Good Morning. She's Four Years Old Today.

I'd love to take the kiddos to Montreat someday.

Twestival? Coming soon.

Beyonce has done it and Jon Bon Jovi has done it, but no one does it like Peggy Lee.

Photographing the edges.

Cute! A baby giraffe.

Portrait at Sunset

Willis

Monday before work, I walked around Century Blvd. and Elm Hill Pike and took over ninety pictures.Because I am me, most of my pictures were of ducks. Unfortunately, when I got home and uploaded the pictures to the computer, I was left feeling underwhelmed by every shot. Oh well, that's a part of the process.

Anyway, I played with this shot of the Willis building in Picasa and ended up liking it a bit. At least I got some decent excercise from my walk. And got a bit better with the camera probably. And got flirted with by a dude. At least he was vague about it and polite and moved along after getting the hint that he might be barking up the wrong tree. And he had a Vandy hat on so, you know, go Dores! Dores fans are cool.

Melancholy Monday - "Make The World Go Away" by Raul Malo

Embrace the quiet moments.

The End of Solitude by William Deresiewicz

Ducks On Ice!

Three for one more week.

A Textrovert Personified

Textrovert - One who feels an increased sense of bravery over texting, as opposed to in person.

I need to go ahead and do what I've been talking about doing for quite some time. I may or may not suffer from what they now call Social Anxiety Disorder. Or I'm just naturally shy. Either way, I should probably scrounge up some money for the copay and make an appointment with a doctor and see what he or she thinks. Maybe some pills would make me more fun at parties. Or merely less awkward in social settings.

The part that I'm not sure about is when I can't seem to carry on a conversation with people in situations where I don't feel shy at all. I just stand there not sure about what to say next. I don't know what's up with that. Maybe I'm just a quiet guy.

A pill might help in certain situations, but I doubt it will make me a better conversationalist. I approach correctly by taking a sincere interest in the other person, however I lack the gift of gab to keep up. While my brain searches for just the right question, I can almost hear the whir inside, like an old laptop struggling with a slow-spinning hard drive. I'll make that appointment and see what the doctor says.

Anyway, here's a picture of a building that I like:

26 Weeks

Looks Good

Monday Me

Okay

Snow!

Well, more like a light dusting, but snow nonetheless.

The Green Wagon is open in Nashville

"Nashville's First Eco-Friendly General Store" - The Green Wagon

Sylvan Park just gets cooler and cooler.

I'm in an ink, horror, and metal kind of mood. Rawk!

Lone Wolf Body Art - Voted best tattoo studio in Nashville by The Tennessean and All The Rage at the first annual Toast of Music City Awards.

Old Habits Die Hard - Directed by Ben Dixon and starring Kane Hodder, Stacey Dixon, Jim O'Rear, Tricia Cast, Roger Hewlett, and Audrey Warren.

Motley Crue - I like a lot of different kinds of music, but there's nothing that moves me more than a good Crue song. Nothing. (NSFW)

Cowbama

167

167. Chen prime

167 rescued mine workers

Mission Accomplished?

"Sir, it has come to my attention that we were made in China. Can you explain this?"

(Joshua took this picture. I cropped and played with it a bit.)

Feel Good Friday - Checking In?

"Hotel Staff Bringing Sexy Back" - Just a day in my life, kind of.



And here's the Orlando version of me.

Rhymes With Oodles

Anti-Love Drug May Be Ticket to Bliss

Here in the Tennessee area when you hear of re-enactors, it's usually of the Civil War variety. In Fernandina Beach, however, you get pirates!

Valentine's Day is coming up. Here's a list of the best pay-by-the-hour hotels, courtesy of The Guardian. What? No Drake Motel?

Isaac Himmelman, son of Peter, sounds really good. My latest happy discovery.

And a mere $6 will get you the latest five-song EP by Geoff Baker. It's called Adding Up the Everything We Lost and I like it lots. Check his MySpace page and give it a listen. I rested in the car the other night after work and under the year's fullest moon as it played so beautifully for me. I'm glad I know his music.

La Boheme

I'm really looking forward to seeing La Boheme presented by Nashville Opera. The date is for April 17, but there could be a problem. Our baby Samantha is due right around that time. It's actually more likely that she'll be born—induced, due to her mom's gestational diabetes—no later than the 15th, but you just never know.

I'm guessing quite the opera could be written about the aftermath of a man's choice to actually attend one instead of being by his wife's side during childbirth. No worries there. I'm a smarter man than that.

Pictures at Chez Bez

It wasn't that long ago when all pictures of this little guy were baby pictures. Now, introducing...homework!

Apparently, a Candyland piece got a bit drunk and wandered into the Hungry Hungry Hippos play area. Not good. Not good.

Um, me.

Odds and Ends, This and That, Waits and Jovi

(I changed my header. And I think it looks pretty cool.)

The laptop works but not as well as it should. We took it to a local repair shop not too long ago when it wouldn't restart. The guy couldn't get the C: drive to work so he simply loaded a version of Windows to the D: drive. Less of a fix and more of a work-around I suppose. And now the audio is kind of funky and everything is a bit slower. I've moved all of my music and photos to an external hard drive that Paige bought but for some reason iTunes won't load for me anymore. That's a lot of favorite podcasts that I've been missing lately.

The good news is that Paige is going to Boston soon to spend time with a friend and go to a Bon Jovi fan club show. Her friend knows her way around these things better than us and I hope that Paige will return home with a laptop that does more of what I want it to do.

In other music news, I was pleased to glimpse in Google Reader that there will be new Tom Waits in April. A second glance revealed that it's just a new Tom Waits bio that's coming out in April. Cool enough, but I'm getting impatient for new songs.

No Delay-Of-Game Call, Titans Delayed Destiny

Maybe it would have been more dramatic had we entered the playoffs as a lower seed, won one playoff game, and then lost. One playoff win would certainly have given the season one more mark of achievement. As it was, the Titans' loss to the Ravens on Saturday didn't even hurt like I expected it to. I worked during the game and relied on Twitter for updates until midway through the 4th quarter when I took my break and watched the rest on T.V. I saw a few of the bad calls that robbed us near the end, but more importantly I saw a team that didn't play well enough to overcome some bad calls. So the season ended with a three point loss and I shrugged my shoulders and went back to work.

Even with an exceptional run to an 10-0 start, a 13-3 regular season finish, and that top seed playoff spot, I was never moved to think that this was a team of destiny. These are not sour grapes though. These Titans were just as capable of continuing their march to that Lombardi trophy as any other team still in it. It just didn't come as a surprise that they came up short Saturday.

My wife cried when they lost to the Rams in the Super Bowl. I didn't, but it did bug me for months. When they lost in the playoffs to the Ravens the following year, she and I both had that bad taste in our mouths. It was the bad taste left from watching your team dominate in absolutely every statistic except for the most important one, the final score: Baltimore 24, Tennessee 10.

In January 2003, Oakland won by a score of 41-24 and it just seemed like the way it was supposed to go down. (The Titans had lost to the Raiders 52-25 earlier in the season.) The following year, Tennessee went to New England and lost by three to a team already already associated with the word "dynasty" as much as the Bengals carry around the "hapless" adjective on their backs. And anyway, it was really, really cold that day. Not meant to be.

As for last year's 17-6 loss to the Chargers, I don't have much memory of that game. I might have been working during that one as well. The best we got out of that game was a new West Coast rival and the constant reminder that we've never given anyone any reason to truly be afraid of our offensive firepower. The 2008 season ended with only a touchdown and a field goal scored in a game where ten points just wasn't enough.

Sigh. There's always next year.

*In the post, I'm trying to be nice and thoughtful. In truth, the Titans were jobbed on that non-call. That should have been a penalty instead of a big first down.

Links, Kids, and Paris

From Daguerreotype to Photoshop, as found linked by Arts & Letters Daily.

What Heidi did yesterday. I wish I did it, too.

The other day in the car, Josh asked, "Why is the moon up in the middle of the day? Is it because it misses seeing the sun?"

Same day in the car, I put in a CD of French songs for children entitlted, Let The Good Times Rouler! Less than fifteen seconds in, Josh asked, "Um, is this English?" (It sounded funnier than it might read here.)

Oh, and speaking of the French, last night I went to Paris and had a Heineken at La Pause, courtesy of Google Street View.

A Blog I Love...

Every post, every photo and link a winner: Cabbage Babble

Feel Good Friday: The Neighborhood of Twitter

On a peaceful Thursday evening, I sat before my laptop listening to French pop songs on my iPod trying to decide whether or not to post a video for Feel Good Friday. I was considering the lovely Arielle Dombasle when I found inspiration via Twitter.

A user who goes by the name The Jazz Avenger posed a question to his followers and got a reply with a very Feel Good story:

Yesterday I asked for some suggestions for under-appreciated jazz greats. @chrisphillip25 suggests Johnny Costa http://is.gd/eWkQ

He was called "The White Art Tatum," Johnny Costa, and you can hear utterly amazing dexterity and speed in those fingers.

He could have been a big star, and toured the world. But? He didn't.

Well he did travel, but he couldn't take it, couldn't take the time away from his family.

So he returned to Pittsburgh, which was his home town. And who should he meet but a guy named Fred.

And this guy Fred wants to work in television but for the strangest reason. He hates television. Makes perfect sense right?

Well Fred last name, it turns out is Rogers. And he's starting out a TV show called "Mr. Roger's Neighborhood" this is for children.

And Johnny Costa, one of the most brilliant and talented piano players ever known becomes the musical director of that show in 1966.

And will remain in that position for the remainder of his life.

Here's Johnny Costa playing the opening credits to "Mr. Rogers Neighborhood" http://is.gd/eWtb Does his playing sound familiar now?

So does that story make you happy or what? http://is.gd/eWum

Very cool. Not being familiar with Johnny Costa, I loved learning about him bit by bit as the tweets of info came in one by one to my phone.

So now I have my Feel Good Friday for you. And I recommend following The Jazz Avenger to you jazz-loving Twitter folks.

Georgia

Obama, Steely Dan and Rex L. Camino. All cool.

I saw a great tweet a few minutes ago on Twitter:

@tomdevine: Obama pre-news conference music: Steely Dan. He's now officially our coolest president

Indeed.

And I was instantly reminded of one of Rex L. Camino's best posts ever. Rex stated how one cannot listen to a song like "Babylon Sisters" and not find his walk affected. There are no hurried movements, no clumsy lumbering around while Fagan and Becker work their magic and their cool. One can only glide, or as Rex says, "creep."

“Babylon Sisters” causes me to unintentionally creep around, and this only amplifies my already cat-like ability of movement. I often have the misfortune of sneaking up on people. ... the rest>>

Soon to be the proud big sister.

Brother and Sister

Yum!

Evidence of a life almost unrealized.

Poet and novelist James Dickey once dated my grandmother. That little story I've known for years. What I didn't know is that he made mention of her in letters to his mother in a book entitled The One Voice of James Dickey: His Letters and Life 1942 - 1969. It's somewhat interesting to get a peek at a relationship that, if it had gone a certain way, could have negated my very existence.

Some excerpts from the book:

I meet [sic] the swellest girl in Nashville. She is wonderful. I like her better than anyone I ever went with, including Peg Roney and Gayle.

And:

There is an awfully nice girl in Nashville named Jane Davis who seems to be quite taken with me. In all her letters she is always talking about marriage. She is full of ideas about houses and apartments and cooking and learning to "do things together" and all in all paints an enticing picture of connubial bliss. I would sure like to have one like that around. She would really go all-out for her husband; but I'm afraid I'm just not the domestic type. She is dying to get married. I know you'd like her. However I can't forget that freckled slant-eyed, honey-haired vixen I've been sweating out all these years.

Well, all I can say is thank goodness for that "freckled slant-eyed, honey-haired vixen." It was my grandfather who ultimately married the "swellest girl in Nashville" and the rest is, well, the rest leads to me. My fourth child has a due date of April 15, 2009. My grandfather, William Samuel Rickman, and his wife Jane had four children and his birthday was April 15, 1923. In tribute to him, we decided on Samuel for our baby's name if he was a boy. The baby, however, decided to be a girl so we're naming her Samantha Jane. Samantha as a variation of Samuel and Jane in tribute to my grandmother, Jane Davis Rickman.

My thanks to both my mom and my cousin who found the book and its references to my grandmother.

Hey Heineken Execs...

This should really in your next print ad campaign. Tragedy, indeed.

And Sand Was Between My Toes

Fernandina Beach

Slumdog Millionaire, All Vibrant and Frenzied

I saw the wonderful Slumdog Millionaire tonight with my dad. Just, wow.

More than anything, it's the very real images of slums and poverty that stays with. Making beggars out of children. Blinding them for better "revenue." Such a lack of hope for the poor. Victims.

Then it's the story. My dad, who also loved the film, was wisely critical of a few things that didn't quite make sense. But overall, director Danny Boyle hit hard and fresh with every single shot. The pulsing beats of M.I.A. played loudly through frenzied and frantic scenes of desperate lives with motivations both violent and romantic.

Vibrant colors and quick jump cuts kept my pupils dancing from beginning to end. Rooting for the heroes and even forgiving tired old lines ("What will we live on?" "Love.") because, well, that's what some eighteen-year-olds say and they deserve for us to root for them, especially Slumdog's Jamal, played superbly by Dev Patel.


This is no review. I'm just writing to write and I wanted to repost this picture because I thought of it while watching the movie today. The girl in the picture could be the beautiful Latika who was undoubtedly Jamal's destiny.


Thanks for stopping by.

Love

Regarding Dexter

I want to thank Leesa for turning me on to the awesomeness that is Dexter. Just, wow.

Tomorrow I get to pick up the last episode from Season 2 from the library. I can't even express how giddy I am to find out how the season ends. I remember back to when I saw the episode of The Sopranos when Janice shot Richie. She fired the gun and I was so shocked. I was sitting in my living room watching it and called out to my wife who was quietly reading a book in the bedroom. "Honey," I yelled. "Janice just shot Richie!"

I knew as I said that how into that show I must have been to assume that someone who hadn't ever even watched an episode must be told exactly then about that momentous development in the show. All things considered, what a silly thing to get all excited about. But still, there it was. Something on T.V. that was awesome and worthy of an "Oh, my God!"

That's just how the second to last episode of Dexter: Season Two ended for me. Had my wife been awake, I would have included her in the moment, had she cared or not. Lila finds the cabin. She hears Doakes' voice. Oh, my God. How will this end? Well, I get to find out Thursday night. I'm giddy.

This post is somber but short.

More and more of my friends are losing their jobs these days. Gone are the days of me feeling sorry for myself for my low wages. I'm appreciative as anything for any wages at all, lowly or otherwise. More and more, I'm the lucky one. Yikes to that.

Come on, 2009. We're all counting on you. My informal poll indicates that hardly anyone I know has been pleased with how 2008 went down for them. I ask about highlights and get some heartwarming answers, but the overall take on the year is that it was an exceptionally tough one.

Well, if it don't kill ya, it makes ya stronger, right? Leaner and meaner, right? Here's hoping. I'm always hoping.