Still playing catch-up. January 15, 2008

So, Saturday, I headed out to Burke’s Garden, which is a pretty amazing place. Google search one of the aerial pictures that exist and you’ll see why they call it God’s thumbprint. It’s a sort of subsect of Tazewell. It’s not part of the incorporated town, but it’s still in the county. Every year, in September, the Burke’s Garden Festival is held. During said festival, there are yard sales, food stands, all sorts of country crafts, and demonstrations related to local industry (like sheep sheering, cake walks, etc). There’s always a lot of music, and I always have a lot of fun. What I don’t do nearly enough is get over that way to appreciate the drive.

I stopped in at the General Store where the clerk, Raquel posed for some pictures and fed me some pretty amazing onion rings.

This one one of the only places in the world that I have ever seen bulk goods (like flour, sugar, etc.) It’s totally charming. Of course I took the wall of candy. Because … I love candy.

After that, a quick trip to the post office :

And then, on my way back down the mountain, it started snowing hard. I pulled over to take a couple of pictures and ran into a dead deer. The area is a little overpopulated with deer, so hunting is pretty important to maintaining the population. Everyone here has had at least one auto accident involving one of these guys. Apparently the wide spot that I pulled over in is where road workers typically roll them down to. At first I sort of discounted the deer that I saw, but when I walked over to the edge there were all these deer skeletons.

It’s creepy, I know, but there’s also kind of a weird symmetry in the shape of the bones.

been away for far too long January 15, 2008

Sorry it’s taken me a couple of days to update this. I am filled with good intentions. I’m going to do a few posts in a row to sort of catch things up.

Saturday I went to a pretty interesting show. The first couple of bands were pretty lousy, but Beards and Bats played a highly energetic show, and then One Last Fight played pretty well too (in spite of being down a guitar). The lead singer brought his kids to the (smoky, crowded, filled with drunk people) bar, which made me a little uncomfortable, but I was very, very proud of my little cousin rocking out like a champ.

It was too dark to get a lot of really good shots of the band, but I took pictures of various light sources and think they turned out pretty well. This one is @ the primary mic, of setlist and cords.

There’s no real particular significance to this one, I just like the way the color pops out at you. Well, maybe not you. I guess that’s subjective. It pops out at me, anyway.

This is William, rocking the party. Seriously, the kid is an amazing bassist, and one of my favorite people in the world.

Sharon owns the Rock-it Club, where we went. She’s tiny, adorable, and just a little wicked as you can so clearly not tell from this dimly lit picture.

whew. ok. January 11, 2008

I had a late night the the night before last, and then not much sleep, and then a lot of fun stuff packed into a little bit of time. When I got home last night I had things to be sewn, a column to write, emails to respond to, tv to be watched, reviews to be done, etc etc etc.

I wound up eating chips and watching Ugly Betty/Grey’s Anatomy and crashing hard. As a result, I’m awake at a totally irrational hour.

Seriously. I have the weirdest schedule allowed by law and nature. Anyway. Here are some pictures.

I went with my bff to get a tattoo (him, not me), and this is one of the pictures I took before the battery in my camera died.

This is a lamp @ the Chinese place we had lunch. I just thought the light/perspective turned out interestingly.

ouch. morning hurts. January 10, 2008

Late night, didn’t really take any pictures yesterday, so I offer you this, from the vaults:

(and a better post alter, I swear by all that is good and right in the world).

January 9, 2008

Speedy gave $2 haircuts to all the men in my family (and a fair chunk of men in the area, I’d imagine) for years. He was a nice guy who always had a smile and a nice word for you. He died a couple of years ago. It was a pretty big loss to the community. Punker cousin asked me if I would cut his hair the other day, and when I offered to take him to a professional, he sort of shook his head sadly and said no, that it would be an insult to Speedy’s memory. This is his shop. It was a little dilapidated even when he was alive, but now driving past there makes me a little sad.

lazy bum January 8, 2008

I had high hopes for the day, but Mondays are dreadful. So, I hung out around the hizzle with the family and took these.

horsepen, guitar hero, etc January 6, 2008

So, I’ve been wanting to go to horsepen, for awhile and take a few pictures. I spent a lot of time there with a friend in middle school, but really haven’t been back since then. I remembered that this building was there, and wanted to take pictures of it. It’s made of this pale stone, and the roof has been caved in for so long that it actually has a few fair sized trees growing out of what I assume used to be the central part of it.

After we got back from Horsepen, talking to a friend’s brother-in-law, he mentioned that it used to be the post office. That makes total sense. The big room with the trees would have been used for sorting and processing, and the small room off to the side would have been for distribution/sales.

Driving back, we saw this pond that I fished at once or twice with the aforementioned middle school pal. There was, like … one fish in it maybe (and I’m pretty sure that fish had been long since caught by the time we came along). Since there was no place to park, I rolled down my window and took a picture from the road that I think turned out considerably well. I’d like to go back and take some pictures of the house, but I’m not sure who to contact about permission and I’m a little scared to go alone in case I get  mauled by a bear, bitten by a poisonous spider, or shot at by a territorial squatter.

January 4, 2008

I was in and around the Princeton court house today for job hunting stuff, and saw a pretty cool (if sort of nondescript) statue. The body of the statue was pretty smooth, there wasn’t a lot of definition, but the face was sort of covered by moss.

Then I came home to Tazewell, and did some library stuff.

My favorite librarian was there, and I got a lot of cool books. Then I went to my interview, and it went pretty well. From what I understand, all they really have to do is check my references.  It’s not the perfect job, but in the area, it’ll do. Then I went to pick up some stuff from this chick’s house. And after that I sort of just wanted to be alone/quiet, so I hung out @ mom’s (Because seriously, she’s never there. Where is she, I wonder?  What kind of whirlwind social calender does my mom have? It’s a mystery.) I watched a movie, did dishes, and took some silly pictures of myself proving that I do, in fact, have hair under the ubiquitous do rag I wear around. You can see some of it here.

Hope you guys had an awesome day.

Brrr. January 3, 2008

So, there’s still a lot of snow on the road. The highways are clear, from what I hear, and that’s good because I have about a zillion things to do tomorrow. I had thought I’d bundle up and go walking around in the woods but it’s so cold that it makes my skin hurt and our water pipes freeze up. So, I’ve been sort of puttering around in my pajamas, reading, cooking, crafting … all that jazz. That said, I did still take a few pictures from inside. Because while y’all are cool, I don’t enjoy personal discomfort. I mean, no one does, or they’d just call it happy fun times. So, here ya go.

This is actually a stained glass piece that my friend Mark made me awhile back. I have it in the window of my office. It makes me smile, and brings a little color to the joint. I generally don’t like color photography a lot (unless I’m taking pictures of people), but it would be silly to take a b&w photo of a rainbow, wouldn’t it?

This is the pump house that our well water comes out of (and some of the woods behind the house).

January 3, 2008