bears... beets... battlestar galactica...

me doing my best dwight schrute impersonation.

milestone in personal blogging

check the counter, i've passed 1000 hits!!!

of course at least a third of those hits are me checking/refining posts.

but still...

woohoo!

nashville rules!

until yesterday, i had never been to nashville.

what a great trip!!!

first we went to hatch show print, one of the nations oldest letterpress print shops.

being a music geek and a graphic designer, this place was totally awesome for me.

i purchased a couple of posters and i even got my picture taken by the sign outside.

(pictures to come)

we then went to the opryland hotel where they have really cool indoor gardens. the highlight of this location however, was not the flora but the teenage hootchie mamas with their gigantic hair and pastel gowns.



after the hotel, we hiked over to the opryland mall where i purchased a really cool vintage-looking tin sign of the jack daniels "old no. 7 brand" artwork.

i happened to be wearing a spider-man t-shirt that day and the girl behind the counter mentioned that they had screen-printed spider-man tins as well.

i explained that the no. 7 sign worked better with my bedroom decor, plus the type treatment appealed to me as a designer, plus it was booze-related, "so, win/win/win." i stated.

upon dropping from the shopping, we decided to head over to a local restaurant/microbrewery called "black stone".

i've been wanting to start homebrewing for a while now, and this place allowed you to walk through their brewery. so cool!

the four of us decided to order the sampler platter (?) of all of the restaurants own brews.

we sampled all six in 5 oz glasses. in total there were 24 empty glasses on our table at the end of the night.

i decided to get some of the chaser's pale ale to take home and enjoy later. my, it was tasty!

the next day, we were out with my sister's brother-in-law, his girlfriend and her little sister in the public ministry work.

jenna made a stop at a dairy queen and got a bottle of water and pack of peanuts.

when she got back into the car, i looked at her purchased goods and shouted, a la kung pow, "THAT'S A LOT OF NUTS!!!"

with tremendous awe and astonishment, the girls in the back seat both said in unison, "you like kung pow!!!"

"of course! it's one of my favorites." i replied.

the rest of the morning was nothing but kung pow and thumb wars quotes.

i'm in constant amazement over the unifying power of that stupid little movie.



all this, and i got to hang out with my little sister, too!

what a great trip!!!

(check out her blog. hopefully she's updated it.)

amazing home video

words cannot express the awesomeness of the video below.

this is my brother-in-law (middle) and his two brothers trying to cut rebar with bolt-cutters.

i'm keeping this posted until my sister sends me my nashville pics.

a little blackmail never hurt anyone.

patterns emerging

i saw 3 p.t. cruisers on the way to work this morning.

all with vanity plates as follows:

"SPEC LDY"

"ITS MY PT"

and "KRUZER"

is it a requirement that everyone who purchases a pt must have the goofiest vanity plates they can think of?

visit scenic tennessee

i'm visiting my sister this weekend.

this is ozone falls.

i don't know why it's called that.

but it sure is dang purty.

farewell corporate life

today is my last day at reynolds & reynolds, so i wanted to post my most favorite graphic that i've ever created here.

this was a flashing violator that i made for a highlight reel wherein the one and only hammer-man made a guest appearance.

he's older and doughier now - thus the need for the graphic.

never in my wildest dreams could i ever have imagined that i would one day create the masterpiece below.

ringtones! mwa-ha-haaaa!!!

i've recently discovered how to create my own ringtones from my MP3 collection.

i've been asking my friends and fam what song they feel best represents them for a ringtone.

so far...

my sister amy has chosen the hall & oates classic, "man eater"

jeremy chose rage's "calm like a bomb"

and my dad chose wild cherry's "play that funky music."

so to the rest of my friends and family, what song do you think best represents you?

leave me feedback and let me know.

pass the peace pipe

i found this cd when i was cleaning out the studio at work.

i haven't laughed so hard in a long time.

i guess it was recorded by a couple of hippies from yellow springs.

to quote cars: "the 60's weren't go to you, were they?"

i only posted the first 2 minutes or so... after that it's 5 minutes of crickets chirping.

awesome.

karaoke showdown 2006

very delayed but check this out


a few months ago, i held the first annual karaoke showdown party at my house.

the following is a brief recap and then i'll get to pictures.

for a second opinion on the party, check out cyndi's awesome blog.

first of all, whenever i'm throwing a huge party, it somehow always ends up that i'm scrambling at the last minute with doing dishes or making beds or some other tedious chore, but not so before this party.

my best friend's little sister, sarah (shown right), volunteered to come over before hand to help me clean up. (because when you're thirteen, it's fun to clean anybody else's house but your own.)

i didn't have her scrubbing toilets or anything, but the extra set of hands was so helpful and allowed me to be totally de-stressed.

in fact, my house was completely clean a full two hours before the party was scheduled to start! you rock, sarah!

secondly, mad props to nathan, who hooked up the professional grade p.a., to jeremy, who delivered on the karaoke machine and cds, and to my awesome judges (below, left to right), jairus, diane and nathan.


all right, the actual party...

i understand that the very word "karaoke" causes some to be trepid, so i had a sign-in sheet and made sure that everyone was on the list. i allowed nathan and jairus to sit out on the singing, because they had volunteered to be judges. still, i'm convinced that my own performance would have inspired nathan to throw down, if he hadn't had to leave to let his dog out.

cyndi and dave were solid starters for the evening, but early on jeremy's five-year-old son, gideon, surged ahead in the rankings for his amazing performance of neil young's "heart of gold".

did i mention that he's five? and he was singing every word to neil young? AND HE CAN'T EVEN READ!?!?!?

AWESOME!!!! (cuteness to the right)

jeremy sang a garth brooks song, because that's jeremy. LOL

best duet went to cyndi and dave for their rousing performance of the b-52's "love shack."

mason sang billy joel's "piano man" very low and intensely. the poor kid's super-competitive nature reared it's ugly head when the judges gave him some good-natured ribbing. the rest of the evening was really intense for him and he refused to sing another song.

when his older brother, harrison, won the best in show award, it was all over. the kid needed a chill pill in a major way.

my dad and cheryl sang the "ooga-ooga-chacka" song. i honestly don't know where i get my hammy side from. :-p

delaney then upped the "awww" factor with her performance of the "beauty and the beast" theme.


mom, melody and cyndi performed "my boyfriend's back."

most awesome come-out-of-her-shell performance of the evening definitely went to diane, who tore the roof of the mother with tom jones' "delilah"

and you gotta love brad for trying on "hotel california."

since i was the host, i wasn't eligible for any of the super-awesome prizes, but check the score cards, baby! that 14.4 was for my throw-down on the black crows' "hard to handle". best score of the night!

of course, the judges had to knock me down a peg or two, because they're my friends. jairus said that he didn't think that it was possible to watch someone's head inflate to such a huge size in such a small time. diane said that i was working the judges too hard in my performance and nathan said that if you looked up the word eccentric in the dictionary, you would find a picture of me there.

how dare they imply that i'm a raging ego-maniac? i think they're just jealous of my amazing talent and ruggedly handsome features.

more pictures...

what did the rancor say after he ate a wookiee?

the answer: chewie!

this star wars themed post is brought to you by the dayton philharmonic orchestra.

i took my mom, dad, sister, cousin and cousin's room mate to see a show called "heroes and villans: the music of john williams" at the shuster center.

it was pretty frickin' awesome although the nosebleed seats that i purchased at the last minute were a little sweltering toward the end of the program.

they played the themes from superman, indiana jones and of course, star wars.

afterwards there were stormtroopers from ohio's 201st imperial regiment getting pictures taken with anyone who cared to.

jenna and felicia were so giddy they were jumping up and down. a stormtrooper noticed this and started jumping up and down with them.

i got my picture taken "force-choking" darth vader. (see below.)

other silly highlights:

- one piece from a chase scene in indiana jones and the last crusade was entitled something like "overture for solo violin and motorcycle." the conductor made a joke that based on the title, you would think that there was a solo for a bike, at which point the lead carpenter rolled his hog out on stage, placed a music stand in front of him and began adjusting his sheet music.

- on the program was art for an upcoming show featuring a very pretty violinist. the photo had the body of the violin artfully covering half of her face. raven made a comment about how pretty she was and i replied that the rest of her face was actually horribly scarred from a tragic burn accident. and of course, she believed it until i started laughing.

- afterwards we all went back to my house and mom made "heaps-o-health" sandwiches. because it all comes back to food.

enjoy the pics!