Evan Agee: Live from Richmond Indiana

I’ve taken some time and posted some items in the Items of Interest section (see the "What’s New" section on the right for quick links). I dug through my archive of stuff and found a couple of items that I thought might interest some. Or not, you choose.

I spent some time today revamping the Adams & Agee website. I’ve been ignoring it for the last few years, but after receiving a CD order I decided it would be a good idea to clean things up. Who knows, maybe I’ll be able to draw in some more sales! If you’re interested in taking a look at the new website, feel free!

For those of you who aren’t familiar with Adams & Agee, it was an acoustic guitar group that my best friend from high school and I started. We played quite a bit and recorded an album our senior year in high school. If you’d like to hear some clips from the CD, check out the sounds page on our website.

If you like the recording, please purchase it! I have CDs available if you’d like something you can hold in your hand. Or, if you’re the more computer savvy type, I have the album in MP3 format for a discounted rate. I can also convert it to another format if you’re an AAC fan like I am. I’ve had some great comments from people about the CD.

As I mentioned in my last post, Jamie (my brother-in-law) and I went to Indianapolis this weekend for the 2005 Rotary Revolution. It was a large gathering of rotary engine cars from all over the country and it was site. Though we did have a great time looking around at all of the cars and talking with the people there, our enthusiasm was slightly curtailed by the absolutely horrific weather.

It was around 30 degrees outside and the wind was blowing very, very hard almost all day. We arrived at around 10:30 and at around 1:30 decided we couldn’t take any more. So, after many of the events had been cancelled due to the weather and we felt like we had seen all there was to see, we left. Around 8 hours sooner than we had planned to.

We took many pictures, probably close to 200 between the two of us. I’ve posted all of the photos that I took in the Items of Interest section on the Rotary Revolution page. Most of the cars were newer RX-7s and RX-8s, but there was a good assortment of the older 1st Generation RX-7s there as well. They had an autocross track setup and that’s where most of the cars flocked to, but they also had a drag strip that was open for all of 10 minutes before they shut it down due to the wind. We were pretty disappointed.

Since we had left so much sooner than we had expected, we took our time on the way back home and drove through the middle of Indianapolis and took in the scenery of the town. While we were sitting at an intersection down near the main street in town we noticed that there were two people standing on the corner… and they were dressed as two storm troopers from Star Wars. Instantly we realized that there was probably a convention in town. When we saw them cross the street, we though we should follow them and see if there were others in costume. There were. We took photos like mad as we drove down the street and watched the line of people waiting to get into the convention go by. There were some, shall we say, interesting people out there.

As we were getting closer to the edge of Indianapolis we noticed a large yellow sign that said Flea Market. Being the suckers for a good flea market that we are we decided to stop and have a look see. We walked inside to a boring display of carpets and rugs. I thought we had entered the most boring and merchandiseless flea market on the planet, but then I saw "the tunnel". It was a short hall way in the back of the building. We walked towards it and as we got closer I could see that the building was much larger than we had though and that there was a massive village of shops placed throughout the back of this large store. We walked around for close to an hour and couldn’t believe all of the stuff they had. Incense, DVDs, knives, swords, ceramic tigers and panthers, computer parts, carved wood name plates, they had it all.

I can’t wait to go back there and take Kristen. She’ll understand what was so great about it.

This week has been very strange. Kristen’s great-grandfather passed away over the weekend and we had the calling and funeral Tuesday and Wednesday. I was out of work all day Wednesday, which didn’t make things any better. Wednesday, the day of the funeral was one of the strangest days I’ve ever experienced. You know how each day of the week has its own feeling that makes it unique from the others? Well, yesterday didn’t have any of those characteristics. Things are finally starting to get back to normal finally.

I had the chance last night to watch not one, but two movies before going to bed. I was planning on sitting down and watching Flight of the Phoenix and Man on Fire, but I saw that Gone in 60 Seconds was on TBS, so I had to check it out. It’s a good movie. Once that was over I watched Flight of the Phoenix, which was pretty good. It was a fun story, but didn’t have much in the way of a back story. Seemed very one dimensional.

This weekend is going to be great. I’m going with my brother-in-law to Rotary Revolution, an Mazda RX-7 convention in Indianapolis. I’m not that much into the cars in terms of owning my own, but he’s really into them and actually owns an ‘85 RX-7. His car isn’t quite ready for the event, so we’ll just be going as spectators, but it’s going to be a great time. We’re both going to be taking our digital cameras and taking tons of pictures. The event lasts all day saturday and it features lots of workshops, races and plenty of pretty cars to look at. I can’t wait.

Kristen and I have lived in a small house in Richmond since we got married in August of 2002. Outside of the front door, on our porch, there’s a rose bush of some kind. I don’t know anything about roses except that they’re somewhat expensive and Kristen (and many other women for that matter) likes them.

Each year when the harsh Indiana weather comes in those roses, along with almost every other form of plant life dies and hides their shades of green, red, yellow and purple to make way for the white of winter. Towards the end of each winter I can still see the vines for the roses, but the look like nothing more than black, shriveled pieces of rope, "we’ve lost the rose bushes for good this time" I think. But they always return in the spring.

I was sitting on the porch today after mowing the grass and I noticed that the rose vines have changed from black into light brown, they’re coming back again for spring, I’m constantly amazed by how much plants can take. I look back on this last winter, which had its share of bad snow storms and I can’t believe how much those plants have come through.