"Little bird, little bird"

These lyrics from the musical "Don Quixote" come to mind as I see these gentle creatures stopping by my backyard for a little lunch on a snowy day.

"Baby, break the chains of love..."

(I just have old songs in my head this week....)

Here's the backstory...back in the settler's days of the old west (Utah), cattle had to be retained on the rancher's land. They couldn't afford to chain up the cattle, nor could they string chain as a fence. Instead, they used barbed wire. With me??



I took this shot this summer. I then used a texture on top of the original image and set the blend mode to Overlay. For those of you who recall Ghostbones' stash of great textures on Flickr, he's resurfaced at this blog. Scroll down a few days to find the tutorial on applying textures. The one I used for this image is contained in the zipped folder you can download. Thanks to Jerry Jones for sharing his texture!

Hopefully, following the link and snagging some great, free textures has distracted you from the fact that I strayed from the theme just a little...

If only Tammy lived closer . . .

. . . my neighbors might actually be moving. Unfortunately, their home has not sold, so they are still here.

"Shake it, shake it, baby...c'mon now!"

Cleaning out a bookcase, we came across some old 45 RPM records. Out-of-date by today's music standards, they were all the rage back in middle school!

(Bonus points to anyone who can name this record...)

The "After"

Two days back, I posted an imperfect set during a rehearsal for a high school play. Today, here are Jon's shots of the finished set. More ornate, don't you think?

Just to amaze you more, the "imperfect" shot was taken on a Monday evening. Wednesday, school was cancelled (snowstorm), so only a handful of kids were on hand to help finish up before Thursday evening's opening. Amazing what an EXCELLENT tech theater teacher and some hard-working kids can produce in a few days...with little budget.

This is the side you saw in the "imperfect" shot.



Remember I said the entire set rotates 180 degrees? Here's what's on the backside. All the wall treatments are hand-painted (some stenciling), except the lower paneling in the photo below. That came from my family room...which is now newly drywalled (yay!).

Just a passing fad?

Whether or not the netbook fad is here for the long term remains to be seen, but it sure is fun to surf the web at the kitchen table, together, instead of separately, chained to our office desktop computers.

Not quite there yet

During rehearsal for a high school production of "Pygmalion", the cast, and the set, are both imperfect. Come opening night, the entire production will be polished and ready for an audience.

Insider info: This is the backside of one half of the set. On production night, the walls will be complete. The ENTIRE SET spins around on 85 casters, revealing a completely different interior scene. Amazing!