Turtle 1

Turtle 1, originally uploaded by pr9000.

Last night, a turtle – looking a lot like the one pictured above, but really, it's hard to tell turtles apart – made its way into our garage. I only realized this because that little voice in the back of my head said "Go put your shoes on out in the garage" ... if I hadn't done that, I would have missed Mr. Turtle, because he was almost invisible where I found him.

I put him in a box to show Amina, who was due home any minute. She saw him and carried him back to the culvert behind our fence – basically, way in the back yard. She was proud of herself, because the land behind our backyard is currently undeveloped, waiting on this crappy economy to allow the building of McMansions again. There are lots of wetland areas back there, and logically, this is where Mr. Turtle was heading.

This morning, I got up early and headed to city hall to plead guilty to a traffic ticket, and as I'm backing out of the driveway, who did I see? Mr. Turtle – this time at the end of our driveway, heading across the street, probably muttering "Thanks, jerkface" under his little turtle breath.

Basically, the poor thing was making a trip, took a wrong turn, got forcibly detoured the turtle equivalent of 500 miles back the other direction, and then almost got run over by the same jerk who started the detour in the first place.

Oh, and then, after he made it across the ever-dangerous streets of Westhaven, he was harassed not once, but twice, by the very friendly, very inquisitive basset hound next door. I think Winston's owner also put Mr. Turtle in a box, from which Mr. Turtle escaped. I'm not at all sure of Mr. Turtle's current whereabouts; maybe I should open my mailbox and see if he got detoured there somehow.

Me? I'm starting the P90 workout regiment. Not P90x, which is like for superstudly studmuffins, but the "basic" P90, which is like for men who get sand in their (female private parts) on a regular basis. And it (the regiment, not the sandy vajayjay) is kicking my ass.

But I have no right to complain, because compared to Mr. Turtle, my life's all rainbow-shitting unicorns.

in the great smoky mountains

in the great smoky mountains, originally uploaded by pr9000.

Sometimes I wonder what goes through Trotter's mind during the day. Is he happy? I'd think so, because he has a great disposition and seems about as relaxed as a happy dog would be ... but I wonder if being a domesticated animal is frustrating for him.

When he looks outside and sees a squirrel, all the training and commands go out the window and his tail goes straight up and he's ready to pounce. He rarely is allowed to go after it, though, and even if we do let him outside, the squirrel is up a tree before Trotter gets off the back porch. And when we take a walk in the construction area behind the house -- always off leash, of course -- he's so out of tune with being a hunter that I see the rabbit before Trotter does. So even when he's unfettered by rules and chains, he still doesn't "get it."

This morning he was watching some blackbirds that have invaded our feeders, and he was mildly interested in killing one and eating it. But he seemed kind of half-heartedly into it, and I wonder if he was going through the motions – for me, for himself, or for the long-lost ancestors who ate things more interesting than kibble from Costco.

"how to buy expensive thing using MONEY that you SAVED"

crass, juvenile and very, very funny

If you ever find yourself trying to explain why a man's behavior is ... puzzling, bizarre, nonsensical, etc. ... just remember that, in some very important ways, all men are still 14 year old boys inside.

That explains why this

is just so damn funny. There are many different tittilating and potentially disturbing subplots around our favorite comic book characters.

from left: nervous, happy

from left: nervous, happy, originally uploaded by pr9000.

The title pretty much sums up the mood here in Franklin lately.

This image is from a shoot I did earlier this week, and we got some great results, even if the weather did not cooperate at all ... it was set for 4:30 p.m. and of course, the heavens opened at about 4:33 p.m. and kept us all on the porch for about 20 minutes. It was the hottest I think I've ever been, what with the humidity and the work and whatnot.

Anyway, it was a great session and this is one of my favorites. Enjoy.

Mike Lange Calls It

Pittsburgh Penguins Win 2009 Stanley Cup - Celebration Begins

second time i've posted a photo like this since february ...

second time i've posted a photo like this since february ..., originally uploaded by pr9000.

game seven. i am ready.

I was in my car, stuck in traffic outside Knoxville, on Tuesday night. Amina and I were driving to Bristol, and I'd thought we left in time to see Game 6, though truth be told I wasn't completely sure I wanted to see the game. The Pens had been decimated in Game 5 in Detroit, and I was worried that maybe the Pens wouldn't be able to come back after the physical and mental shellacking they took on Saturday.

I was wrong. But of course I didn't know it, because if I had, I wouldn't have chosen to be stuck on 440 E for what seemed like an eternity.

Luckily, a good friend decided to be my Twitter play-by-play source, updating me whenever anything relevant happened. And, of course, I did a search for #Penguins, which showed me all the relevant posts. It's kind of fun, following a game via Twitter. You don't have any real idea what's going on, but you can guess from the tweets you read. "ARGHHHHHHH F*CKING HAL GILL" is pretty easy to interpret, after all.

So between John and the rest of Twitter, I was able to keep tabs on most of what happened. Once we hit I-81 I was able to get Mike Lange on some Penguins Radio Network station, but it didn't last. I heard the call of Kennedy's goal and thought "That's it, game is over, a two goal lead is untouchable." Then we lost Lange and Twitter seemed to go silent. But no worries – Amina (who was reading the tweets for me while I drove) discovered the game was over and I felt good.

I was wrong to doubt this team, this year.

So what happens tomorrow night? Who knows. I'd say that, on paper, the Red Wings have all the advantages. My limited hockey mind tells me that the home ice last change has been the real reason the Pens won all three games at the Igloo, and conversely the reason they've been unable to do anything at the Joe. My limited hockey mind tells me that road teams are something like 2-12 in Cup Game Sevens.

But I've been wrong every step of the way. I thought the Caps' 2-0 start was going to be the end of that series. I thought that nothing at all could come of Game 5 but watching Hossa make out with the Stanley Cup at Point State Park.

So, I'm officially predicting that the Red Wings will win. Because I've not been right to this point. :)

star trek motivation

star trek motivation, originally uploaded by pr9000.

Why is this my most-viewed photo on Flickr? Even yesterday five people viewed it ... given that it's buried deep into my photostream, it doesn't make sense.

Or it speaks to the eternal cheesiness of William Shatner.

planters

planters, originally uploaded by pr9000.

There's a party going on somewhere in my neighborhood, and it's a still enough night that I can hear every song being played. That, plus the full moon and ... maybe that's it! That could be why my beloved Penguins played like crap! It must be the Teen Wolf Effect.

I must Twitter that ... And that was one sweeeeet tweeeeeeeat! Bro's a no-no for CoCo, after all.

I must admit that I like twitter far more than I thought I would when it first came out. I didn't "get it," and I didn't see why other people would waste my time (and theirs) with inane updates, thoughts, etc. Kind of like this blog, but in 120 characters -- and yet, that's the first thing that won me over. You've only got 120 characters to get your point across, and the old newspaper editor buried deep inside me loves that you've got to work and rework your post to get it to fit some arbitrary length.

That paragraph right there? 417 characters. I'd need to cut it way down to get it to fit Twitter ... something about that excites me. Let's try it again:

Didn't get Twitter at first; who cares, I thought. But 120 char limit makes my pants fit funny.

Just 78 characters that time. And isn't it better shorter? Most things (written) are.

The Party of the First Party

:)

FDR's D-Day Prayer

The last minutes of "The Shield"

I'd forgotten exactly how good that show was, and how incredible the final season turned out.

one of the funniest bugs bunny cartoons ever

been busy lately

originally uploaded by pr9000.

The young lady holding the W Hotels rubber ducky -- probably named "D" for Ducky -- is my energetic little niece, Hailey. She and her mom visited us in Franklin last weekend.

If you haven't spent time with a four year old lately, I highly recommend it. You'll learn a lot about a lot -- for example, I heard amazing tales about what makes poo and pee, and the relative size of dogs' and cats' "holes" for releasing it. (For the record: dogs have small ones, cats are slightly larger, which didn't make sense to me but I wasn't about to ask her how she came to this conclusion.)

I learned how to spell a lot of words. I learned that Hailey's mama is one of the smartest people on the planet. I learned Trotter is my daughter -- she's still working on the whole how-are-you-related-to-me? question -- and that Fletcher, due to his girth, is a doggie.

Actually, a "dottie" because she has troubles with her "g" sounds. And her "k's" as well, which also come out with a hard "t" -- she got very, very upset when we asked her to tell us about her kitties. "i really want nice kitties," she said ... do the math and tell me it's not the most hilarious thing in the world, even though she didn't think so at the time.

We watched movies. We made a smoothie. We went to the neighborhood swimming pool. We took a ride in the convertible and took Trotter for a walk and in general had a fantastic time.

She's so literal -- everything she says is meant to be taken seriously, and she'll interpret our words the same way, which causes confusion at times. When we pass the Factory and I show her the company I work with that makes cartoons featuring large, talking vegetables, she frowns for a second and then asks "Is that where the talking vegetables work?" I say yes, and she thinks for a second ... then "That's silly Uncle Paul!" and she giggles with glee.

You know, it is silly if you think about it, which I try not to do that often.

She's only going to be four for a few short months, and I'm glad I got to spend time with her during it. She's too old to be a baby, too young to be jaded and calculating with every reaction -- she's surprisingly, disarmingly matter-of-fact and I think that's a great way to go through life.