some girls wander by mistake.

this was my day yesterday.













full set here.

anticon | pdx

anticon was yesterday. i met the mayor. still one more santacon to go. the end.

finally.

oragami halloween ("horrorgami")


fueled on hummus, apples, cheese, wine, and brandy.

i'm having a really hard time missing these guys.



bathroom cat is still bathroom cat.

i need to write tonight so i'll work my way forward. i still haven't told you about colorado, which was only two weeks ago, and yet, feels like a lifetime ago.

my first day in colorado was in denver. i found denver reminiscent to cities i have seen before, though unnameable in specifics. sitting at a cafe under bright sun with k. and onward, waiting for jessica to pull up on her bike, felt distinctly like three other cities and no other cities, simultaneously. i saw as much as is reasonable for 24 hours in a city, which included the hipster bars in the baker district, the downtown, the shopping/commerce area, the beautiful beautiful denver musuem of art, a serenading man who sang to us terribly but with conviction.



in denver, i slept in the first tent of my life in the backyard of a house, next to a beautiful woman. i woke up for the first day in a long, long time without allergies. we had gorgeous brunch on a back patio, after which we drove about an hour north to loveland, a city whose name i have romanticized and it was beautiful enough to do so.

my first day in loveland was spent primarily as kitchen help for a 22-person dinner that was being planned. i helped make apple pies, and helped spice and chop and stir various other dishes we were to devour in just a few hours.

the dinner i wrote about, already. but this describes it well.


the following day i met up with a dear old friend, b., who moved to colorado from florida about 6 months before i left for oregon. we drove to estes park, ate pizza, rode past the historic/haunted stanley hotel, pointed out the twin owls.

remaining days in loveland are a blur of wonderful sensations. horse-back riding, an lj meet-up, experiencing ft. collins and the svetsville zoo, campfire breakfast of french toast and s'mores, racially unsound totem polls of indians, wine bottles that don't open by conventional methods, dog kisses, epic salads and intensely flavorful carrots, thrifting until i located a purple leopard print bathing suit, a subtle hike up near the devil's backbone, world famous cinnamon rolls.





at the farm i saw wild turkeys and was fearful at the prospect of bears. i watched a friend pick up a snake no larger than a really happy earth worm. i stood in the alfalfa fields with cows--who were full of such peace and grace and yet were so massively dense, i found myself briefly afraid--my hand outstretched revealed that, like dogs, cows just want to smell and lick you to see what you're all about.



seeing as wyoming was so close to loveland, we spent a few hours crossing the border to experience a glimmer of what annie proulx was on about. it was a tie between cheyenne or laramie, and cheyenne being closer, the capitol, and not a college town, won out. we joked about modern-day tumbleweeds rolling down the city's empty streets, even en route to the capitol building. the most noteworthy of what we experienced were giant cowboy boot sculptures (of which we found 2 of surely many more). the color palette of wyoming in yellows and grass greens, flat and dry, always looking south towards the beautiful lines and colors of colorado.



(full albums appear here for denver/ft., collins, loveland, and cheyenne.)

the temperatures are not dropping (why should they be plural? no idea; too hot to check CMS), and even after a shower i'm too warm to do anything but drink water and wait for it to cool so i can attempt to read/clean/sleep. feigning productivity, i've uploaded a ton of pictures to picasa and flickr.

since july:

bear in heaven | pdx

bear in heaven show at the doug fir. i got in for free because a very nice and lovely pink-haired lady got me in as her +1 as press, and used my photos on her blog.

eugene | or

we went to eugene for one day and saw ringo starr.

oaks park | pdx

i'm never too old to spend my birthday celebrating at "amusement parks" (see also enchanted forest from last year). a bunch of friends and i biked out to sellwood to enjoy oaks park for some skating and rides.

crater lake | or

on friday, i took james to crater lake. it was a surprise road trip and weekend getaway, which i'll hopefully write about more when i have time and am not 10938 degrees. i've also started loading my hipstamatic photos into the picasa albums, and (in some cases) they are my favorite shots.

bend | or

bend (but also crescent, oakridge, sisters, and wherever else we drove through), oregon.

we drove out early this morning, bound for crater lake (a 5ish-hour drive, not counting the scenic rim drive which is the entire point) and then backtracking a little up and over towards bend (a 3 hour drive given small towns with slow speed limits you must pass through). now that i no longer own a car, i have forgotten how much i love long drives, how road trips could be the subject of endless ruminations as far as i'm concerned: entries, photographs, poems, love letters. unfortunately, i am too tired for any real dissection of my love of the road, and maybe the underbelly of such unconditional love is that it taxes the spirit: my back and shoulders killing me, my eyes tired, my body dehydrated from too little water (to prevent excessive stops) and too much caffeine.

the entire trip was a surprise to/for james, which is not to say he particular demands or desires surprises, but i Love them, and am happy to orchestrate an event. a happy early birthday.

though i quit project 365 (with possibly a final few images forthcoming), today i took hundreds of photos on 3 different cameras: my DSLR (a fish eye might be the only way to capture all that is crater lake), a SLR film camera arisen from the dead, and my iphone using the hipstamatic app that i love and i keep forgetting to use as my default camera phone mechanism. i splurged and bought all the lenses, so every x pictures look drastically different.






we are here for 2 more days, relaxing in a house i rented that i wished i owned. the cheewaawaas are here, too, and they are the world's cutest travelers. sara has the house to herself, and just called to tell me that a gang of cyclists just biked by our house, and in unison on the count of five, shouted my name (???). if i were in portland this weekend there are about 10 things i'd be doing, but the landscape of central oregon beckons instead.

this week feels better already. i'm through the thick of the work stress, and my boss is hilarious and incredible, proving that not only does he 100% have my back, but that he's very aware that i've got a full plate right now and is actively trying to avoid burning me out. the good news is sundance will, essentially, be a working vacation, and i could very much use it.

i'm completely engaged with project 365 so far this year. i made a few subtle changes that were definitely for the best. namely:
-deleting the god-awful iphoto off my computers. i am now working with the picasa interface for uploads, with the occasional finder window for file management, and photoshop for manipulation. i have a copy of aperture that i can't get to work, which i suppose is a goal for later this year, but for now, this works.
-am shooting in RAW format, finally. i didn't realize what i was missing, but it's like unlocking a secret chamber full of marshmallows and unicorns. i'm so pleased with RAW images that i'm sacrificing quantity for the quality. i've also ordered some additional memory sticks so i don't have to actively delete while i'm shooting.
-my frame format is also working out nicely. i'm glad to not be restricted by the square format i used in 2008, and like the uniformity of the frame (a template i created in photoshop) between all images.

overall i feel that my photography skills are a constant work in progress, but i can see real improvement from just 2 years ago. hanging out with photographers has done me a lot of good. on that note, tonight is night-shooting with theamazingjosh, bjenright and ph0enixinflight.