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the festivities / house sitting / eisley

the past several days... hmmm...

friday. work. errands. humidity. rain. took ashby's daughter to the kennel for the weekend. got the latest from ashby who's partying in cali. apparently legends were woven. lives changed. closets opened. actually i only know about 9% of what has transpired. will find out tuesday.

friday evening i was supposed to fly to orlando to visit my hometown in central florida with my mom. becuase of the "weather" (which was perfect) and delta overbooking and understaffing, our flight got moved from 5:30 to 6:40 then to 8:30, then to 11:30. this might not have been so bad, except for the fact that we had a connecting flight that left atlanta for orlando. arriving after midnight meant we would have not connecting flight until saturday afternoon.

not willing to give up two days and pay the same price, we got a refund and said fuck it. we begain making plans to go to a much groovier spot : chattanooga... where i am at the moment.

so we came back home and started making calls. earlier in the day, ashby's daughter, sugar, had decided it was time to begin a regimented flossing routine. and i guess my cell phone charger was the best thing she could find. so i went to hell-mart and got a cheapo generic car charger to last me for the trip. also got a hella good subway sandwich. yep i said hella again. fuck off. saying hella reminds me of no doubt, which reminds me of gwen, which comforts me in the small hours.

but i digress. friday night. sat at home and fucked around on the computer. messed around with cameras. chatted with various friends, band buddies (aaron), evil people in kansas. chatting with evil people can be very therapudic. ...tried to figure out a way to get the women of long story short into the nick for a 21+ show to see eisley. these two bands... eisley and lss are doppelgangers of each other. i'll let you figure it out.

this was one positive about being stuck in bham for another day... i had secretly been looking forward to the show, even though the majority of the kids that were going to be there were in training diapers when i bought my first nirvana cd.

saturday... slept late. went to ashby's to feed his fish (since i was still in town) watched a little bit of live8, had some beers, messed around in protools. went home changed, got to the nick just in time for eisley to perform. stacey, nat, brit, zack showed up ready to try to thwart the system and get in underage.

alas, the gamble didn't work because of the extra door nazi and the low crowd turn-out. the reason for the small crowd? holiday weekend+ a 19 year old band with 17 year old fans playing a 21+ venue. fu-cking stupid. why eisley didn't play workplay or zydeco is beyond me. whatever.

natalie, bless her heart, was old enough to get in, so her and i vascillated between the show and the front porch, where the under-agers were forced to sing along... albeit beautifully.

aaron was there and secured me a fake id for stacey, although we couldn't use it because of the low turnout. not enough people for proper diffusion. blondes stick out you know?

he also broke out some beers from his car which i found endearing and amusing. jesse and his girl amber were inside/outside as well. it was incredibly humid outside.

post show, everyone hung out for a while, jesse professed his love for me. i however had my eye on someone else. nope. not tellin'. let's just say i was impressed and intrigued.

aaron, his friend isbelle, and a few of their friends hung out for a while. we chatted about the ashes for a min and i gave him a quick taste. he seemed to like it, although he did seems surprised. i took it as a compliment. his buddy seemed to dig the delayed guitars.

sunday... got up early, drove to chattanooga. instantly liked the town. went to an open air art / market and got a gift, a young orchid, and some seeds. checked into the hotel... the historic chattanooga choo-choo. very cool place. converted railroad depot the size of an airport.

went downtown for a while, had some seafood with my mom, got tickets for some shows, came back to the hotel, took a nap opened up the wi-fi...

later, fireworks on a beautiful bridge. read a story about the bridge which mentioned the history of the town. apparently a series of accidents at a steel plant/foundry resulted in the owners abandoning the company and the furnaces were moved to a little town in alabama. interesting how that happens.

sunday... got up early, went to both the ocean and fresh water aquariums. the biggest in the world i was told. took a lot of video on my little camera. very touristy, but cool. went to a 3d imax, came back to the hotel, took a nap... later went up to rock city and looked out at 2k feet over the span of seven states. awsome nature hike on the way up.

everything about this area impresses me. zero-emission electric trolleys free to the public. a thriving downtown, friendly people. a sense of safety and overall southern hospitality. birmingham has a long way to go.

took some photos in hi-res and in wide angle at rock city. some stunning, some amusing, some retarded. a typical successful photo day. i also cased a few abandoned gas stations. i'm gonna hit them on tuesday. i've decided that i'm gonna go wide-angle on the gasoline project from now on.

went back downtown for more fireworks for a second day. now how fucking cool is that. name another town that does fireworks once on a sunday for the weekend crowd and once on the 4th for everyone in town for the holiday. impressive.

many people, places and things have impressed me this weekend.

this coming week... rehearsal with jesse payne for a show at the nick on friday... ashby and i begin recording electric rawk guitar parts for a few remaining songs.

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