Day 26

Day 25

Day 24

I took this while driving home. Thought it turned out quite good for taking a shot while driving.

Day 23

day 22

Day 21

Day 20

Now to some folk it might be new and exciting to see elk in the wild. For me it is more strange to see them domesticated. I happened down a road I have never traveled before on my way home and who would have thunk, elk. What seems more strange is all the nearby houses. Sure this isn't in the downtown area by any means, but in the middle of the suburbs.

Day 19

On my way to work I saw this man riding the most unusual motobike, more like a trike but with two wheels in the front. I had to take a pic. so her it is:

Day 18

day 17

Day 16

Day 15

As a kid growing up I would often pass by this structure and wonder why a tower was sitting on some corner in the middle of this Idaho town. I would envision knights storming the tower to save the princess, or some lengthy siege to capture the tower. I still don't know the what, why, or who of this structure and probably never will. At least it makes for a nice picture.

day 14

I love it when I find little gems like this one.

Day 13

Day 12

Day 11

Day 10

First off I need to apologize for not posting the pics on the days they were shot. Part of it came from laziness/lack of sleep, unreliable internet, as well as a trip to Idaho over the weekend. Well anyway, here comes the pictures.

Day 9

Sunset through a bridge near where I live.

Day 8

Day 7

I love it when I luck out and find the perfect object to photograph, then get a great shot of it.

Day 6

Day 5

Day 4

Day 3

My cat.

Day 2, or rain on a sunny day.

Got up and went to work, then when it was about time to head home, I remembered I still needed to capture a picture today. The universe gave me a break. Just as I was getting home, a cloud burst letting loose all the tiny droplets of rain it was carrying. This was the result.

Challenge: Day 1

Just Yesterday a good friend of mine calls me up and issues a challenge: take a picture everyday for the next 30 days and post it. No this doesn't mean that I can take any random picture and call it good, it has to have some artistic merit to it. The place of posting was left to my discretion, so naturally I choose to post it here.

So here goes with my first pic.

Now starting on the fourth of July kind of made today's pic very easy to decide, but hard to pull off. Seriously, have you ever tried to capture a picture of fireworks. It's not easy.

I can remember many a grand fourth of July nights, but only a few times has the whole of the day been a deep rooted memory. Most of my life I would watch fireworks at a ce

rtain local with the group changing every year from one group of friends to another, and sometimes with family. Some I spent watching from a nice square of grass and a blanket with others standing and walking through crowds.

Two separate years stick out in my mind. Both were during runs of theatre productions. In the first one, our little group had managed to get a spot in the parade to promote our show. Despite differences in the two co-directors we were able to pull a float together and gather our crew to walk the streets. We had candy to throw, and swords to swing. But what I remember the most is the time afterwards, after the morning parade had finished. We gathered at a one of the cast member's houses and ate food. I remember the joys of just being. A group of friends just having fun.

The second memory was also during a summer run play production. This one is probably where I've bonded the most with any cast, more than likely due to the fact that we were all living in the middle of nowhere with no one else to hang out with for the four summer months. On this fourth we had an early showing and we were hoping to rush the hour and a half to the sacred place of watching of fireworks. The whole group had ended up going, but we never met up due to separate cars. Our car had four. Traveling as fast as we could we still missed the first ten minutes of fireworks. I remember mostly these three companions and what we did. Two of which were the ones I spent the majority of my time up in the woods. Thats all I have to say about that.

Happy Birthday America. Each year holds another memory on this wonderful remembrance of what we as a nation stand for.

Also I know it is a one pic a day challenge, but I may from time to time have more than one, and I may or may not have writings to go with them. We'll see how it goes.

Good Grief

My birthday is coming up next week. I'm not really looking forward to it. I'm not really sure when it happened, but sometime in the past few years I've not been all that excited for my own birth recognition date. It could stem from a few past bad experiences, a longstanding bout with loneliness or even a grim reminder that I'm getting older and don't have much of anything to show for it. Or maybe I just don't want to age.

I've had some notoriously bad experiences with birthdays. In college I had gone out on my birthday to see a play production. Knowing the group that put it on, they invited me and my roommate to stay for a gathering of talking and light food consumption. Upon returning home, I was well informed that I had missed a great party at my place: my own surprise party. Yep, my roommates had thrown a party and had forgotten to invite the guest of honor. I was even out with a roommate that had full knowledge of said party, but had neglected to prod me home in time for the festivities. The very next year, the same roommates don't even remember when my birthday came around. Granted the closer the day comes, the less I talk about it. But I was rehearsing with a roommate when a random guy came up and asked us to take a survey asking us when our birthdays were. Mine just happened to be on that very day.

I mean really I thought I'd be further with life, with things than I currently am now. It's sad that we even try to measure out our lives with what kind of job we have, what things we possess, or even how our family situation is. Can we really measure life? Each and everyone lives so drastically different that we really don't have anything to adequately compare to. So why do we even try to do so?

The only thing that matters is how one feels about their life and how they are living it. This could be simplified even further to ask, 'How happy am I?' One can only be measured against one's self, and should never attempt to be measured against someone else.

But How happy am I? I'm not very happy. Maybe I'm just not looking to the great things that I have, not counting the individuals. Instead I find myself weighing the bad things, or the worries in my life. Lately I've focused on the monetary problems that I face, or the work problems, and focusing on those is not a guide to happiness. I also thing greatly on not having someone in my life with whom to share my worries and sorrows, my joys and delights.

I know it is silly to get depressed by these things, especially on a day which should be a celebration, a day to really enjoy the great gift of life. And it shouldn't used as a reminder of things that you thought you would have by this point. It needs to be a celebration of who one is and the greatness it is just to be.

A great philosophizer said that happiness was finding a pencil; or anything or anyone that is loved by you is what brings happiness. You keep looking Charlie Brown, you'll find what you are looking for soon enough.

Night before

I have an audition tomorrow. And so here I am at 2:30 am wasting time when I really should be sleeping. This seems to be the way I do things of late. I put things off until the last minute when there is nothing to do but to scramble to get everything finished on time. I seem to do this every time I have an audition. I don't seem to take the proper time to prepare a decent piece, causing me to fumble upon my words and ultimately look like a fool in front of those whom I wish would cast me. All the while my brain is debating if I should even go to the audition or just stay home in my little cozy hole and sleep away the shame of not making an appearance.

I just wonder where I picked up this habit. Why do I put it off. I'm sure I could do great in the show, but I haven't had the discipline to create a worthy character for these new directors. I know what you are thinking, why don't I just use a standby piece from one of the shows I've auditioned for in the past. Well Ideally that is what I do, but even then I would need to refresh it. No, this time I wanted to go with something new, something that fit better to the style of show that I'm trying out for. So I went out and searched for something new; finally finding it two days before the audition, leaving only one day to create it. Did I spend the whole day working on it? No. only within the last few hours have I worked upon it. And even then I have mostly just been listening to it. What I should have done is found the piece two weeks ago and then spend my time first finding someone to accompany me while I sing so I learn the piano part, and second spend every free moment from then until now practicing the part, making it the best I could do. No wonder I haven't made it into a show where they actually pay.

I guess I'm off to bed.

dftjike

I figured out the reason I haven't written anything of late. I don't know how to finish. I have started multiple blogs in the past, but each one sounds dull or drab or just uninteresting. I think I've lost my mojo or some junk like that. Well anyway....