The Toys I Want and their Unfortunate Consequence to my Wallet

Can anyone help me right this wrong? With the collective powers of my friends combined, Im sure we can find solutions to this problem, by scouring the internet for better deals, alternate products, or whatever mumbo-jumbo the Hive-Mind of my friends can conjure up. Put your expertise to the test and help me get all this crap with small caveat of a better price please.

Computer -

INTEL Processor:

Intel Core i3-530 Clarkdale 2.93GHz LGA 1156 73W Dual-Core Desktop Processor Model BX80616I3530 – Retail $120.00 fps bench at 77

INTEL Motherboard:

GIGABYTE GA-P55-USB3 LGA 1156 Intel P55 USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard – Retail $120.00 w/ usb 3.0

ASUS P7H55-M PRO LGA 1156 Intel H55 HDMI Micro ATX Intel Motherboard – Retail $110.00

Ram:

OCZ Platinum 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model OCZ3P13332GK – Retail $50.00

Graphics Card:

EVGA 01G-P3-1225-LR GeForce GT 220 1GB 128-bit DDR2 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready Video Card – Retail $45.00 with 25.00 mail-in

Total: $375.00 give or take

Alpine Touring Setup -

Skis -

Volkl Gotama Ski $489.00 New

BD Megawatt Ski $519.00 New

BD Havoc Ski $431.00 New

Bindings -

Fritschi Diamir Explore Binding $432.00 New (on sale)

Boots -

Scarpa F3 Alpine Touring Boot $486.00 New (on sale)

Skins -

Black Diamond Ascension Nylon STS Skins $140.00 New

Total: $1000.00 Give or take

Camera -

Body -

Nikon D90- $800.00 New $ 679.95 Used

New Lens -

Sigma 18-50mm DC EX HSM Macro F/2.8 $419.00 new

Total $1220.00 Give or take

GRAND TOTAL 2595.00 (Give or take, of course!)

Of course, the the cost can also be offset by a lovely donation, simply by making a donation from the link above! (hows that for a shameless plug!)

-kydan

So, boys and girls, I’ve returned to blogging after a two-year hiatus, which was oh so exciting, spent in this wonderful metropolitan. Dont worry, the photos will soon follow from that, but for now I’ll just grace you with a few of my favorite portraits from the past two years.

A Greek couple. They gave us water. It was +35 c…so I enjoyed it. They gave us Dolmades. I enjoyed them too.

E. Skeen. From CO. In MTL. Actually, just outside of Montreal, on the Rive-Sud. Tracking. After a bit of a driving adventure. Why? Because we could. Yep. Split Adventures! (attn: missionary lingo involved)

Daniel Bolduc. A what a fine specimen of Humanity. Truely. The most earnest, innocent man I ever did see.

Some elders have too much fun looking back into my Nikkor 50 mm f/1.4 late at night at the MTC.

Case in point.

Hope you enjoyed this little teaser. Ive got a slight selection of photos from a quick and dirty flee down to Ft. Irwin/Barstow/Las Vegas/the middle of the bloody desert in “rush-hour” stop and go traffic. Let me tell you, tis a bizarre experience being hours from a residential powerline and be stopped on the freeway, for no reason than just half the state of CA heading back to the Sardine suburbia hell known as Los Angeles County.

More coming soon, if you didnt catch that from the last 4 lines.

- N.c

oh, a little post – script caveat. check this out.

5 days to go. I really want one of these with one of these. Too bad it carries quite the price tag.

is on its way. I love all the seasons. Many people think that I just like winter, but I like em all. And printemps is one of my favorites. Still get to ski, but get to see green again. And the mountains take on such a different feel during the spring. Wont get to appreciate it like I usually do this year. Like I said, cinq jours. I’ll probably make this the 2nd to last post, so lots of photos on this one. Endure it well. I hope you like them anyways, so you shouldnt have to endure. Sure going to miss notcot and the rest of Teh Intern3t, but alas, in the words of Gloria Glaynor I will survive.

I have been listening to alot of The Radio Dept. and The Raveonettes lately. Be sure to check out the latter’s song Black/White at soundofcolor.com under the color black. Free download, and its good stuff. now for the photography. Captions as I please.

overnight ski trip at le chalet with scotty.

-5 and windy

These are from a previous draft post I never actually got around to doing it was going to be a series, but I never wrote teh other posts, here is the text from that draft:

Title: Alas, two-footed

So, I thought to myself whilst I sat at my work desk, listening to Prof. Marsh McCall bantering, with a strong desire to watch this wonderful film, but instead watching films by Bas Jan Ader, I looked at my shoes. These shoes, which were bought here, on my premiere induction into the wonderful European continent, have in effect, become my constant companion of travels across this great wide world. They have become, as you can see, horribly water-stained, with the main soles nearly worn through and the interiors stripped of their former glory of clean stitching and a obscure Italian designer label. Yet, regardless, I wear them without shame with some of my favorite other pieces of clothing. With a little bit of polish work and the attention called higher, they work (and feel) wonderful.

Thus, I decided to do a series of shots of some of the articles that I carry, wear, and use, day to day, that define me. I has left me wondering, what are the things that have become part of my individual style and identity to myself. Do others associate these things with me, as me? That last, my friends, is for you to answer, if it so pleases you. So, today is my shoes, most specifically my brown oxfords as seen above, but with a few others thrown into the mix. Hope you enjoy.

Oh, and when I was thinking about strong desire to watch this wonderful film, I remembered this map I created while I was in Paris of the Locations, descriptions, and names of Sofia Coppola’s Paris. I tried to visit every location, or at least find it, even if it was closed. I got nearly all of them! But, a few had closed or moved, etc. So they haven’t all been updated since I tried to go find them. However, if your a Coppola lover, are in Paris, and want something different to try out, it’s recommended. I can tell ya what I remember was good and what wasn’t around anymore if you drop me a line.

Shots from my recent trip to St. Louis/Chicago and the land in between the two.

My hotel room view. il etais superb.

in the Art Institute of Chicago.

An American Gothic.

Beating outside the AIC

Surreal? Oui. Hard to tell from the picture, but it was.

Bean.

Looking down on the home of American Gothic. Welcome to the Heartland.

Thats it for today madames et monsieurs. Hope you enjoyed it.

Well boys and girls, we are down to the wire now. Just under 2 weeks to my fateful departure. I have a lot of blogging to get done before that day comes up! This next post (which btw, I wrote for a good hour or so then lost due to a very gracious 404 provided by comcast when I tried to save it) will explain the final picture seen on the previous post. It is written in creative essay form, but is a rough draft from my moleskine, and I dont feel like doing a whole lot of editing, specially on round two of writing it here on the blog. So be nice, think of it as a draft, not a polished and published editorial. Alright, here we go: Woke late. I’m not one for a Dawn Patrol in its truest sense if I can help it. Met up with Matt in very dawn soaked and saturated park and ride off I-15 at a very healthy and sleep conducive 8:17 am. I fufill my social responsibility with the generic greetings and intro quickly and pack my stuff up in his sexy red Kia. We head off, each of us delving as much as we can into others life and personality as we survey the mountains we are about to climb. We each want to know the man that we are trusting with our lives. Matt seems knowledgeable, kind, albeit a bit eccentric. Thats more than acceptable though, we all seem to get a bit giddy about this sport from time to time. As we drive we both become more eccentric as the scenes unfold around us as we drive up Little Cottonwood. Coalpit, Lisa Falls, and Maybird display their wares in the bright sun, one of the first real bluebird days we have seen in weeks. Its looking rock solid in terms of snow stability and we muse about what we could do today. We have come with the plan of climbing Flagstaff and dropping into Cardiff, but that plan is tentative. We get good looks at Monte Cristo and White Pine, Matt begins to muse about doing a Mt. Superior Summit. Admittedly, I am a bit nervous about this. During my growing years with winter weekends spent at Snowbird, Superior was the Mecca of local skiing as I knew it. Only people published and access to a helicopter could be doing that mountain, I thought in youthful naivety. Yet here I was, 19 years old, a mere 2 years of serious backcountry immersion, and I was faced with the proposition of skiing what to date will be the Largest, most exposed and continually steep lines I have ever done. This mountain to me looks like it has been transplanted from the Chugach Range in Alaska. But as the full vista comes into view, with not a single track tainting its face yet, I decide that I am game. This year has been one of the best the Wasatch has seen in years, an to top it off the Avy Danger compass has been coated with green more often than not. To get a full frame of reference, we have a nice dusting of 6-12″ last night. Not that impressive one might say, but look a little wider in the frame. It has snowed 91″ inches the previous seven days in the Cottonwoods. On top of this, it has snowed nearly every day for 2 months, and its all set up and settled nicely into perfect stability pattern. We have more snow now at the beginning of February than we received all of last year. Matt parks wildly at the Our Lady of the Snows church, and in five minutes I am listening to the familiar beep of the Avalanche Center Beacon check station. The skin track looks more machine cut than human made, perfectly straight, packed solid. Lots of traffic today. We watch groups of 1-3 spaced out by a few hundred yards slowly rise up the mountain. Not that I mind, there is plenty of goods to be had, and this is the Backcountry, not the resort, you can take your time for powder all day. The going is easy, but slow. Matt is as much a photo buff as myself, and we stop what seems like every 200 ft to shoot off a few frames. And the light isnt even that great, too many high altitude clouds flattening it out. Regardless, we slowly rise to the top of Cardiff getting buzzed by the not so friendly Wasatch Powderbird Guides pilots every two minutes. Looks like everyone is getting at it today. Matt and I discuss the ever hot politics revolving around WPG and the rest of the Backcountry community. We both aren’t too fond of them, but not quite as passionate as many of those you find out here. We come to the conclusion that we wouldn’t want to pay 1200.00 for 5 runs while watching grimy ski bums hiking up to the same place for 5.00 bucks in gas and a whole lot of leg power. Should be a bit more of a novelty. We hit the ridge and continue on our way to Superior. The weather begins to worsen as the ceiling comes down around us, but the worst damage its doing to us now it limiting the number of subjects we can shoot frames at. Any pictures look like we are floating in the white void. We start on the steep ascent of subpeak Little Superior as a group comes out of the fogs and quickly over takes us. These hardcore afternoon warriors are charging the hill like safety from the apocalypse is at the summit. Meanwhile I am slipping and sliding up the 40 degree hill, my skins struggling to keep enough traction while gravity tries to pull me back down the 5000 feet to the bottom. Even more helpful, I have noticed that underneath the bulletproof wind layers on the top of the ridge, there is a nice helping of sugary faceted snow underneath that falls away at the slightest disturbance. That could make the day a whole lot worse, and we are already at 11k. Hope that doesnt cause us to many problems. We finally make it to the top of Little Superior and quickly decide as we sit in whiteout fog that a full summit is not in the cards today, and we will need to wait for the visibility to improve. Mockingly while our objective, the South Face has a visibility of about 20 ft the North Face is clear, bathed in blue light coming through the cloud wall blocking our decent on the other side. Makes for good pictures though, and Matt and I sit down to take a small lunch and shoot some more frames. Who knows how long this wait could be? No more than two minutes later and half way into one of my three sandwiches the wait apparently is not that long. Suddenly the break comes full fledged and it is bluebird. Matt and I hurriedly hop up and start packing up our stuff again, ripping skins of skis and adjusting packs. That was quicker than expected. I glance over at Alta and Snowbird to chuckle slightly as I look at the lovely hardpack snow crisscrossed by thousands of tracks. Not a trace of powder left over there. I change my focus to a few dozen feet in front of me and look at the completely untouched powder that awaits me on this side of the canyon. Sure glad I am on this side. But by the time we are prep, the ceiling has dropped again and visibility is back to nil. We’ve grown older and wiser too though this time around. We know another break is coming. We both prep where as to where we are going to run our lines and plan our decent. Matt is up first, while I shoot some frames of his initial decent just a few feet below the ridge. The ceiling rises, the sun comes out and Matt goes. Fluid turns and great powder I’m already envious, but 100 yards later and Matt disappears into the soup. We are left to shouting for communication as I prep for my decent, but the clouds are like clockwork now and I am ready. Ceiling rises, sun peeks out, and Matt raises viewfinder to eye. I give a shout and wave and start. Perfect, popping turns are cranked out as I start down the largest line of my life so far. The snow is deep, but responsive and makes for great turns, The powder seems to find its way into each and every crack it can, but I don’t mind. Ecstasy is the only thing I am feeling right now. 8 tight turns into the hill and I think that my sluff is probably gone and I can cut back. I twist to the left, only to face the fluid motion of a snow river running right next to me. I am instantly hit with real evidence that this is a real mountain now, and that I am at a new level of backcountry skiing. My petty sluff that that I so diligently would manage on previous tours was more of a toy rather than a danger. But now I am on a real hill, and this stuff can be dangerous, as I am well aware as I face the 40 ft wide and 200 yard long flowing river of sluff. I mentally adjust to the new level of respect and diligence needed to ski this type of mountain. I’ve had good training, now its time to put it into practice. So, not going left, cut back to the right. I soon find myself a little ways below Matt on a slight ridge on the hill, and wave to him to start his decent. My turn to lift Viewfinder to eye and I start shooting frames. Matt continues with beautiful turns down the hill and disappears back into the soup. I shout to him that I am starting and he gives a shout back. I bust through the soup out into the clear light, and lay a wave of skiers coke down on Matt for good measure. “This time lets just finish it off all the way to the bottom”, Matt proposes. I quickly agree and we smoothly glide down the remaining 1k to the bottom, emerging ourselves in as much my drug of choice as possible. I feel adequately immersed, but Matt doesn’t seem to have gotten his fix as he goes over the handlebars to get some more. But not to worry, plenty of buffer space and Matt peeks out of his crater with a wide smile. We finally hit the bottom, putting ourselves right now next to the road. Matt puts out a thumb to hitchhike the mile back to the car. I sit and take in what I just did. I’ve hit a new level of skiing, and I dont think I can go back. Not even the 5 inch gash through my core phases me, it was well worth the reward reaped from it. The mountain I thought would always be untouchable to myself when I was young has just made me into a bona fide Ski Mountaineer. Now the Pics…there are too many to put them into their respective places in order. 1st ones mine, then a selection of Matts. Now for Matts:

So I finally actually sat down and learned some more about the fun called Lightroom, the glorious little tool that is photoshop for photographers. Sound a bit backward eh? Well photoshop is more or less for digital artists now days, and not so much photographers. Dont get me wrong, you can do everything in photoshop and more that you can in lightroom, but the amount of time it takes is horrendous. Most the tools in photoshop now days will never be used for photographers. So I took the time to learn all the new names and the dovetailing, slipstreaming, corner cutting, photo honing bliss of Lightroom and now am feeling much better about my photos.

While I was at it I learned why all my photos have been turning out much more washed out and under saturated when I upload them to the net. I learned all about the color profiling and learned taht the web uses sRGB while the default for everything else is AdobeRGB. So when firefox does the rough conversion instead of me having Lightroom do its nice clean one, it dont work so well. But enough banter. Maybe that explanation will help some poor photographer googling for help.

These latests photos are from my recent trip to Vegas for the Las Vegas bowl back in December with my friend Scott who was back on holiday leave from the Army.

I am just glad I am not a cow.

Long drive down, the Robinson family can be interesting when you mix step families. But you just come mentally prepped and you’ll carry on just fine. Eventually made it to Vegas. Not much warmer than Utah, but sunny at least.

As usual there is copious amounts of construction going on in Vegas. Particularly in the middle of the strip, was quite a surreal scene at night, unfortunately I couldn’t make it back over there in time with my camera. Reminded me of the pics of China and UAE with the 24 hour construction with dozens of high rise cranes.

Dont worry, i’ll stay away. I dont want to be JDOCHOP’d by purple sion.

Well look! even more.

Here at the game, it was bloody cold! And for one who doesnt like watching football anyways, it wasnt too fun. Had fun shooting though. This ended better than it looked it would.

Eat Fresh ®

Me and Scotty, shot taken by Andrea.

Well look! its a friend. Katie Mower to be exact.

We got up at 6:00 am for the drive home. I cant sleep in cars, especially when I am not in one of my cars. So I shot instead. Glad I did.

Also glad I didnt eat here.

Isnt Southern Utah County lovely?

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Johnson thinks so.

Andrea et moi.

Thats it from Vegas. Heading to supposedly warm California on Wednesday. 70+ F sounds great to me, especially since the ski’s are in the shop. Due to this:

It was worth it though. More on that later. Got to finish editing the shots from that little adventure.

Hope everyone is well!

Current time 2:04 AM. Why am I posting? The stem of that question I ask myself daily with dozens of variable endings to them. Try so very hard to discover the answers to them, in fact, its basicly all I think I live for at this point. But can I answer them? No not really. People think I have guidance, that I am on top of it and am going places with my life. Far as I can see I am destined for a mediocre life, so I still try to answer those questions but never really get anywhere. Does anyone? I sure do hope so. What does this have to do with my Photography and this blog? Well, besides a point of reference for myself and something of an anchor to accomplishment, not much. So, here is the finale installment of my Years End series.

These are exclusively winter shots from around Alpine and SLC, while skiing and/or doing recon from the valley for new places to ski. Hope you enjoy them.

Start here with a most beautiful sunset on North Mountain in Alpine

I will ski that couloir. Shouldnt take to long to get to really. Until noted, all of these are in Alpine.

noted. that was quicker than I thought it would be. to lazy to edit the above. Up AF canyon doing recon for a 2 day ski trip.

On my way to ski Grizzly Gulch into Figure 8 lake area via Twin Lakes Pass

Half way up Patsy Marsley looking back at Mt. Superior in LCC on the above trip.

more or less the same thing. My partners skinning up.

Taking off the skins and preping for the downhill onto Twin Lakes Pass

More Superior area.

skier = Russ Christensen – local BC connoisseur.

Looking up into Wolverine Cirque where local BD skier Billy Poole died last week.

Hiking out.

On the way home. Shooting whilst driving again, its worth the shots.

Hope you enjoyed this series, I’ll export and prep the next few series to be released here over the next 4 weeks. As of…right now…it is 1 month till departure.

Woke up to two feet of snow in the driveway. Though I have utmost respect and adoration for my little Jetta, I knew it couldn’t hack it. Ive got faulty tires that dont have a trace of tread on them. Not quite sure how they passes safety and emissions, but its not worth the 400 bucks for new tires when I am leaving in just a few short weeks. So I was later than usual to work. But, I have no quarrels with that, and the skiing will just be that much better.

Humm, what else. Something of a stressful week this week, lots of soul searching and self imposed critiques of my self, my belief system, and how I regard this good green earth. Been forcing the opposing views on myself to see how I will react to such and its not fun. Lead to some interesting discoveries though and it help you grow. Which kindof lead to this:

Noticed the link from the girlfriend of Mr. Weeks, Jamie. These two LA’ers have such a different mindset on life from me its great to read their stuff. They seem to be very cool people, but have views that, at least on the surface, butt heads with what I believe that its a great way to see things from a different perspective. Now, I think if we actually were able to sit down and talk about such opinions, we would find that we do have common ground, but isnt that how it all works? Ignorance is bliss I suppose, oh how I wish it was.

But anyways, Zeitgeist, only made it about 1/2 way through so far (its a two hour documentary) as the google video stopped buffering and I was left to start buffering again, which thus far isnt going so well. Its basically a conspiracy theory documentary showing the vast similarities between astrology and cosmic pattering with historical gods and goddesses and/or messiahs, and how they are all the same more or less, thus discrediting them. Thus Religion as known for the last 2500 years or so is more a social tool of control, the greatest lie ever created that is used to manipulate and control society. Goes on to show this in 9/11 etc etc, banker at the heart of it etc etc, like I said haven’t finished it yet. Now, I have been taking all this with a very healthy dose of grano salis but what they claim isnt all untrue. Its very true that the greatest lies are based on truth, and although I wished it earlier, ignorance is not bliss. So I have been watching it. Its hard to know what exactly goes on in our wonderful society today, but their warnings of a Police State is a very real warning to head. Just read one of my favorite books.

What the makers of Zeitgeist warn is nothing short of what Orwell, Huxley, Bradbury, Thome Yorke, Zamyatin, etc etc etc warn us of. And though these in turn should also be read grano salis, the societies they describe are no less plausible. Just look at the way we are required to behave and actions to perform when flying now. You may as well come undressed to the airport and wait to dress afterwards, considering you must take off a significant amount of clothing and accessories when going through “security”. Our fear is beginning to paralyze us. However, Zeitgeist is only one predefined way that this could come to pass. It is narrow, and thus not as likely to me. To have the last 2500 years of social dominion by the select few in a conscious effort to deceive the masses be uncovered by one year of research is questionable. Yet, they should be respected for getting people to think if nothing else, for ignorance and blindly being lead is what will get us eating soma and thinking WAR IS PEACE; FREEDOM IS SLAVERY; IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH and that is double plus bad.

But what is this, oh yes, a PHOTO blog. So enough with my socipolitical rants and on to the pictures.

After that rant, I sure wish I could just go do this. Some fun on a Sunday afternoon, using the model that I prefer when I want them to do whatever I want. Sure wish I had others that were willing though.

More cameron. I should shoot my other siblings more…but they just arent as willing.

Trying to get to the cabin in the Xterra still, if we had more time it may have been possible. But the view were wonderful regardless. Forgot to focus properly…

The iconic Deseret Towers at the Provo BYU campus have been deemed unsafe and are being demolished. So after a lunch with some of my friends down there on campus, I went over and shot for awhile. Lots of memories attached to these dorms for me, parents, and siblings alike, all with different stories.

I wonder how Richards feels about this?

Thats all you get for today, there will be more later this week I am sure. Hope you boded the rant well.

Salut everyone,

Just returned from a quick trip to Chicago IL and some other cities around IL, IA, and MO. Great city Chicago, incredible architecture and a different feel from most modern cities of comparable size. Got lots of pictures from that, so those should be coming eventually. I’m going to have to start posting more to get all these photos I have lined up for display out before I leave in just over a month from now.

Just got caught up on all the new posts over at NOTCOT. Some superb stuff over the last few days. Took me 3 hours or so just to pour over it all, it has a wikipedian effect with the cascading links throughout all the blogs, leading to my firefox session having 20-60 tabs open and a strong feeling of being lost in la culture.

One of my favorites from this deluge of audio/visual immersion came this:

From VisualTechnicians.com, the website for a screenprint artist. click on the pic above for more info! But, its Mr. Murray, co-star to the wonderful film Lost in Translation as well as his even more eclectic shows of The Life Aquatic and The Darjeeling Limited, both Wes Anderson Films, and The Royal Tannenbaum’s among my favorites by him. The more I watch him, the funnier he becomes, and this print embodies quite comically why I like him. If you dont get it, well…we will just leave it there. Unfortunately, the prints are all sold out. My chance to get some good prints for cheap has passed…oh well. Ok, enough of that. There was plenty more on NOTCOT, but just go read it!

Now the photos. This one is a mash up of various times and dates. Some family photos, and some stuff that isn’t necessarily my best work, but best embodies my life during the past year. This one is a larger series, I want to try to get through all this soon.

My father at our cabin.

Cameron, shy at school, eccentric everywhere else. He loves posing for shots

Fall. On the way to the cabin.

we were pulling trees down to cut wood for the coming winter. Mountains were lightly dusted with my cocaine.

do we need to explain all of these?

the last holdout of color.

driving motorcycles by headlamp is dangerous. But to get view like this, its well worth it.

Ok, so I didnt hit the shutter button on this one…I composed the shot, set up the exposure everything, but jordan hit the button. So I suppose he deserves some credit. These shots are from skiing on the 7th of OCTOBER. Crazy approach with skis on our backs, rain streaming like a lux hotel shower head and back wheels trying to go every direction but the one we wanted them to. But we found 2 feet of untouched (of course…lol the only other place people were skiing at this time was at the then closed Alta, and those were only the really hard core people). Pushed off some sluff, not too dangerous yet though, the base was only 2 feet deep and the snow field about 300 yards wide..dirt on the other aspects. So yea, enough technical talk. Thats me.

shots from that adventure.

same thing.

Cameron and his friend playing football.

Hook? Why Austin Lee kept this on his rearview…who knows. These are on the way to Joes Valley, out in eastern Utah. On a whim trip, twas fun.

Lee shot these with my camera.

Hope you enjoyed them..still got like..30 shots or so in the series, and I have other series already planned. I wonder if anyone even reads this.

Well sorry it took so long to get this post up! With Christmas and my friend Scotty back in for a few days from the Army, I haven’t had much time to blog. Hope you all had a very merry Christmas and that you remember to drink all those lovely drinks slowly, else suffer the consequences Jan 1 2008! Alright, what else is scheduled here in the life of Kydan? A trip to the Windy City here in 2 weeks. Never been there before. Mon Anniversaire is coming up here on the 12th. Other than that, nothing much is happening, though I do have a new photo series planned already, I may interrupt this one with the beginnings of it…I gots to take the photos first though, a bit of quasi-studio work. Bon…les photos maintenaient.

continuing from the previous post, here we have the end of the world.

The sign you can find at the end of the world.

The forest service jeep of Brian in the middle of the end of the road. Les Salt Flats are quite fun with cars.

Surreal is the best word for it.

La Lune et une gare.

On the way back after 45 minutes of playing around on the salt flats.

I have a strange fascination with car mirrors. I’ve got dozens of images take from their reflections.

So, that trip is done. Now we move onto a shot of my summer in Paris. this is republished, but I liked it, so deal.

I cant decide which version I like better. Each are their own really. BW and Color are entirely different mediums.

Incredible lightning storm at Lake Powell the week I got home from France…I didnt even unpack..my bags didnt make it in time…bloody middle class airlines.

Now I dont care how bad the rest of the composition of a photo is when you have such a lovely expression such as that. My little brother at Sliding Rock above Alpine.

A Silver Mine found here I really want to go into it one day..huge grate over though. I have the number to the owner of the property however…we will see.

Near my cabin. Took this earlier this fall, and then I notice the other day while I was at work in the lobby of our office building there is shot taken in the exact same place near the same time. Except the colors are about x10 times the brightness and it looks positively amazing. From a distance. Then this is where the fun stuff happens. You walk right up to the 5×10 ft photo, and notice, all the “photographer” did was take the shot, go into our friend Photoshop, through a saturation layer down, and then CRANK it up say…75 points or so. Sickens me…to think how much was paid for this photo, when it is a fraud. I’ll take a pic and post it here one day. Stay educated when you buy supposed art my friends.

Thats it for today. Just got back from the 2 day ski excursion from hell based from my cabin…not too many pics, I was to frustrated the whole time. I’ve been invited to a 70′s themed party, but there is going

to be alot of that around…with alot of

that. So maybe not.

Rediscovered my new favorite site consortium/group/conglomerate.
And all its sub sites. Notcot.com is a just the normal editorial face of the site, but it is so much more than that. Be sure to check out the about page to find out more about it. Its fun stuff for the интеллигенция in you!

Made this yesterday with Brian, good stuff. I have decided I am going to start cooking again more. I’ve gone through little phases before, but I really want to get some good ideas in my head so I can make some stuff off the top of my head whilst in Montreal.

Now…des photos. Partie Deux.

Hawaii, no matter how many times you go, its never bad. This particular trip allowed for some of my favorite photos I have taken, and I have now realized there are a few shots that I need to include in this roundup. Have to go back through the archives and find them. This was incredible little hike we did on a slightly rainy Sunday (je pense?) Broke my sandal and walked barefoot up the whole trail. extremely low light for most of it though, very hard to shoot…even with my fastest glass at f/1.4 I couldnt really shoot most of it. Wish I had had some quick film to shoot with instead of my d50…oh well.

Same place…

Beach up on the North Shore, did some surfing out along the break after renting boards in Haleiwa from a surf shop owned and run by a parisien frenchman with the employees hailing from the UK and Argentina and Peru…all in Hawaii. To be honest, it was the most unexpected yet great little shop I have ever been to.

Driving on a rainy day around the North Shore and the Kam Hwy.

This is from another short hike that we took, my other sandal broke on this one…just had no luck! My little lurpy brother Tyson flailing himself off the rock.

The cliche pic of this section of the photos. Near our l’hotel where we always stay on Oahu. Great place my friends, much much better than anything near waikiki. Kill me.

The great impromptu adventure to the Salt Flats…what was thought to be a 2 1/2 hour adventure starting at 4 in the pm ended up being a 6 hr adventure with 90 bucks in gas, running on fumes for 45 minutes of absolute terror and pushing forest service green jeep Cherokees to the limits of their capabilities. Oh, and crossing the state border..just to say we did. As seen here.

I thought was a Christmas tree… sure did look like one. But it wasn’t very cheery when it was affectionately turned black and charred..

I too drive off the freeway into the great white desolation. Dont you?

More to come from that trip next time on Lollipops and Crisps! Be sure to tune in, sundays at 5:00 pm! (dont worry, it’ll prolly come before then)

Oh..and look at what’s headed our way tonight through Friday. C’est bien!