Sunday, June 28, 2009

Friday, June 26, 2009

Free delivery!


One of our favorite restaurants, Ma Jong's, is using these tri-shaws for delivering food to the neighborhood offices.

Thursday, June 25, 2009

Fancy brickwork


My customer's father built this house twenty years ago. There's amazing brickwork all over the inside and outside, including this arch.

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Sunday, June 21, 2009

Oscar-winning card


Rachel is visiting for a few days and she and Pat Burns (our gay son!) have been doing Katherine Hepburn as channelled by Cate Blanchett in The Aviator. After a while, every sentence ends with "...Howard [Hughes]". It made me think of a new way to enjoy fortune cookies: read the fortune as Blanchett/Hepburn, adding "...Howard." at the end.
"That should be a website!" said Pat.

Saturday, June 20, 2009

George Bruno at Henschel Park


I played with George Bruno at Henschel Park in front of 1,000 people! The wind kept blowing our music around but it was a lot of fun. The great Melissa Collard sang and John Doolittle played sax. "It's not a show unless Doolittle plays."

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Monday, June 15, 2009

Green concert


On Sundays they have free concerts in front of the OSF theatres. They used to be Elizabethan, but now they are everything. This band played blues. We cheered hard for the piano solos.

Birds in wreath, continued


they laid eggs!

Saturday, June 13, 2009

Lithia water


Ashland has long been famous for its Lithia water, which contains magnesium sulfate. It has a salty, hard-boiled egg taste that some find revolting. But it may be good for your sore muscles. You can drink it directly from these fountains in the tiny town square.

Food camp


This is an illustration for a piece in the News & Review about food-related summer camps. I love hand-drawn maps. When I was in high school I made a map of Middle-Earth for Tim Cornell. The last time I visited his house he still had it on the wall though the ink had faded to brown.
While I was drawing this I was listening to a podcast where Elvis Mitchell was interviewing the director of Land of the Lost, and now as often happens I think of that when I look at the picture.

Another road trip


It took us a little over five hours to drive to Ashland for the Shakespeare Festival. It seems that most of our lives is just off of I-5. Driving north is much more pleasant than south; Mount Shasta was particularly beautiful covered with ice and the top lost in the clouds. Along the way we stopped at In-N-Out Burger as we often do on long drives. We saw the sign on the freeway but when we got off we weren't sure exactly where it was. We never would have found it except for the GPS and its little British woman's voice. Jennifer has often been annoyed at her but now was grateful.
In the picture you can see a young woman slicing potatoes in a scary machine. We had just been talking about how Rahm Emanuel lost a finger working at an Arby's; if he had been using this potato machine he might have lost his whole hand.
That night we met the Crawfords in an Italian restaurant and then saw Henry VIII at the Elizabethan theatre. It rained; fortunately, we were under the balcony. I felt really sorry for the actors getting cold and wet. And not a very good play, either!

Thursday, June 11, 2009

Determined bird


Last year, you may remember, a bird built a nest atop our front door's holiday wreath and even laid three eggs, which never hatched. This year, another nest appeared. We decided to discourage the bird by taking the nest out (I put it inside the orange tree, hoping a bird would use it there). A day later, the bird had built another nest in the same spot (shown above).

Tuesday, June 09, 2009

Friday, June 05, 2009

Jon's trip to Europe


My brother Jon recently went to Europe with his French girlfriend (see above). You can see all his photos here.

Thursday, June 04, 2009

Saw UP tonight


Another masterpiece from Pixar. Among other things, this is the first cartoon I've ever seen where the dogs act like real dogs.

Wednesday, June 03, 2009

Tuesday, June 02, 2009

My true love


Joan, the manager of Espresso Metro, was cleaning out her closet and gave me a choice of a Pep Boys or an E.M. T-shirt. Easy choice!

Monday, June 01, 2009

Night at the art museum


Last night we went to see Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian. The most fun, for me, was seeing famous artworks come to life, like "The Thinker," above. The actors also briefly go inside the famous Eisenstadt photo of a sailor kissing a nurse in Times Square. Also featured: a Jeff Koons shiny balloon animal, a Lichtenstein woman, a Jackson Pollack, "American Gothic," "Nighthawks at the Diner," and others.