All I've Got Is Your Photograph

Here's some of what I like to do in my free time. Not great, but some of it turned out OK. Enjoy.
Click the picture to see some more.

Random Photos

PLEASE HELP WHAT DO I DO NOW????

I was actually asked the following question yesterday at work.

"On these new keyboards, how do you know if the Caps Lock is on?"

Instead of taking the easy approach to answering this question and just, you know, type and see if ALL THE LETTERS ARE CAPITALIZED!!! This mental titan decided the correct course of action was to completely stop what he was doing, walk across the hall into my cube farm, interrupt my work, and ask me a question that he could have found the answer to himself in approx. 1.5 seconds. I understand not knowing the answer to something, but I do not understand being too lazy to try and figure it out yourself before you go and disrupt somebody else.

Some people just have no business owning/using computers. If you are not going to put in a little effort to learn how to use the thing, get a typewriter. I'm not saying you have to be an expert, just get some basic knowledge. Like, how to tell if your Caps Lock is on...

Who's Gonna Fill Those Shoes?

WOW, I don't even know where to begin.

My expectations for the BB King/Buddy Guy show last night were very high, which can be dangerous. Going in with high expectations can set you up for disappointment. This time, my expectations were nowhere near high enough.

Let me first say a little about the venue: The Ryman Auditorium. Even though I spent my first 15 years living in Nashville, I had never been inside the Ryman. Just being inside the place is an experience. When you look on the walls and see the autographed concert posters of all the people who have performed there, just in recent years it's an impressive list: Springsteen, Van Morrison, The Pretenders, etc. That's not to mention all the country music stars that roll through there on a regular basis.

A talk with one of the security guards gave me a little history of the place. It was built in 1892, and was originally a church. The concert seating is the original pews. They have been refinished, but otherwise completely original. That was pretty amazing to me. There are no bad seats anywhere in the place. It only holds around 2000, so even if you are at the back you are still pretty close. The acoustics are incredible. If you ever get a chance to see a show there I highly recommend it. Just a cool place to see a show.


Now about the show itself. One of the coolest things about this show to me was that it showcased two different styles of blues. Buddy Guy played more of the raw, gritty, what I would call Texas Blues. BB's style of blues is much more polished, but no less powerful. What gave BB's music that polish for me was his killer horn section, those guys were incredible. So, Buddy started the show off, and showed the energy and chops of someone half of his 72 years. He ripped through classic blues standards and some of his new stuff, and it was all mind-blowing. For me what was the most memorable part of his set was a cover of Muddy Waters' Hoochie Coochie Man. You can't beat that with a stick.


If I had only gotten to hear Buddy it would have been worth the price of admission without a doubt, but it just got better. BB King is blues. Nobody does it like him. Stevie Ray Vaughan once said something to the effect that he could play the baddest solo in the world, and BB could play one note and have him beat. BB's set was unique. He didn't just go through the songs like all the other concerts I've been to. He wove them into stories that he would tell about how things were when he was young, or how to treat your lady. It was like sitting in your living room listening to your grandaddy tell you stories...If your grandaddy was a legendary guitar player. BB may have lost a step in terms of vocal range, but his playing is still right on. When he hit the opening riff of The Thrill Is Gone I got chills. That was the highlight of the night for me.


Watching these two legends play was an unbelieveable experience. It was watching living history. These guys shaped blues music, and influenced, countless other artists from numerous other genres. Seeing them you realize how bubblegum, and vanilla most of today's music really is. I said most, not all. When I think of what the future of blues music (or music in general) will be when these guys are gone, I guess I have to ask the same question Buddy asked to start off the night.



Who's gonna fill those shoes?

I've Been Down-hearted Baby...

Just a quick note. I'm going to see BB King and Buddy Guy tonight at the Ryman Auditorium. I'm really excited not only because of who it is, but because this will be the first real concert I've been to in a while. My plan is when I get back to post a review of the concert, probably Friday or Saturday.


Should be a fun night.

But You Don't Have To Take My Word For It...

OK, so I'm back home and in a much better frame of mind now. Not having to work 12 hour days anymore will do wonders for your mood. However, I still have not gotten over the fact that I had to break up a dog fight in the hallway outside my hotel room. (If you have no idea what I'm talking about, go back and read the previous post.) Every time I think about that I have to convince myself that it was not a hallucination. I spent quite a bit of time after it happened on Google trying to find any mention of a similar situation. I completely struck out. If anyone else has better google-fu and can find something, I would love to hear about it. As of now, to the best of my knowledge, I am the only person this has happened to.

Now on to something completely unrelated.

I am just about caught up on all my reading, so I need some book suggestions. Since I am a good capitalist, and do not expect to recieve something for nothing, I offer you a few of my more obscure favorites as barter.

*Wind, Sand and Stars~ Antoine de Saint-Exupery
This is a great non-fiction. It's a collection of personal stories from the author who was a mail-plane pilot and also flew for France during WWI. Very well-written, and has some great stories.

*The Songlines~ Bruce Chatwin
Travelogue of a trip Chatwin took to Australia. Has some interesting historical elements, as well as a look at Aboriginal culture and traditions.

*The Land Where Blues Began~ Alan Lomax
History of the origins of blues music. Written by a guy who traveled throughout the south recording old blues musicians for the Library of Congress. If you like history and/or blues, you will love this book.

*The Andromeda Strain~ Michael Crichton
Probably the least obscure of this list. This was one of Crichton's earliest works, and I think it got overshadowed by his later stuff. This book is one of those that gives you that weird creepy-crawly feeling up and down your spine. It has been adapted for TV/Movies a couple of times. Those attempts should be disregarded.

Alright, this post has gone on long enough. Hope you enjoy my book suggestions, and look forward to hearing yours.

You Will Never Guess What I Just Did

There is no way anyone would ever be able to guess what I just had to do.

Break up a dog fight. In the hallway of my hotel.

Read that again. Let it sink in. I hope your brain doesn't melt.

I had to pull a pit bull off of some sort of terrier. The pit bull had the terrier's head in its' mouth. Its' entire head.

Honestly, when you are sitting in your hotel room about to go to sleep, the last thing you expect to hear is dogs snarling and someone screaming at someone else to get their dog off of his dog. Unfortunately the terrier owners were older, and the owner of the pit bulls (plural) was trying to hold them back in addition to her rather small baby.

Now there is no way I will be going to sleep any time soon. At least until the adrenaline wears off. That was pretty much the most surreal experience I have ever had.

Too Much Sand

Well, I have suddenly found myself having an excess amount of time. Ordinarily this wouldn't be a negative thing. However this extra time I have on hand lately has involved me sitting in a hotel room by myself watching reruns of House. I have been doing an unusual amount of work-related travel the past couple of months, thus leading to the afore-mentioned alone time. I said all that to say that in order to kill some of this otherwise mind-numbing boredom, I would start this blog. Probably this will just involve whatever random thoughts are running through my head whenever I've got some time to sit down and write something.

I always thought I would enjoy doing a little business travel, but it's not as much fun as I had imagined. Some trips I take are pretty fun. For instance when I go to Chattanooga I can hang out with a couple of friends from school that live there. Now, I'm in Knoxville. Working 12 hour shifts. And I don't know a soul who lives here, except the other people who work up here. Most of them are about 15-20 years older than me. This translates to me being bored out of my mind in a hotel room. It's Super Bowl Sunday, and I can't even enjoy the game because it's not much fun to watch by yourself.

OK, so that last paragraph was a little emo, but I'm going to leave it in. I'm feeling a little depressed right now so please don't hold the emo against me. I promise I won't start wearing all black and eyeliner.

One good thing about this trip is that I tried Thai food for the first time. It was awesome. I'm going to have to have it again before I go home. I'm pretty sure there isn't anywhere in Florence to get Thai.

If anyone is wondering why I'm in Knoxville, I'm doing some support for the Kingston Ash Slide recovery effort. The experience will probably good in the long run, but right now it's not much fun at all.

Enough rambling, I meant to keep this short. Screwed that up huh?