June 2006
Monthly Archive
It looks to be another awesome weekend for independent artists and their fans here in Birmingham.
I’ve got sketchy details about what appears to be an incredible show brewing over at Sloss Furnaces Friday night (June 30th) around 7pm.
The show appears to be a benefit for a film student at SCAD (Savannah College of Art and Design) Matt Hartfield so he can make his senior project film.
Cool, that’s great… But what am I going to get for my $5 donation?
How about the best in indie, rock, and folk that central Alabama has ever had to showcase:
The Bridges
I saw these incredibly talented kids (ages 16 - 21) last weekend at the “Future Railyard benefit” and they blew me away. 4 part harmony, innocent yet thought provoking lyrics, and a TIGHT acoustic sound. The interview they did for Tapestry on WBHM is a MUST listen.
Wild Sweet Orange
I haven’t seen these guys live yet but they’ve been getting a lot of buzz over on Reg’s Coffee House and they’ve been getting some airplay on the westcoast. I really like what I hear on their myspace site… Nice poppy indie sound and they swear that David Lynch is one of their influences so you know that it has to be interesting!
Kiss Me at the Gate
Rather Rilo Kiley like. Also getting tons of buzz from Reg. I’m really looking forward to seeing these guys as well. Also see http://www.kissmeatthegate.com/
The Great Book of John
Folk rock, upright bass, both male and female singers, what more could you ask for?
In addition to all of this great music, the night will start off with a couple of student films from SCAD and what I can only imagine is a storyboard presentation of Matt’s senior project…
Now I’m off to convince everyone that I’ve made plans with this weekend to change them 
For any of you that know DrWife, it should come as no surprise that our offspring is every bit as stubborn and independent as her mother.
Last night, while feeding attempting to feed Fairlyn it became abundantly clear that if she couldn’t feed it to herself, she wasn’t going to eat it.
She was putting down her “veggie puffs” like she hadn’t eaten in 11 months (btw, she’ll be 11 months old tomorrow), but every time I’d attempt to shovel some apple cinnamon blended food stuffs down her throat, she’d bat it out of the way…
The next thing I tried was a carrot stick. She was really digging that, pulling off slivers of carrot and munching away… So I gave her another one and she would put the one she was eating down, and pick up the other one… then throw it on the floor, pick up the other one while I washed off the one that ended up on the floor. Once I gave it back to her the entire process would repeat itself.
Well, as entertaining as this was, I knew I had to find some way of getting her to eat something else (or she’d be waking up in the middle of the night hungry). So I decided to use some of these funky spoon like things that my mom gave us and see if they’d work. So I loaded up one with some of the apple cinnamon food product and she immediately grabbed it and shoved it in her mouth!
As happy as I was with this, I was soon amazed at the fact that all I had to do was hold my hand out and she would graciously hand the quasi spoon back to me so I could load it up again.
I was pretty impressed with her first attempt at spoon feeding herself (as was Fairlyn, she would clap and slather the apple cinnamon goo on her hands after nearly every bite). About half of the apple cinnamon stuff ended up in her mouth and the the other half ended up on the floor, her high chair, the walls, etc.
Not bad IMHO…
So I spent May 25-29th driving around the moutians of Western NC (and a little bit of Eastern TN). NASIOC held it’s 6th annual “Dragon Meet” at Fontana Village, NC. My “driving vacation” centered around a little place known by several names:
- Deal’s Gap, NC
- US 129
- Tail of the Dragon
- The Dragon
Your best bet for more information is http://tailofthedragon.com.
The best way to describe the road is this:
318 turns, 11 miles
I spent my 6 days up there on various daytrips including a loop that included a quick stop off in the tourist trap that is Gatlinburg, TN for lunch and then down to Cherokee, NC and then back over to Fontana Village. One trip over to Franklin and Highlands, NC, an entire day spent on gravel (in someone else’s car), and nearly an entire day spent driving “the dragon” itself (while avoiding a few bike wrecks).
Highlights:
The trip up, loaded down with 8 shocks, 4 springs, 4 top spring mounts, 4 wheels, 4 tires, one oil cooler, and all of my luggage. (overlooking Ocoee Dam #3).
Slow moving traffic on the Foothills Parkway.
Dork gear as my passenger.
On top of a mountian labeled as “Holy Butt” on my GPS program.
A riverbank made up of junked cars south of Cherokee, NC (click the pic to see the full size image).
Cruising on NC28 (aka “the hellbender“).
Parked checking out the waterfall northwest of Highlands, NC.
Fontana Dam. Largest dam east of the Mississippi (close to where we stayed).
Photos taken by others after the jump (more…)
