05.29.08. We heard about an Irish pub in our area called Dublin Square, previously unknown to us. It’s a good place with live music later in the week. On this Thursday night, we heard a young musician called Sam Anderson who i enjoyed a lot. Of course, i’d brought my camera, so i amused myself taking pictures as often as the guys would let me.

AND BE SURE TO CHECK OUT THE LAST PIC! IT’S A VIDEO WITH SOUND!

Here’s a link: www.myspace.com/samanderson

05.26.08. Many patrons of Scarborough grew up watching Isis dance at Faire. She no longer graces the stage each weekend; the troupe she founded does the dancing. But she does maintain the tradition of dancing on Closing Day and many people come just to see her.

05.26.08. My friend Alan drums for the belly dance show at Scarborough and asked me to take some pictures of the performance. Since i have the new camera, i went a little nuts. Here are pictures from two different performances with varying lighting conditions, ISOs and unsuspecting men plucked from the audience. i put the Isis pics in a separate set.

05.24.08–05.26.08 . As i am taking so many more pictures now, putting them all in one set is getting a bit unwieldy. Thus, i will start a second set to hold the remaining pictures from the 2008 season of Scarborough. Here it is.

05.24.08. i cannot say exactly why i took so many pictures of Joel today. i didn’t set out to. But i obviously did. And as i went through them, i realized they were all of him working the crowd passing by Black Dragon Pewter, where his job is to entice potential customers into the shop. Basically, Joel gets to make a spectacle of himself by being charming, witty, theatrical and rather obnoxious–you know, his normal self. And it also occurred to me that a big part of my Faire experience is to drop by the shop, rest a bit, chat with him and Becca and Erin, and watch Joel hawk pewter. This, i realize, is one of my strongest memories of Faire. So i thought i would share it. If you haven’t seen Joel hawking pewter, this is what i recommend to replicate the experience as much as possible: 1) turn off your air conditioner, 2) drink something alcoholic, 3) scroll through these pictures in rapid succession until you are a bit dizzy and smiling from the sheer silliness of what you are doing. (It also helps to imagine the incongruously Hispanic Joel wearing an Asian hat and speaking with a Scottish accent.) Enjoy!

05.18.08. i attended Faire with my new camera and one of the oddest–but coolest–families i know. Between the two, the vibe was very different from my usual. i enjoyed it very much. It was an altogether singular day, so it gets it’s own entry, though i will cross-post some pics to the Scarborough 08 set as well.

05.17.08. Playing around with the Super Macro setting on my new camera. How close can i get?

05.16.08. Want to make a shutterbug happy? Give them a new camera! Michael surprised me with this, saying “You’d never get this for yourself, but you enjoy your pictures so much, you should have a good camera that is YOURS, not one of my hand-me-downs.” i have the best husband in the world….

For you technophiles out there, here is a link to all the applicable numbers and features: http://www.dpreview.com/news/0705/07050703canons5is.asp

05.11.08. We had a family lunch at this little mom-and-pop Italian place in Richland Hills. Great food, goofy grandkids.