The New Year Upon Me

I finally have my car back! Now the thing is, I'm not happy with the job they did. They missed a small spot on the lower back of the quarter panel. It's only about a half inch wide, but they didn't do the job right. I'm taking it back in on Monday to make them redo it. I don't know what will happen, but I'm not happy about it at all. I have waited nearly a month and a half to get my car back and now it's not even right. The place has consistently lied to me. It's absolutely ridiculous.

Enough complaining though, I'm at Steph's now. Her and I will be going to her friend Laura's for New Year's. Just a quaint gathering. Fine by me. I'm not the kind for huge crowds really. I'm sure I will have plenty pictures from the evening to post. I'll possibly make a holiday gallery on Cropreality.

I was going to pick up my iTrip for the iPod Nano at Best Buy, but the whole U.S. is sold out of them. You can't even order them from BestBuy.com right now. I find that to be incredibly wierd. Hopefully there will be some later this week. I will have a New Year's resolution list up tomorrow as well. I've also decided to start writing a a personal Constitution. I'm going to take a long time writing this. After reading Jimmy Carter's new book I've decided it's very important to understand what I stand for and what my own values are. This is something that should be evaluated each year. I should have my first draft ready somewhere around my birthday. (February 26).

Since this will be the first time I'm going to be taking resolutions seriously, I'm going to start with only 3 resolutions this year. I'll take the time today to really think of what they should be and to be careful not to make unreasonable ones. If it's one thing I've learned it's to never set my goals too high because I become demoralized when I don't attain them.

"Dangerously Pleasurable"

So I'm an idiot. Found my cd case with Photoshop today. Likely to say I can add photos once again. Here's a Christmas photo. This was one of my man Christmas presents. It's probably one of my favorites for one thing. The marketing gimmick on the packaging advertised this back massager as 'DANGEROUSLY PLEASURABLE.' Hence the rest of the day I ran around saying "Lookout, it's dangerous!" and would proceed to hold it up. Here's Lauren trying to destroy the massager so it won't hurt any of the children. Anyway, I'll blog about my light painting excursion in just a little bit.

Thursday Part 2 (a.k.a Friday)

So I'm a liar. Or a lush. I'm not sure which, but either way I didn't blog the second part of yesterdays last night because I ended up at Bingo after work and consequently went to the bar afterwards. Of course I didn't earn any money. (In fact all I did was spend it) Good times either way. But anyway, here's what's going on with my life for the past week. I went home for Christmas last week. I spent from Wednesday to Sunday. Stephanie and I got engaged on Friday. I mostly spent the break hanging out with my parents and Steph. After Sunday I went to Steph's until Tuesday morning. I helped her parents setup their wireless network in the house although Dana's computer was having a problem accepting the wireless card. I got back Tuesday and worked until 6:30 p.m. Kempen was back in town so him and I hit up Roc's for a beer or two. The rest of this week I've just been working around the house and working at Pizza Hut. I'm supposed to be getting my car back today, but World Class Collision are a bunch of liars so I doubt it will be done at 5:30 when they say it will.

Here's a recap of my Christmas gifts. Stephanie and her whole family got me the iPod Nano. My parents got me a camera bag, but I had to return it because it wasn't the right one. Of course Best Buy wouldn't give me the cash because it was on a credit card. I bought my arm band for the nano and now I have $75 to spend at Best Buy. My grandparents both gave me money. My dad's side got me an American Eagle shirt as well that I returned for a pretty sweet sweater instead. My cousin Jolene got me a hat that says U.S.S. All-Nighters. I was just excited that I get to advertise my alcoholism now. My mom got me these really neat wooden lamps that fold down like tripods. My sister bought me Jimmy Carter's new book Our Endangered American Values which I'm about half way through already. Should be finished by the end of the weekend. All in all it was a good Christmas.

I traded in my old electric guitar and amp for an acoustic Washburn the other day. I fairly pleased with it. I really need to get a guitar tuner though. It's not out of tune that bad, but just enough to annoy you when playing and I'm not very good tuning by ear. Hopefully I can get a hold of one when up at Steph's tomorrow. Speaking of which, I'm headed back up there tonight after work. I just drove from there the other day and I'm already headed back. It's going to be such a long drive. Luckily I'll have my favorite podcasts and music to listen to on the way up. I'm going to be adding a button to my blog as soon as I can figure it out for the Tips From the Top Floor show. As soon as I get my cds back from Steph's I'll be able to add Photoshop here and post some of my own pictures. I have taken a lot since I was at home and want to share, but just haven't had the editing tools or time. Well, I'm off to the coffee shop to prepare for a full day at Pizza Hut.

Thursday Part 1

So it's time to blog about something worthwhile first. I'm going to split today's blog into two seperate ones. My first blog will be about photography and what's going on with me, and my second one will be about what I've been up to and my life.

First of all, I'm in the middle of listening to a podcast called Tips From the Top Floor. The show is hosted by a German photographer named Chris Marquardt. (pictured to the left). I've always found Europeans to be very odd people and Marquardt is no different. His show mostly consists of segments ranging in 6 minute shows to 30-odd minute interviews with other photographers. I started listening to his shows the other day and have blown through about 7 shows so far. By the end of today I should be caught up with his most recent one. (Although there are about 60 others I have not listened to.) It's hard to say whether his shows are always that worthwhile. There are some where I'm inspired to try whatever he is talking about immediately and others I have to keep myself from falling asleep. The one on lightpainting that I listened to was amazing. Of course I tried it later at night and will have to show you what I got later. Matt doesn't have Photoshop on his computer right now and I think I left my cd case of the programs at Steph's this weekend. After I get through the other ones and get caught up I will blog about them.

Secondly, the Chicago Tribune released their best of 2005 photos in the Sunday section of the Chicago Tribune Magazine. I can't say I'm incredibly impressed with all of them, but there are few that I really enjoyed. My absolute favorite of the picks was Kuni Takahashi's picture of an Afghan man smoking heroin in a shotup cargo hold. The way the bullet holes looked like stars was amazing. My favorite portrait was Vince Vaughn on the Loop by Alex Garcia. I never knew Vaughn was from Buffalo Grove let alone Illinois. The picture up above is probably my favorite feature photo I've seen in awhile. It shows the lightheartedness of soldiers in Mosul, Iraq. A definite needed photo for a change of pace from the hard hitting news photos we see everyday.

I'm going to be looking at the MSNBC photos that Stephen posted about last week. I've been so busy and when I was at home I was unable to view anything decent on the internet because of our connection that I haven't even looked at them. Hopefully I'll get to see them tonight. I always find the best way to become a better photographer is to look at better photographer's photographs.

Briefly Speaking

Just a quick one to let you know I'm still alive. I'm back in good ole Chucktown. My car is STILL not finished. He said it should be Friday now. I'm back at Pizza Hut. Kempen and I hit up Roc's last night. First time I've been there in a couple of months. I'm working the rest of the week at the Hut and then going back to Stephanie's for New Year's Eve. I wish there was some sort of frequent driver miles I could accumulate. Anyway, a quick recap on X-mas gifts I got. I got an iPod nano from Steph, I got a camera bag from my parents, both my grandparents gave me money and my mom found me these lamps that fold down like tri-pods. They're actually pretty neat. Just wish I had somewhere to put them, so I left them home for now. I'll post a few holiday pics later on, but I really need to go read because I haven't done that in awhile. Til later.