Blog Changes

I'm sure you've noticed my lack of postings in the past few weeks. My energy hasn't been there for it, and thus I've taken a break and given some thought as to how I'll proceed with it from here. I hate to let this blog go, as it's been around in some form for almost five years. But there is a time and place for everything and as my interests and needs change, so too will my public forum for them.

For the record, I know I'm going about this whole blogging thing ALL wrong.  Blogs should have a specific focus or cohesive theme in order to be successful. So say all the pundits, anyway. Well guess what I say to that? 

Me, to that:  TTTHHHHPPPPTTT   

I've been taking pictures of people for the past several months--to the detriment of my gun pictures, frankly--and I continue to greatly enjoy doing so.  It's a natural progression, I think.  Social worker to "photographer"* to focusing a good portion of my energies on those around me.  

Some people I don't spend much time with at all.  Some, however, are willing to honor me with their stories but I tend to condense these tales for the Facebook audience for a variety of reasons. So for now the more compelling stories I hear I will flesh out over here. I won't put a number on how often I do so or the days I do so, but you'll know when it happens if you're following the people blog over there or on Tumblr. I still may throw in personal observations but it will likely be in the context of profiling other people. 

As for my next photo project? Well, I'm back to a picture a day starting October 1, 2012. I'm not going to force a subject matter this time, though. What I am going to say is I must take at least one photo a day for one year in a thoughtful, deliberate manner. Thus I will enter my third year into photography, my second year into DSLR photography, with purpose. I will post them to Flickr of course, and if I feature any of them here, it will be on Mondays.  

As always, thanks for following along. Have a great Friday!

Say you: Wait!! What about your stated goal of getting The Bloggess to notice you? 

Say me: Didn't you know? I'm a quitter.  


*I had a subject tell me where to stand for better lighting just yesterday, which was sorta humiliating.  I'm hardly an actual photographer.

And So it Ends....

I'm ending this year's project where I began.  At the building that used to be Ace Hardware on Main Street in Norman, Oklahoma. It was a Friday.  


August 19, 2011:  

August 20, 2010: 

I took my first picture pretty much on a whim--about five minutes after I decided I would take a picture every day for a year.  


Now that it's come to a close, I've been reflecting.  


Here are some numbers and some thoughts:


1) I recklessly threw out that I would  do a Hummer scavenger hunt this year.  That never happened. 
2) I did, however, label 23 pictures "Cars and Trucks and Things That Go" (see the cloud in the right column under the heading "My Blatherings" and click the label to view all the pictures)
3) "Brands" was the most popular label, with 86 pictures being labeled as such (for the record, most pictures had more than one label) 
4) The second most popular label was "Cheap Crap Made in China", with 65 photos carrying that label.  
5) I know for a fact that you can point to any picture I took this past year and I can tell you where I was when I snapped the shot. I cannot guarantee that fact will remain a year from now. I'm not getting any younger. 
6) I cannot tell a lie.  In 365 days, there were two where I forgot to take a picture and had to use one from a previous day.  This day was one of them.  I honestly can't remember when the other one was, but I know it was in February or March.  I think.  
7) Someone asked me about 2/3 of the way through what my favorite picture was so far.  At the time I said this one.  But I like this one too.  And this one.  And this one.  Oh, and this one.   The Boy likes this one. 
8) I maintain this was the worst picture I took all year.  
9)  October 8, 2010 gas was $2.58/G.  On January 22, 2011 gas was $2.92/G.  Today I paid $3.29/G. (All prices listed were in Norman, Oklahoma)
10) Yes. There actually was at least one shot that I meant to get and never did.  Ironically, it's walking distance from the house.  

I'm taking a break from taking pictures, but I'll be back soon!  As I've stated, I have a new project on tap, although due to recent equipment issues (which I'll explain later) I might have to put it off a bit.  Rest assured my ranting will not stop.  -> 

5Q2

Say you: What the....
Say me: It's a purse!  That used to be a license plate!  How cool is that???  


The thing weighs a ton, and sue me for saying this, but this baby is fabulous.  It belongs to my little bag buddy at work (I featured another one of her bags early on, although the shot is really not that great) and I told her I wanted to snap a picture of it before I left.  Two hours later as I was walking out, she reminded me.  


For that, she wins another entry (it was after midnight).  


And so my project is coming to a close.  I have one more picture left, and I already know the subject matter.  But since the day just turned, I've yet to take it.  


I have my new project mapped out in my head, so please stay tuned for details!  The only teaser I will give you now is that for the next year, I will be offering a photo a week instead of a photo a day. The photos will once again follow a theme.  I'm going to take a small break after tomorrow, and start up again Labor Day Weekend. 


If you want to see a mosaic of all the pictures I took this past year, you can go here.  They look pretty cool and each one is numbered, dated and links back to my entry for the picture on the blog.  I'll also be using a lot of them for this project, due in January. ->

Dell

We have a Dell plant in Oklahoma City.  I've always wondered what they do there. Without checking The Googles, I'm going go to assume it's a call center.  I just drove by it today, in fact. Stand by while I check to see if I'm correct...


BINGO!  


Although Dell calls it a "Customer Contact Center".  Which makes the job all the more appealing, I'm sure.  -> 

Circo

Back to school shopping is much more tedious these days now that Little Missy actually has the nerve to express opinions about what clothes we buy.  What's that all about?  -> 

Open 24 Hours

The Boy is now gainfully employed and already the victim of corporate brainwashing towing the corporate line.  

To wit: 

The Boy: Mom, I'm going to have to work Christmas Day. 

Me: What??

The Boy: Well, it's a great business model.  No one else is open on Christmas Day.  -> 

Carts

88 cents

Little tip: large paper clips work just as well.  ->

Sold

I'm OK with kitsch for the home.  I really am.  In fact, I would go so far as to say that no home is complete without kitsch.   


But there's kitsch, and then there's this:  

Pigs on oxy.  Not even Roseanne would have had this pair in her home.   Which I guess is why they're now living at the Salvation Army.  But the fact that they are now at the Salvation Army means that at some point, they lived in a home.  And the owner would have been forced to take oxy every day just to stand the sight of them. -> 

Mansions

My project is quickly coming to a close.  I started it on Friday, August 20, 2010 and by my calculations, my year should conclude on August 19th, a mere 8 days away. 

Right?

And yet the numbers don't add up.  When I go to my Flickr stream, and here on the blog, I'm one picture short. 

It's driving me insane. 

I went through the pictures one. by. effing. one. the other day and it would appear that I haven't missed any days.  But that can't be right, can it?

You tell me, if you take pictures for 365 days, day #365 ends the day before you started the previous year, right? Right.  The easiest way to think about it is January 1 to December 31.  Which means I have to weed through 356 pictures.  Again. 

Joy. 

Say you: You can't just leave it or....

Say me: Don't even go there. 

On a different note, I have my new project worked out so stay tuned!  I'm willing to share this much with you: It will not be a picture every day but a picture every week. In the interim, I will continue to blog about life in the trenches.  

Lastly, my pic of the day.  I would submit it, except it would appear Friends of Irony no longer exists.  Too bad.  -> 

UPDATE: I found it!  May 30th was missing.  Now to just track down the discrepancy here on the blog....

INC

Pan Seared

I love gumball machines.  I've always thought it would be cool to have one.  But then, of course, you're forced to chew bubble gum everyday.  Not that this is a bad thing, but your dentist might take issue with it.  Or maybe not, when I stop and think about it.  Maybe our dentists secretly want us to chew gum.  


Gum=sugar=cavities=visits to the dentist=dentist gets new Lexus.  -> 

Cube

I cannot tell a lie.  I've been intrigued, more than once, with the concept of these bags.  But something tells me they work much better on the infomercials than they do in real life and I've yet to pull the trigger.  


I could embed the commercial for them.  But I won't.  Have you tried them?  What do you think? -> 

2/$3.33

If this photo looks familiar, it is.  I took essentially the same picture on the third day of the project on August 22, 2010.  It was a Sunday.  

And so, on a Sunday almost a year later thus coming full circle, I returned to the same store and recorded the same subject matter. Note the price of the items increased by 11% in less than a year.  This is what prompted me to take the picture.  But there's more to the story, because the day before I took this picture I lost my uber phone.  I got it in October of last year, a full two months in to the project. Therefore I was forced to take a step back in time and start using my old iPhone (a first generation, I'll have you know) again. So not only did I take the picture using the same subject matter, I'm using the same equipment.  

The end of the project then, which is rapidly approaching (!), will be as it started: Hipstamatic application on a first generation iPhone.  

By the way, I'm SO upgrading.  I'm just holding out for the 5, which doesn't hit the market for a few weeks. -> 

BJ's

Ride Like a Girl

Love it when vehicles essentially become billboards.  I'm actually surprised I haven't explored this further. -> 

Hello kitty

Do you realize how long Hello Kitty has been around (1976)?  Did you know the character was originally introduced in Japan and has since become one of the most recognizable fiction characters in the world?  She has stores devoted to her.  Online sites devoted to her. She's become so ubiquitous that one guy devoted a blog to her (which you can now find on my blogroll, because the concept is brilliant.)  

I'm pretty ambivalent towards Hello Kitty, but I suspect I would feel quite differently if Little Missy ever became enamored with her and my house was inundated with her image.  Thankfully, I've been spared (*looking for wood upon which to knock*) -> 

Studio 35

Cast-offs

A friend had to go down to Texas and clean out her grandmother's (3,000 square foot) house last week.  Her garage is now full of boxes of stuff her family didn't want and she's sharing the wealth.   Some of the items she brought back with her were pretty cool.  For instance, you see those blue tumblers in that box there?  There were four of them and now live in my house.  Plus I got a really cool old sauce pan, yellow, cast-iron...you know the kind I'm talking about, right?  I'm a sucker for those.  

But then there was also stuff like this:  

Yes.  That would be plastic fruit.  Yes.  That's a bug there on the pear.  She ran an unsuccessful campaign last night that was as relentless as mosquitoes in a swamp to get me to take it off her hands.  But I prevailed!  That horror remains in HER house.  As it should be.  -> 

Protein 4g

-Posted using (enter requisite phrase which brags about your cool gadgets and applications for said gadget here)