Whoops . . . . haven’t blogged in awhile . . . . .

Here I think I’m busy, but I haven’t blogged in awhile.  Usually that’s part of my busyness.  Shame on me.  But, I have been busy.  ■  I’ve been working on drawings.  A lot to draw in a short amount of time.  ■  Bullfrog has one gig this weekend and two the next.  I have put some time into playing electric guitar in order to get back up to speed.   Playing dobro has me rusty with the band songs.  ■  The trip to New Orleans was fun.  Great seeing old friends and seeing new homes on the gulf coast.  And the weather was great.  Not hot, like I’m sure it’s getting now, but warm and lovely.  Nice gentle breezes blowing . . . . . mmmm . . . . and the food was absolutely fantastic.  ■  And, once again, time for bed.

Stirring the pot … and then some . . . .

That’s Terry stirring the pot.  What’s in it?  Shrimp (big shrimp), onions, lemons, lines, potatoes, and, of course, love.  That was a great mean on Sunday night.  The shrimp were huge!  They get them from “The Shrimp Lady” – who sells the fresh shrimp out of her van in a parking lot.  It’s like “How many pounds would you like?”  ■  The meal that night was great – but would be surpassed by the meal on Monday night.  I’ve got to get recipes for the seafood soup, lump crab and corn fritters, and the oysters on the half-shell.  ■  Back to work today.  Had a little time to work on the next/current drawing.  Still more to go.  ■ 

Me thinks this needs a cauldron

The picture needs a cauldron - not a simple pot holding a . . . Home
tomorrow .. . and I'll let you know what was in the pot.

At Pat O'Brian on the river front.

Enjoying a cold one.

On the road again . . .

Can you guess where we're eating?

Cubs win!

Jac never fails!  When the Cubs win the “W” flag goes up.  This is my first picture of the “W” flag this year.  Hope to be many more!  ■  I’ve been looking at possibly getting a netbook.  So today, after some research over the past couple of weeks, I went to Best Buy to take a look at them.  They only had 5 or 6 models on display.  The screens looked ok and  the keyboards were small – which I knew.  Heck, it’s basically a shrunken laptop.  At any rate I looked at them and then took a look at the iPad.  I’m sold.  No netbook for me.  They do have a problem, or two to solve with them, but talk about gorgeous. If what you need is access to the web, email, etc. this is it.  If you need spreadsheet and word processing – work type stuff then you need a laptop.  ■  More from the road . . . . .

Steaming . . . . .

I had to take a little break from my pen and ink drawings and work on a sketch that I’d been thinking about for awhile.  This is a sketch of my old ship – the USS Long Beach CGN-9.  It’s not very good, but then the picture I was using for my subject wasn’t great either.  ■   Need to get some blood tests done tomorrow.  It’s fasting-time tonight.  No eating for 12 hours before the tests.  ■  Lots to do tomorrow. 

Back from a wonderful weekend . . . . . . .

We’re back from a wonderful weekend.  It was our daughter’s and fiancé's engagement party put on by a number of their friends.  It was a great party and the hosts were wonderful for putting it on.  ■  As much as I’d like to write more – I really have to go to bed.  Night!

Lost a friend . . . . .

Got a call at 6:30 this morning.  A good college friend had passed away.  That’s him in the upper left corner – Mark – we called him Curley because of his curly hair.  Funny how we all ended up with nicknames.  Curley, Ish, Skitch, Houli, Waloo, Hank, etc.  He’s the second of our college group to pass.  We’ll miss him.

What’s that at the top of the stairs?

That’s my companion Zoe.  When I go upstairs she races ahead of me and then turns around and sits and waits for me to come up.  ■  Yesterday I took off of work and met Holly for dinner.  Afterwards we attended the Kalo Foundation meeting.  It’s been months since I’ve been able to make it to a meeting.  It was good to see all of the people there.  ■  I’m very busy doing drawings.  And I’m making good progress.  I’m thinking of branching out and trying some pencil sketches.  They’re a bit easier to do and you have the luxury of fixing your mistakes with an eraser.  Pen & ink is not forgiving – working with pencils is.  I do quite a bit of quick pencil sketches of the homes I’m going to draw before I tackle the actual pen & ink drawing.  It helps to work out details and see if I’d capture everything that was important in the drawing.  ■  I’m also thinking of putting up a facebook page for the business.  What do you think?  Should I?

You’d think I would sleep thru the pain . . . . .

. . . . , but apparently not.  One of my centers of pain woke me up (not sure which one) and the others chimed in.  So here I am sitting on the pc trying to get drowsy again.  ■  Slow cooked 2 pork tenderloins and a beef roast yesterday for dinner with our next-door-neighbors.  They bought the meat and I cooked it.  The meal was delicious.  ■  I’ve got to remember to call my mother today.  I’m pretty bad about calling her.  ■ 

Pain . . . all day, all night, Maryann . . . down . . .

I started to write the title and it began to turn into lyrics.  ■  The pain is still constant.  Neck pain and a pulsating headache.  I’m sick of it.  And the pain in my left foot is still there – but it’s not too bad.  Certainly manageable.  At least at this point.  ■  I had thought about calling my doctor today, but decided against it.  The pain in my foot is new, manageable at this point, and it would just be another visit to the doc without any resolution.  And it might go away in a day, or two.  ■  Tomorrow:  pants measurements; drawing; cooking a large pork tenderloin and a beef roast on the grill.  Actually I’ll be slooooow cooking it on the grill with plenty of wood chips to give it that nice smokey flavor.  ■  In fact tonight I did some slow, smokey cooking of chicken breasts on the grill.  I had one and it was delicious.  ■  So, back to the song:  Does anyone remember the song?  What was the title and who sang it?  In what year was it a “hit?”  ■  Lots of questions and no answers – yet.  At least to the song . . . . . .

I want no pain . . . . . . .. . . .

It doesn’t seem like it’s going to happen.  In addition to the arthritic neck and accompanying never-ending headache, I woke up with a swollen left foot.  The top of the foot began hurting last night, but this morning was in full swing.  I don’t think it’s gout as it’s on the top of the foot – not the bottom.  I’ll see how it progresses.  If it gets better – great!  If it gets worse then I’ll call the doctor.  ■  Lots to do this weekend:  change the oil in the John Deere; work on drawings – a lot of work; cook tomorrow for an early Easter dinner with neighbors; get measured for pants for the wedding.  ■  About time to go to work.  ■ 

Neck still hurts, but it is a little better . . . . .

It’s difficult drawing when I have to bend my neck down.  I’d say I’m good for maybe 3 or 4 minutes before I have to take a break.  That kind of slows my production down.  ■  This is a quick pencil sketch of a home I’ll be drawing.  I’m getting into the habit of doing a pencil sketch first to see how things will lay out.  It’s better doing that than laying pen to paper and finding out that you’ve planned poorly.  Of course the pencil sketch is much different than pen & ink – I can always erase mistakes with pencil.  Not so with ink.  ■  I was productive in that I put the registration form for the Kalo events into production.  That and I created a spreadsheet that will give Kalo automated totals for each events registrations.  ■  Off to work.