Sunset on the Great Miami River, Troy, Ohio.

I went to visit my Grandpa in the hospital the other day. I really don't visit even a fraction as much as I should. He's been in and out for various reasons, and this is just a bad infection now. A couple of years ago he got hit with both the flu and pneumonia at the same time, and has been on oxygen ever since. But when I went to see him the other day, despite his dry wit and sense of humor being completely intact, I've never seen him look so frail. We had a very nice chitchat.

My Grandma has Alzheimer's. Last summer at Grandpa's 90th birthday party, she had no idea who I was. That didn't bother me at all, in fact I thought it was sweet. She was meeting both me and Sophie for the first time. Dad says that it's only a matter of time before the disease starts shutting down involuntary portions of her brain like breathing or swallowing. Well, after I went to see Grandpa, I drove the 15 or so minutes down to their retirement neighborhood to visit her in her room in the alzheimer's unit. She was asleep in her chair, and I didn't want to wake her up.

I've been emotionally edgy lately. The Iraq war and its daily batch of fresh baked American corpses has been effecting me greatly lately. I was feeling particularly agitated and angry and upset the other day after listening to the latest news on NPR on my way home from class. I couldn't take any more and switched stations where I heard an unfamiliar song: Death Cab For Cutie's beautifully simple "I Will Follow You Into The Dark"

If heaven and hell decide that they both are satisfied,
illuminate the no's on their vacancy signs.
If there's no one beside you when your soul embarks
Then I'll follow you into the dark.

It made me think about Grandpa's heart break as he talked about Grandma and how she sometimes doesn't even recognize him, and I thought about how Dad told me that the first one to die will be cremated and have the ashes placed in the casket when other passes so that they can always be together.

I don't cry often, but I did at that point.

I've been neglecting you. But don't take it personally. I've been neglecting just about everybody lately. It's the quarter. Portrait 1 is kicking my ass. I have three projects due in the next two weeks. No biggie, except for the checking out of studio time, reserving the correct equipment, and lining up models (not classmates). Then there's the processing, printing, and mounting.. oh, and working two part time jobs.

And I'm loving every second of it. :-) I would so much rather be dementedly busy with school than not busy at all.

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Speaking of school, in my latest Photo Techniques project, we have two parts. The first is to create a single image frame from multiple images... like when you take a bunch of photos of something from the same vantage point, and then arrange them all together to make one image. I've been trying for a week to upload them. My computer won't let me upload these two files. It'll allow others, just not these two. WTF?


The second part is to use reflections and whatnot to create a confused, jumbled image without photoshop. Totally in camera. So after work yesterday I head to a local glass and mirror shop to see if they would donate any mirror scraps to a humble photography student. Sure enough, the lady who was incredibly polite handed me a stack of long rectangular scraps. So I go home and am sitting there trying to figure out what on earth to do with the long strips of mirror. Then it hits me: kaleidoscope! I duct tape three pieces into a triangle and go to town:

If "Bald is Beautiful", then gray is gorgeous...

Dark Haired Girl is on her way home from Pittsburgh as we speak. I figure she's somewhere just east of Columbus, based on what time it is now and when she called a few hours ago to give me her ETA. I really miss her. I'm going to pick her up because her office took a rental car, and I can't wait. :-D

The ladies at work (I'm the only guy who works in the store area on first shift) have been giving me a hard time and really busting my chops today, but I like it. It's like when your house would get toilet papered as a teen... it meant you'd been accepted. It's all good-natured ribbing. They all think I'm a little on the strange side (in this midwest Ohio world of manly Marlboro men), but they've finally figured out I'm not weird. Just a little out in left field.

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Has anybody seen the Just For Men commercials where their message is to the tune of: "Stop hiding behind your gray hair, cover it up with our product and let your true self shine."? Is that not the most brilliant mind-fuck twist of logic? I have to applaud them, that has to be pulling in craploads of profit. That, and then there's the one where they take two former pro athletes, do them up as sports announcers, and have them announce play by play the red-dressed milf "Ms. Hottie's" rejection of "Mr. Gray Beard."

... that is, until he colors his beard and then she jumps in his arms, to which the announcers cheer "Home run!!" Just cartoon-y enough that they can say "C'mon, we were just spoofing", but clear enough in intent to slip in some overt name-calling and beat mens' insecurities to a pulp with a ball peen hammer.

Frankly, I look forward to the day I go gray. I've already got one mutant gray eyebrow hair that's twice as long and thick as the others. I enjoy my coif as it is, but it won't last forever, and there's something distinctly ganster about a guy with gray temples. Very Paulie Walnuts from 'The Sopranos'.



You don't mess with a guy with gray temples. Just For Men? Fugeddaboudit!

Hi guys. Dark Haired Girl is out of town on a business trip to Pittsburgh. She works for the United Way, and yesterday they had this thing where they let them wander around the stadium that the Steelers play in, and she got to tour the locker room and see Ben Roethlisberger's locker. Then she got to meet... I think his name is Charlie Batch? Anyway, she's a die-hard Steelers fan, so I can vividly picture the look on her face. :-)

I was in kind of a funk yesterday (and lately in general... I can't figure out why), so I decided to do a little retail therapy for some useful items, considering it's been since the hockey jersey that I've bought anything nice for myself. Tuseday I went skating in hot weather in denim shorts. Chafe city. Headed over to Steve & Barry's at the Piqua Mall and pick up some nice elastic breathable basketball shorts and an XXL t-shirt with a great little design on it. Wait a sec, lemme get my webcam:



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School is going well. Had my ego bruised a little with the first portrait project, but over half the class tanked it as well, so the instructor generously gave us all a chance to re-shoot it. I know it's silly, but I kinda took it personally. That's something I'm going to need to get over. But I think I nailed the second project pretty well. We'll see.

I was in the Digital Print Lab sitting across from Liz (of Callahan Photography, go there or be square), and she kept looking up at the clock on the wall behind me with those pie-plate eyes of hers. I just had to get a picture.

"Andy, are you taking my picture??"

Hey guys. Well, the first Photo Techniques project got turned in and critiqued yesterday... and the photos were a hit! I'd been worried that they were to casual and random, and that they weren't much more advanced than something I'd shoot in Camera Skills back in the beginning. I was worried that everybody would be far more advanced and that I'd look like a doof.

Quite the opposite, I shamelessly gloat.

Some of them are up at the DeviantART gallery, but not all. I simply don't have the time. With the added Stillwater night per week, this quarter kicking into full swing with its additional lab and studio time, and just spending a whole lotta time with Dark Haired Girl, I barely have time to get my laundry done, let alone process photos.

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Ok, I have my heart set on the Canon Rebel XTi. Body only (since the lens from my 35mm film Rebel will work) is $800, and I already have about $500 saved up. After the big job through mom's office and another month or two of stillwater and Tim Hortons paychecks, I think I'll have enough for the camera, a flash, and maybe a nicer camera bag.

Little by little. :-)

I Am Completely In Love

with Dark Haired Girl. And she's in love with me.

Everybody around us could see it, we were just too scared to admit it to our respective selves. But I admitted it to myself, and then to her.

I love Dark Haired Girl. I am in love with Dark Haired Girl. She was my friend with benefits, and now she's my best friend... now with benefits that I couldn't possibly have imagined before. I have had an intense burst of passion for her over this weekend, and it's because I finally admitted to myself the breadth and depth of feelings I have for her, and finally discovered the ecstasy of truly making love.

I'd politely referred to sex with anybody previously as 'making love'. But to lay in bed with Dark Haired Girl, to hold her so tightly against me that my arms and shoulders tremble, to thrust deep inside her, to look into her eyes and see the future, to feel my heart expand to the point of bursting, and to wish that we could melt into one another...

that is truly to make love.

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She also just told me that her dark skin, hair, and eyes are due to her being part Blackfoot Native American. And what have I called her since the night I met her? 'Dark Haired Girl'. An uncannily appropriate Native American name if I've ever heard one.

As far as I can figure out with a Blackfoot language program I downloaded, my name for her would be: Sikotahko Mo'tokáán Aakííkoan. ("Brown Hair Girl")