May 9th, 2005:

flowing green field at dawn featuring machinery

(click to enlarge)

Another image from Arkansas. Nothing spectacular, but I like the way it flows anyway.

Rusted bus in overgrown field

(click to enlarge)

This is another image from our Arkansas trip– my personal favorite, at least of those from the time we spent in Glenwood.

I know it’s taken a while to get this online. I think I’ve finally realized why it is I have such a hard time editing images and posting them online. Part of it, of course, is due to time constraints. But, the reason I don’t make time for it is because, oftentimes, I feel that the value of the images I’ve captured is less in the image itself and more in what it taught me (either about photography or about life itself). So, since I’ve gotten my value out of it, I feel as though I’d much rather take *new* images and work on something even better with my new knowledge.

Of course my line of thought there is flawed. Editing, publishing, and feedback are all critical steps in this process as well. So, I’m slowly convincing myself to make the time to edit the images I take. My goal, right now, is to keep taking new images at whatever rate I’d like to, and to edit at least 3 images each night that I don’t have plans. Of course, this is a rather vague and lenient goal and doesn’t actually ensure that anything will happen. But it’s a step in the right direction, at least.

If you’d like to offer something that might entice me to edit images more often in exchange for my publishing of new images (the publishing of images of your own, small monetary donations — i.e. $1 per 10 images of natural landscape, an offer to pose for me — i.e. 20 images of any subject and I’ll spend two hours posing with you, etc) I’d be happy to collect them and let you know when “payment is due”. You know, sort of like a fund raiser marathon for your favorite cause. Only the marathon is photograph publishing, and your favorite cause is me. Just comment here or, for those offers of a more personal nature, feel free to email me. Any offer related to any goal will be accepted.

Wow! Last weekend was very *busy*, and I enjoyed every second of it. Here’s a quick recap:

Friday night Jess and I went to Lisa and Mike’s. We grilled some burgers and watched “Lord of the Rings 1″. This is the first of three weekends in which we intend to watch the extended version of all three “Lord of the Rings” movies. I saw the first one before in the theater, but fell asleep during it. Jess has never seen any of them. I enjoyed watching the first one on Friday, awake this time. Jess fell asleep, but I figured she would. We got home around midnight or so.

Saturday morning I couldn’t sleep and finally woke Jess up around 7:40am. We got our things together and headed out to Greenbelt Park for a one hour bike ride. Jess and I got some good exercise and had a good long talk. Then we stopped for a quick bite to eat.

When we got home, the pot rack that my grandmother (partially) bought us had finally arrived, so we put it up. Afterwards, we went to a place that sells stone and learned all about building a natural stone wall in our front yard. We’re still not sure if we’re going to do it, but we both really like the idea.

After that, we stopped at the hardware store and got 6 medium sized perennials, and a bunch of annuals to decorate the flower beds in the front of our house. We finished up around 7pm. Then we jumped in the shower and headed out for some Thai food.

Afterwards, we went to a club in Denton for Rob’s birthday. The “Mad Mexicans”:http://www.madmexicans.com/, a band he is in, was playing. We had a great time. After the night was about half over the girls finally convinced Jess to get out on the dance floor and shake her booty with the rest of them. I would have gone with her, but she looked great dancing with the other girls. Besides, I had already been somehow elected as purse and camera watcher, so I couldn’t exactly leave my post. I don’t think I was watching the stuff to well though, not with all the booty shakin’ and girl groping going on. Jess shook her butt for the rest of the night. I got tons of compliments from lots of guys in regard to Jess and her booty shaking. My favorite has got to be the concise “damn… your wife is hot!”. It was good to see everyone and we had a wonderful time. We got home well after 2am and went right to bed.

On Sunday, Jess and I went back to the hardware store and picked up a few pots and few more flowers. Then we stopped at the drugstore to buy a mother’s day card for my mom and a birthday card for my nephew. Then we headed out to Keller to celebrate both occasions. Afterwards, my family and I planned out our annual family weekend getaway. Most of everything is accounted for. I’ve got to design a logo for t-shirts and I still have a few phone calls to make to plan out a few more things. But all in all, I think every thing’s taken care of and I can’t wait. We’re going to have a great time.

After leaving my parent’s house around 6:30pm, we stopped at a hardware store to price out a new sink (you’d think we’d make all the trips to the hardware store into one big trip, but we don’t plan that far ahead) and then stopped at the grocery store to restock our cupboards. After getting home, I cleaned and prepped the leafy vegetables, then we watched a little TV and headed off to bed.

I’ve got a lot of catching up to do online, a bunch of emails are owed, and I have a nice little handful of photographs to post. Stay tuned.