Ah well...

I was on the Rutgers bandwagon all season too. So I can't be to upset that we lost. What sucks is how bad we lost.

BUT... Freshman QB, Freshman RB. We're back in the bowl club so we've got a lot to look forward too.

It was a fun game (other than the score) I'd guess about 65/35 purple/red in the stadium.

here are a couple shots from the before and after the game. I really don't like anything I got during the game.

The Stars at Night...

I'm deep in the heart of Texas now. A few hours before kickoff of the Texas Bowl.

We (the group of photographers I'm with) got here really early. The stadium is HUGE.

It's a standard procedure to take a self portrait on the field. So here you go.

Houston is crawling with purple. The huge Mall in town has K-State fans everywhere. I even managed to get onto the local NBC TV station's morning show. We were walking back to the hotel last night and were stopped by a TV camera guy. Being the KSU dork that I am, I ended up on TV doing a KSU chant with a bunch of other fans. check it out here

My segment is at about the 3:15 mark of the this clip... so fast forward unless you want to watch some local Houston news.

To quote my brother... "You looked like a moron"

I'll take a crown and coke with a splash of guilt

Tonight was the annual Courier newsroom Christmas Party. A pot-luck gathering of journalists where the conversation always turns to the big headlines of the past few weeks.

Included in the evening is a dirty Santa gift exchange, And each year I've been the one who brings the one gift that nobody wants to end up with. Two years ago it was bottled water, pop-tarts and film. Last year it was a crow bar and a traffic cone. I don't think I let anybody down this year with my package of diapers for cabbage patch kids and a book... "Barbra Bush, A Biography"

Yes, I'm "that" guy at the gift exchange.

One of the other gifts was a bottle Crown Royal. Of course, it was a hot item and was stolen multiple times. Started with Joel, stolen by Keith, Stolen by Mika then stolen by me. And that happened to be the end of the exchange. Jackpot! I walk in with a bag of fake diapers and Barbra Bush Book and leave with a bottle of Crown Royal.

I felt a little guilty about taking the bottle from Mika knowing how much she wanted it, but, like I said, "Don't hate the player, Hate the Game" Plus, she ended up with a gift card to Starbucks so it's not like she ended up with what Jeremy gave... stuffed animal and his 11th grade report card. (He got an A- in his Newspaper class)

On the Fence

Man, I've got a bunch of stuff to talk about. It's been a while since I've posted.

I guess lets start with a shameless plug. If you get a chance, go check out MSNBC year in pictures. And after watching the slide show, feel free to vote for your favorite lady bug photo of the year.

Last Friday, my brother John and his friend Audry passed through Houma on his way back to Kansas from Tampa. He got another fire truck and flew to Tampa to buy it and was driving it back home. It was a short visit but we had enough time to eat some crawfish for lunch. As I told John, it was a great little tease of family, but it's cool because all the Stamies plan to be down here for Mardi Gras.





The other photog at my newspaper is on vacation until Dec. 27. The second she gets back, I'm taking off for Houston to photograph KSU in the Texas Bowl. I'm meeting my boy Kelly and some of the other KSU student photographers.

Have a Merry Christmas and some happy holidays in case I don't get around to posting again before the 25th.

Lift the yellow tape, it's Domino's

Quite an afternoon today. A 24 year old dude decided to break into a house. Someone saw him, called the cops, the cops came and he decided to shot at them with a hand gun.

I stood about a block away from the house he was in. In the three hours I was there, I heard at least 4 gun shots. It was pretty crazy.

He gave him self up after a while and nobody was hurt. So that's good.

About half way though the standoff, a nice little lady drove up to the yellow tape (where I was standing) to deliver some pizza. Yes, SWAT team guys get hungry during a three hour standoff. I saw guys tossing bottles of water to each other (so they didn't have to walk in the "line of fire") but I don't know exactly how they got the pizza to each other. But seeing officers in full SWAT gear picking up pizza was pretty funny.

The reporter asked her if she had ever delivered to a SWAT team during standoff before. She hadn't.

I've photographed a few standoff's like this before, but this was the first one where I actually heard gun shots. I was far enough away and behind enough cars and trees and things that I felt pretty safe. But a bullet is a bullet.

I think journalism is the only profession where someone can be a block away from a crazy dude shooting at police one minute, and a high school basketball game the next. Who knows what I'll do tomorrow.

Stop what ya doing, cause I'm about to rouin, the image and the style that you're used to.

The night of unfortunate events: Dec. 8, 2006.

1:

Misty, Taylor and I were on our way to go check out some of the Christmas lights in the fancy neighborhoods, we piled into Misty's car, only to find out Misty had a flat tire. So we took my car instead. No biggie. Taylor decided she didn't want to go see Christmas lights and would rather go to Grandma and Grandpa's house. We drop her off and head out to get something to eat.

2: (probably the dumbest thing I've ever done)

As we left Misty's parents house, I grabbed a white plastic tie wrap thing to piddle around with. And for whatever reason, I put it around my middle finger and zipped it as tight as it could go.... completely forgetting that I couldn't un-zip it.



So, in the parking lot of Taco Bell, I used the wire cutters on a pair of pliers I had in my back seat to snip the plastic wrap thing.



3:

After eating, we went back to my house to fix the flat tire on Misty's car. I parked behind her to give some light. After putting on the spare tire, I got in my car to go park in the driveway... except i had killed my battery. Lesson: if using your headlights to light something, leave your engine running.

4:

Now I had a dead car, Misty gave me a quick jump and I parked in my driveway as Misty drove home.

I thought the worst was behind me...

5:

... Until I went inside, visited the restroom, and found out that we had no water pressure in the house. I grabbed a Kool-Aid pitcher type thing and did a bucket brigade from the sink to fill the thing. It finally flushed. It's all good now.

(No pictures of that.)

All those events happened after the annual Houma Christmas Parade through downtown. No problems from the parade. It's a Mardi Gras warm up it you will. Lots of floats, but instead of beads and toys, it's mostly candy that gets thrown. Misty and Taylor caught a duffel bag full of candy. I didn't contribute much because I ate most everything I caught.

Before the parade, we took a walk through Courthouse Square to look at the lights.



I think maybe the fun surrounding the parade made all those other events seem comical. A great start to my weekend of for sure.

I don't want my Wheaties, Give 'em to the needy, Feeling kind of greedy, I keep em for my self

I came home from work last night with plans to post about all this Serial Killer stuff that going on around here. But I'm getting sick of it already and didn't feel like working with the photos I've made in the past few days anymore.

But a quick rundown... Ronald Dominique was arrested on Friday for the killing of two guys. On Monday officials announced that he confessed to the killing of 21 more men. (23 total killings). It's not pretty what he did so I won't get into it. But I've spent a lot of time with the victims families the last few days.

Now then, onto some fun stuff... The Saints beat the 49ers on Sunday. Misty and I were there to shoot it. Misty even pulled of a great self portrait with Jimmy Buffett. (He sang the national anthem)

For the sports fans out there, I'm sure you heard that Reggie Bush tore it up with 4 touchdowns. And I didn't get a single picture of any of them. But I got some cool reaction from one of the TD's. And a 49ers dude tried to bring him down by his face mask one play.

Bush tried to run outside and turn up field, but this 49ers dude had other plans. I love these plays because their relatively slow, have lots of action, and I can get a bunch of photos from them. And I got lucky with the face mask.






and here's another shot I thought was fun... This dude had two interceptions, this was after his second.



Oh, and it's cold down here now. And by cold, I mean 35-55 degrees. But long sleeves for sure. I love it.