All My Compliments Come With Asterisks

A 20 year old female coworker said a really nice thing to me the other day. And then she kept talking. I had been parking cars at the workplace in the rain, and so I had taken off my glasses so I wouldn't have to keep drying them off every 10 minutes. ANYWAY, she comes up to me and says, "You know, you're really cute...without your glasses." OK, I pretty much have to wear my glasses all the time. And I wonder what I look like with my glasses.

So what do I look like pretty much all the time? Hmmm, hear another thing another female coworker said under the guise of a compliment. To a friend of mine she said, "I think Mike's pretty cool afterall; I used to think he was a nerd until I got to know him better."

Two ways to look at this. Either too bad I have to wear glasses or thank God I'm married and don't have to worry about looking cool anymore.

These Kids Are Alright

Not Without My Governor's Approval

State sues Rumsfeld over base. (click here for story)

Around Town With Joshua

It is too rare that I get to wander about town with my cherubs and see the sites through their eyes. Joshua (and most kids) certainly has the right approach to life. Have a good time, smile big, and expect greatness at every moment.

Fatal Attraction - The Geritol Years

Apparently, she had never heard the age old adage, "Men: can't live with them, can't shoot them."

Link to the story here.

MIchael Brecker Diagnosed With Myelodysplastic Syndrome

I've listened to Michael Brecker off and on since the early '90s when I worked at Turtles. My heart goes out to Michael and his friends and family and I wish him the best with this current challenge. For the news story and further information, click here.

Vassar Clements Has Passed Away

The Associated Press story is here. The local story is here. And the personal story is that he was a good friend of my step-father's. Bobby Thompson, my step-father and talented, professional banjo player passed away recently, and now Vassar is also gone after a long struggle with lung cancer.

Vassar "Superbow" Clements was a fiddle player who made guys like me appreciate music that would most usually not get more than ten seconds of playing time on the personal stereo. His dynamic style of playing was affectionately called "hillbilly jazz." None of his music sounded manufactured or "market tested". It really was the sound of great talent having a great, wild time.

I'll see if my mom has any pics of Bobby and Vassar together or if I can share any anecdotes here. Until then, look up his stuff, listen to it and just relax and smile. That's what I'm doing right now.

• Here are a couple of very small pictures on Vassar's website of he and Bobby along with Jim and Jesse.

Arlo and Janis...and Mike

If this violates copyright, I'll take it off. But I love how much of my life can be found in a few panels of a comic strip.

Arlo and Janis is almost always dead on. (Just click the comic to enlarge it.)

The Ivy Is Alive!!! (And Quite Mesmerizing)

A few weeks ago, I played tourist and met some visiting family members at the Opryland Hotel. Imagine my surprise when some long, tall (and sexy?) ivy started walking my way.
I was transfixed by the strange and beautiful site. The pic with her face gently pressed to the wall is certainly my favorite.













My poor two year old son, however, had no idea what to think. Nothing in his still short life had come close to preparing him for what he saw. Can't say I blame him.

file under: Life's Not Fair

Executed Woman to Get Pardon in Georgia

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: August 16, 2005
ALBANY, Ga., Aug. 15 (AP) - The only woman ever executed in Georgia's electric chair, Lena Baker, is being granted a posthumous pardon, 60 years after she was put to death for killing a man she said had held her in slavery and threatened her life.

The Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles plans to make the pardon official by presenting a proclamation to Ms. Baker's descendants at a meeting on Aug. 30 in Atlanta, a board spokeswoman, Scheree Lipscomb, said Monday.

The board did not find that Ms. Baker was not guilty of the crime, but it did find that the decision to deny her clemency in 1945 "was a grievous error, as this case called out for mercy," Ms. Lipscomb said.

In her one-day trial, Ms. Baker, who was black, testified that E. B. Knight, a white man she had been hired to care for, had held her against her will and threatened to shoot her. She said she grabbed a gun and shot him when he raised a metal bar to strike her. She was convicted by an all-white, all-male jury.

Ms. Baker's grandnephew, Roosevelt Curry, has led the family's effort to clear her name.

One Less Crazy Russian On My Street

My street just got a little less diverse, as my friend Alex and his lovely wife Ashleigh have departed for a windier city. I spent my day off helping him put stuff into a truck. (There's a Mitch Hedberg joke in there. Do you see it?)

My muscles are a bit more "ripped", my shoulders are a bit sunburned, and my street is a bit more average. These neighbors are the ones I wish I had more time for. If it weren't for my tiring and everchanging work schedule, I would envision that we would have spent many an evening hanging out, talking about music and jobs and exes and future plans.

As it was, we would touch on these various topics in random small increments of time: a few minutes here while I walk my dog past his house, a few minutes there while they pass by my house on their way to a restaurant. Always, the conversations would end with a promise to get together sometime. Come over for dinner. Check out a band some night.

Two years of friendly passings gone by and now they are taking the Ryder truck up to Chicago. What's funny is if I pursue a certain job and get it, I will find myself in Chicago once or twice a week and crashing on their couch. And so, as life seems to go, I would find myself spending much more time with my former neighbors now that they are living 500 miles away. I wish them a safe journey and hope their new neighbors are as nice as me. There's some heavy stuff in that moving truck.

OK Computer - You Need Fixing

And so it is that my computer is slow, tough to restart, seemingly missing an important device driver, and freaking me out. Lots of pictures are safely tucked away on disc, but I still fear losing recently taken pics if this old hard drive decides to fail me.

Where do I go to remedy these problems? People think I'm tech savvy, but I'm really just a caveman in a world of 10 year olds who build computers because they're bored. Do I go to my local computer repair shop? BestBuy is out of the question. But what about another recommendation? Do I have a friend who would love to tinker about with this machine? Let me know if so. I don't want to start blogging from the library. Their dresscode is stricter than the one at my home.

One Powerball Quick Pick, Please

A few years ago, while coming home from my honeymoon, I read The New Gilded Age : The New Yorker Looks at the Culture of Affluence. Among the many great essays was one that really stuck with me. Mr. Lucky, written by Rebecca Mead, is about a struggling performance artist in NYC who won forty-five million dollars in the New York State lottery. It's hard to imagine that those who don't even play the lottery don't fantasize about winning.

I remember driving a hotel guest to a convenience store a few months ago. We started talking about Powerball and he, a financial adviser, was going on about how it was a terrible way to spend one's money. Instead, smart investing of even small amounts was always a wiser way to work toward riches. That said, he returned from the store to the van with two Powerball tickets. One for him and one for me...just in case.

John Falcon was the big winner in the Rebecca Mead story. Three years since I read that story and six years since he won, a musical documentary of his life has been released, entitled One Man Show.

I think I'll buy a ticket today.

When She Said Yes

August 3, 2002


Three years ago today, I vowed the following to my wife:

"I accept you Paige,
as a person, and as my wife,
with your strengths and your weaknesses.
I promise to be loyal to you in health
or illness,
to share what I have and who I am,
to love enough to risk being hurt,
to trust when I misunderstand,
to weep with you in sorrow,
to celebrate with you in joy,
and to live with you in reverence."

And she vowed the same to me.

I am always humbled by her kindness and strong sense of conviction.

I proposed to her on Stone Mountain in Georgia on a hazy but beautiful day. We stopped by Shane Co. on the way to Stone Mountain to "look at" rings. Not that I had already proposed, but we were certainly headed that way, so discussion was in the air. While we were looking, I excused myself to go to the bathroom, but really I went to the back counter to pay for the ring that I had already selected. (Sneaky as I wanna be.)

After "looking", we drove to Stone Mountain with her being none the wiser about the ring. If she suspected anything at all, she had dismissed it entirely because of our little trip to Shane Co. And so we rode the sky tram to the top of the mountain with me constantly fidgeting in my right pocket, afraid I'd lose the ring at any given moment. An impossible fear with it being so deep within my pocket, but you understand.

Upon exiting the tram at the top, the tram attendant said that Stone Mountain is 825 feet tall and all I could think was that if I dropped the ring at any point, it could possibly roll 825 feet away from me. Well, after admiring the scenery, I turned to Paige and proceeded to tell her how much I love her and all kinds of nice things that I wish I could remember saying now. I then pulled the ring carefully from my pocket and asked her to be my wife. Through her happy tears, she said yes and we hugged. I realized later that I forgot to go down on bended knee. Happily, this was not a deal breaker.

We started dating in August of 1996, so this day had been a long time coming. She is certainly patient and I thank her for that. My life is certainly enriched as a result and I'm more in love with her now than I was even then.

One funny memory from the day of the proposal:

After she said yes, I asked a request of a passerby. I told him that I had just asked her to marry me and would he take our picture.
In complete seriousness, he asked "what did she say?"
I wondered why would I want to document my rejection. "Here, I'm sad and she's mean. Take our picture!"

Paige, thanks for saying "yes". And then thanks for saying "I do".

The wedding album is here.

And the honeymoon album is here.

Klosterman Is Coming! (or 85% Of A Good Idea)

Anxiously, I am waiting to read Chuck Klosterman's latest book, Killing Yourself to Live : 85% of a True Story. On our great Biloxi trip, I read Chuck Klosterman's Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs to Paige. I enjoyed reading to her and she enjoyed being read to. A local blogger had mentioned the book, so I picked it up not knowing anything about it. Turns out he's phenomenal. A great story teller and insanely funny. Paige and I laughed for the better part of the road trip.

And now, I find out from the Scene that he's reading and signing at Davis-Kidd on Wednesday, August 3. Do yourselves a favor and get there if you can. And if you see me, tell me you love my blog. I'll be the guy who is celebrating his 3rd wedding anniversary by taking his wife to a bookstore.