Bowhunters and Cotton

So, if you're wondering what 51p5-60-1 bow hutners, 3-deck means, you're not the only one! Apparently, the PDF version of today's news was uploaded without this story actually being put in there yet, hence the jibberish headline and all the latin-sounding text for a story. I only hope that they didn't print the newspaper like this. Spent a couple hours at this bowhunters convention and a lot of people were wanting to buy a copy of today's paper before heading back to Salina, Wichita, Ellsworth, KC, Hays, other places, and it would really be sad if the paper they got had this about their convention.

There was a cool photo of a guy skinning the head of a deer that the editor pulled out.. guess it was too gruesome for paper. I put in like 11 photos from this event even though they were only gonna use 2-3. I had fun. It shoulda be the Ad Astra I guess. Then Darcy wouldn'tve had to do a story. She was pretty busy yesterday.

More importantly, spent quite a bit of time at the KSHSAA 5A State Wrestling Tournament at the Salthawk Activity Center this weekend, about 6 hours per day, and had this Ad Astra in today's paper.

The biggest deal for us was Romero Cotton, Hutchinson High School senior wrestler, who, last night, won his fourth consecutive state title after an undefeated season. It was my mission last night to get pictures of his family, the Cottons, cheering for him during and after his match. It just so happens, at the critical cheer moment when Romero won the match, Uncle Charles popped up to cheer directly in front of Romero's parents and made it rather difficult to get a shot with all their faces.
These down here were pretty old, but they finally ran in a a Business section today.

-TB

Colbert guitar!

I got this idea yesterday when I was talking to my fiance on the phone and I took off this little sticker that's been on my JReynolds Fender Strat lookalike guitar for a really long time and it left a little sticky spot right under the strings on the pickguard, because thats where it was, and I thought "that sucks, I need to put another sticker on there!" and for some reason I thought an American flag would be the best thing, since I'm a proud American and I was thinking of somewhere I could get a star-spangled sticker of some kind and Colbert's book I AM AMERICA came to mind.

After flipping through the pages for something funny and easily removable, I had the crazy idea to cut out the first and last pages, the ones with the red and blue 'facing Stephens' pattern all over them and I thought hell I could probably cover the whole pickguard with that stuff. Bitchin! So that's what I ended up doing!

I cut those pages out of colbert's book and took the originally all-white pickguard off and cut the shape into the pages and used lots of really smooth and tight packing tape to secure it piece by piece and all the way around the edges, to the bottom of it. It's actually two large pieces, half the pickguard covered with one page. And then i had to cut and tape down Stephen around the inside edges of all the holes for the knobs and the pickups and poke holes for all the screws.

The pickups originally had white covers on them but the fit was a little too snug with them on so I left them off and decided they look just as good black. The pickguard is completely coated with smooth packing tape to make sure I don't rip the Colbert paper while thrashing away on mad licks and riffs and jams and rock ftw.

-TOM!

PS: I will be sure to purchase an extra, un-desecrated copy of I AM AMERICA (AND SO CAN YOU!) to go up on a pedestal, to make sure not to anger Colbert with my unapproved cutting of material from the book.