This is what our dog does. Just goes ape for a giant inflatable ball from Target.  He doesn’t really enjoy the play, more  the killing of the ball.

I know it’s not the 4th yet, but there’s too much energy and patriotism is this photo, it had to be posted 2 days early. (that and we’re getting outta dodge this weekend)

… about keeping up with this site. We do care but we’ve been to busy with work, taking photos, loving on friends and mourning the loss of Billy Mays.

(photo collage of our new house , taken with my new love, 110 film.

As with many moves we’ve had over the years, you want to get your new home DIALED IN before you really get comfortable. With our new place, the place we bought, this is no exception and there seems to be an even bigger TO DO list than normal. For the big stuff, we called in the master, mr. fix-it, a.k.a. egghead.com : Paul (dad) Manley. He came down last week, taking a few days of vacation from his 9 to 5 to help jump-start our fixin’ -up.

He arrived with his Porsche 911, filled with all sorts of tools and electrician equipment… and a lawnmower. If you know anything about a Porsche, there isn’t a ton of in room there – but somehow he fit it onto the passenger seat. (putting that Ohio State engineering degree to use)

Over the next few days we put did some electrical work by putting in a celling fan/light and outlet on our back porch, new microwave over the stove along with some under-the-cabinet lighting. He also built us a gate for our front porch so when we open the front door, Brutus won’t dart into the street. It was a very productive weekend.

With all of my dad’s help, we never got anything unpacked. I guess that’s what this weekend is for.

The Fine fellas in Manchester Orchestra played Late Show with David Letterman last night and they killed it. And Dave held up my artwork. Pretty good night.

This week was crazy. Both Leah and I are beyond slammed with work and to boot, we are trying to paint, fix-up and move into our new house.  Also this week was a big one for a recent project of mine that I am extremely proud of.  This week was the release of Manchester Orchestra’s new CD/LP “Mean Everything To Nothing” which I did the design/layout and some of the photos for.  Back in January  I got a call from my friend Jeremiah (drummer) with this idea in his head for the new Manchester record. He wanted to use old Polaroid pull apart film to do transfers and the transfers would make up the artwork of the record.  I was initially hired on to just help him do the transfers and photos, but as things went along, I ended up getting the job to do the full layout.

 Jeremiah and I spent many days doing all sorts of crazy things with 12 packs of Polaroid 669 film. For a while we tried EMULSION LIFTS which are cool, but a pain in the butt. (it pretty much involves boiling the photo and the image separates itself from the paper on a thin piece of gelatin.) Finally, one day, while trying to find the ‘perfect’ cover image, I found a transfer we did and put in the TRASH pile. some of the chemicals bonded to the paper and pulled up when you pull back the Polaroid.  Somehow at 2nd glance, I knew this would be the cover. Did some clever editing… and BOOM. The cover was born.

Somehow along the way I decided, that since we’re doing a very manual process for the images, why not make everything else I do with the layout HARDER. I purchased some old wooden letterpress Typefaces and blocks and set all the cover, track listing and numbers by hand with these old letters. I also made the lyric layouts harder than they should be too. Needless to say, it was a very time consuming project, but after I saw the finished product, I knew it was time well spent. When I saw the CD I was extremely happy. When I saw the LP this past weekend…. I had a smile on my face I couldn’t wipe off.  

Next Wednesday Night  Manchester Orchestra will be on Letterman and Dave will be holding up the LP; my artwork. That’ll be a awesome moment for me. 

Oh… also too, the record is really really really good. I wasn’t the world’s biggest fan of their last record, but this new one is absolutely fantastic. I expect great things from it. Do yourself a favor and check it out, if not buy it for the artwork. 

We bought a house. too crazy right now to write about, but now you know.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then posting these should save me some time.

Leah and Cap'n Manley at the rotating restaurant atop of the Westin Hotel Atlanta

view from the Westin Hotel's restaurant. See that tall builiding in the middle that has the big "W" on it? That's Leah's hotel.

I've finally come arround to enjoying eating at Sushi places. This is from the dudes bathroom at RuSans in ATL

Brutus doesn't know what to do with himself when it rains outside. He puts this thing in his mouth and just stares out the window

Leah and I helped out with a photo gallery showing of kids we, along with some friends, help teach photography to.

when Brutus tries to nap at night, he really spreads out and lets it all hang out

The Damion Suomi record came out last month and I did the layout/design. The pride of the project, the LP

Last weekend we snuck away to Charlotte,NC to hang out with my parents so my dad and I could go to the Lowes Motor Speedway and check out a car show

a sweet Ed "big daddy" Roth hot rod. I want this.

Brutus fell asleep on my lap last night with his snaggle-tooth showing. This is the stuff that makes my day