Monday, October 17, 2005

Bits and Pieces

Haven't really dropped off the face of the earth - just seems that way. Work demands coupled with my other work demands have little time for blogging.

I don't blog about work very much, frankly because I get enough of work at work. But it's probably okay to let those of you that don't know this know that the company that I used to work for that outsourced its IT services (along with me) to the company I work for now gave us notice at the end of July that it is taking most of those services back in house by the end of February. For most of the techs, it probably means that they'll be offered jobs by our old company and they'll see little change. For most of the mgmt team, though, it could mean unemployment - at the least a lot of disruption. While I've been joking about ending up handing out carts at Wal-Mart, I'll likely end up still working with what services we'll continue to provide for this customer and adding a couple more medium-to-small customers to my portfolio (at least so I hope). All this is by way of saying that I'm spending a hell of a lot of time in meetings and on the phone and haven't had much time or headspace to blog.

Last week I actually had to go into the office for three straight days (horrors!) to meet with a bunch of folks, many of whom were Brits. I only bring this up as one of them took the piss out of another with a reference that none of us Yanks understood until British cartoon Captain Pugwash and his crew of Master Bates, Seaman Staines and Roger the Cabin Boy was explained to us. Hhmmmm. I also did my bit for the local economy by driving a couple of the guys over to Circuit City to buy MP3 players for cheap - yay me!

You know, just because you CAN bring your critter into Petsmart doesn't mean you HAVE to. With everybody trying to push a cart in one direction and follow their dog in another, I got run into at least three times tonight.

The other thing keeping us busy is the fall art season. I spent the weekend cutting mats and framing stuff for both the Carolina Club members art show and for the OCAG Fall Studio Tour - my Time for Pants! made it onto the cover of the tour brochure and will be hanging at the Art Center (with examples of the rest of the Tour participants' stuff) for the next few weeks. What was really cool was rescanning Time for Pants! and finding some really neat things in it that I'd not noticed before (haven't posted the new scan yet but you can check it out at the Arts Center!). The Carolina Club show opens day after tomorrow and the studio tour is the first two weekends of November. Hope to see you during the tour!

Despite it being one of the most famous restaurants in the Southeast (and despite JS being a long-time acquaintance of chef Bill Smith), we hadn't eaten at Crook's Corner since we got together 21 years ago until the Sunday before last. It was every bit as good at it should have been, and we had a chance to stop and chat with Bill on the way out. His first book is now out and you should go buy it. Now. Bill is one of the coolest, nicest people I've ever met and a hell of a chef.

We also got adventurous last weekend and ate dinner at City Beverage, which I've been wanting to do for months now. It did NOT disappoint - the food was awesome, the decor looked like a Shag painting and the two girls at the table next to us ordered the "mystery" drink, which came flaming in a soup tureen - can't beat that!

How did we get to
Hot Legs from Every Picture Tells a Story in 6 short years? I spent much of the weekend listening to the earlier Rod Stewart album having forgotten what a fucking incredible collection of songs that it is - Mandolin Wind, Maggie May, the cover of (I Know) I'm Losing You and the title track, which alone would be enough to get his skinny ass into the R'n'R Hall of Fame. That's got to be the rockingest acoustic guitar ever recorded and Madeline Bell's harmony on the rave-up ending is the absolute stuff.

Okay, starting to ramble - time to walk the dog and hit the sack (another night of sleeping on the sofa since I picked up an armful of poison ivy somewhere along the way a few days ago and J has kicked me out lest she pick it up from me). Later!

2 Comments:

At 9:14 AM, Blogger jw said...

Nice way to catch us up! Well worth the wait.

Did going into the office mean you had to put on pants? You don't have to, you know. Unless you are being accompanied by your daughter who is horrified by the fact that you "forgot," to get completely dressed, even if it is an honest mistake and you meant to iron your skirt and just forgot.

Crooks Corner is the ONLY Triangle restaurant I've been to and yes, you're right, it is very cool.

Oh, and Edwin McCain does a GREAT cover of Maggie May!

The word verification is lovepff. What does THAT mean?

 
At 4:10 PM, Blogger Tony Plutonium said...

jw - yes, unfortunately pants were required. I did complain that I was either going to have to do laundry after Day 2 or go hit Belk's for some new threads. And I'm guessing that should be read "Love? pff."

lex - never heard the Satellites cover but I can imagine it being decent as long as they didn't try to do it note-for-note.

 

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