One Down, 11 to Go

January was a hoot.  I fully anticipated being annoyed -- at least once or twice -- having to schlep my camera around every day hunting for something interesting to take a picture of.  Didn't happen.  Not once.  In fact, most days I looked forward to it.

How could I not look forward to photographing this little starlet?

I am a creature of habit and I tend to follow the same routine (particularly during the week -- the weekends are always HAVE FUN WITH AWESOME PEOPLE.):  go to work, go home, eat dinner, workout (*cough* not every day *cough*), watch some crap on TV/Netflix, go to bed, rinse, repeat.  Variations on this include, volunteer nights (Tuesdays and Fridays) and occasional dinner (or movie or hookah or olive oil tasting) with friends.  It's difficult to break from that routine without a purpose, hence The Year of 30 Days.  Voila!  Instant purpose.

Breaking from that typical work-a-day routine was surprisingly refreshing.  I enjoyed the brainstorming, talking to people about what I'm doing, going to interesting places, and more importantly, I've noticed a subtle shift in my overall perspective.  Nothing dramatic -- we're not talking an Eat, Pray, Love-esque spiritual awakening here, but I have noticed a disturbance in the force ("Luuuuke...").  But that's a longer discussion for another post.

I definitely "phoned it in" a couple of times.  There were days when life got the better of me and I simply didn't have the time to make an excursion.  I also had moments of, "I have taken pictures of all of the things.  There are no other things."  The series of eye pictures came about on such a day.  No. Other. Ideas.  As it turns out, that was my favorite post.

Speaking of, out of curiosity I took a picture the next day with makeup on this time:

My eyelashes are ridiculous, but I threw that clumpy-ass mascara away.

Lessons learned:

1.  I could have used the opportunity to practice different photography techniques -- maybe experiment with the many functions my camera has rather than, for the most part, sticking to the 'auto' setting.

2.  Plan, plan, plan.  Many days I found myself with nary a picture at 10 o'clock at night.

3.  Don't worry so much about the "creative" or the "interesting".  The idea was to take a picture, not focus on entertaining my 10s of readers.  Though, that being said, I love the shit out of this blog.  If January was a "hoot", the blog is a "hoot and a half".  I'd write it with or without readers ... but I prefer with.

Next stop, arts & crafts....

This is the end, Beautiful friend

January is over already?  How did that happen?  Didn't I start this blog last week?  Where am I?  In the next day or so I will post a January wrap-up, followed soon after by the "rules for February" (that I am still making up). 

Monday's picture was rather "meh", hence its absence from this blog-o-mine.  To make up for the "mehness" of Monday, I made the (3-mile) trek to my Dad's office on Tuesday to take a few pictures around the yard. 

My dad's in the concrete biz, so here's some concrete:

Pervious Concrete.  Not impervious to insults.

These molds are used to form something-or-other concrete blocks that are aged and then broken, testing the strength of the concrete.

I would store socks in here.

There's an old plant on the property, likely used to do things process materials of some sort.  I've always found it a rather striking image, and Mr. M. was kind enough to escort me so I could snap a few pictures.

I'm lucky to have a father who will drop everything to drive me around on a whim.
Work-shmerk.

You'll have to amuse me a bit with this last shot.  There are piles of crap stockpiles of material around the yard, typically stone, sand and crushed concrete, used for doing-something-with-concrete as concrete "ingredients", in the case of the sand and stone; the crushed concrete is an enviro-friendly method of filling in road beds or driveways.

(Quick sidebar:  my dad says he doesn't remember this, but he used to take me to work with him on the weekends now and again and I'd "help" him measure these stockpiles for inventory and whatnot.  I remember feeling very important and special, going to work with daddy.)

It was gorgeously bright and sunny yesterday, which was nice and all, but as a result of said bright sunshine, some of the shots were washed out and blah.  Picasa has a "invert colors" effect.  Not so blah now, eh?

*gasp* It looks like ice!

Immediately, I thought of this:

The Endurance, Ernest Shackleton's ship, trapped in the ice.

Do you see it?  Come on, squint your eyes a little.  Maybe tilt your head the left.  Got it now?  I thought you would.  I may or may not (I totally do) have this picture prominently displayed in my living room.

(In case you were wondering, the strike-outs were what I had written before I called my dad asking for clarification.)

(Tuesday, 31 Jan)

Taste the Rainbow

Eat me.