Today I met Dad down at Grandma and Grandpa's. Dad's brother, my Uncle John, is moving them closer to him in South Carolina. In light of recent stock market plunges, Grandpa took a significant hit and can no longer comfortably afford the expensive retirement community in which he lives. Dad, unfortunately, has very little money of his own aside from his just-started Social Security checks, and Uncle John, as an engineer, is in a significantly better spot to take care of Grandma and Grandpa. They leave in a week.

Most of their belongings (Grandpa is a notorious pack rat) have already been inventoried to be auctioned off to charity. A few items were held back, though... some of Dad's boyhood toys and model cars. Dad being the Classical music connoisseur, he was given Grandpa's harpsichord. Grandma was a camera nut, and they saved for me her 35mm Minolta with flash, lenses, case, and tripod. I was not expecting a thing, only to help Dad load up the harpsichord, so this was an unexpected honor indeed to be given her beloved camera.

They leave in about a week. There will be a farewell dinner, but it'll be a busy evening and there will most likely be no time for me to take either aside for portraits. Grandpa is 92, Grandma is either the same age or a year or two behind, and well advanced into Alzheimer's. When they leave for South Carolina, next week's dinner will be the last time I ever see them.

So I took a few final portraits of Grandpa, by window light, with his hand-crank Victrola behind him:




The portrait I see of him in my mind's eye, we simply have neither time nor facility to make happen. They'll have to remain mental images.

Grandma is in the Alzheimer's unit at the community. I'll get some candid event photos of her next week. Depending on the location and/or circumstances of the dinner, I'm probably going to demand a few moments aside to get some nice portraits. I'll never have a chance again to do so.

Andy joins the bespectacled masses

It's funny, but the biggest thing to strike me was on the first night that I had them. I pulled up in front of my house and out of habit looked up at the stars. I was shocked how small they were. This sounds dumb, I know, but the stars were just tiny little pin points! They've always been smudges. Last Tuesday night was the first time in my life that I've ever actually seen them.

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Shot a Nigerian Christening last Saturday. Long story short: Brilliantly colorful head dresses and gowns. I had no idea that Dayton had a Nigerian community, but come to find out it's not only quite sizable, but also considerably wealthy. Anyway, at the reception, the emcee introduced the children, but as is tradition, they aren't marched in, they are danced in. To a traditional reggae-like tune the procession led by the parents entered, dancing in a circle around the floor. It was the perfect mix of touching and fun. It was so cool, I smiled like a cheeseball the whole time I was shooting. Just had to tell you about that.



I got to talking with the videographer, a guy named Cyril with an accent as thick as peanut butter. At the end of the evening, I told him that he was lucky. He asked why, and I said "Because Nigerian women are stunning!" He laughed, nodding in agreement.

I also had some of the traditional food. I had no idea what I was eating, but it was as hot as Tabasco and very tasty. Some sort of stew. From the (unidentifiable) look of it, I probably don't want to know what I was eating... all I know is that it was delicious, and I'm not dead. I'll leave it at that.

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Also photographed earlier that day a young girl for a flyer for the Dayton Leukemia/Lymphoma Society.



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If every weekend could be as productive as last, I could quit Timmy Ho's in a heartbeat. $480 in one day, man. Well, ok, a heart beat and a two week notice. I like my boss too much for that. I've never talked about him, have I? Not a major enough figure in the cast of characters in my life to garner a 'Treasures' shout-out, I guess. Anyhoo, coolest boss I have ever had (and most likely will ever have) in my entire life. Photography Bossman is a very close second.

So, there. He has been shouted to.

You know what? People that use the phrase "vis-à-vis" piss me off.

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I've been hanging out a lot with Ruben lately. One of us will call the other and say "You up for coffee?" So we'll motor on over to the Awful Waffle and hang out for an hour or two or three. The wait staff knows us there. They like hanging out and chatting with us.

Anyway, the window faces westward there, and as the sun set, I liked how it bounced off my empty half-and-half cups.



Trigger finger has been itchy lately.

It has come to light that just about every guy I know, contrary to popular belief, has quite a "thing" for nerdy girls. Being a drive through fast food cashier, I see hundreds of people a day whizzing past my window. There are at least five regulars that come through whom I've collectively labeled my 'hot nerd girls'. Ruben has this ongoing thing where he'll see some slender bookish lady, and he'll turn to me and say "I just want her to say 'Your library books are overdue, you naughty, naughty boy!'"

Or, as the guy who stands next to me at work taking orders says as he checks out customers through my window: "Dude, I bet there's some freak in that geek!"



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I'm still holding out for my dream girl: violet-eyed albino hippie chick who smells like incense, has a paisley dress peeking out from under her lab coat, who has white skin and pale yellow dredlocks that have to be held back with a tie-dyed scarf while her purple eyes peer through a microscope at squiggly bits, while she scratches notes without looking at the pad, and emits the occasional "Hmm!"

This mental image (and horrendous run-on sentence) is, of course, subject to change at a moment's whim. God, I'm bored. I need something to photograph.

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Oh! I almost forgot! Saturday night was the soft open for the L&V under the new ownership. Ruben and I were customers number 3 and 4, respectively. The new owner (formerly frequent patron) was absolutely adorable as he scrambled and bumbled about, wings still wet as a bartender. He had forgotten how the beer tap installers showed him how to pour a glass of beer, and kept having to run back and forth to the sink to pour out the overflowing foam. Another frequent patron had to go behind the bar with him and show him how to do it properly, and how to wedge the orange slices over the rim of the glass.




It was good to be back. There's no place like home.

Whew!

Just finished my taxes. Took me a while to get my numbers to jive with Bossman's. Trying to be as honest as humanly possible, here. Looks like I'm in for a refund amount that's just under enough to cover what I still owe the IRS from 2005's tax loophole that I fell through with the divorce. I was left owing just over $1000. When I described my situation to various tax people, asking if there was anything I could do, their responses were pretty much the same: "Sucks to be you."

Anyhoo, I'm about to get it paid off. Oh, what a relief it is. BTW, I filed with TaxACT, and found it to be the quickest and easiest online tax experience yet, of the four years now I've been e-filing.

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In other news, I just dropped off to a company a project with 21 mounted prints which carried a $500 invoice. I'm shooting a Christening next weekend for $300, and I'm assisting shooting a wedding on the 26th.

Oh, and I picked up a gig last night while hanging out with a couple of bands at a downtown bar's grand opening. A friend of a friend wants her childrens' pictures taken. I figure, free session, charge for prints. With further bands, they can preview the images online, and I'll charge them $20 and credit for unlimited use per image they choose. Sounds fair to me.

Slowly but surely....

Things have been quite busy over here lately. First off, I decided the other day that since I have several pressing gigs that require certain equipment, and no move-out from the parents' house in sight, I'd invest my nest egg in some desperately needed gear. I now have a nice on-camera (hot shoe) flash with a dome diffuser, and a backpack sling style camera bag, with room for my new accessories and expansion. Now I don't look like I'm carrying my camera around in a purse.

Here's a photographic run-down of what's been going on lately...

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The band photography is going well. The name is definitely getting around out there.





I've also been hanging out quite a lot with Ruben, Zen Master and All-Around Swell Guy. This was taken at the Awful Waffle with my new flash and diffuser, despite the camera being right in his face. Thought it fit his whole "brooding writer" mystique and persona.



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Shot a wedding today. The groom's sister called me a week ago saying they needed basic photos, so I did a budget package with formals and some ceremony coverage, but not the reception. There was one hallway, though, with fantastic window light, and I "borrowed" the bride before the ceremony.





I tend not to be a fan of selective coloration, but it's all the rage lately, so I figured I'd try to do one that was subtle.

And making her world premiere for the FIRST TIME EVER! on this blog, I present to you a photo of Dark Haired Girl in her bug-eye fashion sunglasses and oh-so-sacred Steelers hat:



She agreed that enough of her face is obscured not to link her with all the crazy things I've said about her in the last two years. Now that you've formed solid pictures in your heads of what she looks like, I now give you a vague idea what she really looks like.

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On the drive home from the wedding this evening, I started feeling lonely. Dark Haired Girl is away visiting family in Michigan, so I called Angela just to hear a familiar voice. Unfortunately, it's getting harder and harder to talk to her since her car wreck and resulting severe konk to the head. She and I used to have some real heart-to-hearts, but nowadays her mind is way out in left field. It's really difficult to have a substantial conversation. I still call to check up on her, and pick her up to drive her around and get her out of the house every now and then, but it's just not the same as it used to be.

I want to get married. I do. I should be a total marriage-phobe considering what I've been through, but I want to start a family. It's a strange blend of sweetness and sadness watching others look so in love.