Over the past several days Atlanta has seen damaging storms roll through town. On Monday alone there were 20 confirmed tornados in Georgia. On Wednesday that same front turned around and came back through as a warm front, countered by a bigger cold front from the west. When it wasn’t storming the skies were perfect for photography. On Tuesday it was beautiful; here is a picture of the moon late that afternoon.
On Wednesday we had early storms in the morning. I set up my GoPro in the front window on timelapse and caught this strike of lightning over the trees.
When the morning storms cleared the coloring was beautiful outside with the sun trying to break through the clouds. Here is a picture of the calm between the storms.
Wednesday night we got the 3rd round of storms which went late into the night. Again I set up the GoPro, this time doing timelapse video, capturing the storm from the time the sun went down until it came back up Thursday morning. Here is a condensed version of that video, showing the stormy phase of Wednesday evening and the beautiful sunrise Thursday morning.
And finally here is a picture of the sunrise Thursday morning.
We were always told that the first year of NYO kid-pitch would be a long season, mostly due to the kids getting used to pitching, and hitting against fellow players instead of coaches. Well it hasn’t been horrible, Ben has definitely been hit a lot, and you can tell when he is up to bat that it’s going through his mind. Up until today our Whitesox have not won a game, we are something like 0-13, but today was our day. I took a video of the last few minutes of the game just in case and it paid off. We won our first game in style, stealing 3 runs in the bottom of the 5th inning.
Here is a video compilation of time-lapse videos out of our front window. Our house faces East so we get great sunrises and a consistent look at clouds and storms moving through.
This past weekend we set off for a little road trip to see some Phish shows. First stop was Pelham Alabama at Oak Mountain Amphitheater. We stayed in one of the hotels just behind the amphitheater making the evening very easy. One of the funnier pregame sightings was the swaying bridge between hotel row and the parking lot. Fans were rocking the wooden bridge back and forth making it very difficult to navigate. See the bottom of this post for a youtube video we made of the swaying bridge. The last time I had been to Oak Mountain was the last time Phish played there in 1999, 13 years prior. That September night in 1999 was really special, but who knew it would be 13 years before their return? The show was solid start to finish with a nod to the early years, no songs were played that debuted after the last show they played there…an average debut of 1992. Sand was probably the highlight of the show for me, but there was plenty of nostalgia throughout. Some that stuck out for me were Cities, DWD, the Wedge, a huge Boogie on >2001 and a rocking Good Times Bad Times to end the night.
[1] Live and Let Die teases from Trey.
[2] Oye Como Va jam.
On Saturday we headed back to Atlanta for Phish’s return to Lakewood Amphitheater. For the past few years they have been playing Verizon Wireless Amphitheater in Alpharetta. For this show we had lawn seats which in my book should come at a serious discount. Neither the sound or lights were up to par out there, so I was a little down on the show from the get-go. They opened with Cars Trucks and Buses and that set the stage for the night. There were several highlights but for me Golden Age stole the show. On paper the show looks pretty solid, it was just filled with a lot of songs that I would prefer to hear on the couch as opposed to the lawn.
Finally on Sunday we got up and headed out for Charlotte North Carolina. Martha and I love going back to Charlotte, and apparently so does Phish. They have been killing it there and did not disappoint in 2012. We were back under the shed for this show in section 208 on Page’s side. Opening with AC/DC Bag the stage was set for a big night, an old school one too. I could not have scripted this show any better with some of my favorites like Moma Dance, Bathtub Gin, Fluffhead, Tube, Bowie, Crosseyed and Painless, and the biggest Mike’s-Weekapaug sandwich you’ve ever seen stuffed with Tweezer and Harry Hood amongst others in the middle. What a fantastic way to end the 3 night southern run. Again an old school show where the average song debuted in 1990. It may very well be another year before they return to the South, but we will be here when they do.
Notes: Machine Gun (Jimi Hendrix) was teased by Trey and Fish before and during AC/DC Bag. During Alumni, Fish stated he didn’t have a degree and later said he did. After Alumni, Trey said that Fish did have a degree, adding that they met in 1983 at UVM and that Fish held a very interesting record: the lowest grade point average ever recorded at UVM. Fish added “for a non-fraternity student” and both Trey and Fish joked about Fish’s GPA (giving low numbers). Trey added that they were both saved by Page at Goddard and that Page earned $100 for recruiting them to Goddard. Trey introduced Tube and My Sweet One as Fishman songs, asking the crowd to count the number of times “you” appeared in the song. There was a delay in starting My Sweet One until Page said they have a lot of interesting stories (about Fishman), prompting Fishman to immediately start the song. Mike’s and Suzy contained a Crosseyed teases from Trey. BBFCFM included Trey singing into his microphone that he raised above his head, playing his guitar behind his head and running around the stage and Mike playing his bass on his knees.
This past weekend I went to Atlanta Motor Speedway in Hampton Georgia for an opportunity to drive a Sprint Cup Car as part of the NASCARSpeedtech Driving School. This is something I have wanted to do for a long time, and something I was quite nervous about doing. I was more nervous in the weeks leading up to it, and as the days got closer that nervous energy became pure excitement. When you arrive they give you the option of having it video’d which I did, and you can see that video below on YouTube.
Now I don’t drive a car with a manual shift, and haven’t in a really long time but I was determined to make it work. Right off the bat I went from 1st gear to 4th and had to regroup quickly, and as you can tell probably scared the crap out of my instructor before we even got off pit lane. Once we made it through the gears and got on the track it smoothed out significantly, but the ride was crazy from start to finish.
The instructors lay out bars of tape around the track and you are supposed to keep within the lines as you circle the track, keeping you on point as you come in and out of the turns. You can see throughout my video he is pulling me closer and closer to the outside wall on the backstretch, and obviously I was not on board with that call. Almost every lap he grabs the steering wheel and pulls me closer to the wall, and is constantly telling me to go faster. Looking back I have no clue how fast we were going. The cars don’t have speedometers, all I know is we were going really fast in a rumbling beast of horsepower and I was holding on for my life.
Here is the YouTube video and below are some pictures from the day at Atlanta Motor Speedway:
Check out this full on Hollywood production that a realtor in Malibu had produced for their $35 million listing. The trailer is called “The Spider and The Fly”.
My boys love sledding in the snow each winter, and are constantly training throughout the rest of the month. Since it’s more like Fall/Spring instead of Winter this year, Henry has stepped up his skills. Here he is surfing down the front yard.
Last week I went out and bought an HD video camera hoping to find a great tool for shooting videos of my listings. I bought one, didn’t like it…bought another and still was really unimpressed with the quality and lens range. I did capture some of Ben’s basketball skills. Check him out.
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