A portrait of my friend Nicole
Home again for the weekend, and this time my girlfriend is off in Nevada at the Talent Quest national competition. She sings for the final five tonight, so here’s hoping for the best. Meanwhile, I’ve had an absolutely unprecedented amount of free time the last couple of days, so I’ve been up to an awfully lot more lazing about and television watching than usual, along with the occasional bit of something interesting or productive.
The Danie in front of a backdrop
Came home for the weekend again Friday, and went straight from class at UCF, to pick Danie up and eat dinner at USF, to Ellenton to take her to band practice, and finally back home to Bradenton. Needless to say, I was happy to finally get home. Then we did the usual Friday night karaoke, and this morning I finally got a haircut…for the first time in five or six months. Then we went to a cousin’s birthday party, and came home, where I resolved to finally photograph the Danie in front of a roll of seamless paper.
Director and lead actor
Now I’m in the middle of a four-day weekend, thanks to a skipped Friday and Labor Day on Monday. Friday was my girlfriend and I’s 2.5th anniversary, so I went ahead and took the day off of school and came home Thursday. That night we surprised the folks at our small group by showing up on a Thursday, and ended up playing a ridiculous game of cranium. I maintain that my drawing of the grand canyon (with accompanying donkey) was truly exceptional, but apparently the others beg to differ. Then we did Thursday karaoke for a change, and then I actually got to sleep in on a Friday.
Last week was the first week of the Fall semester, and it turned out to be quite the week. I’ve found that Physics is going to be astoundingly boring—I’m more or less retaking AP physics with a tiny bit of calculus thrown in—Tech Writing is going to be monotonous, Computer Science II is going to be alright (but time consuming), and Discrete Structures II is going to be pretty insanely hard. On the bright side, I did get some cooler room mates, albeit in a farther-from-everything-else-on-campus room, but enough about that.
My girlfriend is going to USF next week, and so we’ve been working on getting her cat to move into my house, since my family will be around with her more on weekdays. The last couple of weeks we’ve brought her over a couple of times, to get her used to my cat and the house, and today’s visit turned out…interestingly. Lets just say that it was less than completely pleasant.
John behind the RED One
All sorts of fun things happening lately. Today I went and hung out with my friend John, while he was trying out the RED One camera for his next film…and it was a beast. I made some behind-the-scenes sorts of photos of the production folks testing it out, and of course ogled the thing plenty myself. Lately I’ve also gotten the chance to shoot some video, and found that laser tag can be thoroughly amusing.
One of the nurses (actually posing for a photo) with a patient
Today my church participated in an event for migrant workers and their children at the Good Samaritan Mission out in Wimauma. They had food and some variety of medical care (looked like vaccinations, I think) for the parents, and school supplies, popcorn, cotton candy, and all sorts of festivities for the children. There was face-painting, hair-cutting, magic shows, balloon animals, and all manner of fun. I think they even tried to have a soccer game, but the sun was brutal, and that didn’t last for very long.
My sister, Steffi
So this is definitely going to be the weekend of photographs. Thursday, my sister needed a portrait to print to go try out for modelling. So I set up some lights under the carport, metered, and shot away. I ended up with a shot I was happy with, and went off to print it. Last time I went for a print, I found out that the Wolf Camera I usually use for quick prints (on Manatee Ave.) had closed, and had to drive out to the one on US 41 to get prints made. This time I went out to the US 41 store to find that it, too, has closed its doors. Apparently, charging obscene markup in an economic downturn isn’t a viable business plan. Go figure.
John switching video at church
I’ve been back in Bradenton for a half a week now, and it’s been great to be back. The jet lag was pretty annoying at first, but I’m finally getting used to my usual home schedule again (albeit with slightly earlier mornings) and getting back to the usual home life. Today I got back to church, and took a couple shots of the video switching setup with some quick lighting.
Today I finally made it home. Got up at 02:00 Newfoundland time, or half past midnight here. Had breakfast, packed, got on a plane. Got off in Toronto, got on another one and came to Tampa. Now I’m back in Bradenton, and got to see family and such again. Even got to eat at Taco Bell again (not a single one in Newfoundland). Now I just have to try and catch up on sleep: starting to feel the jet lag pretty bad…