NBA All Stars in Vegas

I just had to share what I saw driving down the street the other day. Someone has fabricated giant jerseys and dressed the statue of liberty in front on NY NY casino and the gigantic lion guarding the front of MGM grand. hilarious!

Dad performs at the 2007 Grammys

Dad is to the right of Carrie playing a bright orange guitar. Great job DAD!!

microsoft word

must die.

my logo in action

www.threesquare.org

vegas isn't bad when

you can spend a sunday afternoon lounging comfortably on a lawnchair outside in the middle of january.

THE GOWN

has been purchased!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

our new friend Bruce

Bruce is our new friend. Bruce seems to have nothing to do in life. he drives around our cookie cutter neighborhood and pauses in horror in front of our house. he goes home and excitedly writes us a letter about how we have a few strands of grass growing back near the side of our house. the kind of grass where you have to stop, get out of your vehicle, investigate and have your day ruined at the sight of the greeness. we sprayed it with weed killer and again got distracted with our busy lives. today we got an especially fond love letter from Bruce saying he will fine us $100 if the matter is not resolved in 10 days and included a blank sheet of lined paper on which we are to explain ourselves and send back to him. ah, Bruce, what an exciting life you have. I will say that i had not even noticed the "overgrowth" of the grass strands. i have noticed, however, the infestation of dirty pigeons that live in the front yard of the neighbor across from us and the house on the corner that still has full-on xmas decorations up. maybe they are friends with Bruce too. I sure hope so.

nose-picker

today i laughed harder than i have in awhile. i heard my art-director say, "you gotta take a look at this." what i saw was beautiful. some guy was outside our office facing the building next to us VORACIOUSLY picking his nose. he was using the window as a mirror, somehow not realizing? that there was a woman sitting at her desk RIGHT there behind the window. and he didn't stop. he kept going and going. pushing his nose up with one hand and digging with the other. head tilted way back. at one point he walked away a few steps but quickly returned to do some more digging. little did he know that our whole office, and most likely, the entire office of the building he was using as a mirror was staring in awe/amusement. wow. gave me my second wind to finish the work day.

pilates

seriously.
i'm having trouble moving.

molly on millionaire

our friend molly had a party at a local bar last night where we all watched the airing of her appearance on "who wants to be a millionaire".

she walked away with $100,000. yeah, our drinks were free.
unfortunately the lady that went on right after her walked away with a big, fat $0. sad . . .

CONGRATULATIONS MOLLY!!

molly is the 3rd person recently I have known to be involved in some kind of reality TV situation where she is sworn to secrecy. the craziness.

pilates

ouch.

this melts my heart

angie and ren

it has arrived.

http://www.apple.com/iphone/

by the way, my birthday is in a few days . . . .

being a graphic designer in las vegas

was interesting today. working at a small place and for a non-profit agency i found myself wearing more than one hat. actually i wore boots. tall ones. white leather ones. all in the name of graphic design and charity. i think the campaign is going to end up really cool though. will post when done. then at the end of an odd day of an all day photo shoot unlacing and relacing shoes i was asked to stay late. was at work until after 10pm concepting for an opening night ad for an incredibly upscale gentleman's club. we usually don't take on this genre of client. but this time did for a variety of reasons. we took photos of the interior of the place and they actually have showers in there. I guess pole dancing is for the lower tier clubs. This is the type of place where men drop around $5,000 in cash in a night. they have 2 of the best sommeliers in the world, so after hearing our ideas for the ad the client chimed in with a few of his own. i am just going to paraphrase out the crass language. basically horrible photo shoot ideas with lines like "not one, but two." and "a great piece of meat" referring to their in-house 5 star restaurant. nice. yep. a graphic designer in vegas. just as i hoped it would be.

FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS

is the best show on television. and i hate football, so that is saying a lot.

Air - Sexy Boy

another blast from the past.

child psychology - black box recorder

i have not seen this in so long!

Darkel - At The End Of The Sky

www.stucktoapole.com

great holiday fun.

the handsome family in pioneertown

sounds like a dream come true for mr. zach. the handsome family is playing somewhere somewhat close! in an old cowboy town! the sunday after thanksgiving (we later regretfully learn to be the most traveled day of the year) we pile in the car and jump on the highway towards california. along with everyone else in the world. what was supposed to be a 3 hour drive took 6-7 hours? by the time we got there the sun was pretty much down. but we could still see a little bit. insane rock formations and more joshua trees than i have ever seen. the place was crawling with rabbits! we pulled up to the little lodge. had to pull the manager away from eating his dinner in his apartment in the lodge to give us the key. he told us not to trash the room bc rickie lee jones is checking in to it right when we leave. it is her favorite room he says. we walk on over to pappy and harriets where we run into brett of the handsome family. hanging out in the audience was victoria williams who seemed to be doing well despite her fight with MS. it was a really good show. they played things they normally don't. we had a nice sleep falling asleep to the sound of howling coyotes and got up at 5am to begin our drive home so that i could be at work by 8am. unfortunately our fancy new back way we found that would have been faster had no gas stations. we managed to coast on fumes alone for miles!! amazingly coasted into a gas station and cancelled our road side assistance call. thank goodness. we were in the middle of desert. i literally saw a mirage. i kept asking zach about the lake up ahead. and it was a mirage. so, i ended up being exactly 2 hours late to work. but we made it! was it worth all the hassle? uh . . i think so? we will make a return to pioneertown for sure. a very cool place.

yay thanksgiving!

zach and i are having a great morning. merle haggard fills the house as the macy's day parade performers on tv dance surprisingly to the beat. my favorite part was watching the ladies and gents with their top hats and ear to ear smiles as merle sings "if i die maybe the pain will go away." zach and i have decided that this is our new thanksgiving tradition. brilliant. the house is clean and we are cooking away. im sure it will all end up looking like zach's signature gorp, but long as it tastes good, i am happy. time to pour some mimosas.

one sheet of paper

someone sent me these images. really cool

Happy Thanksgiving from CDI Studios

kate's visit

kate and her best friend illeana arrive at the las vegas airport ready for an exciting trip of vegas casinos, clubs, shopping and more. i think it was the "more" part that they were not prepared for. but they were great sports about it all. we picked them up at the airport on the most grizzly day i have ever experienced in vegas. grey, freezing, windy. the forecast said it would be sunny, but the girls brought some incredibly atypical vegas weather with them. we took them by the house and then on to the first adventure. a casino? no. shopping? no. a random fake western town with a lot of weird animals? yep. so we boarded the train on a freezing windy somewhat rainy day to travel a few feet to the western town to watch a hanging. it was riveting. we all tried our best to humor zach and his idea of an amazing day. i will say that we saw some crazy animals. i think my favorite was the black chicken with big furry feet that ran around. zach thought he found his long lost goat he has been wanting forever. he wants to name him luther.

when we got back to the house i was handed a zebra dress and told by kate "you are wearing that". my response? " i thought you were wearing that?" her response? "yeah. i am wearing it, you are wearing it and illeana is wearing it." come to find out that zach had requested that kate go to the clothing store she owns in charleston and pick up three matching dresses that we would all wear out together. i told zach i couldnt do it and he said "take one for the team, trace." so i wore it and it was hilarious.



the next day we went to red rock canyon. an amazing thing happened. i have lived here an entire year. have been to red rock canyon i don't know how many times in search of a burro. never seen one. well, today was the day. we finally met. take a look.




the girls wanted to go to a club so we agreed we would go to ghost bar and the palms. they got dressed up in amazing dresses and to the ghost bar we went. we walked up to the front and the 2nd door man gave kate trouble over her very legit i.d. we went to security, got the i.d.s scanned. gave them wrist bands, went back. the doorman decided he wanted to be a mr mean man for no reason. he said there was no way we were getting in his club so we got the manager. the manager was very nice. took us through another set of security and up the back elevator. the mean doorman had called security on us so he had to take us up a back way. when we exited the elevator the manager took us into the kitchen!! here he gave us a talk about how we had done nothing wrong, apologized for his staff and told us that we were going to have a good time at his club. then he escorted us past all the doormen saying "code 4" (later i learn this means V.I.P.) he takes us up to the bar and tells all the bartenders that we are to drink for free. in addition to that we were getting free drinks left and right from various men in that place. the manager checked on us throughout the night and then asked us if we would like to check out the new club "moon" in the new tower of the palms. he had someone escort us to that club. no cover charges were paid anywhere. at that club we were led to a private table stocked with alcohol and told we could have whatever we wanted. then a man came up to me and told me we had to leave bc the owner's wife thought we were too pretty to sit there. ridiculous!! so we ventured to the brand new playboy bar where kate spent the first amount of money any of us had all night. she got 2 drinks and paid over $40 i think. we then got a text from zach telling kate i had to work and we needed to get home. didnt get to bed till 4am bc we got home and proceeded to chat for a while. it really was quite an entertaining night!


the next day we took the girls shopping and then to top the night off to a suprise visit to meet characters of star trek at the bar quarks. we all shared a smoking (literally) bowl of warp core breach? i would say an fantastic end to a vegas experience.

sunday bloody sunday

W sings.

. . . and . . .

the SENATE!!!!!!!!

Dove Real Beauty Workshop for Girls

hmm, how ironic.

hooray for the HOUSE!

now how about the senate . . . .

:(

we didn't get the big campaign we were working on.

help

i'm never going to find my wedding gown:(

musical genius

so, my parents gave zach an amazon gift certicate for his bday. my thoughts were that he should save it and use it every time he wanted a new cd or something. but, no he used the whole thing and bought a keyboard. which he is playing right now. i cannot stop laughing. i really can't. he is in heaven. i will post the date of his debut record as soon as it is released.

late nights at work this week

pitching a HUGE client. hope we win!

trick or treaters

zach is offering the poor neighborhood children brussel sprouts when they ring our doorbell and yell "trick or treat!". they stare at him blankly and just when it gets to be a little too awkward, he brings out the real bowl of candy. pretty amusing.

engagement anniversary

saturday was our one year anniversary of being engaged. we used a gift certificate my parents gave me for xmas to go to a super fancy restaurant and tasted fine wine for the first time! of course zach started pondering how the poor lobster's life had been cut short for a meal and therefore it didn't taste as good as it could have. we then packed and got in the car on saturday morning and zach would not tell me where we were going. turned out it was mount charleston for a lil getaway. it turned out to not be the best. they were having an octoberfest serving only bud light and a "german band" that sounded more like smooth jazz. we went to our favorite game room there to play a little air hockey and found the room empty and gutted. darts were gone in the bar. the worst of it was the hard as a rock bed and a repetitive noise, like someone's alarm or cell phone throughout the night. we got little sleep. the next morning i went to pick up nathan holritz, our wedding photographer, at the airport. i got there just in time, then realized that the time had changed and no one had told me:) so i was an hour early. anyhow. he got some great photographs of zach and i out at red rock canyon. it was a good time. more of these photos can be seen at www.holritzphotography.net.

happy nevada day!

of course zach has the day off!

MY DAD

is the long-haired dude on the far right. playing with chet atkins on the jerry reed show. priceless.

Happy Bollywood Halloween

enjoy.

wow

http://www.dfw.com/mld/startelegram/15815494.htm

this is an article my uncle wrote. check it out.

re-start the countdown

one year from TODAY!!!!

Russian hooey

My co-worker has a fondness for listening to rush limbaugh and huey lewis and the news. I believe I prefer huey.

my daily commute

involves leaving my house at 7:10am and driving into the rising sun until i arrive at the office at 8:00 am. after work i leave and drive directly into the blinding setting sun for at least one hour. i have become so bored on these journeys that i have begun 2 photo projects that i am uploading into flickr as i take them. the first is that of the strange las vegas fascination with vanity plates. the 2nd is just random images that i see every day on my way to and from work.

blue hawaii

of course i watched blue hawaii last night!

of course i feel asleep half way through!

all hail the mighty letterpress

i visited this archaic machine last saturday that will hopefully help me with my wedding invitations. yay letterpress!

news flash

it's raining.
in the desert.

happiness is . . .

a new beck album.

jack white's nashville abode

once upon a time back in the early 70's? my dad moved from texas to nashville to become a professional musician. he made the move with his best bud don. they lived together for awhile, then married off, etc, had babies (i was one of them). don went into publishing. dad remained a guitar player.

his family and ours tend to spend xmas eve's together and this past year i asked if we were going over to don's for our holiday get together. dad said that we were not - don had just sold his house to some kind of rock and roller. i don't go to don's house anymore.

http://www.rollingstone.com/rockdaily/index.php/2006/10/03/jack-white-happy-
homemaker/