ran into michael hanson at random in new york. he saw us walking into the columbus circle entrance to central park. this is strange because i live in birmingham and he lives in seattle and we were both in new york. the only really we went down to the park is we had time to kill and steph hadn't been to new york before. small world, eh? so he immediately started hitting on my girl.

just kidding.

for the last two days i've been wearing my "i survived" the cyclone tshirt. i took photos ON the cyclone only to realize later that im an idiot and had left a roll in there that was already completed (which is to say, the shots i thought i got..i didnt). so instead here is a shot Of the cyclone with people riding it.

[ed]

alright, so a few words i guess are in order (at least according to me)

first i'll say i am hoping to get film back tomorrow though it may be wednesday. i hope to have lots of fun things therein. man.. i really cant explain just how awesome it is to get film back. its one of the many reasons i shoot film over digital. i get that question a fair amount actually..why film over digital. feel (as subjective as that is), texture, personal connection to the camera and subject, tone, consistency, the feeling of doing something Real..these are a few of the reasons i enjoy film. but secretly i think the biggest one is the nostalgic, glorious feeling inside getting back film from pretty much any occassion, comparable only to something like my voltron themed christmas or getting my first bike. very literally its like unwrapping something you aren't quite sure of, but you know there is a good chance of Awesome.

anyway...a few notes

i'll go back to Day 183. i accidentally let this milestone slip by and didn't even really pay attention to what image i posted that day. day 183 was the half way point for the electric lion project as it was originally planned. a year of photos. plenty of people have done it, fewer people have done it well..and i am halfway to one of those ends. i have enjoyed myself so far and am very grateful to steph for having encouraged me to start it (possibly accidentally) in the first place. i am looking very much forward to the second half of the year as i will be much more free to do things i want to...like go visit friends in oregon and hopefully travel to the some of the parts of europe i haven't seen yet. i really only have three things lined up between now and the end of the year which should leave me plenty of time to figure out who i want to work for, how i want to travel professionally, and where i want to go (and go and go and go).

it worked out well though that i posted that photo of taylor on day 183. its one of my favorites so far as i get to know my speed graphic. it manages to fit in with some photos i have taken of him which manage to show just a touch of how i feel listening to the great book of john.

okay so the next point of business is a touch of explaining about Strikeout™.

strikeout is a game my family has played only at the lake for as long as the lake has been an option, so as far back as any of us can remember. over time the property has changed (from a front yard for a mobile home thing, to the front yard of a house, to the front yard cut in half by a recently added porch) but it works out okay because the rules are even more amorphous than the playing field. ages ago it was kind of like baseball...you'd hit..you'd run...you'd score, etc. but every once in a while too many people would be on base and you'd have to have a ghost-runner and that was a slippery slope, especially in conjunction with construction and laziness, to make it a fairly sedentary game. but again that doesnt matter much because the REAL heart of the game is arguing. what constitutes a single...triple...homerun, an out, a strike..the ruling on a balk...can you walk?..did you swing?..all of these things are Very important and worth fighting to the death over. i realize now its a very Festivus-esque kind of game even though we've been playing since before seinfeld (though not before festivus..that goes back to 1966).

we have a lot of weird traditions in my family and strikeout is just one of many. and we start them young. day 150 was us teaching emma, not even 4 (i think?), how to play. her attention span is short now (spent 99% of the game inside the house asleep) but one day i hope she teethes her wit and cunning on the game of strikeout.

the pictures i posted recently were of our strikeout teams from this year. first posted was team one (named (this year anyway) the Space Monkeys (which is of course a whole other story in itself. have jamie tell you). it was allison (sister's roomie), emma, charles (aka the golden child), and my mom. team two (arbitrarily called the mudcats by summer) was my sister (cueball mcgill), summer (who loves new york), my uncle james (who loves...well..thats up for debate...look at his face), and me.

the shots were taken before the game but could have been an after-shot. the space monkeys won and we weren't happy about it. turns out allison is secretly amazing at strikeout. or my sister just pitches meatballs. your pick.

though everyone knows we lost, we could all debate reasons to reverse the decision. good thing we dont keep records nor keep the same teams every year.

yeah thats it.

placeholder. Look for a post about being half way done with electric lion

As well as a possible anecdote about family life things and a game called strikeout.

[ed]

strikeout team one

strikeout team two

i should note that i set up the shot, prepped everything, etc, but my mom technically pulled the trigger.

another place holder..but i'll be posting this final image at some point

[ed]

for the sake of getting on the road for the holidays i'll be doing a placeholder. i should get film in early next week which is exciting.

for now...happy holiday thing

[ed]

rob looking like a badass

yes, polaroids are immediate and easy...the perfect bridge while i wait on more film to come in.

taylor and jeanette

sister and granddad doing some beekeeping

its bad. shut up.

this is not a good photo. its an absurd photo. look at that huge damn ninja turtle.

ridiculous.

[ed]

so today gets a placeholder image, but its an awesome one.

SPOILER THINGY

this story may be long and if you want me to tell it to you in person, dont read on. alan, i imagine you'll want to hear it in person. john yam, if you read on you'll unfairly find out what you will eventually own.

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

if you dont care or only skim and missed the warning (and this chunk of text), read on.

that is my sister, stephanie, and myself riding the cyclone for the first (and last) time. the cyclone, for those out of the loop, is a wooden roller coaster built in 1927 on Coney Island in Brooklyn. it may look like its the most horrifying thing of all of time ever, especially a) given steph's dislike of rollercoasters (despite looking the calmest in this photo) and b) the looks of utter terror in the faces of my sister and me, but really it just hurts. as in, it is painful. the drops and curves are great by my standards (ie good belly-flips, distance, etc) but hot holy balls of shit its the most painful and rough ride i have ever witnessed. i was strapped in TIGHTLY and still got air at times which may sound funnish but really its like being tossed around with a box of boulders.

but...dammit...i've done the cyclone before they closed it down. i have the bruises, shirt, and photo to prove it.

fast forward to literally AS we were leaving the park. we ran back to the coney island arcade for steph to buy a thing for her sister (she missed her birthday coming to visit) and walking from the arcade to the train i saw from across the road the biggest damn ninja turtle you've ever seen. Ever. unless you've somehow seen a parade with an inflated on or a float or something. its plush, the height of my sister, and bigger in a few ways than i am. you'll see. so i point it out to my people and we go over there. i get sucked into the game by one of the dudes running it. the premise of the game is there are three pool balls and a little golf tee in the middle of the three and you have to move the tee completely out of circle surrounding the balls. simple. catch is you have to do it 10 times. if you miss, you have to match the pot (it starts at 2.50. if you miss, you give them another 2.50. if you miss again you add five. a classic exponential increase). i was in too deep before i figured out the squirrelliness and managed to go hook line and sinker after he offered me a "sweet deal". he said, after a few rounds of going for it (having completed 9 out of 10 tee-knocks) he said, first, he'd give me my last pot add back since i hadnt shot yet. i shouldve. i walked up to the thing and i think he knew i was about to take him on his deal because he said look take the shot and even if you miss i'll give you the turtle. for some reason i jumped. i took the shot. KNOWING it was bullshit. ignoring that if i took it and missed i paid a gagillion dollars for a stuff turd of a ninja turtle. granted i'd have paid half a gagillion dollars for Nothing had i bailed, but trust me...this is the most expensive damn turtle ever. and i certainly dont mean by its construction value.

its a big sham. if you wanna know why, ask me.

here, in a very rare instance of more-than-one-photo (not since day 3 of electric lion), here is me with the gigantic turtle, courtesy of my sister's phone, as well as one from my phone of my sister and her roomie with the thing on the train. it takes up far more room than a normal person on the subway car.

ps i took photos today with rollei and lomo. only all the lomo ones wont come out because im an idiot. sweet.

[ED]

this is denny the night before at my sister's party

more on this later. this is my sister on the day of her remission party. so happy shes happy