A week ago I was walking on a sandbar with my lovely wife; it was a date night, provided by some friends who not only invited us to leave our little boys with their family, but also provided a gift card for the Texas Roadhouse. It was in return for some computer work I’d done for them a while back, but I feel like I was dramatically overpaid by their hospitality. We’re really grateful; it’s not often we get a chance to break away and just have some sweetheart time! We also had some excitement, as you can see from the image above.

No, it wouldn’t be a bona fide “date night” if I’d brought my camera with…but she did buy me this fancy cell phone with a keyboard and a pretty darn nice camera on it, so I put it to use as the ominous looking clouds came our way. We cut our romantic walk short, made our way back to the truck in case hailstones started falling, and were surprised to be met with only a few light sprinkles. Folks on the east end of town, including a few friends of ours, were not so lucky.

I took a little video with my phone, too. The quality isn’t very good, but it shows what was bearing down on us as we walked along the path from the sandbar to Sertoma Park:

If you don’t see play and volume controls, roll over the bottom of the picture with your mouse and they should appear. There’s a five second title at the beginning, so don’t think it’s not playing…just give it a few seconds and the video will begin.

After we got back to our truck and watched what to us was a “non-event” pass over our heads, we went to TCBY and got some treats, then parked on the east end of town to eat and watch a glorious double rainbow form. Then we found ourselves unable to be away from the boys any longer and went to pick them up. Ah, family life.

Luke Graner, my favorite local performer, provided 4th & Broadway with some tunes today at noon. I was fortunate enough to be able to take some time from my day to hang out and enjoy the music while trying to gnaw through one of those big brownie ice cream sandwiches!

I post an occasional “Luke Graner love fest” on here because he’s my friend, co-worker, and he helped me with my animated Flash banner at the top of this site. Oh yeah, I’ve loved his music going all the way back to the Curious Yello days. Today Luke played some of my favorites, and I was able to show my appreciation by grabbing some pictures.

I met a nice lady at Wells Fargo who let me take some photos from their corner office, just above the area where the bands play. Notice how Luke plays barefoot; he uses a Boomerang digital loop recorder to lay down tracks of drum, guitar, vocals, or whatever…then sing and play along with the loops he’s just recorded. That way this “one man band” can consist of backing vocals and multiple instruments. That in itself is pretty cool to hear, but I think it’s also a good lesson of how a song is composed. You can sit and watch Luke build a song from the ground up, sing his heart out, then slowly pick the song back apart as he stops the loops one by one. It’s very educational to a non-musician.

This was the one event that could draw me to the Urban Harvest. I just don’t get anything from the whole “hippie vibe” I suppose; I’m not into the jewelry or new age stuff, and I think buying tie-dye items that someone else made is so contrary to the idea of tie-dyeing in the first place. Hey, I think I just stumbled upon something that a true “hippie” might agree with!