Well it’s been a week

And this is the first moment I’ve really had to write anything. And its going to be short. The school is all but finished. There are still some small touchest that need to be finished. Otherwise we’re ready to open and will start classes again next Monday.

The Martial Arts Festival went well, though there was a lighter attendance than I would have liked. And some of my photography was published in the local Alternative News Paper (City… it’s sorta like the Village Voice, but not really), but they didn’t give me a photo credit.

Oh well… you win some, you lose some. More blogging and pictures will follow.

oy

Things are really bustling here. Work is going like gangbusters and a lot of things around this project are coming together. But it feels like with every two steps forward we take one step back. And I don’t know if we can afford to be moving away from our goal.

The school is coming together, but that’s going to be down to the wire as well. We NEED to get all the painting done this weekend. I also need to wrap up on all the collateral work.

And somewhere in all of that I need to squeeze in a brother visiting, an out of town friend looking to relocate visiting and an opening party for the Degas exhibit at our local gallery. Oy… but it’s a fun life at the same time!

Soccamatic

For all you fans of Wallace and Gromit, the BBC has launced a new site and series of 10 shorts in anticipation of the new movie. Yup folks, there’s a new movie coming from the same folks who brought us Chicken Run: Aardman animations. So go can check out Wallace and Gromit’s Crackling Contraptions.

Also, for those of you keeping track we have a little under two weeks to get the school in shape. As I type this, the floors are drying from their second coat of polyurethane. We’ve also completed priming the walls. Once the floor is dry we’re going to paint the walls and build out the office, dressing rooms and the storage room. Then we need to install the mirrors (you would not believe how much mirrors cost!) and it’s go time. I just wish we had more than 11 days to get this all done!

Here’s a composite shot of the school taken before the floors were completed and any priming was done:

photoriffic

I apologize for what this is going to do to page load times but I’m planning to put a lot of photos up on site over the next few days. It’s my page and I can stroke my own ego if I like. Plus I just had my first “showing” on friday and I wanted to share some of the goodness.

But before I do that, happy birthday’s go out to two friends. Happy birthday Heather and Aaron… keep livin’ large my friend!

a morass of balls …

after the high drama of yesterday’s entry I thought I’d switch to a little romantic comedy (and anything involving romance and me is usually comic… usually black). Things have been going really well with Drea (aka Dre aka Dr. Dre aka Andrea). Last night we realized it’s been four months since we started seeing each other. Funny, seems like it’s been both a lot shorter and longer at the same time.

So how did we meet, you ask. Well, it was at a bar… now wait, before you imagine me in my fine polyester suit, rockin’ a line like: “baby are those mirrors on your clothes ‘cause I can see myself all over you…” it wasn’t like that. I was in the process of reconnecting with some friends after the Ives shows and on a whim I gave my friend Clayton a call. He invited me out to see a band called “Red Drum.” “Red Drum,” I thought, “that’s got to be cool play on the Shining. You know: Redrum! Redrum!” No they just had a big red drum.

Actually I almost didn’t go. Really. But I thought it made more sense to go then sit bored at home. Drea was in the same boat, a friend of a friend of Clayton’s out for the night. I got to the bar and there she was. I’m not sure what it was about her, but I was immediately smitten.

Where did the title of this blog come from you ask? Well that night, just after I got there everyone was playing pool and, in response to the lay of the table, Drea said: “Wow, that’s a morass of balls.” That really caught my attention. I mean how many people can work “morass” into a sentence without batting an eye (I know, I’m weird), so I had to comment. And with that, we began to talk and didn’t stop until it was time to go. Of course part of that might have been a vain attempt to drown out Red Drum, which turned out to be a mediocre at best bluegrass cover band (Van Morrison and Somewhere Over the Rainbow are not meant to be covered bluegrass style… AC\DC however is a-okay).

When it was time to go I asked if I could call her (basically I said “We have way too much in common not to talk again.”). Two days later on Sunday I got up the nerve to call. Unfortunately while waiting to leave a message on her machine, call interrupting… er waiting struck. That beep threw me off, as I wasn’t sure if it was for call waiting or for her answering machine. So it took a few moments for me to realize once her machine started to record. Then it occurred to me that it had been recording for a bit and I was leaving a “breathing on the answering machine message.” Now even more flustered, I managed to stammer something out about who I was and that she should call me before the machine hung up on me. I considered calling back, but having seen Swingers, I knew nothing good would come of that.

But surprise, she called back. And the rest, as they say, is modern history.