Ah... the weekend's here!

After another busy week at work, it was nice to wrap up with a Photoshop seminar up in Nashville Friday. I learned a lot of new things along with better ways to do things I HAVE been doing. Good stuff. After class was over, I met up with a friend of mine from Pearl Drums for some dinner at Big River Brewery. Excellent cuisine. Had fun talking about a variety of topics from drums to photography.

Afterward, I stopped in at Guitar Center to see if they had a bag I could carry my bongos in. I was in luck and they had what I needed. I much prefer Fork's for my drum gear but they had closed at 6 and it was already past 7.

When I got home, I started uploading the first sets of shots from the Cinderella dance recital up to my gallery. There's a BUNCH so that will be a time consuming process.

This morning, I finally unpacked my drums from last weekends show. From the heat, they had gone way out of tune so I tinkered around with them to get them sounding like they should. I was lazy and didn't set them up yet. I may do that before I head off to bed shortly.

I decided that today I really needed to wash my car. It was filthy. What took the longest was getting all the bugs off the front. I had to break out the bug & tar remover to get about a zillion gnats off of there that wouldn't wash off. I did the whole works, vacuumed the interior and the trunk, wiped off all the leather, washed the exterior, cleaned the wheels and tires, cleaned the glass inside and out... I even went ahead and checked my tire pressures. 3 of them were down a pound of air so I got them aired up to where they needed to be. Car looks good now. I did find one place where my paint got chipped. GRRRR. I've got touch up paint so I'll fix it tomorrow.

Went bowling tonight - it was my first time in probably 6 years and you could tell. Yikes! I bowled WAY below my average, but I didn't expect much after not having bowled in so long AND being tired from working outside all afternoon.

Time to wind down for the evening. I may make myself a nice drink and watch some tube before I drift off to bed.

I survived!

The past 10 days have been some of the busiest in recent times! My schedule was JAM PACKED with photography, band practices and performances, travel for work, etc. The previous weekend I was doing some shooting for a local dance studio's performance of Cinderella. 2 different shows on Saturday and a matinee on Sunday. The average length of the show was in excess of 3 hours so by the time all that was done, I was pretty much wiped out. Mixed in with all that was a morning band practice on Saturday, playing in 2 church services Sunday morning and then playing through our full set list for our youth group Sunday night in preparation for our band's performance at the Alabama Jubilee the next Saturday.

After getting home that night, I spent the remainder of the time packing for my trip to Seattle. Normally when traveling, I prefer not to check baggage if at all possible. That wouldn't work this time because I had to bring my camera gear and laptop as well. My laptop's huge and needs its own bag so I can pack it with my camera. There goes my 2 carry-on limit. My garment bag would have to be checked.

I need a lighter, thinner laptop. There. I said it.

Somehow, everything came together and at 5:45 AM Monday morning, I was sitting in a plane. After a brief stop in Atlanta and an almost 5 hour flight from there, I arrived in Seattle. Checked in at the Hilton there then stopped in to meet with a client before joining them for dinner at Salty's. Dinner there was FANTASTIC! I think I had one of, if not THE BEST dinner I have ever had. I'm a big fan of seafood and just everything was SO fresh! The lobster tails, mussels, oysters, Copper River salmon, scallops, crab legs, wine, chowder... OMG it was glorious! I'm getting hungry just thinking about it.

Tuesday was all business. When the last meeting was over, we headed downtown to look around. Strangely, a lot of the attractions there closed at 5:00. It was after 5:00 so there wasn't too much to do other than walk around and look. Dinner was in the restaurant at the top of the Space Needle. The retaurant rotated slowly so as you ate, you saw every direction around the city. It was gorgeous! After eating, I got up on the observation deck and took more photos and just took it all in.

Despite Seattle being know for rain, it's also interesting to note that there was very little humidity. I don't think I ever sweated or got sticky there AT ALL. Granted, lows were in the 50's and highs in the 60's but it was always pleasant.

Wednesday I was up in Everett which is just north of Seattle. There I saw to Boeing assembly plants for their largest planes. WOW. Those plants are the largest structures I recall ever seeing. They are just MASSIVE.

Ate lunch there in town and took some shots of the ferry to Whidby island before coming back to town. The plan was to go back to the Pike Street market which was closing up when we arrived the previous day. This was the place where the fish monger throws the fish around to the guys behind the counter when he makes a sale. I also had a chance to get a mocha latte at the FIRST Starbucks Coffee house. How cool is that? Next, we made it over to the Science Fiction museum to check out some unique things. They had Captain Kirk's chair from the Enterprise, the Death Star they used in the Star Wars movies, the suit Charlton Heston wore in 1968 for the original Planet of the Apes, the arm and skull of The Terminator, the yellow hydraulic loader thing Ripley used to fight the alien queen from the movie "Alien"... just all sorts of stuff. This was the real deal! Kinda geeky, but fun.

Spent the next little bit shooting photos outside the museum and in a neighboring park. The sun came out and made for some nice shots. After a nice quiet dinner, headed back to the hotel to pack for the trip home the next day. Thursday was a travel day. Flew out at 6:30 AM and arrive back home about 5 that afternoon. While I had fun, I looked forward to my own bed.

After work Friday, I came home and started packing up my drums for Saturday's performance. Jack would be over in the mini van the next morning at 10 to pick me and all my gear up. Took it easy that night and rested.

After getting up and taking a shower, I brought some of my drum gear outside to get loaded. It was then I realized that taking a shower was a moot point. I was sweating as soon as I stepped outside. It was blazing hot. When we took to the stage, it was 93! Thankfully, I brought along my BIG fan which kept me cool while I was playing. Kyle took a few photos and some video as well. Maybe I'll have a clip of us playing soon. (thanks dude)

When we finished playing, we packed up again and headed home. Jack and I unloaded all my stuff and got it back in my house. Cleaned up then met up with everyone again for drinks and a snack at a place on the river. Ahhhh... A friend of mine and I continued on to Huntsville for a nice dinner at Macaroni Grill. That was a great way to wrap up a long and busy week.

After church Sunday, I watched some of the Grad Prix of Monaco. The Formula 1 circus was there racing in the principality this weekend. I did venture out in the heat though to get some photos at the Jubilee for work. Soaked with sweat, AGAIN. Joined up with friends in Hartselle to do some shooting on a farm. We all had a good time! Oh, there was this one incident where Matt's .44 made me jump. Some powder or other material came out the side of the revolver and hit me in the neck. That stung for sure. I was definitely glad I had protective glasses on. If that had hit me in the eye, that would have been a bad thing. The rest of the evening was spent eating pizza and just hanging out at Will and Helen's place.

It's good to be home.

Jack's ready, I'm ready.. let's go!

Click. Click. Click.

I think I had a photo shoot every day this week. No kiddin. Some architectural stuff early in the week then some product photography midweek. Wrapped up the week shooting at a college girls softball tournament going on nearby. 22 teams are here for it, one of which my employer sponsored. I've got a truckload of shots from that. They had set up some scaffolding for the photographers to use so I took full advantage of that. Up high, you don't have the protection of the fence or net so you have to keep one eye on the action at all times or you could be in for a nasty (and PAINFUL) suprise. The weather cooperated and made for a very pleasant time outdoors. I'm glad I work my thick khakis because the tops of the scaffolding were very rough (for traction I'm sure) and I was kneeling most of the time.

After I finished at the ball game Friday, I went by the venue where a local dance studio performs. I had to pick up a copy of the program and production notes as I'll be doing all the performance photography this weekend. These notes will be a guide for me so I'll know what to expect from each performance. It'll be a fun but VERY busy time for me. I'll have my kneepads on for sure as I'll be doing a lot of crawling around between the first row of seats and the stage to get my shots.

My buddy Kyle will be upstairs shooting video, but he has the luxury of being in one spot watching what he's recording on a laptop screen. Between performances, I'll join him there on a bank of laptop computers to download photos from my memory cards and burn the data to DVD so I'll be ready for the next round. I am READY this time. I have 12 GIGS of memory cards on me and 2 camera bodies. The 2 camera bodies lets me put a short lens on one and a long lens on the other so I won't have to go through the hassle of switching lenses (which can be a bit tough in the dark) to get all the action, just grab the appropriate camera and shoot.

As if that isn't enough fun for one day, I have band practice this morning. I'm really glad we were all able to fit a practice in though. It's been a hectic week for all of us in the band but you still have to get in a practice somehow. Our gig is coming up this weekend so practicing is a good thing.

Thanks, but no.

As more and more people find out about the photography side of my life, I naturally receive more requests to do shoots. That's a good thing. Today though, I got asked about shooting another wedding. I say "another" because I've shot 2 already. The thing is though, I just don't feel comfortable enough shooting weddings. Not the technical aspect mind you, I can definitely get the shots, but more so knowing what shots the family wants to get. I have a good friend that's a wedding photographer. I've offered to help he and his business partner shoot weddings as a third phtographer or assistant so I can at least learn from someone who shoots these types of events for a living. That should happen soon so maybe I can pick up a few wedding gigs here and there. Aside from that, I also need additional items like a backup body and another flash unit. I'd hate to be responsible for the images at such an important event only to have an equipment malfunction totally messing up the day. Those additional items can put quite a dent in the wallet though. For a second body, I'd really love to have either Canon's 1Ds Mark II or the 1D Mark IIN - the latter for it's speed and usefulness for sports.

Despite all the above, I did accept a request to shoot an outdoor wedding for a friend's friend. I've got a good handle on lighting outdoors PLUS the bride and groom are furnishing me with a list of shots they want. That should make things easier... I hope.

Anyone see the F1 race today in Spain? Renault's Fernando Alonso won! I just like that kid. Maybe this year I can get an autograph or something at Indy. That would be cool. We'll see. The CBS coverage I was dreading wasn't too terribly bad which was a pleasant surprise. Two weeks from now they'll be racing in Monaco. There's not a lot of passing there but it's exciting to watch. If I had the means, that would be a place I'd like to see the race in person at.

In other car news, I got the hail damage repaired on my car this week. The damage was light enough that the paintless dent repair (PDR) service was all it took to get the metal back nice and smooth without damaging the paint. It would really stink to have a car not even a year old needing paint work!

Today was a good day for me... church this morning, lunch with friends at Kyoto then dinner at Jawana's. Watched Extreme Home Makeover afterwards then stopped off at my sister's new place before heading to the homestead.

Sigh. The weekend's over. Back to bizz-nass.

Oh, I've added my buddy Kenneth to my list of blog buddies. He's a good friend from back in my high school days!

On this special day.

To all you mother's out there (especially mine)- Happy Mother's Day!

A catch-up of sorts.

I've finally posted a couple of photos from recent personal stuff I've worked on. I have plenty more that I'll get posted as time permits.

A few weeks ago, me and some of the band got together one night to record a quick and dirty demo CD we needed to provide to some venues that we were hoping to play at. Despite the less than optimal circumstances of recording outside of a studio environment, it came out sounding pretty decent although I wasn't overly thrilled with my playing. We didn't have the luxury of listening to each track as it was recorded - we just played then moved to the next song for the most part. It did make me look forward to doing a studio session in the near future though.

Formula One. That's a topic I haven't talked about lately. The engine and rule changes this year have made F1 races the most exciting I have seen in quite a while. Cars are more closely matched and no one in particular is running away with the championship so far. Renault is leading in the meantime but Ferrari is clawing away at their lead. McLaren and Honda aren't too far behind, they're definitely in the mix. The USGP is coming up in a few weeks. I always look forward to that weekend to see the race live and in person! I received my tickets not too long ago. Whee! Tomorrow they're racing in Spain. CBS is covering the race... I MUCH prefer it when Speed TV covers it but oh well. I think that out of the 19 races, 4 are on CBS including Indy.

Anyway, had a productive Saturday. I got out the hedge trimmer and whipped the bushes in front of my house back into shape. They were starting to get a bit out of hand. This wasn't the holly bush hedge though. If you'll remember last year, you know how much I look forward to dealing with that. After cleaning up all the clippings, I got cleaned up and headed out for lunch and to get some shopping done. I hit the local mall but ended up in Huntsville where I finally found what I was looking for. Came back home and watched some racing then messed around the house a bit (which includes this blog update!).

Time for bed.

This is my friend Brian in the 2002 Home Depot car coming out of the first turn at Road Atlanta back on April 29th. Luckily, the weather cooperated and we all stayed dry.

Here's something from a recent shoot I did with a bit of a musical theme behind it. There were other shots from this series that I'll post later.

Here I was on top of an airport control tower taking photos at sunset. I'm a few hundred feet off the ground standing on a grate... that moves.

What's been going on? A lot.

As the gaps between my blog postings gets larger and larger, I've realized that it's closely linked to how busy my life is. When things were slower, I had plenty of free time to work on a good blog entry. It seems the last few months have brought about a steady increase in just "stuff" going on in my life.

Lately, the amount of photography I've been doing has probably tripled - on the work side. On the personal side I haven't had time to do much, let's call it "recreational" shooting. I did get a chance to work with a new girl last week which was a nice break. Took several somewhat edgy shots with a few different music related props. In looking at my shots from that shoot, I get several good ones that I'll work on when I get a chance.

I did a WHOLE lot of shooting this weekend at Road Atlanta - a racetrack just to the northeast of Atlanta. My friend Brian was racing the #20 car there in the Historic Stock Car class. If you'll remember, he's the guy with Tony Stewart's 2002 road race car (as opposed to oval track racing). There was a variety of cars there - Stock Cars, Porsche's, Corvette's, Camaro's, Mustang's, Ferrari's, GTP cars, vintage cars, and.... Michael Schumacher's 1989 Benetton F1 car. That was BY FAR the fastest car out there. Turns out, the driver is a pro - he races in the LeMans series and just screws around in this one. LOL!

I took close to probably a thousand pictures at this event. I hope to have some posted to my online gallery soon.

Long day for me. Time for bed.

It's been awhile.

Sorry for the long interval between posts. I just haven't had the time to get new posts on here as often as I have had in the past. Lot's going on though. Let's see here, last Friday we had some exceptionally nasty weather come through. Tornados, hail, rain, wind, lightning... the whole gamut of the bad stuff. As far as I can tell, there was no damage to my house although my car has a few "dimples" on it from the hail. Sigh. I'll be getting an extimate to get all that fixed sometime this coming week. I was pretty bummed about that at first (I didn't notice it till this morning) but I'm over it now and just want it repaired.

Anyway, in the midst of the storm - Kyle and I were getting something to eat then meeting up with some friends to head to a concert over in Huntsville. Got over to Leslie's house just in time for the first wave of the weather to hit. Despite the severe weather, we still ended up making light of the situation and had a fun time anyway. The girls tried hidin under the coffee table then moved to the bathroom. I found myself in the tub at one point. Never made it to Huntsville - it was just as well also since the concert was cancelled.

Saturday was busy as I had lots to do around the house in addition to running errands. Eric, Kevin and Jack were coming over later in the day so we could start practicing for an upcoming gig. It's been a few years now since we had practice at my place and having the guys over brought back some good memories of "the old days" - all of us crammed into one room with drums, cymbals, amps and speakers. After about 3 hours of that, we wrapped up and had dinner at Ruby Tuesday.

Stuffed, I headed over to the bowling alley to meet up with some of my fellow MySpacers. I was worn out so I didn't play but I hung out then invited everyone over to hang at my place for the remainder of the evening. Paula, Marlo, Shama, Kyle, Jawana and Shayla all plopped down and watched TV for awhile till I had to end the party at 1:30. That was a long day for me.

A few hours later, at 6:00, I was up again getting ready for church and then packing up my gear since I had drum duty today. Things went relatively smoothly I thought. After playing for 2 services, ate lunch at Guthrie's (my first time there) then headed to the soccer complex to shoot the Duke Vs. Mexico match. I got some great shots but as usual, staying out in the sun for hours takes its toll on me and totally saps my energy. I felt like a slug the rest of the day. Had dinner in Hartselle and finally called it a day.

A wider shot.

My friend Jo Cosby singin' away at Tha Loft Saturday night.

Me and the birthday girl. Happy birthday Sam!

Sommer having a party foul. Note the beer in the bottom left corner. Made a bit of a mess.

Stayed out too late with this bunch last night. Good times though!

Relaxing with friends on a Thursday night. Dave's providing the background music.

Kay and I at lunch last Thursday with the governor of our state, Bob Riley.

Runnin' wide open.

Monday night's Taste of the Valley event was a good one. Plenty of great food from 20 of our local restaurants. As you can imagine, I saw a great many friends and a good number of restaurant folks I knew. I had too much to eat. Noel was fun company. After the event was over, we had some drinks at Cafe 113 before I took her home. I slept well.

I spent most of Tuesday working in Dreamweaver and also trying to figure out some weirdness in a form mail script on a client website. There's something strange going on but I think I have a diagnostic plan we can try tomorrow to see what's broken.

In other work stuff, I have a shoot involving food coming up. I haven't shot food as a subject before so I've been poring over my food magazines looking for ideas. I think I've got enough to work with. I'll just cross my fingers and hope it all works out. I do think I'll be going with hot lights though instead of flash heads. In this shooting scenario, I think the light will be easier to work with. We'll see.

I picked up and watched the latest Harry Potter DVD, The Goblet of Fire. It was a good bit darker than previous movies in the series but it fit the mood okay. Lots of action in this one.

I'm tired. Off to bed.

Weekend flew by once again.

I'm glad I didn't get around to washing my car today as it's started raining this evening. I did get to vacuum it out though and besides, the exterior is still somewhat clean from the wash I gave it Sunday a week ago. Other than some minor bug splatters, it's doing well.

Saturday's weather finally gave me a chance to work in the yard a bit. I've SO been needing to rake leaves as they've gotten out of hand since the last time I raked. I filled up my yard waste bin pretty quickly amid also trying to teach my dog to do a handshake. (I have to multi-task you know) Having an iPod really comes in handy when doing any kind of work so I'm really appreciating having it now. It keeps things upbeat. Anyway, after filling the bin, I whipped out my handy-dandy tarp to use for moving piles of leaves to the front curb where hopefully 1 of 2 things will happen:

1. the city comes and vacuums it up

OR

2. the wind blows it all down the street into other people's yards

Bagging the leaves is an option of course but it's such a pain in the butt to do by yourself. Much easier to do it my way. There is a gamble that a number 3 might happen though and that's where the wind blows it all BACK into my yard, which would suck.

Saturday night was lots of fun as I attended the Addy Awards ceremony at the Roundhouse in Huntsville. This is an awards banquet for members of the Tennessee Valley Advertising Federation when entries are judged and awards presented. Ate some good food then collected the awards we received. Afterwards, a group of us headed over to the Jazz Factory for drinks and to inhale smoke (secondhand in my case).

Today, I hoped to have success at getting a photo of some Bradford pear trees (they're blossoming now) for a project I'm working on. I told a friend about what I was doing and he called me with a location he spotted while he was out with his family. I found the spot he was talking about and let the landowner know what I was doing so they wouldn't get too excited when I was scrambling all over their place shooting from different angles. The sky could have been a little less cloudy but I think it will still be workable.

It's getting late already so I'm going to do some light reading and then slip into bed. I'm looking forward to a good week. Tomorrow evening is the Taste of the Valley event here with most local retaurants participating by providing their signature dishes for us to eat. Got my tickets in my planner. Bon appetit!

Now THIS is some funny stuff.

I wonder at what point this seemed like a good idea? BE sure to have you're speakers on as the audio is half the entertainment. Thanks to Heather for sending this my way. I was in tears after watching it.

Buttrocket

Chris Botti and I after a concert he played in town. Awesome musician and a good guy. Check out his stuff at www.chrisbotti.com

One day it's nice, next day it's not.

As I endure the ever changing weather here in the great state of Alabama I realize it's always a challenge to make plans involving the outdoors of any kind. I had big plans to work in the yard today and also to wash my car BUT, it's already started raining. I'm totally out on raking and bagging wet leaves so there's not a chance of that happening at all today. If it does dry out a bit I'll do the car thing coz' it's filthy.

Usually before washing the car I'll swing by a car wash bay to use the sprayer on the wheel wells and underside of the car. That's usually where all the mud and crap collects. I had some extra time on the meter so I started working on the top of the car. Well, I took off a few layers of grime only to reveal yet more grime. Yup... gonna have to hand wash it to get it sparkling again. Allegedly it will be sunny tomorrow so if I don't get to it today, I'll have a chance tomorrow.

Last night I got hungry but wasn't in the mood to go to a "sit-down" restaurant. I was already in a sweatshirt and pants looking more like a refugee than a fine-dining patron (not implying that we have any fine-dining establishments in town) so I opted to go to the Captain D's drive through. After slowly making my way up to the ordering microphone thingy, a girl's voice asks "Can I take your order?". "Two piece fish dinner." No response. "Hello?". Still no response. "ANYBODY THERE?!?"

Finally, I hear her say "Sorry Sir. Can I take your order?".

I'm thinking, you already took my order. Don't ask "Can I take your order?" then ignore someone. I place my order again (which she has trouble with) then pull up to the window - and wait. And wait. I'm trying to tell this girl that I need some malt vinegar packets as she tries to push a big bag through my window - "You had two 2-piece fish dinners, right?" I should have just taken them both and went on my way but instead I said "No, I only ordered one." Somehow, that announcement was like a disturbance in The Force as now there were two girls in the drive-through window both looking more confused than when all this started. "Do you have your ticket?" one girls asks. "No. You didn't give me one. You just gave me my change." Finally, I told them "Give me one of those dinners and some vinegar so I can go." One of the girls says "Oh, he's ready to go". Grrrr....

To top it off, the fish was undercooked.

On a completely different front, did you know MC Hammer now has a blog
?

Soaked to the ankle bone.

Ugh - I had an extremely soggy day today. After jumping through a few hurdles this morning, I finally hit the road to Birmingham with a co-worker to visit a client and then work on a video project for another. The drive down was rainy with on an off periods of light drizzle. At my first meeting, we're at my client's office which is on top of a tall hill on the 8th story. Clouds were hanging low and we were at cloud level. During the meeting, it was interesting to see other buildings and then watch them disappear into whiteness as the clouds engulfed us. I was so enthralled (I was easily entertained today) that I forgot what I was saying during my meeting more than once. Either that or I was having a senior moment.

Off to lunch. Headed to Bottega again but this time ordered the smoked salmon pizza. Mmmm... that was GOOD stuff. I was not looking forward to leaving as the bottom had fallen out of the sky and it was pouring. I had parked on an adjacent road on a steep incline. Water was cascading down the hill like a water slide. Even though I had a parka on and an umbrella, below my knees my pants and feet were soaked. Luckily since I knew I would be participating in the video I brought along an extra pair of pants and shoes in case something like this happened. Still, it was uncomfortable to have wet stuff on till I was able to get changed.

Everything went well with the project and we headed north back home. The rain was a lot worse on the way back with relentless sheets pouring down. Made it home safely though but I will say it's very tiring to me to drive in these conditions.

I'll sleep well tonight.

Olympics

I've never been a big fan of the Olympics in years past but for some reason, I've really enjoyed this winter session. Maybe it's because the media coverage lets you get to know the competitors in a more personal way. Whatever it may be, I've made an effort to watch as many of the events as I can. The downhill variants, the moguls, luge, skeleton, bobsled, skating, snowboarding, freestyle ski jumping... it's all been exciting to watch. I still can't get into the ice dancing or curling however. Of all the events, I prefer the individual versions the most over the team ones. Just knowing that an athlete put all that time into being able to do their very best when their time to compete came then to see their faces when they win is great. It's also painful to see when they come apart for the same reasons.

In other news, on a suggestion from Eric, I picked up the new John Mayer Trio CD while out shopping last Sunday. What a change from his last album! Grooving tunes and some great musicianship. I already have it loaded on my iPod getting some serious play. On the other end of the spectrum, I picked up Sevendust's "Next" album. So far I'm digging it too.

I need to hop in bed. Got a busy day tomorrow heading to the studio to shoot a new commercial for a client.

Have fun.

It's cold.

After the warm January we've had, we're paying for it now with the cold winds of February. I can't wait till I get my next utility bill.

Seriously, I hate being cold. I don't HATE the cold, I hate BEING cold. To that end, I try and take extra steps to keep that from happening. For one, I have gas heat at home. If I get cold, the gas unit warms things up QUICK. In the car, my seats are heated. I'm tellin ya, that's a requirement if you have leather upholstery. I first got to try heated seats out in Kevin's Expedition and made it a point to be sure the next car I got had them.

Anyway.

Last Thursday I headed to Huntsville for the Hsv. Young Professionals gathering being held this time at the Country Club there. Food was great and the event was well attended. I saw a few people I knew from last time but made many more new friends. At one point, I was discussing x-ray astronomy with an ex-NASA physicist. Ah... an actual intelligent conversation! That was refreshing. I was espcially interested in how the x-rays were finally converted into an image. Very cool stuff. Our welcome at the club expired so we moved it on to Humphrey's where we all reconvened on the outdoor patio. A live band was the providing a nice backgound groove that made the night that much more enjoyable. Took it to the cribizzle shortly therafter since there was another day of work ahead.

Friday kicked off with a photo session for a client in the morning while the afternoon was spent on paperwork and such. That evening I ventured out to the Brick where Tim Tucker and his band were celebrating a CD release. Several of my friends were there who subsequently picked up my bar tab. That was a pleasant surprise. After leaving though, I REEKED of smoke. That always happens there. I got home and tossed it all into the wash right away before crawling into bed.

I had all sorts of things planned for Saturday but the weather threw me a curve ball. I cancelled all the fun stuff and pretty much had a big day of domesticity. I didn't get out at all that day but kept myself entertained. I recall taking a nap or two also.

After church Sunday, Eric and I headed to Hsv. where I stopped in at Best Buy for a hard drive. I ended up getting a few other things as well before getting some lunch. Food was good, checking out was a nightmare.

1st round: My drink and Eric's food was on my check (which was rang up)
2nd round: Check was right but my check got put on Eric's credit card and vice versa
3rd round: Finally right but need to keep a close eye on my bank statement to make sure it comes out right.

Wrapped up the day taking a friend to dinner that was in town to visit her family. All in all, a good weekend.

Smells.

I am inundated with smells.

Yesterday I came home for lunch. As I was walking to the front door, I heard one of my neighbors trying to start a car and not having much luck at it. I didn't think about it anymore after I got inside and got some lunch ready. My programmable thermostat lets the house cool to 65 degrees when I'm away so I temporarily bumped it up to 70. I sat down to eat and smelled fumes of some sort. Hmmm... that's not natural gas. Grrr... Turns out my next door neighbor had someone over working on their car which is RIGHT NEXT TO my A/C unit outside. By turning on the heat, it the unit sucked in all the fumes from the car starting extravagaza outside. Great. JUST GREAT. When I got home later in the day, I opened several windows and cranked up the attic fan to clear out the house. That's a lot of fun when it's 32 degrees outside. Today, there's just a hint of the gas smell so hopefully it will continue to dissapate.

Went to Nashville today on business. While cruisin' on down the road, Mr. Smokey Smokerson up ahead of me flips what's left of his cigarette out his window which then lands on my radiator and burns itself out. I'm treated to the nice smell of burning tobacco and filter in the car.

Aside from that irritation, I had a good trip up there. Weather was beautiful and the sky was clear. I picked up several things I was needing while in town: cleaning swabs and fluid to clean the sensor on my "big" camera, a case to transport my kick drum pedals in and some extra snare drum heads since I'm on my last one.

Valentine's Day is a bit uneventful for us single folks.

Busy.

I know my posting frequency has dropped considerably this year. Last year I was posting almost daily! I'm still just as busy if not busier but one thing I'm trying to do differently is to actually spend LESS time on the computer. I already spend a good bit of time online for work things but I also spend lots of time in front of the PC doing photography related tasks. When I finally take a break, the idea of spending MORE time online blogging isn't that appealing.

At any rate, I've got plenty of things happening. Right now, I'm going through a bit of a black and white phase on the photography side of things. B&W shots just have a really nice feel to them and at times looks more appealing than their colored counterparts. That's been a lot of fun to experiment with. In other photography news, I went ahead and got a backpack for my gear so next time I head off into the woods, I won't be stumbling around with a heavy shoulder bag while wading across a stream. For those that are interested, I went with the Lowepro Mini-Trekker AW. The problem I had last time was on a trip to Bankhead forest, I had the shoulder bag on one side and carried my tripod in the other hand leaving only one hand semi-free to help me hang on or keep me steady. You REALLY need to have both hands free if you're gonna be scrambling around like that otherwise it'll be really easy to bust your ass if you slip and can't catch yourself.

Yesterday, I scouted out a location for a photo shoot with a local band. Originally, I was wanting to do the shoot in a "backstage" kind of location but the ideal spots weren't avaialable. Luckily, my friend Daniel had a friend that had a large garage that would possibly work. Headed over early in the morning and decided it would work out although it was a little narrower than I would have liked.

I left there and called Preston to let him know to get the band together and where to meet me before I headed to Cracker Barrel to meet up with Kyle for some breakfast. I had just brushed my teeth and put on a hat before heading out the door in what could best be described as "outdoor" clothes. If you had run into me on a hiking trail or something I would have fit in. In the city though, I looked like well... like I slept in my clothes and walked out the door with a had to hide the bed head - which would be accurate.

Got a table in front of the fireplace which was nice. A table next to my was filling up with a group of women that quickly ran out of room. I offered to slide our table over to give them more space (while Kyle and I were still using it) and made conversation with the woman next to me. Keeping in mind my appearance, she looks at me and says, "Hey! Didn't we go out before?". In that moment, several things went through my mind:

1. Who is this?
2. Why didn't I take a shower before going out this morning?
3. If she and I had gone out in the past, did something bad happen?

She told me what her maiden name was and I remebered her - from about 15 years ago! She was now married with two kids and is a teacher in a neighboring town. What a small world. Although I don't remember any details from when we went out, I do remember she was extremely attractive. Now I'm curious as to why we stopped seeing each other. She gave me her contact info so maybe I can ask sometime down the road.

That's about all the excitement this weekend... oh, except for the extremely bad service at Camino Real for lunch today. What a cluster that was. Now I recall why I haven't eaten there in years.

While wandering around Indianapolis during a break from the Formula One race festivities last year, I saw a bright yellow Ferrari 348 parked on the street. What caught my eye though was the nice colors and contrast of the wheel and brake caliper. I may enlarge this into a poster.

Also at Indy last year, these flags against the sky made for a beautiful view! This was just a few yards away from the pagoda.

A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to work with this girl. The black and white image made for a more striking photo than the same thing in color. Thanks to Tanya S. for doing hair and makeup and Kyle for assisting me on the set.

This is a photo from my session with a local band Saturday afternoon. They have a few new projects they're working on that needed fresh images for. Big thanks to Daniel H. for hooking me up with Jonathan L. for a location. It was cold but we were out of the wind at least.

Super Bowl Sunday

Today was a somewhat eventful one for me. Church went well this morning with the added THUMP from the subwoofer. We still need to do some tweaking but we're definitely heading in the right direction after being stalled for more than a year.

Ate lunch with a huge crowd at Quizno's where I tried their new triple Q sub. I highly recommend it. Very tasty. Made the obligatory stop at EB Games to see if there was anything new there I couldn't live without which there wasn't. Headed home for a bit to pick up my camera and to dig up the measurements of some windows in my livingroom I was wanting to get new blinds for. Got everything then popped into Lowe's. I found what I needed then stood around waiting on the blind-trimmer chick to get done with another customer. THEN SHE WENT ON BREAK OR SOMETHING while I was standing there obviously waiting on her. Back on the shelf went the blinds and out the door I went. I'll go to Home Depot next time.

It was a nice afternoon out so I drove over to the Mooresville area looking around for something to photograph. Eh.. I wasn't really "feeling it" there so I went the other direction and drove around Belle Mina. I found some great spots to shoot once some vegetation grows back but today, nothing stood out to me. Heading back into town I took some shots from under a bridge. While I was there next to the river, the coast guard pulled over and boarded a boat. I didn't have a long lens on me to get a better look so I just ignored them and went about my business. My friend Ty had shot a really cool picture of this bridge that I wanted to try and duplicate. The light just wasn't right today but at least now I know how to get where I need to be to take the shot.

In other news, I'm still trying to get rid of an irritating cough I've had all week. My chest has gotten a bit sore from all the coughing so I hope the coughing subsides soon. I picked up some "Mucinex" at the store which is supposed to help. We'll see.

Watched the Superbowl tonight with the church crowd. I was hoping that Seattle would win but it wasn't meant to be. I'm not a big NFL fan anyway.

Off to bed. Gotta work tomorrow.

Wider is better.

I've had a few days to mess around with my wide-angle lens now. I'm happy to say that it was a wise purchase. I find myself reaching for it pretty regularly. My main workhorse lens is the 24-70 f2.8L but many times 24mm just isn't wide enough. Now having that 10-22 in my camera bag leaves me confident that I can get the view I need. It's the widest lens available for the camera body I use.

In more photography news, I stopped in to visit a photographer friend of mine over in Madsion. He's just moved into a new studio that I was eager to see. He's got plenty of room to do the type of work he prefers. Great place! While I was there, I checked out his Epson Pro 4000 inkjet printer. Whoa... the output of that printer is a m a z i n g. I'm going to have to get one of those eventually. It's that good. There's actually a newer model out but still, the older one he has gets the job done.

I've focused primarily on portraiture-type subjects in the past year as I got better and better at it. The downside of that is having to work with people. Nothing irks me more than planning a shoot and then the subject not show. Grrrr... I have a plan on putting an end to that.

Anyway, I'd like to shift over to panoramas and maybe architecture. Scouting out locations and watching how the light on them changes throughout the day to pick the best times to shoot sounds like it would be a fun challenge.

One thing after another...

My excitement last week started Wednesday when Lesa wanted to head up to Nashville to see Jen Foster play at a new venue there. Early in the day it sounded like a good idea, but as the day wore on, it wasn't nearly as appealing. Several things not in our favor:

Jen was an opening act and would only be playing 3 or 4 songs.
Nashville is a 90 minute drive one-way.
$18 each is the admission price.
The thing started at 7:30 and we weren't going to be able to leave from home till right at 6.

I tried to put off going until Jen had a full show, but Lesa talked me into going anyway. "We can be there in an hour" she says. Um... Nashville is about 100 miles away. Unless you're planning on driving 100...

We get there at 7:45. Luckily (or so we thought at the time), we found a parking space in a lot near the venue with only one of 2 spaces that were open. We found out from the ticket people at the door that Jen was gonna be on in about 5 minutes. We made it JUST in the nick of time.

Jen did well. It was the first time I heard her live and I really enjoyed it. It was time for dinner though and I thought it would be nice to eat there in town before we headed back. As we approached the lot where we parked, I realized there were NO cars in that parking lot. Where there were 12-15 before, there were NONE. Lesa thought I was looking at the wrong parking lot. No, I remember exactly where we parked and her car was gone. On a chain link fence there was a small sign attached indicating cars parked there would be towed 24 hours 7 days a week. This sign wasn't visible earlier probably because there was a car in front of it blocking it. There was a number on there to City Towing. I called and confirmed that they had Lesa's car. Oh, they would bring the car BACK to us for $65... ON TOP of the $80 towing fee. Forget, we'll get a cab which we promptly did.

Anyway, we got the car back and decided to just come on home. It was late already and neither one of us had an appetite. I really think that parking lot deal was a scam. I wouldn't be suprised if that towing company bought that small lot in that area SPECIFICALLY to generate income from unsuspecting guests and then parking a "planted" vehicle in front of the towing sign. With that tactic, they can make money over and over on a busy night as the lot fills up and they empty it. Thieves I tell you.

My partner in crime.

8:55PM "City Hall" Nashville, TN

Stuff.

Last week was a busy one for me. I think I had 3 photo shoots... one Monday, Tuesday and Friday. That along with all the other things I also do at work besides photography kept me humming along. I finally did get a chance to go out with the Huntsville Young Professionals group for a social at the Museum of Art. When I arrived, I got recruited to help pour wine along with a client of the agency so that was fun. Saw quite a few people I knew there but there were plenty more to get to know. I'm going to make it a point to try and attend these things with some regularity and get myself into some other social circles.

Anyway with all the shooting I've done lately, it's time for me to go ahead and get a wide angle lens. Up to now, the widest lens I have for my Canon was this cheapie 18-55 one. There's a 10-22 I plan on getting to cover the wide range. In the meantime if I've had to go wider, I've used a Nikon D100 with a 12-24 lens which did the job nicely. Only thing is, I don't want to have to carry around 2 camera bodies and have to learn 2 different systems just because of me not having a wide lens for my Canon. Hopefully I'll have the new lens in the next week or so.

I've also learned that I need to go wireless to trigger the power pack on the studio lights. The 15" sync cord I've been using is a hassle in more ways than one. First, it's only 15' long. Second, it gets tangeled around everything. Third, it's a pain to move the cord back and forth between the camera and my meter as I set up a shot. My meter already has the wireless option installed so it can pop the lights. I just need to get the transmitter for my camera and a receiver for the power pack and I'll be good to go.

Still, there's more stuff I need but I'll get to that over time.

I fooled around with B&W stuff more last week. I found 2 pictures from an older shoot that I converted to B&W using some new techniques in Photoshop that I had learned with some very good results. I really like the way those turned out so I'm sure I'll be doing more of that in the future.

Oh, I went over to the Museum of Art to check out the Ansel Adams and Maxfield Parish exhibit. Good stuff. I enjoyed seeing originals of Ansel's work, not only of his nature photography but some of his portrait photography as well. His compositions are stunning. I got a few ideas from looking at his work that I think will help out mine. There was one shot on display that he took in my old stomping grounds at the Great Smokey Mountains National Park. I have to get back up that way again soon and spend at least a weekend there roaming around just like I did as a teenager. The Maxfield exhibit was nice too. The color palette he used in his paintings was very bold and vivid, especially his blues. I came to find out later that he was known for that.

Oh I almost forgot. My Friday the 13th started out on cue. The server at the office was hung and when I rebooted it, the data drives did not come up. Nice. Luckily, I was able to get them back with a reboot and reset sequence that saved me from painfully having to restore from backup. Whew!

Wow. What WAS that?

After spending all day Saturday in and out of bed feeling like poo, I once again got ready to go to bed for the night. This time, I rummaged around the medicine cabinet and found this Robitussin FLU stuff in there from a previous malfunction. I checked the expiration date and TA-DA, it was still good. Took it and slept peacefully and comfortably.

I cautiously woke up this morning ready for another day of feeling rough when suprisingly, I felt okay. I took it easy most of the morning afraid I was going to have a relapse or something. I did manage to go ouside and get my mail from yesterday and today's paper. It was a gorgeous day out - mid's 60's and breezy.

Normally, I would have washed my car on such a nice day but I'm thinking that wouldn't be a smart move in my situation. I kept it indoors today and got laundry and dishes done then spent time reading and watching TV.

So much for an exciting weekend.

Sick.

I don't know what happened since I was just fine yesterday. Spent the afternoon on a photoshoot for a client then went out to eat with friends. Later that night, I'm lying in bed and suddenly start to get cold. That was odd... my waterbed temperature is up, I'm in a t-shirt and PJ bottoms (not commando tonight), and I have a sheet then a comforter on top of me. I put on a fleece sweatshirt over my shirt and now my legs were cold. Put on sweatpants and thick socks then my HEAD was cold. Put on a toboggan and finally got warm. I was thinking to myself at the time, "this can't be good". Sure enough, woke up in the morning with aches and soreness and a fever. Just great.

I did haul myseld up to take a shower to see if that would make me feel better. Well, I'm now clean and still feel like poop. Spne my day laying around drinking fluids and getting rest. I hate that the weekend is passing me by but I have to get well again.

I called Kevin this morning to let him know he might want to find a backup drummer for church in the morning since there's a chance I won't be any better in time. Looks like Jeremy is on standby now. Whew. Thank goodness we have more dummers around.

This is one of the times that I really think how nice it would be to have someone around to look after me when I'm under the weather. Hmmm... wish my mom was around.

Well it's ABOUT DANG TIME...

for an update.

First off, my vacation time was well spent resting and relaxing. I had plenty of time to do some reading, go to the movies, spend time with friends - basically using my time leisurely with no planned schedule. It was very nice. I did have some kind of sinus funk that slowed me down a little but I quickly recovered in time for the new year.

Ate dinner new year's eve with Kevin's crew at Kyoto. Started off with sushi before the main course of a filet and lobster tail was served. Mmmmmm.... I had planned to join back up with them later for some fireworks but ended up at a party Scott was having at his place. There were probably 20 people there. Each one seemed to have a digital camera which was kinda funny because every few moments a flash would go off. As things started to pick up, I went out to my car and got the big camera out. Plenty of goofy stuff was going on that I got some shots of so there should be some good laughs to come out of it.

Hope everyone else had a good new years celebration. Now that it's all over with, it's back to work. ;-)

This was what was in front of my camera the moment 2006 was here.

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.