Locks of Love

Look what I did! Look what I did!

After ten years of below shoulder-length hair (seven of them with really long hair) I've decided to chop my hair! I took of about 12 inches and am donating it to "Locks of Love," a charity that gives real human-hair wigs to needy children with long-term hair loss. It feels good and I am so proud that I can help. Click on the picture to see a slide show of my change!

Oh good Lord what is this?

Sorry to depart to the slightly tacky but... can somebody please explain this to me?

Jason and I were in Cost Plus World Market on Sunday and came across this nice little product. Perhaps it is a direct reference to John Kerry from his Heinz heiress-wife's family?

The best idea of what this is wins. What do you win? My my total admiration of your wit and cleverness and perhaps an autographed print of this lovely picture.

UPDATE:

According to this website Spotted Dick is:
a steamed suet pudding containing dried fruit, usually currants. The dessert is especially popular in the United Kingdom, usually served either with custard or with butter and brown sugar. Spotted refers to the currants (which resemble spots), and Dick is a corruption of the word dough.

I still don't want any.

(Photo by Jason, Motorola RAZR, 3/25/07)

Leslie Gulch

I am endlessly fascinated with frontier life and how people lived, survived and ended up in some of the most seemingly desolate areas of the country.

One such place is Leslie Gulch in extreme eastern Oregon. No regular inlets of water, the area was inhabited by pioneers who were mining for silver long ago. My first question is how did they find the area in the first place and secondly how did they survive? Rhetorical questions of course but still fun to wonder about.

This shot is of the only real structure in the main area of Leslie Gulch. It could be a BLM building or it could be privately owned-there was no information.

I took this on March 17th and it was a gorgeous sunny warm day and people were already out for the weekend camping. I love the west.

Leslie Gulch Series, 3/17/2007 MMR

It's just a state of mind--I can show you...

On Tuesday night Jason and I were given the awesome opportunity to go see RAIN: The Beatles Experience live at the Morrison Center in Boise and what a phenomenal show. They absolutely paid every respect and tribute and did justice to the Beatles. I have to back up and explain a few things to make the significance of this post a little easier to understand. I am a HUGE Beatles fan. I have been since I was 10 and have never wavered with them as my favorite group of all time. I have posters, t-shirts, dolls, socks, books, plates, bobble heads, newspaper clippings, old CD boxes from my CD purchases of the early 90's, records, drawings I did myself... the list goes on and on. I have read every book I could get my hands on regarding my Beatles, I've seen Paul McCartney in concert twice (I am so lucky) Ringo at least three times and have all the movies and other videos. I was obsessed. Being so I had taken quite a snooty air about seeing any Beatles cover band, no matter HOW good they were considered to be. My thought was if I couldn't see THE Beatles I was not going to listen to someone play out their interpretations on my most beloved songs.

So RAIN came to town. My mother-in-law (knowing my obsession) bought me two tickets to the show for my birthday and THEN asked me what I thought about seeing a cover band. Of course I was a total stinker and voiced my non-desire to see them (I had no idea she had gotten tickets.) Well she still gave me the tickets for my birthday, I told her I was just being a hard-ass and we went.

THE SHOW WAS FABULOUS. It was so well done and so respectful. They had them mastered. Right down to the accents, their motions and movements on stage, their instruments and attitudes. They started the show with a brief clip of everything that happened up until the Beatles arrived in the US on 2/07 1964 and opened with them on the Ed Sullivan show (set replica and everything) and a pretend Ed Sullivan. The show then goes through the four or five distinct eras of the Beatles reign complete with costumes, video clips, stage sets. And every video clip was of Rain reenacting a significant video that was taken of the Beatles, so the Beatles images were never in the show. Every picture, every video, everything was remade with Rain. It was AWESOME. The place was jumping, the crowd were on their feet, people were dancing. What a fabulous night.

I come to find out that Rain has been around since the mid-seventies and is the longest running tribute band out there. And they are perfect. "Paul" isn't actually left-handed, but that's easy to get over. If you ever get the chance to see them, even if you don't consider yourself a Beatles fan or connoisseur of the Beatles please GO. You will be so glad you did.

Rain's website photos are copy restricted so please visit and check it out. In the meantime enjoy this young shot of the real deal. And also a shot from my cute little pink RAZR phone of us waiting for the show to begin.

YNP

I wish I were here right now.

This is called "God shined down on Slough Creek" taken in Yellowstone National Park. This is the first in the series from "the bears' backyard" and one of the most serene places in Yellowstone that we experienced. We camped out for as long as we could hoping to see bears but none came our way. We only saw footprints. This was a wonderful trip.

Be sure to click "view full size" when looking at the slide show to get the full effect of the pictures.

Slough Creek, Yellowstone National Park, August 2006, MMR

Photo of the Day

First outing of 2007

March 11 2007, 67 degrees

Swan Falls Project

(Not to be confused with the Alan Parsons Project)

Southwest Idaho

Click here for a slideshow from that day.

Just Like Starting Over

Oh blogger, I can hardly express my mixed emotions at my thoughtlessness... Oh Blogger, can you ever forgive me?

I am going to attempt to maintain this blog, though only for my own enjoyment. What have I been up to this past year? Hmmm.... Just life. I'm gong to school for my MBA in Marketing, maintaining home, family, job and life... Been busy doing mundane things.

So, Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, Happy Valentines Day, Happy St. Patrick's Day, Happy Memorial, Fourth of July, Labor, Columbus, Veterans, Presidents day, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years and Valentines day... And welcome spring!