I had a truly frightening experience yesterday that I just had to write about. I’m still creeped out today, and I want you to get just as creeped as I am.
I was with my buddies Luke and Jonathan, brothers, at their parents’ house in Nicholasville last night around 8 p.m. We were sitting around a fire pit in their backyard that was about three feet in diameter and made of large rocks arranged in a circle on the ground with benches around it. We were sitting there drinking iced coffee when Luke spit a small ice cube that landed on a spider web on one of the rocks. Seeing the ice get caught in the web, as boys do, I tried to match Luke’s shot with a few ice cubes, one of which finally hopped up and got caught in another web right next to it. We went back to chatting, when I saw that a spider had crawled out onto the second web, thinking that it had caught some food. As soon as I looked at it, I recognized it as a black widow — it was about quarter-sized, black and bulbous, with the unmistakable red hourglass shape on its back. read more…
It’s time for another edition of 13 albums! The last installment, 13 albums to listen to from start to finish, was pretty popular around here, so I figure it’s time I give it another go. This time we’re talking about albums you use to help you unwind. I used to have a nap playlist in college that was exactly 90 minutes long that I would turn on when I needed a midday snooze. I knew it was over when the rock n roll softly awoke me.
Now that I have a full-time job which is WAY more stressful/exhausting than college classes were, I can fall asleep at a moment’s notice and don’t need music to encourage it. So I have certain albums now that I listen to when I’m writing, reading, thinking — those moments when I’m still. The 13 I have chosen for this list were picked for both their relaxibility and fantasticity, both of which are crucial and made-up traits.
So in the immortal words of Celebrity Deathmatch — Let’s get it on:
Damien Rice, “O” - Ah, angst. What you have done for music. Damien Rice has plenty of it, and his “O” album expresses that angst in a slow, deliberate way that wants you to go through it with him. Luckily for me, I don’t really listen to lyrics that closely, so I can vibe with the guitar and cello and let them take me away.
Relaxing tune: “Delicate” read more…
Note: I did this interview for Bluegrass State Basketball, but I thought it was so interesting — plus I covered Chartrael at Spalding before his transfer to Bellarmine — that I wanted to post it here, too.
Chartrael Hall went on a heck of a ride since graduating from Manual High School in Louisville. He played two years at NAIA Division II Spalding University in Louisville where he led the Pelicans (now Golden Eagles) to the NAIA National Tournament in 2007 and received All-American honors. He transferred to NCAA Division II Bellarmine University after the ‘06-’07 season and led the Knights to its first NCAA Tournament since 1989 in his senior year. After connecting with IU-Southeast coaches and former Louisville Cardinals Wiley Brown and Scooter McCray, Hall was hooked up with Allen Houston, who helped him set up a workout with the New York Knicks earlier this month, and now Hall is looking to begin his professional career. I caught up with Chartrael this afternoon and talked to him about his aspirations and what it was like to work out for the Knicks.
TY: How did the tryout come about?
CH: I went over to IU-Southeast, and I’m really cool with Wiley Brown and Scooter McCray. They’re like my big brothers — they look out for me. Scooter got me hooked up with Allen Houston, and we set everything up, and I went up there June 17 for a workout with the Knicks. read more…
Brandilyn Collins is the bestselling author of “Dark Pursuit,” “Amber Morn” and other suspense novels. Her latest book, “Exposure,” published by Zondervan, is set in Wilmore and features several local businesses and locations. Her descriptions of the town are all realistic, and only the character names are changed. I spoke with Collins, who grew up in Wilmore and whose family still lives there, briefly about the book and writing about her hometown.
TY: How would you sum up the plot in a couple of sentences?
BC: Kaycee, my protagonist, is a mewspaper columnist who writes about her fears, and her worst fear is being watched, that paranoia. This is a novel about when your worst fears come true. She has to face down those fears. And underlying all of that suspense plot in Kaycee’s life are thoughts of fears in our own life. Everybody deals with fear. How do we deal with it? How do we even recognize it? Do we recognize that our fears can really run our lives if we let them? That’s sort of the underlying theme of the book. read more…
My two most prominent memories of a famous person dying both come from a hotel room on a family vacation. I don’t exactly remember what cities we were in, but I remember vividly hearing news reports on the TV when Princess Diana (I think we were in Atlanta) and Dale Earnhardt (Gatlinburg) were killed in car crashes. Neither of those really got to me (I just felt bad for Dale’s family, especially since Junior had just started competing in the Winston Cup circuit), but rather it was just one of those “huh” moments — not a ‘HUH?,’ but a ‘huh.’
I learned of Michael Jackson passing away in a text message from my dad, which said simply “Michael Jackson just died.” I had heard earlier that he had gone to the hospital, but it hadn’t registered that it was a serious thing. It sparked a phone call between the two of us where we pretty much expressed our surprise, coincidence of Farrah Fawcett’s death on the same day and my regret that I never saw him live.
“That would have been expensive,” my dad said. read more…
Seriously, I never knew how bad it was until SE Castle took some pictures of me at a charity golf scramble Friday. I’ve played golf for probably seven years now, and I have just recently gotten to the point where I feel like I can not completely humiliate myself in front of the people I’m with, but I think that was premature. Here are some pictures of my swing:
I’m passing the time on this new Web site (or at least new to me), Hunch.com, which gives you thousands of surveys to build a kind of personality profile about yourself. The more surveys you take, the more information it stores about you. The goal is to help you make decisions based on what you like, believe, etc. So we’re going to take some surveys, and I’m going to feel vulnerable. There is only one rule: no making fun of any of my answers. Got it? K, let’s get started: read more…
Too Many Drummers, Ascenxion Band, Israel Houghton, Delirious?
Remedy Drive, Rookie, Southland, Kutless, Skillet
Disciple, Hawk Nelson and Family Force 5
