New Blog!

I started a new seperate blog today. This one will always be my personal random blog dealing with stuff in my life and the other one is a blog focusing on the Champaign/Urbana scene. It will have commentary on music, shows, art exhibits and basically anything there is to do in the Champaign area. Once a week I will post the weeks events and probably tell you what to expect. I will try to profile bands and events whenever possible. So head on over, take a quick look and expect for an update on it soon. By the way, I know the name is horrible. If you have any good suggestions let me know asap.

The Chambana Scene

Layer Masks

Isn't my fiance beautiful. This is the new desktop to my computer.



Now this may not be any shocking news to anyone, but Layer Masks are wonderful for artsy things in photoshop. Here's one I did with a photo of Steph I took last weekend. I really like the way the blue in her eye pops out from the black and white. Most likely I will probably do some more photos like this. In fact I'm going to try and do one with Caity for her and Derek's wedding later this week. I want to make sure I can do it properly. I really like this photo. I thought the lighting coming in from the window was really nice. I wish there was something else really colorful that I could lighten up, but this works for now.

Don't worry, I'm not dead!

This photo pretty much sums up my life right now. Early mornings, coffee, carrying around the News-Gazette mug (company mandated while in the office for beverages) and the bananas show my healthy lifestyle.

I am alive! I know the few of you that read this have been disappointed, but at the same time most of you probably know my situation. I just moved into a new apartment thanks to Derek and Caity in Champaign. I started my internship this week at the News-Gazette. It's going really good. Darrell and the crew have been very generous by sharing their knowledge. I'm learning a lot about lighting right now from John Dixon.

Living arrangements are going good. I think Caity and Derek have had time to adjust to me living here now so I hope I'm not a bother. I've been watching seasons 1,2,3 and 6 of Seinfeld due to lack of my cable. I've drank more coffee this week than I have in the past 12 months, but I feel like I've lost at least 5 pounds. As soon as I find a scale I will fill you in on how my resolutions are going. The news article part probably hasn't been the best, but getting better.

I finally have internet back, but it took a lot of work with routers and modems being the source of the problem. Anyway, I've decide to start a new blog. This one will be focused on the Champaign music scene. Not sure on the name of it yet, but I will blog on here about it as soon as I get the chance.

I have one more blog to do before I go to bed. I have a picture of Steph that I think is really cool that I altered today with the use of Layer Masks. Chris Marquardt did a podcast about layer masks on his 'Tips from the Top Floor Show.' It's something I'm going to try and do with Derek and Caity's wedding as well. I'll do the other blog when I get off the phone with Steph.

All Systems Go

So apparently I can raise the dead...or dead electronics at least!


I got motivated enough to try and fix my computer today. I know, quite a surprise huh? It's going to take me quite awhile to get it fully functional, but it shouldn't be too bad. The next step is to reinstall Windows XP one more time. I need to do a reinstall because right now I have a pirated version of Professional and I don't want to update it because well, it's technically illegal. (Shhhhhhh!!!). I have my actual version of Home edition, but I didn't have the security code for it here. So I'll being doing that later this week along with buying a wireless router to hook up at Katie and Derek's. I also am going to have to redownload all those stupid service packs and security updates. Things are going great this weekend. With they way my life goes I hope I don't show up Tuesday and find out I no longer have an internship or something like that.

Champagne+Suite=Relaxation

Thanks to Steph's bosses for getting her a overnight stay in a hot tub suite last night.

I'm pretty much moved out of my house by now. I have to go back Monday to pick up a few more things and I'll be moving into Derek's later on Monday. This weekend Stephanie and I finally got to use the gift certicate her bosses gave her as a bonus for a free night in the hot tub suite at the Comfort Inn & Suites in Rochelle. We've been waiting for quite sometime to use the certicate, but the wait was finally worth it. It was nice just to have a night to relax after working pretty hard for the last 2 months. We also got to use the certificate she got from them for Christmas which was $100 for Johnny's Charhouse in Dekalb. I got a really nice Ribeye that Steph and I shared and of course I got a Maker's Mark and Seven. Steph got her usual margarita. I guess things just never change.

Before going to dinner we stopped in to Best Buy. I returned the Road Trip that I had purchased and bought a seperate car charger as well as a cassette player for my nano. Now I won't have a constant buzzing when I go to play stuff it in my car. I would not recommend to anyone that you buy the Griffin iTrip or the Griffin Roadtrip. Griffin's FM transmitter's don't work so well, especially when you get into larger cities such as Champaign. I did pick up Jack Johnson's In Between Dreams though. Absolutely love the cd. I think I'm so in love with it just because I've been getting back into acoustic because I traded in for one not too long ago.

Steph has to coach at a game tonight for her poms girls at 6 p.m. and then I think we're going to get a movie and just chill. I'm headed home tomorrow for a little while and then either down to Charleston for the night or staying the night at home then to Charleston to get my shit and get up to Derek's early on Monday. It's kind of a tossup right now. I really need to go visit Sheryl tomorrow. Her mom just passed away the other day. I'm really disappointed I wasn't there for her visitation or anything, but I find it's harder and harder to get back for things these days.

My computer should be up and running by Tuesday or Wednesday I'm hoping. It should be completely back together by today, but I don't have my cds to re-install all the programs and operating system. Then all I'll need is $70 for a wireless router for Derek and Katie's house so I can use the internet.

I've got some more exciting news, but I'll fill you in on that later.

Polar Plunge, well sort of.....

So I took the inevitable plunge into the pond last night. This is what we do when one of us gets engaged or lavalier's their girlfriend. I knew it was coming. Don't ask me what possessed me to propose to Stephanie in the middle of winter, but she's worth it. Let me tell you, the water is as cold as it looks. I don't think that it helped being one of the coldest nights of the week either. This pond trip is bound to make me even more sick than I already am. Luckily I didn't wake up today feeling much worse. I decided to take it light today. I think I'll still go to the rec, but I think I'll only go for like a half hour and won't lift very much. Just abs and cardio for today. Not to mention my neck/back are killing me. I think I had the bar up a little too high when doing squats the other day. If I don't go to the rec at all I need to do somehting really productive like backing up all my images at the newsroom before I leave. We had another scare with the server going down again and I thought I lost a bunch of stuff I really wanted again. I only have 3 days left at Pizza Hut and then I'm off to my internship. Other than that not much has been happening. Hopefully I can resurrect my computer soon so that I can have access to the internet again. In fact, I should probably try to put it back together tonight.

Light Painting

Lightpainting experiment 1



My first attempt at writing letters with light



With the help of Stephen once again I've figured out how to put cutlines under the photos. If I ever win a grammy or some prestigious award I'll have to remind myself to give a shout out to him. Anyway, I've had these images done for about a week now, I just have not had time to post them. I'm going to attempt more light painting in the near future as soon as my house is completely picked up. I tried these after listening to Chris Marquardt's Tips From the Top Floor episode 66. Hopefully I will find more upcoming shows as inspiring as this one was. As I continue to listen to his podcasts, I gain more and more of an appreciation for Chris.

New Year's Resolution

Beer is probably cause for most of my problems so let's cut down on that this year.

This year I've compiled a list of two different kinds of goals. Physical goals and other goals. By this I mean that physical goals have some sort of monetary value or can be measured in some way. The other goals are personal goals that I will only know if I attain and should be laid on my conscience at all times. These are in no particular order and may be amended at anytime. I'm really excited about having some that I could actually check off. I will always update you when I complete one or will let you know the progress on the other ones from time to time. So without further ado.
Physical goals:

1. Weigh 165 lbs by my birthday. ( 10 lbs. in 7 weeks).
2. Do one photo essay I'm proud of.
3. Have my credit card to $0 by December.

Other goals:

1. Read at least one news article a year
2. Drink less beer each week.
3. Complain as little as possible.

All these goals should help me be a better person as well as improve my life physically and mentally. These are the things most important to me right now. If anyone thinks I should add something on here please feel free to comment.

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.

I'm Engaged

So it's official. Stephanie finally got me to propose to her. (Okay so I really wanted to do it, but we won't let on to that ;) I finally got a chance to blog after being home for a few days. I'm obviously not happy having dialup. I'm actually getting ready to watch Citizen Kain for the first time with my dad. We just finished up Cindarella Man which is quite possibly my 2nd favorite boxing movie behind Raging Bull. Anyway, I'm going to Steph's tomorrow for Christmas Day. I'll be up there until Tuesday morning. We have to have her ring resized as it was way to big for her hand. Hopefully there actually is a Kay Jewelers by her. Well I don't want to take up too much time of this movie. I just have to say that I'm exuberant about being engaged. It feels a little wierd, but I think it will come with time. The hardest part is saying "This is my fiance Stephanie," instead of "This is my girlfriend," when introducing her to people. I only slipped once last night at the bar with it though. Likely to say she was really excited and started crying, but eventually said "yes!" She only had to make about 100 phone calls afterwards, but the funny part was nearly everyone already knew.

So I hate dial up with a passion. This is the only photo I can get to load from the other night right now. If this damn internet will start working better here I'll add some more photos.

Good news though, the House has only approved the Patriot Act for another 5 weeks rather than 6 months. Unfortunately I don't think any of these politicians will ever get it through their thick skulls that this is America where we are founded upon the principles of freedom. Allowing government agencies to review and wiretap phone conversations without prior approval by some sort of a panel is Constitutionally wrong morally apprehensive. Thanks a lot GOP.

Pizza Hut+Cowboys=Blackmail

I'm home. After 3 hours in a car going in and out of thick fog I made it home around 1:15 a.m. Not bad considering it usually takes me 3.5 hours to get home. The fog was the worse part of it. Parts of the road I couldn't even see more than 10 feet in front of me. Thought a cop was going to pull me over twice. I came up on his stakeout spot doing about 80 mph, but he didn't even flinch. I listened to "The Long Road Home: The Ultimate John Fogerty-Creedence Collection" on my way home for the most part. The cd is amazing. Everything you'd expect from Fogert and Creedence. Thank god someone else owns Fantasy Records now allowing him to publish his material once again.

Anyway, I got to do a little camera tossing, but that's not the greatest picture I have. (Although I was very pleased with them.) Pizza Hut has been ran over by cowboys. My assistant manager Robert came into work with my manager Marvin sporting fake guns and cowboy hats in celebration The Paws weekly Country and Western night. Here's Robert trying to hold up Dennis at the cash register. Dennis must obviously know they're fake guns otherwise he would have pulled out a "Magic" card and summoned The Goblin Tinker to vanquish Robert and the other cowboys. I'll have to add a few more pictures at a later date because I'm on dial up. The camera tossing photos will be up later today so check back soon.

Lou loves the Hut

While delivering at Pizza Hut tonight I had the oppurtunity to deliver to Eastern Illinois President Lou Hencken. This is the third time in two weeks I have either delivered to Lou or seen him at the restaurant. I delivered to a party in honor President Hencken last week, I saw him in the store two days later, and then I delivered to him last night. Work was pretty slow again. I imagine it will be the same tonight. With barely any college students here I only take about 6 or 7 deliveries in a night compared to around 20. I have so much time to get all my stuff done and then sit and read. I've been reading this series in the Tribune for the past couple of days about a guy named Alexei Sultanov, a European pianist who suffered multiple strokes paralyzing most of his body. Even though he couldn't communicate he still taught himself to learn to play the piano again with his right hand while his wife Dace would accompany him. Quite an entertaining article. It was a three part series appearing Sunday, Monday and Tuesday.

I'm almost finished with my book that Nora got me for graduation. It should have been finished about 2 weeks ago, but if you know me you know I'll start a book and now finish it for a month. I think I'm going to be doing a little camera tossing tonight at work. As soon as I'm done with work I'm heading home tonight. Trying to get back as soon as I can because I'm not going to have too many days to spend there. I'm really only going to be there tomorrow, Friday and Saturday and Sunday. Steph really wants to know what her X-mas present is, but I won't even give her a clue. It drives her nuts because I don't even ask questions about my present. You'd think after 3 previous Christmases (Is that grammatically correct?) together she'd figure out I won't even give her clues, but it's still fun to torment her I guess. I'll probably blog tonight once I get home. Should be about 1 or 2 in the morning.

I'm a tosser, but not in the British sense

So I'm officially a tosser. A camera tosser that is. I decided to go out directly after work and bust my tossing cherry by going to Old Main. For those of you who have no idea what the heck I'm talking about, camera tossing is when you set your camera to a long shutter, toss the camera in the air and try to get something cool like this photo. Haas turned me on to this because had apparently found a blog site dedicated to it. I'm glad I went out to try it even though it's most likely in the single digits tonight. I'll keep doing this and add them to my website under a seperate section as soon as I get around to it. Speaking of, I updated a little bit on the essay section today. I added the Slideshow Pro. Learning it really wasn't that bad, it just took me a little time. Of course I messed up the coding by not inserting one slash and Stephen had to come bail my ass out again. Him and I were supposed to do some camera tossing together tonight, but he has a X-mas party with Mal and I didn't want him to leave early just because I wanted to fling a couple thousand dollars worth of equipment in the air at 11 p.m. on a Monday night. These were quite possibly my two favorites of the night. I saw some on the blog site that looked really neat that I might try. One in particular was just throwing it in the air with it pointing at myself and twirling to make it look like a photoshop trick. The guy that did it on the blog was Vincent Pants. Strange guy I take it by his flickr photos, but every once in awhile he has something neat. Anyway, the only section I've updated so far on the essay section. I'm still tweaking the program a bit and getting the settings exactly how I want them. Eventually i'll add some audio to them as well. I'm in love with this program. It's quite easy once you get used to it. I'll add the other essays I did this semester either later tonight or tomorrow. I should be doing some major overhaul on my site soon. I really not happy with it right now. I'm not sure what will make me happy, but it's not as neat and clean as I would like it to be. I'll be heading home this Wednesday night after work. Steph will be down the next night for my sister's birthday party and then on Friday I'm taking her to Biaggi's. Should be a good time.

Back in the Blog

I'm back boys and girls. I know it's been a long time, but I finally finished up everything with school. I have no more assignments, no more tests, and no more classes. I'm excited, nervous and scared all in one. I'm mostly putting all my hours in at Pizza Hut right now which is a drag, but I need the money really bad. I finished my last photo essay today and turned it into Poulter. I was somewhat impressed with my tow truck driving one. Here's an example of an image from the other day. The guys name is Brian Wilkerson. I have the others listed on my Cropreality site under the essay section. I'm tweaking it a bit in order to get things formatted correctly. I'm going to post the marching band one tomorrow and the Halloween one possibly tomorrow or the next day. I'm going to teach myself how to use Slideshow Pro because Simpleviewer isn't letting me put in long cutlines. So for now my photos are up but the captions are not. Hope everyone enjoys them. Feel free to comment on them. That's what this site is for. Be positive or negative, my only rule, be constructive. I'm not looking for people to tell me I did a good job when they think it's crap. It's not going to hurt my feelings I just really like user feedback. Tell me which one's your favorite and which one's your least favorite. I know Haas will give me honest feedback for sure. Speaking of Haas, I wonder how he's feeling today. He looked like he was feeling good last night after his third bottle of Arbor Mist. Last night was good times. I'm just waiting for Haas to post the pictures. We need to scan all the photos people had from last night and post them. If I get any of them I'll post here. We're looking at a possible Buffett party tonight. At least that's what Paulie and I discussed.

Oh by the way, I got my internship. I find out later today how many hours a week I'm going to be working. (20 or 40) I'm excited. I hope I get to shoot some Big 10 basketball for the Illini. Looking to make a few connections here and there too. Just found out Haas will be going to the Superbowl as well to be a Sports Illustrated assistant. Hey Haas, do you think the assistants get assistants because I could totally do it. Anyway, I'm about to head off to work again so no more for now. If I get anything else updated I will let you know asap. God it feels good to be back in the blog.

Been Busy

So I haven't updated in about a week, so I just thought it was finally time to update what I've been up to. First of all, I went to Biggs bachelor party in Tinley Park Saturday night. The drive up there was absolutely horrible. A snow storm came in as we were driving up which started out as freezing rain. A 2.5 hour drive turned into 4 hours. All in all, once we got up there it was a good time, minus Matt being thrown out of the club at the end of the night for fighting with the bouncers about his coat. (Which Shilney actually had).

Other than that I've been working on my projects for class. I've been involved with building the Sigma Nu website for my online class and also reviewing the Guardian Unlimited website for the same class. I haven't had a chance to really use my camera except last week I took some photos at a party at my house. I'm trying to bust the camera out more often at parties. As soon as I get some edited I'll post a few. I'm still waiting to hear from Champaign. I'm supposed to hear a decision today as to whether I'll get my internship. As soon as I hear I'll update.