Wow, already 2 months since I last put something on here. I better get around to getting the rest of those Station pix up. At this rate, they’ll be closed before I finish! 😛

So here’s what we’ve been doing for the past month.

September 29, we took part in the Disney Tower of Terror 10-Miler. It started at 10pm, and we finished around 12:45am or so, I think. Then we got to go to the park (studios) until 4am. We stayed and did the Tower of Terror, Buzz Lightyear, which I’ve never been on because it’s always too crowded, and Rock n Roller Coaster. New rule for that one, in addition to “no sitting on the rail and no flash photography”: no puking! Guess that was the “technical difficulty” that had closed the ride the first time we tried to go on it that night….

Inaugural Tower of Terror 10-Miler

And some pictures from the official photographers. Small ones, cuz we’re not gonna buy them. 😛

Then I put up some halloween decorations. These would’ve been a lot fancier if i had realized BEFORE halloween that the party shop is right across the street from the walmart i got this stuff from….

On October 20 i worked a show at Carrollton Station then immediately drove straight thru to Gville, watched the Saints game, took a small nap, and then we went to see Minus the Bear at the Florida Theater.

Saturday before halloween, we went to a Halloween party (with AWESOME decorations). Rose was a butterfly garden, and I was party rock (see Party Rock Literal – MSPaint for reference; off-topic, i was so sick of that song / hated that song before i saw that video).

Also, we finally finished the patio floor. As you may remember, it had old indoor/outdoor carpet when we moved in. I pulled that out some time ago, and we finally got to doing this. Sanded it, painted it, sealed it, and there you have it. Before and after.

There’s someone here running for some office. His name is Ted Yoho. Thankfully there’s someone else around here with my sense of humor who added this to his sign:

If you can’t read the addition, it says HO + bottle of rum 🙂

Finally, on Friday (Nov 2) we went to a murder mystery party that people Rose works with had. Everyone plays a part. I was nervous about it, but I’m told I pulled it off well. I played Rowan McGregor, midway manager / con-man / smartass. Rose played Cat Levens, lion tamer. It was fun and I wouldn’t mind doing it again.

That’s all for now!

What have I been doing this month? Thanks for asking!

First off though, here’s what I wanted to post last month, on our two-year rehearsal anniversary, but it was in FL and I wasn’t:

Our wedding song, unbeknownst to Paul, performed at our wedding rehearsal. Neato. And no, I don’t know what’s up with that green line. Reminds me of an old school turn-the-dial-to-change-the-channel tv we used to have. It’s not on the dvd, it’s not on the ripped video from the dvd…so um? Yeah.

And, I was debating on whether or not I was gonna post this, since it’s for us, but then again, so is this site. Plus she put it up on the wall at work, so I figure I can put it up on the wall on the web.

Anniversary Card

After Covered in Vinyl on June 9, I left for Florida. Literally. I was gonna go home and nap for a few hours and get an early start, but I wasn’t tired at all, so I went home around 2am, packed, etc, and left at 3. Took an hour and a half nap around 4:30 at a rest stop, and then headed the rest of the way there.

Tuesday was the reason I picked to visit this week instead of my actual birthday. Donald Glover, aka Childish Gambino, was performing at Hard Rock Live, and I had to be there. I would follow that band, 2006-style, if I were still in my band-following days. Here are a couple of videos from the show, not taken by me. Don’t watch if you don’t like rock/rap or the occasional dirty word. :-Þ

Thursday we went for a walk, and ran into this interesting creature:

Later we went to the Swamphead Brewery and had a few beers. Someone wrote this on the bathroom chalk wall (wasn’t me) and drew my typical thing that I draw when I draw things random places (was me).

Friday the cats snuggled on our giant bean bag chair while Rose made a chocolate dinosaur cake for my and our neighbor’s combined birthday get-together. She and her son came over, as did one of Rose’s co-workers, for pizza and cake.

Saturday we went zip lining. AWESOME. I’d definitely do that again. We had the 1pm slot, but got there right before noon, and were allowed to go with that group. Which was good cuz we didn’t have to waste an hour and because they were fun. They too were there for a birthday, except, unlike mine, it was actually the birthday. There were 9 lines total, not counting the practice line. They increased in length and speed from one to the next. The last one ended with a repel down to the ground. One of the two guides called us Mr. and Mrs. Smith since we did so well. 😀

I left Monday morning and went straight to work. Booo. Tuesday my computer died. Boooooooo. I was hoping it was related to the NVIDIA recall that has never caused me problems, so it would be fixed for free. Brought it to the Apple Store, and found out that it’s more than 4 years old and they only pay for it if caused by the recall if less than 4. But, that’s probably not the problem anyway. So right now it’s in the computer hospital and hopefully it will be out of its coma by next week. Wonderful.

Anyway, I will see Rose again in the middle of July when I visit her in Athens, GA for “Brain Camp.” In the meantime I have a few gigs here in addition to my regular job. And, Saturday night, I’m 99% sure I’ll be going to see The Dan Band. 😀

Tied for first place of what I consider the best day of my life (the other being February 7, 2010 WHO DAT), can anyone else not believe that this was 2 years ago already?! Happy Anniversary, awesomeface.

It was a fun Fest. I was basically responsible for making sure the volunteers got everything set up right and didn’t screw anything up. I spent more time roaming from stage to stage than actually sitting and babysitting the recordings, which is awesome. Get to see a lot more. And lose a few pounds. And you’re paying me for this? Yes please! I worked at the fest Fri-Sun and then Thurs-Sun, I worked at Carrollton Station immediately following the fest on Fri, Sat, Sun, Wed, Thu, Sat, and on that second Thursday, I went from Fest to a gig at City Park to Station. In cased you missed all that in the tweetiverse.

Here are just a few highlights of the 112 pictures I put online of the 420 or so i took. The rest are at Photobucket. If you click on any to enlarge them, and you have a problem clicking the X to close it, you can either click anywhere outside the picture, or the x on your keyboard.

The Pyscho Sisters – Susan Cowsill and Vicki Peterson-Cowsill:

Cowboy Mouth (skip the next two pictures if you don’t like them or have an unpleasant history with them ;))

Eric Bolivar and George Porter, Jr. at the Threadhead Patry

Dr. John as Irma Thomas’s surprise guest at the Threadhead Patry

Kelcy Mae (She performed at our wedding rehearsal!)

Jim McCormick (he would’ve performed at our wedding rehearsal if he wasn’t writing hit songs in Nashville at the time!)

Paul Sanchez and The Rolling Road Show (most of these people were at and/or performed at our wedding rehearsal AND wedding!). This was my favorite set at Jazz Fest this year. All the special guests, everyone was genuinely having fun, and it reminded me of our wedding (2 years next Tuesday. Holy Crap!)

John Michael of MyNameIsJohnMichael with the Road Show:

Another one “Out of the Mouth,” Jonathan Pretus, now with The Breton Sound:

Supagroup:

Better Than Ezra:

This one, btw, is one of my favorite pictures that I took this year. Plus, (one of those guys played in the second line for our wedding)!

And, my final night show of this year’s Fest, Susan Cowsill’s Covered In Vinyl: The White Album (in case you haven’t noticed a theme by now, they played at our rehearsal and wedding too):

The Creole String Beans:

John Boutte singing with Boutte Family Sunday Praise in the Gosepel Tent. I didn’t get to go to mass that day, but I was somehow assigned the Gospel Tent and Sunday praise. YOU figure that one out.

Foo Fighters:

I left the fairgrounds around 8pm or so Sunday night, and headed to Carrollton Station for the end-of-fest crawfish boil. Had some crawfish and a couple of beers, and that’s when I realized just how exhausted I was, so I went home and passed out.

Four days later I would wake up and drive to Gainesville. (Ok, so I actually woke up monday and went to work thru wednesday, but I really wanted to wake up 4 days later.)

Apparently by saying something to the effect of, “I’m sick of all these cancer dogs, can’t we just get a weiner dog for a change?” (since weiner dogs are primarily back problem dogs and … i dunno … easier to fix and less sad than cancer cases), Rose made a bus of weiner dogs crash, because she had a surgery on Friday night, and 2 or 3 on Saturday. One of which I sat in on. Ok I didn’t sit in on it I just sat in the room and looked at the inside of the dog for like 20 seconds when Rose called me over to look. Then there were a few more the rest of the week. Be careful what you wish for!

Huxley figured out that he can somehow make it on top of the cabinets above the refrigerator. I think this is because he loves sun, and we now keep the office, where the most sun comes in, closed, due to the fact that we have a huge bean bag chair in there now that we don’t want the pets to overtake. Also, the patio is being kept closed because…well, I dunno why. But that’s his other spot. So he found this.

No, mom, don’t force snuggle me, or I’ll shoot you with my laser eye!

I got around to painting the tall kitchen walls (minus the very top, which we’ll need a larger ladder for). But it’s still better than the wallpaper, and better than just being primed.

There was a spot in the master bath that bubbled up, most likely because I did that before having the wallpaper steamer, and I get easily aggravated with stripping wallpaper in the pre-steamer times, and may not have gotten all the adhesive off the wall. So I stripped this little bit off and repainted it. I didn’t even mean for it to look like a demonic robotic chicken, it just turned out that way.

I decided to do something with the garden. I’d love to do a big overhaul, but we don’t want to spend oodles of money on that, so I just picked up all the leaves and spent $25 on mulch and 3 plants, and it made a world of difference. Light brown mulch as sort of a border, and dark brown in the rest of the garden.

Yellow Flowers:

Purple Flowers:

Pink Flowers. These were originally going to go closer to the yellow ones, but after setting them here temporarily, I realized that was a perfect place for them.

Well kids that’s all for now. After Covered In Vinyl on June 9, I’ll be headed to Florida on the 10th for the week. Rose will be “off” to work on her project, so I’ll hopefully see a lot more of her than I did this time. Maybe we’ll get the patio done this time. And, June 12, we’re headed to Orlando to see Childish Gambino at Hard Rock Live. SO excited. That’s my birthday present exactly a week after my birthday. 🙂

It’s been a busy April, and Jazz Fest hasn’t even started yet!

March ended and April began with a visit to NOLA by Ken Jeong/Dr. Kuni/Mr. Chow/Senor Chang. He was in town to host the Coke Zero “Big Dance” Concert Series on Saturday of the Final Four. Luckily (and awesomely) he was able to get me a ticket!

Friday we walked from the hotel to the quarter, because Ken wanted to bring his manager and agent to Pat O’Brien’s. It started to lightly rain on our walk there (or as I called it, normal NOLA humidity). No biggie. Ken kept apologizing like it was his fault, but it didn’t bother any of us. We eventually got to Pat O’s. Small world, one of the guys there graduated from my high school 2 years after I did. Because of the rain, I suppose, no one really bothered us on the walk to Pat O’s. But after hanging out on the balcony for a while, people started recognizing him and a crowd gathered.

(As always, click to enlarge any picture!)

Soon we made our way back to the hotel.That was really the end of that night, because we had to be up early to do the concert stuff. Which was also awesome. Here are my various weekend credentials:

And here’s Ken interviewing Blondie:

Ken on stage:

The Black Keys:

Our friend Bryan from Bikeus, who is also the tour manager for Better Than Ezra. Ken did a bit about all songs using the same chords (which you can see on the video), and that starts out with BTE’s song, Good. He just happened to be there.

Jimmy Buffet performed Sunday, but he was hanging out early and wanted a picture with Ken. Before getting his picture, he took a picture of Ken and his crew. Hilarious.

After we were done there, we had an escort to our car, which was waiting on the corner across from Harrah’s. Since trying to drive down canal street would’ve been madness, we had a police escort…no, not down Canal Street, but down the Canal Street street car neutral ground. Sweeeeet.

Ticket, please! I didn’t want to get thrown out of the zeppelin by Harrison Ford, so when asked, I presented these:

Our seats were in the third row, behind all the espn, stats, official twitterers, media, etc. EXCELLENT seats. The first night our seats were behind The Black Keys. Two rows behind us was Shaq, who leaned over and tapped Ken on the shoulder to tell him he’s a fan. 😀 Here’s tip-off. #23 for Kentucky, Davis, was a freaking monster. Watch out for him.

Halfway back to the parking lot after the game, Ken realized he didn’t have Monday’s ticket. Luckily Sam, his agent, was leaving on Sunday so didn’t need his ticket, but Ken had already promised that ticket to our friend Chris Lee. Sam made a dash back to the dome while the rest of us went to the car and waited. Silently. In an inhumanly fast amount of time, Sam was back… with the ticket. It had fallen out of Ken’s pocket under the seats, and luckily was still there.

We didn’t do anything during the day Sunday. I met Ken and Bret for dinner, then went home for a bit, then back out that night to meet up with Ken and Bret, and now Chris Lee, to go to the Sammy Hagar show Coke Zero was putting on at the House of Blues.

Monday we were thinking of going to see Better Than Ezra right before the game, but that got super-rained out.

Here’s one of the lounges we had access to, that was all free food and drink. (Alcoholic drinks only before, halftime, and after the game tho, silly NCAA).

Apparently there were mother f’in snakes in the mother f’in dome. Or at least in the row in front of us.

We also had access to a suite that night, but it was exactly on the other side of the dome from our seats, so we only spent a little time there before the game.

After the game, we headed back to the Coke VIP room at the hotel where we stayed for a few hours just drinking, hanging out, talking, etc. Everyone was impressed and amazed with how awesome and nice and opposite-of-his-characters Ken is. 🙂

Ok, so now let’s do what the toilet in the hotel lobby is telling us to do and “WAVE” goodbye to the Final Four, and hello to Gainesville!

After making sure St. Pat’s was ready for Easter on Tuesday and part of Wednesday, I headed to Gainesville for about a week and a half. My parents joined us from Friday – Tuesday.

Rose brought the dogs to work with her, so Elsworth took over their bed.

Saturday we tried to go to the beach in St. Augustine with 3 of our neighbors, but it was unusually cold and EXTREMELY windy, so we ended up sight-seeing and tailgating in the parking garage with the food and drink that was meant for the beach. We also went to the Pirate Museum. 😀

Sunday we went to 9:30 Mass, then the dogs got their Easter baskets. 🙂

Here’s the 4 of us outside of our house:

And being lazy on the patio with the pets:

There was a brush fire (?) near the Florida/Georgia border, which is roughly 85 miles away. But that didn’t stop the smoke from getting to us!

Here’s some of the work I did while I was there. I painted the knobs for the kitchen (all kinds of colors. basically everything we have in the house), and (finally) painted the extra bathroom. For these morphs, you should be able to right-click and click on “play” after they’re already playing. That will stop them wherever they are. Or you can just view them here (knobs) and here (bathroom) full size.

Well that’s about all for now. Stay tuned for my Jazz Fest posts!

I can’t believe it’s time already to do a mardi gras summary. Sigh.

I posted quite a few pictures on our photobucket page, as well as at The Krewe of Bikeus photobucket (for the most part, the Bikeus ones are not in our personal one). This will basically be pulling out some of those and talking about them and whatever was going on. I’ll do my best to not duplicate any of the Mardi Gras Photo Du Jour from bookface, which totalled 43 in all (plus some bonuses).

As always, click the thumbnail for the larger version.

First up, Barkus.

Daisy loves getting treats from random people as they walk down the street, but she hates….HATES….brass bands. Well, maybe not the whole band. But definitely the drums.

Muses:

I loved this float from Muses. No, not because they had an actual stripper in the shadow box, but because of what it represented, the naked cancer scanners that the TSA still hasn’t figured out how to effectively and efficiently use. Brilliant, ladies. I’m surprised Michele Gaudin wasn’t on *this* float.

Krewe d’Etat:

From one of my other favorite parades, which I went to by myself and met up with Amy and Joey while Rose was driving in from Florida. It’s a very satirical parade. Go figure that I would like it, right? That’s Ronal Serpas, NOPD Superintendent, as the head (literally) of this float. I like this photo because all the NOPD detail officers were standing there looking up at it, I suppose trying to decide what they thought of it.

I stayed for a lot of d’Etat, and then headed home to meet Rose. She took a nap, then we left to go see Better Than Ezra at the HoB. After taking 45 min to an hour to get there, we parked at St. Pat’s and rode our bikes, parked half a block away, and walked on in. Tonic, the opening band, was finishing their last song. Just in time! Not really, we had like a half hour set change.

I told everyone that yes, I agree, it will rain Saturday, but Endymion would still roll. They all laughed at me and called me names, like Rudolph. Ok, so it wasn’t that severe. But it did rain, and Endymion did roll. We got out there on Orleans at about noon, and hung out with my parents’ neighbors Gwen and Dennis and everyone at Martin insurance for a few hours. (“It’s not Endymion without Mai Tais!”) Here we are when we first got there:

and then waiting out the rain:

I don’t think I’ve been more excited for the line up of the floats than I was this year. It was a triumphant moment of yes, this is happening, it’s happening today, it’s happening in mid-city, and we don’t have to wait until after Bacchus to see it!

It was at this point that we walked down the street to the Sanchez house and joined that party, and soon after, the parade started rolling! Minus all the feathery maid costumes, which is really alright with me ;). Right before the parade got to us, there was one last shower, and some people across the street took shelter in a portapotty.

I just really like this picture so I’m throwing it in here:

Me, Johnny Sanchez, and Michele Campisi:

Sunday we quickly made a poster based on the EP cover of The Breton Sound, because 2 of them were gonna be in one of the parades. We parked by Loyola and rode our bikes to Amy and Joey’s spot, only to find out that Amy was sick. Of course we still stayed there with Joey and all their peeps, but it was sad that Rose didn’t get to hook up with Amy. We stayed for Mid-City, Thoth, and a few floats of Bacchus, and then went home and chilled. I really only wanted to see Will Ferrell. It’s not that I don’t like Bacchus, but it’s not my thing like Muses, d’Etat, Endymion, and now Nyx are.

Monday we (Rose) did some work on costumes, and then headed down to the Quarter for a bit. We stopped at the Old Opera House to see Russ and Janson.

Who Stole My Chicken? No one, it’s right there! We then inserted ourselves into a second line that looked like it was some kind of corporate meeting that was planned for Lundi Gras, and then headed to Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop for a Voodoo Daiquiri. Then we headed back to the stands at Girod and St. Charles to meet back up with Kelly and Merle and catch Tuck’s. Now, Tuck’s is usually on Saturday, so I always miss it because we start our Endymion partying so early. I caught it once, in 2006, when Endymion was moved to the uptown route because Mid-City was in no shape to host a parade. I’m SO glad Tuck’s was moved. We both loved it, and I will even consider riding in it one year with Rose. I will sacrifice an Endymion to do that.

I mean, how could you NOT want to be in a parade where one of the floats is a toilet, and they throw plungers?!

Hey look, it’s us!

And us again!

Next came Proteus, and finally Orpheus. Somewhere in all that, this crazy s.o.b. showed up and stole my camera and took a bunch of crazy pictures of himself. Then Merle jumped in one.

And I pushed Kelly into another.

We stayed for Orpheus (does anyone know why the big ol’ Jumbotron float that announces what celebrities to expect came AFTER all the celebrity floats had already gone by?), and then headed home to go to bed so we could be up bright and early for Bikeus. As a side note, it was weird seeing Orpheus outside again. We went to the Orpheuscapade from 2008-2010, and then neither of us remember going last year. I find that hard to believe, but I really don’t.

5:15am Tuesday morning we wake up and get ready for Bikeus! I really need to memorize how to get to Pal’s, because my gps seriously crapped out that morning. We got there eventually, passed the royal crown over to Shoeless and Jan, and went on our way to an amazing Mardi Gras day. Everything went so well, from the weather to our course to our costumes to everyone just having a really good time.

As many of you know because of bookface, Rose was the ocean. Y’all, she totally made this costume. From the seagull on her head to the hermit crabs and starfish on her feet. She even dyed the tutu and unitard, or whatever that’s called, herself. She sewed all that stuff on there. Amazing. And I mean real amazing, not amazing like they throw it around on The Bachelor.

Me, I was a baby on a ladder. That’s right. As popular as they are at Mardi Gras, neither I, nor just about anyone else on the planet, had ever seen one as a costume. Will there be some in the years to come? Perhaps. Will they be as awesome as mine? Never. 😉

After a while we left the Krewe of Bikeus to go meet up with the Krewe of Sloth. Here we are drinking and waiting for our food at El Gato Negro:

And here I am next to a really tall guy and a guy with a suit made out of doubloons.

Well, that about wraps it up. Just like Mardi Gras itself, I can’t believe this post is over.

I’m not the best creative person, artistically speaking. But sometimes I get a bug to do something, and I’ll do it. However mediocre it may be compared to “real” artists, I’m always proud of my babies. 😉

Stars. Neuron. Sound wave. Us from Mardi Gras as cartoons. Sounds like a good combo to me, right?

… and I don’t have much to add right now, I figured I’d make you smile with pictures of cute puppies and stuff.

Click to enlarge!

sam's so calm, daisy's so gangsta.

rose and elsworth torturing daisy

huggy puppy

kissy puppy

itchy puppy

cute puppy

puppies!

Together again!

Where Mr. Bingle lives at our new house.

Joe Cool.

Daisy chillin in the shade at New Orleans on Tap

Happy Tuesday!

These guys!

Me and Darren Sharper, Mardi Gras 2010

Time for some fun happy videos!

Daisy’s not barking at anything in particular. She just sees all the activity outside and wants to be a part of it. Totally a daddy’s girl. Make sure your sound is turned up!

TGIF…

I’m so happy it’s friday that I’ll whip my hair back and forth.

Btw, I’m renting a moving van tomorrow and moving almost all of my stuff to Florida. Hopefully I’ll get a job there soon and actually be able to live with Rose. If you want to come by tomorrow around noonish and help me pack the van, I won’t refuse. My place is a mess, and things still need to be packed, but we can actually still get a lot done.

See ya!