Jabulani Jonny

Tonight we had a going away dinner for our great friend, Elizabeth.  Her job, the charity Food for the Hungry, is moving her to Nashville.  I’ve known Lizzie for 10 years.  We had an acoustic trio for several years, playing around the Columbus area and making some great music.  Unfortunately, for some reason none of us can really explain, the trio kinda fizzled.  Danny moved to Baltimore, we all got jobs and things just kinda moved on.  I always long for the synergy that we had in that group, we made some pretty stinkin’ good music.  I might be biased, but I’ll take this opportunity to introduce you to it.  This is Elizabeth, Dave and I when we were taking some shots, planning on "getting the band back together".  Dave is the percussionist, Lizzie’s in the center of course, Danny, who played rhythm, was in Baltimore so he wasn’t in the shot, I played lead and am on the right.   

I’m gonna miss Lizzie and the wonderful music that we made.  So, to honor her, our friendship and the music I’m going to post 13 of our original songs that I recorded several years ago.  That way you can download these tunes to your iPod or whatever and sing along.  Let me give you the background.

A couple of years after we stopped playing together regularly, Danny let us know that he was heading to Baltimore.  We had about 25 original tunes that we had never really recorded and I decided that we would meet at Lizzies cabin, play the songs and record them live, since that was the most true to our nature and the music.  So we met on a Tuesday night, I pressed record on a little Roland VS-1680 recorder and we played through 13 of the songs in an evening, no practice runs.  Just play and record.  I then came back and added bass and percussion to it to fill it out.  The CD is raw and organic.  There are definitely some human elements on there, but I love the tunes.  I think the energy of the group comes across and I don’t think I could replicate that with a studio redo.  So that’s the story, two years of not playing together and we get together to knock out some songs, which is what’s presented here.  I call it Two Years on a Tuesday Night.  I hope you enjoy.

FYI, these files are M4a so if you’re not in iTunes, you’ll need to download a codec pack for Windows Media Player from here.  I’ll also zip these files up in a folder with the album art and make it available in the sidebar for download.  For those using an RSS reader, there are embedded audio files below.  Come on to the site, it won’t hurt.   

Looking Back

February Blues

That last one was about as impromptu as you get.  We couldn’t even remember the words, and it was Danny’s big chance to solo.  It fit perfectly.  I’ll put a link to download the whole album in the sidebar.  Grab your free music and enjoy. 

Elizabeth, I enjoyed making music with you.  I’ll always hear your harmonies when I write.  Godspeed, and here’s to the day when we can play these songs again. 

I don’t want this to come across like it’s prolly going to come across, but it can’t be helped.  Since Vista has been released people have been waiting and lauding the arrival of a Service Pack that would fix the nagging issues that have been plaguing users.  Unfortunately even the recently released, much anticipated Service Pack 1 continues Vista’s performance record.

The transition to the service pack has not been problem-free for many users,
some of whom have seen their computers fall into endless reboot cycles
and struggled with broken applications after installing the upgrade.

So for those of my friends that have issues with the SP1 install, might I suggest……

(via= cnet)

This Saturday afforded my buddy Eric and I an opportunity to get out and shoot some more photos on one of our little Photo Journeys, for lack of a better term. We’ve done it a couple times before and decided on an old abandoned mill on the banks of the Chattahoochee in downtown Columbus. We scoped out the place for a few minutes and quickly came to the conclusion that there was not going to be an easy way in, and it may not even be possible, but we were going to try.

See, the walls of the mill go right down to the waters edge and all the windows and doors were locked up tight. Hmmm…we just want to take some photos. Well we saw this iron structure stretching from the bank out to the back of the mill. The only thing was that it was about 20 feet off the water and what you were standing on was about 1/4″ thick. Thankfully there were handholds. Here’s the structure looking from the mill side back to the bank on our way back:

And here’s a shot looking at the back of the mill from the dam.

So once we got across we came to a covered wooden platform that was eaten up by an old fire and missing some pretty big chunks. This platform was about 20 feet above the old turbines of the mill. The platform stretched out to the water and the dam that served the mill. We tried to find a way inside, by climbing up and over a tin wall into this out-shed off the back of the building, but there were no openings. We did find an old book in there that turned into a couple cool shots.

We thought that was the end of the line, but as we climbed back up and out over the wall, Eric took a quick glance across the roof and saw an open window. Eureka. Here was our opportunity to get a few shots and do some exploring.

This place has been deserted quite a while, but you can see evidence of the random visitor…like us. I ended up only getting a few shots I liked, but I’ll post several so you get a sense of the inside of the mill.

I did manage to squeeze off a couple shots of Eric to demonstrate our tour. Unfortunately, I didn’t even take a shot of the mill itself to give an idea of what we’re looking at. Next time. This was definitely an adventurous outing and we had a blast, got a few decent shots out of it too.

We’re gonna change it up a bit next weekend and shoot some different subjects. Hey, if there are any pro guys out there that see this blog, ie. Daley or Dustin, please let me know what I can do better either from composition or from a post processing standpoint. I’m using Aperture 2, not PS, so I don’t do any layer work. Just your typical color correction, sharpening, and maybe some vignetting. Let me know what you think!

This will be the only political post you see on this blog.  Los posted about a coworker prank on his blog and it raised a question for me.  I’m tempted by Obama, I like all the "change" talk.  However, I don’t agree with his position on abortion and to me that’s a deal-killer.  There are a lot of people that I respect that have similar religious views as I do, but are supporting Obama.  So I’m asking, how do you get past his stance on abortion if you feel that abortion is wrong?

There’s this tough little joker I know. His body has been beaten up a little and he’s got lots of issues that nag him. Things that would make me whine and snivel, he just takes in stride. Yeah he gets ornery some times, but who wouldn’t. I really wish I could just take half of his burden for him, but I know I’m not strong enough to carry it. He knows my voice, but I don’t know that he can really see my face. That makes me sad, but to him, maybe my voice is enough. He’s a tough little T-monster and he’s got 100% of the love that is in my heart.

I guess they finally got that “special” order in. I took this photo in Newnan, so if you’re in need, you know where to get that new recliner for your date.

Since I got the new camera, my buddy Eric and I have decided to take a photo safari each weekend. We both want to get better at photography and shooting’s the only way to do it.

Downtown Columbus has some pretty rad old warehouses and deserted buildings. So we took a few hours on Saturday to explore one and see what sort of photo opps we could stumble across. Below are some shots taken with the Olympus E-510 with some minor post work in Aperture 2, which I’m diggin by the way. You can see larger versions in the Photo Album to the left. Eric’s putting together a separate blog for us to post our images to each week. I’ll keep you posted for links in the near future.

I have to admit that I like tech toys. In my last post (oh so long ago) I was contemplating an Apple TV for my B-day. Well, I ended up having a change of heart and just asking for funds for new dress clothes, etc. I need those and i don’t really need the A-TV.

I’m still questioning this blog’s purpose and I think it may change a bit. I’ve always enjoyed photography, had a few courses in college, but I’ve only had a Canon point & shoot up to this point. While Sunette’s parents were here for 3 weeks I helped her dad research DSLR’s, thinking it was for his purchase. Right before they were to leave they said they wanted to get me one for my birthday. Woah. So after all the research I settled on an Olympus e-510. Pretty stacked prosumer camera. I’m pumped.

I’ve been shooting quite a bit with it and am making a point to take photo safaris on the weekends to grab shots. I have a feeling my blog may see a bit of a transformation as I post more photos and videos, in theory anyway.

We also recently got a new camcorder, a Canon HV-20. Super sweet HD camcorder that has been fantastic so far.

So here’s hoping for more posts with some visual attraction. In fact here are a couple of shots I took with it right before her parents left.