Any Green Thumbs?

I have a planting question. Krammy has gifted me an orchid that is out of bloom. He says that it needs to be watered every other day, but it doesn't seem to absorb any water (just drains through the pot) and the leaves seem weak ... do these things need to be replanted as they age, or is this poor plant just stressed out because Krammy has pawned him off on me? I'm thinking about calling those guys on South Carolina Public Television (here). Any ideas?

In other plant news, we had a thunderstorm today, and a tree fell on a Volvo in the apartment parking lot. I keep thinking, wow, that could have been me.

~ Austin

Tarzan in the Narrows

Woke up Sunday sweating. It's been 95 - 101 for about a week with no rain. I went to the computer and googled "best swimming holes, Nashville", and tada ... we ended up finding the finest swimming hole around. Jacque was weary of the water so she stood in a tree ...

Then following Jacque's lead, Paul went swinging from said tree:

True Tarzan style ...

Katy and I tried our hand at swinging into the water, although we didn't have Paul's skilz. We really ended up just falling out of the tree ...

It was a good way to cool off. We had have several onlookers giving us advice most of the afternoon. One of them was a child who was teaching all of us how to skip rocks. He was doing pretty good ... until he hit his brother in the head with a rock. Thanks for the advice kid.

~ Austin

Good Gang World Premier

Paul and I have been working on writing children's music with Charlie Anderson. Last week we played for the William's Syndrome camp at Vanderbilt. The campers were between the ages of 17 - 49. They have a rare syndrome that hinders their intellectual development, and they have an affinity for music. Someone explained their impairment to me as the opposite of Autism. Rather than being removed and introverted, they are very gregarious and love interacting with people. This made for an easy audience.

We performed 6 songs for the last week. This week we're going to try to get into a studio and make some recordings. The idea is to create high quality children's music with a positive message. We think that we could find a niche in this market. There seems to be a lack of artists in this genre, and the music has suffered. If that's true, then we assume the parents and kids are suffering too.

At the very least, it has been a good exercise. I needed to play the piano again. My chops are rusty, and Paul and Charlie are good at inspiring creativity. I have written two songs so far. Paul is doing the heavy hitting. We are working on plans to create a recording label that will become a launching pad for this project as well as others to come. The label is called 'The Good Gang Music Factory,' and our first album is 'Charlie and his Animal Friends.'

Breakfast Club

We decided several months ago that the best part of having breakfast for dinner was that you could have beer for breakfast. So today I had Graham, Dawson, Mark, Jennifer, Claire and Krammy over to partake in some pancakery. Jennifer brought her waffle maker, and Krammy manned the spachelas. By the end, there were islands of batter from the side fo the frig to the far wall.

Krammy, the proud father-to-be, practiced his paternal entertaining skills by crafting a micky the moustastic pancake!



... and Mark chewed on his beard.



Paul went home for the weekend. Tomorrow he'll return, and we'll tell him about the wonderful breakfast that he missed.

~ Austin