I got all of the old pictures off of my phone. There aren’t a terribly large amount of pictures on there because the old phone is about 4 years old and didn’t have much memory on it.
It turns out almost every picture on that phone ranges from bad to horrible. Although some are amusing.
One major plus of the new phone is the memory card. I can use pictures taken by a real camera for the Caller ID Photo. As you can tell by these images, that will make a big difference.
The subject of this entry is not a reference to the Spartans. This is the 300th entry in An Artist’s Notebook.
This post is mostly to announce to the world in general:
“You’ve beaten me, again!!”
It isn’t the first time that the world has beaten me. It certainly won’t be the last.
A few weeks back I indicated that I was getting an alarmingly high amount of text messages on my phone and it was time to get a text messaging package. I knew that the bell had tolled for me, but I did nothing about it.
Until today. After volunteering at the Jaycee’s Bowling Challenge (where incidentally I think I was the least favorite volunteer of the people running the Challenge) I made the trip to the mall and signed up for a text messaging package.
There you have it world. You win again. Feel free to text message me to the fullest of your heart’s desire. You won’t hear me grumble about it ever again.
I also picked up a new phone. The keypad was fading fast on the old phone. I didn’t pick up anything fancy like Jesse or Willy. However, I do now get the joy of putting in new Caller ID Photos of my friends and create new ringtones for them. That will give me something to do. I just need to figure out just the right song and just the right picture for each friend.
I still need to get the old pictures off my phone. That could make for an interesting entry some time in the future.
Last Friday Jesse and I embarked on a road trip that we lovingly named The Big Jesus Road Trip. Our final destination and epoch of the trip was a 33 foot tall stainless steel Jesus statue.
A plan was hatched and a route was devised. The plan was set in motion. Considerations were made. Including starting the road trip by listening to the Audio Adrenaline song Never Gonna Be As Big As Jesus.
I could move to hollywood (yeah)
get my teeth capped i know i could
be a big star
on the silver screen
just like james dean
i could be a star
i could climb the corporate laddermaybe be just like the beatles
melodic rocking heavyweights
i could learn to sing and dance
if i only had a chance
i could be a big rock stari could be anything i wanted to
i could do anything but one thing’s true
never gonna be as big as Jesus
hand
never gonna be as big as Jesus
never gonna build the promise land
but that, that’s all right,
o.k. with me (bop bop bop bop ba dop, ooh!)i could build a tower to heaven
get on top and touch the sky
i could write a million songs
all designed to glorify
i could be about as good
good as any human could
but that won’t get me by
But in the end, we just headed out on the open road to the sound of the Taurus.
We passed through the following cities:
We did important things like:
Visit the Surf Ballroom
Visit the plane crash site that claimed the lives of Buddy Holly, The Big Bopper, and Ritichie Valens
Feel the pain of finding out that the World’s Largest Cheeto had been kidnapped.
>Feel the thrill of seeing the World’s Largest Cheeto when the waitress brings it out for a special appearance.
Meet this awesome guy!
Kiss the Blarney Stone
Got a honk and a wave from the friendly folks in Mallard
See the world’s ugliest statue.
See the Big Jesus (and Mary too).
See the Sgt. Floyd Memorial.
I hope to go into more detail about the trip in the near future. Until then, you can check out many, many more pictures from the trip in my Photography 139 Gallery.
What you are about to experience is bits of a national advertising campaign that I would suggest that Little White Lye Soap launch immediately. However, I don’t have much pull in that department. So we’ll have to see what happens.
These pictures are of the actual models that I would use, but the background is not the background that I would use, for most of the models because I just took a picture of them the first time that I ran into them. Just imagine that the background is consistent with the quote underneath the characters.
“Oh my! After a long evening at the theater with Tennessee Williams, nothing cleans off the powerful odor of mendacity like Little White Lye Soap.”
“Nothing relaxes me and makes me ready for sleep after a long day’s work than a hot shower with Little White Lye Soap.”
“After a long morning of schooling chumps, nothing takes the rank of other people’s failures and broken dreams off me like Little White Lye Soap.”
“After a long night of grinding on the honeys in the clubs, nothing rids a dance machine of the stench of barfly like Little White Lye Soap.”
“There is just no way around it, I’m a handsome man and Little White Lye keeps me handsome by making me clean, while being gentle on my sensitive skin.”
My woman likes my skin to be soft to the touch and Little White Lye Soap keeps my skin soft and that makes my woman happy.”
“After a long night of rocking, Little White Lye Soap cleans off the reek of groupie and leaves me smelling fresh in the morning.”
“After a long day at the office explaining to old people that their 401K dropping 25% in value in the last week is just a normal market fluctuation I feel morally dirty. Nothing restores me to moral equilibrium like a long bath with Little White Lye Soap.”
I imagine these running in GQ. I’ll have to wait and see what the boss says.
Over the last few days I have intermittently worked on some photos for a big product endorsement I’m going to be doing in the very near future. I asked a few friends to pose for the picture, without giving them any information. I would have thought that our friendship would have been enough for them to just sign on to be willing participants for my photo experiments. I learned that some of my friends just don’t trust me that much. Here is a break down of friends that trust me and friends that need to ask questions constantly:
Baier
Jesse
Nader
Russell
Faust
Derrick
Friends that Don’t Trust
Jay
Willy
Andree
I don’t know if these guys are just the untrusting sort or if I have wronged them at some point in our past.
I said that I would not post a full image of Jay until he returned to Friday Night Supper Club. Tonight he made his return. To celebrate I post this old timey picture of a much younger and carefree Jay.
Jay, Jesse and I had made plans to attend Cat on a Hot Tin Roof at Stephens Auditorium. Jay actually shed his sellout label and told the man that he was taking a Friday night off. He joined Willy and I for FNSC at Okoboji Grill.
Jesse sent me a text message 37 minutes before the curtain rose stating that he would not be joining us. We could not get Willy to join us because he is not very secure in his sexuality. That is a shame because although I’ve been known to work miracles now and again, the window was just too small and Jesse’s ticket went unused.
I have not read the play Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. I have seen the movie starring the great Paul Newman and Elizabeth Taylor. I knew that the movie had to change the subtext of the main character’s homosexuality to his refusal to grow up. However, I felt in this production of the play the question of his homosexuality was still unresolved.
I’m now curious to know how this issue is dealt with in the play. In the movie I believe that they used the actual phrase “cat on a hot tin roof” once. In this production they used the phrase at least 4 or 5 times. It felt really awkward and I would like to know what was in the original play.
Overall, the play was good but not great. It was the third show I’ve seen at Stephens this season. Hairspray would still be the highlight of the season for me, but I’m still going to see Chicago in the next couple of weeks.
Teresa and I are also going to some kind of party in a couple of weeks where they announce next season’s slate of shows. That is pretty sweet.
2005-William McAlpine
2006-William McAlpine
2007-Tim Peterson
Now the name Mark Wolfram will sit proudly next to theirs. The miracle comeback of Kansas made them champions. It also made Mark the third champion of The Roundball Oracles (An NCAA tournament pool).
The Final Standings:
A trophy has been ordered and will be given to Mark when he returns from Taiwan. I miss college basketball already.
A few months ago Nader gave me a camera to test for his trip to London. I put in a roll of film and took some test shots. Then I put the camera away and forgot about it. I finally finished off the roll and got it developed. I thought I would share some of the images, not because of any of them are particularly interesting, but because maybe they are interesting as a whole. A study of intermittent shots taking over time from a forgotten camera.
Flowers
Flowers
Self Portrait
Fat Jake
Jay Snuggly
Fat Jake
Willy: Keeper of Fat Jake
Fat Jake
Experiment
Vest
Frame
Party in Jesse’s Office
Cory
Deer
Deer through Windows of “The Quad”
Computer Mine Basketball Hoop
Yesterday while I was slaving away in the Computer Mine, I came across something curious. While it is true that I frequently come across something curious in the Mine, this seemed to be a different kind of strange.
When I get to come out of the darkness of the mine and out into the light at work, it is frequently related to shipping. The 2 company vending machines are located next to the shipping area. As I was getting ready to ship out a freshly mined credit card reader I noticed a note taped to one of the vending machines:
I concede that very few people at the Computer Mine are getting filthy rich, but I doubt that anybody that works here is in such dire financial straits that they desperately need that one quarter.
It turns out though that my initial inclinations about this note were wrong. I thought Judy had found an extra quarter in the change slot of the vending machine and taped it up, in case somebody came back looking for their quarter.
In fact, Judy just posted the note because the vending machine had stolen her quarter. Jesse saw this note, went back to his office, grabbed a quarter, went back to the vending machine and taped a quarter to the note.
I guess in the future, any time that gas prices are making me feel pain in my wallet, I’ll just post a note on the vending machine asking for like 50 bucks. Maybe somebody will tape up some cash for me.
Although there has to be an easier way to financial security. If only there was some church out there that would send me a prayer rug that I could use and then fill out exactly how much money I want God to give me and then send them 50 bucks and then God would just give me that money. If only there was something like that out there.
Tonight was the big Rambo night. Below is a picture of the gentlemen that made their way to our local multiplex to view Rambo with me.
Pictured left to right: Jeff, Yours Truly, Scottie D., Jesse, Derrick, Jason Baier, Jay, Andree and Greg.
Not pictured is Russell. He finally relented to viewing Rambo despite contending that his “self respect was not expendable”. However, Russell took off immediately after the film and is not in the photo.
Preceding the movie was a dinner and Rambo discussion. Almost everybody shared a favorite Rambo moment from the past. I will publish those in due course, after I compile my own personal list of my ten favorite Rambo moments.