My forays into boutiquedom have not been good – except monetarily (for which I should probably be grateful). I had a wonderful Clark Tyger that I should have kept. I just never felt worthy. I had another fancy little tweed that was all the rage when I bought it. I won’t mention the name of the amp, but suffice it to say that I couldn’t get rid of it quicker.

It’s with great trepidation that I enter into this new quest. I’m vulnerable and hopeful. I’m ever the more hopeful due to the Tone King Metropolitan. Hopefully, I’ll be writing a review and posting sound clips here in a few months. In the meantime, I decided to dress the amp up a little in some different color combinations.

For your perusal, and probably to Mr. Bartel’s chagrin, the Tone King Metropolitan in several different colors:

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The Jade Jaguar is, as its namesake implies, a jade statue of a South American jaguar. Jade can be found all over the world, but I think it’s interesting that this jade jaguar was built in Canada. What? Why? Who knows?

What’s even more intriguing is that it somehow made its way to the dark continent and into our apartment. The thing weighs about nine pounds. Who the hell ships a nine pound Canadian jade jaguar to Egypt?

Here is what her classroom looked like before they came. It probably looks similar today, outside of the grey matter (cause Mrs. Clements blows their minds!).

I especially like the literature monster, but so far the students have been non-plussed. Hopefully I’ll think of a prompt that will spark them.

I was happy to discover a lot of materials in my closet, including some large binders full of curriculum design.

Even though I’m designing this space for middle schoolers, I couldn’t help inserting some adult literature into the fold. Though their not shown, each desk has plate with a quote and pic from a great author (…great according to me…SMiLE). The quotes are appropriate for middle school, even if the actual work may not be (like Ginsberg’s Howl). If a student is so advanced that he or she actually looks up these works, I figure there would be no helping his or her expansion of concsiousness; it would happen with or without me. Luckily, I can be here to assist!

It is our pleasure to serve them at this great school. Here are some pics of the campus.

Rent is about $800/month; utilities run about $250 – which is within our housing stipend.

Most of the apartments in our price range had very compartmentalized rooms: everything was boxed-in. Ours is the only apartment that had an open floor plan for the kitchen/living room/dining room. This is attractive to us because we like to eat, watch movies, and talk all at the same time  -  SMiLE.

Here are some pics.

The album, touted as a song cycle about the life of Imelda Marcos, was originally conceived as a musical. I can’t even get into the specifics, but suffice it to say that it is an outrageous and ostentatious undertaking.

Being the extremely judgmental person I am, I approached the album with a wall of dubiousness. I mean, if you have to include a 16-page booklet with your album just to explain what the hell it is you are doing, then maybe you’ve gone just a little too far with your creative liberty. There is also, of course, the question of, “Why Imelda Marcos?”

I thought maybe that Byrne was attempting to establish a new gay icon, like Liza, Madonna, Cher, etc. Imelda could fit the bill. She was a bit of a paparazzi target, and she was, excuse the phrase, pretty fabulous. (I apologize to my gay readers…this is my weak attempt to read between the lines). It just smacked of publicity stunt.

What I failed to see was the most obvious character: we’re talking about David Byrne. No one in the music business has been able to pull off outrageous creative concepts like Byrne (well, maybe Prince, but that’s a whole new topic).

In the late 70s and throughout the 80s, David Byrne and the Talking Heads created something completely new. And they did it with integrity. Byrne’s importance is that he is able to bring avant guard visual/performance art to troglodytes like me. God bless him.

The music on this album isn’t for everyone. To be honest, it’s not my cup of tea. But when you hear it as the whole package it’s goose bump inducing.

I needed to create a documentation page for some clients – basically a page where they can upload and name links to forms, procedures, and general information documents. As always, we should keep it simple.

Make a Page

• Login to the WordPress admin panel
• Click the “Pages” menu item

Click Pages then Add New

• Add your title
• Using the Format drop-down menu, select Header 3

Made a heading section: Use the Format drop-down menu to select Heading 3

• Enter a simple heading
• Do a paragraph return <Enter>
• Click the Insert Media icon (it’s the little grey badge to the right of the little grey musical note

Click the little, grey Add Media icon - it's to the right of the little grey musical icon

• When the Add Media window displays, click the Select Files button to upload your document
• Name and caption the file appropriately
• Click the Insert Into Post link

Click the Select File button, navigate to your file and upload

• Give WordPress a second to process your requet
• Voila – link to a document