21

It would seem that today is my birthday, and I'm officially 21.

There are some, I'm told, who would be insulted by my lack of exuberance. They can, with all due respect and admiration, bite me.

Ciao.

Finito

Yep, finished with classes for the semester. I had an Arabic final at noon, and now I'm done.

To celebrate, I'm going to ... change my desktop background?

From this:

To this:

This is a completely pointless change, but, as I now have all of perhaps two responsibilities, most things I do will seem completely pointless.

There'll be more later, I'm sure.

Just a little update

This is just to keep up appearances. (Blatantcy is the crutch of brevity, which, as we all know, is the soul of wit.)


On the 29th of November, my roommate Tilley invited me to ride in a helicopter with his ROTC class, and, being the weirdo that I am, I skipped out on two classes just to do so.

(Above: that's my man Tilley on the right. Finance, hoo-ah!)

Unfortunately, it was a Chinook, not a Blackhawk like the original plan had called for. The pilots complained about something regarding the weather and the number of people who would be coming, so they elected for the twin-rotor beast. A good time had by all.

And then I drove to Decatur to volunteer for the Atlanta Photojournalism Seminar, met a few interesting people, got seriously ill, attended only a third of the actual seminar and remembered only half of that, and spent a lot of time either on the road or asleep. Fun.

Ciao.

Old portrait session

Every now and then, I like to go and find some attractive young woman to come and pose for me. Which makes me sounds like some sort of predator, though I'm not. It works out for everybody -- she gets to be a model for a few hours, and I get to flirt with a pretty girl for a few hours. Oh, and I get to take pictures, work with whatever studio lighting I've managed to redneck-rig, and get something to show people if I ever go into the portraiture business.

These aren't anything really interesting, and they don't provide a real insight into my attractive young Bosnian associate, Maja, but she's a pretty girl, and I feel like I haven't posted any photos lately. And, yes, I do indeed like those Balkan girls.

So this was, in hindsight, just a chance to put up pictures of some pretty thing to add sex appeal to my blog. Booyah.

Black pit of despair

So I realized something about two hours ago that sent me spiraling into a minor depression, which made studying for my imminent Arabic quiz a little difficult. I don't think I did too badly, mind, but I'm still a little bummed by the ephihany.



Which is that my two closest friends are leaving me.



No, no, this is not some "poor little ole me" rant about friendships falling apart. I'm quite serious. They're both leaving.


Chana is leaving to attend a six-month internship in Atlanta, which is not too far away, but the distance combined with her schedule will make our normal chats and such very difficult. Also, her new boyfriend will probably take up a good bit of her time, but I'm not really counting that as anything specifically worrisome.













Aleks is graduating with her bachelors and probably going back to live with her parents, get a job, and continue on with her life, also in Atlanta. I haven't seen in a long while, though.









In fact, I think I've been distancing myself lately in order to get ready for this whole thing of not having my good friends anywhere nearby. No more dinners with Chana; no more dancing with Aleks; no more laughing, chatting, teasing, flirting, heartfelt talking, or ... well, anything, I guess, with either of them.

Sigh.

Wow

I'm impressed. I didn't realize that politicians would even do such a thing as this, but Mike Huckabee did. As I said, impressive.

And weird.

Post-Turkey Day Update

It was brought to my attention -- perhaps subtly and directly, or maybe inadvertently and indirectly -- that I should update more often. With classes being classes, school being school, and women being confusing-terrifying-worrisome-"pain in the ass"-creatures they usually are ... maybe I need different female friends ... I just haven't found the time or inclination to post anything of worth here.

With that being said, here's a couple photos ...
These are from the Capoeira Athens/UGA sponsored visit of world-renowned Cobra Mansa. And when I say "world-renowned," I mean within Capoeira circles. The man is amazing and a wonderful teacher.

From the rehearsal of the Senior Dance Exit Show.

And lo, there will be more later.

Can't resist this stuff

So I now have the Serbian Sweethearts, Aleks and Zorana, pushing me to go to Serbia with them over the summer. Not only do they adore me, but I'd love it there, we'd have a great time, I'd get to learn the culture and the language, et cetera, et al, as if they really have to try hard to convince me.

My issue? Language barriers. I've been trying off-and-on to learn a little Serbian for the past year and a half or so, and it's slow going, seeing as I'm taking Arabic courses whilst trying to teach myself Serbian. But I'll probably speed up on the Serbian next semester since I'm probably going to break from Arabic for a while.

Anyway, always one to get a jump on things I want to do (... all right, everybody at the same time: HA ...) I downloaded a Serbian-English dictionary, picked up my "Teach Yourself: Serbian" book and CDs, and went looking for poetry and insults. Why? Because they're really fun ways to learn a language, in my opinion. Also, there's the romantic appeal that learning a language through poetry means you'll speak poetically. Supposedly.

But the poetry thing is just my interest. Everybody loves insults. And they have some nice ones. For example ... ("Da Bog ..." is translated as "May ..." though it's literally something like "That God ...")

"Da Bog da ti zena rodila stonogu pa ceo zivot radio za cipele."
Translation: May your wife give birth to a centipede so you have to work for shoes all your life.

"Da Bog da ti kuca bila na CNN-u."
Translation: May your house be live on CNN. (Basically saying through implication, "I hope your house gets bombed by NATO.")

"Ko te shisha."
Translation: (supposedly) What's wrong with you? Literally, "who cuts your hair?" I say supposedly because the dictionary I'm using didn't have shisha or any variant of it.

Class, gotta run.

Oh, yeah ...

Something else, I've been making these for the past 24 hours or so (no, not constantly). The photo folks at the R&B were trying to do the "iPod" commercial effect, and I was trying to think about how I used to do it "back in the day," "back in the day" meaning last semester. So here's a couple.

Photos

So the photos I had planned to load up ...

Yeah, so I got into the idea of doing interesting "party photography" over the summer -- the result of some ill-thoughtout drunken photography on a tour bus in Cuba. This was our last party, pre-cops. The stripper is one of my roommates, the stripper pole is a staple of the household, and she was not, in fact, at all toasty.

Another of the same party, somewhere around midnight, most likely shortly beforehand. With the assistance of house-friend Sam, Robert take a drink off his girlfriend Mia.

Everything else is on my external harddrive, so I'll post more later.

Been a while ...

So I'm terrible at this "updating" stuff. I happen to find other things to do, ie. watch movies (such as I am at the moment).

Uhm ... I'm stringing for the Red and Black, which is fun, but I basically have to drop everything and jump on assignments. Which is simultaneously an enjoyable and annoying. I almost dropped Deepy's birthday party at Applebee's for a photo assignment. She's worth more than a clip file, though, so I declined.

That's sort of a defining factor of my life at the moment. Classes are classes, people are people, my personal life is confusing -- the normal stuff.

I'll load some photos later since blogger is being a punk.

Valiant efforts

In my valiant attempts to avoid starting work on the three (? I think that's right ...) internship applications due on the 15th/16th, which I admit will not actually take that long aside from picking and choosing photos I want to send in, I have managed to ...

... add four new feeds to my NetVibes account.
... look up seven different articles on Zoe's Ark, the French charity group that stands accused of trying to kidnap 100-103 Chadian children. That's the type of clusterfuck that happens when idealism goes awry. Also, Chad's prime minister/president/monarch (I can't remember and I don't feel like looking it up again) accused the group of firefighters, doctors, nurses and journalists of trying to ship the kids back to France to sell to pedophiles or to harvest their organs. Jesus.
... watch a ten-minute video of a journalist undergoing water-boarding and interviewing various professors and such on torture.
... look up an interesting, and somewhat inspiring, article on attraction, and the social signals regarding such things. Yes, there is indeed hope.

Yep, yep, I got those skills.

Ciao.

Oh, and I'm officially a Red and Black photo stringer now. I've had two assignments, a "Low Country Boil" at the Delta Gamma sorority house, and the homecoming parade. One of my parade pictures got published. I'd just link the photo, but I can't find it on the R&B website.

Oh, and I just added yet another feed to my Vibes.

Okay, now, ciao.

East Coast Blackout

I was talking with someone about this photos a while back, so I decided to go look it up. Google. Wonderful thing.

Update

First off, let me say that I want to strangle Nikki and Tara. Now that I don't really know anyone named Nikki or Tara (well, not well enough to actually want to strangle them), so it's just the outward signs of annoyance at third parties. Specifically, the third parties on the advertisement for the "Eye-Fi," an SD card that transmits wireless from one's camera to one's computer. The murderous desire is not due to anything they've actually done -- I simply chose them to be the direction of my ire tonight. Annoyances.

Anyway.

I had my first little assignment from the R&B tonight (as a stringer) and lemme say, it sucked. Which is to say that I had fun, I took some decent (not great, not even "Pretty Good," just decent) photos, I met a bunch of sorority girls that all looked pretty much the same, and I met one of the regular photo staffers at the R&B, Lindy Dugger. Well, semi-regular -- she claims she hasn't been working too much lately. Also, I was informed that I've been thinking wrong about aperture, since I usually try to utilize the smallest possible to get as much depth of field as possible. That needs to be the other way around, most of the time. I mean, it all depends, of course, but I should start watching that, especially since I seem to have a fondness for close-in with a wide-angle.

Not much else to report. I skipped Johnson's photo-j class on Wednesday so I could go with Aleks (but I think this has already been mentioned), but she'll have to wait a few weeks to actually get her citizenship. She aced the test, though, not that that surprised me. "How many stripes on the flag? Who was the first president? Who's the current president?" She's a frigging International Affairs major who attended high school here in the States. Not to mention she borders on painfully smart.

I'm just babbling because I'm tired. Capoeira angola hates me hard.

Ciao.

Like knitting, only masculine.

So one of my roommates (bad influences, as I said) brought home his dad's homemade maille shirt, which was actually made from key chain circles. I laughed and made mention that it was cool, but a step-and-a-half above pop-top maille. See, I used to make maille back in high school. It's not that complicated, it's just time consuming and a little on the physically demanding side. It used to be something for me to do with my hands while I watched a movie or suffered through deep thoughts.

In the spirit of nostalgia and that occasional desire to make something with my hands, I bought 100 feet of 14 gauge galvanized wire (thin stuff, basically), rummaged up a pair of wire cutters, a Leatherman and a Gerber, and a screwdriver for the molding shaft, and went to work. A hour later and I've got a small sliver of maille, 4x1 inches hanging. That, and my hands are red and raw, a status which did not change over night. Ow. Ow. Ow.

Anyway, this is a decent site for beginning maille makers. There are lot out there, so just hit up Google if you ever become interested.

Headed for Atlanta in 15 minutes with Aleks -- she's finally getting her citizenship! I'm happy for her, but unfortunately, her family can't attend the ceremony, so I'm going to go along and be celebratory. My family always raised me to believe that it doesn't matter where you live, what flag you fly, or who gets your money when the tax man cometh, you are always who you were born and raised. She'll officially be a citizen of the United States, but she'll always be Serbian, just like I might end up in ... oh, hell, I don't know, Serbia, but I'll always be a good ole hillbilly from the American South.

I guess this is pointing toward my ideology that you are who you decide to be, not who someone or something else says you are. There is no piece of paper, no edict, no televised ceremony that can take away the mountain and rivers in my blood, or the sawdust, roofing tar, or grease on my soul. Or clothes.

Later.

Hmm, cool ...

Daily life in Iraqi Kurdistan

This is a photo story by Ed Kashi on daily life in Iraqi Kurdistan. I'm a sucker for the music, so that may be why I like it so much.

Having a damned hard time with my own photo story. I emailed three different people about different stories, explaining everything, and no one's called me back yet, so I just left a message with the Vice Principal of Chase St. Elementary. Hopefully, he'll be willing to help me with doing a story on one of the classes there. And, hopefully, he'll call me soon. Like, today.

Ciao.

Somebody shoot me

I've begun an experiment that may or may not result in my total failure in life. To be more specific, my roommates (bad influences, all of them) convinced me last Saturday that it would be a good idea to load "World of Warcraft" onto my computer. And thus it began. The uploading, the downloading, the emailing, the headache, the long wait, and then I was finally signed up, 10 free days of adventuring, killing various fantasy animals, and running around in a pretty well-designed environment. As my sister and my best friend warned me, "It's another addiction, Jake! Bad! Bad, bad, bad!"

Eh, we'll see. But after my 10 free days, I'll probably just cancel the whole thing. $15 a month is not terrible, but I like doing other things, like salsa dancing and, you know, eating, which require money as well. But at least I will be able to say I ventured through WoW and survived. Not to mention I'm thinking about doing a comparison piece with "Guild Wars." And thusly the battle began ...

Other news - still sore.

Yet more news - the SLC (Student Learning Center, for those poor souls not living in Athens) was shut down this morning due to a bomb threat. I was headed for my first class when I got waved off by the cops, who just said, "Bom' threa'." Ah, gotcha. So I hung around as they evacuated everybody, took some pictures, ran into someone from my writing class who was getting the story, and took some more pictures. He can have the words, I'll take the pictures. I like it like that.

Bomb threats. Some bastard probably had an exam this morning, woke up and just didn't feel like taking it. Pretty damn inconsiderate. (As I write this, I sort of assume the entire building will collapse or something, making me eat my words, as always.)

Aleks and Zorana are headed into Atlanta today to try to see the Dalai Lama. I know I should be more interested - he's a massive international political figure, he's controversial, et cetera, et al - but I can't really miss my photojournalism class.

Later.

"Mass genocide is the most exhausting activity one can engage in - next to soccer."

Quote from "Dogma" that says it all. I haven't played in something like 5, maybe 6 years. Jesus, I'm tired.

Oh, check out Afterworld on myspace or youtube. That's some good stuff.

Another game

My roommates are bad influences on me ... I already want to get a new computer just so I can run this ...



I love the concept of magic and technology mixed in the same environment, and (it seems) especially when the environment involves some kind of horror aspect. Not to mention it's damned pretty - one of my roomies is beta-testing it and I watched over his shoulder for a while.

On JOUR 3610

I am finally into the photojournalism classes, and I am in a ... satisfying ... relationship with the class. "Satisfying," for everyone's reference, hides somewhere between "Goddamn, I love this," and "Goddamn, this sucks." It's not an easy class, and it's not an unrewarding class. I take pictures, and I learn, though I'm constantly frustrated and unhappy with my own work.

At first, it was a little boring, going over the nuances of manual cameras, since I've been shooting manual for the last six or so years. I wouldn't miss the class for anything (aside from maybe a salsa performance in a few weeks, but more on that later) though, just because I do enjoy the professor and the non-technical material we cover in class, a.k.a. "ratholes." I'd really like to get more into the non-technical aspects of the craft: talking to people, finding stories (we have gone over a lot of this, but not to the extent which I would prefer), and I'd really like to discuss the concept of "finding a style." Every photographer I've ever talked to has mentioned this abstraction, and, being the son of an engineer who works with concrete facts and figures, I can only just say, "What the hell?"

I look forward to continuing through the series of classes, especially some of the stuff we'll supposedly do on slideshows and different presentation types. I'll hopefully be signed up for the new class next semester on using newer technology with media, but we'll just have to wait and see. My final (and not total, as we're only halfway through the semester) assessment of the course is that it's engaging, demanding, and totally worth it.

On El Prado (nostalgically)

Talk a walk down el Prado. To the right is the city of today, the dirty streets and buildings with crumbling and cracking paint; to the left is the old city, the city Havana puts on when guests are coming to visit. El Prado is the dividing line, a division of: road rumbling with cars that were made anachronisms four decades ago; trees that are old and gnarled, bent and twisted over the boulevard; the boulevard itself a mixture of black and white triangles forming squares and diamonds. In the mornings, people walk the slick black and white tile to work, letting the older folks sit by the side undisturbed, watching the younger men and women march off to work. Later in the day, kids play games with their classmates on el Prado, giggling and running and tagging and sliding. When the sun has finally worn itself out, the benches are lined with people of all ages and origins, sitting and watching the beggars and hustlers work the occasional group of tourists who edge cautiously down the walkway. It's as if they're afraid of getting sucked into Havana Centro with all its chipped paint and pickup games of streetball (sticks and medicine bottles, not bats and baseballs).

But let go of Havana Vieja. Get sucked down the side-street with all its buildings stuck in states of slow decay, with little bits of crumbling cornerstone littering the sidewalks and threadbare dogs darting in around the cars that may or may not be following some kind of rules on the road. Brush past the young, buff guys (there are no real potbellies, no beerguts, in Cuba), and excuse yourself respectfully past the older gentlemen in jackets. Duck through the on-going game of stickball, don't mind the boys whipping out little kid curses at you, give them some gum if you've got it. Wander and sticks to the areas you don't know. You might be surprised where you come out of the concrete jungle (the heat makes this analogy all the more valid).

Calle Hamel, where the local artist Salvador Gonzalez Escalona has changed his home street into a huge canvas.

The Malecon, where the Atlantic ocean is held away from the city by thick, old concrete and stonework; where the fishermen are replaced at night by lovers and partiers.

Revolution Square, where you can stand between the famous gaze of el Che and the staggering monument to Jose Marti.

... hmm. That's enough for now.

Unused photos. And Nyquil.

Some photos taken for my the last assignment, specifically, ones I didn't use. And I'm on a Nyquil hangover, something that I find as close to Robin William's mythological "Fukettall" medication, the stuff that makes you apathetic toward everything. So, anyway ...

The fact that this didn't show their faces and that it was soooo grainy kept me from throwing it at the assignment like a badly-used athletic analogy onto a blog.

I liked the "On Air" bubble being lit, but this was the only time that he got on-air while I was there, so I didn't have much time to rearrange. Thus, there is a microphone stock sticking perfectly out of his head. Bravo, me.

Another one of the DJ, this time through the glass of the DJ booth to his right. Just ... eh.

Right. Uhm ... going home now. To sleep it off.

My work ...

So I had a section of wall at the Latin American Study Abroad art show a couple weeks ago (yeah, I'm slow with the updating ...) and most of my tribe showed up. Then I showed up five days later to take my stuff down, and it was all gone. Gone. Surprise, then rage, then rational thought went through my skull ... though I kept slipping back to rage, as it's such a freeing and fun emotion. Different story, but all ended well, and anyway ...

Jerry Wallace, a graduate from "thirty-something years ago" of Lamar Dodd, checks out my stuff. Self-matted, by the way, one of my only really satisfying accomplishments this semester.

So, this post was essentially me patting myself on the back. Terribly sorry.

Another, just because I can ...

At Dawgs after Dark, Emily Thomsen and Chase Brown duke it out in a very springy ring with gloves they swore were 15 lbs. And I thought 16 ounce gloves were thick ...

Whoops.

Damn. That wasn't the right video - I'm still getting used to posting videos. This should be the video.

There are some things you can't beat with a stick

Two things which I -- generally -- always seem to enjoy: science and video games. I like that really weird science, too, the stuff you only find in far-out bad science fiction, like quantum mechanic guns and such. So I giggled like a little schoolgirl (pardon the mental image) when one of my roommates showed me this trailer.



This is a new game from the guys who brought the world Half-life, bless them and their offspring's offspring. Instead of the run-and-gun homogeny that many first-person-shooters seem to have, this is instead a puzzle game. You dash about with a device that opens what equate to something like worm holes (ha - knew I could get a Star Trek reference in there somewhere), solving problems.

For me, the real kick are the physics they're using. Say you're on a platform ten feet from the floor, and you need to get to a platform ten feet above your current position. There's a lip, but no way you could make a ten-foot jump. So you pop an exit portal on the ground next to you, shoot an entry portal on the ground ten feet below you, and jump down through the entry portal. This, of course, sends you through the exit portal, not only with the same momentum, but in reverse to your previous spatial orientation, so you're now essentially flying out the exit portal at 9.8 meters per second squared upside down and backwards.

HAHA! I think I just wet myself with excitement.

Okay, so I'm a geek. This isn't as exciting as I think it is, but it's pretty friggin' awesome.

Go to IGN.com and look it up.

My first online article ...

This is a bit of my writing, a short overview of Anime Weekend Atlanta. I'll probably write something more on it which will be a little less newspaper-esque.

The Red and Black

And now, for a taste of things to come ...

For those who know the movie reference in the title, kudos and I'm terribly sorry if you admitted to having watching and remembered such a movie. Don't worry - there are support groups.

The 138 flags blocking the view of the American Interests building in La Havana, Cuba.

The American Interests building in Havana is the closest thing to an embassy the US has in Cuba. It's a big stolid building with a ten-foot-tall concrete and iron fence running the length of the perimeter. A few years ago, an electronic sign running the length of the building appeared and promptly began to run news and famous quotes from people like Ghandi and the like in a Ticker Tape fashion. All Spanish, of course. In response, Castro had 138 flags erected in order to block the messages. The flags -- black with a single white star in the center -- represent Cubans killed by supposed American actions.

I'm getting quite sick of this photo, honestly.

There's quite a lot to be written about this, but, right now, it's late and I've got to work tomorrow.

Entry the First

This is not my first blog - the internet is scattered with meandering musings, ill-conceived stories, and pointless ramblings accumulated inside blogs with names that seemed amusing at the time - but this is most certainly my most serious blog yet.

I'm a journalism student at the University of Georgia. I enjoy writing but would really like to able to tell stories through photography, so I'll be posting both here. I don't have much of a goal after college - I'd like to move around every few years, working freelance and for smaller publications. I don't know that I'll ever really make any sort of impact on a grand level, but I'd like to do what I can where I can.

I grew up doing physical labor and a lot of it, so I feel like I'm basically too rough at my core for a lot of the delicate work that goes into really good photography. But I intend on changing that.

My interests range from the obscure science to "365 Things You Can Cook in Ten Minutes or Less." So expect really odd things.

So, anyway.