Dribbling Ink

(My wife and brother-in-law carved this. I don't touch the inside of pumpkins.) (I'm not big on Halloween, but I enjoy autumn. We planted four  mums to celebrate.) (I made a homemade chocolate chip pizza. Too bad I can't serve this to trick-or-treaters.)

(Caption: Kathryn refused to let me use a picture of her. I guess this is effective.) I write a lot of pointless blogs on Dribbling Ink; however, blogs like this make it worth it. It's always interesting to talk to other arists and creative people; it's even more exciting when you grew up with the person, which is this case with this week's interviewee -- Kathryn Richey. I've known Kathryn since kindergarten. In fact, in elementary school, Kathryn, Daniel Vangilder, and I morphed ourselves into three Arkansas Razorback basketball players: Corey Beck, Corliss Williamson, and Scotty Thurman. It's been a long time since then, but Kathryn continues to utilize her creativity in new ways. Jacob Cooper: Recently, very recently, you started posting pictures that you've taken on Facebook -- professional-grade portraits, I guess (everyone posts pictures on Facebook). You also started a group/business, Kathryn Richey Photos. So, how long have you been interested in p...

If you're like me, you did nothing during your break. And you enjoyed every second of the nothingness. Of course, I'm sure I'll see plenty of pictures from the beach on Facebook for those lucky enough to get away. Good for you. Wait, even my wife went to San Francisco while I sat home. Whatever. More importantly, I would do anything to avoid going back to school, but I have to no matter what. That's why I am just avoiding my homework instead. Do I actually have something to talk about? Of course not. But that's the beauty of Dribbling Ink: it never has a purpose (yeah, yeah, I know: I keep trying to give it one and it keeps failing), but it doesn't have to. Here are a few quick links that I found while wasting time. Butler's Too Big, Yo: http://www.midmajority.com/2010/03/too-big-yo.php Leave it up to a mid-major college like Butler to predict its magical run to the Final Four in verse. Apparently, a few players recorded a rap during Spring Break righ...

Go ahead, ask: Where are these pictures from and why are they important? Easy. My parents' new house and...because they are of my parents' new house. OK, easy enough for me, but you're still wondering why they are important to you or, at least, why you should bother wasting your time looking at them. The only answer I have is because we are all products of environment, whether it's our house or our hometown. There are three things that have undoubtedly shaped me: family, Arkansas, and "home." The first is easy enough to understand. When I say Arkansas, I am specifically referring to Paragould, Arkansas, and more generally to the South. However, in this blog I'd like to talk about "home," in which case I am referring both to a physical dwelling and the environment I grew up in. The pictures featured below are taken from my parents' sixth new house, the first since I moved out a few years ago (of course, I only lived in the fifth house a few mo...

For awhile I thought I wasn't going to see a single snowflake the entire winter. Yes, I know it's been snowing practically everywhere -- except where I've been, that is. Over Christmas break we went home to Paragould and it snowed in Arkadelphia. After returning to a snow-free southern Arkansas, it snowed in Paragould. You get the idea -- the pattern kept up until this week. Our apartment looks better at night, highlighted by snow. Someone made a snowman for me on my truck. I'm guessing it was a Henderson student (we live right beside the dorms). At least my vehicle wasn't pelted by snowballs. My wife swears she was bombarded by snowballs during a two-minute drive through the OBU campus. Kasa making snow cream. We are so poor that we have to wait on snow to make something sweet to eat -- thus the happy face. Or maybe she was so happy because we watched Merlin after this (yes, we have odd taste in TV shows; of course, we don't even have cable, so we watch what w...

I figured my wife would appreciate this picture. In case some people get worried, this picture was taken at Pumpkin Hollow last year. I just always found it creepy because she looks so pale--and that smile.

There are many advantages to living in Ouachita Baptist University’s apartments, like the fact that my wife’s scholarship leaves us with only a $93 housing bill at the end of the month (of course, without a job that still means giving up cable [see yesterday’s blog]), we conserve gas without having to commute, and OBU provides free internet (like hotels provide “free breakfast”). OBU even provides clothes washers and dryers. That is, if you don’t mind dodging traffic in the parking lot, sprinting in the rain, or trudging through mud, all while toting your dirty underwear over your shoulder to the laundry room. Even then, say you defy all odds and reach the laundry room as clean as you left, your clothes won’t. The laundry room/outhouse/dungeon is last place you’d want to wash clothes that you actually have to wear. There’s usually an inch of water on the floor—I haven’t decided if it’s from improper use of the washing machines or sewage backup— and all the apparatuses (two washers, ...