And then a whole bunch of ill shit happened...

So I realized that about 4 people actually want to continue reading about my life here in Dallas. That's great! For them, I will now continue to blog.

I know I didn't write anything about school this whole last semester, so I have arranged the topics by subject so you can scroll down and just pick what you want to read about....Mmmm-Kay? Here we go:



Classmates and other friends:
With the guidance of my friend, Tori, I discovered Bitstrips and made myself into a cartoon character. I've since been Bitstriping everyone! Tori says, "I gave you too much power."

I went to a 3 year-olds birthday party. I gave her a box of M&M's. I thought, "well, I know she likes them, and she's 3, so it should be okay." Then I saw all the cool stuff she was getting from people with money like a cool jacket, a bad-ass tea set and funky boots. I felt sad that I couldn't get her anything cool, but then later that night when her mommy put her down for bed I was told this in a text: "So I put Zara down for bed and she said, 'Mommy can I sleep with one of my presents?' Of course Mommy said 'Sure baby, which one do you want?' and Zara said 'My M's.'" The text ended with "Damn you Aunt Vicki!"

Halloween was just okay. I dressed up and drove to school in my costume:

I thought it was a good idea, but nobody got it:
devil horns and a tail, a wig and disguise glasses....
I'm the devil in disguise!

That night I was gonna go and pass out candy, but I ended up laying on my couch and just passing out instead.

I discovered S'mores dip and made some. Invited people over and we all ate it. Here's a video:

I went to a Halloween scary movie party at my friends house of Tony and Sergio. I drank some wine, everyone else drank lots of wine but we all watched a few movies: Nightmare Before Christmas and something else that wasn't really scary.

I ate at Applebees for free on Veterans Day with my friend Jerrad, who was totally unaware of things like this. I always feel bad and out of place for taking discounts or free stuff because I'm a veteran. I feel like I'm taking advantage because I never went over seas, I was stationed in Florida and had it pretty easy. Still, everyone tells me thanks for my service even though I tell them this, so OK then, thanks for the free stuff.

My friend Bernardo stopped by, unexpectedly, as usual, with someone else in tow. He called me from the train station: "Willis! hey is it ok to crash at your place tonight? I got so-and-so with me. oh and can you make me some food?" I don't mind this, I actually like it, and it's not like he does it every week. He's funny and I learn a lot of YouTube stuff from him. I know if I'm ever in the "ghetto" area of Dallas, known as Oakcliff, then I have someone to call on!

I discovered that crayons fit in a glue gun! So I invited a couple friends to try this with me and this is what happened:

We are taking turns sharing the finished piece. Right now I have the said canvas we named "Captain Bebop".

Work: Nothing of consequence happened there. I pretty much just carried on with my life.

Classes: 

Print Production: I made a travel booklet about the Shenandoah Valley. I think it turned out pretty cool. I'll try to post a picture of it one day in the section "Stuff I made (check me out!)" I learned more about using InDesign and further discovered I can not math because the measurements for my die-cut brochure never did come out right.  My final grade in that class is an A-, so I'll take it!

Conceptual Imagery: This class was taught by a teacher I've had twice before, the one I like to have a beer or three before class. I finally convinced a classmate of mine about that idea and he finally did go out and have a few rum and cokes with some people one day before this class and he said it made all the difference in the world! So, see there people! I DO know what I'm talking about! 

Anyway, I ended up making a cool infograph for extreme couponing using squirrels as my main image, which I made in Illustrator from actual photos of squirrels.  The teacher loved the squirrels and I named the piece "Squirreling it away: is couponing worth the trouble?" He loved that, too! My final grade in that class: just an A. I'll take it!

Design Marketing: I had no idea what this class was about, but it's on my curriculum for Graphic Design Advertising so I had to take it. The teacher was ok, even though in the syllabus it stated we must dress appropriately: office casual. Not a problem for me since I still had clothes from when I worked at the court. I wondered what would happen to those who didn't. Turns out, he gave us grades for attendance, which also included the dress code. I heard one girl had taken that class three times and I was thinking, "Shit, how difficult is this?" Turns out, all you have to do is just attempt the assignments, turn it in on time, show up to class and dress semi-appropriately. That's not difficult! So how can she not pass -- three times?!? She doesn't care because Mommy and Daddy must be paying for her. Big thumbs down and middle finger up for that! 

I discovered from the material in the class that I have no head for business and couldn't care less what happens to what I design after it leaves my desk. I do understand that what does go on afterward is important in making a design that will catch the attention of the target audience though. One of the assignments was to write about building a better (proverbial) mousetrap. The comments from the teacher were, "Missed the point, but very creative." I'll take that because I value my creativity! My final grade in that class: An A and I'll take that, too!

Digital Photography: My teacher was the best part of this class. He's an older Chinese man and still has a very thick Chinese accent, so at times he was a bit difficult to understand and it made me laugh. One of his favorite things to say after explaining or pointing out something was "Am I right?" to which we all usually said "I guess, you're the teacher." 

We learned how to use a Cannon Rebel Digital Camera. He's lecture on the subject and give us a formula to follow on the settings then we had a week to photograph and turn in 10 shots. I asked my friend, Sergio, a photographer, to accompany me on my first assignment. He was a great help in showing me the settings on the camera and a few ideas. I soon learned I hate fiddling with the controls; I just want my point and shoot camera!

In class, we would show our pictures and get critiqued. Alphabetical order, so of course, I was last. One day in class, we went through two peoples sets of photos and the teacher kept clicking through going, "No. No...what the hell are we looking at?" Then, exasperated, he said, "Let just go to Victoria picture, she usually get it right." That made me feel so good! I told Sergio about that and he said he was proud of me! 

My final grade in that class: a B, but I'll take it! Everyone else got less than that and my friend Nick said when he took the class he got a D. Here are a few of my faves I took:

for Stop-Action assignment

another for the Stop-Action assignment

for the Blurred-Action assignment

fun with my toys: Short Depth of Field assignment

Selective Focus:  Miss Scarlet in the Library (?) with the revolver

Long Depth of Field: Pioneer Plaza downtown.

I forget what this was for, but I still like the picture

Short Depth of Field at the Dallas Arboretum

for the assignment Exaggerated Focus

Love Life:
I got closer to a guy in one of my classes, we got intimate, but now we are just friends again. *sad face* Next?

And now: I'm gonna be in Virginia for Christmas! So excited to be able to see my parents and sister again. My friend Marci will be watching my apartment and getting my mail so don't think you can cruise over and party at my place with out me!

Til next year: Peace out Girl Scout!

A tale of elephants who wrestle at night

As many of you know, I am severely annoyed with my upstairs neighbors at all times. Not only do the  floors squeak so loudly that I can be awaken from a sound sleep by them, but the people that live up there are the most inconsiderate asses I've ever had the displeasure of living under - ever.

The week I moved in, I heard the floors and a bunch of ruckus, so I went up to introduce myself. "Maybe they don't know someone moved in," I thought. So I let them know that I was living down there now. I guess, me being silly, assumed that they would use some sort of consideration and think "Oh, ok, maybe we shouldn't turn up our surround sound here in the 600 square foot apartment so loud, now that someone lives down there. Or, maybe we could hold our elephant wrestling tournaments until later in the morning and not at 6:30 a.m. like we have been. Or maybe we should not have our computer monitors or tv plastered to the windows we leave open ALL the time so the crap we have up at unbelievable volumes won't travel out and bother everyone outside our apartment at odd hours of the night and day."

None of that happened and that is why I call them inconsiderate asses. Because any time I went up to say "Hey, I'm trying to sleep (or read or study) can you turn down your drive-in movie theater quality sound system while you play Call of Duty or whatever you're doing?"- they kept doing it, as if another day meant I couldn't hear them. They would say "It's normal apartment living noise."

Really? Because any time I've ever lived in an apartment (or dorms), sure I hear some stuff, but it's not enough to complain about. So if I'm complaining (religiously), that means you are exceeding the allowable noise limit for close quarter living and that makes you an inconsiderate ass. The videos I made and put on YouTube do not even come close to doing justice in showing what I deal with.
I posted on Facebook about it a lot and at one time I had a whole committee of comments and suggestions on what to do. It's nice to know my peeps got my back.

Now, after months of this going on, I told management that I can no longer live under these beings for fear of me going to prison for stabbing them in the face.
I don't know if that was the comment that pushed me to the head of the line or not, but they eschewed my lease penalties and I will be moving into a new, squeak-free apartment November 22nd. I know I will be dealing with a new barrage of noise, like cars passing by, but that is noise I can handle.

If anyone would like to help me piecemeal my move, let me know. I'll make a casserole.

Hot like wasabi when I bust rhymes

Ok, it's been more than one week since you looked at me. 
I been busy, ok?
oh, and lazy.
I am lazy, I know this.

We'll I'll get to my school stuff later, for now, let me tell you about this Midtown ART walk .
I did pick up a few inspirations and a couple conversations. One of the first galleries I went into was Samuel Fine Art. The amazing oil portraits drew me in.
As I stood admiring the beautiful portraits, the artist stood next to me and said,
"oh! you are an artist!" 
                I asked, "How can you tell?" 
He had an African accent and said, "Artists always look at the painting differently. You stand in admiration, wonder -- not just a pleasing glance."
So, how cool is that? Even without tools in my hand and a crazy outfit, I have that artist look about me.

Next, at Misspent Muses, I found a bunch of fun, very interesting collage art - one piece in particular was arranged in the shape of a daisy using metal objects and I wondered, "Where does one get metal anteaters?" Margo, the artist, told me
"The Rock Barrel."
So, I may need to find out where that is and see what they got. Maybe I can make some weird collage art thing.

 Over at Cleos-Creations, Cleo Boone is fun to talk to. He said to one guy walking through the studio, "You have an interesting face. I paint faces from memory so don't be surprised if you come back and see your face in one of my paintings."
He's got a gruff yet pleasant carnival-like voice. In looking at his paintings, you first think you see a bunch of rocks or falling water, or in my case, an orange uterus - but look longer, further and you see human figures. Beautiful figures that slowly reveal themselves.

Husband and wife team, Doug and Kiki at Sky Pony Studio has put out some interesting pieces to look at while you stroll around the shop in search of cards, magnets or necklaces. He specializes in trees and she in horses. Sounds boring and cliche, but they have a style that is so each their own that you could put Kiki's painting in a store in Oklahoma and I would recognize it as one of hers.

Kiki Winters talking to a customer

the entrance to the studio

Kul âme Studio  almost seems out of place here. It is very sleek and white and seems pretentious with it's large Jackson Pollack-esque pieces in front and elegant yet funky photography studio in back. A sign posted out front read that there would be a live sculpture performance at 8:30, but all I saw milling about was important looking men with arm candy that wore six inch platform heels and too much make-up. Then there was me. I began to think "Maybe we are the sculpture. I wonder what my section of this would be called? She's the Picasso of the Monet setting, they might say."

As I stood among the "Monets", a few performers dressed in Dia de los Muertos costumes fluttered in and buzzed around everyone creating a stir among the soused. Then a pretty lady in green pants started to announce things like, "Thanks for coming to our gallery" and "welcome our soft sculpture performers." 

A lady named Shannon, who is one of three artists at this studio, was once an actress in theater around Dallas. The fabric hanging in the picture was sewn from several costumes she wore. The dancers entered the space and creatively disassembled the hanging dress-like sculpture. The way the performers worked their way through the garment reminded me of the beginning of a CSI episode. I kept waiting for something to go wrong and thought about how we'd all be held for questioning once the police showed up. 

But, they found their way to the end of the performance. 

Another interesting gallery I visited was The Art of Leroy. 

Leroy looks like Samuel L. Jackson, especially with the hat he was wearing. I didn't get a pic of him, but I did snap a shot of his assistants. Apparently, Leroy does body painting and photographs you in the studio. I saw some of the works and it reminded me of the Midnight Summers Dream party at the Playboy Mansion, only classier. 

I found a few pieces at different studios I'd like to go back to and buy...but one at a time. I, myself, am a poor art student.

Texas air-conditioning

Today would be a great day to stay cuddled up on the couch and watch movies: It's cool outside, rainy and to top it off, it's the first day of my period.

But NO...I have to go in to work....for 8 hours.

So, looks like it's gonna be a good day. (this is where a sarcasm font would come in handy) Not only do I feel like hammered dog shit, I also look it and I still have a ton of homework to work on. I really don't want to go to work today.

My classes on Friday should be switched around because my teacher for my 1-5 class lets us out early and my teacher for my 6-10 class likes to stay late and give lots and lots of homework because, you know we don't have any other classes.  This is also the same teacher I had before where I would usually have a beer before class so I could tolerate him and not freak out at the assignments. Since I didn't have my beer before class yesterday, I was freaking out during the Photoshop assignment...and we all know how I feel about Photoshop.

Here is what I managed to do in Photoshop yesterday, yay me:

practice using pen tool, selections, paths and brushes.
I did ok with the bird, but gave up by the time I got
to the dog.

"What day is it?"

This morning, I got up and as usual asked myself what day it was. "Oh, ok, Thursday, got class at 1, but I need to send Jeff the pdf file for his logo I drew up. I think I'll have chicken for dinner."

That was my plan.

My class on Thursdays is Digital Photography for Designers.
It's a class designed so we can learn about lighting and what not to take our own pictures for our projects, things we may need like textures for a background or objects for an ad, all that sort of stuff.

Well, my teacher is an old Chinese dude with a thick accent and weird sense of humor, and I like it. He lectured on what's in a photograph and the directions of light we'll use. By checking out a camera from the equipment cage at school, our homework is to take ten pictures of a subject in ten different locations.  His examples were "Ok, let's say you gonna photograph a mailbox. Find ten different mailboxes and use the different positions of light."
He also suggested doors. "Rich people have different doors than poor people. You see? You go to Highland Park and they have decorated, or the White House is grand."

Ok, I get what we're supposed to do, but I'm having trouble coming up with a subject. I signed up to check out a camera on Monday morning, so I have until then to think of something....anyone got any suggestions??

As soon as I walked in my door, my friend Bernardo called. "Hey! we're at the Forest Lane Station! Where's your place? I'm with Valeria, we're coming over, girl!"
"Oh! ok."
This was totally unexpected and I haven't seen him in a long time and I just put some chicken in the oven so I had food. We had fun hanging out, eating and watching Vampire Diaries.

Now, I have two more classes tomorrow and will have lots of homework to do!

say cheese! it's pizza fry making time!

just okay

Well, my break from school is just about over. I have two days left and I'm working both days, blah.
The week was just ok because I had hoped to be laying around my apartment watching movies with someone, but it did not work out.

I tried not to be sad or mope about. I know there's plenty of "fish in the sea" but nobody wants the bait I'm dangling, so I don't know what else to do.

I got a few crafts done, but not all my Christmas stuff, so I'll work on that. I worked on a logo for a friend of mine and I hope to go into school on Monday to use the Adobe Illustrator program and bring the logo to life.

Wednesday, I did not have any visitors of the male persuasion, but I did visit my friends Erik and Sergio over at Starbucks.
Later that night, after the season premier of Law and Order: SVU, I went to Addison to a sports bar and danced to karaoke. I met a bartender who works at Macaroni Joe's; he drew this on a napkin for me:

I hope to use it for identification to get free stuff if I go to the Macaroni place in Addison.
"Uh, yeah, I need to see Jason, the guy who drew this for me. He had a few beers by the time he completed this, but he should remember me..."

Thursday I was pretty much restless all day. I was supposed to be working on my crafts, but my muse seems to have fluttered off. I hate when that happens! I'm sure it was because I was thinking of the guy that should have been on my couch instead of trying to attain inspiration.

Today, Friday, I got up "early" (read: 8am) to go play disc golf with my friend Jerrad. We had played at some courses around Dallas before, but he wanted to go to his old stomping grounds at Z Boaz Park over in Fort Worth, so he drove. This course was nuts! Lots of hiking and climbing - which I actually love!  He threw a disc that landed in the creek, so we climbed down to get it and found another disc! It's mine now, but he's holding it for me. I may have to call my friend, Julia, who sells Thirty-One bags and get me a bag to hold all my discs I may continue to find!

This place is pretty popular on the weekends, but there were only a few other people there playing today. Here are some pics of the adventure:

a graffitied trash can I thought was cool

this "disc charging station" comes with instructions!

I had sat to wait for Jerrad to throw his disc and he ended up throwing it
not 15 feet from him and hitting a tree. I was laughing so hard because
I envisioned the disc ricocheting back and thumping him in the forehead!
Hhahahahahahaha! still makes me laugh!

apparently, a "hand charging station" I don't know if the
symbol on the left is for bacon or power, either way...and
then there's the mustache on the right!

After, we went to school to pick up our schedules so we won't have to wait in line on Monday. I may change one of my Friday classes, but I'm not sure yet. We'll see how I feel about it on Monday.

Chow for now, maybe later you'll get your chance...

The question of the day

A Good Woman Feeling Bad
by Maya Angelou

The blues may be the life you've led
Or midnight hours in
An empty bed. But persecuting
Blues I've known
Could stalk
Like tigers, break like bone,

Pend like rope in
A gallows tree,
Make me curse
My pedigree,

Bitterness thick on
A rankling tongue,
A psalm to love that's
Left unsung,

Rivers heading north
But ending South,
Funeral music
In a going-home mouth.

All riddles are blues,
And all blues are sad,
And I'm only mentioning
Some of the blues I've had.

************* And now, the question of the day **************

My luck with guys is no good. The ones I like and want are just like "eh" toward me and the ones I don't want are all "Heeeeey, what's uuuuuuuup?"

When you meet someone, one of two things happens: A) you're attracted to them right away 

or B) after talking to them for a while, you're attracted to them.

I met a guy at a restaurant a few weeks ago and neither of those things happened, yet I told him he could call me. I guess I felt lonely and since nobody ever flirts with me or hits on me, I thought, "why not?" I did not go out with him, though. 

Then, I met a guy in class and both A and B happened AND he asked me out. So I thought, "Yay!"

But that seems to have fizzled out as fast as it happened and it upsets me because I was so excited. "Yay, someone I like finally likes me back." or so I thought.

I don't know what I did wrong. I didn't ask for any type of commitment and I don't think I'm being clingy, I'm just being me. I know I'm not much to look at, but I have developed a good personality, I think. Doesn't that count for something?

I know I'm not  the only girl with this problem. I don't think it's the girls, it's gotta be the guys.  

please watch this video about Dustin Hoffman talking about all the experiences he has missed with women because he's been brainwashed

Honey Boo Boo's mother

Third one in ten years

First things first: I made all A's this quarter at school! Yay me! Now I have a week off and then get to start all over with new classes.

I talked to my mom the other day so she would know I got her emails she sent, and my mom and dad want to get me a plane ticket to visit for Christmas! I'm so excited because I haven't seen my parents (or my sister, who lives 3 hours from them) in almost 2 years.

Now, on to more recent news: I just can't have all nice things happen all the time.

Friday, after my last class, I went out with a guy from school. He pursued me, which is unusual since I am always the one asking guys and getting turned down. I guess I just had it in my head that he wasn't interested in me that way. We didn't do anything drastic, just ate burgers and played at a bunch of Halloween shops. My kind of thing! Will I see him again? I hope so, I like him.

Then, on Saturday morning, on my way to work, I realized my back right tire was flat, so when I got to work, I had someone put the spare on. I was thinking, "Man, I had such an awesome day yesterday and now this. WTF?" I had to work until 7, so all the tire places were closed by then. I'll be taking my tire to get it patched today before work. So there goes that piece of spending money I was looking forward to this week. I guess I shouldn't be too upset, I still have money for food, thanks to an anonymous donor from August.  Also, this flat tire escapade was a lot easier to deal with than my last one. I will spin the yarn about that here:

 Imagine it, a panhandle Texas summer, 101 degrees outside, nothing around for miles, literally, because I was just outside Hedley, Texas. I wore a dress to work for some reason and left early (about 2pm) to go to Dallas to visit some friends and eat Greek food (my absolute fav!) so I could feel better about it being the first day of my period, which always sucks. Tooling down Hiway 287, my car started to severely pull to the left and I knew I had a flat. So I pulled over, got out my spare and my tools and started to change my tire, which I had not done since I was 17. I got two lug nuts off and couldn't get anything else to budge. In the ten minutes or so I had been on the side of the road, not one car on either side of the lane had come by. I was stranded...or so I thought. A little blue Ford Ranger pick-up truck hauling a few bales of hay stopped and the guy and girl got out.
"Hey," he said "you need some help?"
"Uh, yeah, I'm stuck."
So this guy gets my spare tire on and it's flat too, but they just live on the other side of the railroad tracks half a mile up the road. The whole time this is going on, all I can think is "This is how scary movies start....should I go with them to this house they claim to have here and get air in my tire so I can make it to the next town? Sure, what the hell?"
So I follow them to a little house with a huge garage and everything worked out just fine. I made it to the Walmart in Clarendon, got a new tire and headed down the road....about 10 miles before it was flat again! So I called the Walmart back and they came and got me! They put the spare back on and we went back and the guys at the shop super glued everything on. I probably should have gone back home to Amarillo, but I really wanted to go to Dallas and I was super nervous the whole drive there. By the time I got to my friends' apartment, it was well past 10pm and I was starving and too late for Greek.
Driving back to Amarillo, there were no problems. Not until the next day when I was on my way to work, did another tire go flat in the driveway. I called my boyfriend up and he changed my tire so I could take the car in some place and get this straightened out. Turns out, my valve stems all needed to be changed! Why they are not changed when new tires are put on, I have no idea! But, I still think all this could have been avoided had I not sat next to Judas at the Last Supper set up in Groom, TX giving him a thumbs up. Note to self: Jesus does not care for jokes like that.
I wonder if my friend, Stefanie still has those pictures?

It's a secret...

One of my friends signed me up into a secret group on Facebook. It's so exciting! It's an art group and we talk about art. Most of the people there I don't know and some have DeviantArt pages. I have a page there too, but don't do much on it. I mostly use it to look at other art. 

Here are a few projects I did in my beginning Photoshop class this quarter but never did post them. I don't know why, ok?

This first picture was done on a Wacom tablet,

Wacom tablet

 which I wasn't very good at using because I lack hand-eye coordination mostly because I don't play video games, I think. But by the end of class I was getting the hang of it. I drew this garden lady.

And this picture is using some sort of perspective framing deal on Photoshop that I have now forgotten how to use. It's ok, I still have my notes so I'm sure I can figure it out again, if needed.

For my final project in Typography Expression and Experimental class, I designed a font and a poster for it. We got our critique today and my poster design wasn't so good. The font was fine, but the poster sucked. So after class I played around with a few ideas that were thrown out there and designed this and turned it in:

the font poster had to have: the name of the font, the designer (me!),
the alphabet, a pangram, and a paragraph in 12 point font or smaller.

Then my classmate was telling me how much he liked my font and how many ideas he had to play around with it. I gave him my font file to download onto his computer and within a few minutes he had made a face with my letters then he designed this poster for funsies: 

He originally had the little lady - who he designed using my letters - in the middle of the page, but he moved a bunch of stuff around and kept playing with it. I thought it was cool and took it as a huge compliment that another student would do this with something I designed!

Now I just have two more class this week for finals then a week off! yay me!

oh, also, I was mentioned in someone else's blog in case you wanna take a look:

http://sojourniste.blogspot.com/2013/09/the-chapter-of-you.html

so, how they hangin'?

I like to ask this question to random people. Sometimes they have good answers (low and to the left, for example) and sometimes they are completely befuddled and that's the fun part.
Well, here's how mine's hangin': close.
And now that we know THAT, let me tell you what I've been up to in classes.

 I had a presentation to do in Humanities. My project was "Exploring the Gilded Age Through Architecture and the Upper Class in America". I had an afternoon tea with Darjeeling, lemon water, cucumber sandwiches, scones, mushroom pate, and assorted additions. The culinary students really liked the scones, which I made from scratch. "You should be in Baking and Pastry with us!" That made me happy. My slide show was awesome and I had brochures and a diorama to accompany my presentation. Basically, I killed it. When the teacher asked who was going next, one guy said, "I'm not following that!" That made me happy, too.
In my typography class, we got to design our own font! We had to keep a doodle journal for five weeks and the class picked from that.
Here is a poster I'm doing in my font, the name of it, I'm calling Mahal Kita. It translates to "I love you" in Tagalog, the language of the Philippines. It's based on doodles I used to paint on my pants when I was a teenager.
So, what you think?

my diorama, it's the construction of The Breakers, a housethat the Vanderbilt family once used in the summers.

see!? my font is listed!

my font poster. I like it. All the required elements are included!

Things to do at a country music concert when you're not a country music fan...

So my friend, Marci, won two tickets to a country music concert and asked if I would go with her. I'm not a huge country music fan, but it was free and we got to take the train, so I said, "Sure, why not!"

I had never heard of these people but it turns out I actually had heard a few of the songs on the radio before. We walked around and hung out and goofed off before the music started, here are some pics and the list of things to do at a country music concert when you are not a country music fan:

* get attacked by vendors to sign up for "free" giveaways such as pick-up trucks, boots and guitars signed by a singer you don't know

* collect as many "gimmes" as you can; I got a bag from GMC, a boot shaped glass from Sheplers, a koozie from Sheplers and 2 hand fans, one of which is shaped like a cowboy boot from Justins

* spend $16 on 2 bottles of water and a small Pepsi

*bring back empty Pepsi cup for free ice

*empty ice into boot-shaped glass and give empty Pepsi cup to friend so she can get free ice, too

*eat tacos

*put a moustache sticker on the back of a concert chair

*take pictures of "cowgirls" wearing Daisy Dukes and boots

*sing along and dance to songs you don't know

*watch drunk hootchies try to dance

*walk 5 blocks to get to the bus stop so you can get to the train, change trains then get to your car and drive home to take aspirin for your headache

eating tacos

"cowgirls" in Daisy Dukes and boots

where a moustache sticker goes!

waiting on the train to take us to Fair Park

me and Marci with our gimmes 

concert goers on the lawn, the Texas State Fair ferris wheel in the back

well I WAS dancing!

Roger Creager singing the Everclear song

Montgomery Gentry singing "what do you thing about that"

how DOES paint taste?

I was sitting in the break room at work yesterday when I opened up the USA Today that was on the table. I saw a picture of a painting and thought "What the hell is that?"

Turns out, a chimpanzee painted it....with his tongue, and everyone was all excited about it.

The only words that would come to my mind were: "Are ya fuckin' kiddin' me??"

Yes, I am in art school and I'm an artist, but most of the time I don't understand what someone calls art. I am beginning to understand brush strokes and color choices and how an artist decided what to do with them and most of the time, I can see the emotion used to paint or draw something. That, to me is art.
But I don't like being duped. I'm not saying a chimp doesn't have feelings, but come on! This?
To top it off, he won a contest! WTF? I can't even get a scholarship and this furry sub-human is winning fucking painting contests!

The only way I can rationalize this to make myself feel better, is the fact that the money went to his Primate Sanctuary to help other chimps and apes.
FML...here is the whole story:
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/08/29/chimp-paint-contest/2726163/

"Brent is a natural," said Cathy Willis Spraetz, president and CEO of Chimp Haven. 

What's your dream?

Because it's the 50th anniversary of the civil rights march on Washington, I feel I need to say something profound about Dr. King or the movement itself, but the only thing I can think to say is that I'm glad these courageous people took the risk to move humanity forward - not just for the sake of black Americans, but for all future generations. Is there less racism today? Maybe. I guess it depends who you are and where you are. Being white, I can say that I have run into more than a few white people that are still quite racist and think they can express their beliefs to me because we have skin color in common. They are wrong.
I think judging someone on race is stupid. I judge people on how they act. If you act like a fool, I'm going to treat you like a fool, because why else would you act like that? If you act like an insensitive asshole, I don't feel the need to associate myself with you. I don't feel I need to waste my time on inconsiderate dickheads.
I remember when Michael Jackson married Lisa Marie and everyone was talking about how Elvis would be turning in his grave. I just didn't get what all the fuss was about until I was standing in line at a grocery store and saw a picture of Michael and Lisa on the cover of a magazine. That's when it dawned on me: Oh yeah! He's black and she's white. That must be what everyone is talking about.
Would Elvis have disapproved of that union because of race or ridiculousness? I vote the latter because it was. They were "in love"? Seriously?

Now please enjoy this video by the late Mr. Jackson:

Black or White video