Another Day Another Plane

5:40am and i'm soon to be on my way to be-ooootiful Pine Bluff, AR where according to our friends at weather.com it's raining and will continue to rain all day....note:this is the glamorous part of my job....jetting to BFE nowhere to stand in the rain for 4 hours while I evaluate whether a venue is TV friendly....if there's mud involved that adds to the red carpet atmosphere. 

Joan Rivers: "and who are you wearing?"
Me: "well Joan...my pants are by Columbia...shirt via Target...and my pedal extremities are sportin a fierce pair of Keen sandals"

Guess who hasn't had her coffee this morning?

Sent via my tilt..so don't expect shakespeare

River Girrrrrrls

This past weekend me and the girls, Carrie and Eileen, headed to Todd, NC where Carrie has use of her friend's cottage/cabin

View Larger Map
Is a cabin the same as a cottage? or is it that a cottage is when it's more in town and a cabin is more rustic and out in the middle of nowhere? This so-called cottage is in sprawling downtown Todd, NC..population 12 (just kidding I have no idea of the population but it's Tiny Elvis to say the least)


Our day of fun started with a mini hike on the Blue Ridge Parkway. It wasn't a crazy strenuous hike, just something to get the blood flowin

and how lame are we...all 3 wearing socks with our Keen sandals?

Group shot as we convened with nature L-R: Carrie, Eileen and me

Rebel without a clue

Now that we were all warmed up we headed off to our Day O' Fun destination.

Game plan: Kayaking! Now I've never kayaked in my life but how hard could it be right? I mean I've done the whole white water rafting thing at the US National Whitewater Center , so this should be a piece of cake, and Carrie assured me that river was pretty low, thus there'd be nothing to worry about. So ensconced firmly in my life vest, we set out for a (start Gilligans Island theme now) 3 hour tour down the river. Now I'm not one to break rules or anything (see picture above of rebel on the wall) but rule number one of kayaking: Only lame-o's wear a life vest on a river barely 3 feet deep. Literally with the drought and such, the river was really low. So I ditched the life vest and went about trying to balance myself in the kayak while paddling. I spent the first hour or so running into rocks and for some reason spending alot of time going backwards down the river, much to my companion's amusement!!!! I firmly believe that I got the trick kayak with a rock magnet on the front!
Once I got the hang of the whole thing though it was really fun. Don't I look sporty?

Oh no RAPIDS!

Ok, I know what you're thinking...those are rapids? Well, no not exactly but under that small waterfall are rocks and the chances of getting stuck on them and then having to scooch yourself off is great! As seen here when Eileen teetered on the brink of a small Niagara Falls wanna be

Sometimes though you just get fed up and decide to get out and pull the boat off the rocks. I call this shot "Eileen walks on water"

Personally I never got out and walked as I was bound and determined that I would navigate that river come hell or low water, as the case may be, and of course my arms are paying for it the next day ;-)

Shades of my childhood, as we went down the river, all along the banks were what I fondly call "poppers" I have no idea what the real name of this plant is but growing up they were all over my Granny M's yard. You can squeeze the pod, or sometimes even with the slightest touch, it would burst and out would come seeds and a curly little green leaf thingy. Basically it's a plant with orange flowers that look like small orchids and in amongst the flowers are pods, much like a green bean but only 1 inch in length or so and the fatter the better. The fatter the pod is, the better the 'POP' It doesn't really make a sound but it does fly out like one of those "snakes in a can" tricks. Carrie and Eileen had never heard of this plant so it was great fun watching them jump when the pod burst. If anyone knows what this plant is called lemmino!

what's in the pod
Carrie, I squeeze you like a popper

We spent the night in the cottage in Todd and got up the next day and before leaving town we headed back to the infamous blueberry patch because quite literally it's maybe 2 miles from the cottage! How convenient! In 2 hours time with the 3 of us we picked another 5 gallon bucket and because I already had a freezer full of berries and Eileen doesn't like blueberries (how unAmerican is that? However she is British so we'll forgive her this one time) Carrie was the winner of the day's pickins! and since she drove and let us have access to the cabin I thought it was more than a fair payment. ;-) There's still alot of berries to be had even though its technically the end of the season. If the patch were closer I'd be there everyday but alas one can't be greedy and there's always next year, right?

Life comes at you fast...

Today I found out that a dear friend of mine from Atlanta is in the hospital with, in layman's terms, a ruptured brain aneurysm. She had surgery and is stable from what I've heard, but it's times like this .... that proverbial wedgie from the big guy.......well, it sucks basically....... sucks! sucks! sucks! Why her? Doesn't she have enough on her plate what with a new baby and all? Why not me instead? I'm single with no one to account for. I don't have anyone depending on me....

Argh
I just hate that she's going through this and I'm helpless to do anything but pray.......The power of prayer, I know it works, I've seen it work, it just feels like not enough when something like this happens but it's all I have, which is better than nothing.....right?...so even though you might not know her, please say a little prayer for my friend, Chris, that she recovers and can get back to being Mommy to her little girls....thanks

Busy as a Bzzzzz Bee

Here's a snapshot of my so-called life for the next month

Tomorrow: Fly to Philly for the day for a high school site survey

8/9-10 Weekend in the mountains with the girlfriends - and the last of the blueberry pickin

8/11 BFE Arkansas for yet another high school site survey

8/14-8/21 Oregonian vacation (blogs should be entertaining during this time period!)

8/29-9/1 Orlando - Football officially starts

9/1-9/4 Long Beach, CA more football

and I wonder why I'm still single LOL

So yes, even though there's vacation planned in there, I'm absoutely swamped trying to get 2 games back to back planned on different coasts! Calgon take me away!

The stress officially begins NOW! For I am STILL at work, sending emails and trying to get my day planned for tomorrow. (I'm also eating some "Groovy" MikeSells potato chips that my friend, Campy, who lives in Cincy brought me. Mike Sells is indigenious to Ohio my home state...although I'm more partial to Conn's potato chips from Zanesville, OH. If you're really lucky and can find them, they (Mike Sells') also come chocolate covered Trust me, they are yummy, it's the whole salty sweet thing!)


The only good part about tomorrow is I was upgraded on the trip up so it'll be another bloody mary morning! (Thanks US AIR!) I think I'll need to fortify myself as high school venues just are not TV friendly and maybe if I view it through a purple haze, it'll look like an NFL venue HA!

ETK: wish I was in Philly for more than one short day and we could finally meet. Maybe in October if you are still there??

The Man Burns in 27 days!

A little background music for this entry (obviously it's better if you have high speed)

And if you care to sing along:

Hey are you going to burning man bury your toes in the desert sand.
Aint no man forth gonna tell you how to be..
Come on down with me to burning man. I got a recipe for cosmic flan.
Strip off your clothes and set your aura free.
There's a place I know called Black Rock City where we're about to get down to the nitty gritty. We're all children of the stars above searching for answers and feasting on... Love!

Hey are ya going to burning man? I got a big ol slab of veggie ham.
Come to camp Disorient and bring some soy cheese.
Free thinking people at burning man, Amazing Larry's got the master plan.
It's all about just letting myself be me. There's a gal I know called Moon Stone Annie she blows flames right out her fanny. You ought'a see her walking on the tight wire, juggling bananas while her hair is on fire.

(Guitar Solo.......Piano Solo)

Come on down with me to burning man.
It's a fabulous place.
A Fabulous Land.
oooh yeah
Art love love and art art for love.
It's all about just letting myself be me.

Hey are going to burning man (Chant 7x's)

(Band jam session )

Hey are you going to burning man?

It's August and that means my most favorite thing/event/experience is about to take place. Burning Man! Most of you know my addiction to this event but for those new readers, here's the back story. My friend, Steve, regularly attends BM and when I was getting to know him, he said "You really need to attend , I think you'll "get it"" So back in 2004, I attended my first Burn and "get it" I did. It's hard to explain BM if you've never attended because it's different things to different people. In a nutshell it's basically a Woodstock for art projects that takes place on a dry lake bed 70 miles north of Reno, Nevada. To those who attend though, it's so much more. It can be sex, drugs and rock & roll if that's what you're into, or it can be a life changing, affirming, spirit cleansing, inspirational experience which is what I get out of it.

You're basically smack dab in the middle of nowhere. No cell service, no Internet access. Nada. Nearest town has a general store and that's it, so you must bring everything with you and whatever you bring in you need to take out as well. Leave No Trace! The event organizers do provide porta potties and you can buy ice but that's it. So if you run out of food, water etc. you better be asking your neighbor in the next tent over if they have any they can share. But that's the beautiful part of BM. People share and share freely without wanting anything in return. Be it food, water, a cocktail, clothing, or even poetry as I discovered one morning as a naked man walked up to our camp and proceeded to recite a little Shel Silverstein as we had our breakfast.

Yes, there is nudity and it's your prerogative whether you wish to expose yourself or not. Granted some folks probably shouldn't choose this option but it's not at all shocking to me, in fact it feels quite natural to see "nekkid" folks as well as folks dressed in whatever floats their boat that day. You want to wear a wedding dress, spray your body green, put on a bunny suit...go for it! The creativity that flows throughout BM is amazing. Inspiring. There is so much hitting one's senses that it can be overwhelming. I don't do drugs and I think if I did, BM would be what I would be seeing through my purple haze, as it were.

Back in 2004 on my inaugural journey, I found BM to be life changing. I met some amazing people whom I now count as some of my dearest friends and as I left the desert, I had an urge to simplify my life and to try to be a better person. Without work/life responsibilities, and the endless media barrage that we are faced with in our everyday world, I found that BM brought life's existence down to a very basic core. Food, Shelter and the fellowship of your 45,000 neighbors. There's no prejudice, no violence, no politics etc at BM. It's a utopia and for one week out of the year it's life at it's most perfect. At least that's how I feel about it.

Regretfully I won't be attending this year's event. I've attended '04, '05 and '07 and decided to take this year off, mostly because back when tickets went on sale I didn't know whether I would be donating a kidney or not. (another story for another time) So instead, I've decide that everyday till the man burns, I'll share a picture from my previous experiences.

Oh and that's another great thing about BM, like flora and fauna, you CANNOT take a bad picture there.

So since it's now Aug 3. I am attaching 3 pics to catch up!

This first one is a view of BM taken on the drive in from the main road. BM is off in the distance. Told you it was a desert!
The Cheshire Cat art car. One of my favorites, especially at night when his grin glows. I don't know who the girl is but she's a good example of being able to express yourself any way the heck you want!


If you are still interested in learning more about BM. CBS Sunday Morning did a great package on it last September and my friend Steve's grasshopper art car made it into the video as well as Eddie G and his "I'm Mr. Green Christmas" flame wig with the Burning Man Queen.

Raise the Roof!

The roofing elves paid me a visit this past week...or more correctly I paid them. ;-)

The house had the original roof on it from 1989 and although it wasn't leaking (that I know of), I would find small bits of shingle in the yard, the granules were worn away on many parts of the roof and it had those lovely acid rain stains on it. HOWEVER, the real catalyst for me doing this was the stupid squirrels who thought it would be fun to try and claw their way into my attic.

Seeing how it's a 2 story house and I only own an 8ft ladder, I didn't exactly have the option of trying to fix it myself. Plus, as readers of this blog know, I have an aversion to sudden drops ;-)

So here's BEFORE

and AFTER

It's like a brand new house! I love it! Regretfully some of the foliage took a beating but they should bounce back in due time