I've been in a few plays

Going through the pictures that my mom gave me, of me, from her collection it became apparent that I have been in a few plays in my day. These don't even include all of them, but most are represented here.

Jordan and I, in the Ware Gang, I was Every Ware, and he was Silver Ware. He had spoons and stuff on his vest in the play if I remember correctly. 

 I dunno what this one is

 This was a play about our hometown of Grand Junction. I was supposed to be an amnestic Shakespearean actor returned to Gj.

 I know this one is a stretch, but I was Joseph. Nick was the angel it would seem. 

 I was Trapper Keeper, a fur trapper, and the chick with me (Amy F.) was Orange Juice, or something. We were in love, and I had my first on stage kiss. A little lame. 

Amy lives in NYC now, and last I heard did theater there. 

 I played a hippie concert promoter. We were doing a Woodstock type thing and we sang songs from a bunch of people. Jordan played a surfer in this one I think. 

 Trapper Keeper again

Post amnesia, I remembered all my Shakespeare

I played an alien that fattened kids up so we could feed on them. We toured elementary schools and made kindergartners cry.

I played an orderly turned priest.

and my final role, Puck. I had black toenails.

Mother's Fotos

Aren't mothers good at taking photos? Well, mine is.

She's not the best at digitizing them though, unless you like your photos sideways or upside down. But she tries, she really does, and I appreciate that. Otherwise how would we have these awesome masterpieces?

 This photo is scary because of how much I look like my dad, which is about 90%.

I love my mom. 

I love my wife too, in a different way.

Bulldog

Jaala has a co-worker that is giving one away. Should we 

get it?............

 

Probably not. 

Laughter is the best medicine!

I'm mostly going to let these pictures speak for themselves.
But Jaala and I got together with some friends from class (Steph and Jeff, and Heather [who has a blog, but hasn't given me the address yet]) on Friday just to get to know each other a little more, Dinner dessert and game, and a lot of hilarity ensued. We had a great time which is something we haven't had in a while. So it was nice.

After shooting a full roll of film with this camera, I discovered a piece of paper inside the exposure chamber, between the film and the lens, which most likely blocked about 25% of every image I took that night.

Pinholes

Latest pinhole shot. From this afternoon, as I ate some peanut butter and honey sandwiches

27- That is how old I am now.

So it's been hard the last couple of years to get older.  Now I know I am not OLD, but I am older than I was :).  When I was a teenager, I thought that 30 would be the best age.  At 30 years old you should be old enough to have your life in order and have some sort of plan in place for you life... but you should still be young enough to do whatever you want.  So this was the ideal age for me.
Well- now that it is creeping closer and closer... I don't like it! 30 is just....its just.... so old!  So much has happened in my 20's and you are so young in your 20's.  30 is practically 40 which is practically 50 which is just about 60 which is just about dead! (yes I am exaggerating.... a little bit).
Yesterday was my 27th birthday.  27 years on this Earth.  Pretty amazing when you think about it.  I have managed to do the things I should to keep myself alive for 27 whole years (well my parents helped me with about 12 of those years).  My birthday was good.  I woke up with a killer migraine and then had to work.  That part kinda sucked.  But I got home and Harrison and I went to dinner at Serendipity 3.  It is probably my favorite place to eat here in Vegas.  We shared an amazing taco salad (that was large enough to feed a small country) and then we went and got a Nutella and banana crepe for my birthday dessert.  I also snagged a couple of chocolate covered strawberries (I have been craving them for the last month or so).

Well- I guess 27 years old isn't so bad.  I am sure that 30 won't be so bad either when it comes.  I am thankful for all that I have in my life.  I am thankful for a loving and supportive husband... who knows how to take and tell a joke, for a home and a job, for a (very large) family who support and love me... and for the knowledge and success that I have had in my life thus far.  Here's to 27 more years I guess (no really... I do want to live a long time).

PS- Jehosephat..... please identify yourself!  We are dying to figure out who you are.... :)

American Pickers

That show is awesome. I really want to move to Iowa now.



in other news. I worked on this photo in between homework:

Those are really my teeth

Negative scanners

So I found out last semester that our library at UNLV has a negative scanner that you are able to check out and use for personal projects. I have been waiting for a time to check out said scanner since then.
I had that opportunity yesterday
I wasn't sure what the quality of the scanner was, although I had seen it and it didn't look too impressive, so I just took one set of 35mm B&W negatives and a set of 120mm (medium format) negatives that I have never been able to print. and the results were fun but not that great for archival purposes.

These two are from our engagement photos. Taken by Crystal D. I developed the film but never printed any except those that we needed for the announcements. The scanner got them super grainy and also very purple. Which technically is a quality of the film they were shot on. But overall I was not very happy with the results. But it's fun for snapshots or whatever.

these ones are from the medium format camera, but the scanner only covered 35mm and they are on a different film.

So with a little manipulation and color correction I was able to come up with this:

Oh and here is another pinhole shot that I did a long time ago.

Words of Wisdom... from someone who doesn't have any anymore...

So last Friday, I went to Nevada Oral and Facial Surgery and had all four wisdom teeth extracted.  My bottom wisdom teeth were getting close to the nerve in the bottom of my jaw and had the potential to wrap around the nerve and cause some damage... AND... the bottom ones were coming in crooked (almost impacted) so... I decided to get them out.  LUCKILY- I work in the field, so I got a great deal on getting my teeth extracted by a WONDERFUL office.  

Here is my x-ray pre-surgery! 

I was pretty nervous having to go through this whole thing.  You see, I have never been put under anesthesia before... and I was pretty nervous about it.  Well- Dr. Johnson and his WONDERFUL staff made me feel a lot better about things (especially when they shot my IV up with some anti-anxiety meds).  The last thing I remember was Dr. Johnson putting the "white stuff" in my IV and me telling him, "Oh- I have watched enough episodes of Dr. 90210 to know what the white stuff is for".... and then I remember waking up and my mouth being full of gauze and PAIN!

The next couple of days were filled with pain meds, ice packs, and naps.  It was quite painful to tell you the truth.  People my age shouldn't be having their wisdom teeth pulled.  It is a lot harder for somebody over the age of about 20 to recover from having their wisdom teeth extracted (being almost 27... I am WELL past the fast and easy recovery age).  So- my recovery has been LONG and pretty painful.
 

I have been afraid to eat a lot of things for fear that I might get pieces of food stuck in the healing sockets... so my diet has consisted of Slim Fast, yogurt, jello, ramen noodles (which I have been swallowing whole) and Popsicles.  I have loved it all... even if I have been EXTREMELY hungry for 5 days!

Harrison has been a good egg.  He has spent time with me in bed while I have been resting and napping and watching TV.  He has been a dang good support to me while I have been ill and cranky.

Attempt at daily posts

Well I have a friend from school who is so good about posting on her blog daily even if the topic is somewhat mundane. She has inspired me at least to share a bit more about our life as a married couple and just some of the things that are going on, even though they are not groundbreaking or incredibly exciting. So here goes:






These photos are from this awesome iPhone app, that I'm sure most have heard of, called hipstamatic. It takes square pictures that are reminiscent of the pictures produced by Holga and Lomo cameras . Two very elementary yet effective photographic tools.

Anyway, I have found that in my hobbying life I often oscillate through certain obsessions. Because of this app my interest in kit cameras, pinhole cameras:

(a 1 hour pinhole exposure during practice for a band I was in, look closely you can see us in the chairs)

and non-traditional photographic processes has fired up again (luckily it seems that my oscillation tends to make circles, otherwise I would have lots of gear and no real expertise).

So now I am figuring out how I can use the little toy cameras that I have acquired over the years to shoot slide film and get the effects that are mimicked in the hipstamatic app, in the real way. That is, through cross processing. It seems that if I use 35mm film and a little trickery I can even get my local 1 hour place to do it, but these toy cameras use 120 (medium format) film that is generally not processed at the CVS photo lab. The larger size film is where the square prints come from.


The other thing that has been taking up the time I spend with Jaala is that she had her wisdom teeth pulled last Friday. This is somewhat of an ordeal for a person over 18 years, since they don't heal as quickly, and Jaala is doing a very good job at being a trooper. She saw the doctor today and he said that she is progressing very well and that her last day of real pain should be tomorrow. Here's hopin!