Sunday, October 31, 2010

10-31-2010



Dave and his girl are about to have a baby, and this is pretty much the cutest thing you can do with jack-o'-lanterns. Ever. I hope his family looks exactly like this some day.

No one really cares too much about the actual Halloween day when it falls on a Sunday/weeknight. All the girls ditched their miniskirts and heels to change back into their Eskimo slumber party costumes of pajama clothes that say "pink" all over them paired with UGG boots. After saying goodbye to Dave, Jon and JP, Nicole and I went shopping for antiques which is pretty much our fate whenever we go on a weekend trip. Then we left Columbus and spent some time on the highway seeing scenic rual Ohio and avoiding these guys.

We made it back home just in time for Nicole to hand out candy and take halloween pictures with our cats, the butterfly and the vampire bat.

Saturday, October 30, 2010

10-30-2010



The day before Halloween, we saw the holiday mascot cross our path. Luckily, he didn't put a curse on us for our trek down the highway to Columbus to see Jon and Dave. Yeah, I always blog about food, but we went to the North Market which is kind like if the West Side Market actually had lights inside or a half size scale model of the Reading Terminal Market. Places like this always make me choose between vegetables or meat. I chose ice cream. The spinning meat at this place was also notable.

Tattoo time with Dave is really more about dudes shavin' dudes and dudes coloring on dudes than anything else. Though art supplies, comic book characters, and handguns also sum things up pretty well. I don't know if I'm more embarassed about getting caught eating pepperoni pizza or the plaid on plaid outfit.

I'm kind of disappointed with the shots I ended up with/didn't get from the costume night, but just imagine a lot of drunk girls in incredibly trashy costumes and how I discovered why Halloween is the scariest night of the year.

Friday, October 29, 2010

10-29-2010



I wore my yachting gear to work and took a picture with my German coworker. Then had an after work drink with my other coworker who was kind of dressed up as Nicole's new hair.

Then we went to see Nicole's family for her father's birthday. I got to see childhood pictures of Nicole like the formative years of her tri-colored cat obsession, and back when she used to wear glasses.

Thursday, October 28, 2010

10-28-2010



Yeah yeah, all I blog about is food and I go to Melt all the time too much whatever...I've had every one of their monthly specials this year and all their bonus specials like the fake shark one (10-1) and the one they had for Valerie Mayen from Project Runway tonight since tonight was the finale party and we went to the premiere party on 7-29 too blah blah blah. None of that is really important. What is important is that we tried on Sienna and Mushroom's Halloween costumes tonight. Nicole spent some time getting hers ready.

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

10-27-2010



The birds are all getting lost before the winter hits. Or maybe because the sky looked end-of-the-world crazy tonight. I kind of wish I were a bird.

It's been too dark by the time I get home from work to really use my new lens, but its temporary purpose is to harass Nicole from far away. It excels at this task.

By the way, today is my 300th day in a row doing this picture thing. I feel like I should get a prize or something for making it this long. Only 65 more days until the end of the year, then we can look back and see how much fun we had in 2010.

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

10-26-2010



In the conclusion(?) of the epic trilogy, the evil mystery pod* from 10-4 and 10-13 has bloomed(?!) and has begun spreading its evil mysterious seeds across the land**.


* Nicole says that it's just milkweed and she's pretty much always right about stuff like this.

** The pod looks a lot less evil/mysterious with cottonball flowers coming out of it.

Extra! I had to work overtime tonight, so you get an overtime picture. Working late really isn't that bad. I like the quite privacy of being able to focus without people around, and I feel like a big kid when I know how to set the security system alarm without the cops showing up (God, I hope I did that right and the cops aren't swarming my job right now). What is bad is that I had to write a hand written note to a coworker explaining what was going on. It's really embarrassing when I can hardly read my own writing and know that someone else is going to have to decipher my hieroglyphics later.

Monday, October 25, 2010

10-25-2010



The drug store by my house has been running a deal where you get free prints with film development on Mondays. This has only been accelerating the growth of my already massive negatives pile.

Sunday, October 24, 2010

10-24-2010



Today was total camera nerd nerd out! I had the ultimate Craigslist come up and bought myself an early Thanksgiving+Christmas+birthday present. I can't wait to actually start using it.

Before that though, I took this stuff out for the day.

We went here and here.

Lighthouse.
Flying eyeball.
Sunbeams.
Clouds.
Clicker.
Steelhead.
Spraypaint fish.
Lake glass.

Saturday, October 23, 2010

10-23-2010



I woke up this morning glad that I wasn't dead. Then we went to the fine Akron establishment of Goodlife tattoo to visit with friends. I was excited that Victor was using his new rotary tattoo machine since I had never been tattooed by one before. I tipped in Michaels.

10-22-2010



The start of the day was pretty normal. Dinner was even supposed to bring me good luck...but there was a full moon that was out to get me. I saw new moustache aspirations, raging arrivals, and people trying not to hurt themselves.

The moral of the story is that it's dangerous to make friends with bartenders. Additionally, it's even more dangerous when your bartender friends let your friends who aren't bartenders behind the bar to play bartender. Dangerous (especially when the moon is full).

Thursday, October 21, 2010

10-21-2010



My house is currently in the shambles of on going "Friend Hotel" mode since last weekend. Rooms are reserved though Sunday, but feel free to book reservations as soon as we have vacancies. We accept AAA.

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

10-20-2010



Look, this is a fun date today. I also have a fun new shirt all the way from England. Mine mine mine.

Speaking of fun, I took Joel and Chris all day adventuring throughout Cleveland chaos today to see stuff in the daytime, and eat Cleveland food. You'll have to wait until Chris edits the video though since we mostly did that instead of me taking pictures...it will be worth the wait. We also scored a bunch of antiques that Chris can't get back in England.

Bartenders love (fancy cocktails)/hate (too much free liquor tasting) us. Dustin, may also be out to kill me (p.s. daydrinking is o.k. on my day off...I promise...don't tell). It makes me do exciting things for no reason.

Family reunion with Tony and Jesse. Dinner was too delicious and dark to document tonight, but Crave gets an A+ in my book.

p.s. I hope I'm not as obnoxious as this creeper.

p.p.s. I want your camera, creeper.

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

10-19-2010



This giant praying mantis watched me the whole time I took pictures of it. I don't think it liked me very much. I wonder who it was praying to.

Creole dinner at Battiste & Dupree with Nicole, Joel and my friend Chris from England. Junior the owner/host/chef gave us all gifts. Then I gave a tour of Cleveland to show places to Chris. We ended the night here at the Velvet Tango Room for fancy cocktails.

Monday, October 18, 2010

10-18-2010



Nicole got glow in the dark candy.

I'm not usually into awe-pretty-picture landscape photos, but autumn in the midwest is like Natalie Portman pretty. One, two, and three.

It's kind of hard to exactly explain the nature of Nicole and my relationship when no one else is around, but it involves activities like me encouraging her to do stuff like this so I can take pictures. Needless to say, things are pretty much perfect in our relationship.

10-17-2010



I have this now. No apologies.

My beloved taco stand. I could literally live in this chair right here for my whole life and be happy. She would cook fresh tortillas for me every day (this is by far my favorite picture I've taken from the day, and probably the past few months...but I'm having black and white month).

Speaking of pictures I've taken in the past few months, I've been considering putting together a zine/site/collection of all the portraity shots of friends that I've taken with film (if you've hung out with me at all, you know I'm always good to stick a camera in your face, so I have tons of shots like that). I don't know if anyone would be interested in this at all other than me though since they're my friends. I think the people in the pictures might like to look at it too just to see themselves, but I don't know. In anycase, here are some more.

Doug.
Victor and Dave.
Danny.
Baby Mike.
Marshall.
Adam.
Lou Dobkins.
Russell.

Not really portraity, but Nicole found wild grapes and got super excited. She loves wild grapes like I love tacos.

10-16-2010



So I've been (recently failing at) not eating meat for ten and a half months now. Generally I do a good job unless I'm traveling where there's special food I can't get locally, or if I'm with people and don't want to be a baby about only eating vegetables and tofu. It's become a weird OCD thing now where I feel like I'm cheating on my girlfriend if I eat meat...even though said girlfriend doesn't exist. Well, once a year I end up in a far away suburb for a weekend doing stuff with friends. Down the street, there's a super authentic Mexican grocery that cooks super authentic mexican food on flat top outside of the store. This is very much what I imagine heaven will smell like. That being said, I took a weekend get away from caring about my body and ate as much delicous grilled meat as I possibly could. I don't think I like any food in the whole world more than street-food tacos with corn tortillas, cilantro and onions. They also have a full bar of salsas and other toppings that I'm pretty sure are home made.

If you know the story behind this picture, it's pretty funny. If not, it's pretty lame.

Saturday, October 16, 2010

10-15-2010



Apparently this is how Cleveland preserves its Natural History.

This is a $90,000 VCR. I will never possesse this amount of money at any point in my entire life.

Night Moves.

Thursday, October 14, 2010

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

10-13-2010



My desk is like watching cartoons made out of paper.

The weird evil pod thing from 10-4 has dried out and gotten more weird/evil/pod thing-like. It's starting to split open too...which makes me suspect that it is beginning to hatch and will unleash something evil into the world on halloween.

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

10-12-2010



Jared on Jared violence.

Monday, October 11, 2010

10-11-2010



Adventure Time is one of my favorite shows on tv rightnow, and Marceline the Vampire Queen is my favorite character on the show. Tonight was start of season two and I got really excited when I read that it was going to have her in it...too bad the episode wasn't very good. Hopefully the rest of the season will be better. To make up for it, I made a bag of popcorn and watched my #1 favorite show on tv.

Sunday, October 10, 2010

10-10-2010



Nicole and I decided that today would be a good day to take pictures with film. But first, every good Sunday starts with brunch. Then we went to go look for colorful leaves, but they weren't quite colorful enough for us to really get excited about. Speaking of color, her new hair kind of makes her look a little mid-90's emo now. So since the leaves weren't photogenic, we attempted to take more exciting multiple exposure ghost pictures instead, but that didn't work out so well either.

Since Nicole was feeling rich, she decided to go pumpkin shopping again even though she got one last Sunday (10-3). This time, she selected an even huger pumpkin than the one she got last weekend.

Later that night, we got hungry and decided to go to the Happy Dog (this is a pretty common occurance). But apparently it has the potential to frequently become a very uncommon occurance. One time when we went (6-23) we were supprised by a random performance by the Cleveland Orchestra. This time, in addition to a concert, we randomly stumbled into a friend's wedding-post reception-after party by accident. Additionally, college friends from out of town, and friends I hadn't hung out with since college were there.

P.s. It's incredibly dark in the Happy Dog, which makes it very difficult to focus/not shake. As a matter of fact, I think this was the only picture I took all night that wasn't totally blurry/out of focus. So I'm going to go ahead and blame the dark for all the blurry pictures, and not because I had too many of what Nicole is holding. You believe me right? So, sorry if my pictures suck...I still like them anyway.

Saturday, October 9, 2010

10-9-2010



Today we went for a fourteen mile bike ride on a path that goes under big bridges. Yay! Bridge! On the way, I may or may not have had a small accident involving a tree stump, my front brake, flying like a lead bird, and the gross black swamp that runs next to the path. Luckly there are no pictures of what may or may not have happened, but let's just say that it was far worse than the 3-21 Swamp of Sorrows incident.

The day quickly improved when I recieved unsolicited bribe money in the mail from some survey company. Then we had a "say farewell to summer weather" (probably) last dinner on a patio for the year at Momocho.

This picture of a classy gal shopping for 40s is my favorite picture of the day, but it doesn't count for black and white month.

Friday, October 8, 2010

10-8-2010



Light and shadow patterns this morning.

These are pretty much bricks of drugs to boys. Then my morning consisted of this, this, and this. Sometimes my job is pretty much amazing. And it all happed a few feet from this.

The end of the day inspires fun with high energy high contrast photography (i.e. standing on the desk to be right by the overhead light). It seemed like a good idea at the time...

High contrast badassery.
High contrast gigantism.
High contrast I don't even like Redbull.

Film things:
...that Ryan is the best.
* gallery is exiting the Cleveland art scene.
Nicole only window shops in windows that match her outfits.
I like this one.
Owl eyes.
Bear eyes.

Thursday, October 7, 2010

10-7-2010



Nicole got super good Cavs tickets as an early halloween present from her job. So we went with Tony and Barb to see Moondog (the only real star left on the Cavs). We saw really big guys put balls in holes and saw my new favorite big guy, a seven foot tall asian. The biggest asian I've ever seen in my whole entire life. There were also lots of vendors, but this guy was Nicole's favorite (oh yeah, she has black hair now). Other favorites, and I think one of the only real reasons to go to sporting events, included junk food and vegetarian junk food.

Ok, so this is where things get real serious. At every basketball game that I've ever attended since I was a little kid, they always have guys that throw things into the crowd. It's like the pop-flys of basketball that you wait the whole game to maybe have a chance to catch. I ain't caught nothing never (though I do have a childhood recollection of finding a gross discarded mini-basketball under the dirty seats that I picked up and refused to throw away regardless of the spilled beer-germs growing all over it...this may have even happened at the Mark Price-era Colosseum). Tony clearly has better fortune than I do, and fulfilled every child's dream of catching a tee shirt at a game. Granted it may not have been the most attractive shirt and was more than likely the wrong size, but it was pretty much like catching gold.

Other notables were some fameous guy that everyone seemed to care about but we had no idea who he was, and the peppy but not-so-intelligent cheerleader that forgot her choreography and dropped her pom poms...more than once.

Then we went on a mission to harass Moondog. Though plush (and sweaty), Moondog doesn't understand the concept of focal length and minimum focus distance. At all.

P.s. There may or may not be film shots to add to this post later. Film is just better.

Barb.
Tony.
Someone please photoshop me into where my coat is...I'm too lazy.
My favorite big asian.
Well this one's just kind of hard to explain.

Wednesday, October 6, 2010

10-6-2010



Leading lines.
Light Christi.
Dark Christi.

I got some medium format film back today because I'm (gasp) selling one of my cameras and I wanted to test it out to make sure everything was still wonderful. Since I paid an ungodly amout of money to get these shots developed, I felt it necessary to put at least some of them on here. Plus things are just nicer on negatives this big.

Butterflies.
Fancy.
Window.
Double exposure.
Colorful house.
Plants.
Halloween preparation.

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

10-5-2010



Awee, my best friend Victor came to town tonight. Of course this means going out for food (I'm not sure this whole black and white thing is working so well for food pictures...unless you like grey cake) and drinks (probably a few too many for a Tuesday night). Hi, Gina! We all ate fish, hung out with three classy moustached gentlemen (this is foreshadowing), saw something very nostalgic and Cleveland from the cool punk rock music venue that I wasn't supposed to go to as a kid (Victor, you were right...it was over the bar), and someone got called out for wearing mom jeans. This painting of a painting that my friends painted on a wall is also very nostalgic and Cleveland. Sometimes I like it here.

Monday, October 4, 2010

10-4-2010



So at work today, I saw this crazy evil looking pod plant thing growing next to the parking lot. It reminded me of this satanic chicken album cover from an embarassing period of my childhood. Upon closer inspection, I realized that the whole thing was covered in millions of teeny crawling insects. Totally creepy. The entire inside stem part had so many bugs that they just looked like part of the plant.

My vegetarian shark now lives on my monitor at work. Also at work, after getting back from vacation, my coworker informed me that the banana lumpias we were gorging ourselves on in Hawaii have Filipino origins. She was even nice enough to bring some from the local grocery for Nicole and I. It's well understood that Nicole and I eat like twelve year olds with no baby sitter, but this dinner of banana deserts and a leftover Swensons cheesecake thing really takes us to another level. I'm so proud.

P.s. Christi, if you read this Nicole says "thank you!"

Sunday, October 3, 2010

10-3-2010



After doing a bunch of not photogenic things, we went to a pumpkin patch for Nicole to pick out a perfect pumpkin to put on our steps. I mostly chased chickens all over the yard. The one above was eating some sort of gross dead thing and yelled at me if I got too close...I though they ate corn. When we got home Sienna inspected our gourd selections. I think she would have liked the gross dead thing better.

Since the leaves are starting to change colors, we're trying to get into an autumnal spirit (this mostly includes eating pumpkin pie, pumpkin milkshakes, pumpkin coffee and pumpkin ice cream). It also included a (cold) fall bikeride on our little kid bikes (see 8-21 and 8-24). I tried to do tricks, but not to be out done, Nicole showed off her epic one inch wheelie abilites.

I'm not sure if this has anything to do with my main picture, or what it would mean if it does, but here's Nicole's dinner tonight.

Saturday, October 2, 2010

10-2-2010



Jetlag/insomnia/Nicole wanting coffee at one in the morning turned into us going adventuring. We got all dressed up (I put on shoes) and drove around looking for anyplace that was open that didn't suck. There is nothing in the suburbs open past one that doesn't suck...other than Swensons. Swensons is the best junk food place in the whole state...maybe even the whole world. We got "Xango" deep fried cheesecake things, coffee and a pumpkin milkshake. Then we cased an airport, futilely attempted to take pictures of stars, and poked around a cemetary in the middle of the night.

After bed/a nap/whatever...I woke up and saw our tenant trying to hide under my car, a huge turkey vulture, then went to eat/antiquing with Nicole and Doug. Doug and I went on a safari and found a killer typeface for a product logo.

Dinner was this but I probably should have eaten here instead.

He was waiting for us when we got home.

Friday, October 1, 2010

10-1-2010



Sunburn has me shedding like a snake.

Shark sandwiches for lunch. My shark was a vegetarian and my sandwich was pretty much made out of tofu...but the one in the background was made out of real mako shark.

P.s. since this is a new month, I'm trying something new. All of my main pictures this month are going to be black and white and shot with just my 35 1.8 with as little post processing as possible (hopefully none). Part of me feels like I'm making an already difficult project even harder, but I think that considering just light and contrast instead of random colorful things will make me focus on taking better and more techincal images. Also, just having one lens will further simplify my picture making process and make me concentrate on more important things things like subject and composition. We'll see if any of this works at all or if this is just a terrible idea. I appologize in advance though if my blog suddenly turns obnoxiously arty and dramatic. I'm sure I'll post plenty of silly extra pictures in color to make up for it like my blue plastic shark.