Chicks Dig Mustaches

The longest I have ever gone without shaving is one month. Last month to be exact.

beardAll that hair growing took some serious effort, so I wasn’t about to just shave it all off without a second thought. I used the age-old technique of shaving-in-bizarre-facial-hair-stages.
click to see the silly animation

I was particularly pleased with this combination handle-bar mustache and soul-patch.mustache

I turned to Adrienne, “What would it be like if I kept this mustache?!” Adrienne quickly replied, “I think it would be a lot like celibacy.”

The mustache is gone.


Popcorn Alarm

sheetThe alarm is on the dresser, which is as far from the bed as is possible, so that I will have to get up and out of bed to turn it off. This is to keep me from snoozing the alarm and going back to bed. It does not work in the slightest.

This morning was a little different. It wasn’t the walk across the room in cold morning air that kept me from climbing back into bed. It was the plate of popcorn.

Adrienne bought new sheets. Apparently the flower pattern turns into a plate of popcorn pattern at 6:30 am (I wonder if they advertise that feature). I couldn’t climb back into bed because I knew I would knock over the popcorn. It is important to note that I did not find it strange to have a plate of popcorn in my bed. I was just very concerned about spilling it. So I went and took a shower instead.

God of Thunder

Last night as we were getting Reese (not quite two-years-old) ready for bed a thunderstorm rolled in. Lightning flashed and thunder shook the windows. Reese got excited and wanted to go outside. I decided we should drive up a hill that overlooks the valley and watch the lightning.

As we drove, and the thunder boomed, Reese was shouting from the back seat, “Oh my gosh! Oh my gosh Daddy, thunder! Thunder Daddy!” He made me excited about it too. As we drove up the hill he shrieked, “Daddy, thunder, again! Again, 1, 2, 3..again daddy!”

So I played along, “OK Reese, here we go, 1,2,3 [sometimes up to 10]”. BOOM!

“Oh my gosh Daddy! Again!”

So here’s my question: If the kid thinks that I control the weather, why doesn’t he always listen to me!?“


PS–If you try to take a picture of lightning, even if you are smart and use 15 second exposures, you will end up so frustrated that you will want to throw your camera off the hill. You will find that after taking a couple dozen photos, only ONE will even have lightning in it. That photo may look like this:
lightning

Rilo Kiley at Kilby Court

Kilby Court PhotoTaken By Duane CallRilo Kiley photo

M. Ward opened for Rilo Kiley. We actually had a baby sitter, so it was the first show Adrienne and I both went to in a long time.

I came to see Rilo Kiley but ended up transfixed by M. ward. A smallish 20-something with a baseball cap pulled low, he played the guitar like he had sold his soul, and he sang like he was channeling a chain-smoking Louis Armstrong. He is a one-man musical time-machine. I bought his album, Transfiguration of Vincent, and have just been looping it over and over and over.

It wasn’t that long ago that I saw Rilo Kiley at Kilby and there were only about 20 of us there, and it was probably the best show I have ever been to. This time the place was packed and the set list wasn’t exactly what I would have chosen, but it was still a great show. I have to say though, the couple of songs they played with M. Ward were actually some of my favorites of the night.

The only real negative to the show–I managed to stand directly in front of a speaker hanging from the ceiling. Being 6’6“, the sound actually went directly through my head, was amplified by my skull, and then went out to the rest of the crowd.

The Grass *Is* Greener

Reesie and Daddy mowing lawn

Summer seems to have arrived.

My little boy watches out the window as I mow the lawn yelling, “Daddy, Daddy, non newew!”(that somehow means lawnmower).

So we bought him a toy lawnmower. When I got back from work we “mowed the lawn” (My lawnmower was off, so no parenting advice thanks).

Adrienne and I took some photos and I used the “Dooce/Blurbomat Method” to make them ‘dreamy'(as in dream-like, not 1950’s girl-talk for cool).

I am normally a little uncomfortable manipulating photos in Photoshop in ways I couldn’t do in the darkroom. I guess I worry that it is somehow “cheating”.

This arbitrary line really only leaves me dodging, burning, cropping (I almost never crop for some reason), and upping the saturation a little bit. Since I can’t defend this former photographic position in any way I am going to get a little more experimental I think.

If you know how to do this in the darkroom please tell me.

Reesie and Daddy mowing lawn

Look Away, I Am Hideous

One of the secrets of good photography is to take a ton of pictures and only show your best.

In a daring experiment, I have taken very very few photos, and now I am going to show almost all of them to you. My theory is that this will enable you to think of me as a terrible photographer and imbue me with a healthy sense of shame.

I apologize to the city of Chicago.

Update: I took down the old galleries when I changed the site and now you will just see a few of these photos on flickr

Wandering Salt Lake

$25,000Duane and I wandered Salt Lake and saw his brother-in-law play drums at the speed of light. I took a few photos, many of which feature my head quite prominently.

Update: I took down the old galleries on amishrobot and now I have just a few of these photos on flickr. Luckily for you there are less photos of me

4.5

Got back from Denver on Sunday. John and I went to see Joe’s opening at the Cordell Taylor Gallery. The show was called 4.5

It was amazing! Joe’s art blew me away and there were tons of people there. You can see some photos that don’t do the show justice here.

Alpine Loop

This morning my brother John and I decided that we should put off working for the man for a couple hours, so we drove up the Alpine Loop at 8am and took some photos.

More pics in the just uploaded Alpine Loop gallery