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.

Caption Contest #3

But first, I'll tell you about the caption contest #2



It was at a volleyball game during a time-out. One of the cheerleaders did some flips across the floor, when she got to the sideline, she stopped flipping and yelled at the crowd. In the meantime, another cheerleader did some flips and crashed right into the first girl. I'm kicking myself b/c I had my camera up and ready but for whatever reason put it down. But I saw the collision right before impact and just pointed my camera in the direction and this is what I got. (the blurry blob in the front is the collision, I was focused on the back wall) And to make matters worse, a third girl flipped across the floor and almost crashed into a Ref. After that time-out, there was no more flipping the rest of the night.

Now then, onto this contest... errr... how about we call it "caption suggestion" because it's really not a contest at all. Here's a little something from the Vandebilt Catholic High School girls basketball game tonight.



So there you go... caption away.

One of my favorite aspects of sports photography is stopping the action of a play. A photograph captures a split second of time... which allows the viewer to see details of the action they might have missed at full speed or on video. For example:



She didn't stay like that for long... and the crowd acted like "did we just see her make a pass while doing the splits?"

To be honest, I just thought it was a funny photo and wanted to sound smart by putting some photo talk in front of it.

Have a great weekend.

Potentially Dangerous Shocker

I'd like to congratulate myself for successfully installing a new dimmer switch in my bedroom. I got fed up with that big dial thing that took three or four pushes and turns to finally get the light on. After an hour of multiple combinations of wires in holes and one minor shock on the finger, my new dimmer switch is working like a charm. (Yes, I turned off the breaker to my room while messing with the wires)



However, if I brag about this, I must also say that my dad successfully installed a wireless doorbell in his house. It's now set to play "When the Saints go Marching in" every time the button is pushed.

I've posted about my neighbors dog before, but I grabbed some photos of him jumping on Misty the other day and thought it was funny enough to post again. This is Gus, a Boxer who lives below me. He's about a year old and is strong as an Ox. He'll sit and watch you until you get close then he'll jump around like crazy. He'll jump out towards you, but will go past the length of his rope and get pulled back. It's kind of funny. But if you step inside the radius of his rope, you will get knocked down, or at least have the wind knocked out of you by the force of his paws hitting your gut.

Hope you don't mind me barging the door In the middle of the night

I was one of them today... I was in the mob of shoppers at Best Buy and Target... and I wanted to shoot them all. (and take their picture too)

Best Buy had people wrapped around the store, the first person in line arrived at 9 o'clock... Thanksgiving morning. "Sorry mom, can't spend Thanksgiving with the family this year, Best Buy has cheap blank DVD's"

Others arrived a little later than that dude, say maybe, 2:30 a.m. with an infant and two toddlers. What in the world do you need that badly? Is an $80 digital camera worth keeping three young children entertained in a parking lot in 32 degree weather?

Target had customers smashed against the door minutes before the opening. Once the doors opened, the mob ran towards the Electronics and/or the Toy departments. I saw one lady T-Bone another lady with her shopping cart. "Get out of my way!" she yelled. Is an electronic picture frame really worth that mess?

I think I'll just wait a few weeks, walk into the store on my own time, and buy what I need after the shelves have been re-stocked. I might not get the big deal, but at least I didn't spend my Thanksgiving in a parking lot.

If I were to do something like this, I'd do it the way Misty did. She, her two brothers and some other friends all went to Wal-Mart late last night stocked with Slim-Jims, Squeeze Cheese, Ritz Crackers, Red Bull and Coke. They stayed up all night in the Layaway Dept. just hanging out and enjoying each others company. They were inside and had a great time... and walked away with there big screen, High-Def TV's.

So here's a sample of what I saw this morning. I arrived at Best Buy around 4:30 a.m. and then hit up Target.

While standing in line outside Best Buy, the people lit small fires using baking pans and newspaper inserts. The Eagle Scout in me just went nuts. Never use paper when starting a fire, paper holds moisture and won't burn well. Small twigs or tree bark then work your way up to larger pieces of wood.



Anybody ever seen the "stampede" before the Country Stampede at Tuttle Creek? People rushing in to find their spots for that day's concerts. That's what happened at Target. Here the first two girls rush past me to find whatever it was they were looking for. I'm guessing an iPod or some sort of trendy electronic gadget.



Here's the intersection between the DVD's and the Electronics at Target. Complete mad house. I was standing at the end of the isle with the 27-inch flat screen TV's.... Bad place to stand as you can see the lady who pushed me out of the way in the bottom right of the frame.



So now I have to decide if I should go home and take a nap before my 1:00 assignment or just push through and crash later until sometime next week.

Enjoy your Black Friday and the rest of your Thanksgiving weekend.

(Oh, to see more photos... www.houmatoday.com... I put up a little gallery)