Cleaning up the links...

Added a couple, deleted a couple for a little web site house cleaning.

Added is a link to the Physical Therapy Department where I work. The link gives you info about the in patient physical therapy team. If you search for out patient you will find info on that part of our department and can look for some changes there as they soon move to a new location.

I also added a link to Jeremy Lester's Mom's blog. Jeremy is a former scout from our old troop and is in Iraq on his second deployment with the 82nd airborne. His mom Bonnie has started this with family news. Currently up are pictures from a business trip her husband Mark took to Malaysia.

Also since my new camera makes video I have a youtube channel. All videos here will be made by me. Out here in the boonies on dialup it takes about 5 hours to put a one minute vid up, so enjoy. The Lufkin High Band video has had quite a few views. It was picked up and posted to other folks sites.

Deleted were a couple of guitar sites. These replacements are a little more personal, news about me and the people I know.

The Same Old Background...

I knew a guy one time who claimed that people who worked in drug store photo shops had a nice little sideline going. Whenever a scenic shot came in with someones vacation pictures they developed themselves a copy and sold it to a postcard company who then printed up the cards and you could find them on the rack in souvenir shops wherever fine vacationing is to be found. He claimed that he had seen photos that he knew he had made himself for sale.

I guess these days folks that want to have a sideline like that must be pretty busy with all the photos posted on the net to pick and steal from.

But just imagine if you could sit in the same spot all day at some famous junction and watch each eager tourist walk up and snap their shot,the same shot over and over all day long. It might look like this.

Cathy, Rose and Katie, about 1989 or 90 in front of St. Louis Cathedral in Jackson Square New Orleans, Louisiana. Mary is not born yet, I don't know where Morgan is, at home with a baby sitter, wandering Bourbon St, who knows, but looks like a good time for all.

Next up we have a couple more tourist from just a few weeks ago. You would think that railing would be worn out from all the butts that have leaned up against it making pictures in the 17 or 18 years since the last picture was made. Very few pictures appear on these pages that were not made by me so thanks to a passerby who helped us out.

Speaking of passerby, look who is getting in on the photo op now. This picture not by me either.

Odds and Ends...

Just a moment to catch upon news of friends and family.

Check out Cathy's cousin Errol Cooney in the November issue of Guitar Player magazine. Errol is in Stevie Wonder's band playing guitar right now so check out the short interview, find out that kind of stuff us guitar geeks thrive on like what kind of strings he uses. We like to think we can change over to them, maybe play like Errol and get better gigs ourselves.

Also of note is that an old family friend from scouting days, Jeremy, left for his second tour in Iraq this week. His mom, Bonnie, started a blog, is a neighbor on blogspot, to keep news up to date. Her last post used a picture I had made last time Jeremy was in. Here is a link, you can keep up and I will post links to entries of note so we can keep Jeremy in out prayers:
http://www.jeremylestersmom.blogspot.com/

Small Water Fishing Today...

Few shots from fishing at the land. Caught about 6 bass, with this one being about average size. There were numerous bream with some that could be rated as true lunkers. All on small spinners and cataba worms.

This baby cat squirrel wandered out of the woods and tried to adopt us. No, he is not swimming in our bellies.

Visitors for a fishing trip...

Scott and Ellen arrived for a fishing trip this weekend.

It was easy to see how serious everyone was about this business.

Here Cathy concentrates on making the bite happen.

Scott said he was down "fo what evah."

The bite was a little slow starting, but got going pretty good.

There was one scary time when we stopped on a small island. Mary though she heard something.

Out jumped a moss ape.

The tub shot. Those fish are swimming in our bellies.

Sights of New Orleans...

Browsing a French Quarter antique shop and looking at old black and white prints I had the idea to make some pictures in the French Quarter, perform some computer wizardry, and come up with some shots from another age. Did not really make a difference, but here are the shots.

Upstairs over a belly dancing shop I like to visit in the French Quarter. Nice looking here, maybe I should have made a picture of the other end of the block where there were some windows lacking glass. For some reason the belly dancing shop did not seem the same. They had some nice African shirts, which in another day and age I might have bought, but with some much war, famine and disease on that continent it just did not seem right for a big ol white man like me to be tooling around in one of those. Even if I don't wear the shirt, I'll keep doing what I can.

A few blocks from the French Quarter we came upon a historical marker that proclaimed this house to have once been the home of the father of legendary Voodoo queen Marie Leveau. Built 1817-1833 I think the sign said.






The Bywater BBQ. I had a nice brunch of fried egg plant topped with crabmeat, holliandise sauce and poached eggs. Very yummy. The humvee in the foreground belonged to a couple of GIs and one of New Orleans finest who stopped in to eat while taking a break from patrol. At least I think they were what they appeared, it was a pretty trendy place. There was one guy in there dressed as a cowboy, but his chaps looked a little to new to me.

I wanted to get my picture made sitting in the humvee, but they had guns. Kind of hard explaining the blog thing to armed people, heck it's kind of hard explaining it to unarmed people sometimes.

These markings were on a lot of the houses in the neighborhood where we stayed. I assume at one time maybe all of them. Since the visit I have discovered that the top of the x is the date searched, the sides is the unit that searched and in the bottom of the x you could find the number of dead in the house. I can't recall any notation of dead where we were, I don't think there was any bad flooding. Wish I would have had a car. I would have visited the destroyed areas.

Still a lot of clean up even in areas not hit too hard. Here was a pig right in the middle of a remodeling job. Luck he did not get et when food was short round here. As we watched this pig we could here warm up scales being played in the band hall of the high school across the street.

On the way home they let me sit on the wing. They will do that you know, if you ask. Just explain the blog thing.

Feast Day...

Today is the Feast Day of Our Lady of La Salette. Our Priests at St. Patrick's are of this order and this is the anniversary of the day she appeared to three small children in the French Alps.

Here are a few Mary pictures I made in New Orleans recently.

A lonely Mary in the courtyard of, according to the historical marker, an old German church from the early 1800s. Looks shut down and I do not know if this was a Katrina casualty or not.











Mary in the grotto at our Lady of Guadalupe International Shrine to St. Jude on Rampart St. in New Orleans. This is the oldest church building in New Orleans.












Candles lit in the grotto.


Hail Mary, Full of Grace, The Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now, and at the hour of death.
Amen.

Ok, we take a break from New Orleans, more on that later, to report that Lufkin once again gives Nacogdoches a good old fashion whipping in football for the 15th time in a row. Just goes to prove that in Lufkin, we are the good guys. When you even say Nacogdoches it gurgles in your throat like a death rattle.

You can check out a video of the Lufkin Panther Band Drum line in action on our very own youtube channel:
http://www.youtube.com/theolderyouwillget

As I left the game I spotted a young man getting in trouble. He was outside the stadium with doors and trunk of a very nice car all flung open playing loud music to celebrate the Lufkin win. The Nacogdoches Police Department did not like him gloating like this. Rubbing it in I am sure is what they thought and I do mean they as re enforcements were soon to arrive.

Since the officer's attentions were occupied I took a moment to step behind a parked car and empty my bladder of two diet Dr. Peppers I drank during the game and I thought about the state of the world. This law and order thing has just gone too far. There are too many rules. You know, Belichick can't cheat to win at football anymore, they are accusing poor ol O.J. of something he probably did not do again, Scooter Libby just blew a broads cover, that poor man Senator Craig has said he's not gay and now it's down to this young man. Next thing I expect is that some game warden will be shaking Cheney down for a hunting license.

I can understand why anarchy is so popular these days.

So let's talk about the music in New Orleans.

Here is the Soul Rebels Brass Band playing at the Dragon's Den. I am only sorry I did not get a better shot of the tuba player.



Casa Samba, a local drum group celebrated Brazilian Independence Day at Howling Wolf.

See the dancers dance here:

http://www.youtube.com/theolderyouwillget





More Casa Samba members.


Long time New Orleans favorites The Pfister Sisters swing some sweet jazz harmony in Washington Square Park.






Sacred Steel band the Lee Boys get down at The Maple Leaf. This is some hot gospel music, lead by a Hendrix sounding steel player called the Doctor.









Snapped this tuba player in Jackson Square. Your durn tooting I dropped some cash in his tip jar. A brother has to help a brother out.

The Lookout Inn...

Couple of shots from the place we stayed in New Orleans. It was called the Lookout Inn and it got it's name from the fact that as the tallest building in the neighborhood the Navy used it as a lookout during WWI. They say you can see the mouth of the Mississippi from the roof.

Here is the front of the house. Located in the Bywater area it is much like many New Orleans neighborhoods, even before Katrina where you have a real nice place finely done up in grand southern style and then next door is a dump. The Bywater and the Marginey are the hip places right now. Rock stars, movie stars, blog writers and the like hang here.

It's maybe 20 blocks from the French Quarter. Walkable in two hours if you only stop to eat once. We took taxis after dark.

Here is the back yard. Very relaxing to come home to a swim. We never saw our hosts and talked to them once on the intercom. Very private, we saw only one other guest. It was like having your own house and the best part is only a few bucks more than a Holiday Inn.

My overall impression of New Orleans after Katrina is that if you had money, you were alright, if you did not have money you were screwed, which is pretty much like it is everywhere. I think the aid avaiable to residents may have made it easier for folks that may have been dreaming of their own business to get started than if the storm never happened.

The inside of our room, called the Jungle Room. Each room has a theme. Looks kind of like this had been two rooms in the old days, divided by a shared fireplace which is not in the picture but sort of divides the room into a living room and a bedroom.

Just Back from New Orleans...

Just back from New Orleans last night. Our first visit since Katrina and we were welcomed into the city as conquerors. A great time was had by all. I have about 100 pictures or so to sort through so I might just set up a photo album on the Wallace Fun Photo Page linked on the side bar. First things first, it's back to work today.

I maneged to pick up a couple of pieces of tuba art this trip. Here's one I bought in Jackson Square from Jack Wittenbrink.

I think sums up that spooky New Orleans thing that underlies all the tourist stuff. Sort of a day of the dead meets happy tuba boy, which is me of course. I might just adopt this as my logo. See Jack's stuff here:

http://jackwittenbrink.com/

Few more family pictures...

Lots of fun at the land. These guys were so happy that they got a little line dancing thing going. It was going pretty good till that one guy messed it up with a left kick while the other two were doing a right kick. Least it looks like he has his beer in the correct hand. Something like that. I bet there is a whole glossary of line dancing terms.





Then there was the driving lesson.



See the movie at theolderyouwillget youtube channel:
http://www.youtube.com/theolderyouwillget

After all this fun we headed home. I'm not one of those guys that just drives straight through. I stop and make sure everyone in the car urinates.

We will be gone a few days. You know the story, smoking buses, risky planes. Be back with the stories and the pictures.

Jam Session Pictures from the land..,.

Still posting pictures from the baby shower, people are so slow about paying their money, that's why it's taking so long.

Here is Cathy and her pop.





Cathy's cousin Patrick on guitar.

















Here's Pop with a rare bird, a late 60s Gibson tenor guitar.















You may have heard about those round robin song circles, you pass around a guitar and everybody comes up with a song. Here is Rose with that deer in the head lights look when the guitar came to her.

Another Birthday...

Happy birthday to my brother Glenn. Here he is giving you the birthday wink. I don't know what that is on his head. I don't ask people personal questions like that.

He was born in 1961. That must have been a pretty good year around the house. A new kid, a new 15 horse Sea King out board motor and who knows what other cool 1961 vintage stuff that has since been thrown away was all brought home that year.

Dude! You are out lasting everything, slow down!

Are You Ready For Some Football...

Friday night Lufkin beats Longview in a thriller. In this picture the drum line leads the band around the track.

Before the kick off. Why can't we have a Panther where the players come out the mouth but the smoke comes out the butt? We like smoke out the butt around here.

The 2007-2008 Lufkin Panther Band.

And of course the youtube link to the opening of the drill on our own olderyouwillget channel:

http://www.youtube.com/theolderyouwillget