The Fourth and Further

Yeah, so I broke down under pe-- actually, it wasn't "peer pressure," it was "Chana pressure," and ended up in Jackson, Ga., for the Fourth. Good times, overall, with its own set of ups-and-downs. Her friends like me, which is a plus. Anyway, I only shot during the fireworks -- drinking and carrying-on took up the rest of the night -- but here's a couple frames from the night.


Chana and Heather watch the firework on the dock of Chana's lake house. The bikini'ed figure in the background is her mother.


The lightning competes with fireworks over the lake. Thankfully, the rains held off till the fifth, when nobody particularly cared. I'm actually sort of fond of the second photo, particularly since I got the verticals right ... [happy pause] ... yeah, anyway.

I went into work today ... oh, by the way, work:
So, yeah, I went into work this morning, thinking to myself, "Well, I don't have any assignments yet, so I'll probably have to go out and find some good features, so how do I go about this buggering thing ..." et al. I spent an hour surfing the web, looking for inspiration on the art of feature-photo-hunting and researching B-ham for some good ideas, then decided I'd wing it. I walked up to the Ed's desk and ahem-ed, which gave him a little bit of a start.

Turns out I wasn't working today. Nobody tells me these things.

So I wandered around B-ham for a while, walked the UAB campus, went to check out a couple YMCAs in hopes one would have a Tai Chi class (no dice -- the only one is Tuesdays at 10 am, which is not really viable for me), went to the bookstore for a while, almost shot a feature on the UAB campus (would have, too, if not for the damned bureaucracy), and did a little huntin'-and-gatherin'.

And I'm apparently working a 2-10 shift tomorrow, so I won't be able to make it to the next meet-up of the local capoeristas, which I found through the internet god, Google. They meet late on Tuesdays, apparently, at a park about fifteen/twenty minutes from my place. But I've got assignments to look forward to: one on school construction and the other on a semi-pro football team. Even if they turn out to suck, I'm sure I'll learn something.

If I didn't learn something new every day, I'd be a depressed little bugger. Today I learned that though cockroaches can survive harsh environments and are generally resilient little bastards, they still don't stand a chance versus a standard-issue sink-based trash disposal ... don't ask ...