Kyle Dreier - Mr. Critical

While at first glance you may have thought “careless” it’s actually car-less. Yes, I’ve decided to trade my $60 per gas tank fill up for the way of the old world. Not really. I’m just in waiting for my “new” car from Dan. This waiting has been good.

The other day I had a meeting scheduled in downtown Franklin and decided I would walk the 3 or 4 miles from my home. I overestimated my pace and underestimated the time it would take. As it ended up it was about 1 1/4 hours.

It was a peculiar morning as I headed out and, as usual, I had my camera in tow. It had rained earlier and the sky was quietly moving on. I didn’t camp out at any one point of interest but as I was walking I did see things that prompted a quick snap-shot.

Honestly, this was a great walk and besides being late to my meeting (sorry Brian) my soul was fed and I’m sure my heart benefited from the exercise.

This is a sampling of what I saw between Fieldstone Farms and Downtown Franklin.

Yes, that’s what the sky looked like. Almost like a painting.

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Um, … more sky.

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This growing just a few feet from traffic along Hillsboro Road.

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A cute little house just behind the rec center.

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Is this poison ivy? I never know.

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I love the graphic nature of common things.

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Location, location, location. 2 blocks from Downtown Franklin.

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This is a neat stone wall on the edge of a very old cemetery.

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Rose garden at the corner of South Margin and 4th Avenue.

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So there you have it. What took me over an hour to walk you just got to enjoy in less than 2 minutes.

– Kyle Dreier

Well, I have to say that I gave “My Name is Asher Lev” the good ol’ college try. Actually, I gave it better than that seeing that I wasn’t the best of readers in college – at least in my first round of college at Baylor.

I have the utmost of respect for my pal, Johnny Rogers, who recommended this book to me. I think I’m just not as smart or as patient as he.

In the book, Asher is preoccupied with his gift of art. I can relate. He and his art are not fully understood by those around him. I can sorta relate. The part that kept me from getting further than half way through was that the author Chaim Potok didn’t further the story … at least not at a pace to keep my attention.

Part of my problem is that I think I prefer non-fiction. I was interested in the human elements surrounding the Jewish persecution but would have been more interested knowing it was historically accurate. I may have been but I don’t know. Once again, my ignorance revealed.

I’ve had other artists recommend this book so I really really fought hard to finish it, but it just wasn’t going to happen. I did, however, pull a Harry from “When Harry Met Sally” and read the last page. It was the same at the first half of the book. Asher, his art, his whining, his not being understood.

I guess one redeeming nugget from the book is that I need to spend less time reading about art and artists and more time doing art. Maybe then I’ll have a better basis for my criticism.

– Kyle Dreier

It was brought to my attention by Heather Reddington yesterday that it has been more than a year since I’ve blogged on our adoption process. Me, being “always right” immediately challenged this claim and found out quickly I was wrong and she was right. So, now for an update on the past year …

We are still in the “waiting” stage BUT China does have all our paperwork. Our “log in date” is July 23, 2007. This means that on that date the Chinese authorities logged our paperwork and put us in line basically.

As of today “referrals” (the documents which actually have one’s child’s name) are coming about 24 to 26 months after login date. This being the case we’ll get our referral for our daughter, who we’ve already named Ruby, sometime around August 2009 or later. It is likely she’ll be about 12 months old at that time. If you do the math, this means that she’s probably been conceived but not yet born.

This is an odd place to be for us as we wait. To think that we’re adopting a little girl that isn’t yet born. That her mother may not have yet made a decision to give her up or abandon her. To think that this mother probably loves this baby girl very much and may be having to make a difficult decision because of finances or cultural pressures. We just don’t know but we pray the mother is healthy and is taking good care of this precious yet to be born girl.

In the meantime, we wait. At this point the only items on our to do list are to do fund raising and apply for grants to help offset the costs. In the end it’ll likely be around $16,000 to $20,000. Thankfully that is spread out and we’re about halfway through the expenses.

Look for another entry … in less than a year’s time.

- Kyle Dreier

Can I shoot one photo a day? Seems easy enough, doesn’t it. I’m already a few days into my personal challenge and am enjoying some of the creative stretching thus far.
To see my progress take a look at my photography blog.

Click image(s) to come see …

– Kyle Dreier

This is a blog entry about my new blog … Kyle Dreier Photography Blog.

What you can expect in my new blog is highlights from jobs/assignments plus general musings about photography equipment, photography experiments and pretty much anything relative to my photography passion.

See my latest post about the lunar eclipse.

Be sure to subscribe to the RSS for both Kyle Dreier Photography and Mr. Critical.

-Kyle

About three and a half years ago Amy and I purchased a condo which was simply a drawing of a floor plan and a couple of artist renderings. Construction was completed in September of 2007 and we began decorating and setting up our vacation home. We’ve decorated it and equipped it for our use as well as for guests.

March 1 officially starts the peak rental season and I’m rather pleased with how everything turned out. We’ve created a web site with additional information about our beach condo.

If you’re interested in getting discounts and last minute deals make sure to sign up via our www.1708shores.com web site.

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If you are interested in rates and availability and additional photos please check our Shores of Panama web site.

See you at the beach!

- Kyle

Ever since I was a boy I’ve had a certain affinity for Whataburgers. I can remember my mom saying those ever welcome words of “you wanna get a Whataburger?”

The love continued through high school and college and now well into adulthood. But this is where my story takes a dark turn.

In 1998 Amy and I moved to Tennessee where if you were to ask where to find a Whataburger you’d likely get a response of “A what-a-what?”

While my obsession for Whataburger pales in comparison to Wayne Geyer’s, I do, when given the opportunity, go a little out of my way to rekindle my Whataburger taste buds.

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This past weekend I kept an eagle eye on the roadside as I headed down to Florida. Apparently Alabama is more worthy of not just one, but multiple Whataburger locations. I stopped at one of them, just 2.5 hours south of my home.

- Kyle Dreier

Well, it’s my weekly Wednesday Night Out and my bud Jeff McMahon says there’s a friend of his playing some of her work “in the round.” Even though I’m somewhat hep to the local music biz jargon I had to make a joke about the artists singing “Row Row Row Your Boat” in rounds, to which Jeff quickly said that they also do “99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall.”

Anyone that lives in Nashville knows that The Bluebird Cafe is the paramount place to go to hear artists and writers. Wednesday night was my first time to cross the threshold of this landmark here in town.

For nearly 10 years now I’ve driven by this place and have created what turns out to be a romanticized image of what this venue is beyond the understated facade. Once inside my first impression was “This looks like it used to be a Japanese restaurant.”

The place was filled with friends, supporters of the artists and I assume some music business executives or wannabe’s. Not much, if any, pretension – which is nice. This venue was pretty much just an intimate (shoulder to shoulder … “is there a fire marshal in the house?”) relaxed environment … at least for the audience. The artists commented on how it can be a little intimidating to play without all the lights, stage, tech that goes with big venues.

The event was an “ASCAP Presents: In The Round with …” and they had four artists/writers. For my taste I was really struck by the talent of Kelleigh Bannen and Meghan Kabir. All four were far more talented than I could ever hope to be but the style of these two really caught my ear.

Kelleigh Bannen had a style and tone that reminded me of Patty Griffin. Meghan Kabir made me think of Fleming and John. It was fun hearing their voices and enjoy them in a pure and unproduced environment.

I’ll never bill myself as a music critique but I certainly know what I like and do have an appreciation for people’s talents.

- Kyle Dreier (Mr. Critical)