06 NOV 09 - I...HAVE INSTALLED BRAKES!

06 NOV 09 - I...HAVE FLUSHED COOLANT!

06 NOV 09 - I...HAVE CHANGED OIL!

05 NOV 09 - I HATE WAITING (Almost more than I HATE PILLS) - This is where I spent the middle of this week, and why I was not able to post any pictures for a couple of days. I was sent down to Walter Reed Army Medical Center for some medical follow-ups and evaluations from the surgery I had last year..at least that's what they tell you. What they failed to mention is that in reality, they sent me to Washington DC to wait; in different places, and at different times. An exercise in patience. THIS...is where I spent Thursday...right HERE...look at the sign..LOOK AT IT! I spent THURSDAY, in a waiting room...THURSDAY...all of it...WAITING!!!!! An entire day, just to be told, "Hmmmmm...looks good to me". Good thing I had my camera, right? Or else, who knows, I might've come away a lil peeved or bitter about the whole situation...Waiting Room-1, DJ-0

05 NOV 09 - MY KINDA HOSPITAL - THIS...is what health care should be all about. Finding out what's important to me and then providing treatment tailored to my needs. We had a good talk...she told me my lens cap was on. Fixed 70% of my symptoms right there...

02 NOV 09 - SCHOOL AT NIGHT - I'm cheating a little with this post...I didn't take it today. Today's Monday and I took this Friday. But I like it, so here it is.This is my school at night. I don't like my school very much anymore, I've been here way too long and it only seems to get progressively more and more restrictive with each passing day. LITERALLY. They ACTUALLY finds ways to make this place more miserable every week by fabricating some new policy or rule that makes no sense but I have to comply with. You see that big part of the building in the middle of the picture on the same level as the rest of the structure? It's where we eat. I also cannot take my bookbag in there. I won't run you through the gripe-filled scenario of what I'd have to do to make it to lunch on time without my book bag, but let's just skip forward to the part where you say "geez this guy is bitter." My acute "senioritis", or "Get-me-the-hell-outta-here's" is probably amplified by the fact that I'm going to be graduating a semester late (this December, unlike the rest of my classmates who marched off back in May). I often can't stand the sight of this place. Which to an outsider, might sound strange. I often forget how beautiful a setting this place can seem (to the untrained eye). To someone passing through, I could see how one could appreciate the the grandeur of the place. But like I said, I've been here for far too long and am itching to leave. So I'm in put-your-head-down-and-grind-it-out mode. That is to say, everyday I push myself, more like coax myself out of bed, to put one foot in front of the other, and to make it through another exercise in endurance here. Ground Hog's Day has nothing on this place. And yet, there are times, when I press pause on the Charlie brown moping montage that is me making my way to class to stop and look up. And sometimes, what I see, when it's not cold, gray and depressing or hazy and unreasonably muggy and hot, sometimes it's captivating. Sometimes I'm forced to take a brief break from the self pity party that is my last semester here. And during these pauses, my breath is taken away, and I remember what this place must look like to someone outside of here looking in, or visiting the grounds for a historic stroll. Normally, it feels like prison, but there are times when it's almost, kinda, maybe...I can't say it...I'll spell it: B-E-A-R-A-B-L-E. Man, I'm really all about complaining tonight aren't I?

02 NOV 09 - WHINE ALERT! - Here's a rare Debbie Downer moment for you...These are the pills that I will have to take everyday, probably for the rest of my life: WAH WAH. Of course, having to take these pills makes me realize just how much I truly hate taking pills. It's not that kid thing of not being able to swallow them, these things are tiny. I guess it's me despising my condition, which isn't anything serious anymore, don't let me fool you. But it is the type of condition that makes me reliant on pills like these. Pills that stave of the most annoying of deficiencies (TRUST me). I know I should be thankful, for what I've been through, I could've come out the other side a lot worse off than I am now, but I HATE pills. I hate the fact that if I plan to go anywhere, I have to pack these little anchors and make sure they're never too far from reach twice a day. You'd think I'd love them, after all they're the cure to what ails me I guess. At least temporarily, obviously. I think I hate them because now matter how many I take, in 10-12 hours I'm going to have to take 2-4 more. Everyday. Every night. without fail. Pills.

01 NOV 09 - Maggie & Max - Today I took my first ever stab at doing some engagement portraits. It was an absolute blast! After offering my services to a few couples around school immediately followed by a combination of poor weather and hectic/impossible to coordinate scheduling conflicts, we finally managed to get outside on this gorgeous fall day to shoot. I gotta say, as more and more time went by and as we canceled shoot after shoot, I began to give up on holding out hope for making this work, beyond that, I started get more and more nervous about the shoot, "what if I screw this up? Am I biting off more than I can chew here? What if we get out there and I just draw blanks on how to compose my subjects, arrange them against the available lighting, or setting them in accommodating backgrounds?" I had begun to get so nervous about today's shoot that I almost didn't want to do it anymore,these are, after all, important photos for a couple to have taken, and if you screw them up, they could be outraged. What's more, I just hadn't been feeling inspired lately. Well, this afternoon the weather cleared and it turned into what was probably going to be one of our last beautiful fall days here, at least before the trees lost all of their color and the days became too short. Around these parts, those are the sure fire signs that feet of snow are just around the bend, and it's hard to see the lady's ring when she's wearing two sets of gloves. So when Maggie called me today, I was a little apprehensive, but then I though "if I don't rise to this challenge, I'll be intimidated by special event photography for the rest of my photographic life." So I agreed to meet and head to a state park I had scouted out a week or so back. It turned out to be such an absolute blast and I'm so incredibly glad I agreed to shoot today. The couple was a pleasure to work with and made my first shoot so easy. I'll eventually create a gallery for them once I can get a decent number of them edited. Daniel: 1, Inward-cowardly-lion: 0.

31 OCT 09 - LEAVES AT NIGHT - I'd been meaning to get out of the room one of these nights to shoot some pictures. This was my favorite of the batch I took. I had been upset while out that just as I had decide to start snapping, the wind decided to pick up, but seeing it now, the wind added kind of a ghostly life to the picture....very appropriate for halloween I guess.

29 OCT 09 - HALLOWEEN DINNER - When I really think about it, it could take hours to explain this picture in its entirety. So for now, I'm not even gonna try. That's a little unfair, but it's late.