Badmitton

Birdie or cock?



I figured if Stephen was going to show you his shuttle-cock I might as well show mine. In case you didn't know I covered IHSA State Finals for badmitton yesterday for Visual Image Photography. I think I found the only sport harder to shoot than volleyball so far.

It wasn't all that bad. At least Stephen and I got to hang out and talk about all the high school girls and say how good of personalities each of them probably had. HA! I'm just disappointed none of them asked me to the Sadie Hawkins dance.

While I was there I had to take a 5 minute break so I could order tickets for a concert. I'm extremely excited. I haven't been to a concert in such a long time. I just wish Ticketmaster would tell you straight up how much tickets will cost. Instead they hide fees in every little part of it.

I went to order tickets for Angels and Airwaves, which they said were $25.50. Now I'm not naeive. I know there are taxes and whatever per ticket you buy. So I had calculated spending anywhere from $60-$65 for both the tickets. I quickly ordered the tickets moving from screen to screen in fear I wouldn't get tickets. I was relieved seconds later when it was confirmed and I had my 2 tickets. I checked my email for the confirmation upon finding my total bill was $78. I mean what the hell Ticketmaster? I paid for a whole other ticket by ordering online. Either way it'll be worth it.

Update

Speedy knows the importance of newspapers.

Nothing really important happened the past few days. I finally fixed the internet at the house here today. For some reason Catie's router wasn't working anymore. The internet was still working but the router wasn't letting the information through. I think today was the last day I got to babysit Speedy. I'mm going to miss the little guy a lot.

I should here about jobs either later today or tomorrow. I'm really hoping for Crystal Lake. We'll see though. I'm hoping to get my check from the University this week so I can start making plans to move up north with Steph.

Other than that, I have another freelance assignment for Saturday and with any luck, my story should be running on Sunday of next week. Darrell should let me know tonight. John had a wonderful photostory in Sunday and Monday's issue with a girl who lost both hands and feet to bacterial meningitis. She seems like a really cool girl from what John had been telling me. Has a real sense of humor about an unfortunate situation.

As soon as my photostory runs I'll post the photos on Sportsshooter, but I don't want to step on anyone's toes.

Good/Bad news with my Hermes (my car). Yes I've officially named my car. I named it Hermes for the Greek Messenger God. He's also the god of travel and thieves. I figured with as much as I drive him around he might as well have a name and Hermes seems to fit him well. Anyway, it was shifting very peculiarly for a bit at work last night and then all the sudden wouldn't shift at all. I thought it was transmission fluid at first, but after a trip to Autozone today I found out it was actually the Vehicle Speed Sensor. I got it fixed here in town for about $160. Not bad considering a rebuilt transmission would cost me over a $1000.

Well I should probably get to bed so I can get up for coffee in the morning.

SPEEDY!

This ferocious little guy's eyes are deceitful.



Just because he's a puppy doesn't mean he can't strike fear in you. Okay, so he's really not that ferocious, but he does have some sharp teeth.

Everyone, meet Speedy. No I didn't go out and get a dog. Catie and Derek did though. They brought home this 10-week-old Beagle puppy Friday night. Since they both work the day and I work night I volunteered to dog sit until Catie's done with school later this week.

It's really too bad I'm not single. I could carry him around and have a date every night of the week. I took him to Aroma's with me this morning for coffee with the news crew and almost got mobbed. Don't worry Steph they were all way too old for me.

I took a lolt of photos of him this morning, but this one was my favorite. Check out the gallery if you want to see a few more. I'm sure over the next few days I'll have tons of photos of him. hell, I might buy little accessories to put on him and make him look cool. I believe there's a pair of pink star sunglasses at work that would fit perfect on his head.

It would make it that much more sweet because then I could make fun of Derek saying his dog is turning gay. (Not that there's anything wrong with that.)

Officially Alumnus

In case you're wondering, the glasses are prescription. Because my future is so bright!

My motivation has officially returned from near death and I am back working. I shot the freelance job on Friday night, graduated yesterday, and worked on photos today as well. There's more photos from graduation in front of Old Main as well. I shot some of my little sister and I, my whole family that came, and one with just my parents, sister, and me.

I learned through Clark about a neat little feature to Photomechanic that will help out if I shoot sports photos later on called code replacement. I think if I have coffee with the news crew in the morning I will show them how to use it. That's going to mean getting up really early though.

I need to be up early though because I have to babysit Catie and Derek's new beagle puppy Speedy. There will obviously be photos of him on here when I dogsit because I will most likely be bored.

Good news also. The photo story is almost done. I interviewed Caitlin's mom this morning. I will interview her dad tomorrow and turn the story in. From there I need to fully finish editing the photos for it, and then put it all together. Should be running two weeks from today with all luck.

I had coffee with Clark again today to give him the photos from the jazz fest the other night and there might be the possibility of some more freelance work. I'm getting really excited becaue I'm learning a lot about the way he does business and I might be able to swing something similar to what he has in the Rockford area. Keep your fingers crossed for me. Well I feel like I babbled on too much for this blog so maybe I'll blog later tonight about something else. Or I'll just do it tomorrow.

Yes I'm Alive

Gizmo has an identity crisis. He thinks he's a grey hound!


So what have I been up to you ask? I'll be honest. Not a lot until this last weekend. If it can't be downloaded or played on Xbox I haven't been doing it. Can't figure out if I'm depressed or just lazy. Anyway here's the quick run down from the past couple of weeks:

1. Work at Pizza Hut a lot!
2. Had my alumni weekend.
3. Be lazy.
4. Freelance job in Chucktown
5. Photo conference in Wisconsin.
6. 2 interviews for jobs this past week.
7. Finish my photo essay story.
8. Another freelance job tonight.

I'll try to keep this brief even though I need to update much more if I get time later. I had two interviews for jobs earlier in the week. Both went well and I'm hoping to get one or possibly even both the jobs so I can decide. The first was at the Northwest Herald for a videographer position and the other was at the Midweek in Dekalb, Ill., for an editor position. Both would be excellent oppurtunities for a journalist. I should know by early next week.

I did a freelance job for Visual Image Photography in Charleston last week at the IHSA State Journalism Finals. It was nice to see everyone that was down there and to see the new talent coming out of our high schools.

From there it was directly back home for a conference with my grandfather in Wisconsin the next day sponsored by Herff Jones. Two best things out of the whole thing was the auction and the return of motivation. The conference got me fired up to do photography again, but the other thing is I actually got a light, a background, a super clamp and a fog machine all for under $45. (Excellent deal).

I have another freelance job tonight for Clark Brooks. Hopefully I can get a few more jobs from him if possible before I have to move up north. If I get anything interesting from it tonight I might post the photo, but no guarantees. Hopefully this really breaks my lazy slump and I can get some stuff done.

And for the closing note, I graduate tomorrow. Not excited too much. Just going to go through the motion for the sake of my parents and grandparents. I'm sure I'll be happy I did later, but I just don't care at this point. Don't know if I'm being apathetic or bitter. Maybe I'll be excited about it tomorrow. Anyway, check back.

In It For the Long Haul

What do you do when you don't have cable or a real full-time job? Read!



I thought since I have so much free time on my hands for the next few weeks I would start reading a lot more. I found a list of 101 Great Books for college-bound students. So far I think I counted just over a handful of the books that I've read which is sad considering I'm a pretty avid reader. I know what most of the books are about, I just have never actually read them. I'm kind of looking forward to it. I'm making it a long term goal of mine to finish every book on the list. I think it will take me anywhere from 2-5 years.

This may seem like a really long time for some people, but I also have to figure in that about once a month I find something I absolutely have to read. I'm actually in the end of Aldous Huxley's 'Brave New World' which just so happens to be on the list. It's a great book and would recommend it to anyone. It's a quick read as well.

Other than that, my life has been filled with playing poker, Xbox and working Pizza Hut. I have a couple of leads on jobs, but don't know how they'll turn out. I know I promised to blog more often and I will. I've been really lacking motivation lately with anything. My room has been destroyed for the past week and just finally started getting really picked up today. I should probably pack up some shit to move out of here soon.

On the bright side, I found a way to finance a 70-200/f2.8 lens this week. It's actually really crazy how it's all worked out. First on Tuesday a guy from some Visual Image Photography called me after seeing my stuff on Sportsshooter and wants me to shoot two freelance jobs on April 29 and May 13. Both will earn me around $150-200. Then on Wednesday John (News-Gazette staff photographer) called me wanting to know if I wanted to do a freelance job for the Chicago Tribune. That'll make $150. So altogether I'm looking at anywhere from $450 to $600. Then I called Clark Brooks today to see if he had any stuff to shoot for him and we talked about equipment for a bit and he said he has a 70-200 for sale for around the $650 range. Much better than the $800 range I was thinking I'd have to pay for a used one. Now all I need is a strobe and a wide angle and I'll be in business (with minimal equipment).

Last Dayhttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif

No I'm not stealing Stephen's bird watching idea. Although after seeing his pictures it makes me more compelled to do some bird watching and photographing as well. I mostl like the way the water was rippling off the fountain so I shot the photo.

Today was my last day at the News-Gazette. I was pretty disappointed to be leaving after these 3 months, but it's time to move on. I'm currently in the search for a job of some sorts. I have no idea what I'm going to be doing. Right now I'll concentrate on my pizza delivering skills and hope for something to fall into place. I really don't want to have to get a job out of journalism, but if that's the case then so be it. I had to get one nature photo before all equipment and was surrendered. I didn't want to give up the cameras (mostly the lenses and flashes) and especially didn't want to give up my University of Illinois parking permit. That thing has helped out in so many situations.

I'm going to be blogging more as I have a lot more time. I'm running a 5k in the morning so I need to get to bed for now, but I'll let you know how it goes tomorrow morning. Maybe I'll even get a photo from the event. Check up soon to see what I get posted.

Feature of the Day

Maybe I'll Catch Fire

This reminded me of the "Maybe I'll Catch Fire" album by Alkaline Trio. It's not exactly, but the warm tones of the city lights kind of did. Anyway, I saw this when I was drving home from an assignment tonight and I was feeling in a featuresque mood tonight. I shot another one for the paper earlier in the day so that technically makes two feature on the day. Possibly a record for me. If anyone knows me, they know that features are my least favorite part of the job most of the time. I'm just usually a guy with schedule and I like to keep that schedule generally.

The most amazing thing about this photo is that this is a handheld 3 second exposure. I braced my body against the windowsill of my driver's side door and held as perfectly still as possible. It's a tad fuzzy when blown up and at 1600 speed it's a little grainy, but I can't complain.

Tomorrow leaves two weeks left at my internship. I'm excited, scared and nervous all in one. I'm looking at possible job oppurtunities as a reporter at the Dekalb Daily-Chronicle and The Sterling Daily-Gazette. I'm hoping one of them if not both will lead to potential jobs. If I had to choose I'm not sure which one I would go with. Obviously money will be a factor, but at the same time Dekalb is closer to Rochelle which will make mine and Steph's life easier. Also, Dekalb's paper is a Lee Corporation paper and would have oppurtunity to advance to another Lee paper especially for moving into a photography position.

I'll just take it one step at a time and see how things fair. I'm suprised more and more at my dad's reaction to all this job hunting. He keeps telling me to calm down and that things will work out and to not get locked into one certain field. It's great advice, but I'm just not used to it. For some reason he seems to be the only person that can calm me down about all this stuff. Well it's late and I would like to read a few more pages out of 'Moneyball' before I fall asleep.

This job is so freakin hard!!!

I bet KFC wouldn't fry these chicks.

When the worst part of your day consists of being interrupted from your lunch to hurry up and shoot a couple of a photos of girls protesting KFC for their euthanization practices in their bikinis, I don't think you can complain about your job. Nicole and Maya here stood in front of the KFC store for over an hour in the low 40 temperatures just so little chickens wouldn't die.

Both of these girls were PETA members (read insane) and felt that there are other means of killing chickens than the methods KFC generally uses. I don't disagree with them, but in my experience, anyone that loves animals that much has a little bit of a screw loose. PETA members in general are nuts. I'm all for the ethically treating animals, but these people take it way too far. The girls were both very nice, but I can only imagine that in about 5 years when these girls are married, there will be some guy out there bitching to all of his buddies in a bar about how the dog gets more respect from his wife than he does.

The press release on PETA's website explains exactly what this is all about and gives a list of celebrities involved. Who knew Al Sharpton cared so much about chickens. Right here is where I could be really insensitive and add a racial joke, but I think you all know what I'm thinking.

My other photo from the day is from a prarie burn. This was something very interesting to me. I've never been to one of these and thought it was really cool. I really liked the closeup of the fire. I'm glad I brought my own camera along today so I could post a few of these images.

Only two more days and I get a day off. Unfortunately I will probably spend it by working at Pizza Hut. I'm down to three more weeks at the paper. Then working at Pizza Hut full-time until I find a job in Rockford/Dekalb/Rochelle area. If you hear of anything let me know.

New Blog

I started another blog the other day. I officially abandoned the Chamban Scene blog and started the Musictopia Review blog. After talking to Stephen about how we're both tired of bands becoming popular 6 months to a year after we have already played them out, I decided I could actually prove to people that I knew about this band before they did by blogging it.

Besides, this blog will force me to stay current on music. Something I feel I've been lacking for sometime now. I used to do nothing but look up music and things about it. I read "Rollingstone" each month like it was the Bible.

This is not necessarily going to be about bands I like though. I'm actually going to review a new cd each week. It also features a "Throwback of the Week" song each Monday. I'm hoping to add a few more special sections later such as Danny's Library Pick. Library Picks will be cds that can usually be found in your local library. On occasions I'll review music DVDs and even try to link to important music news.

My first cd to review is Dave Matthews Band's newest live release "Weekend on the Rocks." Check it out.

Jack's Mannequin

See What Enthusiasm Does

My ode to Macintosh computers.

I felt that if I was going to be an Apple enthusiast I should at least represent well. Plus this gave me the chance to try something I've been wanting to play with. I'm going to work on this a little bit and figure out how to get rid of the flare at the bottom. I did this using a sync cord on top of my hot shoe with the flash lying directly behind the apple on the base the apple was resting on. It probably would have been a much better photo had I used a bigger apple. The apple I was using was only about 2 in. tall and the flash was slightly taller and wider than the apple. If I get bored tonight, maybe that's what I'll mess with.

I'm planning on reading a little bit more in my book "27 Men Out: Baseball's Perfect Games" tonight if I get the chance. I'm through the third disc of Ken Burn's "Baseball" as of today. I'm not sure if I'll go get the fourth disc tonight or wait until tomorrow. I'm planning on watching "The Office" with Derek tonight if he's home and probably playing a little online poker.

I also got a 2-mile-run in tonight. I haven't ran since Sunday when I did a 4 mile trek that took me much longer because of the snow and ice that started forming. Hopefully I can get a quick 2 miles in tomorrow either on my lunch break or before I go to work at the Hut.

As can be expected, blogging will increase due to my accessibility to doing it now. The only thing I really need is a laptop carrying case now. Well that and a mouse. I hate these little thumb pads. Steph has one, but I need one sooner than she'll be able to get me one. I also found out that my internship ends a week earlier than I expected and a week longer than my boss had anticipated. Either way, this means an extra week to finding a job up north and a week longer for more hours at Pizza Hut.

Entering the Age of Macintosh

This is my blog from my laptop that my grandma bought me for a graduation gift. I was so ecstatic to go pick it up today. I couldn't believe when my grandma called me on Saturday and told I would be getting a new laptop for my gift. She told me to research it and tell her how much it costs. Thinking I would be nice and try to save her as much money as possible I first looked into Dell machines. After realizing it was going to be expensive as hell no matter what I decided to check out some Mac deals. I knew Apple had an education discount, but it wasn't that much ordering online so I decided to stop in the University of Illinois computer store in the union and found out they had overstocked them from Christmas. In fact, the 14 in. iBook G4 in the store was the same price as the 12 in. was online. This one has a slightly faster processor and a much bigger screen for seeing photos much better. After seeing that I could get this laptop for essentially about $200 more than what the Dell's were I decided to ask my grandma about it. She didn't think the price was bad at all. She almost sound suprised at how low. (Almost!) Anyway, I also got it upgraded with another 512 MB of RAM for $60. I actually have a photo to shoot for the blog tomorrow that I'll try to do if I get the time. I feel so lazy because I haven't run in like 3 days, but so running will be first on my list. I do have to mention one thing before I forget. I did reach my first goal of my New Year's resolution. I was 164 lbs. when I woke up on my birthday. I was very excited. I haven't weighed this much since my first semester of college. I'm also in the process of gathering all my old photos to put on flickr. I will begin posting them next week and they will be finished whenever I get them done. Which basically means anywher from 2 weeks to 2 years. I will eventually scan all my old family photos in as well. That way they're preserved in case of an accident. (Or because Dad gets o a Spring cleaning trip).

In other Daniel Williams news, I've been kind of a nut lately. I realize it, but there is nothing I can do about it. I'm trying to figure out how to pay for all my college loans. $43,000 is not an easy debt to erase. Especially when it looks like I'll be spending about $400/month for the next 15 years. I've been talking with Steph all week about it, but have felt really down still. Today has been fine, but best of all I talked to my dad tonight. The saddest part is he didn't really tell me anything different from what Steph told me, but hearing it come from my father made me feel a little bit better. It's conversations like the one's tonight that really make me proud to be son though. There were no, "I told you so's" or "Well you should have done this," which he would have been more than fair in saying. Just simply encouragement. No dramatic fashion or over extended bits about life. It was exactly what I needed. I just hope when I have a son or daughter that I know to say the right thing in these situations.

I think the most profound thing he said tonight was "Well, you just go to work everyday and you do the best job you can possibly do and at the end of the day it's worth it." Those may not have been the exact words, but something very similar, and it makes sense. We can't spend our lives worrying about things we don't have control over. I don't have 100% control over whether I'll have a photography job when I graduate in May. I most likely won't, but I will still go to whatever job and at the end of the day be proud of the work I've done.

Been Awhile!

I know it's been a long time since any of you heard from me. I'll just give you a quick update on what's been going on. First of all, I had my 23rd birthday last weekend. I went home for it and had a great weekend. Lindsey's part was that Saturday night and Steph and I had a blast. My birthday was the next day and I got to go to dinner with my whole family. It was nice to have everyone there. Steph and I got our engagement photos on Saturday as well. This one is my favorite. We're still going to have some more done, but we needed something for the newspaper and to give friends and family. Thanks to my grandpa for doing these.

This week has been crazy. I started off Monday by working at the newspaper 9:30-6. Then I had to hurry home, change and go to my second job at Pizza Hut. I worked there until 10 pm. Then I did it again on Tuesday and Wednesday. Wednesday I worked until 11:15 pm. Altogether I figured up by Thursday I had put in 45 and a half hours in by the end of Thursday and I still have to work at least 8.5 hours tonight. It doesn't seem like a huge amount, but when it's split between two jobs it really is a lot more difficult. I'm sure it will pay off in the end. It's helping me get out of debt sooner I guess.

I also officially started my photo essay this week. I met with her last week and snapped a few photos, but I actually went to shoot stuff on Monday. The girl's name is Caitlin Allen and she's from Homer, Ill. Now I thought I worked a lot of hours, but Caitlin is just insane. She works in Truman Hall on campus in the crop sciences labs, goes to class, is involved with a coed fraternity, and goes home nearly every weekend to work on the family farm. The story revolves around Caitlin going home a lot to work on the family farm and eventually trying to take the farm over when her father is done. I have to shoot some stuff for it tomorrow out in Homer so I'm looking forward to that.

I'm going to try and make more of an effort to post on here, but no guarantees. I probably had a little free time last week to do it and I didn't and I could have done something this week if I really tried, but to be honest I was a little down early this week. Just a lot of problems coming crashing in all at once. Most of it all was my fault because of my lack of planning, but there was some other stuff going on too. I find it more difficult to leave Steph after everytime we see each other. I know I should be glad I got to see her, but it just makes me depressed when I think that we still have a ways to go before we live together.

One last thing. I'm going to try and go through the photos from the Will Hoge show last week. I'm sending the photos off to the guy today or tomorrow and I'm going to edit a few of them myself and maybe throw a couple up on here. The band "Backyard Tire Fire" was awesome and seemed to be really nice people. Not to mention the band "Southern Bitch" too. I ended up having a conversation with the bassist Wendy (I think!) for about an hour. Unfortunately I was so annhilated by that point I have no clue what her and I talked about. I got really messed up that night, but will save that story for the blog with the photos.

Firefox Rocks

To the right is what my Firefox screen used to look like. Below is what it now looks like thanks to themes and addons. Click on the photos for a larger view of them.

Making your stand - Opinions

This was an article that I found on the DI while searching for more information about the suspension of the editors. It really has no significance for my blogging except it's the first thing I found and tested after downloading an extension for Firefox today. I stumbled upon FF extensions today while trying to bookmark a page. I absolutely love this one. It's a blog extension. It allows me to quickly bog about something I find on the internet. I also found this one called a Beer O'Clock Extension.
I have yet to download it, but will soon and let you know how well it works. Just another reason for me to shamelessly promote Firefox. I have a feeling my Firefox will never be the same. I'm downloading add-ons and themes like they're going out of style. (And knowing the internet world, they probably are.)

Return from the Great Beyond

I am back. I have been busy the past couple of weeks. Probably not too busy to blog, but busy enough. I'll recap the past two weeks for ya. Work is going good. I finally got to shoot my first NCAA University of Illinois basketball game last week. I was very excited about doing this and the excitement paid off. I got a great shot of Dee Brown and James Augustine celebrating. I couldn't have done as well without the advice of John Dixon. John has been an extreme help. He's probably the best 'teacher' I've had yet. He knows how to cut out the bull and give me the important stuff. Especially when it comes to lighting. I'm over a third the way done with my internship now. Heck, I'm coming up on half way. I definitely don't want this to end.

I also shot IHSA state wrestling championships on Saturday and then did another U of I game on Sunday. Wrestling was fun and so was the game even though I didn't really get anything noteworthy out of either. I have my stuff from wrestling on Sportsshooter. Unfortunately at the U of I game I didn't get the one shot I wanted. At the end of the game James and Dee were walking off the court together after their interview with CBS and I got a shot of them walking arm in arm. I only had my 80-200 available and as I'm walking backwards Dee jumps on Augie's back. perfect moment, unfortunately they were about 2 feet too close for my lens. I got the shot, but it was blurry. We needed a shot for the senior day section this coming weekend. At least I got something for them I guess. My one picture should be on my portfolio soon on Sportsshooter, but I want to make sure it's okay with Darrell that I put it up.

I also won two third places and two honorable mentions for my photos at the ICPA this past weekend. Unfortunately they have not updated the site and no one knows for sure which photos I won for, so as soon as I find out I will post them so you can all revel in my awesomeness. (Or tell me how to do a better job!)

In other news, my birthday is coming up. Anyone wishing to send me money may do so at 305 S. elm st. in Champaign, Ill. 61820. I'm going home this weekend for it. First time I will have spent a birthday with my parents in I can't remember how long. I get back late Sunday and back to the daily grind. I'm starting my photo essay either today or tomorrow. I couldn't get a hold of the girl last night or today, so hopefully I can call her in a bit.

Oh by the way, I'm rocking the Pizza Hut again. Champaign's store is a lot different and I love it. I basically drive the whole time except for about a half hour at the end when I do dishes. It's exactly what I liked about the Charleston one and minus the stuff I hated.

And one last thing to mention was the susepension of The Daily Illini editors. I'm not going to go into a lenghty discussion right now. I'm only going to direct you to my comments on the EIU Hall of Fame Blog. Hopefully I will get the chance later today to blog all my thoughts about this as I feel people should understand a lot of things about this before jumping to conclusions and screaming First Amendment rights.

What the Hell Does This Dream Mean???

Sorry for being so long. I haven't really been doing a whole lot lately except working. I haven't shot anything for my own personal enjoyment for a while either. Luckily I'm going to see Stephanie this weekend so I will probably shoot pictures of her or something this weekend. She got a new dog this week, but it looks like they're going to have to give it away already. His name is Hercules. He's a 1-2 year-old golden lab. Her dad picked him up from outside his friend Bruce's house. He's already snapped at Dana and Stephanie. The vet told them he was just trying to gain dominance over and that they should yell at him. Steph did yell at him and he cowered his tail between his legs. I'll probably get some photos of him this weekend.

I drank for the first time in probably 2 months last night. Obviously didn't take a lot for me to get pretty tanked. I passed out as soon as my head hit the pillow. I do have to see I'm pretty wierded out. This is the first time I can ever remember having a reoccuring dream. I've had this dream 4 times in the past 8 or 9 days. I always have a dream about me going out and getting drunk and the next thing I know I'm smoking again. I always say something to the effect of 'oh 1 cigarette won't hurt me.' It's actually got me freaked out. I haven't wanted to drink at all because I'm scared it will actually happen. Who knows, maybe the cigarette is actually representative of something completely different in my dreams. Who knows, maybe it means I'm gay. Wait...that's crabs...if there's crabs in my dreams that means I'm gay. Oh I need to find that dream book Dane Cook talks about.

Other than that, work is going good. I'm starting my photo essay with a student who works on a family farm this next week. The girl's name is Caitlin Allen. I'm excited to actually do this essay. I've never actually done an essay where I took longer than a couple of days to do it. This one should take me about 6 weeks. I'm also getting ready to post my ultimate fantasy league baseball team for 2006. As I tried to explain to Kman earlier, this team is based solely on numbers mostly. I have also been drafting what my personal fantasy team I would like to see in real life. Basically the difference is that in my personal team I would do things like choose Jason Varitek over Victor Martinez for catcher simply because Varitek is known as one of the smartest catchers out there. He analyzes each and every player on the roster. So things like experience count in to this one. It should be posted by Monday or Tuesday.

Superbowl Commercials

I actually did watch the Superbowl tonight, despite my lack of television watching for the past 3 weeks. I was glad to see Pittsburgh win. I don't really have any feelings for either team, but for some reason I just liked the Steelers a little more. I'm just glad football is done so we can all concentrate on the 'real' American sport. Baseball. Only 54 days until opening pitch.

I do have to give a run down on what I thought about the commercials during the game obviously. First of all, here's my top five in no particular order:

1. Hummer Commercial: Giant Monsters
2. Motoral Razor: Paper Boy
3. Sprint: Locker Room
4. Desperate Housewives
5. Budweiser Superfan: Sheep Streaking

If you check out Ifilm you can watch all of them. It's obviously slow tonight and will probably be slow tomorrow because everyone and their mother will be checking it, including me, to play their favorites over and over again and assured they are wore out by the middle of the week and you won't even be able to stand the sight of it when you see it on tv the next week. Luckily for me I don't have network or cable.

Out of all of them I think the Sprint Locker Room one is my favorite. When the guy says his phone has theft deterrent and throws the phone in the other guys face I lost it. And then when he threw it a second time I literally pissed myself. (Just a little something for all you David Cross fans. If you don't understand what I'm talking about, go get David Cross' first cd 'Shut Up You Fuckin' Baby').

I do have to say this was the most disappointing Burger King commercial I have seen in awhile. I'm a big fan of the King. There just wasn't anything funny about the singing commercial. I hate musicals which is probably what prompted me to hate this commercial.

Sprint takes the cake for me for overall best sponsor this year. The other commercial they had where the guys couch catches fire was my number 6 commercial. (Mostly because of the Benny Hill incorporation). Anyone that hung out with me this summer knows that I had an obsession with the Benny Hill theme song.

Although Pepsi's commercials were moderately good, I hate their new "Brown and Bubbly" slogan. The P.Diddy Commercial was okay, but the Jackie Chan one was too cheesy. Well, time for you to give me feedback. Give me your top 5. Or criticize mine. Anything you want to do.

One last thing...I apparently missed a Coca Cola commercial on a bathroom break. The scarecrow one should be in my top 5, moving Sprint's no. 6 to no. 7 and kicking Desperate Housewives to no. 6 and therefore out of the top 5. So to review:

1. Hummer Commercial: Giant Monsters
2. Motoral Razor: Paper Boy
3. Sprint: Locker Room
4. Coca Cola: Scarecrow
   
5. Budweiser Superfan: Sheep Streaking

There's my revised top 5.

Fantasy Blog Stock Market???

Interesting little bit I discovered while being vain today. I decided to google the word cropreality. Obviously the name of this blog and what I use as my screenname for many things as well as what my 'side business' is called. (Cropreality Imaging). Anyway, I started seeing this website popup called Blog Shares. I was curious as to why my blog would show up on this and I started looking at it. It seems this is a fantasy blog stock market of sorts. The reason mine was on there was because by my linking to Tips From the Top Floor, I had helped it earn B$687.00. That's blog money for those of you unfamiliar. (Not actually real) I was in the top 100 earners for their site. Sitting at number 23. I guess not too big of a deal since there were only 81 links to the site, but hey, don't burst my bubble. I'm not sure how often they update, but I will do some research into. I've decided to start whoring myself by promoting Tips From the Top Floor now and see how much worth I can get them. Let's get these numbers moving people.

And Stephen Thought He Was Bored

See what happens when you're bored and it's midnight.

This is either the result of me playing too much of this roleplaying game I just beat or it's due to me playing 'In the Dark' by The Grateful Dead one too many times. Suffice to say I am bored. I just finished the videogame I've been playing for two weeks, Fable, a very in-depth first person/role playing/medieval/I'm a huge nerd. The good thing is that I admit it, embrace it, and now maybe I can get help. Doubtful. I basically just wanted to play with light. I might try some other stuff tonight but I'm getting tired. I have to work from 1:30-10 again tomorrow.

I must make a small correction before Nora yells at me again. The photo problem with the blogs is not Eric's fault. It's Wills. I stand corrected Nora. I need to add the DEN blogs to my site. I really like Holly's blog. It's probably because I agree with her on many things.

One last thing. I'm working on a project for Stephen. Nothing big. I can't tell you what it is, but I think he'll appreciate it. He seems really down lately about his job. I would be too if I was as good of a photographer stuck in Mattoon.

Shame on you Charleston!

For those of you that think there is no such thing as discrimination apparently you haven't been south of Chicago lately. A news article in the DEN talks about how Charleston will not be celebrating Black History Month. Now I understand what the city says, but this is definitely not good PR for a city in southern Illinois with a dominant black community on the campus. What do you teach the kids at school when you don't celebrate it.

I for one am fully supportive of the month. I know, I know. More hippy liberal crap, but honestly. Black History Month is an important time in our year for us to reflect on the ways blacks were mistreated and to learn from our mistakes. It would be like a history books saying they acknowledge World War II happened and that Nazi concentration camps took place, but we're not going to fill the pages of our book with that because it's not state mandated.

I think the city council and the community as a whole should be utterly ashamed of themselves. It's possible the city just doesn't know how to celebrate it. In that case maybe they need to outreach to the community a little more for help. They almost make it seem like BHM is a burden.

Well, at least Morgan Freeman now has a town that he can finally settle down in I guess.

James "monotone" Augustine

So here's a photo from one of my assignments the other day. The photo is of James Augustine laughing at a question from an elementary student after reading a book to them. I"m just surprised the kids stayed awake for the length of the story. Augustine was more monotone than a robotic voice from your computer.

Don't get me wrong, he's a hell of a guy. Really nice and respectful. It was just nice for him to actually show up, unlike Dee Brown who yo can obviously see from the picture is not there. I almost feel bad for James. The goddamned parents were worst than the kids when he showed up.

One lady almost tripped him because she wanted to compare her size to his monstrous 6' 10" build. She snuck up behind while he was talking to someone else without even asking him and stood back to back with him. He backed up and stumbled a bit. The look he rigtfully gave her was like "who the hell are you and what the hell are you doing."

Now I say I almost feel bad for him because as I'm sure his celebrity stardom is burdensome I realize his first paycheck will be more than I'll see in several years as a photographer. So I guess if his arm cramps from signing a few hundred autographs at a time it's worth the millions he'll make. At least his back won't kill him when he gets home because he's been lugging around 2-3 pound Nikon cameras, a bag containing a 3 or 4 pound 80-200 mm lens, and two other bags containing a dyna-lite system in each othem probably each weighing over 5 pounds.

I must say I love little children. They kind of put people like James in their place. Especially when they ask what sport he play, or when they ask what team he plays for and my ultimate favorite, "Who won the Final Four last year?" Absolutely classic moment. James grinds his teeth and finally answered the young kid with North Carolina.

I also got to go up on the grid today in Assembly Hall. We've been having problems with a strobe so me and RK had to go up and look at it. I have to say I held myself pretty good for being up over a hundred feet suspended on steel grates by cables. I wanted to take pictures, but you have to empty your pockets of all unnecessary items and take off all things like cameras. Safety precautions are a bitch. If I ever get a chance to shoot photos of it again I will though for sure.

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.

X-mas wishlist

Here is a short comprised list of things I would like for Christmas:

1. iPod Nano (2GB)
2. Grateful Dead Bean Bear (Lovelight, El Paso, Katie Mae, Shark Star, Shakedown)
3. Seinfeld Season 3
4. Tamrac Pro 12 Camera Bag
5. Jason Varitek Red Sox jersey
6. Any Jawbreaker CD
7. Grateful Dead's Working Man's Dead
8. Wireless XBox controller (off ebay)
9. Airsoft Pistol (Wal-Mart)
10. Boston Red Sox Hat (size 7 3/4)
11. Boston Red Sox 2005 World Series

If I find more I'll post another.

TGIF

The weekend is officially here. I got off work tonight around 11:15. Was expecting to come home to a nice quiet evening of either hanging out or just going to bed, but as is the usual course people were drinking at my house. Hopefully people leave somewhat early tonight. i.e. by 3 a.m. I was such a waste of space today. I stayed up drinking until 4 a.m. last night and didn't do anything productive until at least 3:30 p.m. today. I at least got a run in though before work.

I'm going to do a little research on what I want for Christmas this year. Stephanie needs some ideas and so does my mom. Of course I really want an iPod Nano, but I'm not sure I'll be able to get one or not. Maybe I could talk my parents into making it my x-mas/birthday present. It's only 2 months away and then it would already be done. I could also just buy half of it myself too.

I know I probably want to get a music dvd or two. I'll put my list up here later after I've compiled it fully. If anyone wants to they can go ahead and by me a 70-200mm f/2.8 Canon lens. It's only like $1699 brand new. I already know I'm getting a gift certificate from my grandmother this year and will get another one from my other grandparents.

We should be starting the weekend off with a party tomorrow night which is good because we need to build this pot up big time.

I finally picked up my camera after almost a week. It's been a long needed break. I find out tomorrow whether or not I got my internship. I'm nervous to be honest. I'll also be getting my car in the middle of next week. Well, time to do some research. Maybe I'll post when I get it done.

Free At Last

The past few days have been a lot more relaxing and less stressful than I can remember in a long time. I'm still working on my final project for my online class and trying to figure out my last photo essay, but other than that, I've had more time to do things I've really needed to do. Like working out, reading, and making some money at the Hut. I finished reading Hunter S. Thompson's "Better Than Sex" last night. I'm not sure whether I'm huge fan of Thompson. All I really got out of the book is that politics is a bitch, Richard Nixon was evil and George Bush Sr. is just as evil. A lot of this I really knew. It was hard to tell what was semi-fiction in the book and what was for the most part true. The saddest part of it all is that in Hunter's world, it was all true. Maybe I should try to read another one of his books like "Fear and Loathing" in Las Vegas. "Better than Sex" was actually part of his Gonzo Papers Collection. It's possible that's why the book had very little direction to it.

Today I started reading Nick Hornby's "A Long Way Down" which Nora bought me as a graduation gift. It's a book about four people who meet on a rooftop that is infamous for people committing suicide off of. I just realized that it's really wierd that I just finished reading a book about a guy who committed suicide and now I'm reading one about four people who try to committ suicide. That's actually just pure coincidence. (Somehow I feel like I'm going to get several calls from friends tonight asking if I'm alright.)

I also just finished watching Ken Burns' "Unforgivable Blackness." The life story of the first black heavyweight champion. I think this is the first time I really realized the ignorance of so many people in the first half of the century. I think it must have been Burns' way of portraying Johnson and white people, but it affected me a lot. I couldn't imagine living in a period where about 50 white people would line up on a bridge or near tree where they had just hung another human being and stand there with dead corpse and pose for a picture like they had just bagged a deer. Makes me sick to my stomach.

Stephen got a job at the Journal Gazette-Times Courier so congratulations to him. I wonder if this means there's no shot at an internship there now. I'm still waiting to hear back from the . I really hope I get that now. If not I'll still try to pressure the Times-Courier or I'll just hang out for the next few months and work at Pizza Hut or Roc's or find a factory job around here. Doing any of those couldn't be good for my mental health though. I need out of Charleston in a bad way.

Chucktown

Back in Chucktown after a nice week of relaxing. Unfortunately, the Panthers lost to Southern on Saturday. I tried to listen to the game, but it was a little difficult at Steph's. First I had to help her with some organizing stuff so I missed the first half, and then the computer was cutting in and out. Quicktime was not my friend that day. Oh well. Congratulations to the EIU Panthers for a spectacular season. They went undefeated in the conference with an overall record of 9-3. Today I'm trying to get some school work done and then I have to work at Pizza Hut again. I'm uploading the new prototype for the Sigma Nu website later today, so if it isn't up when you check it, check back later. I have a feeling I'm going to find myself in the newsroom more than I was when I actually worked here. I'm also finishing up an essay today as soon as Scott Kelley calls me back so I can interview him. I will load it to my site if I finish it tonight. I'm really sad I don't have a key to the newsroom anymore. Now I'll just have to call Eric and make him come let me in.