Respects you from a distance.

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[ladtoyourleft]

Some guy was throwing his old tool cabinet away. Being from Arkansas, I saw it as a chance for me to score a free piece of kitchen furniture.

[ladtoyourleft]

Omar likes the Haagen-Dazs app so much he now wants an iPhone for his birthday. 

...

Haagen-Dogs

[ladtoyourleft]

Alligators are to the gulf coast of Mississippi as spiders are to Australia; they keep ruining my selfies and pictures of stagnant swamp water.

[songsfordogstothinkabout]

This one was particularly difficult to film. RIP, Rich Cronin!

Lyte Funky Ones’ Summer Girls on the couch

[backwoodfolk]

Yes my mother made all these goats Santa costumes for a Christmas Card. In fact she did it an awful lot. 

[ladtoyourleft]

This is why I want to come back to Arkansas.

[ladtoyourleft]

My Thanksgiving leftovers sandwich is as grand as the dreams I will likely have immediately after consuming it. 

[songsfordogstothinkabout]

Diddy’s “Bad Boy for Life”

in the living room.

[songsfordogstothinkabout]

Glastonbury performance of Mardy Bum (cuddles in the) living room.

[ladtoyourleft]

I bought tickets in July to see the Arctic Monkeys live for the second time. We decided to make a weekend trip of the concert, first by spending the night in New Orleans, and then going to Baton Rouge the day of the show. Things happened and we didn't make the concert, so we had to settle for a night of loudly streamed concert footage in a dimly lit house to recreate the experience. The thing that possibly bothers me most about the whole experience: misspelling Mardy in the description of the original and not being able to fix my mistake. Mumble mumble 

[ladtoyourleft]

Omar listens to music and contemplates how small he is in a big, big world.

Mr. Brightside in the kitchen.

[ladtoyourleft]

Omar listens to music and contemplates how small he is in a big, big world.

Macy Gray's "I Try" in the bathroom.

[ladtoyourleft]

Who needs an ark when they have a kitchen?

This has been my front door view for the majority of this month.

This has been my backdoor view most of this month.

This my kitchen view on the weekends.

...and on the 40th day he opened a window to proclaim that, not only has the rain subsided, but he was sick of butterscotch flavoring.

[ladtoyourleft]

Let Me Fix That for You, Bench.

On my 26th birthday, my dad told me that I'm finally to the age where I fix more stuff than I break, but I'm not certain that this is true. I think I've just finally gained the patience to wait until my stuff breaks before taking it apart. The fastidious routine that I strictly adhere to throughout a diagnosis and/or repair still goes as follows: 1-take screws out; 2-remove piece(s) the screw was holding down; 3-is this thing at the apex of disassembly? (if so, move on to step 4; if not, repeat); 4-wiggle stuff around; 5-put back together; 6-if it works, take credit; if it doesn't, blame Omar. All of this being said, I completed my cigar box guitar project earlier this year and have been on a repair rampage ever since. First up on my list was an alarm clock that I bought for college 6 years ago.

I bought it because it has a feature that projects the time, but I love it because it sets itself and thus required very little effort to use throughout the power outages Conway loved to offer. Only, last month, the time projection broke. I have a bag of LED bulbs at my house from another project. Since the broken display fit my code, I grabbed my screwdriver and soldering iron. 

For whatever reason, my alarm clock's projection works again!

My next fix was less technical, but equally uninteresting to people other than those who deal with me directly on a daily basis. Can you believe that people just throw things like this away?

There were a few rotten spots on some of the boards, and the top part of one of the back rest brackets was broken, but only one day of sanding and painting from Adrienne and myself yielded this result:

A lot of our hard work has been moot thus far, though, because Mississippi weather has not allowed us to sit on it comfortably. 

  Yesterday, I picked up this thing for free from a craigslist ad:

The guy said that the belt part didn't work, but the disc part did. After getting it home and looking into things I discovered that it's just missing the drive belt. Time to make some dust!

[ladtoyourleft]

Omar's gauntlet of LOTR tricks.

[ladtoyourleft]

I Built Something!

Cigar stores do something to me. I know nothing about cigars, and I've only seen my way through a handful in my life, but being inside the lounge of a cigar store makes me feel like I'm important. It makes me feel like I'm getting away with something. They have marble-esque floors, leather chairs, flat screen televisions, stained cabinets, and are usually occupied with men that wear watches more valuable than the negative total of my net worth. I should not be allowed in such establishments. The glory of a cigar store, though, is that for about 6 dollars you're entitled to sit in that leather chair, watch those flat screen televisions, and smoke inside. Any other place only allows 2/3 of those things, at best. 

When visiting my friend in Denver last year, I had the privilege of seeing the private, members only lounge of a shop. Till this day I have never witnessed any setting more refined than that area. I don't have any pictures because I assumed it wasn't allowed. Well, that's not true. I was too dumbfounded by the situation to reach for a camera. A worker there was giving me one of his personal stash cigars to bring to my dad for father's day. I don't even remember much about the place. Only that everything was the same brown, leather color and the exclusive members looked kind of bored. I remember wondering why everyone wasn't smiling idiotically like I was at the fancy light fixtures. It is what I imagine the secret Club 33 of Disney would be like.

Last month our town's local brewery, Crooked Letter Brewing Company, had an event at El Puros Perfecto Cigar. I went because Crooked Letter has a coffee porter that probably could have prevented a lot of historical conflicts had it been around in the BC years. At this event I got to do 3/3 of the cool things mentioned earlier, plus I got a free beer! It was a good day. After talking with the owners of El Puros, I also left with some boxes. One month later, I have this beauty:

And as the guitar's parting piece:

The box is still functional! I thought it'd make a good picture if I put a package of crackers or a candy bar in the box; but let's be real, those things don't really make it past the door in this house.

[lamb-on-the-lam]

Mississippi alligator

[ladtoyourleft]

It was a considerably lengthy amount of time into my stay on the gulf before I finally got to see an alligator. When I ask natives where I can see one, I always get a, "*sigh* in my back yard, front yard, swimming pool, and pantry." To this I'm like, "Great! Can I come see it?" No matter how sick and saturated with gators the locals make themselves out to be, I still haven't seen one on land and away from large bodies of water. 

Last month, we hosted a couch surfer. Whenever I get to show Ocean Springs to a visitor, I always bring him/her by the park near our house to see an alligator. This particular gator usually stays near the road during daylight hours, so it's easy for people like me to ogle at it. I think I was more excited than David was about this one being so close; either way, he had an awesome camera that subsequently led to some great shots. 

I was finally granted a bit of reverse smug revenge last month when a black bear was spotted the neighborhood of my school. Everybody was frenzied about the situation, but I was like, "Oh, it kind of reminds me of all the bears that I used to see frolicking in the Fred's parking lot back home. Calm down, people, it's just a bear."

[ladtoyourleft]

Staples of my weekends on Barbara Circle

Friday

3:50--I get home, make coffee, play with Omar, and we both wait for Adrienne to get home.

4:50--Still waiting.

Saturday

10:00--Adrienne wears funny clothing while we try to bake something.

3:00--I take a picture of whatever I'm taking apart so I can remember how to put it back together. This time it's an espresso machine that I bought at Goodwill.

8:30--Poutine, beer, and Firefly.

Sunday

10:00--We finish our weekend baking project.

11:30-9:00--Every time Adrienne is not in the same room as me, I figure out how many of the things we baked over the weekend I can eat without her becoming suspicious.

[kodysandwich]

mc chris FAN ART! Ghostbusters! 

[ladtoyourleft]

My friends like to draw things. I like to support my friends because sometimes they draw me as things. It's really a vicious cycle.