friends

i did get to see all my old friends when i went home. everyone came to the funeral. which says a lot about the kind of father he was. that all his son's friends would be there on a middle of the day in the middle of the week funeral. i wasn't sure i should be there. my friend is also my ex and i didn't think the family thought the greatest of me. his dad never made me feel that way though. and his sisters and mom hugged me and said he would have wanted me there. our friends all went out to eat after at a japanese steakhouse restaurant. that's our friend hiding behind the girl next to me. not because he's too upset to be in a picture. just because he's a goofball. i'd missed everyone here. they make me feel like myself again. i've been exhausted all week. glad class was cancelled today. that means i get a whole day off to spend in r'mond. last friday we went to the va historical society museum. i found this picture on my camera. they had an exhibit on pictures taken in va from the beginning of camera time. it was kinda neat. we explored the rest of the museum and found this kids area where you could wear colonial hats. we're goofballs too.

watch

http://www.whitehouse.gov/weekly_address/
i found this past week's on youtube.

winners

did anyone watch the oscars on sunday? we had some people over but i think this house was the only one that had it on. too bad. it was awesome. benjamin button did get a few oscars. but they were mostly for the visual work done in them. and those were decently deserved. but slumdog millionaire was the big winner of the night. all the praise given to them was well deserved. i'm so glad they got the recognition they did. we were sad mickey rourke didn't get best actor for the wrestler. but sean penn was pretty amazing in milk. it's neat that we'd actually seen most of the movies nominated. i've applied for a few more jobs this week. i decided if i could get the same hours for the same pay i'd like to be a photo lab tech. and if i learned how to do that maybe i could get a job at a better camera store. apparently ritz is going out of business. that's too bad. i'm seeing the signs of that at bbuster now i think. we're not allowed to order any more supplies for our stores. we have to go to other stores to get toilet paper and trash bags. every day we hear more and more people threatning to go to netflix since we brought back "extended viewing fees." i'm going home tomorrow. a friend of mine's father passed away last week and i'm going to the funeral. when i talked to him over the weekend he was telling me about all our old friends having kids or being pregnant. weird. they're all younger than me. maybe i'll see some of them tomorrow. i haven't seen anyone since the wedding last summer. i'm really bad about staying in touch...

early

it was snowing this morning. i woke up early and couldn't sleep so i looked outside and there it was. big chunky flakes falling from the sky. so i went to make my coffee to wake up some to take pictures. but as i was drinking it it stopped snowing and started raining. that's one thing i should have learned by now with photography. get a picture now because the scene can change in a moment. oh well. this is some pretty wacky weather we're having. it was so nice out yesterday. i sat outside with the cat while she sunned herself. i was supposed to be working yesterday but as i was putting my shoes on to go i got a call from our manager saying he'd messed up the schedule and i had to work sunday. so i had the day off. and i went shopping for some things i'd been wanting/needing. went to circuit city. what's left is up to fifty percent off now. got myself a new mouse and a shade for my camera's viewing screen for less than twenty dollars. i'm waiting for an even bigger drop in price to pick up an extra battery for my slr. there were still plenty and they're normally eighty dollars. then it was on to petsmart to get a new filter for my turtle tank. a piece broke on the one i have now. so i'm hoping to just replace it and return it. we'll see if my scheme works out. i hope it does because the filter's over a hundred dollars. everyone's still sleeping here. gareth was up until after five. he did inventory at his store last night. i hate to wake them all up. but like mom used to have mondays as cleaning days. mine are now on wednesdays. and there's a lot of work to do before i go into work.

surprise

i'm normally not a big fan of valentine's day. but this morning i found a nice surprise waiting for me downstairs when i went to make my coffee. a big red bag with heart tissue paper bursting out of it. i quickly came upstairs and asked the still sleeping gareth if i could open it. he said i could and inisde i found a mug for my coffee and lots of dark chocolates. my favorite. it was really sweet. put me in a pretty good mood for the day. now he's at work closing after i got home from opening. oh well. we're supposed to go out tomorrow after i get off. my parents came down yesterday. for the rv show at the rir. dad's retiring the end of the year and has "plans" of taking trips in one. sounds like a great plan to me. hopefully mom will let him sit around some too. he's deserved it. we went out to carinis after the show. mom's favorite italian restaurant in america. it was delicious as usual. then they came over to check out my place. got to see my zoo and help me fill the bird feeder. i've had a nice weekend.

light

our assignment this week was to capture different kinds of light.


i think i've done pretty well. that last job posting on craigslist was a scam. i've been getting spam emails about jobs ever since. oh well. i hope someday i'll get paid for my passion. i'm going to bring in my guyana story for my teacher friday. hopefully she can lead me in the right direction with getting it published. and hopefully that will lead me to doing something with the alaska trip. i really can't wait to go.

fecal

february's usually a hard month for me. i used to call it fecal. it hasn't been all bad this year. but i'm glad it's almost half way over. we started the new hours this month. opening at noon and closing at nine during the week. it's pretty nice for me and the manager. we're still guaranteed our hours and get to sleep in days we open and get home early days we close. but to still get all our hours we end up staying there almost the whole day on days we work. so that kinda sucks. it's been really nice weather lately. we've gone on some great walks and seen some pretty neat stuff. i don't have time to post all the pictures right now. i go in to work soon. but i will show our local phil. (i'm pretty sure it's a groundhog). i think puxatony's was wrong about the six more weeks of winter. also yesterday we came across a neighborhood cat playing with this guy. as you can see i got pretty close. does it look poisonous to you? i'd actually been having a lot of dreams about snakes lately. dad saved me from one of them attacking me in a garage. the others were outside. one had them coming out of the ground. "snakes emerging out of the ground may represent your unconscious or repressed materials coming to your conscious mind." one online article says. i've had a lot to think about lately and i think that may be pretty accurate. i've always put a lot of thought into my dreams. we saw a movie this week that was about the dream world in a pretty imaginative way. coraline. in three d. it was absolute stunning. kitt just puked a bunch. that's pretty fecal.