Jaguar

There's something beautiful about enjoying sitting in a car for hours and just driving wherever you let the wind take you. It's lovely.

Riswold Mind Fuck

For those of you who don't know who Jim Riswold is, well, you better fucking learn. He's pretty much thee ad god/guru. And most likely, you've liked/seen a lot of his work (i.e. t.v. commercials for Nike. Remember "I am Tiger Woods"?) over the past 20 or so years. Yes, Riswold is my new leader, mentor and teacher, and he makes me nervous as all hell. It's also not because he's brilliant (which of course he is). But rather, there's just something about him that I connect with. He makes me stumble over my words, crawl within myself so I loose all train of relative thought and scares the crap out of me in a good way. At our second presentation he interrupted me when it was my turn, for a salute to me speaking (I said nothing in the first meeting), which turned into me turning bright red and him calling me out for that too. It made me turn even more red. Although, everyone said I didn't look that bad. HA! Anyways, Riswold can read me. More than most. He knows how to fuck with my mind. And when you're constantly going on 3-5 hours of sleep a night (for almost 2 weeks straight), hardly having time to eat anything but power bars, drinking loads of coffee, constantly questioning yourself and why you're at the biggest damn ad agency in PDX, a little fucking around can have a big effect. Yes, that totally happened today. Thanks Riswold. One day I'll 'fucking' be able to talk to you.

My Life Is Officially Over, Outside of 12

Today was/is the first day of 12 at W+K. Fucking fantastic!!! I woke up at 6am with only a few hours of sleep under my belt. I thought no big deal. Man was I wrong. ZB and I got to the office a little before 9am, and currently, it's 11:20pm and we're still at the office working on our first project that is due for a presentation tomorrow morning at 10am. I'll be lucky if I can go home to shower and change clothes. Wishing it was likely, but it's highly doubtful.

Anyways, my first day/night has been spent with the 12 odd making some killer music after making a life size animal made of cardboard, paper mache and filled with goodies. It's pretty much amazing.

This just in from @dontgetbored "Stop putting your fingers in the cake I'm baking. Go write a classic novel."

Yes, this is my new life. Photo shoots with important photographers, free beer at the office, no sleep and hardly anytime to eat, a second and newer laptop, Riswold's morning greetings of "Fuck You" and beautiful people everywhere. Yes, I love my life. Can I stay at WK forever?!?

4th

To commemorate me getting a cold, feeling like poo and staying in on a Saturday night, I've decided to post some photos of the 4th of July. AM and I were invited to NJ's cousins house for the festivities. Due to some family matters NJ was not able to make it, so AM and I decided that we both still wanted to go to the coast. We were told lots of people would be there. Well, that was not entirely true. It ended up being NJ's family and AM and I. They were way cool though. A free place to stay, more food than necessary and hundreds of dollars in fireworks. My only priority was to chill out and roast (inflame) tons of marshmallows. It was a good 4th.







It was the only shell of color. But why orange?


Pointing at living sea things. Yeah, I'm a bit dorky.



How does one truly enjoy/experience the Oregon coast? By wading in the freezing Pacific until you can't feel your toes and they turn bright pink.


What is that? Seriously, I have no idea. Is it a crab of some sort???


I'm attracted to taking photos of interesting looking dead things. This time, some beach creature getting eaten by sand flees.





Bonfire on the beach. Raging.



Prior to the torturing of marshmallows.







The last batch of fire blazing marshmallow goodness. Count 'em, 20 in total!

I Get To Live Where?

The Waukeena!!!! The place I will be calling home for at least the next year with fellow 12er ZB. It's beautiful and located in the classy area of Kerns. For those of you that don't know where that area is, well, it's the area that encompasses the inner east side of Burnside. It's also becoming quite the hot spot with places like Ron Toms, Noble Rot, Doug Fir, Le Pigeon, Screen Door, Old Wives Tale, Laurelhurst Theater, Voodoo Too and a whole slew of other cool places. I'll be right smack in the middle with some of my favorite spots being within 10 blocks on either side of Burnside. Score!

The place itself is one of the coolest living spaces I have seen in a while. 2 floors, 2 bedrooms, 2 full baths (one with a tub, one with just a shower), 2 entrances (one on each floor), hardwood floors and nice newer burgundy carpet in the bedrooms, great natural light and the best part, a spiral staircase connecting the 2 floors. The photos below showcase the place and were taken off the property management website.

ZB and I move in, or rather, obtain our keys on the 14th (1 week). We'll both be sleeping on inflatable mattresses until we find beds. Anyone want to go bed jumping to help me find the perfect one? Shit, we also need a couch.... Among other things.

!!!!!! FML !!!!!!

It's just one of those days. The kind when you get a phone call and all of a sudden your world goes from potentially good to pure shit. The kind of day that has you wanting to hide yourself away from the world and be as invisible as possible. The kind of day where your heart sinks and your confidence dwindles. The kind of day where your dreams of the near future faces a challenge that one would think shouldn't be challegned. Yes, today is shit.

Which gets me thinking. The other day, I was watching some show on my laptop, and the main character made an interesting observation: " 'God' put us on this earth, decided to make us struggle through life, and then takes us back whenever he wants." Now I'm not religious or god believing at all, but for some reason, that line spoke to me. It's true. Why is life a struggle? It shouldn't be. Humans are greedy fuckers, point blank. You look at other species, especially mammals, and you see how everyone eats at a kill, or is taken care of. True, there's a hierarchy, but the point is, even if you don't get the top pickings, you still get something. Humans, for the most part, could care less. It's get as much as you can, and fuck anyone else. It's pure shit.

But you know, I'm in too much of a piss mood to continue this argument. I'm going to drown myself in the shower and then make uber important phone calls and obtain valuable information from the past 2 years. Oh fun, just how I wanted to spend my Friday. !!!!!! FML !!!!!!

35mm

I lost my battery charger for my tiny Canon point and shoot (I finally found it yesterday), so I decided to take out the good ol' Nikon 35mm I got when I was 14. I don't touch it nearly as much as I should, because everytime I do so, I remember just how in love I am with it.

To celebrate the revival of my 35mm, I brought it along to the Serious Business concert on June 23 at the Hawthorne Burgerville. Yeah, you heard right.... I went to a concert at a fast food restaurant. And guess what? It was AWESOME!!!! And Serious Business are quickly becoming one of my favorite local Portland groups. You should totally check them out.

I've shot two rolls so far. The first roll, to my surprise, had been in my camera since last February/March, and so it was a little faded. I still like the results, as it almost seems fitting for the SB show. Old look/feel, yet completely modern.

Early 2008. St. Johns. The old casa:

Early 2008. Jordan Schnizter's koi pond fence. Work. I rebuilt/tied the fence together.
Serious Business concert and night to follow. Hawthorne Burgerville. Roots Brewery. SE 11th and Alder. June 23, 2009. **Serious Business is going to be huge one day. I want them to perform at my place once I move in (hopefully mid Julyish) as part of something I thought up today called: "Concerts in the Kitchen". Wouldn't that be rad?
Por Que No. Hawthorne. Margaritas with NJ, AM and GS. NJ was sparkly. June 27, 2009. **There are more photos to come once the roll is used up.