Okay. Let me first preface this by saying that I have been trying to get Ashlee to go camping for about 15 years. I know it sounds like nothing major, but it was easier to convince her to let me start a guitar company, an amp company, a band and orchestra division, a software company, a toy company, and open two Music stores / schools than it was to get her to go camping. So naturally, I thought I'd blog about it!! Read More...

Tags: Camping

Wow. I just realized that I haven't written a blog in over a year! Oh well…. time flies.

Gotta say, though—I'm pretty happy about the days ahead. We've started playing with a new guitarist in the band named Keith Barber and he's very good. As in REALLY GOOD. I've been studying Jazz with him since December and I'm more than happy that he's playing with us with CMB now.

But alas—this blog is not about music. Nope. It's about one of my other passions.

The Legend of Zelda. Read More...

There are moments in time that define you. There are events that happen in your life that shape who you are and that put an imprint so deep in your soul that you’ll carry that mark forever.

For me, that moment was Christmas 1986.

Hard to believe it was thirty years ago. Before we make it to Christmas, let me give you a little background… Read More...

Sebastian came into my life in April of 2000. I had recently graduated college and was dating a girl named Sarah at the time. She saw an ad in the Statesboro Herald that there were kittens being given to a loving family. She told me that she thought that "we" should get a cat. Let me be clear here - I wasn't in what you'd call the healthiest of relationships with Sarah. We weren't actually getting along. I have no idea why I thought getting a cat with her would be a good idea.

We show up to a trailer park occupied by college students and there was a young college girl there that obviously cared deeply for these kittens. She had them in her living room in a box with the mother and was very welcoming to us picking out the one we wanted. We looked at the whole litter and I saw this one little dude that had cool tiger striped legs and a nice tabby coat - but that's not what I liked about him. He was a little fireball. He had spunk, was the most rambunctious, and was my pick of the litter. Read More...

Let me first say that this has MAJOR spoilers ahead so if you haven’t seen the movie yet, don’t read this.

32 Years. That’s how long I’ve waited to see what happened to Luke Skywalker. I was eight years old when I saw Return of the Jedi in the theater and I’ll never forget it. I was blown away by the movie and the Star Wars Universe as a whole. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve recited lines that weren’t on script or how many times I’ve acted out roles that were “just out of camera range” while running around the yard with a Rayovac “lightsaber” hilt fighting off stormtroopers and Darth Vader.

I can tell you this - it made my childhood awesome.

As my dad once said: “Star Wars for you is like Westerns were for my generation”. He was right. Instead of pistols and horses, I traded up for lightsabers and X-Wings.
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About two months after I got my Beats Wireless headphones, the vinyl started to peel away from the ear cups. Last night while I was on Facebook, I saw an ad for beats. I noticed that you could comment in the comments section - so I did. I then went through a quick customer service process with them to get my beats replaced.

Apple Customer support then sent me an e-mail asking to rank my recent social media experience with them.


The following is my reply to Apple:

You guys nailed this.

In no way did I expect you to respond to my issue on social media. An ad for "Beats by Dre" was in my newsfeed and people were posting comments like "You done it, Dre." and "Fo Rizzle, Dre. Beats Da Bomb" and the like.... Since it was basically an ad, I didn't think that this was the arena where I would actually receive help in my time of need. Read More...

It’s hard to believe that I’ve been out of High School for 20 years. My class decided to have our 20th class reunion on October 5th (which happens to be my 39th birthday). When I think about it in those terms, it’s a quick reminder that I’ve been out of school for a while. Don’t get me wrong, it’s more than half of my life ago and it truly feels like a lifetime ago. It’s gotten easier to keep up with my fellow classmates through Facebook and I already know what many of them have been up to. So instead of saying “What are you doing these days?”. I can say, “How do you like your job at the bank?”. This is certainly our first “post Facebook” reunion so thank God I won’t be shocked when I see everybody. Read More...

Gigs

What a busy week! I did four gigs this week and still managed to work my normal teaching schedule. Just thought I’d drop a quick blog together about the week.

Thursday: Ashlee and I played acoustic at the bank for Business After Hours.

Friday: Ashlee and I played for Celebrate Recovery at Mill Creek

Saturday: 1st Gig - Matt, Ashlee and I played an acoustic gig at Hunter Cattle.
2nd Gig - CMB played at Gnat’s landing.

I slept until 11:00 the next day. I don’t remember the last time I did that. So when you see me sitting in this picture, it’s because it’s my second gig that day…
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It’s been a while since I posted a blog. And for good reason.

I’ve been busier than I ever have been in my life. I told you guys I would write more when I had time and finally I’ve got some ambition to write. It’s not that I haven’t wanted to write in a while. It’s just that I haven’t had a ton of time. Over the past year, we’ve launched Devilcat Amplifiers, Developed our guitars, and managed to grow our Band and Orchestra Division at Pladd Dot beyond our expectations. Nonetheless, inspiration comes in different forms and my inspiration to blog again came with the website re-design. I felt like it was about time for a re-design of the site and when I found the right color palate and theme, I just went with it. As usual, I’ll be tweaking the design for a while but I’m pretty happy with where it is right now. I wasn’t really trying to go for a “flat” design and I’m certainly not against skeuomorphism. I just felt like with the new album on the way, it was time for a different look and feel. Speaking of which, the album is designed to look like something it’s not, while hiding another look. I’ll give you bonus points to the first person who can tell me what it is. : ) Read More...

This blog is about my obsession with toys. No–let me more rephrase that and say toys that happen to be high art. I realize that many people might disagree with me on that point but I plan to change your mind in this article.

Most of you know that I'm a huge toy collector. I've always loved toys. Even as a child, I didn't want every toy on the market, but rather the ones that I thought were aesthetically pleasing. I would pass over a toy that was popular because it just didn't look cool to me. My GI JOE army was a strange amalgam of good guys, bad guys, and toys that I took apart to re-assemble in a fashion that I thought was best. Certain heads just didn't look right on certain bodies and some arms and torsos worked better on a different set of legs. By the time I got done compiling my forces, they pretty much all worked for a unified "Army of the Cool" and usually fought against a potpourri of the worst figures I'd get as a gift (the ones I didn't pick out for myself).

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Friday Ashlee and I rode to Macon for her Teacher of the Year interview. She had to go to the Bibb County Board of Education office and give an in-person interview to judges and the former Teacher of the Year. It was pretty cold in Macon Friday. It was odd, Saturday warmed up like it was a beautiful Spring day. Nonetheless, she said that everything went well in the interview and I know she did great. She has to give one more speech on April 1st to Georgia Power in Atlanta and she won't know anything until May.

Speaking of my beautiful bride, I just updated her website: www.ashleemitchell.com Check it out! Read More...

I wrote a eulogy for my grandmother this week. I had to deliver it on Thursday. Here's how it went.

Grandma

How do you sum up a person's life in such a short amount of time? I can assure you that no matter what I say to you today (or Brother John), we will not even scratch the surface of my grandmother's awesome life. Even this week I've learned a few things about grandma that I never knew–and I've known her for 35 years. For example, I learned that Grandma never made it past the 7th grade. Aunt Jan told me this on Tuesday. She said that Grandma felt like her clothes weren't as nice as some of the other kids and she didn't want to go back to school. So after 7th grade, her mom allowed her quit school. I grew up around grandma's house all my life. There were many nights where me and my cousins spent the night over there. Yet I still didn't know that until this week. I assure you that had I known it, I would've thought of a lot more creative ways to try to skip school the next day. I would've pointed out to Grandma that I was just trying to skip one day–not my entire high school career. Read More...

After reading my friend Justin Samples' Blog about the blatant misuse of the Papyrus font, I can't help to blog about something that's been on my mind for a while–logos. Most people that know me know that I do graphic design from time to time. It's a hobby that I picked up in college. I'm sure it spawned from a drawing obsession in Middle and High School because I used to draw all of the time. All of that led me to really enjoy graphic design and ultimately making a little money at it. I'm not the greatest graphic designer in the world but I know when I've done something right (and wrong).

Logos are one of those things that I love. I've always found it fascinating how a company or brand will summarize their entire existence with one image. Think about the Nike "swoosh", the ubiquitous Coca Cola script, or Apple's "apple". All of them are examples of great logos. They're easily recognized and can't be mistaken for anything else. They're also very classy and memorable. That's what goes into making a great logo. Read More...

It's been a long time since I've been proud to be a methodist. Over the last ten years, I've either called myself a "Bad Methodist" or a Christian Exestentialist. Either way, I don't always fit the rank and file march of anyone's religious norm (especially in this neck of the woods). I realize that statement is somewhat ironic considering I've lived here all of my life. I'm not going to get too political here but I will say that I'm happy about the passage of the healthcare bill and I'm glad that the United Methodist Church supported the bill. Many of you know that Ashlee is a brain cancer survivor. I never really thought much about healthcare until I started dating a cancer survivor and until my mom was diagnosed with leukemia (they both happened at the same time). All I can tell you is my experiences and here they are: Read More...

It's really hard for me to believe that my little guy's ten years old! It really doesn't feel like it was that long ago when I brought him home. I read an article in the newspaper and went and picked one out of the litter. Needless to say, he was the feistiest one of the bunch! Ten years later... He still is. His determination to get what he wants goes far beyond anything that I've ever seen before in a cat. He lets you know what he wants, he speaks his mind, he plays, and he does a good bit of napping... What else do you expect from a cat?

Anyway, today is his tenth birthday and I thought I should give him a shout out for being the coolest cat ever! Happy birthday, little buddy! Read More...

Okay... I'm a tinkerer... Yes. I've been delaying the blogs for a couple of months now. Sorry about that to all of you out there that have been reading. Actually, the cool part is that the site will be much better now that I'm using RapidWeaver (the company's logo is to the left). First of all, you can now post your comments on my blog. I like that. I didn't have that feature with iWeb. Sure, it's offered to MobileMe (Apple's web server), but MobileMe is so slow that I couldn't stand the download times. Read More...