Vacation

Okay, so this past week I was able to visit my family and some friends back in Utah. It was a much needed break before school starts up. I've just been working over the summer, but after falling into the frantic routine of subway, work, subway, errands, subway, and so on, I just needed a break from the city.

And I had a blast in Utah. I got to see one of my sisters and her kids, and we ended up taking a trip on the Heber Valley Railroad. We went from Heber all the way down through the Provo Canyon until Vivian Park. Along the way, we got to relax and enjoy the sights in the canyon, the Deer Creek Reservoir, and the train also got stopped by horse-riding "outlaws" (ha, one of my nieces even was taken as a "hostage").

I also hung around in Provo for a day, and it was kind of surreal. It made me miss going to school there, and it made me appreciate more the good times I had there. New York is fun and all, but it's different in that everyone is so spread out--you can't just rely on the apartment complex circle-of-friends in Provo. It was fun catching up with some people that I hadn't seen in years, and just walking around the campus and the bookstore.

I'll try and post some more tomorrow, but I'm pretty tired right now--it was a long day rushing home from work just in time to catch the last half of the BYU football game...

Here's a few pictures from the trip (mainly of some of my nieces and nephews)--

Yeah, the framing is just like the famous "American Gothic" painting, but this picture still made me laugh

Julia -- we were in a cemetery so my sister could look up some of her husband's ancestors, and I got to watch the baby. Which meant I just put her on the ground and let her play in the pinecones and dirt

Debbie--she looks really sad in this picture, but she was actually really enjoying the train ride. I think she was a little tired, as this was after being on the train for nearly two hours

Sara

Eve being taken "hostage" by the train robbers

And the train itself -- yes, the sky really was that blue, and you can see the mountains and stuff in the background.

I'll keep digging through my pictures and see what else I can post tomorrow--

Tilt-shift

Okay, I've had a crazy couple of weeks, but I'm finally getting caught back up with everything. I took the comprehensive exam that is required for my master's program, and that was a bit of a nightmare. I was given one week to write two ten-page papers, but my dad was in town for the first couple of days, and then I had work. I started working on the papers on a Monday evening, and they were due Friday afternoon. Between Monday and Friday, I was getting maybe two hours of sleep a night, and then I pulled an all-nighter from Thursday to Friday to get everything done (don't forget, I still had work while all this was going on). But I was able to get everything turned in on time, and I feel pretty good about it. Ha, and to show you where my priorities are, immediately after turning in my paper, my second thought was that I should go home and sleep. I mean, on the subway ride down, I nodded off three different times for a few brief seconds, but I was paranoid that I was going to miss my stop and end up in Brooklyn. But my FIRST thought after turning in the exam was, "Hey, I'm just a few blocks away from the bookstore."

So I went to the bookstore. It was one of those good idea/bad idea situations. It was good in that I was able to just relax for a bit and not worry about anything, but it was a bad idea because I almost passed out at the bookstore (trust me, I know the feeling---thanks Pere. And for those of you that don't know, the count is currently in double digits for how many times I've been knocked out, with about half of them involving incidents with my brother).

And I had my birthday this past week. It was a lot of fun. Some friends and I went to the Shake Shack, and it was a joint event because another friend was moving to Utah the next day. We ended up having around thirty-five people show up. After ordering all of our food and stuff, we decided to eat outside, and it was one of those perfect evenings: mid-70s, slight breeze, and and we were sitting right next to a fountain just outside of the Museum of Natural History.

This past week, another friend took off, so a group of us went walking around down in the Financial District. I kept getting left behind because I was trying to take pictures. At one point, I saw a giant American flag hung across the front of a building, and I thought that was pretty cool. About an hour or so later, we went walking past the same building and I realized that it was the New York Stock Exchange. I tried not to let everyone know that I was completely clueless about the various historical sites around us, but it was still a lot of fun. Things eventually led to one of those awkward moments. My friend Molly was leaving the city the very next day, so she was trying to finish getting rid of various things. She asked if I wanted some rolling storage drawers, and I figured I could probably use them. So she said, "I guess that means you're going to have to come home with me tonight." .... Yeah, everyone was laughing pretty hard with that one. Oh, and I also I got to try out my birthday present as we were all walking around--it's a tilt-shift lens that I have been having entirely way too much fun with. Some pictures below--

Just outside the Shake Shack

While we were eating dinner -- kind of random, but whatever

Molly --

Neesha -- this lens makes for some interesting portraits because of the way it blurs parts of the image

Also outside of the Shake Shack, waiting for everyone to show up

Anyway, don't forget to leave some comments--

Piano on the Pier

Things have been going pretty well this past week or so. I started training at my new job, and I'm really enjoying it. Even if I don't know what I'm supposed to do yet, I'm trying to learn as quickly as possible. A large part of my day yesterday involved answering the phones, stating the company name, and then asking the person how I could help them. I just kept writing down everything they talked about, and at a good opportunity I'd politely ask them to wait while I put them on hold. As soon as I put the phone down, I'd just explain to the closest manager what the person needed, and they'd tell me what to do after that. It seemed to work well enough, and the customers didn't seem to know that their customer service rep (me) was completely clueless.

I also found a couple of the pianos for the "Play Me, I'm Yours" art project here in the city. I know I mentioned it in my last post, but I still think it's really interesting. There are around sixty pianos scattered throughout the city in parks and plazas, and me and some of my friends came across one on the pier by 72nd Street (towards the Hudson River). It was a lot of fun just listening to different people play in public. Skill level didn't matter. Several elementary school kids wanted to play Chopsticks and Heart & Soul, while another guy performed a 15 minute jazz improv. And yes, I got to play for a little bit too. It was fun, but I wish I could remember my songs better--I completely forgot the last half of two different songs.

Josh -- you can see how close to the river it is, and how random people just stop and listen

And kind of a funny story. I feel bad about it now, but it was still pretty funny (my sarcastic side came out very unexpectedly...). It was a girl's birthday this past Friday, so a group of us went out to this one restaurant for cheesecake. The girl just turned 27, and all of us hung out and talked for awhile. I got home a little after midnight, and when I got on Facebook, I saw that the birthday girl was online. So just being dumb, I was like, "Do you realize now you're closer to turning 54 than you are to your birth?" Immediately after sending the message, I was like, "WHY did I just say that?"

The next day, I was watching the soccer game at a friend's house when the birthday girl walked in. The very first thing she said was "Jon called me old on my birthday." Of course everyone wanted to know what happened, and I put up a very poor defense ("It wasn't her birthday when I said it..."). We were all laughing about it. Well, a little later, I was trying to tell a story, and this girl just said, "I'm sorry, what?" I started the story again, and she stopped me again, saying, "What'd you say?" I tried telling the story a third time, and she was like, "You'll have to speak up, I'm getting a little hard of hearing." ---Yeah, she got me pretty good with that one, and once again everyone was laughing.

Later that night, I had a group of people over to watch a movie, and she came over as well. At one point she made some comment (I can't remember what it was), and then she said, "Oh, I shouldn't say that--I'm being rude." Without missing a beat (and apparently, without thinking), I said, "That's okay, old people have a right to complain." ....Once again, I was just like, "WHY ON EARTH did I just say that?!"

I think it would only make it worse to mention that this is a girl I took out on a date last week...Anyway, I will really be trying to be careful about making sarcastic comments. Sure, people might laugh about it, and they know you're not being serious, but there's a reason you feel bad after making a comment like that.

End of the job hunt

Just a brief post for now. I got a job! A friend of mine mentioned that his company was hiring, so I figured I better submit an application. I thought the interview went okay, but not great. I left thinking, "Well, maybe something else will come through." So imagine my surprise when I got off the subway a little while later to hear a voicemail extending me the job. And yes, I did call them back, and it wasn't a fluke. I have an orientation meeting tomorrow, and it looks like I'll probably start next week. It's for a company called West Elm, which is part of Williams Sonoma Inc. It should help me get through grad school.

To relax/celebrate, I decided to do a random photo-walk through Riverside Park. I was really wanting to get down to the 140th Street area, because of this: http://www.streetpianos.com/nyc2010/ I thought it would make for some fun photo opportunities, and I also thought I might play a song or two. Why not? I almost made it down there, but the walk was a little farther than I was expecting. I wasn't tired or anything, it was more the fact that the sun was going down and it was starting to rain. I'll try again on Thursday. I did manage to find a couple of other things along the way--

I'm still trying to train my eye to look at things tonally. I really love black & white photography, but I'm still trying to get the hang of it. Out of about 30 pictures that were "supposed" to be b&w, only two or three looked right desaturated. And then only one of them felt comfortable as a composition. I need to practice more

It was a pain trying to get this shot. I didn't have a tripod with me, and I was trying to find a happy medium in shutter speeds so that the water had a motion blur while the rest of the image stayed sharp. But it was late in the day and the sky was overcast, which meant that I had to use a slow shutter speed (I think this was around 1/40 or 1/50). Normally that wouldn't be a problem, but I was also shooting at f/2.2. I kept shaking while I took the picture, and the depth of field was so narrow that I kept getting one bad picture after another. This was the best of that set, but it's still a touch soft

Sailing

Not too much has really been happening these past couple of weeks. I've been trying to find a job here in the city, which has been interesting to say the least. It's been pretty tough, but something will come through. I had an informal interview on Thursday that I thought went pretty well, and they said they would let me know by Monday or Tuesday. I'll keep applying wherever can though.

Aside from applying for jobs, I've been having fun catching some World Cup games here and there. Some of the games were pretty boring (England-Algeria, 0-0 draw...), while others were really exciting. Of course I'm talking mainly about the USA-Slovenia game. And what a game it was! I almost stopped watching at halftime. The USA played a pretty miserable first half, and found themselves down 2-0. I'm glad I decided to finish watching the game though, because it turned out to be an exciting comeback that ended in a 2-2 draw (and who says draws are boring?!). Sure, everyone still thinks the last goal should have counted (if you've seen any highlights whatsoever, you already know what I'm talking about...the potentially game-winning goal with just four minutes left to play that was disallowed by the ref), but aside from that, it was still a fun game to watch.

And yesterday I went sailing for the first time. A good friend of mine (i.e., my bishop) is part of a sailing club, and he invited several of us to go sailing out in Echo Bay/Long Island Sound. We had a blast. I enjoyed everything about it: the sights along the coastline (the Bayer House, as in Bayer Aspirin; the Gatsby house; Executioner's Rock, etc.), coasting along with just the wind, admiring the multi-million dollar yachts that passed by, and just goofing off with everyone (word of advice: don't tell a group of guys you need to be back by a certain time 'cause you're taking a girl out on a date...a large part of the conversation on the four-hour trip revolved around questions like, "What's her name? Where's she from? What's she doing in the city? Where are you going on your date? Where are you going on your second date? Oh, so you're taking her there? Here's what you do: take her out to eat at restaurant overlooking the river...the sun will be setting over the river about that time...it'll be a great view...after you guys are done eating, sit on a bench overlooking the river, hold her hand and cuddle..." And so on, and so on---good times).

I even got to steer the boat for awhile, even though I gave everyone a good scare several times...I kept getting things mixed up as to how to turn the boat left and right, resulting in some very sharp, unexpected turns which caused everyone on the boat to jump to their feet. I couldn't tell if they were trying to avoid the boom swinging across the deck, or if they were ready to jump out of the boat. One of my friends was commenting that it was just surprising to be coasting along, only to feel the boat start to swerve drastically and his elbow is all of a sudden in the water...But it was a lot of fun (for me anyway. Of course, that does explain why several people were feeling queasy afterwards, while I was feeling just fine).

And they did get me back in time for my date.

Matt -- one of the first comments I made as soon as we started sailing was to bring up the obligatory What About Bob? quote: "I'm sailing!...I sail, I'm a sailor...ahoy!"

Me taking a turn at the till -- with the previously mentioned sharp turns, I'm still surprised my camera didn't end up in the water

Me and Matt

Jordan and Mike

Jordan -- I forget why he had such an intense look on his face

Erik

Me goofing off, trying to be artistic -- I was taking more snapshots throughout the day, not worrying about composition and everything. Come to think of it, I only took two or three of the pictures in this post because we just kept passing the camera around

Cheeseburger

Okay, so I was out running errands with my dad, and we had just made our last stop. He told me to call mom to see if she wanted us to pick up some lunch on the way home. Well, she had actually just finished making some stuff for us, so we were just going to head home. However, as soon as I hung up, my dad laughs and says, "You still want a cheeseburger, don't you?" This is really his way of saying, "I'm hungry now, so let's get a dollar cheeseburger and if mom asks about anything, I'll just say you were hungry...."

Yeah, we caved in and got two small cheeseburgers on the way home. We pull up into the driveway, and my dad laughs again and says, "Great! Now trash goes in the bag, we hide the evidence, and don't tell Mom!" That got me laughing, because whenever he would say, "Don't tell mom!" growing up, it usually meant we had done something pretty bad (setting something on fire, ruining a meal, someone got hurt, and the list could go on). So I was having a really hard time keeping a straight face walking in the door, and I would have been fine, except the first thing my dad says walking inside was, "Boy, I'm starving!"

I don't know, something about the way he said it, and the sneaky way we were trying to put the trash in the garbage can without making a noise---I had to bite my lip to keep from laughing (I have a terrible poker face...). Even during the prayer over the meal, I could hear my dad laughing silently about the whole thing. Sure, it was just a cheeseburger, but at the time it was the funniest thing to me.

I've been laughing a lot with my parents these past couple of days. I was remembering all of these random events from growing up in Georgia, and I'm just realizing more and more that I didn't have a "normal" childhood (normal maybe for the South, but boy do my friends act surprised that I'm still alive with all the crazy stuff I used to do). Just one story will do for now (and this isn't just me...my siblings and I believe some of my cousins were there for this incident...I think it was the Cutlers, but I'm not sure). My mom was out running some errands, leaving us kids alone in the house. We started playing around with a superball in the living room, just throwing it against the brick fireplace and bouncing it around a little. I can't remember who suggested it, but someone pointed up at the ceiling fan. So we proceeded to throw the ball up into the fan (which was at its highest setting) and laugh hysterically as it ricocheted off the walls. We continued doing this for a little while (15 minutes? 30 minutes?). But then the inevitable happened---the superball shot off and hit a picture hanging on the wall. Of course, this was also the moment that my mom was just pulling into the driveway...Thinking quickly, my older siblings and some of my cousins took the picture off the wall, pulled all of the broken glass out, and then hung it back up.

It was a good three or four years before my mom ever found out. She always had us kids do the dusting in the living room, and it's not like we were going to just outright say, "There ain't any glass in this picture here!"

Summer Vacation

I finally finished all of my papers, and I can now relax for a little bit. This semester actually went a lot better than the last one. I was able to sleep for a few hours here and there as I tried to finish all of my papers, and I'm pleased with the work I did. I'm going to start looking for a job in the next few weeks, which should be a pretty interesting experience here in the city.

And as for other stuff, I had quite a few "not at BYU anymore" moments this past semester, most of which were pretty funny. One week in my Television History class, we watched an episode of the Smothers Brothers. At one point, one of the characters said "s***" which was a big thing that kind of slipped through the censors (ironic, since we were talking about how an entire portion of the episode was cut at the last second because of its anti-Vietnam stance). The following week, we were discussing the episode in class, and one girl asked, "Now, did anyone else hear the word s*** during the episode?" Someone else chimed in, "No, nobody said s***." Even the professor remarked, "Hmm...I'm not sure if someone said s***. That's kind of a big thing to slip by the censors."

Well, I remembered exactly where the word had been said because it was so out of place with the rest of the show. So I called out, "It was during the spoof on Bonanza. The guest star said the 's' word." .....There was an awkward silence in the room. Then the professor said, "Ooh...the 's' word." Everyone started laughing hysterically (myself included), which caused me to call out, "Sorry! I don't swear!" which led to even more fits of laughter from the class. And that's what I call a "not at BYU anymore" moment.

Anyway, here's a few pictures I was able to take before the semester got too crazy. I'll be taking some more now that I have some downtime, but these will have to do for now.

Five minutes away from my house, there's a small trail that walks alongside some railroad tracks. This fence is supposed to keep people out, and I just thought it was interesting

Riverside Park -- I have three different parks within walking distance of my apartment, and they each have their own unique quirks. This park led me right by the Little Red Lighthouse, which is apparently the last remaining lighthouse on Manhattan Island.

Riverside Park -- I was trying to get the bike riders to be just out of focus, but my hand slipped when I was about to take the picture. By the time I re-composed, the bike riders were already almost out of view. Oh well

This piece of grass is about ten square feet, and it is more than a hundred yards from the nearest apartment. Who was raking, and why did they just give up and leave the rake there?

Just some mailboxes across the street from Tisch

I didn't realize until just now that this picture has nausea-inducing saturation--I'll have to dial that down a bit, but I'm not worried about it now

Alex -- this picture was extremely difficult to take, just because he was moving around a lot as he was playing. I kind of like how his fingers are blurred from the motion, and just a tiny part of the strings is in focus