An Arty MMP

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I hope everyone had a wonderful Mother’s Day! This is how I spent my Mother’s Day Eve:

The Art Car Parade is a 22 year old tradition here in Houston. We’ve been once before, a couple of years ago.
We got down near the start of the parade about 2 hours early (11:30 am), so we could find a parking place. You park in all the surrounding neighborhoods, as it’s a residential area.
It was already 85°F when we got there, and partly cloudy, but a nice breeze was blowing. It was a nice day! We walked amongst the parked art cars, trying to take pics of all of them, but there were 260 entries, I believe!

My favorite was The Brass Van. I talked to the owner, and it seems he got the car from the original owner, who assembled it over a span of 22 years. It contained over $15,000 in coins alone.

There was the Ronald McDonald house car. The Big Chicken. The Grand Marshall, Kinky Friedman,](http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b109/rmix/2009%20art%20car%20parade/025.jpg)who ran for Governor a few years ago. The Batmobile.

Here’s our entire photo album.

It was great fun. There was even an art car for the program I volunteered for last year. Recipes For Success. It’s a volunteer program to help build gardens for grade schools. I was so glad to see them, and they remembered me! Plus, they had sunscreen which I had forgotten. :wink:

It got pretty hot, but there was cold water and beerverages, and a good time was had by all.

2

Damn what time is it in Houston? Not even midnight if I’m not mistaken. Morning seems to have a more updated definition than I’m used to. :stuck_out_tongue:

Today was kind of just another day actually.

Friday was when my brother and I celebrated Mother’s Day with our Mom.

We hit up Wal-mart and bought some supplies to bake a cake.

My brother turned a bunch of ordinary household items into a cake, with the help of an oven. I cleaned the house while he was doing his thing.

During this time our mom was at work. He works with her as part of the night cleaning crew. So come 7:30, I take him over and they clean up their place of employment.

While he’s away, I have the living room coffee table set up with three books, three movies and one Mother’s Day card. As they pull up the driveway I scurry to the kitchen, bring out the cake, put in on the coffee table and light its single candle moments before our mom walks in the door.

It took her like a minute to notice our set up. :frowning:

3

Yeah, it’s early, but I have to get up at 4:30 to get ready for work and I’ll be incoherent.

Sounds like a great Mom’s day!

4

Nice OP Rebo! It’s Monday here (and was by about 5 hours when you posted) so you meet the “It’s Monday somewhere” criterion! More later, when I recover from being woken up (yet again) at a ridiculously early hour!

5

Ah, Art. I love good art, but I’ve never been big on the “classic” styles, genres, and, well, anything. The great Rennaisance painters, 19th and 20th century modernists, the paleolithic cave painters… I never cared for any of it. In fact, almost any art you’d find in a museum - be it painting, sculpture, drawing, whatever - holds little appeal to me. What I love, and what I spend hours browsing online, are artworks by small-time artists from the SciFi and Fantasy genres. The type of stuff you’d find on DeviantArt, or Elfwood. Most of the best pieces are digital, although some are traditional media; either way, I love well-done images that can take me to incredible new worlds where anything is possible. After all, if I want to look at real life, I can just go outside.

Although, I do have some very nice prints I bought on my trip to France a few years back. They’re traditional art, but because they have special significance and memories for me, I like them in spite of their distinct lack of dragons, castles, lasers and spaceships. :wink:

Finals start this Thursday. I have my Calc III final on that same day, not to mention another Calc III exam this Tuesday. I may skip that one since we get to drop our lowest exam grade and I have A’s on all the other tests. Oh, and I need to kill my Dynamics TA - he accidentally uploaded our grades on the last HW assignment in place of our exam grades. Instead of a 98 on the last test I got a 63. mumblemumblegrumblegripe Other than that the last week has been quite uneventful. Which is good - when school gets eventful is when bad things start to happen.

yawns Ack, I’m tired. I called the Maternal Unit to wish her a happy Maternal Unit’s Day, got my registration for Anthrocon confirmed, arranged to get a con badge drawn up by my graphic-arts-major friend Danielle, did some laundry in the laundry room in back of the main office for my appartment group (apparently I’m the only college student who seperates lights and darks. Wierd.), and played some vidyagames with my roommate Alex, so all in all a reasonably day if you discount the fact that I did essentially zero studying for Tuesday’s Calc exam. Oh well, it’s the weekend anyway.

And with that… g’night!

6

Seconding the “it was Monday for **some **of the MMP already” sentiment from Dotty :slight_smile:

At work.
Working!! :eek:
Thus no time to browse the links properly, but it sound like you had a great time, Rebo.

Happy Monday, y’all!

7

OK, It’s kinda early for a MMP, but I gotta work tomorrow, so I’ll jump in.

Alastair, I’ve seen fan-drawn badges at other cons. When you get one, do you still have to carry the official con badge as well? This may sound like a stupid question, but I’ve never done that before so I don’t know how it works.

Mother’s day was OK. Had to run to Target with my mom for some last-minute shopping. Not a problem for me, since I had already given my soon-to-be-ex-MIL and her daughters their gifts yesterday when we visited, and Mom, Grandma and sisters’ gifts were already bought and wrapped - stayed up till 2 am finishing up last night. We eventually made it to Sis’ house around 5 for a barbecue. BIL made tri-tip - awesome. The Princess gave me a photo of herself, framed and matted with the help of her dad, a card she made at school, and some coupons she made redeemable for chores. Of course, she made sure to include only the chores she likes to do, such as dishwashing (done standing on a chair with supervision), plant watering and dog walking. :wink: I got other gifts from my mom, sisters, and the ex-in-laws (outlaws?:)), but I liked my kid’s gifts the best.

8

Good Mornin’ Y’all! Up and caffienatin’. YAWN

Rebo the Art Car Parade sounds like a ton o’ fun! I’ll check out the pics later. Right now my brain would not comprehend.

As y’all know, I was at my mom’s for Mother’s Day. We had a cookout on Saturday and yesterday I went to church with mom and then we had lunch with sis. I did spend some time Saturday evenin’ at sis’s house drinkin’ some beerverages, watchin’ a movie and chit chattin’ with her.

Ok, need more caffiene and some brekkies prior to work purtification.

Later Y’all!

9

My Monday blurf as I think about heading off to bed. It was a nice Mother’s Day, I got a phone call from my son-in-law but not my two oldest girls, and I called my mom, who received her two dozen roses yesterday. My grandma who died in March was her step-mom, the only mom she ever had since her bio-mom abandoned her and my aunt when they were tiny, and mom was feeling a little melancholy that she no longer has a mom to buy cards and presents for, and take to dinner on Mother’s day. My teens were good, The Son bought me a pot pf pink and green parrot tulips, and my daughter bought me the movie Across The Universe which is a good movie, with the actor playing Jude being fantastically hawt, and Eddie Izzard making a fabulous cameo.

I haven’t checked out your photos yet rebo but I will in the morning. I was just on my way to bed when I thought I would check for the new MMP. Happy Monday, all of you day walkers, ttyl!

10

G’morning all, up and caffeinating…whew! Great OP, Rebo; all the cars are neat, esp. that brass car. There’s a van in our neighborhood that my daughter and I call the horsey van–they’ve got -a lot- of palomino horses attached in various places on that van!

I know how your Mom feels, kai; we lost our Mom in 2003 and every Mothers day since has been sad. One of my brothers scanned quite a few pics of our Mom, though, and put them up on his myspace page so we could all view them. That was nice. :slight_smile:

I had a relaxing day, breakfast in bed and cake and ice cream at the end of the day. Hope all the other mothers out there enjoyed their day too. :slight_smile:

11

Cool pictures, Rebo! Sounds like a fun event. Up. Gotta get to work. Happy Monday!?

GT

12

I love the Art Cars! One of them was a mosaic thing. I couldn’t tell if they were paper or tiles, but it was very cool.:cool:

My Mother’s Day was very nice. I trained it into the city (and sat with Train Talkin’ Guy the whole way) and Kid Kalhoun took me to Fleming’s Steakhouse. which was very swanky and delicious. http://www.flemingssteakhouse.com/. Our server was a little dramatic with the recitation of the menu, but she was very good. The champagne infused brie and a glass of Cakebreak chardonnay was positively divine. I had fresh fruit with honey-sour cream dipping sauce, filet mignon benedict, and creme brulee. Sigh…it was pure yum.

Where’s a yummy smilie when you need one?

13

Neat cars, Rebo. Canes lost last night. At least that means I have a game to go to tuesday.

14

Cakebread. D’oh!

15

Hey guys! I miss y’all, but I got something for my efforts: I got straight As this semester! I’m out for the summer so maybe I’ll get a chance to come back by more often.

Dolores, my brother is in Houston. I am going to send him the links and ask him why he never tells me about anything cool…

16

Cool OP, rebo! The cars are fantastic.

My brother is in Houston, too, shelli. I’ll have to ask him if he’s ever been.

We’re gonna be 95 degrees Murkin today so HOT again. Then it’s supposed to cool down to around 90. Welcome to Flawduh summer.

Cow-orker on vacation so I get to deal with all her OCD neurotic team members. :rolleyes:

Best get my own work done.

Tupug

17

I got smoked ribs and homemade mac’n’cheese and cake and…
Drumroll
Bacon ice cream, made by Muppet!
It was really interesting. Good, and odd. The ribs were amazing. My house still sort of smells like a forest fire.

18

Blurf.

Awesome OP, Rebo! That parade looks like a ton of fun… I’m really impressed at how beautiful and original some of those cars are.

We had a lovely weekend… The Boy and I spent Saturday making ice cream and ribs, and then headed out to check out the new Star Trek movie (which is a hell of a lot of fun, though it could have done without the umpteen-million lens flares shooting across the screen All. The. Freakin’. Time.) And then on Sunday, I popped out to visit Grammy Dearest at the nursing home with my coz. We brought her a nice lunch, since the food at the nursing home is utter crap, and chatted for a bit… and after that, off we went to visit the Lissars and stuff our faces with ribs and mac n’ cheese and ice cream and cake and tea.

I was still full when I woke up. So much for my diet. :slight_smile:

LiLi, ribs are the gift that keeps on giving… even when they’re long gone, the delicious aroma lingers on for a few days. :slight_smile: Mmmmm. Campfire.

Congrats on the A, Shelli! That certainly justifies your absence, and then some.

19

Good Morning All! (not really all that chipper but I fake it well)

It was the jackhammer down the street that gave it away that the sun had risen.

That brass car is pretty stinkin’ cool! There is so much to see on it although some of the masks are kind of creep with the bottomless eyes. I wish we had something like that around here I have two out of five of my heathens that would love it for the art and one that would love it for the cars and the other two would enjoy it to make me happy if they knew what’s good for them.

My mother’s day weekend was pretty good this year.

I haven’t spoken to my birthgiver in five years and she ran away from home about three years ago so that helps and my grandmother (who was amazing) has been gone for two years now.

I go and see my grandparents every Sunday after church and clean up their site and fill the birdfeeders. They have a nice little tree next to them that lets me put windchimes in it and decorate it around the holidays. Man I miss them.

My heathens and I were wondering if anyone else notices how much time and effort some people put into some of the plots. I mean there is one plot close to my grandparents that is always decorated elaborately all of the time and they go all out on holidays.

Back to the Mother’s Day thing. We went out in a big group with MiL, SiL and her boyfriend on Saturday night to one of our favorite resturants and had a wonderfully great time and many margerittas were consumed and we somehow started playing the game telephone.

First it started like the traditional game and then somehow it went from whispering from one person to the next to texting the person next to you. It was so much silly fun and I’m sure the people around us we wondering what the deal was.

My youngest son made me blueberry muffins before church and then after church we took the big dog and the little dog for a car ride to the park where I grew up and spent the day walking the miles long nature trail.

We came home, watch alot of VH1 reality tv and spent some time with my nephews who haven’t been over since their father was murdered a year ago and a wonderful visit was had by all.

My oldest daughter is going to take me to get my nose pierced when she gets paid because I’ve mentioned before how I’ve wanted it done since high school and was never allowed to and now I debate getting it done because it’s everywhere.

I almost forgot the best thing ever!!! I got concert tickets to my most favorite band ever!!! The Used!!! They are playing a pretty small place around here and they are very fan based and this is just going to be the most amazing thing!!! I’m taking all of my heathens except the oldest because she has tickets for another band the same night and some of the youth group “adopted” heathens.

My posts are so long I worry that you’ll ask me to stop posting in the MMP. But then again maybe I’m just making up for lost time? Yeah?

20

Blurf. No art car pictures to post.

I had a post-op with the hand surgeon this morning. I was kinda cornfuzzed going in, 'cuz stitches don’t normally come out after 5 days. They didn’t; he just wanted to see my finger in person. Stitches come out next Monday, so I have another whole week of them driving me crazy.

Went fishing yesterday, and took 2 rods. Set one up for bottom fishing, and the other with a bobber. Not a nibble on either one. The bottom rig broke with ALL of the line played out :mad:, and I caught a tree with the other :smack:, but managed to save the tackle.

I went home early.

We have a foster dog named Red, and he’s working on borrowed time. He’s trying to take over the house, but between Loki and me, he’s not succeeding. VWife and I took a short trip to Bugtussel so I could buy her a new DVD player for Mother’s Day, and when we got back, Red had apparently gone after Booger the cat, and 2 of the window screens were shredded. Booger and Red were outside. :mad: :mad:

After catching both and putting them in, Red then got back out the back door, and headed across the road to the Bed and Breakfast to pee in their shrubbery. He’s going back to the shelter today with a ‘Hostile To Cats’ judgement for his record.

Off to make my share of the corporate profit today.