Packing up and moving on

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Where do they get all those balls?

So I shot tennis for the second time today. The one thing that has continued to amaze me over and over again is that they continue to pull ball after ball out of their shorts. Some girls have special shorts that hide their balls (no puns intended).


I think tennis one of my favorite new sports to shoot. Not because of the action or the intensity and it certainly isn't the backgrounds. It's the faces. I have so many shots of terrible looking faces. I feel bad for the girls, but it's so funny at the same time. I should submit some of them to youhavedumbface.com

I also got this shot of the ball directly in front of the girls' face. Nothing else too exciting for today, just thought I'd share my random thoughts.

Oh and for all you EIU alum, Billy's back. If you didn't know, about five or six years ago Billy Panther was replaced by Prowler. Well Billy didn't go away for good according to the DEN Web site.

Separation anxiety

So after one day and one night with Addison, this is what I've found. She's very needy, almost like a baby. You might say, "well, yeah! Duh. What did you really expect?"

No, I don't think you really understand. I can't be in a different room than her for more than 10 minutes without her whining and barking. Until I left her in the garage for a few minutes yesterday, I hadn't really heard her bark or howl. That's all she does when I'm not five feet from her. It got so bad that we had to lock Gizmo in my sister's room and lock Addi in my room to sleep for the night.

As soon as we put her in my room, she laid on the floor and went right to sleep. I did a little research on it and found out she has separation anxiety. It usually stems from a long stay in a kennel, which I would have to say is the case here.

I don't think there is going to be a real good way of combating it until we get into our house in the following week. She's going to have to stay with Chris until we can take her there. I just hope she doesn't get him evicted in the meantime.

I also learned she's pretty smart. After about 25 minutes of working with her I've already taught her two commands. She already knew how to "sit." So I worked from there. I taught her how to "stay" and "come."

Everytime she wouldn't stay, she wouldn't get a treat. Everytime she waited for me to say the words "come" she would get one. It didn't take long for her to catch on. I'm hoping to add more commands as we go, but I don't want to rush her too much. Especially because she'll be going back and forth between Chris and us.

Thank God she's already house trained too. She slept all night right next to my bed, woke up in the morning and whined a little to go outside. I knew she had to go to the bathroom too because I could smell it. She's got a little bit of a gas problem. As long as the gas doesn't turn to anything else, we'll be just fine though.

Introducing Addison Williams

Meet Addison. Steph and I have a dog for all intents and purposes. Long story short, we adopted her from her cousin Chris, who adopted her from the Winnebago County Animal Services.

We couldn't resist when we met her. She is probably one of the most trusting dogs I've ever met. She hasn't growled at anyone so far. She does bark when someone enters the room and then immediately runs up to see who it is. She follows that with a wagging tail and sometimes a jump up for a kiss.

It's definitely no boxer, but I'm happy. She gets along with other dogs, but Gizmo, my parents dog doesn't like her. In fairness, Gizmo doesn't like any dogs.

We're actually not sure what kind of a dog she is. We were told part lab, part retriever and part boxer. One things for sure though, she's 100 percent crotch sniffer.

She is quite possibly the neediest dog I've ever seen. I can't leave her side farther than five feet and she has to follow or begins to whine and howl. Kind of nice to feel wanted, but I can see that getting old pretty quick.

As I get more photos I'll post them here.

Case of the Mondays on Thursday

Today seemed like such a frustrating day for me. I'm trying to remain as positive as I possibly can about my situation (trying to start a business, buy a house and live happily ever after), but every doorway seems to keep shutting.

I'm not 100 percent sure what my deal is, but nothing seemed to pan out. I'm in a position where I feel I know more about photography than ever before, but no outlet to use it. I'm learning a lot about lighting right now. I'm starting to gain a grasp on what I think is an acceptable level of knowledge, but what good does it do if I'm sitting around taking pictures of cookbooks?

I've always said that one thing somebody can never take away from you is knowledge, but it becomes discouraging with no room to share it.

I tried to contact churches today about doing church directories. It seemed like a good avenue to take. Three people have mentioned doing them to me in the past 2 weeks and I even received an email about creating church directories from one of my printing companies. What more of a sign could you ask for? In the end, the best I got was a "I'd say we're luke warm about interest in one."

Several of the churches said they had just printed one and others said they wouldn't be doing one for two or three years from now.

Then I tried to get my oil changed. One place in town advertised a $14.99. I thought what the heck, I can't even do it that cheap myself. Tried to get...no luck. You have to make an appointment a day ahead of time. I really needed it changed. I can't predict my day tomorrow, so I had to take it to the SuperLube across the road. Oh, and guess what...it cost $33.98 there.

I came home discouraged and feeling very apathetic. I'm headed up to work on a photo story I've started. Hopefully that pans out a little better.

I'm trying to keep my head up, but today was just a harder than usual one.

Back home

I'm back from Charleston. I think I need a bumper sticker that says something like "I went back to college and survived!"

I'm pretty wore out. I didn't party too hard, but staying out until 2 a.m. drinking with the guys isn't what it used to be. Well, I take that back, it's still what it used to be, but the next day certainly isn't. I drove home about as fast as I possibly could so I could lay down. I really miss being around the guys, but I don't miss the hangovers.

All in all, it was a good trip. I shot the Alpha Phi bid day photos, gave them their disc. I'm hoping they're going to order a book from me. I'd like to make the book a part of their every year order so they could continue to have one on display for all the girls. I'd like to pick up a few more houses next year, but I'll need one or two reliable freelancers to go with me.

If you're interested, I'll update my other blog with photo and shooting details in my other blog.

On the road again

It seems like I've been on the road a lot lately. Last weekend I was in Chicago, this past weekend, I went to the Northwest Suburbs and today I'm headed to Charleston.

I can't really complain a lot about it. Even though some of it was for work it usually turns into pleasure. Today I'm going to shoot Alpha Phi rush down at EIU. If that wasn't enough, I get to hangout with the guys at EIU.

I didn't get to make it down there for the first week of school this year, so this is my first trip of the year. I'm going to try and stop by the old office today to see everyone. I think I'm actually supposed to be down there for a golf tournament in two weeks as well, so it looks like the traveling has just begun.

Oh, and I shot volleyball last night, so check out my other blog.