I was combing through some old photos a couple of weeks ago for a client who wanted to see some kid photography and came across this photo, which I shot years ago for a USA Today cover. The witch is my wife, Mary, wearing her wedding dress from her first marriage. That’s her childhood toenail collection in the foreground. You’d have to ask her why she collected toenails. Very sad.

Mary, my wife, in addition to running her own graphic design and illustration business, teaches flower arranging a couple of time a year at Flower Camp. The first year she taught, she told me a story about everyone making flower arrangements and floating them down the river  after a candle lighted walk through the woods, which led to my name for it…”Witch Camp”. But that’s a whole other story and I’ll probably pay for it somewhere down the road.

Last weekend we were invited to Flower Camp for dinner with three other couples. It takes place on 50 idyllic acres overlooking the James River, a beautiful location. No TV. No internet. A perfect place to totally disconnect from the world, except it was Masters weekend. Crap. What to do? Duh…” Yes, I’d love to go.”

It turned out to be a fun weekend with some really creative people and the highlight was an impromptu concert by Debbie and Steve Peck. On the way back we listened to some music on the Ipod, but it couldn’t compare to sitting 6 feet away from live music.

A couple of years ago I started a series called, “Bartenders I Met” ( here, here, here). Apparently interesting bartenders are in short supply. Either that, or I have lost interest in bartenders. So now I am starting a new series I think I’ll call, “Public Restrooms I Visited”. I’ll begin with The Waterfront’s restroom in Manteo, NC.

Spring is officially here even though it snowed yesterday. One of the good kinds of snow, pretty, then gone. I pass this glider everyday driving into town and always hope there’ll be someone sitting in it, but there never is. Maybe it’s just lawn art. Last week, with the tree in full blossom, I figured it might be as good as I’m going to get.

File this under small world. We shot this last month for an ad for Dominion. I use the word shot loosely. I shot the parts, including the iced/snowed up truck (the fun part) and the art director, LaDon Roeder, of Proof IC, and digital wizard, Adam Moore from Sugar Digital, did a terrific job of bringing it all together into a snowstorm. Dominion has been featuring their linemen in ad campaigns for a few years now because they are the face of the company. When you need them, they are there.

This is where the small world comes in. The ad started running Thursday. Friday I woke up without power, but we have a generator, so no big deal. I phone it in, make some coffee and sit down to watch the Today show. Just as I sit down, there’s a knock on the door and when I open it, Rodney, the lineman in the passenger seat is standing on my front porch and the truck from the ad is parked in my driveway. We both do a double take and the “hey, I know you” thing. Turns out a tree behind the house had fallen and brought down the power line. He needed me to move my car so he could get the truck to the power pole to bring the line back up. Took them about a half hour and the power’s back on. Felt like having my own personal lineman.

Kid’s birthday parties come close to a flight to Disney World, only you can open the door and leave when you’re ready, something I might have considered had I been seated in an exit row. Last Sunday was Josephine’s 4th birthday and she had a fairy princess theme party complete with fairy princess cake.

DISCLAIMER: Josephine, my neighbor’s grand daughter, was her usual angelic self, and not one of the screaming mimmies. I say that with all sincerity and not just because her grand father carries a gun and knows how to blow things up.

Walking back to my car after wrapping up my Christmas shopping I saw these huge figures on the wall of one of the mall stores. All of them were looking straight out except this one. I knew with a little patience something would develop. It took less than a minute for this lady to walk by. The fact that she was wearing a red coat was a bonus.The more patient you are, the luckier you get.

If you’ve ever wondered why federal government seems so screwed, no matter which party is in power; here is my theory. I was in DC Friday scouting locations and left at 4:00 pm. This was my view at 25 mph for 55 miles. FIFTY-FIVE FREAKING MILES!!!

Saturday was brush pile burning day, always a big day in our household, involving the fun combination of gasoline, guns and beer. We invite a bunch of friends over to share the experience and to be on hand in case we set the woods on fire, at which time, you can never have enough friends.

After the initial adrenaline rush of lighting the fire (that’s where the gasoline and guns come in), we settle down to drink beer and share some stories, but at some point someone will say ” I wonder if ____ will burn” and we  start burning things we find lying around. One year we burned a dead beaver we found in the pond.

This year we decided to get rid of our family Christmas curse, which over the years has involved fires (not the fun kind), broken bones, ice storms, days without power or water, falls down stairs and trips to hospitals. So we sacrificed Bernie the Christmas Elf.

I’m not sure what Bernie was made of, but whatever it was took some time to catch. So now maybe our Christmas curse is gone…or maybe Bernie will return with a bunch of his little evil elf friends for some payback. UPDATE: Apparently burning Bernie didn’t work. We were scheduled to go to New York with some friends the day after Christmas, but got hit with the blizzard of 2010 and the trains were canceled, so no go. OR maybe it did work, because if it had come a day later we would have been snowed in and stuck in a NY hotel with nothing to do but hang out in the bar.

“HOWES THE HOPE & CHANGE WORKING?” Really? I don’t know. How did that first grade English class work for you? Didn’t you have a friend you could get to spell check it for you?

I ran up on this truck earlier today and had to get a photo. The only camera I had with me was my Iphone. Where the heck was that new G12 I bought for just this kind of thing? Oh, that’s right. On my desk. So I chased this guy for about two miles, Iphone in my left hand, trying to get close enough to make a picture, without ramming him or running off the road. It’s not great, but it’s good enough. Damn, I hate that phrase, but sometimes it’s true.