Well, my vacation to Kansas started great, but then went downhill... but it's alright now. Here's the rundown.
Friday: I had lunch with Misty (mom's spaghetti) and said goodbye. She thought I was leaving that evening. But nope, my flight was Saturday morning so I was able to go to the first night of the Voice of the Wetlands Festival... that Misty had been working on for the past few months. I suprised her at the festival that night.
Saturday: Thanks to Misty for driving me to the Airport REALLY early in the morning. Got into KC just fine. Went to my brothers new house. Had lunch at Arby's (not Hardee's). Drove back to Manhattan. Met up with Kelly and went to the Stadium to tail gate before the Colorado game.
The game was awesome. I saw some friends and family I haven't seen in a while and was able to sit with my mom. I've never done that before. We had a great time. Near the end of the third quarter, Colorado lined up to punt. I leaned over to mom and said "Five bucks if they block it." And sure enough.. they did, and recovered it for a touchdown. We both went crazy (well, the entire stadium went crazy, but I'm sure we went the most crazy). Kansas State won by 27
Here's a shot of the stadium before the game.
Sunday: I decided to be lazy and just watch some football in the TV room at my parents house. They have nice leather comfey chairs, HD TV and wireless internet. So I just kicked back and watched the games... and watched my Fantasy team.
Sunday evening my stomach started to act up... and that night things took a turn for the worse. I didn't sleep at all because my chrones decided to flare up. I finally dozed off for a few hours around 6 a.m.
Monday: My stomach still hurt... all day. I spent the entire day in the leather comfey chairs in pain. It was cool to be lazy and do nothing, but it sucked being sick. I called my Doctor in Houma and they hooked me up with some Steiroids. And they did the trick.
Tuesday: I woke up able to bench press 325lbs and then beat up my dog. Not really... but I did feel great. I played with my dog for a while, took a shower for the first time in two days, went to lunch and did some shopping.
Plans for the rest of the week include... A trip to Wichita so see Kelly and meet Lili, A visit with the grandparents and then the wedding festivities. (That's actually why I'm here, my brother John is getting married on Saturday)
How about them Cats! Knocking off Texas for the second year in a row. My fantasy football team sucked this week, I made a bad Jimmy C pick... but I could care less because I know all of Texas nation is still upset for losing to Kansas State.... Twice. I love it. Bring on KU!
And if you would please... just ignore my most recent run. It's pretty embarassing. It goes to show that eating is pretty important when it comes to working out on a regular basis.
I had a nice lunch and I even saved some of it to eat for dinner. But I got caught up at work and all I had to eat for dinner was a Red Bull and a Snickers.
Well, when it comes time to work out and all you have in your system is nothing, it makes it a little difficult to do anyhing... and you can plainly see by how quicly I dropped down to a near walking pace tonight.
I bet I looked a lot like these guys... I think I was most like Oliver.
Oh well, at least I did something.
And did anybody catch that Rockies vs San Diego game tonight? Holy Cow what a finish uh? And the dude who scored the game winning run didn't even touch home! I predict that we'll see instant replay in Major League Baseball soon. Maybe not next year, but that play will be talked about a bunch during the Playoffs and the off season. Some rule will be made or changed because of that play.
That's about all I know right now. No photo this time, haven't really shot anything interesting in a few days. I did start a new project about off-shore oil wokers. But I want to get a little deeper into the projcet before showing anything.
I worked out with Serena Williams tonight. Yep, I ran 2.88 miles with her in my ear the entire time. And she whooped me pretty good too.
iTunes sells these workouts for that Nike+ shoe thing I have. When you buy a workout, you get all the songs plus a coach type person telling you what to do and when to do it. They have all sorts of workouts. Yoga, treadmill, speed increase... etc. I got the Serena Williams Interval workout.
This work out is supposed to increase your overall speed and increase your endurance. You start off with a five minute warm up jog. Serena tells you at the start what's going to happen in the next 30 minutes. After five minutues she tells you go get moving and pick up the pace for 4 minutes. After 4 minutes you jog "not as slow as your warm up, but a steady pace." And you repeat that three times.
It's awesome because Serena chimes in about every two minutes to tell you something like "I want you to be turning heads with your speed right now." or "If I saw you running right now, would I be impressed?" or "Don't embarass yourself and slow down to much. You want to look good when you run. Remember, you're working out your mind as well as your body."
It works on my Fast-Twitch muscles to increase my speed. Quick lesson: You have two different types of muscles in you... Fast and Slow twitch. Fast twich are musles used in short bursts like a sprinter or baseball player. Whereas slow twitch are the long-term type muslses. Marathon runners for example. And depending on what you want or need, determans how you work each type of musle. A marathon runner needs to last longer than a sprinter. So they'll work out the Slow-twitch more than the Fast. (Thanks Mrs. Morgan and the Principals of Coaching class I took in college!)
So this work out helps build up those fast twich muscles that will bring my mile time down.
Here's the chart that shows what tonights workout looked like.
You can see how I started slow, got faster, slowed down, got faster... etc.
You've probably already noticed that I added that chart thing on the right column over there. That will show my last five work-outs and it will update everytime I update my runs. So check it out if you're interested in seeing how I'm doing.
And I'll leave you with a photo of a dog I met tonight. Coco is her name and she was the unoffical mascot of the YMCA Chiefs. A 7-11 year old flag football team I hung out with this evening.
GO CHIEFS!
(PS. The spell check didn't want to work tonight so just ignore all my mistakes.)
I got a little message from Lance Armstrong after I ran the other day. After I finished my run, I pushed stop on my iPod. The lady said my stats (time, distance, pace/mile) like she always does. But then Lance chimed in and said "Hi, this is Lance Armstrong. Congratulations, you just ran your fastest mile yet."
Ha! How cool is that!?
Then, the next day, I got another message from Lance telling me contratulations for running my farthest distance yet.
Thanks Lance!
I just finished my seventh run with the nike+ iPod deal. And it works out that i've been running every other day. Not to shabby. And I just found out I can share my last 5 runs with everybody. Below is my pace chart for my last five runs. It's shows my time and distance. So when the line drops, I slowed down, when the line goes up, I ran a little faster. Just click on the little black arrows to see the different runs.
My high school coach used to give us these charts after each race. They were a great tool to see how well we kept our pace during a run. A good runners line went straight across, or went up. (Stayed the same speed, or sped up) Mine pretty much went straight down. The charts were on these half sheets of paper with a grid of time intervals on them. He'd use a highlighter to draw a line from the half-mile, mile, mile and half... etc points. It wasn't until my senior year that I had a three-mile time that existed on that chart. Yea, I was pretty slow.
Anyway, I'm feel like a million bucks and misty said I was dissapearing. So that's good.
Right now, I'm 2/3 the way through a football weekend trifecta. After Monday night, I'll have shot three levels of football. Friday night I shot Vandebilt beat Holy Cross. Saturday I shot LSU beat South Carolina and Monday, I'm shooting the Saints versus Titans game in the Dome.
I had a couple of these trifectas last year, and one when I worked in Topeka. Makes for a long, but fun weekend. And if the Saint win, All three home teams will have won.
The High School game this week was pretty uneventful. Pretty average game. Vandebilt won big in a game that was supposed to be close. One funny thing happened during this game though... During the thrid quarter at Vandebilt games, the announcer dude will say something along the lines of... "It happend today, but read about it tomorrow in the Houma Courier. Vandebilt welcomes (insert sports writers name) to the stadium." No love for the photographer. None. This week however, one of the parent photogs on the sideline noticed that they didn't say my name and said "That's an outrage, I'll take care of that... Hey Bill! Come over here!" (not sure of the guys name, so I just used Bill)
Oh Geeze... really, it's not that big of a deal I told him. But he introduced me to Bill who's an administrator a the school. The photog told Bill what was up and Bill said "Well, that's crazy, I'll take care of that for you."
I just laughed and said "it's really not that big of a deal."
So we'll see what happens next Vandebilt game.
Saturday morning, I woke up and started to get ready for the LSU game. Misty was coming over at 9:30 and were were going to head to Baton Rouge. That sub-tropical whatever storm thing was supposed to dump some rain on us during the day so I packed a little bag with my rain gear (for both me and my cameras)
Misty was right on time, we loaded everything into her new car (A silver Dodge Magnum) and took off. We finally found a parking space after sitting in non-moving traffic forever. I was already frustrated because of the traffic and having to park a mile away, but we had plenty of time. I grabbed everything then noticed that I had forgot my little bag with all my rain gear.
Just Awesome... Fricken Awesome.
I won't say what I did or said for the next few minutes, If you really want to know, misty might tell you. But I wont.
But Misty had some trashbags and I had tape and rubber bands, so at least I could protect my camera gear. I could handle getting wet, but I have to protect my cameras.
During the walk to the stadium, Misty lost her Debit card and Drivers liscense. So I felt like a total bafoon for getting so upset for leaving something at home.
So I got a little wet... ok, a lot wet... but my cameras were dry, I made some nice pictures and Misty and I even got a little face time on CBS.
Here's Misty and I mid 1st quarter when a play went out of bounds a few feet from Misty. She's in the bottom center in black. I'm in white on the left.
And here's me and the South Carolina punter late in the second quarter.
I haven't looked at the second half yet. I was on the other side of the field for the second half and Misty stayed on that side. SO I'm sure there are a couple more Misty sightings.
Here are a few other shots from the game. A pass break up in the second half. A celebration after a fake field goal for a touchdown by #6. And a diving touchdown.
If you read Sports Illustrated, you've seen the "by the numbers" section. So this post will be a random list of numbers that have something to do with me.
In no particular order...
3.06 Miles I ran tonight. 33:20 Minutes and seconds it took me to run the 3.06 miles tonight. Little embarrassed about that, but that time will come down soon enough.
10:58 My average mile time during tonight's run. Even more embarrassed about this time. But like I said, that time will come down.
(The above numbers were figured out via my iPod. I hooked myself up with the Nike+ running thing... and tonight was my first night to try it out)
3.70 The most miles I've run on one night. Did that last week after taking a wrong turn in some neighborhood near my house.
6 Challenges I've joined on nikeplus.com. I'm competing against other runners all over the world. Challenges include: Fastest 5k run for beginners, Most miles run in a month for beginners, Big XII team challenge-Team with most miles at end of season wins (Kansas State is currently in 8th place), NFL team challenge - Same as Big XII challenge except I'm a member of the Saints team, United States Challenge - I'm on the 47th place Louisiana team.
40 Miles I've got to run in 4 weeks to reach the goal I set.
2 Drivers who have stopped me to tell me something during one of my runs. The first came a couple weeks ago when I was running a timed half-mile by playing a song that was exactly 4:30 long. I try to finish the half-mile before the song ends. (Welcome to the Jungle by Guns in Roses, Limelight by Rush and Walking by Widespread Panic are all 4:30 long)
A lady pulled up beside me and said something. All I heard was "blah blah blah blah terriers" My first thought was she was a Vandebilt fan since their mascot is the Terriers. So i took my head phones out and said "WHAT?!" And she replied "blah blah blah blah Terriers" I still didn't understand what she said, so I again asked "WHAT?!" And she replied "Oh, I guess not because if you had, they'd be nipping at your heels right now." And she drove off.
I missed finishing the half-mile run by about 5 seconds because of her.
The second random driver encounter came last Friday when i was running around 4:00 p.m. That was the only time I'd be able to run that day because I was shooting a football game, then Misty and I were driving to Auburn that night.
So about a half mile in, this guy waves out his window for me to come over. As I get closer he yells "Early in the Morning or late and night!" And I thought he was going to fuss me for not running on the sidewalk and that if was going to run on the road it should be early morning or late night. Before I could say anything he said "You're metabolism is higher Early in the Morning or Late at night, those are the best times to run. It's too god damn hot right now to be running anyway." I told him "I have to work tonight." And as he's driving off he yells out his window "I admire... the Determination!"
2 Dogs not on a leash who have chased me while running. I ran towards a car to hop on the roof but finally just turned around, clapped really loud and yelled "HEY!" they both stopped and went back to their house. I won't be running down that street again. One of the dogs I probably could have just stepped on, but the other one was pretty big.
2x The amount of laundry I have since starting to run.
1 Times Kansas State should have beaten Auburn this season.
3 Photographers who will be working at the Courier by the end of the week. Me, the new staff photog Emily and an intern, Cole who starts on Thursday.
1 Photographers who worked at the Courier 2 weeks ago. Me.
0 Jimmy C games I'll pick correctly if I continue on my current path. (My buddy Jeremy has a "pick-em" contest where we pick a college football game each week. I'm 0-2 so far this year)
16 Games the Saints and Chiefs will lose this year if they play like they did in week 1.
26 Fantasy Football Points Eli Manning got for Ben's Bench this week. Had he put Eli in his lineup, he would have beat me. Bummer man.
3 Really cool dogs I played with while I was waiting to take a picture of a guy named Ace this afternoon. Ace, a race car driver, went inside to get some trophies so I could take his portrait next to his race car, so I played with these three dogs for about 5 minutes. The one with his mouth open was jealous that I was playing with the other two. So he came over and started making a howling/whining nose. So he's not barking here, just making a "play with me" noise instead.
Friday Night: Left Houma around midnight and headed towards Auburn Alabama for the KSU vs AU game. Made it it Mobile around 3:00 a.m. Crashed in cheap hotel.
Saturday Morning: Drove the rest of the way into Auburn.
Saturday Afternoon: Found a free parking spot about a mile from the stadium. Perfect! hiked through what seemed like every greek house on campus. We talked with some Auburn fans and learned what War Eagle! means. Something about a Civil War soldier rescuing an Eagle during some battle. A nice group of Auburn fans hooked us up with a couple chicken sandwiches and some brownies.
Here's a shot of me doing the Wabash outside the stadium while listening to the song on my phone.
Side Note: The Auburn fans were great. I must have heard "Welcome to Auburn" about a hundred times. And the AU fans that I talked to said the same about KSU fans.
Saturday Evening: I ran into a High School buddy of mine before the game. We were standing by the concession stand and Misty said "Ha... look at that jersey. It says Fat Damon" And with out looking I knew exactly who she was talking about. Damon Parker. It was cool to see him, and it turned out that we were sitting a few seats away from each other.
The game was awesome... Except for the last 3 minutes. But I'm not too disappointed, if we can hang with Auburn on the road, we can hang with anybody. I'm still sore from clapping, yelling, jumping and all that stuff fans get to do at games. (I'm usually on the sidelines shooting, so it was fun to get crazy)
Us at the game.... We were 53 rows up in the corner with a bunch of other KSU fans.
Saturday Night: Left the game and drove an hour to Montgomery. We checked with every hotel they had... No Vacancy anywhere. One guy suggested we drive about 15 more minutes off our path and check there. Jackpot. We got a nice room, for pretty cheap, and were only about 10 miles out of our way.
Sunday Morning: Slept in a little past checkout time. Oops.
Sunday Afternoon: Ate at a Hardees' I had two hot ham and cheese sandwiches. I love those things and I can't get them anywhere around here.
Me and one of my Hot Ham and Cheese sandwiches.
Next to the Hardees' was a Bass Pro Shop. A huge outdoors store. We spent three hours in there. We got electric bug zappers. They look like small tennis rackets, but when you push a button, the "net" becomes charged and you can zap bugs. Really cool.
The fishing gear at the Bass Pro Shop.
After the Bass Pro Shop, we hit up a Target for a bathroom and some snacks. Misty craved some Cereal so she got a little thing of milk, a spoon and fork set (for a spoon) and a little tub of Pops and sat outside Target to eat. We didn't want to risk eating milk and cereal in a moving car. She also found a singing tooth brush for Taylor. The brush plays a song for the length of time you're supposed to brush. I wanted her to get Queen "We Will Rock You." But she got Hannah Montana instead.
Sunday Night: We drove about three hours from Montgomery to Biloxi Miss. and found a room across from the beach. Then we hit up a couple casinos. I think I only lost about 5 bucks. I was down about 60 then I hit a nice jackpot on the penny slots and won 55 bucks. I called it quits right after that. We left the casino and hung out on the beach for a little bit. Didn't swim, just chilled in the sand for a while.
Here's a shot of a nice spin by Misty... $48.50 spin to be exact. Those coyotes are all "Wild" so that's an amazing spin right there.
And here's a shot of me in front of the Hard Rock casino. The blue light was pretty cool... I look like I'm about to kill someone. This place easily had the best music of any casino I've been too.
Side Note: Biloxi is a mess. The casinos and a few hotels are up and running, but everything else is still pretty much destroyed. I put it like this... If you had no idea that Katrina happened and you drove to Biloxi you'd say "what just happened here?" I've never been there so it was hard for me to compare, but from what Misty told me and what I could see, the main strip along the beach used to be a hopping place. Shops, restaurants, hotels... etc. And now there's nothing. A hotel or two, maybe one souvenir shop and the only place to eat I saw was a Waffle House.
Monday Afternoon: (No Monday Morning because we slept through it all) We got something to eat and hit the road. About 15 minutes later we see one of those Factory Outlet mall things. We checked out the Nike Store.
Monday Evening: We get back into Houma around 9:00. Misty went to give Taylor the Musical Toothbrush, I went home to unpack. But, as we found out through texts, the first thing we both did after getting home was play with our bug zappers.
I shot the first high school football scrimmage of the year this afternoon... and got soaked. But my camera stayed dry. It never fails, if I get totally decked out in all my rain gear, nothing happens. But when I go half-assed, it pours. I got the camera and lens protected with a new "camera rain coat" I got a few months ago, and I put my rain coat on. But I decided against the rain pants. And you guessed it, my pants got soaked.
No big deal, I always tell people that I'll dry off, but it's harder for 10 grand worth of camera equipment to dry off. So in the rain, camera gear comes first.
I guess the rain was what's leftover from Tropical Storm Erin.
Today also makes three days in a row I've been running. I went out and got one of those arm band things that holds an iPod. Now I can listen to music instead of myself breathing hard. It really helps me run because it takes my mind off how tired and out of shape I am. I listen to quite the mix too... everything from The Cranberries to 50-Cent to Guns-n-Roses to Insane Clown Posse to the KSU Fight Song.
anyway, here's a shot I took today at the scrimmage. Hey, it worked, and when you're nine, you don't really care that your umbrella looks like this.
Well, over a month of work all came together Friday night during the opening reception for my Faces of Katrina Gallery. It was pretty neat to see everything displayed in one place.
I'd guess that about 30 people showed up, but I'm the worst at guessing the amount of people in an area.
About an hour before the start of the show, I ran to the store and picked up some treats to eat. Including: Cheese cubes, Squeeze Cheese, Tiny Cheeseburgers, crackers, soft batch chocolate chip cookies, a veggie tray and Three Blind Moose red wine. (the label looked really cool).
People started to show up around 6.
After about an hour of hanging out and chatting with everybody, I played the DVD I made. A few people told me after the video that they were fighting back tears. I took that as a good thing.
Here are a few shots taken by Valerie Parkhill (friend of Misty's). I gave her my point and shoot camera for the night and let her document everything. Misty also took some shots and they can be seen here. So thanks to Val and Misty for taking photos of the evening.
Here's a shot of the outside of the Museum. It's also a museum about Terrebonne Parish. They have stuff about everything that goes on in Terrebonne Parish. Alligators, Oil, Shrimping, Crabbing, Oysters, Hurricanes... etc. But they have a section of the building open to Art Galleries. That's where my stuff was.
Left to Right: Chris Forrest, Keith Magill, Me, Miles Forest.
Miles is the Publisher of the Courier and Comet. (My bosses bosses boss) and that's his wife talking with Keith, the Executive Editor of The Courier and Comet. (My bosses boss).
A highlight of the evening is when Miles said to me "Wow Matt, I really liked how they set everything up. The frames look good, they're hung very nicely. The video looked good and the food... The Museum did a good job."
"I did all that Miles. I did everything. They just gave me the space to do it"
Then a few minutes later Keith asked "Hey Matt, who did your writing for the video? Because what you said was very well written."
"I did all that Keith, I just talked into the camera about what I did during the storm."
"Did you have a giant poster behind the camera and you read what was on the poster?"
"Nope, I just talked."
I can do more than just take pictures.
Here's the setup of the Gallery. The table of food was right in the middle. The TV that shows the DVD is in the back and the prints are on the walls. There were 21 prints of the Faces, and 18 prints of other photos from Katrina. (I have 21 prints of other stuff... but I bought Hobby Lobby out of 8x10 frames)
I couldn't have hoped for anything better. It was a great night. Misty's dad took some video, and maybe someday I'll get around to posting that.
The ladies who gave me the opportunity to display my work asked if my video could become a permanent piece in the museum. And they want to help this show travel to other museums in the Region.
It's always been a dream of mine to have my own show where people show up, drink wine, eat cheese and talk about whatever. And that's exactly what happened. Soon after shooting these photos in 2005, I was told "these photos are gallery quality." I guess Susan Kille in New York was right.
Pretty wild three days... even for a photojournalist at a daily newspaper... in South Louisiana.
Quick Rundown.
Tuesday:
-First Day of School (got to school at 6:30 a.m.)
-House Fire (claimed the lives of two poodles.)
-Car Wreck (I had a REALLY interesting journalism ethics situations rise from this... but that will be it's own post in the future.)
Night Out Against Crime (Neighbors marched through the streets... I soaked an entire shirt with sweat)
Wednesday:
Went down the Bayou to photograph oak trees cracking tombs in a cemetery
Fatal Wreck... Truck vs Cop Car (Had another interesting journalism ethics situation come from this)
Murder in Bayou Blue (Get eaten up by mosquitoes while photographing a trailer where the woman lived and talking with neighbors)
Thursday: (My day off because it was my three year anniversary of my first day at The Courier)
Huge house fire in Dularge. (I think it's safe to say that it's the largest fire I've seen)
And of course Friday is the opening of my Faces of Katrina Gallery. When I wasn't at the house fire on Thursday, I was at the Museum hanging photos. Big thanks to Misty for helping out with that. She has a better eye for seeing if the frames are in line.
Anyway, here are a couple photos from the Cop Car crash and the Dularge House Fire. I've also put photo galleries on The Couriers website. One from the First Day of School, the Cop Car crash and the Dularge House Fire.
First the Cop Car crash. The passenger in the truck died... wasn't wearing a seat belt. The drivers in both vehicles were wearing seat belts. They both had mild injuries. I'll let you make the connection there.
Now the huge house fire. Nobody was injured. A few firemen were treated for heat, but are just fine. Oh, the heat index at the time of the fire was about 110. Nasty.
.... And that's watching the Saints play the Bills in the Superdome.
Why?
Because you're going to be at the opening reception for my Faces of Katrina photo gallery at the Terrebonne Waterlife Museum from 6 p.m to 8 p.m. Duh.
But if football is more your thing, that's cool. The show will be up all month.
It's crunch time for me right now to get everything finished. But it's coming along smoothly. And by smoothly I mean spending any second of free time to work on this gallery. I've only taken breaks for work, eat, sleep and watching Bonds whenever he's up to bat.
The museum is supposed to be mailing out post cards to help spread the word. But I haven't seen anything yet.
I've got 42 images I need to get framed... and right now I'm nine frames short. But the Manager at Hobby Lobby said the frames I need will be re-stocked Friday evening. (I purchased all they had in stock last week.... they were on sale)
And I'm working on a DVD that will be played in the back of the gallery. It's a quick video type thing of me talking about how I covered the storm and all that good stuff.
But the reception should be pretty cool. I get to serve food and drinks. Any suggestions on what to serve at something like this are welcome.
There really isn't much else to report. No cool photos really. So this post will be photo-less.
I'm from Kansas, but live in South Louisiana now. I'm the Chief Photographer at The Houma Courier, a New York Times owned daily newspaper.
I graduated from Kansas State University in 2003 with a BS in Print Journalism.
