Just wrapped up our beef festival party. The Harrodsburg Beef Festival is held at the fairgrounds every year. It's a week long event, but the relevant part to this anecdote is Saturday, when 30-40 grillers form a loop at the county fairgrounds and cook three rounds of food. Round One is brisket. Round two is sirloin and steak. Round three is ribs.
For six bucks, you get a wristband that allows you little sample size tastings of each. Lemme tell ya, I'm a real good eater, but three rounds of that and I'm beat. Last year's was my first and I had so much fun, I knew I was gonna go every year for the rest of my life. Well, this year, we just so happened to move into a house about a half block from the fairgrounds. So we threw a party.
Bunch of friends and family came in from Louisville and Lexington. We'd take our drinks with us down to the festival, do the circuit, then walk back to our place for more drinks and music and hanging out, then go back for the next round. No standing out in the 95 degree sun all day, no port-o-potties, and all the beer we needed no more than half a block away at any one time. And some damn good food. Plus, we also did homemade pizzas and various appetizers for dinner and muchies after midnight.
I made a breakfast of chorizo and egg tacos for those who stayed the night, then busted through the dishes and let my better half relax (she's worked like mad setting everything up; only seemed fair that I'd do more of the clean-up).
The rain politely held off until Sunday evening.
Only real downside to this year compared to last is there was no demolition derby on Saturday night. Maybe next year.
That sounded so great, and then no demolition derby. Wtf? Well, glad you salvaged something from the weekend, I mean with the good food and friends and stuff. Still, what might have been...
Hey, Mommio (and anybody else out there in Louisville)...
I saw a play last weekend at the Bunbury Theater downtown on 3rd in the Henry Clay building.
The play is called "The Foreigner". The story is about a man Charlie who accompanies his army friend on trip overseas to middle-of-nowhere Alabama. While the friend is off doing his army stuff, Charlie is left in a bed and breakfast to pass the time. The problem is, Charlie is deathfully afraid of conversation. The friend tells the B&B residents that Charlie is a "foreigner" and doesn't speak the language and is so embarrassed that he can't speak English that he feels bad when others try to communicate with him. You'd think that would leave Charlie in the clear, but the residents try, with the best of intentions to communicate with him, either because they're thrilled to meet someone so exotic or because they have so many secrets and emotions they need to get off their chest that it feels good to talk to someone who doesn't understand them and just smiles and listens. Charlie begins to feel close to some of them. He feels a need to communicate. And from there, the story takes off.
The whole thing was terribly funny. I'm something of a cynical guy. I don't laugh unless I really think it's funny. I laughed several times during this play. There are some genuinely funny moments as well as some thoughtful ones. It's a small cast, seven characters, and each one, I could tell, bought into their role. I felt like I was watching the characters as written and not actors just reciting lines. I think it only runs through next weekend. We had a real nice evening doing dinner, drinks, and the play.
Just thought I'd spread the word. It reminded me how much I enjoy going to small theater productions. Oh, yeah, and that Henry Clay building is pretty cool. I'd been to it once before, a year ago, for a friend's wedding reception. It's right at the edge of downtown.
Speaking of shirtless... How did I know that Autumn was nearly upon us? Did I hear the call of the geese headed South? Was it the gentle chill before sunrise becoming less gentle? Turning a page on our Farmers Insurance Bureau Farmer Almanac calendar? Nope. The town stopped going shirtless.
Yes, down here, you know it's Summer when the men go shirtless.
Today, sitting in my writing room, sweating like mad, I took off my shirt and hung it over a framed Giuseppe Salviati print. Ladies, control yourselves, I am typing this post shirtless.
We had summer a couple of weekends ago. We had a really hot Sunday and Monday was good too, but then Autumn began. Damp and overcast today, taking my jacket off was difficult. Germanprof will know what I mean about British summers!! It's why we go to Spain, Italy or elsewhere on the Med on holiday, at least you can guarantee the sun there
I just had sushi in my hometown! Well, near enough. We had to go to Danville for it, but that's only ten minutes away.
A new Japanese joint opened up off the bypass (near where the Liquor Barn is opening in the fall). I had no idea what to expect, but when we saw the neon sushi sign lit up in the window, our mood brightened immensely. This was the first time since we've been down here (two years) that a restaurant has served sushi.
Most of the items were tempura, which doesn't surprise me when Kentucky is the target demographic. However, there were several raw fish options, which I very much enjoyed. It was the best I've ever had, but it wasn't the worse either. Very happy at this development. By the way, sushi is my desert island food.
My better half has decided to begin a vegan diet. It's been going on two weeks. I pretty much eat what she eats, though with the above sushi meal, I had fish. She had the veggie options. There may or may not have been egg or milk in some of the dishes; she's not at the point where it's militant. Like any lifestyle change, you kind of grow into it. Besides, where we live, I'm not sure we could ever go out to eat if she was toeing the company line, yeah? I'm going along for the ride, eating whatever she's making for herself. She's an amazing cook, and I've dabbled with this kind of diet myself back in Denver long ago. I'll be happy eating mostly vegan dishes, with fish whenever I want it and maybe a little cheese here or there. Kind of a pescatarian with vegan leanings. Oh, hey, we learned to make our own seitan. For those unfamiliar, it's a gluten product and the absolute best meat substitute I've ever had. Back in the day, I'd purchase it at Alfalfa's, and I think the King Soopers up on Capital Hill carried it, too. But we made our own, which saves a ton of money and we have more control over how it forms and tastes. Very cool development.
But that new sushi joint, that's definitely the headline of the day.
So, I'm pretty sick of this town now. My irritation with living here is complex and it has as much to do with me as it does with the town itself. Needless to day, the magic of my small town Kentucky life has dried up and gone.
Anyways, I found myself bitterly jealous of Louisville friends who had recently told a minor anecdote of going to a little coffee shop in their neighborhood for bagels and coffee, thinking to myself how I can't get a decent bagel where I live.
So, I decided to make my own.
Yep, I made bagels last night. I made the dough from scratch the night previous, let it rise and set, then stored it in the fridge overnight. Then, last night, I formed the bagels, boiled them briefly, then baked them. I think the dough made a dozen (or close to it). I kept it simple; I did poppyseed and sesame seed, though at the last second I made a couple garlic but just used some garlic powder and minced garlic; not the best ingredients. Next time I'll use garlic cloves and chop 'em up real small and mix them in with the dough (as opposed to just sprinkling them over the top).
They turned out okay. Next time I'll adjust by boiling and baking times. Also, I've got a better sense of how much dough to use for each bagel. The hole, you really need to make that raw bagel look like a deflated tire tube like it shows in the picture because the dough expands dramatically in the oven; only a couple of my bagel holes actually survived to look like actual bagel holes.
They tasted pretty good. They were a big hit in the household. I'm looking forward to making some more. I want to make some garlic bagels, sun dried tomato, pumpernickel, spinach, and everything bagel.
Katie made some kick-ass hummus to go with it. No cream cheese this time. It's just too expensive to buy right now. Next time there's a sale, I'll buy several and just freeze them.
It was a pretty cool feeling to take control of my culinary life like that. And the thought that I basically created this huge basket of baked goods with nothing more than combining a couple powders into a big bowl of water still blows my mind. Growing up in Chicago and in a family that embraced the conveniences of a 24-hour grocery store lifestyle, things like seeing bread get created from the merest of ingredients or watching vegetables grow from the ground and having to respect the seasons (you can't just make tomatoes whenever you want).
I'm not a cook. I had to learn at an early age, but I always hated it. I get too stressed out when I'm cooking. Cooking is like creating a jenga puzzle non-linearly and all at once. I don't think that way. But the bagel baking process, that worked for me pretty good. Plus, if I get the habit of doing some repetitiously, I can pick just about anything up, so there's that, too.
Well, if you're ever in my stretch of bluegrass country and craving bagels and a beer, you know where to go. Open invitation.
I'm kind of thinking now that I might look into making my own cream cheese.
I'm back to working for the local CPA. His office is right on the corner of small-town Main St. and State Highway That Gets You In and Out of Town Fast. It's a pretty busy intersection. I probably see a car go past like every couple of minutes. The post office is right across the street. It has WPA paintings on the wall.
Also right across the street is an eye doctor and a store that sells "old-timey" house furnishings. Are those called primitives? They spell the word 'old' with an 'e'. It's a peaceful corner of a peaceful town. I like to stare out the storefront windows at the potted plants swaying in the gentle breeze.
That's where the dancing guy was.
Right on the corner in front of the eye doctor's office and olde county store and the potted plants, there was this sorta modern-day granola dude. Hair past the shoulders and tied back like a Seattle grunger, but with non-grunge clothes, sorta, huh, sorta like clothes that I'd see in Denver... good for the weather and colorful. And he was wearing a backpack.
And he was dancing. The music, I am positive, was solely in his head.
He was grooving out there on the corner, lots of upper body motion, but sometimes he'd get the legs into it.
It was awesome. It totally brightened my day. Everyone else was freaking out. The best was when the good ol' boys in the trucks would pull up, ready to mock Dancing Guy, but they'd quickly turn their gaze away when Dancing Guy turned to look at them. Dancing Guy was so unself-conscious about how odd he was acting there on that corner that he broke the confidence of anyone who approached him with mockery. He was out there for nearly an hour.
And then, poof, he was gone.
It has been so long since I lived in a real city that I forgot what spontaneous street crazy was like.
Wherever you are, Dancing Guy, I think you're awesome! Thanks for the entertainment. That particular Main St. needed it. Bad.
Interesting contrast to NYC where weirdos are an everyday fact of life. Keeping half an eye out that they're not actually dangerous is only a low level concern - we have to keep an eye out for real dangerous. I mean to retire someday to someplace boring by these standards, but I'm a little concerned I'll just be wrapped too tight for the quiet life (like Chef in Apocalypse Now - bye tiger!) .
So... after reading these last two posts I'm wandering towards the break room here at work and low and behold I find the chorus/refrain line from Joe Jackson's song "Beat Crazy" running through my head with the words 'Beat crazy!' replaced with 'Street crazy!'
Thanks (and I mean that in the sincerest way possible)!
It's official... our local arts council just got the IRS letter stating we've received our 501c3 designation.
The IRS originally was looking to make us a c4, which would've made life very difficult for our organization from a fundraising standpoint. But we put together an appeal package full of IRS Revenue Rulings which indicated we should, in fact, be a c3 and not a c4. Based on what I'd heard from other treasurers of non-profits who'd been through the process, I expected that we'd go through a couple stages of the appeal process, but we got a decision in our favor on the very first one.
The whole dealio played out pretty much as I'd been led to believe it would, but it's no less relieving to learn it's finally over.
Our Fall Arts Festival is coming up in a couple weeks (Oct 8-9). I've been taking a back seat on just about everything this year, so I'm not sure how well our table is set for it, but if it's anything like last year's, we'll be in good shape. We have good people as our Festival Committee. Well, shit, all of the people in our organization are good people. A lot of personal time spent to improve the arts community and the community overall. Huh, I was gonna post an image of our cool ass poster online, but I don't see one. Lemme look for that.
Thanks for this update. If the weather is good, I might try to check it out. I haven't visited Fort Harrod in a long, long time.
See the list of artists and entertainment for the Fall Arts Festival here.
Edited to add that one of my favorite small-town festivals is this coming weekend: Lincoln Days in Hodgenville. St. James Court Art Show is next weekend, too. Too much good stuff to catch it all this time of year.
It looks like we're moving to Frankfort. Yes, the same Frankfort that has the Applebee's that inspired the naming of this thread.
My wife got a new job in Frankfort. We're moving, probably at the end of January.
Frankfort, KY is about an hour north of us, about twenty minutes outside of Lexington and about fifty minutes away from Louisville. It has restaurants and bars and bookstores and coffee shops and antique stores. It has a cute downtown and a mall area that's far far away from it. It's in a tiny valley that a huge river system slices through. People talk about it feeling like living in a bowl, probably because the valley floor is sort of elevated higher than most and it really feels more like living in foothills. It's a cute old town. It's the state capitol. We're both pretty excited about the prospect of moving here.
At least, we might move there. We still would like to live in Louisville, but the commute would kind of suck. If there were a light-rail that went from Louisville to Frankfort, there'd be no decision... we'd be packed up and living in Louisville right now. But we both like Frankfort and always entertained the idea of living there, even before the new job.
They have a strong art community and historic preservation organization. Frankfort is sort've a small city - big town kind've thing, but closer to small city in terms of amenities. I think the surroundings will do a lot for my writing, both music and fiction. I'm thinking I might start a 501c3 and try to get something together for a stopover point for touring jazz musicians to perform at a club, crash and eat for free, then head out the next day to Cincinnati or Chicago or Cleveland or Nashville or St. Louis or any number of other towns that they go to while skipping over Kentucky (including, inexplicably, Louisville). I have no credible experience running music events or booking jazz shows or even running a jazz bar or club, but fuck it... I'll just barrel in with all my youthful ignorance on my sleeve and let my good intentions be my shield and let my momentum be the weapon that people better not get in the way of. Anyways, it just seems like a cool thing to do.
However, if Frankfort doesn't really look good for us in terms of housing and something in Louisville really tasty pops up for a place to lay our heads, then that might be our course of action. Right now, we're keeping our options open, but going forward, it's basically Frankfort's game to lose (so to speak).
As we drove past the Applebee's, my wife had to remind of its significance. If we move to Frankfort, I will, obviously, be paying it a visit.
When daughter lived in Lexington, we often stopped at that Applebee's on our way back to Louisville. I, too, like Frankfort, and at a time when things were so, so bad at the hospital, I considered a job transfer to Frankfort. I wouldn't mind living there.
Consider Shelbyville -- easy commute to both Louisville and Frankfort -- unless, that is, you want more nighttime options.
We've already ruled Shelbyville out. Yes, it would get us closer to Louisville and shorten the commute to Frankfort (vs Louisville living), but in a way, it's sort of like the worst of both worlds... we're not living in Louisville and we'd still have a commute, and quite frankly, we like Frankfort and Louisville a lot better than Shelbyville. I think after two and a half years of living in a town that has been nice but not really having any one particular thing that really excites us, we're leaning toward a location that floats our boat. We're kinda set on Frankfort unless we don't see a decent housing possibility or something pops up in Louisville that we dare not pass on.
If you google "Whore's at Applebee's", you will get 19 results. 18 of those results are emusers posts. The one result that isn't ours? It begins with the word "Christmas".
So I found some music talent on my home soil. Natalie Berry & the Dingles. Awful name, and the music they have up on their Reverbnation doesn't do it justice, but she played at the Fall Arts Festival and just killed it. You'd think from my reaction then that I'd never heard a decent vocalist before, but it's just that I've pretty much resigned myself to having to head into Louisville for music, not expecting to hear it in my own backyard.
Anyways, here's a link to the Reverbnation page...
That first song, "Down in Burgin" was one she performed at the FAF; it was really really good.
P.S. Burgin is a neighboring (even tinier) tiny town to my own tiny town.
HA! WAIT!
I was searching for a video of Natalie performing and found one of our friends who came down to play at a local battle of the bands! There's this local country musician legend Eddie Montgomery who built a big steakhouse down here and they've been having live shows. Our friends (one from Louisville, Andy (bass), who I've known about as long as I've known Katie, J.Glenn (drums), who lives up in Shelbyville, and I'm not sure how long I've known him; I think he's one of those friends that I would see from time to time at parties while down visiting in Louisville, and Robbie Cox, who lives, like me, somewhere in the middle of nowhere, but I think from where Andy comes from). Anyways, they played a show down here a couple times and we went out to see them. The second time, they just crashed at our place and we all got drunk. It was fun. They're pretty good, too.
It's huge in my area (U.S. - Southern Maine and bordering area of New Hampshire). I asked a co-worker with teenage boys if "bath salts" were really bath salts or street slang for something else. Apparently it's really bathsalts. Cops in one town got suspicious when they started seeing a lot of teens entering and leaving a second-hand shop. They arrested the proprietor, finding the bath salts hidden in his wheelchair.
If you'll excuse me, I'm going to cut up a few lines - take me away, Calgon...
A few minutes with Google enabled me to find the answer to my query. There are drugs known as bath salts that do give a high, but ordinary bath salts do not have the same effect see Clinical advisor
Anything to distract me from marking dissertations!
Well there was that hilarious "iDosing" clip from a Kansas (?) TV station going around for awhile. The fact that anyone believes you can get high from ambient music (and that it wasn't a placebo effect) is awesome.
I do have some 'smelly' marker pens somewhere. When I was teaching we were only allowed to use them ourselves, not give to children to use! (10,000 words in answer to the question)
Comments
For six bucks, you get a wristband that allows you little sample size tastings of each. Lemme tell ya, I'm a real good eater, but three rounds of that and I'm beat. Last year's was my first and I had so much fun, I knew I was gonna go every year for the rest of my life. Well, this year, we just so happened to move into a house about a half block from the fairgrounds. So we threw a party.
Bunch of friends and family came in from Louisville and Lexington. We'd take our drinks with us down to the festival, do the circuit, then walk back to our place for more drinks and music and hanging out, then go back for the next round. No standing out in the 95 degree sun all day, no port-o-potties, and all the beer we needed no more than half a block away at any one time. And some damn good food. Plus, we also did homemade pizzas and various appetizers for dinner and muchies after midnight.
I made a breakfast of chorizo and egg tacos for those who stayed the night, then busted through the dishes and let my better half relax (she's worked like mad setting everything up; only seemed fair that I'd do more of the clean-up).
The rain politely held off until Sunday evening.
Only real downside to this year compared to last is there was no demolition derby on Saturday night. Maybe next year.
I saw a play last weekend at the Bunbury Theater downtown on 3rd in the Henry Clay building.
The play is called "The Foreigner". The story is about a man Charlie who accompanies his army friend on trip overseas to middle-of-nowhere Alabama. While the friend is off doing his army stuff, Charlie is left in a bed and breakfast to pass the time. The problem is, Charlie is deathfully afraid of conversation. The friend tells the B&B residents that Charlie is a "foreigner" and doesn't speak the language and is so embarrassed that he can't speak English that he feels bad when others try to communicate with him. You'd think that would leave Charlie in the clear, but the residents try, with the best of intentions to communicate with him, either because they're thrilled to meet someone so exotic or because they have so many secrets and emotions they need to get off their chest that it feels good to talk to someone who doesn't understand them and just smiles and listens. Charlie begins to feel close to some of them. He feels a need to communicate. And from there, the story takes off.
The whole thing was terribly funny. I'm something of a cynical guy. I don't laugh unless I really think it's funny. I laughed several times during this play. There are some genuinely funny moments as well as some thoughtful ones. It's a small cast, seven characters, and each one, I could tell, bought into their role. I felt like I was watching the characters as written and not actors just reciting lines. I think it only runs through next weekend. We had a real nice evening doing dinner, drinks, and the play.
Just thought I'd spread the word. It reminded me how much I enjoy going to small theater productions. Oh, yeah, and that Henry Clay building is pretty cool. I'd been to it once before, a year ago, for a friend's wedding reception. It's right at the edge of downtown.
Here's the theater's site...
http://www.bunburytheatre.org/ShowSix/ShowSix.html
And here's a review...
http://theatre-louisville.blogspot.com/2011/06/review-foreigner.html
Yes, down here, you know it's Summer when the men go shirtless.
Today, sitting in my writing room, sweating like mad, I took off my shirt and hung it over a framed Giuseppe Salviati print. Ladies, control yourselves, I am typing this post shirtless.
I believe I have just gone native.
A new Japanese joint opened up off the bypass (near where the Liquor Barn is opening in the fall). I had no idea what to expect, but when we saw the neon sushi sign lit up in the window, our mood brightened immensely. This was the first time since we've been down here (two years) that a restaurant has served sushi.
Most of the items were tempura, which doesn't surprise me when Kentucky is the target demographic. However, there were several raw fish options, which I very much enjoyed. It was the best I've ever had, but it wasn't the worse either. Very happy at this development. By the way, sushi is my desert island food.
My better half has decided to begin a vegan diet. It's been going on two weeks. I pretty much eat what she eats, though with the above sushi meal, I had fish. She had the veggie options. There may or may not have been egg or milk in some of the dishes; she's not at the point where it's militant. Like any lifestyle change, you kind of grow into it. Besides, where we live, I'm not sure we could ever go out to eat if she was toeing the company line, yeah? I'm going along for the ride, eating whatever she's making for herself. She's an amazing cook, and I've dabbled with this kind of diet myself back in Denver long ago. I'll be happy eating mostly vegan dishes, with fish whenever I want it and maybe a little cheese here or there. Kind of a pescatarian with vegan leanings. Oh, hey, we learned to make our own seitan. For those unfamiliar, it's a gluten product and the absolute best meat substitute I've ever had. Back in the day, I'd purchase it at Alfalfa's, and I think the King Soopers up on Capital Hill carried it, too. But we made our own, which saves a ton of money and we have more control over how it forms and tastes. Very cool development.
But that new sushi joint, that's definitely the headline of the day.
Anyways, I found myself bitterly jealous of Louisville friends who had recently told a minor anecdote of going to a little coffee shop in their neighborhood for bagels and coffee, thinking to myself how I can't get a decent bagel where I live.
So, I decided to make my own.
Yep, I made bagels last night. I made the dough from scratch the night previous, let it rise and set, then stored it in the fridge overnight. Then, last night, I formed the bagels, boiled them briefly, then baked them. I think the dough made a dozen (or close to it). I kept it simple; I did poppyseed and sesame seed, though at the last second I made a couple garlic but just used some garlic powder and minced garlic; not the best ingredients. Next time I'll use garlic cloves and chop 'em up real small and mix them in with the dough (as opposed to just sprinkling them over the top).
They turned out okay. Next time I'll adjust by boiling and baking times. Also, I've got a better sense of how much dough to use for each bagel. The hole, you really need to make that raw bagel look like a deflated tire tube like it shows in the picture because the dough expands dramatically in the oven; only a couple of my bagel holes actually survived to look like actual bagel holes.
They tasted pretty good. They were a big hit in the household. I'm looking forward to making some more. I want to make some garlic bagels, sun dried tomato, pumpernickel, spinach, and everything bagel.
Katie made some kick-ass hummus to go with it. No cream cheese this time. It's just too expensive to buy right now. Next time there's a sale, I'll buy several and just freeze them.
It was a pretty cool feeling to take control of my culinary life like that. And the thought that I basically created this huge basket of baked goods with nothing more than combining a couple powders into a big bowl of water still blows my mind. Growing up in Chicago and in a family that embraced the conveniences of a 24-hour grocery store lifestyle, things like seeing bread get created from the merest of ingredients or watching vegetables grow from the ground and having to respect the seasons (you can't just make tomatoes whenever you want).
I'm not a cook. I had to learn at an early age, but I always hated it. I get too stressed out when I'm cooking. Cooking is like creating a jenga puzzle non-linearly and all at once. I don't think that way. But the bagel baking process, that worked for me pretty good. Plus, if I get the habit of doing some repetitiously, I can pick just about anything up, so there's that, too.
Well, if you're ever in my stretch of bluegrass country and craving bagels and a beer, you know where to go. Open invitation.
I'm kind of thinking now that I might look into making my own cream cheese.
I'm back to working for the local CPA. His office is right on the corner of small-town Main St. and State Highway That Gets You In and Out of Town Fast. It's a pretty busy intersection. I probably see a car go past like every couple of minutes. The post office is right across the street. It has WPA paintings on the wall.
Also right across the street is an eye doctor and a store that sells "old-timey" house furnishings. Are those called primitives? They spell the word 'old' with an 'e'. It's a peaceful corner of a peaceful town. I like to stare out the storefront windows at the potted plants swaying in the gentle breeze.
That's where the dancing guy was.
Right on the corner in front of the eye doctor's office and olde county store and the potted plants, there was this sorta modern-day granola dude. Hair past the shoulders and tied back like a Seattle grunger, but with non-grunge clothes, sorta, huh, sorta like clothes that I'd see in Denver... good for the weather and colorful. And he was wearing a backpack.
And he was dancing. The music, I am positive, was solely in his head.
He was grooving out there on the corner, lots of upper body motion, but sometimes he'd get the legs into it.
It was awesome. It totally brightened my day. Everyone else was freaking out. The best was when the good ol' boys in the trucks would pull up, ready to mock Dancing Guy, but they'd quickly turn their gaze away when Dancing Guy turned to look at them. Dancing Guy was so unself-conscious about how odd he was acting there on that corner that he broke the confidence of anyone who approached him with mockery. He was out there for nearly an hour.
And then, poof, he was gone.
It has been so long since I lived in a real city that I forgot what spontaneous street crazy was like.
Wherever you are, Dancing Guy, I think you're awesome! Thanks for the entertainment. That particular Main St. needed it. Bad.
Cheers.
Thanks (and I mean that in the sincerest way possible)!
Maybe that's the song he was dancing to. Weirder things have happened.
The IRS originally was looking to make us a c4, which would've made life very difficult for our organization from a fundraising standpoint. But we put together an appeal package full of IRS Revenue Rulings which indicated we should, in fact, be a c3 and not a c4. Based on what I'd heard from other treasurers of non-profits who'd been through the process, I expected that we'd go through a couple stages of the appeal process, but we got a decision in our favor on the very first one.
The whole dealio played out pretty much as I'd been led to believe it would, but it's no less relieving to learn it's finally over.
Our Fall Arts Festival is coming up in a couple weeks (Oct 8-9). I've been taking a back seat on just about everything this year, so I'm not sure how well our table is set for it, but if it's anything like last year's, we'll be in good shape. We have good people as our Festival Committee. Well, shit, all of the people in our organization are good people. A lot of personal time spent to improve the arts community and the community overall. Huh, I was gonna post an image of our cool ass poster online, but I don't see one. Lemme look for that.
See the list of artists and entertainment for the Fall Arts Festival here.
Edited to add that one of my favorite small-town festivals is this coming weekend: Lincoln Days in Hodgenville. St. James Court Art Show is next weekend, too. Too much good stuff to catch it all this time of year.
It looks like we're moving to Frankfort. Yes, the same Frankfort that has the Applebee's that inspired the naming of this thread.
My wife got a new job in Frankfort. We're moving, probably at the end of January.
Frankfort, KY is about an hour north of us, about twenty minutes outside of Lexington and about fifty minutes away from Louisville. It has restaurants and bars and bookstores and coffee shops and antique stores. It has a cute downtown and a mall area that's far far away from it. It's in a tiny valley that a huge river system slices through. People talk about it feeling like living in a bowl, probably because the valley floor is sort of elevated higher than most and it really feels more like living in foothills. It's a cute old town. It's the state capitol. We're both pretty excited about the prospect of moving here.
At least, we might move there. We still would like to live in Louisville, but the commute would kind of suck. If there were a light-rail that went from Louisville to Frankfort, there'd be no decision... we'd be packed up and living in Louisville right now. But we both like Frankfort and always entertained the idea of living there, even before the new job.
They have a strong art community and historic preservation organization. Frankfort is sort've a small city - big town kind've thing, but closer to small city in terms of amenities. I think the surroundings will do a lot for my writing, both music and fiction. I'm thinking I might start a 501c3 and try to get something together for a stopover point for touring jazz musicians to perform at a club, crash and eat for free, then head out the next day to Cincinnati or Chicago or Cleveland or Nashville or St. Louis or any number of other towns that they go to while skipping over Kentucky (including, inexplicably, Louisville). I have no credible experience running music events or booking jazz shows or even running a jazz bar or club, but fuck it... I'll just barrel in with all my youthful ignorance on my sleeve and let my good intentions be my shield and let my momentum be the weapon that people better not get in the way of. Anyways, it just seems like a cool thing to do.
However, if Frankfort doesn't really look good for us in terms of housing and something in Louisville really tasty pops up for a place to lay our heads, then that might be our course of action. Right now, we're keeping our options open, but going forward, it's basically Frankfort's game to lose (so to speak).
As we drove past the Applebee's, my wife had to remind of its significance. If we move to Frankfort, I will, obviously, be paying it a visit.
Consider Shelbyville -- easy commute to both Louisville and Frankfort -- unless, that is, you want more nighttime options.
Frankfort is a beautiful town.
Anyways, here's a link to the Reverbnation page...
http://www.reverbnation.com/artist/artist_songs/1047718
That first song, "Down in Burgin" was one she performed at the FAF; it was really really good.
P.S. Burgin is a neighboring (even tinier) tiny town to my own tiny town.
HA! WAIT!
I was searching for a video of Natalie performing and found one of our friends who came down to play at a local battle of the bands! There's this local country musician legend Eddie Montgomery who built a big steakhouse down here and they've been having live shows. Our friends (one from Louisville, Andy (bass), who I've known about as long as I've known Katie, J.Glenn (drums), who lives up in Shelbyville, and I'm not sure how long I've known him; I think he's one of those friends that I would see from time to time at parties while down visiting in Louisville, and Robbie Cox, who lives, like me, somewhere in the middle of nowhere, but I think from where Andy comes from). Anyways, they played a show down here a couple times and we went out to see them. The second time, they just crashed at our place and we all got drunk. It was fun. They're pretty good, too.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYG8ssesnZg&feature=related
Fun stuff.
Bath salts.
Every place is go, whether it be to live or a brief visit, the location always has something to teach me.
What small-town Kentucky has taught me is that, if you really really apply yourself, you can discover new ways to get high.
Bath salts.
Craig
If you'll excuse me, I'm going to cut up a few lines - take me away, Calgon...
Anything to distract me from marking dissertations!
Craig