Ooooops!

Well a lot of people ask the question, "What is the color of procrastination?"  Okay, so no one actually asks that, but I'm here to tell ya, the color of procrastination, at least today, is red! 

I got off of work a little early, even, fully intending to go to work on today's blog.  Got home, and nothing was further from my mind.  Finally, at around 5:45, when I realized I needed to start getting ready for class, I also realized I hadn't done anything on the blog piece!  So, I thought for a second, then decided I'd just grab something bright, squirt a little bit on the canvas and squish the knife down on it.  So there ya have it.  A red squish.  And now I'm off to class.  Later, peoples! :-)

GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLLLLLLLLLLLL!

Ya know, 10 years ago I hardly ever even watched any sports.  Maybe the occasional Cards game, and I would go watch the Super Bowl with my best friend, but that was mostly just to go drink a bunch of beer with my buddies.  I never watched college football or any basketball, college or pro.  Now look at me:  I'm watching all of that stuff, and then some!  I'm even really interested in watching as much of the World Cup as I can, and I was never even remotely interested in soccer (or futbol, depending on who is reading this).  Down in Washburn, growing up, there just wasn't any soccer, or hockey, and they never played that stuff on TV, that I can remember, at least.  Since I never saw it, I was never interested in it.  Kinda funny that I moved to St. Louis, which is, like, one of the biggest places in the nation for both soccer and hockey!

Anyway, today's stroke is a nice, heavy stroke, based on the colors of the 2010 World Cup logo.  Now I've gotta figure out who I want to root for, since USA and England are both out!  Germany looks tough!  I'm liking Spain and Brazil, though!

Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Well, the vuvuzelas at the World Cup weren't the only things a-buzzin' this weekend. It was time for big ol' Beeson Family Reunion (mom's dad's family).  Grandpa was one of fourteen kids born to Roy and Josie Beeson, and they grew up down in Cassville in a little white house about 5 miles east of town.   We've been getting together every even-numbered year since the early 50s (well, I missed the first 30 years for some reason).  There are only 9 of the original 14 siblings left, and they and all of their children (referred to as "The Cousins") live all over this country, but a good number of them make it back every reunion to celebrate the lives of Roy and Josie's bunch and to reminisce about the old days.

I never really got into these things until the last 10 years or so - when I was little I just didn't realize who all of these strangers were, and I missed quite a few of them after I moved up here to St. Louis.  Now I just love them - guess I'm getting older and I'm realizing more and more the importance of family.

We always get together Sunday morning to sing a few old hymns and for people to tell stories.  Uncle Don (the 10th one down the line) was talking about how interesting it was that their parents were both born around 1886, and both died (I believe) in 1969, so they got to witness the advent of the telephone, automobiles, radio and television, as well as seeing the first men in space.  They didn't quite get to see the first man landing on the moon, though.  Roy always said that he knew they'd make it up there, though.

He talked about how he remembered Leora (the 4th-born) buying them their first radio - how the battery was delivered first, and Roy didn't know what in the world it was for, then they got the actual radio, and they just wore it out!  Don said they rigged up their own antenna that went all the way out the house and was attached to the chicken house.  Called it "Chicken House Reception" - I thought that was great!

Oh, by the way, 2 things: the stroke today is black and yellow - two of the colors in the Beeson Family Crest, and also the other pic up there is a painting I did of "The Homestead" - the house in which they all grew up. I took it down there as a surprise and they loved it!  

Anyway, they're a great, hard working, bunch.  I know Roy and Josie would be so proud!  The reunion went by entirely too quickly, as usual, and I can't wait until the next one!  Many laughs, a few tears (of joy, mostly), a whole lotta hugs. I love my family!

Don't know why there's no sun up in the sky...

Hey, folks, it's almost midnight, and I just got home!  Jo Beth and I got stuck in a monster, Billy-Badass torrential downpour-type storm, so we pulled over in Springfield, grabbed some mediocre sushi, then started back out again after we were sure the storm had moved on, and we wouldn't be driving in that crap again.  We lost a good few hours all in all.  Anyway, the blog I was gonna do about our family reunion will have to wait until tomorrow.  I'm beat, and 5:45 comes awfully early! 

Here's a little grey curvy line, for the nasty weather and curvy roads today.  We'll have a much better day tomorrow!  :-) G'night!

You can't go back home...

So today I got up and talked to my sisters for a little while, and then they left me.  I was all alone. :-(  They had another wedding shower to go to, and I really didn't feel like showering, so I had to figure out what to do.  Luckily, just as I went out to the car to go drive around aimlessly, Michelle showed up. 

Michelle is pretty much like family.  She's been around forever, and mom just pretty much "adopted" (not literally, mind you - just figuratively) her and she's been like a sister to us.  She honked the horn, I rolled my window down, and she said, "I've just been driving around, and I'm bored".  She doesn't live here, either, she just came into town for my sister, Jo Beth's wedding shower last night, so she was in the same boat as I was.  I told her I didn't have anything to do, either, so I'd just get in with her and we could just drive around aimlessly and be bored together. 

We drove down to Washburn to see our old school, Southwest R-5 (home of the Trojans, thank you very much!).  The high school is now the middle school, and they've got a whole other high school and gymnasium.  Other than that, everything looked exactly the same - except that someone apparently climbed to the top of the water tower and spraypainted "EXETER" (a rival school) right below "Washburn". 

I saw one of my old job sites, Pennington Seed, where I worked summers growing up.  I'm guessing it's closed down.  I worked some long hours there, though - sometimes we would work up to 20, maybe 21 hours a day, in the height of the season! Here's a picture of it - you can see the fence in front of the building on the left.  We built that almost 25 years ago to help block the sound of the fans, which were extremely loud!


We went through Seligman, MO, by Michelle's old house, where she grew up, then through beautiful downtown Seligman.  That was just plain depressing - every single building was vacant!  They moved the main highway going through the town several years ago, so it just completely bypasses the downtown section now. 

After that, we made our way back home, and decided we wanted to grab a bite to eat, so we went to Oriental House, the best Chinese restaurant owned by Koreans in Cassville!  It really is good food, so I make a point to eat there every time I'm down.  Only problem is that I always forget THEY DON'T HAVE A FRIGGIN' CREDIT CARD MACHINE!!!  It's cash only!  I had to scrounge for change just to pay the bill!  Then we went to an ATM so Michelle could get a little money for a tip (the girl did treat us well, otherwise I wouldn't have even bothered)!

So that's my day so far.  I'm going down to the Barry County Museum this evening to hear my mom's band, The Hometown Sound, play as part of a Smithsonian exhibit that's in town for the summer. 

Today's stroke, by the way, is maroon and black, in honor of my beloved Southwest Trojans!

Home, home again...I like to be here when I can...

So I'm "down home" this weekend - "down home" being Cassville, MO, down in the southwest corner, about an hour or so west of Branson (I wanted to link a video of this scene, in which we find that Nelson is a huge Andy Williams fan - "Just when you think he's not gonna do "Moon River - BAM! - second encore!) but I couldn't find it right away, and I don't have much time. 

I'm down here for the Beeson Family Reunion.  That's my  mom's dad's side.  We get together every even year down here where they all grew up. All fourteen of 'em.  Yes, fourteen.  In one little house.  And you thought you had to wait a long time to use the bathroom! :-)

As I drove down here, around Friestatt (a little German town right off of I-44 around Mt. Vernon) is where I always know I'm home again.  That' where I start seeing bg ol' round bales of hay, and cattle on a regular basis.  Today's stroke is kind of a beige-ish/yellow-ish mix that reminds me of those hay bales, and reminds me of home.  It's gonna be a great weekend.  It's good to be home. 

Well, off to see some old friends!  Later!

P.S. - muchas gracias to the ladies at Cassville schools for allowing me to borrow their computer in order to do this blog the next day or two!  Woo hoo!  You guys are total life-savers!

It ain't just for Southwest Decor anymore...

My wife is just beautiful.  She really is an inspiration - even a muse to me.  Tonight I asked her what I should do for a stroke tonight - as I do occasionally - and immediately she had an answer.  I just love that - makes this a bit easier sometimes, really!  Tonight, though, I was wondering what to actually write about, and I just looked over at her sitting back in the recliner, reading.  That was all I needed.  She just looked so content and happy sitting there doing that, and I know she really needed that.  And I needed to see that.  Life is good.  The stroke is turquoise, to match the dress she's wearing.  Right on. 

Hey, darlin' - I remember when you could stop a clock!

I was reminded today of my old art teacher from high school, Mark Vanslyke (yes, he is related to former Cardinal Andy Vanslyke, which I always thought was cool).  Anyway, he's the track and field coach at East Newton high school down in southwest Missouri now, and a guy from my high school who works with Mark there posted a picture of him.  I never would have recognized him if I had just bumped into him on the road!  I guess in my mind I still had a picture of him from 20 years ago.  I figured I was the only one aging here - everyone else I know from back then still looks great - they look like themselves!  I just got fatter and more white headed! :-)

Mark was a great teacher.  I actually wish I would have taken more of an interest in art back then - listened more.  I mean I liked to draw, and that was really about it.  And most of my artwork was comprised of album covers from the heavy metal bands I listened to (there were some great covers, though, really!): I did Metallica's "Master Of Puppets" (not to be confused with "Master Of Puppies", or even "Pastor Of Muppets", mind you), also Metallica's "...And Justice For All" - I remember learning a lot about shading on that one.  I did a couple of Iron Maiden albums - "Live After Death" and "Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son" (I did that one in colored pencil - I was pretty darned proud of it!).  I'll have to see if I can dig up any of these sometime and post 'em on here - I think they're in the basement somewhere. 

Anyway, one of my favorite projects that Mark had us do was called "Pink Houses" (he was a huge Mellencamp fan!).  For this project we were supposed to take any song and draw or paint a picture about it.  I would love to do this project now, actually.  Maybe I will. 

This is one of the instances, though, where I just knew it all - didn't need to take no stinkin' advice from anyone!  My song was Led Zeppelin's "Stairway To Heaven".  Yup, you guessed it: my drawing was a set of stairs going up into the clouds.  Way to put some thought into it, Captain Obvious.  :-/

Mark kept trying to get me to do something more interesting - to actually put some thought into it, but I was just stubborn, and thought that was what I wanted to do, and it would be cool enough.  Yeah, well, ya know - live and learn. 

Today's "little pink house" is for you, Mr. Vanslyke - hopefully you'll check out some of my newer artwork - lemme know whatcha think!

Lithium, beryllium, lawrencim, rutherfordium, seaborgium - they're just making these up at this point, aren't they?

I drive a Honda Element.  We bought it back in '05, when they were still relatively new - they'd only been around a couple of years.  When they first came out both Jenny and I thought they were just ugly - we called them  "Boxes On Wheels".  A couple of years later they redesigned them, and made them a little more round, plus the Scion came out, and it was definitely a box on wheels.  I really needed a car, so we went on over to our friendly Honda dealer and looked around.

I had just started a (short-lived) job in construction, so I wanted something I could haul some things, but nothing too big (hence no pickup truck!), and I wanted something I could wash out easily (hence no CR-V, which was something I really liked), so the Element it was.  Of course another big selling point to me was the XM radio.  I'd wanted to try out satellite radio for a long time, and it came free for a few months.  Bonus!

So up until the last year or so, there still were very few Elements on the road, and it was almost like we who did own one were kind of a clique.  All over the place, when I would see one we would acknowledge each other, usually by flashing the peace sign, or at least waving - especially if we had the same color (in my instance, blue).  I always thought that was pretty cool.  Yeah, I'm easily amused. :-)

Now that there are a lot more Elements on the road, though, I don't see that as much.  I'll flash the peace sign to one every once in a while, but I don't get many responses any more.  Guess they're not quite as "underground", and therefor not as cool. 

I'm not really sure what all of this had to do with tonight's stroke, actually.  I dripped a nice little splotch of clear tar gel on there, with a drop of purple and that sparkly pink and swirled it around a bit.  I need to do a separate painting with the clear tar gel - that's some really cool stuff!

There are just some of those days...

....in which you just wanna lay down and go to sleep.  My day didn't start off that way, but it kinda ended up that way.  It was just one of  those days, so I'm gonna give you my stroke, and I'm gonna go to bed.  It's grey and blue (by the way, grab some tissues for this commercial - no, seriously - it's really powerful!!).  It's how I feel right now.  I'm sure I'll feel better tomorrow. Maybe - we're doing 6am-2:30pm shifts. 

I've never really been that good at mornings, despite the fact that I've been doing them for the last 15 years  - I've just always been the night-fly-kinda-person.  In college I was always up all night "studying" (yeah, right), and then during the summers I was working at EFCO, Corp., in the anodizing department. I always worked 2nd shift, if not 3rd shift there - in fact the last summer I worked there the hours were 5pm-5am, 7 days a week, with the occasional 5pm-7am shift!   Yeah, that's right, 14 hours a day!  It was good money, though!  I think I got about 5 or 6 days off that entire summer!  It was busy as hell! 

Anyway, I'm gonna go to bed now - g'night, y'all!  Things will be better tomorrey!

He's doing The Jerk, he's doing The Fly - Don't play him cheap 'cause you know he ain't shy...

A few years ago, Time magazine published a list of the Top 10 Television dads.  I'm familiar with all of them except for Tony Soprano - never saw that show.  My favorites were Cliff Huxtable, Al Bundy, and, of course, my man Homer Simpson!  A lot of people don't think of Homer as being a good dad, but as another survey ( which, I believe put Homer at #1 - I just can't find it online right now) stated, he may seem like a bad dad because of some of the idiotic things he does, with things going horribly wrong so much of the time, but when it all comes down to it, he really does have a big heart, and all he really cares about are his kids (and, of course Marge). 

This was a mixed-emotion Father's Day for Jenny and I.  We got to spend a couple of hours with her dad, who's doing much better!  Yesterday was really rough for him, and we were pretty worried about him.  Today, as soon as we walked in, we could tell he was better:  he was talking and joking around (he even called up a priest friend of his to wish him a "Happy Father's Day").  His color was so much better, and he was actually able to eat some solid food!  We were so happy for him! 

As happy as we were, though, it was hard for Jen, because we knew he obviously couldn't really enjoy the day because of where he was, and we couldn't be BBQ-ing or catching a Cards game or something, like we usually do. It'll be much better next year, though!  And I know we'll get to that game as soon as he's up for it, which shouldn't be too long the way he's going!

So today's stroke was not only inspired by Homer Jay Simpson, it actually ended up kind of looking like him, too!  I thought that was pretty cool! 

Oh, and before I forget, I hope all of you Padres out there had a great day! 

Here's a little song I wrote. You might want to sing it note for note...

I had a good morning.  I went to an extra "bonus" art class, taught by my art teacher, over at the Turner Center For The Arts in Maplewood.  I've been working on something, and wanted to get it done, so Annie told me I could come in this morning and put in a little extra time on this particular piece.

When I got there, Annie said there was an open half of a table next to "Mel".  I sat down next to a girl named Melelani (what a beautiful name!) who has Downs Syndrome.  As soon as I put my stuff down, she turned to me and asked if I could hold her ring finger and pinky together on the canvas on which she was working.  She was doing a painting for her little brother's birthday party, and wanted to trace her hand doing the Vulcan "Live Long And Prosper" hand gesture from Star Trek.  I told her I could absolutely help her.

She is such a great person - very friendly, just started talking to me immediately, just like we were old friends.  Actually, the whole class was like that - almost immediately upon arrival people started coming up to me, hand out, introducing themselves.  There was some really great artwork, too, as there is in my class.  I'm just really impressed at the level of artistry in this area, that most people will never even know about.

Annie showed me a bunch of paintings that her Friday night class at the Turner Center did.  This particular class is made up totally of developmentally challenged people.  I tell you what, though, these paintings were so very inspirational to me.  These amazing students don't worry about trying to paint in a certain style, or with specific colors, or what anyone really even thinks of their work.  They paint because they love to paint - it makes them happy.  And that's really all that matters.  I think more of us need to take a lesson from them!

Tonight's stroke is a tribute to these wonderful people, and everyone who just paints because it makes them happy!  Just about all of the pieces Annie showed me  prominently featured all sorts of neon colors (which I'm just a sucker for anyway), especially neon pink.

Just a man and his will to survive...

So really, I don't have a whole lot to say today.  Jim (Jenny's dad) went in for surgery this morning around 5:30 am, and they finally got him going and underway around 9 am.  Way to go.  Anyway, everything seemed to go according to plan, and he seems to be doing pretty well after the surgery.  They had to mess a little with one of his nerves, and there's a slight chance that his ability to shrug might be affected on the left side - not such a big deal if he just steers away from saying "uh, yeah, I dunno" sarcastically.  But the doctors said that none of it should be a problem at all, really, as long as he does some physical therapy.  I know Jim, and I know that he'll be alright.  He's too much of a fighter (and, much like the rest of Jenny's family, he's just to damn stubborn to let anything happen! :-D)!

 Today's stroke is a nice Cerulean Blue.  I kinda think of "hope" when I see blue.   Hopefully you do too. 

np: Survivor - Eye Of The Tiger

Her green plastic watering can/ For her fake Chinese rubber plant...

Hey, kids, what's up?  Today was just like any other day - had to go to work, had to convince myself to stay the whole day, etc.  The drive to work was actually very strange - it was sunny as all get-out when I left, then as soon as I got on 44 west, I saw that it was really dark to the northwest.  I thought it looked like it was up around Westport, if not St. Charles.  By the time I got to 270 I realized that it was, indeed, "headed right for me!", and for about a mile or so, it was so dark, it literally looked like I was driving in the middle of the night!  It could have been, as Spinal Tap's Nigel Tufnel might have said, "None more black".  After I got through that, it just turned grey and rained.  Really hard.  I was less than thrilled. 

Jenny had an equally "blah" day, and I did everything I could to cheer her up - tickled her, told her corny jokes, let her make fun of me, anything to make her happy - that's my motto.  "Anything to make Jenny happy."  :-)  No, seriously!  I tell everyone all the time, and she knows it - I'd do anything for her! 

Anyway, we got all cleaned up after work, and went out to Chesterfield to her cousin John's house for a great dinner.  He had us, and Jenny's dad and brother (John's dad), as well as Jenny's brother, Jimmy, and his wife, Kari, and her Aunt Delores over.  It really was great, too!  We had a nice time kinda catching up - we hadn't seen them in a couple of years, at least!   John and Anne have one daughter that's in high school right around the corner from us, and another who's in 6th grade at another school.  They were both in our wedding, and they seemed so very, very young at the time!  It's hard to believe how much they've grown up!

Tonight's stroke was inspired by our host's living room - with a black grand piano and a gorgeous burgundy wall.  

BTW - haven't done this in a while - NP: Radiohead - Fake Plastic Trees.  Man, do I love this album! Seriously, one of my favorites of all time!

Ya don't pull the mask off the ol' Lone Ranger...

Mess.
Mess.
Mess.
Mess.  
Mess.

This is what I came back to today at work.  This is why I hate taking off days.  For those of you who don't know, where I work, I'm the "Shipping/Receiving/Inventory Control" guy.  I'm literally locked in a cage that has all of the tools and things that the guys need to build the presses we make.  I'm kinda like the Wal-Mart of Beckwood.  Only problem is, when I'm not there to keep the door locked and keep people from just coming in and taking stuff without checking it out with me, they basically just leave the door open and the guys pretty much come in and loot the place.  It ends up looking like a tornado hit it even more than it usually does when I'm there! :-)

Anyway, since I was gone yesterday I was dreading coming in just for that reason.  And it took me all day to get stuff caught up, and a little bit cleaned up.  I'll get some more done tomorrow, I'm sure.  I hope, at least! :-)

For today's stroke, I literally grabbed my knife and my palette, found the pile of paint with the most colors mixed in with it, scooped it up and splotched it on the canvas.  How's that for a mess?  And I ain't cleanin' that one up! ;-)

Just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl...

Today was hard.  I went with Jenny and her mom to a wake/funeral for a guy who was like family to them.  He was the brother of one of Jenny's best friends - they'd known each other for almost 30 years.  He was only 34 years old.  Way too young.  My heart goes out to not only his wife and 3 kids (all under 5), but also his family, who have been so close to Jenny's family for so many years. 

It made me think of a couple of things:  1) I'm getting older, and I don't like the fact that I'm going to more and more of these things - especially ones for someone as young as this, and 2) please, please don't ever take anyone for granted!  If you care for anyone, please don't ever hesitate to tell them so at any time!  I'll bet I tell Jenny I love her 100 times a day!  We never hang up the phone without saying it, no matter how trivial the call is, we say it when one of us leaves (like leaves the building, not just the room, necessarily) and we never go to bed angry, or without saying it.  You just never know what's gonna happen in this crazy world!

Today's stroke is in memory of Mikey.  He was big into Harley Davidsons (and, I suppose, motorcycles in general), so I put down some black and orange. RIP, Mike, you will be missed!  And God bless your family and bring them peace, also.   Now go hug someone ya love!  :-)

It's all the same - only the names have changed...

So I'm gonna keep it really simple again this evening.  Went over to my buddy Jason's house again to record some stuff - this time for a different reason, other than a Janson Gates album.  I can't say what it's for, though, so you'll have to just guess for a while.  I'll eventually tell ya, I promise!

I was pretty happy with what I got done tonight - drums, bass, 12-string, regular 6-string acoustic, and a little dirty electric.  I plan on going in later to lay down some lead guitar, and maybe some other stuff later. I'm thinking kazoo, and maybe a didgeridoo.  Whaddya think?

Anyway, I figured I'd do a nice little green - one that reminds me a lot of the green on my guitar - a Fender Stratocaster.  I don't know the year, or anything like that - I'm not too much of a techie like that, I just know what I like to play, that's all!

Missed by...*that* much!

Yeah, so I don't have a lot to say today - guess I said enough yesterday for two days!  :-)  Then only thing I really did was play at church and get my hair cut.  Oh, and I watched my Cards lose.  Again.   They almost pulled it out in the 9th inning, but then Kyle McClellan let a walk off homer go.  Stupid Kyle McClellan!

So anyway, my little red stroke was inspired by the sorry state of things lately.  I swear, with this slump they've been in lately they're looking more and more like the Chicago Cubs!  No offense to ya if you happen to be a Cubs fan - you've already got enough to worry about!  :-) 

It's the only way that you can travel down that road...

Boy, are we just absolutely drained!  It was so friggin' hot outside!  And you talk about humid!  Welcome to St. Louis!  We worked outdoors today - Jenny mowed the yard (to be fair, I offered - don't think I'm that much of a jerk!) and I worked in the garage putting stain/urethane on our closet doors.  Man, is that crap sticky!  I usually listen to my car radio when I'm in there, because I've got forty-eleven CDs to choose from, as well as XM radio, so I've got plenty of choices.

Recently, though, I inherited an old stereo (late 80s) from Jenny's dad when he moved.  It's almost exactly like one I had back in high school, actually - dual cassette player and - wait for it - a record player!  W00T!  I've had an old milk crate full of albums that I've literally had for almost 20 years that I haven't been able to listen to, because I didn't have a record player.  Today I got to hear some of those albums!  First up was the soundtrack to the movie "Heavy Metal", which I hadn't heard since my old boss from my college summer job at EFCO turned me onto it back around 1993.  I sounded so good, too - I had forgotten how much I liked that album!  I also listened to Steely Dan's "Can't Buy A Thrill", and Thin Lizzy's "Jailbreak".  Great albums, both!

As I was listening to "Heavy Metal", I heard the song "Open Arms" by Journey, and it reminded that my sister, Katie, and I played that song about 25 years ago at some talent show down in Arkansas (probably Fayetteville, or Rogers - can't remember).  I guess I was only about 13 or so, and it was the first time I had really played drums in front of a lot of people.  I remember thinking it was weird that the drums didn't sound as big and boomey as the recording, and I wondered why in the world that was.  I found out much later that you could do all sorts of special stuff in the studio!

I also remember that in that talent show one of the "celebrity judges" was the drummer from Black Oak Arkansas - no clue which one, though - they've had more drummers than Spinal Tap!  Katie and her friend, Shannon, did a song, and Shannon's mom did a comedy routine.  The the  Pièce de résistance, some little skinny redneck dude who couldn't carry a tune in a bucket attempting to sing Paul Anka's "Lonely Boy".  I still cringe thinking about that "performance".  Wow.  Kinda funny how hearing one song a quarter-century later can trigger all of those memories!  Music is awesome!


Anyway, I figured I'd pay tribute to "Heavy Metal" by doing a light-orange-ish stroke - the color they wrote the band names in on the album cover.  Rawk!

Baby I'm amazed at the way you love me all the time...

Well today is the last day.  That's it, until next year.  It's the last day my beautiful wife can call me "old man"!  Every year she can officially call me that for exactly 8 days, and then she's just as old as I am, so HA!  I think it's pretty cool, actually, that the woman that I consider my soul-mate was actually born a mere 8 days after I was, at the same hospital!  We really have so much in common it's not even funny - and the story behind our getting together is really cool, too!

I actually met her the very first day I moved to St. Louis to go to Fontbonne College (or University, as their known now - I wished the whole time I was there that they would change to a university, just so I could tell everyone I went to "FU"!).  It was kinda funny, really - I think the first time I really talked to her was at a party (probably in my dorm room - most of the parties were there - don't tell my mom -right :-)!) and I guess I'd had a few drinks (which I was known to do then - okay, and now) and I asked her if she'd ever seen the "mule bite the corn off the cob".  Yeah, this is a stupid redneck thing where you grab the inside of the unsuspecting  person's inner thigh and squeeze.  It hurts like a big dog, lemme tell ya!)  Anyway, she says she hated me for a long time, but I guess she got over it (yeah, she "says" that - I think she still holds it against me every once in a while :-D)

She dated one of my roommates for a while, and I was dating  a different girl for a long time.  We lost touch for a few years, and then she saw my name in the Riverfront Times ( my band at the time was up for a "Slammy" award - the local music awards) and she wanted to see if it was actually me - there are apparently about 30 "Dave Harris"es in the greater St. Louis area.  Anyway, she came to our show at the Broadway Oyster Bar and we've been together ever since!  I really do love her so much!

So today's stroke is for my lovely woman (cheezy 80s video with a super-long intro, but well worth it)! I know she really loves this purple color - she picked it out and bought it, and she kept trying to get me to put it on here for a long time.  I've put it on here a couple of times, so she should be happy with that, but here's a big ol' swatch of it!   I actually have another song here for her that I think she should like, but it's actually from someone she doesn't care for.  It's such a great song, though, and I think as much as she hates Rod Stewart, this is a much more emotional and heart-felt version of the original song.  Kind of like what I talked about yesterday with covers being sometimes better than originals.  McCartney's version is still awesome, though!

So anyway, enjoy the tunes and HAPPY BIRTHDAY MY BEAUTIFUL WOMAN!!!!!!!!!!!!

It's like rai-ee-ain...

Yeah, so, funny thing - I had this whole idea about what I wanted to write about this evening - even had a couple of great videos to illustrate my point - it was all about "Expressing yourself" (by the way I love this video - lotsa love goin' on!), whether through painting, or writing, or singing, or whatever - hell, I guess you can express yourself by just riding your bike, or getting a tattoo!  Just whatever it is you wanna do that's YOU, do it!

I find myself wanting to stray away from that concept quite a bit - another bit of irony!  If I'm playing a song, rather than taking it and making it my own, I sometimes find myself striving to play the song exactly like the recording!  That's no fun!  I know if I want to hear a cover of a song, I want to hear what someone else hears from it - their interpretation - not exactly what the original artist did!  If I wanted to hear the original artist, I'd buy their album!  There are so many examples of cover tunes being so much better than the originals - take the song "All Along The Watchtower", originally by Bob Dylan, then redone much more popularly by Jimi Hendrix.  As soon as Dylan heard Hendrix's version, he liked it so much he never played his own song how he wrote it again - only like Jimi played it.  Same thing with Nine Inch Nails' song "Hurt".  Johnny Cash redid it a few years ago (not too long before his death, actually) and I think the whole world (including Trent Reznor of NIN, who wrote the song) knew it was by far the better version. 

Well, anyway, the irony comes in here: I had no idea how to actually express myself today - my mind was just all over the place, and I couldn't concentrate, so I asked my lovely wife for some inspiration.  Today's stroke of green, albeit a somewhat small one, is an expression of Jenny, not me.  Still looks good, though!  :-)

It's so simple...

Folks, I do believe I've found a cure for the common headache.  I started getting one this afternoon as I was coming home, so I took some aspirin once I got inside.   Half and hour later, still no relief.  I went in to put away my lunchbox, etc., and when I opened the freezer to put away my ice pack, BOOM - there it was, just calling my name.  Edy's "Drumstick" ice cream.  Yup, just a couple of scoops of that and I feel much better!

Well, it's Wednesday, and that means painting class tonight!  Yay!  It also means I'm in kind of a hurry, so I'm gonna make this short and sweet.  The white stroke with chocolate and caramel (er, um, light and dark brown paint, I mean), of course, is a tribute to my hero for the day, ice cream.  Doesn't it look just scrumptious?  YUMMY!

Just bee's and thangs and flowers...

Well, there have been better days in the history of all days.  I woke up about 3:30 am with an absolutely splitting headache, then couldn't get back to sleep for over an hour, so when the alarm did go off this morning, I felt like absolute dog crap.  Went to work, not too bad, other than I was just "blah", and wanted nothing more than to go home.  Plus some really narsty weather was coming in pretty quickly. 

All of this was nothing, though, compared to what happened to some close family friends of Jenny's.  Her friend, Anne, lost her brother this morning to a terrible accident.  Obviously she and her whole family are completely devastated!  Jenny's family is pretty shaken up, too - they've known each other for almost 30 years.  Mike was almost like a little brother to her; a son to Jenny's parents. 

It all just makes you think, and makes you remember to always be thankful for every minute you have on this earth, and with the people you love.  I know I immediately contacted my sisters and told them how much I loved them!

Anyway, with everything going on, I felt that what was needed was a little sunshine, so I dug out some neon yellow and mixed it with some gloss gel.  Voila!  Instant ultra-bright sunshine!  This ray of light is for you, Anne, and your family.  God bless you!

Twistin' 'round the fire/havin' fun/bakin' potatoes/bakin' in the sun...

Poor Jenny.  This weekend, down at her dad's place, we went to this lakeside restaurant for lunch, and where Jenny was sitting, her right arm was on the ledge, directly in the sun.  Now for those of you who don't know her, she's very fair skinned.  It takes very little time in the sun at all for her to be affected, and we were there for a good hour and a half or more.  She may or may not have a lobster residing on her right arm, as you can imagine.   I've been sitting here trying to decide whether or not to use *that* particular video or this one to "represent" the severity of her beautiful red arm!  Today's stroke, obviously, is in honor of my lovely wife's debilitation - er, um, sunburn.  Love you, honey!  I'm now going to go rub some aloe on your owie! :-)

Have a nice trip - see you next fall!

Wow!  What a day!  I tell you what, I'm sick of being in a car!  We went to church with her dad this morning, about a 1/2-hour away, so that was an hour round trip, then another 3 1/2 - 4-hour trip home (because we stopped by Jenny's mom's place to pick up yet another piece of furniture, a recliner - the last, hopefully!). 

We got home and unpacked, but, of course, Jenny wanted to "work" and "get things done" instead of just laying around in a messy house, which is what I probably woulda done. :-D  Hey, old bachelor habits are hard to kick!  We did get the back room put together pretty much how we wanted, so that's good. 

Well, this morning when we walked outside it was so much cooler than it had been - and hardly any humidity, too!  It really felt like an autumn day!  So, since I've been working my way through the new colors Jenny bought me a couple of weeks ago, I picked a nice little orange, because it reminded me of fall foliage. 

Very tired.  Going to go rest now.  :-)

I want some of those "Risky Business" sunglasses!

So today we got up, eventually, and just kinda mozied (sp?) around.  I don't know that I've ever tried to spell "mozy", or any tense of the word.  Maybe that's right, maybe not - you get the general gist.  :-)

We drove all around the lake, stopping at a couple of quaint little places, then came on back to a wonderful lunch at Dog Days Bar and Grill.  Great food, great scenery.  Man, were there some big ol' friggin' boats there!  If I had one of those boats I'd just sell our house and we could live on that just floating around in the Caribbean. Come to think of it, that's not a bad idea.  I'll have to think about that.  :-)

After that, we just came back, bellies full, and lounged around.  I watched the Cards (barely) beat the Brewers in 11 innings and had a drink or two.  Then came dinner.  Jim made turkey-breast filets for he, Joanne, and Jenny, but for me he brought out a kick-ass  filet mignon steak, wrapped in bacon.  He cooked it exactly how I like it (medium-rare), and it was honestly the best steak I've had in years! 

This evening's bright yellow stroke was inspired by the massive amounts of sunshine we encountered today.  This was good, because the last forecast we had heard said that there was a good possibility of just plain narsty weather today.  I'll take today's weather anyday. 

Well, we're off - may just sit here and veg out in front of the tube (we're all just stuffed!) or we might venture out for some frozen custard and maybe a little music. YAY either way!

C'mon! The accelerator is the one on the RIGHT!

I tell you what, it's just beautiful down at the Lake Of The Ozarks right now - a bit on the warm side, but I'll take that over cold any day! 

Jenny and I decided kinda last minute to take a trip down here to spend a little time with her dad.  He's been going through a lot lately, and we just wanted to be there for him, and also it's just nice to come down here sometimes!  The drive wasn't really so bad once you got out west of Wentzville on highway 70.  Before that, just about all you saw (even around 1 pm, which is not exactly rush hour) was brake lights!  This is what inspired today's stroke - kind of a reddish-orange color, and one of the many "$2 paints" that Jenny picked up last week.  There are some really awesome, fun colors that she picked up, and I do believe I'll be showcasing them this weekend. 

Anyway, we got down here about 3:30 or so, and tooled around the Target for a bit waiting for Jim and Joanne to get down here (they left town later than we did).  Then we took a quick tour of the new house (well, new to Jim, as he just moved in), had a quick drink out on the front porch, watching all of the noisy cigarette boats running up and down the Lake, in and out of Party Cove (I would have posted a link to some pages about Party Cove, but it looked like they were all a bit X-Rated - I'll just leave it to your imagination). 

After that we took a little trip to Backwater Jack's place (not to be confused with "Smackwater Jack", by Carole King) for some decent food - great on taste, but they scrimped a bit on the portions.  I'd say 3 outta 5 stars.  There was a band playing, too - your ordinary, average bar band playing the classics (Brown-Eyed Girl, Spooky, Jimmy Buffett stuff, etc).  All in all it was a pretty decent atmosphere - I just happen to be hyper-critical of any band I see.  Hard habit to break, I guess - I think I was just mostly jealous because I wanted to play!

So we're back now, and watching the Cards game.  We're winning 2-0 in the 5th against the Brewers, in case you're wondering.  I'm gonna end this and go be sociable.  G'night, peeps!

Thank you for being a friend...

Well, we lost another "Golden Girl" today:  Rue McClanahan, who died this morning.  There's only one left - good ol' Betty White!  I looked up this date on Wikipedia, and it looks like this was a bad day for a couple of composers, also.  Both Georges Bizet and Johann Strauss died on this day, in 1875 and 1899, respectively. 

A buncha people were born on June 3rd, though, including the father of everyone's favorite Activia spokesperson, Tony Curtis, poet Allen Ginsberg, sax player Boots Randolph (he's the guy that did "Yakety Sax", the Benny Hill theme), Larry McMurtry (he wrote Lonesome Dove, and is the father of a great songwriter, James McMurtry), Curtis Mayfield (amazing soul singer), Deniece Williams (I like to thing that I was the "Boy" she wanted to hear it for :-D), Kerry King (guitarist for Slayer - hey, what can I say - I was a metal head back in high school!) and CNN news dude Anderson Cooper. 

Also, in 1973, right here in St. Louis, a beautiful lady who would one day be referred to lovingly as "The White Hair" gave birth to lil' ol' me.  Yup, I'm gettin' old, folks!  :-)  So old, in fact, that I've written this entire blog and I forgot to even do my stroke!   I just grabbed my box o' paints, and dug around for a second, and found this awesome blue that Jenny picked up last week for me.  I really like that - I'll have to do something else with that later on. 

Well, I guess we're gonna head out now to get a little birthday chow.  Dunno what yet - I'd love some sushi, but Jenny won't touch it.  Maybe someday.  Yeah, right.  :-)

Absolutely stunning...I think I may have a tear in my eye...

I had one of the busiest days ever at work today. Just one thing after another, with not one chance to catch my breath.  On my way home from work, I was wondering what in the world I would write about, since I don't have a whole lot of time (I'm starting another painting class tonight - YAY!).  I got a memo from a Facebook page about the date that Classic 99 will be going off the air for good, which, as you know, I'm really pretty upset about!  I just think it is so wrong for there to be yet another mediocre Christian rock station, while in the process getting rid of the only classical station in the entire area - and, in fact, one of only about 20 left in the entire nation!

So I'll step off of my soapbox now, and merely list a few pieces that I love, and that you might also appreciate.  My stroke today was based on a piano concerto - just black and white.  I will really miss hearing these things on the air, and I know there are many, many people who will really miss being able to hear this stuff, and will not be able to at all now, because they have no access to either an HD radio (please go here and donate if you can)  or access to an online or XM station!

Also, I apologize for linking nothing but piano/cello pieces - they're just so beautiful!  They just absolutely give me chills every time!  Enjoy, people - this is some of the best music ever written - and beautifully performed by some of the best performers we may ever know!

Yeah, that's gonna leave a mark!

Boy, I'll tell ya, at work this wasn't really that bad of a day - actually it went pretty well.  As a whole, though, it was kind of a crappy day.  I don't know if I've mentioned it on here, because we've just kind of not been talking about it, but Jenny's dad was diagnosed a couple of weeks ago with cancer in his lymph nodes and that area.  We didn't really know how bad it was, though, until today, when Jim went in to schedule the surgery to get rid of it.  They told him that it was in all of his lymph nodes, as well as part of his tongue, and the roof of his mouth.  Hopefully this surgery, along with the radiation therapy he'll be going through (every day for 6 weeks) will take care of everything.  Either way, Jenny, as well as her brother, mother, and, obviously Jim, her father, is extremely nervous.  We're all praying for everything to turn out all right, and also for some peace of mind for everyone involved.

Tonight, though, to kind of take our minds off of everything, Jenny and I are watching one of the funniest TV shows ever, Wipeout!  I love John Henson!  I used to watch him every night on "Talk Soup", way back in the day when I actually had cable.  I always wanted him to go on to bigger and better things, but he just hasn't quite made it. 

Anyway, tonight's stroke is red, in honor of  Mr. Henson and his nightly sign-off on "Wipeout":  "Good Night, and Big   Balls!"