Adios 2008. We Barely Knew Ya'...

We're right on the cusp of a brand new year. We all have the opportunity to start fresh with idealistic resolutions...only to succumb to the human condition and squander the clean slate that's been offered.


What New Year's resolutions will you break on January 2nd?

These statements may paint me as a pessimist. I assure you that is not the case. More on that later.

Hello 2009!

Time to party...

Holiday Afterglow

Christmas 2008 is in the books and our sights are now set upon New Year's Eve. 2009 is on its way.

Really? 2009 already? When the future becomes the present...it's kind of disappointing. I can't imagine how I'll feel when 2015 rolls around and I'm not the proud owner of a flying car.



That's what I get for using Back to the Future Part II as a guide for things to come.

Do you have big plans for New Year's Eve? There's always the option of getting stupid drunk and (sadly) passing out before the ball drops. I will be avoiding this course of action. Having a VERY pregnant wife, I must behave myself. With my luck, I'll have one too many and THEN she'll go into labor.

Painting the Nursery

Our first child, a girl, is due in a matter of weeks. Painting the nursery has been my project these days. Last weekend, I primed it after meticulously laying plastic sheeting on the floor and over the windows. Tom Ridge would be proud.

This weekend, the actual painting took place. I did the ceiling yesterday and the walls today. I wasn't sure about the color. It's called Golden Butter...which is some variation on yellow. When I opened the can of paint, I thought for sure there was some sort of mistake. How did I get a can of melted Velveeta? I swear, that's what it looked like.

I needed confirmation from the foreman (my wife) that it was, in fact, okay to start applying this stuff to the walls. I got the thumbs up and was off like a herd of turtles.

Even after I had started painting I needed extra confirmation that what I was doing was not 'wrong.' She said it looked good, so I kept going.

I thought it would look like the inside of a wheel of cheddar when I was done. I was pleasantly surprised to find that it actually looks good! I can't stand painting, yet I'm somewhat talented at it. This is my burden.

Pics to follow. The camera is downstairs...and I'm far too lazy right now to retrieve it.

Holy Hot Cocoa, Batman!

Crap it's cold. I mean...damn cold. That's pretty much the reason I'm sitting here with a winder hat pulled over my ears...indoors. I went outside to try to remove the log that was wedged in my fence door (see previous post). I wore a hat, I swear!

Buuuut...it didn't exactly cover all parts of my ears. So now, I'm sitting indoors trying to warm them with the intent of staving off frostbite on my ear lobes.

I'm more than a little freaked about about this. One one hand, I wasn't out there that long...a matter of minutes. On the other, the wind chill is -23 degrees Fahrenheit. It doesn't take long.

Ice Ice Baby

So far the Icepocolypse hasn't been as bad as predicted...but try telling that to my poor pine tree that's lost around 10 medium to large limbs. The thing is all but decimated. It took a clobbering in the big ice storm of 2 years ago, and it looks like Mama Nature returned to finish the job.

Click on the photos to view larger versions.

An Introduction

An Extra Voice is the name of my audio production company. The only problem with that is...it doesn't yet exist. It will, though...in the very near future.

It's long been a dream of mine to have my own in-home audio production studio. You see, I used to be in radio. There is a quote, often attributed to the father of Gonzo Journalism Hunter S. Thompson, that goes as follows:

"The radio business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side."

Whether or not Mr. Thompson actually spoke these words isn't important. What is important is that radio is far too volatile an industry on which to pin your hopes and dreams. It's fun...but fun doesn't feed the family. So, in short, I got out. In the words of my father, I "got a real job." Gainful employment has afforded me the ability to support my various expensive habits...namely photography and computers. Soon I'll be adding audio production to that list. Hopefully freelance audio work will turn into, dare I say it, a venture that produces some profit.

I also have friends out there in the blogosphere and podosphere (and probably other 'spheres') that I would love to assist with their creative projects. Perhaps more on that later.

For now, I've established my own little corner of the web. This blog will serve as my own personal forum. Most days, it will probably be a one-way conversation. But if a topic that I cover is of interest to you, please feel free to comment. I'd like to know that I'm not just talking to myself.

So, here I am...just another player in the ever expanding cacophony that is blogging on the internet.