EngelFish.Net

I guess the biggest news since my last post is that we have a new puppy.  Our friends, Jen & Baron, rescued her from their next-door neighbors and gave her to us.  She was named Willa Mae, but we’re working on coming up with a less grandma-y name, with the front runners being Cara, Lily, and Tessie.  We’ll let you know what the final vote is.  She’s only a few weeks old, but she’s already bigger than Alex & Xavier were at the same age (appx 7 weeks), so she might end up being a big girl, although she looks like a black lab and I wouldn’t have expected it.  Her favorite pastimes, in addition to long walks on the beach and candle-light dinners, are chewing on anything she can fit in her mouth (noses and earlobes included) and sleeping.

Now for an update on my renewed running and fitness program.  It’s been over 10 days since I’ve done a damn thing, which isn’t good.  I did, however, get up and walk for 78 minutes this morning.  It felt good, and it was sorta nice to watch the world wake up.  I haven’t had that experience since running with Kim down on Hillsborough Street back when I was training for the NYC Marathon.  I’ll be keeping this up, if only for that great start to the day.

Photography-wise, things are slow.  I’m in the midst of prepping invoices, trying to design an album, returning calls for pro-bono projects, and putting together a shoot for the RSG Summer Project.  I did have one really interesting photo adventure this week though.  Saturday evening, just after walking in the door from a full day at the pool with Jen & Baron & Taryn, I got a call.  There was a wedding that night at the Duke Gardens (a 30-40 minute drive away), and they didn’t have a photographer.  The DJ was a friend of mine, and through Tommy, asked me to come shoot it.  I said I would, and asked what time it started.  He replied, “Right now”.  I told him it would be at least 45 minutes before I could be there and he told me they would wait for me.  Talk about pressure!  Skip to the end of the evening, and it was a beautiful wedding with a wonderful bride and groom.  Everyone had a great time, and I got some terrific pictures for them to remember it all by.  I was really glad I did it, and I was happy that I got the call at the last minute too.  I didn’t have to spend the weeks, days, and hours leading up to the event worrying and building anticipation.  I just showed up, shot, and had a great time!  If only all jobs could be this fun.

It’s always good to go to bed a bit wiped out on Sunday night.  In the past, I’d always get a bit of the “dreads” on Sunday night, knowing that I had to get up in the morning and go back to work.  Now, as my own boss building two businesses, the “Sunday Dreads” are gone.  I fully enjoy my weekends, right up to the last minute when I put head to pillow.  Sure, there are stresses along the way, some of them even pretty major, but my day-to-day life has been far happier on average these past few months than back during my corporate life.  I’ve read, and believed, that you cannot control what happens to you in life, but you can control how you respond.  Sometimes, you just have a great weekend, and I’m choosing to respond to this one by being grateful that it happened.  I hope yours was a terrific weekend too!

IMAGE:  Dinner Sunday night was at Red Robin at Brier Creek in Raleigh, after an afternoon hanging out at the pool with Taryn, Baron, Jen, Kendall, and Kelly.  I snapped off a few shots while waiting for my pineapple  & jerked chicken sandwich.  These are Baron’s hands, and wedding ring.  And to think he met Jen only a year ago today!

The other day Beebo_Wallace announced that he was doing the One Hundred Pushup Challenge. I thought that was a great idea, and since I’m already working on getting back into shape with running and situps, I jumped on that bandwagon as well. I don’t expect it to be easy, and I fully expect to annoy my wife to death with my bitching and moaning… but it’ll be worth it in the end. I’m going to post my progress here each day. This will do two things: 1) help me keep focused on my goal and staying on track, and 2) help my friends shame me into sticking with it. I promise to do my best on the former, and I’m sure my friends will do their part on the latter!

Simply click on the challenge logo on the right to see my Challenge Progress Report.

I only just realized that it’s been almost a month since my last post.  Slap my hand and send me to the “time out” chair.  Is there such a think as Blogomucil?  Because I am *far* from regular about my posting.  Regardless, let’s see if I can update on most of the things which happened this June.

I spent quite a few days working with Scott Dingman.  He’s a terrific commercial photographer, with 20+ years behind the camera.  I’ve been trying to keep my mouth shut and my eyes/ears open, and hopefully learn a thing or two about how to be a professional.  I know one thing for sure, I’ve learned that making a living with a camera is even more complex than I’d thought… which is saying something.  I’m indebted to Scott for so frequently hiring me for assisting jobs.  Without those opportunities, I would be making far slower progress than I am.

Speaking of slow progress, this year’s NYC Marathon is not going to include me.  Our annual running club was snubbed this year, with only 1 person, Dan, getting accepted.  We’re still going, of course, but most of us will be play the “support crew” role.  Not having the marathon to motivate me, I’m not doing as well with running as I should be.  Although Kim, David, & I make a spit-pact to work on our goals (one of the many reasons they’re laughing so hard in the photo), I have yet to really start working on my running.  There’s always tomorrow.

Another thing that is best done regularly, is cutting the grass.  That, unfortuneately, is proving a bit difficult for me.  When the inherited-with-the-house lawnmower came out of the crawlspace this spring, it was on strike.  After disassembling it and trying to reverse engineer the problem, I realized I had no clue what I was doing.  Luckily a friend of ours, Stan, is a whiz with small engines and came to my birthday party.  It took him under 60 seconds to diagnose the problem, which turned out to be a $0.75 part.  It arrived in the mail the other day, and I’m planning on rebuilding the mower before this weekend.  I hate to take away the employment of the neighborhood lawnmowing kid, but some things just gotta’ get done.

Two weekends ago was the Susan G Komen Race for the Cure here in Raleigh.  Too keep our streak up, Taryn and I both participated.  I’d like to say we ran it, but that would be stretching the truth like cheap spandex.  We enjoyed a brisk walking pace, and finished feeling pretty good.  As every year, I was amazed by the turnout.  About 28,000 participants turned out.  My first year running the NYC Marathon (2000) had 35,000 runners, and Raleigh is a damn sight smaller than NYC.

Additional June events included  seeing a few movies (The Happening, Iron Man, and The Incredible Hulk).  I thought all three were were great, and I’m looking forward to the rest of the summer movie season.  I’ve also caught up on a few films via Netflix (The Signal, Cast Away, The Gangs of New York, and City of God).  This past Saturday we helped Mary & Cristina move, which was fun since most of the Flickr Raleigh Social Group showed up to help.  We also attended a gallery night at Rebus where our friends Abby, Rob, and Tom had work showing.  All things considered, it was a pretty good month… if a bit on the hot side.

After a month long visit home to South Africa, Taryn is back.  A month is a long long time, and I am very happy to have her back.  It seems like she had a good time, and for that I’m glad.  It had been too long since she last got to see her family, so this trip was long overdue.  But now she’s back, and that is a good thing as far as I’m concerned.  I haven’t seen her pictures yet, but I’m sure she’ll share them, and the videos, on flickr sometime soon.

As for me, I’m keeping plenty busy.  There is quite a lot of consulting work to do, and I’m also quite far behind in my paperwork for the photography business.  There are invoices to be shipped, account packages to be installed, branding work (logos, fonts, etc) to be done, website updated to implement, and lots of prints and albums to complete.  There is no shortage of work to do, and time is always the limiting factor.

Healthwise, we’re both doing okay.  I’m still scrambling to line up insurance for us, but I’m more focused on losing all the weight that I’ve built up these past two years.  A couple of month ago, Taryn bought a pair of jeans for me in the size I was wearing when we met.  They don’t fit, and she offered to return them.  I said no, since that would be giving up, which I’m not prepared to do.  Now that spring is definately here, walks/runs and other outdoor activities will be the order of the day.  If I get into the NYC Marathon in November (which I’ll find out in June), I’ll have a great goal to focus on for my running.  In the meantime, it’s morning workouts, and trotting around the neighborhood with the dogs.