Wyld Carrots!

Back around Memorial Day I stumbled across a field of wild carrots (or Queen Anne's lace) while I was on the way home from shooting something else. Around that time this stuff was everywhere around here. I was actually lucky to stop when I did, because a couple of days later it had been mowed. Never pass up a photo op!

I'm always intrigued by that little purple bit in the middle.

I liked how the ladybug was hanging out right in the middle.

What It Do?

Things seem to have been really busy around here of late, leading to not much time for blogging. I guess that's a cliche, right? But cliches are cliches for a reason, you know?

I pretty much have a new job with a new boss, and my workload has increased a lot. Which actually isn't bad, because there was an awful lot of downtime in my last job. I say I "pretty much" have a new job because at the moment it's technically a temporary detail. Seeing as how the prior holder of this job has moved to another location, however, I think it's mine if I want it. There's also a possibility of working for someone that I have worked with before and liked, but I haven't heard anything official on that one yet.

Aside from work, I'm taking an accounting class this summer. I've been spending lots of time on the weekends reading and doing homework. Having a background in accounting could possibly help me move up the ranks where I work. Like a lot of people, I have always associated accounting with math, and I thought since I'm decent at math that accounting would be a snap. Now I know why everyone I have ever known who's taken an accounting class tells me "It's not math!"

Accounting is definitely weird. It's like learning a foreign language. And words that you've heard before like "debit" and "credit" don't necessarily mean what you think they mean. And a lot of the concepts are not intuitive to me at all. I dunno. I think I can do alright in accounting classes, but I don't think I find it all that interesting. I generally feel like life is too short to do uninteresting things, but I also have a stubborn streak that wants to prove I can finish things that I start. So we'll see what happens.

Hopefully I can squeeze in some camera time (or at least photo editing time since my backlog is enormous) soon.

LCD Soundsystem

Last week I saw LCD Soundsystem in concert. I was expecting a good show based on things I've read about them, and I wasn't disappointed. Having a full band makes for a pretty heavy live sound. I find it somewhat amusing that James Murphy kind of looks like an average schlubby dude, or at least not like a "typical" lead singer of an indie band. He's got a great voice though.

And speaking of voices, probably my least favorite thing about LCD Soundsystem's records is Nancy Whang's backing vocals. They just seem a bit shrill or too far up in the mix for my taste maybe. However, I thought she sounded just fine live. Although at one point near the end of the show James tried out her mic and said something about it being much quieter than his, so maybe that explains it!

Altogether a highly recommended show if you like their albums!


Setlist:
Us V Them
Drunk Girls
Get Innocuous!
Yr City's a Sucker
Pow Pow
Daft Punk Is Playing at My House
All My Friends
I Can Change
Tribulations
Movement
Yeah

Someone Great
Losing My Edge
New York I Love You, But You're Bringing Me Down

I could read this setlist when I zoomed the image on my camera to its max.

The Garden

Baby steps. Baby steps back to blogging. You know the drill - not enough hours in the day, yadda, yadda, yadda.

One of the things I've been doing instead of blogging is getting my garden up and running again. I got kind of a late start this year, but things are starting to look pretty good.

I couldn't find grape tomatoes this year, so I went with sweet cherries. I've had a hard time getting larger tomatoes to do well here, and I like to put the little ones on salads. This past weekend I picked a bunch of caterpillars of the tomato plant, including 4 hornworms. I'm hoping that I got them all. I'm going to be watching like a hawk for them this year (they're so hard to see since they're the same color as the plant). Those hornworms can eat a plant down to nothing in a hurry. Anyway, my fingers are crossed for better tomato results this year.

Oh, and I forgot to get a picture of the okra plant that I planted in the ramshackle remains of my raised bed in the yard. Something to blog about later.

I couldn't find any Thai basil to plant this year, but then I noticed that new sprouts were coming up from last year's plant. It's growing great now.

The garden

My first ripe tomato of the season!


I love the fuzz on tomato plants.


A Tale of Two Peppers. These were about the same size when I planted them. I have no idea why one is so scraggly now. I've watered and fed them equally.


I think it's funny that the scragglier pepper plant has the biggest pepper on it. Maybe all the plant's energy went to producing it.

This is the other Thai basil plant, which also returned from last year.

More fuzz!

Team Coco Hits The Road

Last Thursday night I went to see Conan O’Brien’s Legally Prevented From Being Funny on Television show. I’ve been a Conan fan for a long time, so I was really excited when he announced this tour.

This show sold out crazy-quick. It was kind of weird how the tickets went on sale – they started selling them in the morning and announced the tour right before lunch. I was lucky to see the announcement in a blog posting before the show sold out. 15 minutes after I got my ticket, there were no more to be had. So I felt pretty lucky.

I wanted to be surprised by the show, so I didn’t read much about the prior stops on the tour. I figured that there would be a lot of stuff that carried over from show to show.

It was kind of like an old-fashioned variety show, but with cussing. There was music, standup, and some taped bits. I guess you could describe it as a live version of Conan’s television shows without the interviews. I really enjoyed it, and the rest of the crowd seemed to as well. I wish they had been able to do some kind of live action taped bit that was filmed around town, but I understand that they probably don’t have time for that kind of thing with their schedule. Overall, a big thumbs up!

Andy Richter does a fake commercial for a local liquor barn.

Conan claimed that this was the actual bat from Meatloaf's Bat Out of Hell tour.

Conan in his Eddie Murphy "Raw" suit.

Conan demonstrating how flat his butt is. "You could iron a shirt on that thing!"

Don't ask.

Andy Richter performed a number on horseback.

One of Conan's writers did a brief standup bit.

Conan broke out his guitar for a few songs.

Return of the bat.

The masturbating bear made a cameo.

The big finale.

The Conrad Bain cutout was not for sale, alas.

Here are a couple of videos that I shot. The Triumph one probably isn't as funny if you aren't from Dallas. The Walker Texas Ranger stuff owns, though.