyle's phone rings again...

Seems that Shane was also supposed to take some photos at the wedding. Kyle reluctantly asks if I could shoot the wedding. Let's see here:

1. I'm 20 miles from home.
2. It's 1:10 and I have to be there at 1:45.
3. I'm in cargo shorts, a t-shirt and flip-flops
4. I have to run Kyle by his house

Luckily, I have a few things going for me:

1. I've had a shower
2. All my photo gear is with me - charged and ready

Kyle suffers from some mild dementia as he tells me I can just go like I am. I look like I'm about to pick rice in an Asian rice paddy. I drop Kyle off then rush home and at least get on a pair of jeans and some tennis shoes before I'm out the door. Still, one old woman looked me up and down and rolled her eyes as I walked up. I felt like telling her to kiss both butt cheeks but I thought better of it. I did the best I could given the short notice I had. "Notice" is probably too strong a word in this case.

Next, it was off to Trinity for another wedding. I was helping on the video duties this time. That went off without a hitch suprisingly. Afterwards, the reception was lit by candelight and was extremely dark. The video camera I was using was wortless in the lighting conditions. I was asked if I could take some photos - I politely refused this time.

Lesa and I hangin out at Simps after a long day.

 
 

Long week.

I've had one heck of a week this week. I did get to spend a good bit of time out of the office meeting with clients which I enjoy. The weather was fantastic for the most part so no complaints there. Ended the week with photo shoots. I worked with Ty Cole, a photographer from New York. Great guy. Cool to hang with.

Lesa and I also got to hang out some. That's something we haven't had a chance to do in a while. Had a few drinks over at Simp's Thursday night before I took off elsewhere for dinner.

This morning I stopped at the cleaners and dropped off a load of clothes including a few dress shirts I needed done for a wedding video job I'm helping Kyle on Saturday night. I don't have much call to wear suits very often any more but I do have several to choose from when the occasion arises. That's always nice.

I actually have NO other plans for this weekend which is very liberating! I'm not drumming this weekend, no yard work that's mandatory, and my house is reasonably clean. Other than washing my car and doing the odd load of laundry, I'm completely FREE!!!!

I'm excited.

The cab of the tractor trailer burned.

 
 

Traffic in the mirror.

 
 

Getting closer.

 

As I approached, they had diverted traffic over on to one side of the highway. 

Oooo... deadly wreck yesterday.

 

As I was returning from Huntsville Thursday afternoon, I ran across this. 

POOF! Weekend's over.

I had a SLOW start to Saturday morning. I got up at my usual time around 6 and fiddled around a little, not really getting anything accomplished. I was still sleepy and it was a gray day outside so I crawled back in bed. Around noon, I finally got up. I was on the fence about washing my car as it looked as though it could rain at any time. I DID however get busy trimming the holly bushes in front of my porch. Yet again, I filled up my yard waste bin.

I ended up washing my car after all. It was a bit dingy from all the driving I had been doing the past week or so. I also took the time to check tire pressures - ALL of which were low to some degree. Everything's back to a recommended 32 PSI now though so hopefully, my gas mileage will also improve slightly.

Went over to Jack's place to hang out and jam. He's got a nice multi-level patio in his back yard under a canopy of trees. A nice touch is that there's a fire pit right there next to one of the platforms. Roasted some marshmallows before getting a few instruments out to jam in the cool evening air. It was nice. I had flashbacks to my days as a boy scout in my younger years - sitting by the campfire with friends just talking about stuff and not having a care in the world. Very therapeutic.

Got up at 6 Sunday morning and STILL was late to church for band warm up. Good grief, I live about the closest to the building yet have been getting there late. I gotta work on that. The music went well today from what I could tell. Other than me losing count and coming in too early after a break (but I covered it up so it looked like I meant to do it - heh.), it was uneventful.

Had lunch with friends then afterward, saw that a bird had crapped on my car. Ahhh... can't keep it clean for 24 hours. I did clean that up when I had a chance to. During lunch, Kevin mentioned something about one of my eyes looking, well, different. I thought nothing of it till I looked in the mirror and saw my bottom eyelid swelling just slightly. I looked again a bit later and it was pretty puffy. Just great. Anyway, turns out I had some kind of allergic reaction I think. To what, I'm not sure yet but it's all better now. Geez.

For dinner tonight, I tried out a new steak house opened up by Jody Witt, a friend of Kyle's and my sister. Food was so-so, but they've only been open a few days so maybe it's just some start up hiccups. We'll see when we go back after a few weeks.

Friday Funk

Why I scheduled so many appointments on a Friday is beyond me. Several meetings looked very promising so at least it's not a wasted effort. Got a big photo shoot at the end of next week so I'm needing to get all that arranged to be sure I have locations and talent for the shots. I'll be back in Florence on Monday to re-shoot a photo or two for a client there.

Took Stephanie to lunch today over at Westside Grill. I'm involved in a project for her organization. After eating, I swung by the Joe Muggs for a mocha before going back to the office. One suprising thing is that I was talking about my trip to Indy for the Formula 1 race earlier this year. She asked "Isn't that the one where only 4 cars started?" Whoa. I was amazed she knew that.

Stayed home tonight as I had that "feeling" you get when you're about to be sick with a cold or something. Like I've mentioned before, I don't get sick very often but when I do, it's usually during the season change when temperatures go from hot to cold or vice versa. I'm feeling a little better now so maybe I'll be okay. I sure hope so. All I know is that staying in tonight was better than sitting in a smoke-filled room for a few hours.

I watched qualifying for the Japanese Grand Prix tonight. Very rainy session which really makes the starting grid kinda weird. It should make for an interesting race though.

This was the weekend I was supposed to go deep sea fishing with a few friends. Due to the hurricanes, the trip was cancelled. I need to plan on taking some time off soon as I really haven't had a proper vacation this year.

A photo shoot? Today?

I know it's the first week of October but with the high getting up to 88, it might as well still be summer. I wore a linen shirt and slacks today, violating some sort of fashion code. Before Kay could comment, I did let her know I was aware it was fall and I shouldn't be in linen, blah blah blah. She got a good laugh outta that.

I thought that I would just be meeting with a client today for a consultation. I didn't know I was needing to do some photography today. After climbing around on a ladder and moving stuff around then realizing I'd need the studio lights, it quickly became a linen-unfriendly environment. Had to make a run to the house to change into jeans. Eventually got the shoot done. Whew!

This afternoon, I idly rubbed one of my eyes. For the first time ever, one of my contact lenses went on an excursion around my eye. It was gone... up underneath my brain somewhere. I didn't panic at first, but after a few minutes of it not coming back to the visible part of my eye, I started to freak. Mainly, I was thinking "gee, even if I go to the Dr. what are they gonna do to get it out?" Luckily, the lens did show up and things returned back to normal.

My car is dirty again and needs a wash. It's supposed to rain Friday so I think I'll put that off until Saturday morning. It should be cooler then too. My other plan is to also finish up the hedge trimming since the city will be emptying my yard waste bin tomorrow morning. Round here, we have 2 trash bins - one for trash and one for yard waste. I also have a recycling bin.

Completely changing the subject, anyone reading this have an iPod Nano? I saw one in person the other day. Wow that was small. Still, I'm happy with my regular iPod. I still need to find the best solution for connecting it to my car stereo. FM transmitters SUCK. Especially the Griffin iTrip.

Bumpy week.

Last week was one for the books. It's reminded me of why I decided a while back that being single isn't all that bad. Dating can be a frustrating pain in the ass.

Aside from the social issues, my week ended on a good note. Made a guest appearance on the Jeff & Kyle show Friday night. When that was over, I headed on home as I was tired. On Saturday, I *finally* got a chance to try my hedge trimmer out on the holly bushes. I started off with the ones beside my house around the central air unit. My gas meter is located over there as well. I need to keep that area clear coz' the meter reader starts whining if the bushes scratch them up when they make their monthly visit. In no time, I had amassed enough clippings to fill my city-provided yard waste can to overflowing. That signified the end of the bush trimming. I could have bagged additional clippings but the bags I had were the cheap ones mainly for leaves and the holly branches would rip through it and make a mess. That'll give me something to do later on in the week.

I wish the weather would hurry up and cool off more so I can sell my old car. If you'll remember, the A/C in it died (on my birthday no less) so I'd have a better chance of getting a good price on it when the lack of A/C isn't such a deal breaker. It got nice and cool briefly last Thursday. I remember because I ate lunch outdoors at a cafe... and froze my hiney off. I had to turn the seat heater on when I got back in the car to thaw everything out and also to get "stuff" back to their normal dimensions. Geez. We were back in the high 80's for the weekend so Thursday was just a fluke.

I can't believe the weekend's over again already. I ended it by watching most of this week's Desperate Housewives episode. They'll be talking about it at work tomorrow so I might as well have some sort of clue what's going on. Oh, I also caught Extreme Makeover Home Edition. I love that show.

Nice day out.

It was a pleasant day today - glad I get to spend most of it out and about. Started off my day by fixing a printer at work. The lights were flashing with the message "call for factory repair" - not good. I searched a good bit and finally found a copy of the service manual online. That did the trick. I was able to diagnose and fix the problem easily at that point. I've still got the skillz to pay da' billz. :D

Went over to a friend's photo studio over in Madison. Nice setup! HUGE studio with garage door access to photograph cars or other large objects. I also got an interesting lesson on how large-format cameras are used. Very cool stuff.

While I was over there, I stopped over at Edo's to see my old friends there and have some sushi. Ahh... that was nice. On the way back to the office, I realized I was supposed to do a photo shoot for a local politician sometime before Wednesday. Hopped on the phone and set all that up then drove over to the photo locations to scout them out. Looks like I can handle it without needing the studio lights. I hope so at least.

Had band practice tonight. It's usually on Thursdays but some scheduling issues came up and it got moved. One of the other drummers that was supposed to play also had a snafu so I'll be playing this week instead. No worries - it was an easy set. Looking forward to the get-together at Jack's on Saturday night. I think just about everyone that plays an instrument (among our friends) will be there for a jam session. Maybe we'll have some pictures, we'll see.

After practice, Kev and I went enjoyed some good eatin at Dead Lobster. Woot!

Wardrobe malfunction.

My usual routine in the morning is to get up, turn the TV on for news, make and eat breakfast, brush teeth, shower, put on "work" clothes then head out. I got all the way to the clothes stage and did not have any socks to go with the pants I had picked out. You see, I typically wear business casual attire nowdays. And that's only when I plan on seeing clients. Other days I'm fine in jeans. Anyway, I've got several pairs of slacks that aren't true khakis but are have more of a golden tan color to them. I only have one pair of socks that match that color - and they were in the laundry basket. Re-wearing the socks was out of the question without laundering them. That's just nasty. Swapped out the pants for a dark navy pair. I've got socks to go with blue for days. After work, I made a stop at TJ Maxx and got 9 pairs of socks that will go with the pants now. I'm happy.

So much for my sock saga.

Oh - in other fun news, one of my termite people called. They found termites in 3 stations around the perimeter of my house. I think I have 25 stations in all. I've got that Sentricon system going on so now they've changed the substance in the affected stations to bait and installed extra stations right around them to eliminate the colony. I should probably say something to my neighbor on the driveway side because the termites were coming from his direction.

That does it for my bug saga.

My plan was to get my hedge trimmer out tonight and get work done with that. My sock shopping adventure changed that plan as it was getting dark when I finally arrived home. Hedge trimmer in the dark = jacked up hedges and possibly a cut power cord. I'll put that off till later in the week when it's supposed to get getting cooler anyway... highs by the end of the week are in the mid 70's. With the weather changing, I have to be extra careful to try and not get sick because traditionally, I get some kind of sickness on the season change. Being sick sucks. Especially when you have to take care of yourself. Luckily, my sister lives here in town and helps me out sometimes. She's ran to the store for me for stuff and for medicines.

I'm off to bed.

Soggy.

The Remnants of Rita are in the valley and she's making her presence known with some heavy rain. We need it though coz' it's been pretty dry around here the past few weeks. This will also help with that aphid problem I mentioned a couple of posts back - knock 'em out of the trees and keep them from getting that honeydew crap all over everything.

Last Friday night I headed over to Big Spring Jam. Through work I get a pass for the whole weekend and access to the hospitality tent for food and a place to kick back. Despite the heavy traffic, I was able to get a good parking place in a public lot. Made my way over to the stage where Theory of a Deadman was playing and met up with some friends. When they got done, I moved over to the middle of the crowd and scrunched up with some more friends of mine along with a bunch of teeny-boppers to catch the Alterbridge show. I'm glad I had seen them before at the Roxy over in Atlanta and at the VonBraun center in town because the sound where I was standing sucked. I had my earplugs with me so that made it better but despite that, I had a good time anyway.

Saturday morning I had committed to take photos of a friend's family that's a missionary. Called and woke Kyle up because I needed him for lighting help. Got through the first shoot then was on to the next with Wendy. She needed some new shots for her theatrical stuff. Ended up shooting over at the Old State Bank. It was a good backdrop for the kinds of shots we were doing.

I spent the remainder of the day on domestic stuff. I wanted to go back to Big Spring Jam to check out The Black Crows but I was tired and didn't feel like driving to Huntsville and back.

The music at church was good today. I was off duty this week so I got to enjoy things from off the stage for a change. I did bring in my sound meter and MD recorder though. I had been meaning to check on some sound levels for awhile and had time to get my stuff together and "git 'er done" today. On the high end, we hit around 110db a few times in the middle of the room. In the back, there was about a 9db decrease. Took some notes for reference that might help us in the future.

Made a trip to Home Depot after lunch. I was still looking at gas grills. While there, I went ahead and picked up a strong electric hedge trimmer so I could whip the holly bushes around my front porch and around the side of the house into shape. Those things are a BITCH to trim with hand clippers. I also got some dryer ductwork. There's a pretty sharp bend in the existing ductwork that if I get straightened out, I think my dryer will work significantly faster. We'll see.

Oooo.... congrats to Fernando Alonso of Renault for clinching the 2005 F1 World Champion title in todays Brazilian Grand Prix. Exciting race to watch. Speaking of F1, I got my refund check from Michelin for the mess at this year's US Grand Prix. I also found out that I get 2 extra tickets for next year's race! I've already renewed my tickets for next year AND gotten my hotel reservations - I'll have 4 tickets total. Might be able to bring along some F1 newbies!

On another note, I've been eating with a group of people on Thursdays at a local Mexican restaurant. It's just different folks - friends and clients. Remember back last fall when I had a problem with my heating system? The guy that owns the service company that worked on my heating unit is a lunch buddy now. So, if any of of you local folks need good people to call for HVAC service, I've got someone to recommend to you.

Completely random shot of my car's odometer with 100 miles on it. It had 37 miles on it when I picked it up.

Decent shot of Scott Phillip's drum kit.

Here's a shot showing how far I was from the stage.

Myles on-stage in front of Scott's drums.

Mark Tremonti on guitar.

Myles Kennedy of Alterbridge. He had come down off the stage into the tunnel for the sound cables. Snapped these shots with my little Sony camera.

Hot n' nasty.

That would be how I would describe the photo shoot yesterday at the rubber mill. One thing that is a nice benefit of my job is that I'm exposed to plenty of different industries and processes that you don't normally just run across. Rubber manufacturing for example. You can't stay clean in that environment. Natural rubber is kind of taupe in color. A product called carbon black is added to it to give it the characteristic black color we're used to seeing. I saw how raw materials are mixed and processed to yield products with different properties. I also saw how compounds were formulated and how they are tested in the lab. Very interesting learning experience.

On the photography side of things, a lot of powerful lighting was needed to light up machinery up to 3 stories tall. From the preliminary samples I looked at, we've got some good shots. That's a relief. It was hard work getting those.

Dilated.

I went to the eye doctor yesterday for my annual checkup. Without contacts or glasses, my vision is pretty crappy - like about a -6.5 in each eye. Corrected though, I'm very close to 20/20 so it's all good. Everything checked out fine, but as usual, the Dr. dilated my pupils to take a good look around the insides of my eyes. If you've never had that done before, it's a bit bizarre. Look in the mirror once everything has taken effect and your pupil takes up most of the colored part of your eye. It's weird to see. Well, with that going on, your eye can't regulate the amount of light coming in so you're EXTREMELY light-sensitive. Not to mention that your close up vision is completely hosed.

Nice way to spend the evening I assure you.

My car WAS clean yesterday.

It was spotless. I was putting some of my drum stuff in the trunk when I noticed I had all these light brown blotches on the paint. I thought it was tree sap at first. No... it's aphid crap. Yes, aphids. Apparently there are aphids in the tree above my driveway. They eat and then secreet this sugary substance that then splatters on things below. As Yoda would say - "Pissed, I am". Time to look into a carport or something I guess.

Music at church went well today. That's always good.

Tonight, ran over to Wal-Mart becaue I needed to get dog food and water. Kelsey seems to like their "Ol' Roy" brand so I brave the whole Wal-Mart experience for her. Why is it that my local Wal-Mart seems so much worse than others? The one in Madison is LOTS better. Again, I can't wait till we get our Target built over here.

Saturday... in the park...

Well, not really. :D

I've had quite a busy week with something going on pretty much every night. Thursday I started off the day at the office then went to Huntsville to visit some clients. While there, I had lunch over at Mama Fu's - a chinese fast food joint. I was pleasantly suprised at how good the shrimp terriyaki bowl I had was. The bad thing is that they're on University drive right in the middle of all that road construction making getting in and out of the parking lot a hassle. Also, some friends of mine started up a franchise of Batteries Plus in the same center as Mama Fu's. They stock and repair/recondition just about any type of battery you can think of. I've got this big UPS at home that supplies power to my main computer. It's an APC Smart UPS 1400. They built a replacement battery for me while I was there. It was a bit pricey. To get the replacment from APC would have cost $125 plus shipping. I was able to get this other battery for $116 including tax so I probably saved about $20.

My next destination was Florence, over in the north west corner of the state. Stopped by the office on my way by then continued to the client. After that was done, it was back to Decatur in time to wrap things up at the office and head to band practice. That made for a long day.

Friday was the start of Riverfest. Our band played in it last year. Went over there for lunch and met up with some friends from the convention and visitors bureau. Had fun talking about old times with Sharon. She and I unsed to run around together about 12+ years ago when we worked at the mall. Great memories.

After work, I went to Cafe 113 to help Lesa with some photos she was going to use the studio lights for. Got her set up and going before I took off for Humphrey's in Huntsville. I was meeting my buddy Ben and his wife (and in-laws) for dinner. Back when I was at Intergraph, Ben was my primary contact at NetSolve - the partner we used for network management. He and I spent several hours on dozens of conference calls regarding client networks. He also saved my butt plenty of times when networks went haywire. I had been to NetSolve in Austin, TX before but never met Ben in person until last night. We all had a great time. Dinner was delicious. Had a big hunk of meat, mashed potatos and green beans. When we were done there, we walked over to the Kaffe Klatch for some after dinner drinks. I had been there before but there's a "different" kind of crowd there. Came on home after that.

Been Mr. Domestic today - washed the car, worked on the shrubs up front, ironed clothes... yee ha fun stuff. Time for dinner now then I'll probably work on some of my photos from last weekend.

Grrr.

First off, Blogger ate my post from last night. I definitely wasn't too happy about that at all. (EDIT: GEEZ! Now it's back. I don't know what the heck happened)

I spent a large part of yesterday and today doing product photography at work. I have to use the studio lights which takes some planning to get right. The product I was shooting is packed in white plastic containers which presented the challenge of minimizing reflections off of them into the camera. The was a tall dispplay I was shooting, close to 6ft high. I ended up using softboxes pointed up at the ceiling and 2 people holding up flags to block the part of the light that was causing the reflections. Anyway, I was pleased when I finally got that done.

Last night I headed over to Cameron's place to see how he's improved the performance of his tesla coil since I last saw it several weeks ago. Kyle was interested in seeing it so I picked he and his video camera up on the way. Cameron's got his coil working great! He's getting some 10' to 12' arcs jumping off it now. Kyle was able to get SOME VIDEO that you can check out. Be sure to turn up your sound too.

Tonight, I hung out with a photographer friend of mine and looked at some of his work. Lots of fantastic nature panoramas. I can learn a lot from him. One of his prints is hanging in my living room.

Start of the week.

Whew! Was busy at work most of the day working on a product photo shoot. Not nearly as fun or exciting as a photographing people but you learn a lot which is never a bad thing.

Had lunch with Jason over at the Bank Street Deli then walked around old Decatur a bit checking out some of the shops. This is the same area where the art auction was held last Saturday.

After work, I did some laundry at home then headed over to Cameron's house with Kyle to see how his tesla coil was working after he's had a few weeks to fine tune it. WOW. It's throwing out 10-12' arcs of lightning now. Kyle had a video camera with him and recorded the event. Hopefully, he'll have that posted somewhere and you can see it. It's pretty cool.

Dani from this afternoon.

Mooresville post office shot from Saturday morning.

The weekend just BLEW by!

I barely had a chance to enjoy it.

My Saturday started with me watching qualifying for the Belgian Grand Prix race. I was all pumped up about that as Fernando Alonso might be able to wrap up the championship this weekend.

Grabbed some breakfast and went to pick up Dani for a photo shoot... no answer at her door. To make a long story short, ended up making other plans. Lesa was going to help out with the shoot and she was all ready to go. Since I had all my photo gear with me, I picked Lesa up determined to find something to take shots of. We made it over to nearby Mooresville - a historic town not too far from here. Nothing too extravagant, but some very nice rustic buildings. There was an old church there and a quaint post office which I photographed. We also stopped at a restaurant there that was closed but had some great ambiance. The owner saw us and opened up so we could come inside and shoot in there also. Her name was Dee. She was very gracious and told us a lot about the history of the town and of her restaurant. They are about to celebrate the restaurant's 100th anniversary! Wow.

Later on that day, Kyle and I headed to a benefit art auction being held where Tracy had been working on that mural downtown (I blogged about it a few months ago). Saw plenty of people I knew there. After that was over and I had grabbed some dinner, we went over to the Brick for some pool and also to benefit the same thing as the art auction. PLENTY of people I knew were there. I ended up talking with Maria and Lisa a good bit. Maria had some SERIOUS cleavage going on. Had lots of fun with that.

Sunday morning came early. I watched part of the Belgian race then taped the remainder (no TiVo yet... waaaahhh!). Got to church a few minutes late as the rest of the band was waiting on me. I brought along more stuff than I usually do since I was going to be playing for a lot longer than normal. In addition to my snare drum, stick bag and cymbals, I brought my throne (I gotta be comfy you know) and my double-pedals. Everything went well from a musical standpoint. During the second service, I dropped a stick during the first song, but I was able to grab another one to prevent a train wreck (I have spares nearby for just such an event).

Ate a quick lunch then FINALLY got with Dani for her photo session. Lesa, who did have a location for me to use AND was going to assist me couldn't make it. I was kinda irritated at that point because I really didn't feel like doing the shoot today and would have rather been taking a nap. I also had some kind of pulled muscle in my neck making me uncomfotable already anyway. I finally decided to go through with it - Kyle was available to help and Mooresville was to be the location.

The shoot went well but it was freakin' hot! Got some good shots that I think will turn out nicely.

Time for bed. Gotta work tomorrow.

Sporadic update.

This week's been a pretty eventful one for me so far. Work's been going well which is always nice. Band practice was last night. That wasn't so hot. My in-ear mix was goofed up and the drums sounded like poo. We all muddled through but I think we all agreed that things were very "off" last night. After work today, I stopped by to tune the drums. They are MUCH improved now. I'm happy.

Used up the batteries in two iPod's today. We're using ours for the overhead music and the phone on-hold music instead of a CD carousle that's been locking up on us. When the iPod mini ran out of juice, I swapped in my iPod. It didn't have much of a charge on it so it quit after a few hours. The mini should have a charging base by Monday so that'll fix that problem.

Lesa and I had lunch today over at Bank St. Deli. Full house in there. I ran into Sarah from the Princess there with her friends. When we were through, we scouted out a place for the photoshoot tomorrow. Got a cool spot I think will work out.

Sprayin' on the concrete.

Early times.

It's been awhile since I've left the house in the morning when it was still dark. I really didn't have too much trouble waking up. Loaded up the car with all my photography gear and also a video camera. Packed a cooler with water and Mt. Dew also. On the way up, I did get a little groggy so I cranked up some tunes on my iPod - I cued up a Bobby Brown CD that Bone loaned me and was jammin' to that old school stuff. That woke me up.

Got to Franklin right at 7. Called and found out that the first cement truck got pushed back 2 hours... WTF?!?! I could have slept till a decent hour. Made a pit stop at McDonalds for more breakfast before going to the construction site. Finally, everything came together and things started happening. Lot's of hardware running when things were going - cement truck, cement pump, air compressor...

Spraying cement is a tough job. You got one guy running the pump and talking with the cement truck dude making sure the contents of the truck feed properly. This guy also has a wireless remote control to start and stop the pump (very cool btw). Then, you've got 2 hoses - one from the air compressor and one from the cement pump that end in a nozzle with flow controls on it. This nozzle and pair of hoses weighs about 90 lbs. by itself WITHOUT concrete flowing through it. So, ya got this one dude working the nozzle and the other guys move the hoses around as the nozzle dude works. Interesting stuff. Got all the shots I could before taking a break for lunch.

For lunch, I made it over to Famous Dave's for some chicken tenders. Good eatin. Then I went over to this outdoor shop to find a hat I had been looking for. Luckily they had what I wanted. (Eric - its Blue Ridge Mtn. Sports, thought you might be interested) While I was out, I got a call from the construction site that they were done for the day. There were some other shots I needed but the crew didn't get to it today. I am not planning on going back tomorrow. I'll make what I have work.

On the way home, I ran into some mutant bugs. I swear, when these things hit, they splattered like a water balloon. Bug guts everywhere. I even got one that hit right in front of my drivers door handle!?!?

Oh, speaking of car stuff - when%

Yeah, I'm up.

Looks like the photo shoot in Nashville is finally happening. Got up a little before 4 AM this morning and am getting ready to head out. Gotta be there around 6:30. Yikes!

Are ya bored and wanna look at stuff?

I added a link to one of my photo galleries (there on the right) awhile back but never really drew attention to it. I'm behind the camera a good bit whenever I get the chance. Check it out!

Click HERE to go take a peek!

Beautimus weather

I must say, the weather we've had the past few days has been a pleasant change. It still gets a little hot in the afternoon but the mornings and evenings are pretty nice! The humidity being low really helps too.

Got up this morning to watch the Italian Grand Prix as I had planned. The McLaren of Juan Pablo won followed by the 2 Renaults. Michael Schumacher is out of contention to retain his title and unless something goes horribly wrong, Renault's Fernando Alonso should win it this year. It was an exciting race - everyone actually made it to the end without blowing up or crashing out.

Ran sound today at church. I also brought along my isolation headphones so you could hear the sound without the room's influence. Wow. The room sux. Music was good albeit some tempo issues - Jack had a nice solo in the last song he did a great job on. His LesPaul has a warm tone to it.

Watched Maria Sharapova do her thing today, putting out Mizrah handily in less than an hour. That girl can play some tennis! I think she plays again tomorrow. I have to be sure and tune in. Later in the evening, I watched the NASCAR race in California. Congrats to Kyle Busch, the youngest NEXTEL Cup winner at 20 years old! That's gotta be exciting for that kid. I still hate the goofy drama in NASCAR though... caution flags coming out bunching up the cars any time someone gets too far ahead or for a ball of duct tape on the pavement. Oh, and I do NOT like the new paint scheme on the #20 Home Depot car. In the post race comments, several racers were very unhappy with the performance of their cars. Many had problems with getting the cars adjusted to handle with any sort of confidence. Oh well.

Random pic - getting ready to get on stage at Riverfest last year. Those sound people were goobs. Thank God Phillip showed up to get things "fixed"!

Ahhh... a 3-day weekend

Wrapped up a good week at the office. Thursday evening, Lesa joined me at an event over at Point Mallard hosted by my buddy Jeremy's organization. Great food! I also saw several old friends there and spent time getting caught up a little with them. When that finished, we headed over to Applebee's for drinks. Belinda was working the bar so the drinks were GOOD. The band showed up while we were there (I'm not drumming this week)- Kevin, Eric and Jack & Co. Anyway, Belinda showed me some pictures from a friends bachelorette party and wedding with many folks I knew doing some pratty racy things. Funny stuff especially with the penis cake and penis straws. Martha Stewart would be proud.

Last night was the first time in a LONG time I ate over at Ruby Tuesday. Tonya was there working and she chatted with us. My food was very good - coconut shrimp. Mmmm... Later we went over to The Brick for some pool and to listen to the sounds of Toy Shop. Their drummer had a really nice maple Ayotte kit. You don't see many of those around. He was happy to let me come check it out and take a close look at it. Oooo! They have a Galaga machine over there! I wasted no time and set the high score on that baby!!! That's by far my favorite video game.

Today was domestic day for me. Washed my car in the morning then spent some time in the back yard pruning crepe myrtles and rose bushes. I think I'm going to get rid of the roses. They are only nice to look at for a very brief time and are pretty much an eyesore the rest. My crepe myrtles are outta hand though. I filled up my yard trash bin and called it quits but there's plenty more to do. I'll probably work on those more on Monday.

Oh yeah, I got up this morning to watch qualifying for the Italian Grand Prix. The McLaren-Mercedes cars are haulin' ass. My boy Fernando is gonna have a tough time keeping up in his Renault. The Honda's are looking good too. Should be a great race tomorrow.

Bummed

I really can't tear myself away from the news. With all the destruction and loss of life just a few hundred miles away, it was a surreal feeling to have had a nice day outside here in town. By all accounts, things around here in north Alabama are normal. If it wasn't for the news, you wouldn't have known anything was wrong. My day was pretty normal - work at the office, lunch with my sister, visit some clients and then run some errands after work. Somehow, I just appreciated evertyhing just a little bit more today.

Some of my family called in to check on me. My parents sent me an email from the other side of the world checking in as well. I assured everyone that I was okay. Kelsey (my dog) is fine too. She still doesn't have the sense to go in her doghouse to stay dry but insists on sitting out in the rain getting soaked. Whatever makes her happy I guess.

Oh... here's something interesting that happened today - as I was heading to Huntsville, I thought I'd fill my car up with gas. I still had 3/4 of a tank but filled it up anyway. I paid $2.49 per gallon at the Texaco near my office. This was at 1:00. By the time I got back in town around 4:30, the price at the SAME STATION was $2.79!?!? Glad I filled up earlier!

Sheesh. I was ALMOST an SUV owner last year around this time. While I wouldn't mind having a large vehicle, fuel prices just make them too expensive to drive. One of my friends wives drives a Ford Excursion... with a V-10 in it. That's gotta be painful. My car holds a tad over 17 gallons of fuel. At $2.79 a gallon, that's $47.43 for a full tank. Holy crap. My friend's Excursion has a 44 gallon tank... $122.76 for a fill-up.

That's crazy stuff right there I tell ya.

Leaves, limbs and crap.

I went to bed last night with a whopper of a headache. Ugh! I did hear the wind howling outside and got back UP out of bed to move my trash bins inside the gate and up against the house so there would be less of a chance for them to blow over.

Woke up this morning with no real damage to the house I could see. There were lots of leaves and small branches everywhere though. There was crap all over the car too - I spent several minutes picking off leaves and acorns before heading to the office. Big props go out to my local utility company - even in last night's high winds, my power never blinked off.

On the way to the office, I did see lots of downed trees and much larger limbs. I really did luck out at my place.

I have nothing to complain about though. I've been watching the news all evening taking in all the destruction to my south. I'm in shock over how bad things were and even more, how much worse things are getting.