10 June 2009
Got a new set of earbuds for the work-day. They arrived in the mail on the 9th, and went to work with me on the 10th. Have I mentioned I love my music?
Cheers.
~KR (Written on 12 June 2009)
Listening to:
California by Hollywood Undead
from Swan Songs
Camera: Canon PowerShot SD850 IS
Exposure: 0.05 sec (1/20)
Aperture: f/2.8
Focal Length: 5.8 mm
ISO Speed: 200
Exposure Bias: 0 EV
Flash: Off
Tags: Daily
10 June 2009
Got a new set of earbuds for the work-day. They arrived in the mail on the 9th, and went to work with me on the 10th. Have I mentioned I love my music?
Cheers.
~KR (Written on 12 June 2009)
Listening to:
California by Hollywood Undead
from Swan Songs
Camera: Canon PowerShot SD850 IS
Exposure: 0.05 sec (1/20)
Aperture: f/2.8
Focal Length: 5.8 mm
ISO Speed: 200
Exposure Bias: 0 EV
Flash: Off
Tags: Daily
9 June 2009
Got home a little later than anticipated but even so I only just beat Marita Beth home; she’d been out looking for and buying accessories for her new phone. Since she wasn’t home, I didn’t go straight into the house. I lingered instead in the front yard taking photos of the huge Black Oaks we have there. This is an ivy leaf from the creeping ivy that is slowly crawling up the trunk of the granddaddy oak in the centre of the yard. It’s been photoshopped for contrast, colour & clarity.
Cheers.
~KR (Written on 10 June 2009)
Listening to:
Someday (Soon) by The Real Tuesday Weld
from I, Lucifer
Camera: Canon PowerShot SD850 IS
Exposure: 0.025 sec (1/40)
Aperture: f/2.8
Focal Length: 5.8 mm
ISO Speed: 200
Exposure Bias: 0 EV
Flash: Off
Tags: Daily
8 June 2009
Not the best composed shot in the world, but definitely a slice-of-life photo. Sometime over the weekend, we made a leap that we’ve been meaning to make for some time, and ordered a new phone for Marita Beth. She’s been lugging around an old Nextel brick for many years now, but it’s time she caught up with the rest of the world. She sees me twitter all the time, and I think she just found herself a little jealous. So, yes, we made the leap and got her a new little purple Samsung Rant with a 2-year Sprint (*shudder*) contract. The phone arrived early on Monday. I got home and we almost immediately left to visit a Sprint store so that she could have years worth of contacts migrated to the new device. Can you imagine how long that would take to migrate manually? Luckily, Sprint offers that service for free. Then we went for dinner & a margarita…thus the photo.
Mexican Inn, my wife & her new purple phone.
Cheers.
~KR (Written on 10 June 2009)
Listening to:
Me Without You by Saw Doctors
from The Cure
Camera: Canon PowerShot SD850 IS
Exposure: 0.017 sec (1/60)
Aperture: f/2.8
Focal Length: 5.8 mm
ISO Speed: 100
Exposure Bias: 0 EV
Flash: Off
Tags: Daily
8 June 2009
Well, finally . . . I have a new phone.
Say goodbye to the cute little yellow flip-phone covered in Mickey Mouse stickers. Say goodbye to the ability to run over it with a truck or throw it against the wall with no ill effects. And, say goodbye to the theme from The Love Boat playing every time I get a call from Kyle.
But, say hello to the sexy little PURPLE Samsung Rant that now houses all my contact information. Say hello to MaritaBeth having internet access on her cell phone! GPS! Email! And, perhaps, most importantly, say hello to MB entering the age of text messages!
Yes, that’s right . . . you can now—successfully, and without having to sign your name—send text messages to MB. And not only that. But, I can even text you back! Woo hoo!
Mwaa-haa-haa! Beware! ;-)
~MB
Tags: Daily
7 June 2009
“O-oh, say can you see . . . my eyes—if you can, then my hair’s too short!”
I must confess, we had another wonderful Sunday of relaxing time spent together, Kyle and I, at home! It is remarkable for this to happen two weeks in a row, at any time of year. And, boy, am I loving it.
We slept in a little, and eventually, joined forces in the kitchen to prepare scrambled eggs and hash browns and . . . Bloody Marys! We watched a couple of movies and some recorded TV (sound familiar?) and around five o’clock had a light meal of crackers and cheese. By that time, Kyle was thinking soccer thoughts ’cause he had a game to go play.
I stayed home and changed the channel on the TV to watch the 63rd Annual Tony Awards. I really can’t adequately describe how much I enjoy this show. Having been a theatre person for a long time, and still missing it so, this is a tiny glimpse of a life I once lived in my dreams. I danced around the edges of performing professional theatre, and I enjoy few things more than attending live theatre. Of the big awards shows, this is the one with the most heart; the most feeling of community and the most . . . class. Nobody in a gown cut down to her navel or up to her “oh, no!” Nobody in jewels it looks like they put their mansion up as collateral to be able to rent. No crass jokes or unwanted politics. And certainly no live performances that leave the audience wishing that artist would stick to the studio.
Angela Lansbury won her fifth Tony Award, and Liza Minnelli her fourth. Amazing women both of them and I adore them. I cried. In a beautiful memorial tribute to all those Broadway stars we lost this year, a choir sang “What I Did for Love” while the giant screen showed stills of those greats like Paul Newman and Bea Arthur, and dozens more. I cried. One of my favourite awards at any presentation event is the Lifetime Achievement Award, and tonight’s was no exception. Jerry Herman, best known for his music and lyrics on such little projects, as “Mame” and “Hello Dolly,” was charming and gracious in accepting this beautiful gesture of appreciation for his contribution to the medium of musical theatre. His body of work speaks for himself, and he appropriately quoted from it in his acceptance speech. He said, “I will hold this moment fast . . . for the best of times, is now!” I cried again. For more on Jerry Herman, I found this great article about him and his musical theatre style.
It wasn’t long then, before it was time for the Best Male in a leading role award, and history was made as three charming little boys were each presented with the award for their title role of Billy Elliot—the story of a young boy who bucks the system and pushes for dance shoes instead of football boots. They were just about the cutest thing ever, and I couldn’t decide really, which was more adorable—the three of them tag-teaming their thank yous, or the obviously touched-to-the-heart men in the audience in tears watching it. I cried, too. (Billy Elliot ended up taking Best Musical!)
And, although it didn’t make me cry, it did make me get up and dance around my living room when the entire cast of the revival of Hair took the stage and performed the title number (quoted above). These talented young people started on stage, but didn’t stay there! During the number, they swarmed the house, and danced on chair arms and straddled the aisles of the Madison Square Garden theatre. The audience was totally involved and loving every minute of it! And, whether it was the perfect embodiment of the spirit of the age of Aquarius, or just the spirit of Broadway—who can say? Either way, they seemed to be completely worthy of the honour later bestowed upon them— winning Best Musical Revival.
When the show was over, and the impromptu dancing in the living room ended, our dogs settled back down to wait by the door for Kyle to come home from his game. That’s when I realized the day was nearly spent and I hadn’t taken a photo, yet. So, I used the dogs as my subject! Good thing no one was home to take a photo of me dancing like a fool!
~MB
Tags: Billy Elliot, Daily, hair, Jerry Herman, Tony Awards
7 June 2009
Stayed home with Marita Beth today where I recovered, slowly, from the heat-exertions of the previous day. I enjoyed a very late sleep-in followed by eggs, hashbrowns, coffee & bloody marys with my woman. Great start to the day. We watched several movies, discussed several business ventures and how to grow our own businesses and generally just enjoyed each other’s company for the entire day. Quite lovely. I took this photo whilst relaxing on the over-stuffed chair in the living room. It is of a bangle sporting – what else – amber of various kinds.
Along about 19:30 I had to get ready for my first football game since last September. Yeah, summer games are on Sunday nights. Yuck. But, when it was all said and done, it was a great day followed by a great game in which I scored, got an assist and managed to emerge unscathed. Good times.
Cheers.
~KR (Written on 9 June 2009)
Listening to:
Enter, Sandman by Motörhead
from Cover Collection
Camera: Canon PowerShot SD850 IS
Exposure: 0.25 sec (1/4)
Aperture: f/2.8
Focal Length: 5.8 mm
ISO Speed: 200
Exposure Bias: 0 EV
Flash: Off, Did not fire
Tags: Daily
6 June 2009
The Texas Scottish Festival held in Arlington every year on the first weekend of June. Every year I say, "I just spent the last 8 weeks in heat and humidity. I don’t think I’m going to go this year." Every year, I go. Every year, Marita Beth goes through the same routine, but this year she really did choose to stay at home in the comfort of the air conditioning and I went on to the Scottish Games, by myself. Luckily, and is always the case, I have lots of great friends and many of them were there. I found Stephen Bishop almost straight off and he and I ambled back to the Glengarry Tent (the "Celtic Rock" venue) where we located Terrill. The heat eventually got to Stephen and he left us, but Terrill & I stayed and enjoyed the music until quite late. We ran into a great many other friends, too: Rod, Kara, Mike, Matthew, Branwen, Bryan, Bobby, Paige, Mark, Alice, Bill & Wendy…and the list could go on! I missed out on a few that I’m certain were there but never located like Steve, Linda and Ken. The music was excellent, as always and at one point Alex Beaton got on stage with Brother to do a Will Ye Go Lassie/Gravelwalk medley that covered me in goosebumps. It was very definitely a passing of the torch sort of tribute as Alex Beaton is no longer a spring chicken, while Brother is a fantastic young band with many years ahead of them (here’s hoping). The beer was excellent, Belhaven and Rahr co-sponsored this year so it was easy to flip back and forth between Belhaven Stout, Twisted Thistle and the incredibly tasty Rahr Iron Thistle (what a GREAT beer!). And then there’s the food. I stay away from faire food, but truly I can’t get enough of Scottish Festival food – at least this Scottish Festival’s food. Between the Caledonian Kitchens, who provided the Cornish meat pie for this photo
and the Oz Highland Farms who provided my most excellent Scottish Beef burger much later on, it’s just good eating! Friends, music, beer & food – what more could one want? Oh yeah, decent weather. Although this year was less miserable than most it was hot & sticky and I worked up a hell of a sweat just sitiing in the shade. Maybe some day, the temperature will be in the 80s rather than the mid-90s. Until then, I expect I’ll go through my typical "I’m not sure I want to go this year" verbal sparring match. Who knows who will win next year. Air Conditioning or Scottish Games.
Cheers.
~KR (Written on 8 June 2009)
Front Seat by Dropkick Murphys
from The Singles Collection
Camera: Canon PowerShot SD850 IS
Exposure: 0.003 sec (1/320)
Aperture: f/8.0
Focal Length: 5.8 mm
ISO Speed: 80
Exposure Bias: 0 EV
Flash: Off
Tags: Daily
5 June 2009
A Friday night without the necessary hustle & bustle and drive to faire. What a relief. And still, by retirement time nary a photo had been taken. So, I wondered about the house taking willy-nilly snaps of a variety of things. It was late, it was dark and the camera I was using – as much as I love it for day to day use – does not handle low-light nearly as well as I had hoped it would. So, these beads are a bit blurry, but I love all the tiny reflections of me, so I’ll deal.
Cheers.
~KR (Written on 8 June 2009)
Copperhead Road by Steve Earle
from The Very Best of Steve Earle: Angy Young Man
Camera: Canon PowerShot SD850 IS
Exposure: 0.167 sec (1/6)
Aperture: f/2.8
Focal Length: 5.8 mm
ISO Speed: 200
Exposure Bias: 0 EV
Flash: Off
Tags: Daily
