Buy One Anyway – video

I know the video originally came from SlateV.com, and I really wish I could give the direct link to it, but I did not see a way to search their site… so, I am posting this alternative, but really, really want to make sure that you understand who made the video about newspapers in the modern world.

The title: Buy one Anyway

Funny, but oh so sad…..

I can give a new home to your old, unloved camera

It is always interesting how in life things don’t work out as nice and neat as planned. My courses, which were originally intended to be mostly newspaper writing, have changed into only one newspaper class and one yearbook class (34 students) and four more digital darkroom classes. That puts me at more than 150 students and only three little point and shoot digital cameras to let the students use. Now, the cameras (Nikon Coolpix 3200 models) are plenty in terms of resolution and will be sufficient for basic skills with shooting and then editing – but I need MORE. I simply cannot rotate three cameras to 150 students to do assignments with.

If you have ANY type of working digital camera – even something as small as one of these 3-megapixel units – and could see your way clear to donate them to the yearbook and journalism program at my high school I and my students would be immensely indebted to you.

Contact me through this blog – or you can send the camera(s) to the school at:

Miyamura High School

680 S. Boardman Avenue

Journalism department – Room B29

Gallup, NM 87301

Attn: Jeff Jones

Again, I cannot tell you how much you would be helping my program through your donation…

Finger painting – modern version

One of the photographers/members of Sportsshooter.com pointed this article out to me and I liked it so much I wanted to share it.  Here is the situation.  You look over and some random guy is checking his Email using his spiffy new iPhone.  Then, after carefully watching him you realize he is not checking messages.  Instead he is painting!  One of the artists that works for The New Yorker has taken to using an iPhone app that allows him to fingerpaint.

The article not only explains it, but at the bottom is a little movie viewer that allows you to watch the progress of the illustration as a time-lapse style video.

Neat stuff.

A photographer I just started watching

In my haste to depart from newspapers I abandoned tracking other photographers and looking for those whose work I like.  Now that I am on Facebook and gearing up to be teaching Yearbook (and therefore photography) I am spending a few minutes here and there looking at work of other photographers – esp. photojournalists.

Here’s one I like and recommend you take a peak at:  Scott Strazzante.  His blog is neat, definitely photo driven, and very easy to read in short gulps instead of marathon sittings.

Check him out, eh?

Sunset skies

The skies this evening had a lot of clouds and nice light, but we should be seeing rain in the evenings, not just clouds.  Our monsoon season is way behind this year.

Not to complain though – as it makes some nice pix.  Both images are shot with my D200 and a Sigma 28-300mm lens that I am still on hte fence about liking or not.  It has a really great Macro range, but I would have preferred the lens to have Vibration reduction/Image stabilization/hold still setting.   At 300mm this lens is hard to keep stable – it’s not balanced and heavy enough I guess.  I feel silly using a monopod for such a small lens, but I think it helps.

I hate being sick . . . (mildly graphic)

. . . especially when it is a weird combination of things.  Sunday-Tuesday we trekked across Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Oklahomah, Texas and New Mexico – in the summer sun and a car with non-fuinctioning air conditioning.  So when I started to feel achy and lousy Wednesday afternoon and was having trouble focusing a coherent thought I concluded it must be dehydration.  Then came the dry heaves and all day Thursday I existed as if in a stand-by mode.

Thursday night I completely drenched myself, the sheets and even my pillow alternating between sweats and extreme chills.  I felt markedly better on Friday and could even eat a little bit.

Now we come to Saturday.  My coordination is off, I have bad tremors and my right leg if a swollen mass of red.  It is like an allergic reaction to something, but it goes from my ankle (a straight line across where my sock top was) to about 4/5 of the way to my knee cap.  The front is red, the back of the leg near the ankle and below the main calf muscle is purple.

What in the hell is causing this???  An after effect of sitting in the car for so long over the past several days?

I will likely have to see a doctor the beginning of the week, but since we don’t have day care until the school year begins I am not sure what arrangements I need to make.

for Nicole

Words I wrote this afternoon:

The golden band on your finger
Would you say yes if you knew then
The things I would say and do wrong,
The hurt, the pain, the where and when

Beautiful as ever, yet
Your soul is looking tired
I keep forgetting to care for
The only woman I admire.

Too many times with no reason
Selfishness and no defense
I worry only about my own thrills
Forgetting sometimes you need a rest

So often I don’t show it
The way I desperately need
Your strength and your friendship
When my mistakes make me bleed.

Pain I never meant to cause
Doesn’t sting any less
I can only say I am sorry
And hope that your heart still holds
Forgiveness.

The golden band means forever
Oh, but if you only knew
The things from me, unthinking
Until you wonder if it is still true

Words spoken in the past, distant
We really meant our vows.
Couldn’t see the future
Needed you then, need you now.

I can only say I’m sorry
And hope you still possess
The knowledge that I love you still
And you still offer forgiveness.

You’re the perfect woman
Even when I don’t see
All the love that you keep giving
To a man as ungrateful as me.

Civilization’s decline

I have not been watching a lot of local news for a long time. Today I decided to turn on the 5 pm broadcast, and it churned my stomach. The leading story was an 89-year old man ran over a woman out for a walk with her three children. The woman is out of the hospital, but her two-month old baby that was in her arms as she was walking, died several hours later at the hospital. The man was driving with an expired license and has no recollection of anything.

Why do so many people insist on treating driving like a casual thing that is no big deal?

Another story was about a high school boy getting a year in a juvenile detention center for his involvement in hazing younger students on the football team – by sodomizing them with broom sticks.

Last night I left the TV on the SPIKE channel as I was playing a computer game, and a show called Manswers came on. They had segments of supposedly scientific answers to questions men have. Things like how long can a person survive on a diet of beer and water, what are six ways to help you spot an undercover narcotics officer when you are trying to buy drugs, and then what animal has genitalia most like a human woman’s? During the segment they threw out a statistic (from who knows where – they claim is what a report from Dr. Kinsey back in the 60s) that said 40% of rural teens had some type of sexual encounter with an animal . . . So, I have to ask: why is this appropriate to put on television?

The decline of Western civilization continues. Television shows that consistently air the words “g**-damn” but bleep out “shit”. So, it is worse to talk about human excrement than to take the lord’s name in vain?

Fast forward to this afternoon and I am walking through the parking lot of Wal-Mart and on the front plate of one of the vehicles I see the following:
“I am only nice to one person each day, and today is not your F***IN’ day.”
The emphasis is not mine, but exactly what was written on the plate. The whole thing was written in small text that was hard to read easily from 20 feet away, but the profanity was plain as day.

So, what preceded the fall of the Roman Empire?  Emblems of cartoon figures peeing on things and flipping the bird?  Whatever, it makes me very afraid for people growing up in this world.  Even without the whole values issue, how about the new today that for the first time in history the national deficit is now $1 trillion.

Glued to my screen

I cannot believe how much time I am putting in at my computer.  So you are wondering if you can see the results – maybe I have been writing, or editing a major photo project. . . ?  No, I have been sorting through thousands of images that I can delete.  For 2008 I have over 45k images still on my one drive.   A lot of that number consists of junk.  Basketball games where I hit the motor drive for an action sequence.  I got the shot, and then a bunch of extra stuff too.  All of those can be dumped.  All of the images I just dumped into the drive that were things like ads for used cars and furniture.  Lots of things need to be eliminated.  The rest needed to be keyworded and flagged so I can find them later on.

Right now my photo hard-drive is like the old shoe box full of negatives.  In addition to the stuff from The Independent, I also have my own personal work and my family images to organize.  It is amazing how quickly it packs up and gets away from somebody when shooting five or six days a week for more than 14 years.  I don’t even want to begin trying to figure out what to do with my negatives and slides.

Laser Burn

I just saw something that is way scary.  Either it is an expensive gimmick and does not work, or it does work and somebody is going to get carried away with it.

I was checking in to my facebook page (just joined it last week) and on the right side of the screen was a group of suggested friends, followed by an advertisement.  The ad is for a “Personal home Laser Liposuction System.” Out of morbid curiosity I clicked on the link.  From what I could figure out from their site, the laser is a cold laser that ruptures your fat cells and your lymphatic system then flushes them out of your body.

Here’s the interesting thing – the two photos on the top of the page – first shows a large stomach from a 3/4 view.  Next to it, the “after” photo shows a slimmer tummy, but there is no belly-button anymore!!!  Run for your lives!  This thing will destroy your belly-button!

I can just see it now – a fed-up wife is going to approach her unsuspecting husband and zap him in the head for an hour or two (because he is so thick headed) and he’ll end up believing that he really is Foghorn Leghorn or some such nonsense.  In reality though, it will probably be an item that does what it says, but gives you brain cancer at the same time.

Just last night I saw a lawyer advertisement that is looking for people to sue the makers of the diet pill Hydroxy-cut.  We (and I am definitely referring to myself more  than anyone) have become a society of consumers who go for the quick fix and don’t want to do the real, hard work.  You know, pesky things like eating properly and exercising.

If I seem a bit surly and anti-social over the coming days it is because I am starting to do just that.  Diet, exercise and stop drinking caffeine. . .  It is the latter that will be the toughest.