Here goes the final list of my top albums of 2009. The first post can be found here, the second one here, and the third one here.

1. Thao with The Get Down Stay Down - Know Better Learn Faster

Get it here:

Listen here: Cool Yourself

2. John Mayer - Battle Studies

Get it here:

Listen here: Heartbreak Warfare

3. Dirty Projectors - Bitte Orca

Get it here:

Listen here: Stillness is The Move

4. Cymbals Eat Guitars - Why There Are Mountains

Get it here:

Listen here: And The Hazy Sea

5. Regina Spektor - Far

Get it here:

Listen here: Folding Chair

6. Blind Pilot - 3 Rounds And A Sound

Get it here:

Listen here: One Red Thread

7. Tegan & Sara - Sainthood

Get it here:

Listen here:

Ta da! That should keep you busy for at least a little while.

Here we go again.....find the first part of this here, and the second one here.

But first, these are not from 2009, but they have been big with me as of late and I believe you should hear them:

Jose Gonzalez - Heartbeats (get it here:)

The Middle East - Blood (get it here:)

older brother, restless soul, lie down
lie for a while with your ear against the earth
and you'll hear your sister sleep talking
say "your hair is long but not long enough to reach
home to me
but your beard
someday might be"

and she'll wake up in a cold sweat on the floor
next to a family portrait drawn when you were four
and beside a jar of two cent coins that are no good no more
she'll lay it aside

older father, weary soul, you'll drive
back to the home you made on the mountainside
with that ugly, terrible thing
those papers for divorce
and a lonely ring
a lonely ring
sit on your porch
and pluck your strings

and you'll find somebody you can blame
and you'll follow the creek that runs out into the sea
and you'll find the peace of the Lord.

grandfather, gentle soul, you'll fly
over your life once more before you die
since our grandma passed away
you've waited for forever and a day
just to die
and someday soon
you will die

it was the only woman you ever loved
that got burnt by the sun too often when she was young
and the cancer spread and it ran into her bod

Now, back to 2009. Here is some more of my favorite music from the year.

1. Death Cab For Cutie - The Open Door EP

Get it here:

Listen here: My Mirror Speaks

2. Passion Pit - Manners

Get it here:

Listen here: Moth's Wings

3. Dashboard Confessional - Alter The Ending

Get it here:

Listen here: Get Me Right - www.myspace.com/dashboardconfessional

4. Anni Rossi - Rockwell

Get it here:

Listen here: or here

5. Say Anything - Say Anything

Get it here:

Listen here:

Yet once again there will be more coming soon.....

My project of photographing the historic churches of Charleston, SC now has it's own website. Go check it out here: www.churchesofcharleston.com. Also, you can become a fan of our Facebook page, and follow us on Twitter.

Something has been bugging my little brain for a while. Let me set up the scenario for you.

So, you're walking the streets of Charleston, checking out the scenery, minding your own business, and it looks something like this:

Then, you look to your left and see this:

So, you think to yourself, "Gee, I'd like a Coke" (or Pepsi or whatever sugary liquid the machines contain that you prefer). Or maybe you think "I'd really like to get on that elevator and go.......up". Either way you walk in the door, a normal, unsuspecting person seeking to do whatever it was you decided to do. But, then you look to your right and you're met with this:

So you pass out or pee yourself or something along those lines. Thus, I have to ask, what the heck is up with this thing? Why is it here? Is it in any way connected to eating too many tootsie rolls? Bottom line, I need an explanation.

Round 2 of my favorite music from 2009. Ding.

1. Andrew Bird - Noble Beast

Get it here:

Listen here: Anonanimal

2. The Antlers - Hospice

Get it here:

Listen here: Two

3. The Decemberists - The Hazards of Love

Get it here:

Listen here: The Rake's Song

4. Beirut - March of The Zapotec/Realpeople Holland

Get it here:

Listen here: My Night With A Prostitute From Marseille

5. The Dangerous Summer - Reach For The Sun

Get it here:

Listen here: Where I Want To Be

6. Grizzly Bear - Veckatimest

Get it here:

Listen here: While You Wait For The Others

That should be enough to keep you busy. More still to come....

Thus begins my one-in-a-billion yearly list of the music that helped get me through 2009. In lieu of fancy, pretentious language describing something that I probably don't completely understand I'll provide some samples to speak on their own.

In no particular order:

1. Neko Case - Middle Cyclone. Get it here:

Listen here: People Got A Lotta Nerve

2. Bon Iver - Blood Bank EP

Get it here:

Listen Here: Blood Bank

3. Bowerbirds - Upper Air

Get it here:

Listen Here: Northern Lights

4. The XX - XX

Get It Here:

Listen Here: Heart Skipped A Beat

5. Brand New - Daisy

Get it here:

Listen here: Bought a Bride

6. David Bazan (from Pedro the Lion)  - Curse Your Branches

Get it here:

Listen here: Hard To Be

7. We Were Promised Jetpacks - These Four Walls

Get it here:

Listen here: Quiet Little Voices

Plenty more to come in the near future.

Today I went to Publix in search of chocolate soy milk and along the way I made a detour through the fruits and vegetables section. What did I find amongst the familiar fruit landscape? Exactly, a dragon fruit. Roar.

Naturally, you don't come across a dragon fruit and leave it laying there, especially when your 3 year old son is convinced that it somehow came out of a dragon (not that a dragon will come out of it, which would be particularly cool). So I called my mother and asked her the question that all mother's pray their son never asks them, "How does one select a dragon fruit"? She had no clue. Luckily, Google did. So after some brief instruction on picking one with consistent coloring, no splotches, firm yet slightly giving when pressed, and green, not brown, fluffy things on it, I selected my dragon poop and took it home. I put it on the cutting board.

I wasn't happy with its placement so I moved it slightly to the right.

Nothing happened, so I added a knife to the mix.

I heard, via Google's wisdom, that there are 3 types of these. One is yellow on the outside and 2 are pink. Between those 2 pink ones, one is white on the inside and one is pink on the inside. I had no clue what mine was, but I didn't intend to wait any longer to find out.

It was white, which I find more interesting because it's much less expected. The fruit is made up of the white part which has hundreds of tiny black seeds speckled throughout it. Thanks to Google once again, I got the recommendation to use a spoon to separate the inside from the skin.

Slide the spoon around the point where the inside meets the skin and the fruit comes out effortlessly.

I chopped it up into cubes.

The taste is reminiscent of a kiwi, even having that familiar crunch from the tiny seeds. Even the texture is extremely similar to that of a kiwi. However, it's not quite as acidic as a kiwi would be. It has a nice but mild sweetness to it and is quite refreshing. It tastes almost like a kiwi if it were a melon. Or maybe that makes absolutely no sense. All in all I'd say its strikingly similar to what you might think a dragon fruit tastes like if you happened to perfectly guess what one would taste like having never tasted one.

SO, everyone run to Publix and grab a dragon fruit while they're still available. Or just have a bite of mine.

Have you ever wondered what it would be like if a Plecostomus were to attempt to suck on your face? If not, then you are strange.

Here is the answer, be patient and see it through:

Charleston: there is a fearless flirt on the loose. They will flirt with you. And they ain't afraid to do it. They're so prepared to fearlessly flirt that they even pasted it down the side of their grasshopper car.

Consider yourself warned.

During daylight I double as a fine art printer at Imaging Arts, which is located at 175 King Street in Charleston, SC. I must say that we offer the highest quality canvas printing available. We can print anything you like. We do work for painters and photographers, professionals and amateurs, or whatever you consider yourself. I print all of my personal images here, and we use the exact same equipment and standards to print your photos as we use when we print our own images that are displayed in the gallery.

Lately family and pet photos have been very popular choices and many of them end up as gifts, but travel and art photos are always being done. We can also take any old images you have that are damaged and restore them to their original beauty. You can find out more about the gallery itself at www.imagingarts.com, and you can place an online canvas print order directly from www.myphotosontocanvas.com.