My new painting, Steal The Sideshow is now finished....finally. I've been piddling with it for months.....or more like letting it sit around for months. The painting is from a photograph I took two years ago in Santa Cruz, California of the Del Mar Theater sign. I cropped it down to just two letters, the "M" and the "A" of the word MAR. The painting is acrylic on a 12" x 12" gallery wrapped canvas with an 1.5" edge. Now on to the next painting that has been sitting around.

Saturday night before our trip over to the Ice House Cultural Center for the photography exhibit we made a pit stop to meet my brother for some pizza. The place we chose was Louie's. We heard about Louie's on the Food Network show Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives. This is one of my favorite shows. I've seen them all and take mental notes for future trips. Well, a few months ago they featured Louie's and the people they interviewed on the show were raving about how good the pizza was....saying it was the best in Dallas. We had to try it and did. Louie's is a small, dark, and cozy place. It was packed at 5:30. It's got and old school feel with a lot of Chicago memorabilia on the walls....my kind of place. We ordered one pepperoni and jalapeno pizza and one sausage pizza. The crust is buttery and super thin. I must say, it was awesome! We all kind of looked at each other and said, "Why haven't we been coming here the last 13 years?"....we've been missing out. Word to the wise, Louie's doesn't take Visa or Mastercard, just cash money and American Express. When you are in Dallas, you must check out this legit hole in the wall. Then you can ask yourself, "Did I just have the best pizza in Dallas?" It was pretty dang good to me. We will be back, that is for sure.

I've been thinking about travel a lot lately. Summer is on the horizon and I've got some nice little get-a-ways planned in the upcoming weeks. Summer vacation is the one of the main perks of being a teacher, right? I like to take full advantage of my time off. As I thought about past summer trips, one came to mind rather quickly. It was our trip to Charleston, South Carolina. Beautiful architecture and historical sights everywhere. The food was excellent as well! One of the highlights was our evening on Sullivan Island. We stumbled onto a cool little hangout called Poe's Tavern. It was real laid back and had great food and drinks. We sat on the patio and talked while the ocean breeze cooled us off. It's named after Edgar Allan Poe, who was stationed there for a year or so while he was in the Army. If you've never been to the Carolina coast, you are missing out. It is really nice!

Alrighty, I just got back from the show and it was great. I mean really good. This is my band man. I don't really care about anyone else. Well, maybe Willie but you know what I mean. Old 97's played Taste Addison tonight in front of a packed crowd. The weather was perfect....nice breeze...perfect! Taste Addison is the best festival in Dallas every year...hands down. Great food, atmosphere, and of course music. Two dollar Shiners in a can.....are you kiddin'? Awesome. We've gone almost every year since we've lived in the Dallas area. We'll probably go again tomorrow. Anyway, let's focus on tonight. Old 97's played for about an hour and five minutes. They completely tore it up. I actually got to visit with Murry Hammond (bass player) before the show. We talked shop.....he said, "no new stuff tonight, is that okay?" I said, " just do your thing, I like the old stuff".....he responded, "you got it" I was in the front row of course with all the other diehards....good times. You can't beat a 97's show. I'm still pumped.

Below is the set list.

"Won't Be Home" - Leigh, you like this one right?

"Barrier Reef" - best sing-along tune as always

"Buick City Complex" - from Satellite Rides...good stuff

"Salome" - beautiful

"Crash on the Barrelhead" - Murray solo

"Dance With Me"

"Big Brown Eyes" - classic

"Early Morning" - good one from the new album

"Wish The Worst" - favorite song of the night.

"Weightless"

"Victoria"- oh yeah

"My Two Feet" - great song on new album

"Smokers" - Murray solo

"Rollerskate Skinny" - one of my faves

"The Easy Way" - favorite song of new album

"Timebomb" - always the last song

Looking for some solid pizza in the Big Bend region? Pizza Foundation in Marfa is all you need. PF sits on San Antonio street in a remodeled gas station. It doesn't look like much from the outside, but I promise you, they serve some of the best pizza around. They have outstanding salads as well. They also are open most of the week. A lot of restaurants in Marfa are only open Wednesdays thru Saturdays. So Pizza Foundation is a great place to eat early in the week if you are around.....or late in the week....it's that good, trust me. We ate there the last time that we were in town and couldn't get over how good it was. It's a must when you stop through town.

Today we hit the Cottonwood Art Festival in Richardson, Texas. This is an art festival that happens twice a year at Cottonwood Park. It is a really great festival in a beautiful setting with hundreds of artists, tons of food, and good music. We make a point to get out there at least once a year. Highlights this year included visiting with one of my favorite artists, Jennifer Cavan. She is a very talented oil pastel artist with some great southwestern landscape paintings. She also has a cool blog. Another artist that I visited with was Brice McCasland. He had some great mixed media paintings that deserve a long look. Check these artists out when you get a chance.