writ. dodging classification

Well. Its monday. Its supposed to snow like hell today. My dumbass is at work. Why? Cause it hasn’t snowed yet and they’re not gonna shut anything down till it does. So my prediction is that I may be out of here before lunch, but we’ll see. I came in early so I could get some stuff done, in peace and quiet, on my first day back from my 3 day weekend trip.

So my weekend trip. Oh my god! I sooo needed to get the hell out of town. I just needed it. It was just a compound of so many things, alot with work, alot with everything else. Come friday morning all I was thinking was, “i need to get the heck out of dodge”. Now yeah this was a vacation. Don’t let that word fool you though. I’m completely drained and exhausted from this vacation/trip. It was so worth it, but I’m just plain beat now. What was I doing? you may ask. I was skiing, the whole weekend, Friday afternoon till Sunday around 3pm. Now keep in mind, I’ve ski’d ONCE in my life, when I was like 12 i think in the scouts. I don’t think I made it off the cheesy slope, and I don’t think I learned anything from it. So effectively this weekend was the first time I have really ever ski’d. By saturday… I was doing black diamonds, I was pretty impressed with myself. I guess all my years of inline skating and jumping around and doing crazy stuff, like skate parks and half pipes with that, payed off in giving me enough know how of my balance to just transfer nicely into the arena of skiing.

So how’d I end up skiing anyways? Well I guess you could say it was sorta through Boehm, my roommate. But really it was a trip that a girl, Brie, whom I know through Boehm, had planned for this weekend. I’d met her first at a halloween party that she threw, that Boehm, his GF (erin), and myself, went as Mario, the Princess, and Luigi. It was the best costume ever. (as seen here) Then I was over Brie’s place with Mike and Erin, and Brie’s friends Katie and Gabe, for a sort of pre-christmas dinner/snack get together. At that point Brie started talking about the ski trip she was planning and asked if I wanted to come along. Well ok asked is sort of a loose term here. What happened was Boehm asked her about the trip, and who was going, and she said pretty much everybody here, and then looked at me and said “i assumed you’d be going, if thats ok”. What can I say, of course I’d go, sounded like fun (thinking to myself, i have no idea how to ski but whatever!). The ski trip pretty much ended up being myself, Brie, her 14 year old cousin Arianne (god i think thats how you spell it, its said Air-ee-anne), Boehm and Erin, and lastly Katie and Gabe.

So the weekend turned out great, the cabin we were in (ok more like a condo next to the ski resort), had a hot tub. Which came in ooooooh so nice after a day of skiing. My muscles would probably be in even worse shape then they are now, if we hadn’t had the hot tub. As it stands, my legs were pretty fatigued by sunday around 3pm when we wrapped things up, but over all my calves are a little sore this morning but nothing bad, and nothing I haven’t felt before after doing really physically strenuous stuff for long periods of time.

Ok speaking of the hot tub. Sort of funny aside with that. Of course the tub is outside, its freazing outside, and there is snow on the ground right next to it. So whats the brightest idea you can think of at this point? Of course its getting out and laying down into the snow for fun so you can jump back in the hot tub and get warm. Brie started it, by jumping out and laying down for a split second, ( i think she may have convinced her cousin or Gabe to do it first, I can’t exactly remember). So pretty much i had to trump the rest of them and jump out and do a snow angel, and jump back in the hot tub. Keep in mind we’re all in bathing suits. Damn that was cold. It was pretty funny though. My snow angel was still there when we left on sunday, even though it had snowed a little saturday morning ;).

Now, back to skiing. Don’t get me wrong, I fell a few times. Once was really bad but thats cause a dude rammed full on into me on a black diamond and i went skidding for about 20 yards or so down the hill, at that it didn’t even hurt. I guess i fall well (thank god for all my years of wrestling, knowing how to fall right lol). Other than that the only thing that stopped me was muscle fatigue, from not being used to doing all that work on the muscles it takes to ski. So overall it was a pretty awesome weekend, a great escape with great people, some of whom i definately want to see more of, well all of them, but meh you can infer what you want lol.

Also, sorry no pictures, I totally forgot about my digi-cam, and not much a chance i was gonna bring the SLR, since no way I was taking it on the slopes. But Boehm took some pictures with his digicam, Brie had a video cam, that I may eventually see the video of, and Katie was taking pictures with a disposable, so I may see some of those pics at some point. If I get ahold of any I may end up posting some if I can up on my gallery, but we’ll see when I can. Thats all for now. I think this post has gotten a bit long.

ciao.

I got this poll from a few places (mat and melissa, so i figued I’d post it just to be cool):

1. Been in Saudi Arabia working in an Ops Center .. watching military actions live through a slew of different communications/information links.

2. Performed a puppet show for a high school english class that involved a punching nun puppet and a godzilla doll fighting. The godzilla doll really did breath actual fire; inside my high school auditorium; teacher was present; we got an A.

3. Walked on a beach on the great lakes where my footprints were the only ones in the sand.

4. Got an A- on a paper wrote for a high level History course on the Southern states leading up to the Civil war, all within the confines of an NHL Hockey, Flyers playoff game. (all be-it this game was the 3rd longest game in history, with 5 overtimes). All the time doing shots every so often with a classmate doing the same thing for the same class. He got a B.

5. Drove directly through a herd of Bison on a dirt road.

6. Driven from the northern border of the US to the Gulf Coast and back more than once, and also driven half way across the country multiple times.

7. Self declared Nintendo Ice Hockey and Super Dodge Ball champion of Andorn Apts, Widener University.

8. swam on the floor (alchohol was involved)

9. Gave bunny ears to Mike Doughty when i had a picture taken with him at one of his solo shows.

10. I’m an Eagle Scout.

My friend Jason sent me this link the other day. I didn’t get any time to look at it till this morning. Its a puzzle. Its pretty neat. Not *that* challenging, but it did hold my interest for quite a bit trying to figure out how to solve it.

http://www.foon.co.uk/farcade/hapland/

Hints: You gotta get two guys into the two doors, Timing is key, Its a bitch to do with a touchpad on a laptop, unless you’re really skilled at moving the mouse key relatively quickly and accurately, so I suggest using a normal mouse. I’d like to see other puzzles by whoever made this its pretty well done. (kinda reminds me a little of lemmings)

have fun. I looked at it last night, but didn’t really get much time. Today when i sat down with it as the only thing I was concentrating on, it took me about a half hour maybe to figure out.

So monday was presidents day. What does presidents day give us? 1. It gives a lot of people off. Including me. 2. It gives us Spike TV’s all day Sports Illustrated swimsuit model and bikini model programming. I’m not ashamed to admit that I was glued to this programming.

Why am I writing about this? Well I was thinking to myself. My god!, that photographer has the best job in the freaking world. Its insanity. It made me rethink why exactly I’m taking up photography as a hobby. Thats what i should be doing!!

Instead of course I find myself finding new things to focus really close in on and taking pictures of them. Or at least I’m getting ready to do that. I have a few things to read and figure out first, like how to effectively use my flash so what I’m focusing on is properly illuminated. The second is maybe building some sort of aparatus such that I can steady these close in shots. I don’t really know if i need this second thing. I have a pretty steady hand, and think for the most part I won’t have any motion problems. I guess I’ll just have to shoot this roll of film I have and see how it comes out.

This did however give me some strange idea of combining somehow what I was drooling over on the Sports Illustrated swimsuit model tv show, and my whole thrust into closeup photography. I guess we’ll just have to cross that bridge when we come to it right ;).

Today I came up with my new favorite away message for AIM.

It is:

“Insert Crazynyess here —–> _____”

it makes me chuckle …

CDs:
Talking Heads - Sand in the Vaseline: I was watching Mat and Eric and their band play at the Mojo the other week. They had gone on a break, and I was talking to Mat for like a minute. Right before he walked back over to his drum set he said to Al and I, “I think we’ve got a treat for you guys coming up next” or said something to that effect. I thought to myself “hmm what could this be”. A short few seconds later they started playing. I knew I recognized it but I didn’t really have it fully till Eric started in on the lyrics in his best David Byrnesque vocals. Thus started their quasi-cover of “Life During Wartime” from the Talking Heads. I say quasi-cover because they did the whole song, but about half way through they kinda broke into what best I could tell to be a jam of a bunch of other stuff, including original songs of their own. At one point breaking into their song “Matsushima”. There was probably other stuff in there that I’m missing but you get the jist of it. Then when you least expected it they pulled it all back together to reprise the medley by covering the last half now of “Life During Wartime”. It was a pretty cool song, I was glad to have seen it. I keep wondering how it turned out in the recording of the show. I’d definately be intersted in hearing the recording sometime. Anyways, Why am I saying this you ask? Well its cause I didn’t have any Talking Heads in my CD collection till today. I mean I’ve listened to them before, but i was lacking it in my collection. Seeing those guys cover that song made me realize that i was in error not having any Talking Heads in my collection. So as of today I’ve corrected that error ;).

Wilco - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot: No big story .. i just felt like being hip.

Book:

The Photographer’s Handbook, Third Edition: Well with my new affinity for Photography I figured I wanted a foto reference. This looked to be the best one in Barnes & Nobles, so I bought it. I plan on reading it all the way through, so I’m smart on all the lingo. Plus you can’t really have too many books.

Hmm thats about all fo today.

So last week i think i began a search that may become some what of an obsession until i really do find the exact thing I’m looking for. For about a year or more now I haven’t worn a watch at all. The reasons for this are various. Mainly it came down to my previous watch breaking. I didn’t have much a desire to get another watch.

With that said .. i really do love unique watches. Stuff thats interesting. I think over the last couple months I’ve been thinking about getting a good watch again. I have a couple of pre-requisites for this watch though. I don’t really want a run of the mill watch. I don’t really want it to be something i can head out to Boscovs and slag a couple of bucks down and buy. If I wanted a watch like that… I’d have bought one a month after my last one broke.

I think i’m looking for a collectors item I guess.. though I’m not going to pigeon hole myself into that. I know for a fact I’m looking for something that doesn’t need a battery. Auto-wind preferrably .. or manual wind, whichever. I guess i’m just looking for something a little unique. I also think i get a little enfatuated with watches sometimes. With that said… the begginings of my search have led me to be interested in vintage military style watches. This guy has a pretty cool collection.

I think my favorite so far is this (click on picture for info on it)

Anyways the search goes on ;) .. i’ll probably keep posting my finds in here as I find stuff that might fit what I’m looking for.

Wow this morning I feel sooooo sluggish. I wonder why. I’m pretty impressed that I’ve gotten into work. I so should have taken today off.

Oh to anybody i was drunk dialing or instant messaging last night. I’m sorry lol, i don’t think i was that bad really. Then again boehm gave me the wrong number for Sid (since i’d lost it in my last phone) and i called some random guy and started giving him shit. Oh well i guess its well enough that my connection was shitty and i couldn’t hear the guy. I did end up calling Jay though and telling sid off through him lol.

damn turnovers :( .. oh well it was a good game.

Well its the big day. Super Bowl baby. the Eagles are in it. Lets see how this thing turns out.

E - A - G - L - E - S

EAGLES!!!!

Take a look at this in my gallery here: http://iammikesdomain.com/imagery/c000

Kodak 800 Film Pentax k1000
All no flash:

50mm Lens, 1:1.7
0. f6.8 (i think) 1/60sec
1. f12.5 (i think) 1/60sec
2. f5.6 (i think) 1/60sec
3. f9.5 1/60sec
4. f9.5 1/60sec
5. probably nothing
6. f11 1/60sec

80-200mm zoom lens 1:4 macro
7. f4.5 1/60sec (200mm zoom)

50mm Lens, 1:1.7
8. f8 1/60sec
9. f3.4 1/125sec
10. f6.8 1/125sec

80-200mm zoom lens 1:4 macro
11. f6 1/60sec (200mm zoom)

50mm Lens, 1:1.7
12. f4.8 1/30sec
13. f2.8 1/15sec
14. f4.8 1/15sec
15. f3.2 1/15sec
16. f3.2 1/8sec
17. f4 1/15sec
18. f1.7 1/15sec
19. f2.8 1/15sec
20. f4.8 1/15sec
21. f4.8 1/15sec
22. f3.4 1/60sec
23. f3.4 1/15sec

I figured it’d be fun to keep a log of what all my settings were (some might be a little off like f settings that are in between the marked numbers. I think i’ll eventually add the settings onto the pictures but I’m not feeling like doing that right now.