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Art Fair!

We spent most of Saturday wandering around the capital building at Madison's Art Fair on the Square. It was a successful outing and Matt and I even made a few purchases … the print you see to the left, another one from that artist and some photographs from this artist who makes cool animal figurines and photographs them.

There was a hugely impressive showing at the fair and tons of stuff we would have bought if money had been no object. Keith Grace makes gorgeous mixed media collage/paintings that I just loved. Andy Van Schyndle (no website, sorry!) made the coolest paintings that (to me, anyhow) made a painting of the movie Big Fish. Sort of dark, with trees, whimsical, so gorgeous. Ahh … but if I had the $$. Larry Stephenson does amazing paintings of toys and comics and they're way more amazing in person than on his site. I also loved Robin Renee Hix's work. She takes black and white photographs and transforms them into brilliantly colored oil paintings. They feature lively tropical locations and put you in the mind of boat drinks and sun tan lotion. Ahhhh… More pictures in the normal spot.

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All About Summerfest


I like this picture becaus it's sort of the essence of Summerfest: all sorts of different people coming together to listen to music and drink beer. If you've never been to Summerfest, it's hard to imagine just what it's like. I wasn't expecting anything too big, but Summerfest is HUGE. The stages aren't temporary either … they're permanent. In fact, the whole festival grounds seemed to be permanent structures, sort of like an amusement park. There were rides as well and tons of food stalls. Every genre of food (practically) was represented, including the WI favorite, beer-battered cheese curds. Corporate America was also well-represented. They pitched tents and let the masses try out their new stuff. Matt and I got our pictures taken with cool props (and then promptly printed) at the HP tent. We got to try out the new N-Gage (that video game cellphone thingy) and watched a very very drunk dude do Karaoke at the SoBe tent (I think he got a bottle of SoBe for his trouble). Of course, seeing that there was beer-aplenty, there were tons of the funny drunk folk. Matt wore his Pacman t'shirt and attracted lots of attention … drunk girls and guys were very into the t'shirt. Hilarious.

Of course, the music is the real draw. There are about a dozen stages (all of varying sizes and layouts) scattered throughout the grounds … with live music or other acts ALL day. We looked through their lineup and Matt and I could have easily seen a band every single day that we like… just a few that were playing THIS weekend (this thing goes on for 2 weeks): Guster, Sister Hazel, Matt Nathanson, Fountains of Wayne, Kenney Chesney (with Uncle Kracker! haha), Leann Rimes, Boo Radley, Kid Rock (not that I care, per se), Ben Folds and Live. We got to see Matt Nathanson, Sister Hazel and a few other bands as we walked through the grounds. And we got to sit out by Lake Michigan and eat some truly greasy food.

I highly recommend this festival!!

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Fab Weekend

We had an absolutely fab weekend (as the title indicates). We saw Simon and Garfunkel on Friday night, which was … amazing They're truly musicians and they put on a great show. Tons of different instruments and musicians. I don't think Paul Simon played the same guitar twice … they played all of our faves … and it was just amazing. I sat in awe of their genius the entire time. They had cool photo/video montages too … one at the beginning of the concert, featuring their history/friendship and one right before they did Mrs. Robinson, featuring scenes from The Graduate. Superb!! Catch them if you can.

Saturday we went to the Milwaukee Public Museum and caught their Egypt exhibit. We're both big into antiquities/anthropology, so it was neat to see it. Unfortunately, they concentrated mostly on their spiritual life, which was of lesser interest to us, but it was still a neat exhibit.

Then in the evening, we headed to Summerfest … more about that later.

We brought the puppy with us and she got to stay in the hotel room quite a bit (we figured it was prolly better than a kennel, esp. since she sleeps all day…) but she didn't like the idea too much. She freaked when it was time for us to leave her behind and even when we came back, she had a hard time settling down. I know she's glad to be home.

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More from Music City

Sunday was one of those annoying days when we woke up too early and couldn't get back to sleep (sunlight … grrrr), so we got up and did all that sorta morning routine stuff and took off. We went to Opry Mills, which is this shopping mall on steriods and has some of the most bizarre stores ever. They do, however, have some good outlet sorta stores and a HUGE Old Navy, where we got ourselves some clothes and a new set of accessories for the puppy. It's a cute leash/collar set with the red/blue star thing going on. We also got drinks at Aquarium. It's owned by the same people that own Rainforest Cafe, and it's almost identical in style, layout, etc. Even the menus share a lot of items. It was really neat though because it was very blue and soothing and calm and pretty. Lots of very neat fish too that Matt told me all the names of and I promptly forgot. Continue reading “More from Music City”

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Home Again, Home Again!

Well, we're back. And we had a very nice trip to Nashivlle. There's too much to recount in one post, so I'll spread it out a bit.

Before we even got out of town though, we got into a traffic jam because there was “road debris.” The road debris turned out to be dirt that a dump truck had dumped all over the place. The driver and the police officer that was helping him out were standing on the side of the road wiping off their hands with paper towels. And Matt started laughing and said, “It looks like they're going to try to clean up that whole mess with a roll of paper towels.” Heheheh.

The rest of our trip to Nashville was largely uneventful. We grabbed this cool thing from Radio Shack so we could use the laptop and listen to MP3s and watch DVDs (well only the co-pilot could watch, but whatever) on the way down. That was pretty neat.

After we got into Nashville, we went to dinner with Matt's mom and his brother and sister. It had been a long time and we had a very nice dinner and caught up.

After dinner, we gave Theresa her graduation gift and Andrew his belated birthday gift. We got Theresa a t'shirt that says “Gettin' Lucky in Kentucky” since she'll be going to Western Kentucky University and I made her a black ID holder with lime-green details out of duct tape (I'll post instructions soon). We got Andrew a deck of Playboy playing cards. They're a dorm sorta thing, I guess. Continue reading “Home Again, Home Again!”

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Viva La France!

Well the France Album is finally done. It's taken me plenty of hours, but it's done (though I may add one or two things still). There are TONS of photos. Enjoy!

Sort of a normal/boring day, really. We had yummy Chin's sesame chicken for dinner. That stuff is seriously good. I really should try some more of their stuff, but the sesame chicken is so good and I hate getting something that sucks, esp. if you're getting take-out. That's one reason I like Noodles & Co. so much. If you try something and you don't like it, they'll replace it for you for free.

Mean Girls comes out tomorrow which I'm really excited to see and I was reminded today that Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban comes out in like a month! Anyhow, I want to go see that and there's plenty of work to do. The paper version of the France album has got to be put together and I've got some other little things I'm working on.

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This 'n' That

The photos came from Yahoo! I am pretty impressed with their speed and quality. So all's well that ends well. Matt and I will be working on an album for them this weekend.

The online France album is almost done, but I'm missing a bit of narrative, because I don't remember some sequences of events and the name of this one town we stopped in. I should have written it down! So I'm hoping my sister can fill me in.

Idol last night sucked. None of them did Gloria Estefan's songs justice. But I liked Latoya the best so I voted for her. It was a real pain to vote. I couldn't get thru 'til like 40 minutes afterwards. Luckily real voting is easier. Just a nice 'lil absentee ballot to fill in. Except this year I may not vote at all. I don't like any of the candidates. When did the world get so wonky? Can I write in Jon Stewart? He amuses me.

Ah. Back to working.

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This is Not a Paid Advertisement

But if Saucony wants to give me some money, I won't complain. Anyhow, so before we went to France, I decided to purchase a pair of casual sneakers. I have a really cute pair, actually … they're lime green Roos, but they tend to show dirt, so I wanted some darker ones to traipse around France in.

So I bought a pair of Saucony shoes. They're their “classic” or “retro” style and they're black. They're very cute … but way better than that even, is how comfy they are. I wore them day in and day out for 10 days. We walked lots … in cities, in crazy hill side towns, in caves, on cobbled streets, rocky dirt roads … everywhere … and my feet never hurt. These things get an A+++ for comfort.

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Oooh! Pictures!

Well, I've finished downloading the pictures from France. Just our pictures count 544. Kelly has more. I'll find a different way to put these up on the site … there's going to be just too many. Right is just a tiny sample of the pictures we took.

We had such a great time in France. We saw amazing things, beautiful things, weird things, ate great food, saw amazing art, and really really enjoyed ourselves.

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And We're Off!

We're off today on a whirlwind tour of France. We'll spend a couple days in Paris and then tour the countryside … and umm… drink wine and stuff.

We've got tons of cool stuff planned and I'm planning to take lots of pictures. Ooh! That reminds me … I'd better stick Gugu in my backpack. He cannot be left behind!!

Of course, we're really looking forward to the trip. My French is miserable and Matt's is non-existant, but hopefully with the aid of a guide book and the sorta-French-speakin' little sister, we'll be AOK. Plus, I do know how to say, “I don't speak French. Do you speak English?”

Ugly Americans, party of 3.