James Huckaby... » Travel

I, She Wed

james — Fri, 09 May 2008 20:39:00 +0000

You will understand my noticeable lack of internet creation. It’s because I got myself hitched up! It’s takes a lot of time and effort to do some hitching. Here’s some pics of my beautiful bride Sandi and I getting married in Maui on April 13th!

Shuffle

james — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 21:29:00 +0000

I haven’t told anyone anything in awhile in a permanent internet front page sort of way. That all changed today due to a little Firefox plug-in called ScribeFire (see raveller.com for details). But then again the updates to this thing are at an Annual pace now. I push most of my pictures to Flickr which may be one of the greatest things since sliced bread. I avoid the myspace and other assorted outlets. I mean I started this darn thing 10 years ago. This page in particular. 10 years of having stuff blinking under the The Half Closed Eye. It’s weird to think about.

Anyway on to news!
I am dating someone awesome. I have changed jobs. I’ve seen Jeff Tweedy and Son Volt live this year. I am going to Hawaii. I am learning to Scuba dive. I teach Judo about 3 nights of the week. I am going to Austin City Limits Music Festival again this year. I have two dogs. My sister now lives in Lawton. I’m over a third of century old. I like desserts and pizza and beer.

Been a long time

james — Tue, 22 Aug 2006 16:08:00 +0000

…since I rock and rolled. It appears like I’ve not been to a rock show since June of last year. In truth I’ve seen Wilco twice since then. I’ve just not been motivated to post on the site. Also I’ve seen various bands various times.

I’m getting out to the ACL Music Fest again in September with my sister and Jon and Jennifer Jacks and perhaps Steve and Dana Arric and possibly other people as well. It should be a good time. I’m torn about getting Built to Spill tickets for the Cain’s the week before or after. I’m almost contractually obligated to go see them though after pushing them on so many people.

Less Thinking: More Drinking

james — Mon, 01 Mar 2004 16:13:00 +0000

Tastes Great, Less Filling. From the updated comic strips, y’all can probably tell I made it back from Mardi Gras more or less intact. My tolerance for alcohol is temporarily enhanced and my ability to finish a comic strip before midnight on a work night is diminished. (Hopefully temporarily as well.) Note: Due to space constraints it’s hard to tell that Marlowe is discovering the joys of eBay, but that’s what he’s doing. Kudos to Pelts for consistently delivering the funny. The lionshare of the punchlines are his.

It’s been a movie marathon weekend. I finally watched Old School (not bad, but not as good as my expectations), Lost In Translation (definitely Oscar worthy), Swimming Pool (Eurotrashy B.S.) and the newly released Broken Lizard’s Club Dread! Man, what awesome movie! Go watch this immediately! If you haven’t seen Super Troopers, pick it up at your video shop and watch it too. Looks like Lord of the Rings pulled in a crapload of Oscars. Deservedly. Fantastic stuff!

I think you mean PinaColadaBurg.

So by now it appears

james — Wed, 11 Feb 2004 20:37:00 +0000

that we are on some sort of schedule with the Monkey Project comics. Well, guess again! We are only casting the appearance of a regular sort of schedule and even that is precarious. I’ve not set any sort of goals with regards to frequency of updates or set any expectations that can’t be broken by things like a trip to Mardi Gras or anything out of the blue that may take precedence over doodling. That said, I’m hoping to have a Friday comic this week, two comics out next week on Monday and Wednesday, and a Friday comic if not a Wednesday comic the week after (depending on traffic and travel plans). As far as March goes, it’s a total crap shoot.

Again, the comic raises questions of fundamental morality: Did Cap’n Grey Goose pass the flight test? If not, why? Who is Decky and why does he look like Pelts? How many times has Felicia’s arcade been invaded by costumed interlopers? Does Paul have anything but black T-shirts in his wardrobe? How will Marlowe escape detection by the Dynamic Duo?

the plot thickens

Separation Anxiety

james — Thu, 15 Jan 2004 06:00:00 +0000

is not something we have here at The Half Closed Eye. As usual when speaking for the website, I speak in the plural. Recently I got another domain name specifically for The Half Closed Eye with an appropriate name so no one asks both questions of me at the same time: What’s raveller? What’s The Half Closed Eye?

Now I can explain them separately. Welcome to halfclosedeye.com. Suffice it to say raveller.com and The Half Closed Eye will be separated into two foci. The Half Closed Eye will contain the Writing and Art type stuff while raveller.com will hold the Blog, Picture gallery, Opinion, techy type stuff. Until the re-architecture is completely complete everything will be co-mingled.

Event catch-up
When last I thought it important to update this page with events and so on I spoke of major events to come that were going to be great. It turns out that they were great! Built to Spill and the Austin City Limits Music Festival both rocked my socks off. In the interim and the other times in between I’ve focused intently on playing Judo, lifting weights, watching football, and other leisurely activities that turn out to be enormously draining. Sooner football this season drained a good deal of my resources and energy, particularly the Sugar Bowl. Also somewhere in there I got an enormous 57″ TV.

Tu Stulte Es

De-COMA-tosation

james — Fri, 11 Jul 2003 05:00:00 +0000

So, you’re wondering why it was so long between updates. I was in a coma. That’s right: a coma. Sort of an Internet not updating-coma that allowed me to function normally in society, but a coma nonetheless. (No comments from those of you who think I don’t function normally in society.)

Anyways, I’ve got the normal set of recommendations that come with one of these updates. #1) Comic books. That’s right: comic books. Not only are they colorful and entertaining, they are less trouble than #2) Women. Women are colorful and entertaining but also perplexing and require communication skills to .. er .. communicate with. #3) Kiln People by David Brin. I’ve recommended this to two non-cyber people and they loved it as much as I did. #4) The White Stripes. Lance and Stacy made me go see them much to my entertainment. #5) The Flaming Lips. OK, I’ve never ceased to recommend The Flaming Lips, but I finally saw them in concert in OKC and they put on the most rocking rock show I’ve ever rocked out to. In short they rocked. (These recommendations are in no particular order.)

Feeling sleepy again…

Devastation

james — Mon, 24 Sep 2001 21:49:00 +0000

If you can give, do give.

Crisp Air
The air has changed and the leaves will soon be falling. A new season is upon us in more ways than one, but they are the same seasons that cycle back to us. Both we’ve known before, one we’re happy to greet as the trees change, the other we try to prevent from coloring our lives ever again.

Road Case
I just got back from the first show of Wilco’s new tour in Dallas this weekend and it was a good time. They’ve put their new album up for streaming download on the “Road Case” section of their website. I’m not sure how long it will be up.

It was good to visit the Dallas/Fort Worth area again. Everything’s almost exactly where I left it except for my usual exit ramp to downtown Fort Worth. They moved the interstate. Really.

Site Stuff
On or around the time of my last front page update I put new stuff up in the Download section. Namely Windows executables and source for my Quoter and Renamer programs. About two updates ago my sister Melody put some pictures up from her Summer in Cancun. In addition to that, monkeyproject.com has some new old photo galleries open.

Cool Stuff
I’ve been listening to Live365 at work off and on for awhile. My presets are on the Ween Radio mirror Station, Penny Arcade RADIOACTIVE!, and Wilco Radio. Cartoon Network’s new Adult Swim block rocks my Sunday nights and Samurai Jack kicks major ass.

Travels with Brady (In Search of America)

james — Sun, 06 Jun 1999 22:29:00 +0000

Following in the footsteps of John Steinbeck, I decided to take a journey across America and find its soul. Actually, my main intent was to visit my friend Budd and his new bride Amy in New Orleans but bear with me for a little while.

Instead of a giant poodle named Charley, my erstwhile ex-roommate Brady accompanied me. Instead of a truck named after Don Quixote’s horse Rocinante, we travelled in one named after Rand Al’Thor’s horse Jeade’en from the bestselling and neverending Wheel of Time series. Instead of spending months on the road, we had but a week. Instead of casually meeting people in roadside stops and camping in the wild, we delved into the very heart of modern society: drinking establishments.

From day one, we interviewed as many single women as we could find only to come to one conclusion: The entire South was against us. On Bourbon Street in New Orleans, I was snared into dancing all night by a woman
who I can only describe using words borrowed from a Paul Simon song. She was indeed a “rolly-polly little bat faced girl”. Not only did she chase away most of her pretty friends in the bachelorette party, but she also left the last one in the Brady’s hands forcing my obligation as “Wing-Man”. Tired and rejected, we returned to our hosts’ home as dawn broke over the land.

At first, only New Orleans was abhorrent to us. It was a festival of unique houses that were in actuality very similar to each other and only different from the frame houses of our Native Oklahoma. In spite, we began to uniquely insult the city of our hosts only to find that New Orleaners insulted their city as well after pulling to a stop behind a truck with a bumper sticker proclaiming “Proud to Call New Orleans Hell”.

The very Interstate Highway System conspired against us at every turn, from a fender bender on I-35 to torrential downpours and one lane traffic on I-10 into Baton Rouge and we insulted everything. Undaunted we drove on, insulting Houston and Austin and the Texas Capitol building and the University of Texas’s infamous clock tower.

There should have been a peal of thunder on Thursday night in Fort Worth: we had to run away from a pair of funeral home-owning Wiccans. They had used their witchy ways to lure Brady into conversation¹
and then set their sights on the rest of the drinking party.

After being thoroughly rejected by an entirely different bachelorette party on the final night of our journey, it was obvious that both the women and the roads of America were fighting tooth and nail against us. The wedding party acted offended that I dared to try to dance with them and compare their engagement rings.

After days of driving and disillusionment, I dropped Brady off in Norman and headed to the solace of my own bed for the first time in a week, haunted by the knowledge that the entire country to the south seethed with madness.

[1] I immediately informed Brady that his Wing-Man had already gone down in flames a few nights before and that he was on his own but he persisted in his folly.