What would this blog be if it didn’t include me being a week or two behind on pics/posts about the Dallas live music scene? I think I’m 2-3 weeks behind right now, but hope to get caught up tonight. Warning, tangent ahead.
I was looking through my past posts, and saw the Fishing For Comets post with the Waylon Jennings youtube video. I’m listening to it now, and recommend that you sing along. In fact, everything will be better if you sing along:
“Well the only things in life that make it worth Livn’, are guitars that tune good and firm feeling women.
I don’t need my name in the marquee lights!
I got my song and I got you with me tonight,
maybe it’s time we got down to some basics in love.”
I was fortunate enough to make it to Opening Bell in time to see Kristy Kruger and Dylan Sneed. They both just recently got back in town after a multi state tour up the east coast. I think this was the 3rd time I’ve seen Kristy play, and the second time I’ve seen Dylan play, and so far this was my favorite show. They were both on stage and accompanied each other as they went back and forth between each others songs. There was a great mix of songs and instruments that ranged from banjos, to the slide guitar. Each really added greatly to the other artist’s music. At one point, unbeknownst to Dylan, Kristy sat down at the piano that is off stage at Opening Bell; she tickled the ivory and really added to the quality of the music.
“Let’s go to Lukenbach Texas with Waylon Willy and the boys,
this successful life we are living has us feuding like the Hatfields and McCoys,
Between Hank Williams pain songs, Newberry’s train songs
and Blue Eyes crying in the rain,
Out in Lukenbach Texas,
aint nobody feeling no pain”
Now for my GRRRRRRRRRRRRRR of the week.
I have been waiting to see Fishing For Comets at Opening Bell for over a month. I got some good pics of them at City Tavern a while ago, and I knew that I could get some great pics at Pascale’s place because of the fantastic (read brigh, and white) light that they have. I also really enjoyed their live show and wanted to see them play again. The GRRRRRRRRR!!!! comes in at the last min. change of plans for my Dad’s birthday dinner. A day or so before the show it was moved from Sunday night to Friday night. Note: Dad doesn’t read the blog, so I can write this 
. Because of all of that , I didn’t make it down to the Bell until after FFC and already played and Doug Burr’s set was almost over. I really enjoyed the few songs of Doug that I did see, and hope to get a chance to hear him play a full set some time soon.
“Baby lets sell them diamond rings,
buy some boots and faded jeans and go away”
Waylon rules.
Other Kristy Kruger reviews
Kristy Kruger
Opening Bell
Doug Burr
Dylan Sneed
Fishing for Comets
azaleas are in bloom.
So after about a week of having that last blog post up, with “gallery wall” in the title, I realized that I didn’t put a damn thing about the gallery wall in that post. So this will be a post will have all that was left out of the last post, as well as a few new project previews.
The gallery wall is almost complete! That is, it is at least done enough that I can let you guys see it. I am still getting some prints made, and still adding pictures to the wall, but you should at least be able to get a general idea of the concept.
Here was what was in my dining area when I moved in:
and this was the concept I came up with. This pic was all done with photoshop (quickly, just for a draft) was done before any work was started on the wall.
To get started on the wall I removed the popcorn ceiling texture (dirty, dirty job!) and re-textured it. Next I painted the gallery wall, and then the walls on either side of the gallery wall to help get rid of all of the acoustic white walls in the house. I removed the 1984 hanging glass chandelier, and put up two tracks of track lighting on a dimmer switch. I put up a little crown molding, and hung the digital photo frame (center). From there I just hung 11×14, 8×10 and 5×7 pics in frames that I painted black. Grand total for the project was around 250 bucks (including pics thus far). Another 120 or so for the digital photo frame and larger memory card. I built a little frame for the digital photo frame out of cedar so that I could hang it the way I needed to, and also paint it black.
I also got started on the 2nd garden/flower bed. After looking at the light in the back yard, I think this spot will do much better for all the plants that need a lot of light. It will also clean up an otherwise awkward spot in my back yard. I’ll add dirt/plants over the next few weeks. After that I’ll add some stepping stones from the deck to the gate.
With the nice weather, most of what I have been doing around the house in the last week or two has been outside. I finally got my flower beds in the front yard cleaned up and re-planted. I also made my garden in my back yard. After I got it finished, I realized it might not be in the best place for sunlight. Of course, it might have been nice to make that realization before I built the damn thing, but that’s just how things go! I think it will be ok, but about half of the garden never really gets full light.
So far I have about 6 types of peepers, a few herbs (rosemary, thyme, etc.) and a few tomatoes. I’m looking foward to see how well it works out.
The cost of the set up was about 140 bucks. The lumber cost almost nothing (I think it was 20 bucks total). Twelve bags of top soil cost me about 70 or so, and the plants themselves cost another 50. Now that I’ve paid good attention to where there is good light in my yard, I think I want to put in another small bed between my deck and my fence. I’m not sure if that will make it this season or not, but it is on “the list”.
The back yard is slowly getting to look like the plan. Considering I drew this before I moved in….not too shabby!
Last year we had a hell of a good time at my Uncle Greg’s land out in the middle of nowhere for Blake’s bachelor party. While it wasn’t the shoe show with all the lovely ladies showing off their high heals, it was a great time with friends out in the country with over 600 acres to ourselves, no running water and no electricity. We are getting most of that same group of guys together again this year for another camping trip that hopefully will be another epic adventure.
Blake asked me if I was going to take a table to the camp site so we could do food prep etc., and my initial thought was that there really wasn’t a need for it, and we could get by with out one. After all, tables are big, and space is limited when hauling enough food to feed a small army, and enough beer to ward off any air or water born pathogens that might put our health at risk. The more I thought about it, the more I thought he was right. It would be handy to have a place to cook and get things ready without having to use the tops of the coolers for space. So I thought I would try to whip up a camping table in the garage tonight. The idea was to have something that had a good amount of room, but would pack up very small so that it didn’t take up much space in the truck. It also needed to be easy to put together out in BFE.
I made this thing with scraps that I had in the garage. If I had to buy all of the parts to make it, it would have cost about $10.
It took me about 30 mins to put together.
Here is the finished product:
here is how it folds up and packs:
Each set of 2 legs is held together with the cross bar.
To set it up you just slide the legs into the spaces, and screw in the 2 pre drilled deck screws for each leg.
Thanks for the idea Blake! I had a lot of fun making this thing. We’ll see how it works this weekend.
The art is original Zach Lewis art work. That makes this thing worth MILLIONS!!!
One of the things that I was really looking forward to when I moved out of my apartment, and into my house was that I would be able to set up a room as my photo studio. Well, that and not having to listen to my neighbors have sex though my walls or ceiling were both high on the list of things I was looking forward to with home ownership. Technically I had a room set up that way at the apartment, but that room was my dining room/weight room/ photo studio/bar. I find it convenient that since I have a room dedicated totally to photography, and I actually have my dining room table in my dining room, as opposed to on my back porch. I have the studio almost finished (just need to remove the fan and put up some track lighting), but until this week I haven’t had a chance to try it out and see how it works. Fortunately for me, I passed the slime ball test, and Miss Ryann Rathbone agreed to come over and help me break in the new studio.
We had a lot of fun and took about 700 pics over the period of a few hours. I was able to try out some different lights (hot lights, flash, mix of the two, etc.) and get the lighting in the studio dialed in. I also got to shoot all of my differnt lens combinations and see how the size of the room would work out for the differnt glass. We only did 1 outfit change, and very minor hair/makeup work. I love her freckles, and was happy she let me take lots of pics without any makeup covering them up.
Totally off topic:
My best friend told me about 3 week ago that he was a little upset that he wouldn’t be able to use any more of his firewood this year since it was so warm out and near the end of Feb. It was probably 75 degrees at the time, and seemed like spring was here. I don’t think he believed me when I reminded him that it was still only Feb. and that last year we had snow in April. In the last 7 days we have gone from 80 degrees, to snow, back to 80 degress and back again. I write this to you from my bed, next to my fire, with a bottle of wine and half full glass of merlot. There is about an inch of snow on the ground right now, and they expect another 2-4 inches by tomorrow. I know that isn’t much for you yank’s reading this, but for Dallas 5 inches of show is about 3 years worth of the white cold stuff.
Off to yet ANOTHER totally unrelated tangent. I’ve decided that I”m not going to answer with the word “busy” as any part of a reply when asked how I”m doing. I’m always busy, and that term has been a part of my reply for years now. First of all, everyone is busy, so why would they care if I’m busy or not? Don’t they assume that I’m busy? Second of all….well there is no second. It’s just pointless to answer with “busy” in my reply. So no more “busy but good”, or “GREAT! but busy”. Nope. Those days are gone.
Now I just have to figure out what the hell I’m going to say. I’ll think of something when I’m not so busy.
