external monologue

highway sunset

i'm getting a little better at shooting with the new camera from the hip. since its a DSLR, you can't really turn on the LCD screen on the back and shoot. you have to take the photo first and just see what you get, so alot of times i'll just hold it out and keep shooting until i see something good pop up on the screen. this is especially useful when i'm driving and can't hold the camera up to my eye. this shot is from I-24 the other day driving back into chattanooga, right before the big curve at missionary ridge. the setting sun was pretty striking, and i liked the juxtaposition of the street lamp silhouettes in front of it.

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i think a few of us from coptix are gonna catch the 2:15 showing of spider man 2 today... i'm really looking forward to it - reviews have been pretty spectacular, and if its anything close to the original, it won't disappoint.

fun with kittens

on saturday afternoon there was a going away party for andrew and valerie. it was out at paton and jennie's house. i stepped out for a minute to walk around outside and look for a good photo op, and came upon isabelle "playing" with the new kitten. she was trying to get away from the dog, and when the kitten's claws came out she quickly figured out that the only appendage that wasn't sharp was its tail. now, for all of you cat lovers out there about to call the humane society, know that the kitten was quickly rescued.

(if anyone wants a full size version for printing, there's one here.)

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some interesting thoughts from books and culture on martha stewart, veggietales, and narnia.

airport run

i drove emily down to the atlanta airport this morning. she's flying out for a week and half of family vacation up at in wildwood, new jersey. her father preaches up there at the boardwalk chapel, a ministry of the OPC in new jersey, while the family relaxes on the beach. i had intended to get some photos at the airport, but i forgot about my camera until i was on the road back to chatty. i was able to snag this shot at the TA truck-stop i stopped at on the ride north. it didn't quite come out the way i'd hoped, but you can kinda see the raindrops on my windshield in front of the telltale TA architecture.

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sorry the post is so late today, i feel like i've been playing catch-up since i walked in the door at 2:00 pm this afternoon. still haven't done my daily websurfing, so nothing really to report online. oh, except this link from last week. i found it on the christianity today website. its a top 100 list of Spiritually Significant Films. i've seen quite a few, but there's a bunch on there i'll have to stick on my netflix queue.

huh... and it looks like pitchfork got a makeover.

TGIF?

first things first - all chattanoogans please sign this petition and save WUTC!

onto other things... i think i may have had the worst morning i've had in a long time. for starters, i woke up late, and then when i was finally ready to leave for work i couldn't find my keys. so i spent 20 minutes ransacking the house looking for them. we had people over last night for ben wardell's going away party so i figured they might have ended up anywhere. finally it occurred to me to go look in my car, where, evidently, one of my roommates had left them in the ignition after getting something from my car this morning. so, i'm finally ready to go, and then my car gets stuck in the mud in our driveway. i consider trying to pull it out with morris' geo tracker, but instead decide to just drive his car to work since he's out of the country. his car leaks oil so i'm pretty sure i'll have to put some oil in it before driving but for some reason i'm unable to find the hood latch. (turns out its hidden in the glove compartment... the glove compartment?!... yeesh.) anyhow, i spend another 20 minutes trying to get the hood open before i say to heck with it and just take off in it. all the while, its pouring down rain and i'm getting more and more soaked as i move from one vehicle to the next and back into the house.

i did finally get to work, an hour and a half late, and eventually got some oil in the tracker, and then on my lunch break totten helped me rock the passat out of the mud... so, i guess i'm in pretty good shape now, but man, what a rough way to start the weekend.

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i think i'm going to see farenheit 9/11 tonight - hopefully it won't be sold out. other than that, it's looking like a pretty quiet weekend. hoping to get caught up on some email and various other things.

friday-mp3-of-the-week: this week's song is by an artist named m. ward, with merge records. he's a folksy songwriter from portland whose website accurately says "listening to an M. Ward record is like thumbing through an old family photo album, full of black and white photographs that are fading around the edges; an imperfection that only adds to the clarity of their memories." the song A Voice at the End of the Line is from an album called Transfiguration of Vincent. (more here)

leaves

dew, on the leaves of a small tree in our front yard. not too much to say about it i guess, just liked the star pattern the veins created.

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hmm... not much to report today. last night we cancelled small group and a few of us watched defending your life over at the steagall's house. its a film directed by albert brooks from the early nineties and is a pretty interesting take on the afterlife. brooks also plays the lead and does a phenomenal job. the gist of the film is that we as humans tend to act primarily out of fear in most areas of life and that to "move ahead" we have to learn to break this cycle and begin to act without fear. perhaps not a particularly original idea but true and thought provoking nonetheless.

stormy stelmo

driving back from downtown this morning lookout mountain was shrouded in a dense layer of fog and clouds (is there a difference?). it always looks very strange to me when this happens because you can't see how tall it is. without being able to see the top it feels as though it could be the base of an enormous mountain. this was basically shot from the hip while i was driving which is why its so crooked and looks to me like news footage from a coastal city during hurricane season.

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well, thanks to numerous complaints to the regal cinemas headquarters, it looks like we'll be getting Fahrenheit 9/11 here at the mall. this film is causing quite a stir in just about every media outlet i've come across. moore claims that this is his most factual film to date, seeing as he's taking on the president of the united states. i'm actually willing to believe that he's tried much harder this time around to cross his t's and dot his i's (as opposed to the sloppy scholarship of bowling for columbine), but i'm more worried about is his tone. its not that i agree or disagree with moore so much as i wish he'd attempt to present his arguments in a manner that might actually be compelling to someone who disagrees with him. as it is i feel that he spends most of his energy preaching to the choir - and the last thing we need is the extreme left and right becoming more entrenched in their own ideologies. not that the conservatives aren't doing the same thing though.

on a radically different note, this is an interesting article from joelonsoftware.com. those of you not in the IT industry may want to skip it, but i often find that joel does a pretty good job of connecting fundamental truths about coding to fundamental truths about life. an excerpt to hook you:

When I was an Israeli paratrooper a general stopped by to give us a little speech about strategy. In infantry battles, he told us, there is only one strategy: Fire and Motion. You move towards the enemy while firing your weapon. The firing forces him to keep his head down so he can't fire at you. The motion allows you to conquer territory and get closer to your enemy, where your shots are much more likely to hit their target. If you're not moving, the enemy gets to decide what happens, which is not a good thing. If you're not firing, the enemy will fire at you, pinning you down... I remembered this for a long time. I noticed how almost every kind of military strategy, from air force dogfights to large scale naval maneuvers, is based on the idea of Fire and Motion. It took me another fifteen years to realize that the principle of Fire and Motion is how you get things done in life. You have to move forward a little bit, every day...more

old school 1

okay, i don't have anything even relatively new to post today, so i started digging through the archives and came up with this photo from new year's of 2002. its two of my oldest and closest friends, whom many of you will recognize, mike humphries and cannon kirby. probably the best friend i made in high school and the best friend i made in college, respectively, and its kinda cool too see them both on the same couch. guess i'm feeling kind of nostalgic today...

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bad news: lollapalooza has been cancelled, which is really unfortunate because i was in line for a few free tickets to cover it for the pulse and there were some darn good bands on the line-up.

more nostalgia - i used to live with this guy...

and this, is a little bit ridiculous.

question... are there any sports bars in this town that get fox sports world? its euro cup time and i'm itchin' to watch some soccer... argh.

totten vs. the cupcake

it was another weekend of birthdays. ruth godfrey turned 22 on saturday, so we celebrated at kiko and bethany's on friday night with cupcakes, papa john's pizza, strawberries, and a money tree -- a few of ruth's favorite things. totten was there, obviously, and had quite a time wrapping his mouth around a few cupcakes. paul kent turned 24 on friday (i think) so we had a little party for him last night at stephen beck's new place in st.elmo. the guys all stuck around afterwards and broke in the porch with a late night of good music, talking, and a few red hooks. i think it was after 2 when we finally wrapped that up. needless to say, this has been one of my less productive mondays.

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saw dodgeball on saturday afternoon. hilaroius -- just laugh out loud funny, and i don't even like ben stiller. i think we'll be quoting it for months.

and, a bunch of us played soccer on sunday afternoon on the field across from our house. i don't think i've had that much fun in a long time... mesh and i were a pretty unbeatable combo - i'd send 'em up and he'd put 'em away.

lunch

another late post today, and another one about food. any of you current or ex- denizens of st.elmo will recognize the drive-thru at armondo's. evidently its the "burger that st.elmo waited for!" you know what else st.elmo is waiting for is another neighborhood pub like the safari pub. now that our offices are practically across the street from the old pub i'm continually reminded of its absence. maybe a few of us locals need to pool our funds and open it back up... take turns tending bar and cooking south african grub...

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friday mp3-of-the-week: palmcorder yanja by the mountain goats - i still don't own any albums by these guys, but they're quickly becoming one of my favorite bands. they seem to fall into that same category as the decemberists and neutral milk hotel, among others. this album has been out for a while, but i was reminded of it by mesh today, so i thought i'd share.

oh, and here's an interview with david sedaris from the books and culture website.

breffas'

whoa, late post today. the day just got away from me i guess. seems like that happens more and more lately. nothing too interesting today, just a shot of my breakfast bowl of cheerios. on the days that i know i don't have anything to post its always challenging to make a creative photograph between the time i roll out of bed and when i show up at the office. some days are more successful than others, and in the words of scott weiland, so much depends on the weather...

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not too much to report today. tonight is house-dinner and ex-roommate chris wildeman is in town for a few days. hopefully he and the wife will be stopping over at some point this evening.

this may be the funniest eBay listing ever... be sure to read all the way to the bottom.

and rivers cuomo, of weezer, has posted a few acoutic tracks to his myspace.com website. i dig the john denver cover...

brady update

i've been wanting to give an update on brady for some time, seeing as the original post has finally slipped off the main page. i was hoping to get down and see him myself and snap a few shots. however, since that hasn't happened, i asked paul ferris, who lives in savannah with him, to send me a photo. this is from a barbecue that his parents threw for him recently at the rehab center. he looks surprisingly good to me -- i think i was expecting his appearance to be a bit more battered and bruised, but he appears to be healing quickly. paul said this in his email:

This was taken on Friday, June 11. Brady's parents organized a barbecue at the hospital and invited a bunch of his friends.

I saw Brady Monday night. He actually walked to the bathroom by himself
using a walker. It was amazing. He's trying to go off the pain meds-- very
difficult -- but he was in good spirits. He has so much strength and
tenacity.

so, that's the latest news on his condition. if anyone reading has other updates or information, please feel free to comment.

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more david sedaris on NPR; this time a full 45 minute interview with terry gross on fresh air.

all the montys

here is the promised family portrait from the montgomery family reunion down in rome, georgia this past sunday. again, i am reminded of how long i've been blogging when i realize i that there is a strangely similar photograph and an entry posted from last year around the same time. time certainly does fly. i feel like the turnout was a little smaller this year than in past years, but it was still good to visit with fellow montgomerys from all over the nation. (the coolest discovery this year was that we have a navy seal in the family -- though, he wasn't there for the reunion unfortunately.) uncle jack (the bee farmer) and monty and pat graciously hosted, as they do every year, and for once, we had overcast skies and almost cool temperatures for most of the afternoon.

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i finally, finally got my new georgia state driver's license... after 3 trips to the DMV in rock springs, georgia (30 minutes south on US27) i was nearly turned down again for lack of paperwork, but the motor-vehicle gods smiled on me for once and i am now the somewhat proud holder of a georgia driver's license. state income tax, here we come...

picked up the new david byrne album - so far so good - and the new beastie boys album has been reviewed.

randy at riverbend

totten and i covered the randy newman show last night for the pulse review of riverbend 2004. sad to say, this is the best picture i could get of him playing with the chattanooga symphony orchestra, even with my fancy press pass. with the stage basically out in the river the closest fans were still 100 yards away from the stage. i'd almost say the best seats for the show were towards the back where you could see and hear him on another jumbotron, albeit with a 2 second delay on the sound. this was my first experience with riverbend and it was pretty frustrating as a photographer to be so far removed from the action. none of this was helped by the fact that we were turned down for an interview with newman due to time constraints. oh well, at least we got to hear "short people"...

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well, i'm back from atlanta (and rome, georgia) as you may have guessed. another year, another family reunion. its strange how quickly the past year has gone. i'll post a family pic from the reunion tomorrow.

st. francis in the garden

no, this is not a self portrait -- though i do realize that this is what my head is beginning to look like from above. its a statue of saint francis that i found in the botanical gardens yesterday afternoon. we spent most of the afternoon wandering the gardens, looking at the glass work by chihuly on display there. my expectations weren't particularly high, but this artist's work is really quite amazing if for no other reason than its intricacy. a number of the more statuesque pieces had hundreds of pieces of blown glass and must have taken months to complete and assemble. he also does an incredible job of integrating his work into the natural environment. the installation of some of his pieces is so seamless with its organic surroundings you almost don't notice it. you can see some of his work on his website here and the garden site here.

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everyone is out looking at houses with tim and ari this afternoon while i get caught up on a little work. tonight we're eating at the harvest restaurant where ari recently started serving.

friday-mp3-of-the-week: this week's mp3 is an old one by Sigur Ros. my buddy mike from gainesville mentioned to me that he picked up their first album von (1997) recently and i noticed that their website has some tracks from it: 1 2. they're beautiful...

atlanta vacation

family vacation, day 1. i forgot to mention it yesterday, but i'm down in atlanta for the next few days spending some time with my family. everyone, including jesse and gel, tim and ari, mom and dad, and joel and i, have all convened in atlanta until sunday. the annual montgomery family reunion in rome, georgia starts on saturday night and runs through sunday after noon, but until then, it'll just be the immediate montgomerys here in the city.

this morning a few of us walked down to the starbucks (sorry baus) for our morning fix. that's where this picture is from. i feel like it captures pretty well my morning routine whilst on vacation. after tim got out of his morning class we all met for breakfast at the flying biscuit - tim and ari's favorite breakfast restaurant. i think we're headed out to the botanical gardens this afternoon and we'll dine tonight at the five seasons. it's a rough life...

film and the mayor

yes, that is our very own aaron mesh interviewing the mayor of our fair city, bob corker. mayor corker made a surprise visit at the shakin' ray levi society film forum discussion last night at pisa pizza. he worked the room, shook everyone's hand and introduced himself, and was out the door in under 20 minutes. politics, wow. even though he didn't stay for the meeting, i have to admit i thought it was pretty cool for him to make a showing at such a hip event. and the event itself was actually really great. for anyone who's interested in local filmmaking, things are beginning to take shape. with the SRLS on board now, it gives a credible center to the various pockets of creative activity going on around town. there's a list-serv being started, and a number of other networking resources. if you want to find out more, jarrod whaley is the chairperson of the board and you can contact him here.

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okay, so a while back i mentioned that my name "andy montgomery" had worked its way to the top of google. (gregory aptly called this kind of "research" ego-surfing, i believe...) yesterday emily googled herself and discovered this. hehe... awesome.

a. c. newman's record has finally been released. can't wait to pick it up. pitchfork gives it two thumbs up.

partyin' with the pulse

wow, there are so many funny pictures from this party that i had a hard time deciding what to post. this one seems to combine a number of the humorous elements of the evening though:

1. mesh is wearing a red sox jersey with his suit
2. mesh is dancing (always funny)
3. chris marr is dancing with some very enthusiastic middle-age woman, and doesn't seem to quite know what to do with her
4. there are flourescent green lamps, and a smoke machine
5. ...

those of you that were there, please feel free to add to the list.

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pitchfork reviewed the new brother danielson album today, and captured my thoughts about the quirky brother daniel quite accurately:

"...the best part is that Smith isn't quixotically crumpling to the ground, holding his nose and speaking-in-tongues, or perpetuating a new brand of cheeky faux-gospel-- he's actually singing, and it is actually insane."

okay - must work...

sandtown soul

friday night new city fellowship and olivet baptist church on MLK brought the sandtown choir to chattanooga. i'd heard of these kids from my mom - she's a fan of steve smallman, the director's, music - but i'd never actually heard them. its a group of kids from inner-city baltimore who have been touring the last few years performing for everyone from the mayor of baltimore to small southern churches. before seeing them i was under the impression that they were primarily a gospel group, but its actually much more hip-hop and rap oriented. either way, those kids are talented, and they've got a lot heart... or perhaps i should say soul.

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the pulse party on saturday night was hill-arious. i'm still trying to figure out who all those people were - cause they sure don't work for the pulse. i'll have photos from it later this week.

and the sopranos wrapped up another season last night. this is the first season that i've actually watched, and i must admit that i'm completely hooked. emily and i actually broke into aaron and ryan's apartment last night just to watch it. they're out of town at the free wilco show in pittsburgh, but its the only place i could find HBO. a write-up in the times (WARNING: SPOILERS!) this morning captures one of the things i like about this show:

"The Sopranos" is at its best when it explores the tension between the business and family duties; one of the series's most deeply etched jokes is its premise that organized crime is just like any other business: good help is hard to find; even the most loyal employees will sneak off with company Post-it notes and ballpoint pens."

more from vail

this is a shot from the road that runs between all the little resorts and neighborhoods in vail. i probably said this before, but the sky out there is just plain amazing. jake calls them "write-home blue," as in blue enough to write home about. to me they just look like paintings, almost unreal.

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the newest harry potter film was released today. its directed by art house director Alfonso Cuarón, and is being hailed as the first potter film that "actually looks and feels like a movie, rather than a staged reading with special effects." i didn't much care for the first couple films, but this one looks to have real potential.

friday-mp3-of-the-week: hmmm... nothing really grabbed me this week, though i didn't really have much time to look around. cannon mentioned the elected to me and i've liked the couple tracks i listed to. they remind me quite a bit of bright eyes - here's one called greetings in braille from the new album.

belated barbecue

last night our wednesday night small group got together up at the commons on lookout mountain for a cookout instead of our usual meeting at mesh's house. since i was traveling on memorial day and didn't get to "celebrate" it felt a little bit like a belated barbecue. everything BBQ related was on sale at winn dixie -- kind of like when you buy candy the day after halloween. before dinner we played some "standing-still" frisbee, as susan called it (she and emily in this photo). after dinner we played "running-around" frisbee - or ultimate, as its typically called.

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david sedaris is a funny man. he's also pretty depressing, and kind of disturbing, but at times he's just downright funny. he was on NPR this morning pushing his latest book, and read some excerpts.

and finally... mesh for president! get out there and vote.

me 'n larry boy

one of hattie stuart's favorite toys/cartoon characters these days is larry boy. i'm not sure that i completely understand the origin of larry boy (perhaps i should spend some more time digging around on the website) but i believe he's some variation on larry the cucumber from veggietales. perhaps he was bitten by a radioactive parasite, or even better, maybe while he was still on the vine he got sprayed with DDT or another malicious insecticide and was transformed into larry boy?

oh, so this isn't actually a self-portrait because i didn't take the picture. jake did, with his cool nokia picture phone and emailed it to me.

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the conference i went to over the weekend for the vine was largely focused on promoting an ecumenical spirit between varied churches and denominations. i was reminded of an article i read a while back from the antithesis.com website on the same issue. its a bit long, but a good read. towards the beginning i feel like he has some pretty good insights regarding the dilemma we're in, however i'm not sure that i feel that great about his conclusions/solutions. if anyone has the time to read it i'd love to dialogue about it more.

back to the grind

home again, home again, jiggety jig... so, as of 10:00 am this morning i'm back in chattavegas. caught a late flight into atlanta last night, crashed at brother tim's house and drove up here this morning.

the photo here is of the roofline of the denver international airport - definitely one of the most memorable, and strangest looking airports in the world. somehow, between the strange minarets and the incoming and outgoing jets, it reminds me of cloud city in star wars. after i finally got on my plane, the flight was fairly uneventful, however, actually getting to the gate was a bit of struggle. first, my driver's license effectively expired, although, it does have a renewal sticker on the back which is mostly faded. but, because they couldn't read it i was forced to go through extra security screening, which it is something akin to a strip search and an unfun version of 20 questions. between that and playing boyscout to a confused elderly woman i arrived at my gate 10 minutes before take-off.

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in other news...

this morning on npr, i heard that sesame street is being reduced to 26 new episodes a year, down from a one-time high of 130. one SS writer quipped, "it's a good thing they didn't cut it to 25 shows or they'd have to fire a letter of the alphabet..."

mesh's desk was downsized at rocob, so he'll be working remotely from the coptix offices. i knew we'd get him in here one way or another.

and finally, yes, today is the first day of the month which typically means a self-portrait, but with all the travelling i haven't had time to make one. hopefully tomorrow...