At the old ball game

It has been a pretty crazy couple of weeks -- I graduated yesterday, and most everything up until now was gearing up for it. But now that it's done, I'm just going to try and focus on getting ready for New York University. Yes, I finally decided to go ahead and go there after a lot of research and talking with professors. They encouraged me to think about where I would like to end up teaching, and how the type of school I go to for graduate school could have a lot of weight in helping me obtain a better position. So I'm heading out there at the end of August, and this summer will be for work and rest. It will be the longest break I've had since before my mission, and I'm looking forward to catching up on a lot of books (and dating...can't forget about that).

And as for the title of my blog, I went to two BYU baseball games this past week and had a blast. We lost the first game, but the second game was amazing. The Cougars had a two-out, seven run rally in the second inning to give them an early lead. It ended up getting delayed because of rain, but the final score was 12-11, BYU. I'm posting some pictures I took at the game (but not actually of the game itself...). Let me know what you think.

Katie

Jonny

Jordan

This was during the 7th-inning stretch.

Clapping and singing "Take Me Out to the Ball Game"

Claire and Jordan

We were trying to think of a caption for this picture...basically, BYU was losing 12-2 in the 9th inning, hence all of the empty seats.

I don't know why Hayley had such a serious face

Sorry Hayley! I was trying to get everyone in, but I ran out of room because of the railing.

Emily doing the chicken dance

A better picture of Emily

Diana

Brittney said, "This is my 'I want to seduce Cosmo' picture"

I forget what was going on here

One of my favorite pictures of the day. This was during the rain delay, and I just really liked the way the colors pop.

I ♥ Faces Adults: Week 11 -- No Flash

I decided to finally submit some pictures to iheartfaces.blogspot.com for their weekly contest.
This is my entry in the Adults category for this week's theme of "No Flash.

I was driving a truck around the other day, and this girl leaned in the window to ask me a question. I dislike using the flash anyway, but the angle of the sun was just right for a nice side light. The side of the white truck and her arm served as fill light, and she just has an amazing, genuine smile. I actually like that the focus is a touch soft, because it draws the attention back to her eyes. Be sure and leave some comments, and head on over to I ♥ Faces to check out the other entries!

I ♥ Faces Kids: Week 11 - No Flash

Okay, I decided to go ahead and enter some photos into a weekly contest at iheartfaces.blogspot.com. The theme this week is "No Flash," so I took this picture using only natural light. This is my entry in the Kids category.

This guy was clowning around in his house, and then he told me he wanted a picture that made him look smart. The windows had a soft white curtain in front of them, giving me a nice soft light that caught his eyes just right. Make sure and leave comments, and head on over to I ♥ Faces to check out the other entries!

Light Graffiti Video

Okay, I just found out that I can post the video today. So, for those of you who don't know, I was asked to help out with a BYUSA campaign by making videos and stuff. Along with my roommate Marcus and my old roommate Aaron, we conceptualized, shot, and edited this video. It is for Brooke and Andrew, who are running for BYUSA president and vice president, respectively.

Let me know what you guys think--

Spit

Okay, before anyone asks, "Spit" isn't referring to anything gross. It's actually the name of a short film that I'm helping out with, and the title refers to the card game of the same name. I'm told that the same game (or at least a very similar game) is referred to as Nert, Nerts, or Oh Heck (to put it mildly...). It was a lot of hard work, but it was a lot of fun--quite a few of my friends are on set, so it was fun to chat with people during the downtime. I've included a few pictures that I took as well (I really like my new camera lens!).

Jeff

Bryce
One of the guys on the camera crew. He was complaining about how there are very few pictures of him on set, so I told him I'd upload this to Facebook.

Lexi
One of the actresses. At one point, there was a lengthy break where the majority of the cast and crew were confined to the basement during a production meeting, so I just started taking random pictures of people. The lighting was terrible down there though (most of the pictures came out green).

Jeff
Also during the basement break. He's done some other student films, and if I'm not mistaken, BYU-TV did a brief special on him because he and his brother played Hyrum and Joseph in Nauvoo (but I could be wrong about that...)

Michael

The director. I only had a split second to take the picture before he yelled action, so I didn't even get a chance to set the exposure--and I actually like the way this picture turned out, because the background would have been completely blown out otherwise.

And I've also been working hard on a video for a BYUSA campaign, which I will upload as soon as I get permission to do so. They have some very strict policies about campaigning, and if I upload the video too soon, the candidates could get hit with an infraction. For now, let's just say "light graffiti..."

Stick shifts and safety belts

A funny thing happened this evening that is probably going to take way too long to explain for it to be worthwhile, but I'm going to try anyway. I tagged along while some of my friends went grocery shopping, and on the way they had to stop to get gas and get their car washed. I had never actually been through a carwash, so it was a new experience for me. I kept joking around saying I wanted to roll down the windows, which only made Elliot turn on the window lock.

We went to the store and they finished getting everything they needed, while I kept making random cooking suggestions--one girl (Breanna) was in the mood to bake something, so I just suggested making those sugar cookies with Hershey's kisses on top, but to use the cherry-filled Hershey's kisses instead of the normal ones (I'm actually curious to see what that would taste like...).

Well, after everyone finished shopping, Elliot used his car remote to roll down the window on the hatch. It was really fancy and everything, and they finished loading up the groceries and got back in the car. But there was one problem...the window was broken. Elliot kept pushing the button, but it didn't even make a sound. It just wouldn't roll back up. He even got out and they tried opening and closing the hatch trying to get the window to work--still no luck.

Elliot was joking around about it, but every couple of seconds he'd try jabbing the button again. When we were almost home, I randomly asked "Is the window lock still on?" There was an awkward pause, followed by the sound of the window rolling up behind me. Who knew the window lock worked for the rear window as well?

Like I said, that was way too much explanation for that story to be worth reading, but hey, I needed something to blog about after a month and a half hiatus.

And for the stupid joke of the day: Why does a seagull fly over the sea? Because if he flew over the bay, he'd be a bagel--

Higher Quality pictures

For some reason, the pictures on my other post only uploaded as low-quality versions. So these should be high quality if you click on them. See my post below if you want to know how I took the pictures.