An Ozark Weekend

The Spa Shop
Originally uploaded by banj.

We picked up E at the University this weekend and drove to Eureka Springs. It's a great place to stay this time of year. Very quiet with very few tourists. We spent the night, had a good breakfast and then just walked a few blocks downtown. I of course was snapping pictures.

This is a simple shot of one of the spa shop signs there. It's a place most ladies would love, and me being me...I kinda do to. They handle the stuff that you don't find anywhere else. And with thousands of hot tubs for two in this town, you've gotta have something for a serious soaking when playtime is over. I think you get it.

I'm Posting, I'm Posting

I haven't updated in a while, just due to being busy I guess. The whole blog thing is really not as enjoyable as it once was. I think because of the pressures of my work, my freelance editing/shooting, my television show, my bands and everything else I've got going on, I've just started to let both of my blogs slide quite a bit.

I've also been taking quite a few pictures. As many of you, I'm more now than ever am really addicted to Flickr. Only recently have I realized what a great idea the site is. The storage must be massive for all of those images. It's great to see what other people do. I am very impressed with some of the "amateur" photographers. Some of their photos are amazing.

The band has been fairly busy lately as well. I will say that I almost backed out of it about a month ago. I'm just not happy with the song selections and some of the mentality that I have to endure. Bluegrass MUST evolve. That is the problem with many of the older players. They don't get it. If every band plays the same old worn out songs about cabins, mountains, grave sites, lost love and drunkeness, then what do you have? I'll tell you what, a whole lot of redundancy that's what. I have just decided to try and work it out, even though I still want to do my own thing. The goodness I get out of the band is that it keeps my chops up.

We've really been trying to get our act together with the bass fishing show. It's great content. It's great fun. And my partner and show host is very a very likeable talent. The reason we are not further along is that our promotion has been asleep for the past 2 years. Now were going back in to production with new shows coming and we're pushing towards new markets. It's a full time job. One of the things that we need is a new website. We have an old one that's pretty shabby. I can maintain, but creation is something I've not taken on much of. And we need the new site to have some Flash or other appealing animated graphics if we are going to look the part. We've also got new DVD's of the shows that are selling well at our outdoor shows. We will need to put those up on the site for sale as well.

My little new post turned into a novel. That's a pretty good update though. I fell better now.

City Hall

City Hall
Originally uploaded by banj.

I took a drive over the weekend back out to Weston. The land out there is very appealing to me. There are small rolling hills and lots of horse ranches.

I took this picture of the old Baptist church in Weston. They've converted it into city hall.

St. Valentine Arrives

As Valentines Day draws near, I, once again, am seeing less of Ms. Being a florist in a city like Plano means that people with money, spend it. This week the madness has already began. I saw her a few days ago go to work at 8 a.m. and not return home until 3 a.m. Yep, that's in one day. She will work straight through until the evening of the 14th with only a few hours of sleep per day. On Tuesday, she'll probably do a 30 to 35 hour straight shift. That's normal for a florist.

She's always said that the real drawback to this kind of artistic career is that while most of the country enjoys holidays with family and friends and being home, florists are laboring away designing for the pleasure of others. That's the the nature of it all.

Snowy Surprise

The winter weather hit us again last night and today. No one really forecasted that we would have more than flurries, that's the surprise. Road conditions were kind of haphazard north of Dallas were we live. Luckily I got my downtown business done yesterday and can get some work done at home today.

The forecast is for this arctic front to pass through this afternoon and dryer conditions to follow. That's fine with me, although I could take the snow.