21st - 24th

Inspired by the good Brian Koning's framed photography, I decided to make work of getting a some of my favorite photos enlarged and framed in my apartment. This has been on my to-do list for a few months now, but I finally ordered mats and backings from a website and they came last week. I had most of Friday off so was able to pick up some 8x12's of my pics, adhere the photos to the backings, and use two-sided tape to attach the framing mats to those. It's a nifty little process. I've done 5 so far, but I have ten more mats to use... Most of these photos have made a previous appearance on my blog:

I'm pretty happy with how they turned out. I'll eventually make a few more for the apartment and a couple for my office.

Saturday I spent the day recording some music. I usually lay down a vocal and guitar idea and then add bass, electric guitar, keyboard, maybe shaker; then I tap out a drum beat using the drum voice on my keyboard - just to get a general idea of how it would sound with a band. I've been recording on and off since April or so... and I only recently realized that I have quite a few song ideas coming together. Getting a really quality-sounding recording seems to be pretty complicated, but I'm gradually getting a little better/quicker at it. I was pleased with a song that I got down on Saturday.

Saturday night my church Bible study group did some Christmas caroling at a nursing home. I wasn't particularly looking forward to it... and maybe had a bad attitude about it, but it was actually really fun. I thought it'd be awkward. But I'd challenge anyone not to have a good time belting out familiar and less-than-familiar Christmas songs and verses... (there are a bunch of weird Christmas songs out there) with a group of friends. Musically, we had our strong and weak points, but that didn't seem to matter to all the folks at the nursing home. They thought we were a professional touring group.

...Had a x-mas party with some friends last night. It was a great time. It was an everybody-brings-something meal... and we followed it up with a game of spoons... of which I was the winner.

Tonight I had a Christmas Eve service at church and I'll fly out of Portland Christmas morning to head to Florida. It's been 8 months since I've been back. I'll arrive home @ 10:30 PM where there'll be a full house of family waiting to give and receive gifts. Then, vacation.