Thursday

Now playing on XM radio, Billy Currington, "Pretty Good At Drinkin' Beer"

This is my second silverpoint drawing. It's unfinished, but I don't know what to do with it for sure. There's no foreground. And maybe the trees need a couple of little birds in the branches, or maybe a couple of leaves?

I have a new drawing started. I put some sepia watercolor in with the gesso to treat the paper and am beginning a drawing of two pine cones on toned paper. The "old boys" used to draw on toned paper and use white ink or chalk for highlights.

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Art group was fun yesterday, as always. Not very many of us were there, though.

Barrie took the dead laptop to Rendezvous Pointe for Mike yesterday. Mike said it sounds like the hard drive. Do other people go through computers like I do? Barrie is using the older HP laptop right now. It will get on the internet. It won't let me install Internet Explorer, and it heats up and will turn itself off.

I said I was going to read some Shakespeare, and have started "Julius Caesar". At least I am a little familiar with the story, so I might not get lost entirely

"What meanest thou by that?" ( from page 4). I mean I'm probably not smart enough to read it.

Tuesday

Now playing on XM, Toby Keith "Bullets in the Gun."


Not much happens around here, and when it does, I probably won't even see it. Yesterday, Chuck was up here plowing our driveway. I didn't even know he was here, until he came in the house. He got stuck. Barrie wasn't here, and my pickup was gone. (She was at work.) But she had left her keys in her truck, so he unhitched the trailer, went home to get his tow rope, and pulled his little truck out.

The HP laptop Barrie uses has cratered. It won't start up - gets stuck on the "Repairing Startup" screen, and will sit there an hour. Not good. I'm not real sure, but I think I registered it in February of 2010, so the warranty is probably up on the damned thing.

Monday

Now playing on my iPod, Willie Nelson "Whiskey River."

Frosty cottonwood near Boulder.

Last tee shirt for a while, I promise.

Brrr

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Jeez, I hate to criticize, dear Town of Pinedale. It's commendable that your employees are out at 4:00 AM plowing the streets. I wouldn't complain for the world. But I HATE it when they are plowing the street in front of my house in the wee hours of morning and they put that damned plow in reverse and it goes "beep, beep, beep".

Saturday

Were you aware of the fact that gummy bears practice voodoo? This picture is proof.

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I have cancelled my subscription to Newsweek on my Kindle. I think I tried reading it for three weeks. Guess I'll just stick to reading the news I get on my computer.

I have read some really trashy novels on my Kindle lately. Hey, they were free! Another free book I got was "The Sayings of Confucius", and started reading it today.

"The Master said, The men of old were loth to speak, for not
to have lived up their words would have shamed them."

This must be where the saying came from "It's better to keep your mouth shut and let people think you're a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt."

Friday

Now playing on my iPod, Paul Simon, "Late in the Evening". I love his music, especially the ones on his album "Graceland", which was recorded in South Africa, using South African singers and musicians.

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Don't know what happened to my blog yesterday. I guess I just lost the day. All I can figure is I got involved in a new book.

Judi's pictures the other day reminded me of this shot I took of the Grand Canyon from 38,000 feet. That was my first passenger jet flight, and I loved it.

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In London, a specialist ice cream parlor is serving up ice cream made from breast milk. The concoction will be called "Baby Gaga".

I don't know what else is in the news today. I quit reading after I read the above article. I read the Calvin cartoon of the day instead.

Wednesday

I am finished with the silverpoint drawing. It's really a practice piece, to see the different effects of hatching, crosshatching, scrumbling, darks and lights, etc. I'm not sure I learned that much. Then I spelled my last name wrong when I signed it.
I'm starting a drawing of quakie trees next.

The silver will tarnish more quickly if the picture is put in sunlight, so I laid it on top of the box in the south window. This picture shows how the silver reflects the sunlight.

It was so great to get back to art group this morning. We had quite a crowd. Judi has left to visit her daughter and family.

Conley has been hanging out with Betty again, and he brought muffins. (Betty Crocker). Lenore is going to leaving soon to visit her daughter in CO, then to Florida.

And Pam is going to be gone again.

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Watched a movie yesterday, a rental from Amazon. I have heard of "Last Tango in Paris" for years, so yesterday I watched it. (gag, gag.) I'm not bothered by sex and bad language in movies, but this one was over the edge. Marlon Brandon stars in it. I guess I never did like Marlon Brando much to start with, and like him even less now.

Tuesday

Kasey came in all excited last night to tell me she heard an owl. They went back outside to listen some more, and I heard Barrie say as they went out the door, "No, I told you owls don't eat people."

I opened my window to listen to the owl, and took this picture of Barrie and KC out in the yard.



Have you ever seen a three year old try to put on a new roll of toilet paper? Very interesting process.

We know for sure spring is coming. Just heard on the radio that baseball players have reported to their spring training camps.

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No amount of planning will ever replace dumb luck.

Sunday - new snow

I read a very misleading headline on the computer this morning. It said the National Christmas Tree blew down. Of course I thought it was the tree from Wyoming. But when I read the article, it was a spruce tree that had been planted and had been growing there for years.

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Two more tee shirt designs

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Judi asked what the secret is to copy and paste things into blogs. Well, the trick is, you have to use Mozilla Firefox. I hadn't installed it on this computer yet, but I did yesterday. I have no idea why IE won't allow pasting into blogs. And Firefox won't allow you to place text above your graphics. So I make part of the blog using IE, save it, and complete it with Firefox. Weird, huh?

Blogspot doesn't play well with web browsers.

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We are a living in dumbed-down time when we spend more to entertain our kids than educate them.

Saturday

I apologize, but I happened upon another website with printed teeshirts. I love the sense of humor of the people who design these shirts. So I am posting a couple.

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I know I mentioned that I was less than impessed with the lady who sang The Star Spangled Banner at the Super Bowl. My friend Charm sent me the following editorial someone wrote about it. This is great. Thanks for sharing it, Charm.

Editorial

So, with all the kindness I can muster, I give this one piece of advice to the next pop star who is asked to sing our national anthem at a sporting event: save the vocal gymnastics and the physical gyrations for your concerts. Just sing this song the way you were taught to sing it in kindergarten: straight up, no styling. Sing it with the constant awareness that there are soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines watching you from bases and outposts all over the world. Don't make them cringe with your self-centered ego gratification.

Sing it as if you are standing before a row of 86 year old WWII vets wearing their Purple Hearts, Silver Stars and flag pins on their cardigans and you want them to be proud of you for honoring them and the country they love, not because you want them to think you are a superstar musician. They could see that from the costumes, the makeup and the entourages.
Sing the "Star Spangled Banner" with the courtesy and humility that tells the audience that it is about America, not you.

Now playing on my iPod Toby Keith "I Love This Bar"

Stupid things I am doing with my Kindle:

• Subscribed to Newsweek Magazine
• Dowloaded some Shakespeare plays

Took a college class years ago called Current Events. We had to subscribe to the Time Magazine, read it every week, and pass a test on it. I hated the class, so why would I subscribe to Newsweek?

Shakespeare? I don't know. Most of them were free. But there is a site on the Internet where you can read all his work, and there is even a short report in plain English so you understand what the play is about.