On the upside...

I'm a big fan of having stuff custom made. Almost all of you have seen my truck, and many of you have seen my table. I've got a few other treasured items like that.

Well, my friend Maria makes leather stuff. She's starting to turn it to a business, so I decided to ask her for a custom wallet. I wanted a fairly big one, able to take a chain but also able to function without it, that had a big 'BBQ' on it, and maybe some flames. 'Be creative, have fun with it' was my instruction.

She just sent me a picture of the work-in-progress.



I'm excited!

Tough Weekend

Saturday Elise and I played our first duet in public; at a funeral. It was a bummer; a very friendly and energetic woman who obviously had a wide and good effect everywhere she went. She died of cancer, and I think she was 54 when she died.

Immediately upon returning to the house, I picked up my cellphone (which I'd left behind) to hear a message from my very distraught friend Susan who said her dog wasn't well. Elise and I raced to the vet just in time to see Fisher put down.

Fischer Watkins, b. unknown, d. 9-27-2008.
Rest ye well, fair traveller.

My eyes are tearing up writing about this. Fisher was the sweetest dog on earth, and early on when Elise wanted me to declare Jilly with that title, I refused. When Elise met him, she soon understood why. He was an old man by then, a sweet old man. But I remember the young man too, who was just as sweet with a lot more vigor. Now Jilly has indeed assumed her throne, but it's not the sort of promotion you rejoice over.

And this was all before noon! Our weekend was pretty shot at that point. We went to lunch, went back to our place, and napped the afternoon away. In the evening, we went to a local restaurant where we often meet Susan, and got her favorite dish. We dropped it off to her on our way to a party. At the party my friend Darrin made some awesome beers and bratwursts, but our heart really wasn't in partying. Today, we're all kind of numb and frazzled, and it shows in lots of little ways. We're napping through the afternoon today, too.

Jealous!

Elise played The EARL before I did. She sang at a Sacred Harp gathering.



Pretty cool. The crowd liked it.

Bob Herbert Nails It

"Does anyone think it’s just a little weird to be stampeded into a $700 billion solution to the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression by the very people who brought us the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression? How about a second opinion?"

mailto:gov.palin@yahoo.com

Sarah, Sarah, Sarah.

I'm sitting here at the Chevy dealership and of course Fox News is on. They're talking about this egregious invasion of privacy into your Yahoo! account. Someone hacked your password and hijacked the account, and the Fox pundits are wondering why the Secret Service couldn't protect you.

Well, if you'd been using your government-provided official e-mail address, perhaps they could have. But then you'd have been subject to record-keeping laws.

But now you've learned what life on the 'net is like. It's still a little wild, wild west out here. Oh, there's a great veneer of ease and security and lots of eye candy, but in the end, it's just a veneer. Underneath there is a lot of cryptic technology, with millions of workers and, yes, a criminal element. It's a microcosm of our world. It is its own world, when you think about it.

Any time you connect off your computer, you should presume that everything you say is being seen. How far you go determines how many people might see it. Your government is only a few, secure steps away, so you know that they eyes watching it are the authorized ones. But Yahoo!? Well, the whole world can see it.

And now the whole world has.

Obama '08,
Steve

ps. Cute picture of Bristol hammin' it up with Trig on the plane.

Been busy...

Sorry we haven't been posting a lot lately. Elise has been crushed with a few big projects, and work has had me traveling and working really hard. But it's all good. We're hanging in there.

Barack Obama for President

Mmmmmm

Someday I'm going to do a whole pig, luau-style.

Camping In The Back Yard

My house (which, after renovation, will be OUR HOME) is a couple miles away from Atlanta's only still operating drive-in theater, which has stayed successful because they have a built in crowd in the form of Atlanta's lowbrow scene. These are people who like PBR and tattoos and hot rods and rock-n-roll bands. Each year on Labor Day weekend, these people descend on the drive-in to camp out and strut their stuff. This was my third year going and I had a blast.

Phillip, the guy who painted my car was working like a dog in the days before the show to finish this car. It still smelled of paint.



I brought my barbecue trailer and made ribs, brisket, chicken, bratwurst and pork shoulders. I shared it with around fifty people in all, made a lot of smiles. In return I got morning coffee, bread, chips, beer, this unbelievable fruit cobbler, and a bunch of friends. I gave away about a dozen business cards. I was introduced to the organizer of the car competition who thanked me for feeding his guys and gave me a T-shirt.



Phillip's girlfriend Amanda had a pinstriper paint her gray PT Cruiser with some nice stripes on the hood, and on the back deck, the car's name "Bruiser" and Amanda's favorite dessert, a cupcake. The striper did an AMAZING job, and I wish I'd gotten a picture before the battery ran out. I'm sure one will surface soon enough. The cupcake even had shadows and sprinkles!