Altered Books

A highschool classmate found me on Facebook.  She is an art teacher in Lawrenceville, Georgia.  That in itself is a sort of odd coincidence because I was the structural engineer on several Sonics in the Lawrenceville area several years ago.  Anyway, Becky is working on a project for a competition in the Atlanta area.  The competition involves taking a book that is ready to be thrown away, or recycled, and creating art from the book.  Pretty cool idea. 

Photos of Altered Books  Several neat projects.

Contest info.  Guess this happens in several communities. 

Joe Bonamassa

About 6 months ago, I was listening to the Bob and Tom morning radio show.  They frequently have musicians as guests and those folks play some of their music.  That morning, Joe Bonamassa was the guest.  I'd never heard of him before. His music blew me away.  I knew immediately that Debbie would like it.  Joe's music is a mixture of blues and rock with alot of guitar.  Kind of a cross between Stevie Ray Vaughn, Eric Clapton, and John Mayer.  Anyway, Debbie fell in love with his music and promptly bought several CD's that she listens to frequently.  Like, alot.  When we learned he would be in Oklahoma City, we bought tickets.  Last nite we attended the concert.  Wow. What a show.  Started at 8 pm and lasted until about 10:15.  He played for two hours without a break except to switch guitars.  The drummer and bass player took two breaks.  The keyboard player took one break.  At the end of two hours, he walked off stage and came back after a few minutes and played for about 10 more minutes.  The last song might have been the longest one of the nite.  The dude is incredible.  Check out the two songs below from YouTube.  While you are there, check out a few more.  Maybe you'll like him, too. 

Joe Bonamassa - Sloe Gin

Joe Bonamassa - Ballad of John Henry

Amazing thing about this guy is he's 32 years old. He's been playing since he was 4. He's been making and selling music for at least 10 years. Somehow, we never heard of him before a few months ago. How does someone that talented stay behind the scenes?  If you like his music, I recommend going to see him live.  It's way better than watching the videos or listening to the CDs.

Triple Lindy

From the Rodney Dangerfield movie, Back to School.  Triple Lindy

LOL.

Tara, this is another movie you might want to watch sometime. 

Weekend Fun

We had a blast last weekend.  In a couple of different ways.  Hanging out with Tara, John, Evie, Maggie and Oliver is always fun.  Plus, the wind was blowing like a mini-hurricane.  Then it snowed.  We went to the Dallas Aquarium.  Very cool place.  Glad we went even though it was really, really crowded.  They have two manitees in there.  That was cool.  Saw the Mayan Performance Troupe do part of their dance.  Sharks.  Several huge fish.  Sea turtles.  Lots of colorful fish.  Oliver liked the waterfall and the colorful fish.  Evie and Maggie liked it all, especially the penguins, which was John's favorite too.  We need to go back during a weekday I think so we can take more time to look at the exhibits.

This is the waterfall that Oliver really got excited about.  It was 3-stories high.  The lagoon below is where the manitees and some large fish were swimming around. 

We were watching the fish in the lagoon from the third level.  Suddenly, this monkey climbed to the top of the tree about 10 feet from us.

Oliver and Tara checking out the waterfall.

Red on the heads.

Evie and two very tiny Tamarins behind her.

Checking out the info about the critters.

Big ass crocodile.  Well, big head and teeth, too.

One of the manitees.

A seadragon.  The floating "plant" is actually a seahorse that looks like a plant.  Very cool.

 

I think this is a scuttlefish.  Can't remember for sure.  But it's neat.

Nope.  The photo is not turned sideways.  Not sure why this fish was standing on it's head.  Check out the HUGE starfish in the background.

Another seadragon?

Daddy taking photos of his little girls at the penguin exhibit.

We had a great time.

Workin' for the Weekend

Debbie and I are going south to see Tara, John and the grandchilluns.  Just in time it appears as the weatherpornographers are forecasting near blizzard conditions for tomorrow afternoon, Saturday nite and Sunday morning.  "He misspelled weatherprognosticator," you say.  Not really.  The people around here really screw up the forecasts, sooooo...  The last time they predicted a big snow, we went out and bought provisions in case we lost power.  We got nothing but a stockpile of provisions. 

Megan has been in Midland all week.  She is coming back to Stillwater just in time for the "blizzard."  hee hee

Kelsey is supposed to go to Tulsa for a concert Saturday nite.  Hope she can get there before the "blizzard" hits. 

On a side note, I got some new tenny-runners.  :) 

Been fighting a stye my left eyelid.  Gads, those things are gnarly.  Only second time I've ever had one.  I can go the rest of my life without another.  Reading on the www about them.  Apparently stress can cause them.  That makes sense.  First time I got one was right after we started the company.  This time, it's been really, really busy at work.  Stress makes sense.  I'm looking forward to this weekend with Debbie and Tara.  De-stress a little. 

Everyone have a great weekend.  I know Deb and I will.

The Visitor

Sitting in the office working and some guy comes through the front door yelling "Hello!" at the top of his lungs.  He goes into Russell's office and asked if Russell was Greg. Russell told him that Greg is in the office next door.  Russell offered to escort him through our office to Greg's office.  On the way, the guy asked Russell if he heard about Willie Nelson getting ran over?  Russell said no.  The guy said that Willie was playing "On the Road Again."  sheesh.  To top it off, the guy is not using his inside voice at all.  He has one volume and it is LOUD!!!

I dial into a conference call with an architect and while on that call, MR. LOUD comes back through the office and goes into Russell's office.  I don't know what all is being said, because I had to put my finger in my ear and press the phone receiver tight against the other ear so I could listen to the conference call conversation.  I did hear more jokes similar to the Willie Nelson gag, discussions about listening to KOMA radio, and barber shops.  About 30 minutes of this guy talking Russell's ear off.  Check that.  Yelling Russell's ear off.  Might have been somewhat interesting if I wasn't on a conference call.  Turns out that MR. LOUD was Russell's barber when Russ was younger.  Small world.  Too small for that much VOLUME, I'm thinking.  This guy was kinda like Eleanor's friend from a few years ago.  MR. LOUD talked so fast I'm certain he was breathing through his ears.  hee hee  Gotta wonder what it was like to get a haircut from that fella.  How long did it take while he told all those jokes.  Plus, did your ears ring after sitting in a chair while he YELLED the jokes at ya?

I think we need to install a bullshit detector at the front door what locks automatically when guys like that approach the office.

Twilight Zone Moment

Last week, a repeat client called and asked me to help him design a bridge for a project out in the middle of nowhere.  The site is in eastern Oklahoma at a storage site where they place flyash.  They need to drive trucks across the bridge and dump the flyash out of the trucks into a hopper under the bridge.  More info than you wanted to know, right? hee hee.  Anyway, I worked on it for almost 2 days to do what he and I had talked about the day he contacted me.  Just as I was about to finish, he called and said he wanted the whole thing to be portable.  ruh roh.  Our original discussion did not address portability and my design certainly was not portable.  We discussed the portability issues and he said finish what I had so far because the owner is in a hurry.  I sent what I had late one evening last week.  I have not heard anything from him since.  About an hour ago, Russell and I were talking about our workload.  I mentioned the bridge project.  About that time the phone rang.  Just before I answered the phone, I said, "That's probably Saeed."  And that's who was on the phone to discuss the bridge project.  Weird, weird, weird. 

National Geographic photos

Cool photos from National Geographic.

Top ten photos of 2009

Especially, this one of a tall redwood.  Can you find the man in the yellow shirt high up in the tree?

Sittin' on the Mountain

This is not me or anyone that we know.  I found the photo on a website and thought it was cool.

Learning to speak another language

OK.  I've wanted to learn to speak Spanish for a long time.  I took Spanish in junior high for two years, but I remember almost none of it now.  I can count and remember a few words, but certainly not at a conversational level.  So I see these advertisements on television about these stones that you can get to help you learn a different language.  Supposedly, the stones make learning a language very easy.  Hey, great!  We have lots of those in Oklahoma.  So, I got one of them and I've carried it around for a week.  I still can't speak Spanish any better than before. What the heck?  Why the big scam about using rose stones to help you learn any language easily?  It just doesn't work.  Now, it's a cool rock, don't get me wrong.  And, it's the official state rock of Oklahoma, which is pretty cool, too.  But it won't help you learn a language.  Buyer beware.  All you are gonna get is a rock.

Weekend at Tara's

Debbie and Megan spent last weekend at Tara's.  Debbie snapped a few photos.