Making up for lost time

Sorry for the Delay - The Snapple didn't kill me, I'm still alive! The main reasons for my absence are the visiting of Shannon and 2 fairly big shoots in 3 days. Due to the absence, this post is going to be large one. Strap yourself in and enjoy the plethora of senses my words can touch.

Shannon - She came Wednesday around noon. Instead of driving home after picking her up I drove to Atlantic City. She didn't know the difference and didn't realize what was going on until the 'Welcome to Atlantic City' sign. The weather forecast for the day was 85 and sunny. AC was about 78 and windy with a water temperature of instant foot numbing. We walked the boardwalk, watched the old people, discovered a secret colony of cats (if anyone knows what I'm talking about tell me), and tried to give Trump some money in his bankrupt casino. Instead I won $60 in craps in about 5 minutes after about 2 hours of breaking even on the slots; most notably 'The Price is Right' nickel slot! We had decent lunch at Evo and sat outside. We split a delicious Banana Cream Pie Martini. Yum!

Thursday we went to West Chester to take care of Shannon business. This is my blog so we can skip the details of that. From there we headed to the nearest KOA campground. We settled in to our Kamping Kabin (the only one without a porch swing) and began to enjoy the evening. On the menu were turkey burgers with cheese, baked potatoes, and Captain Morgan. Well, we only ate half of the burgers, forget to take the potatoes out of the fire and ran out of Coke for the rum. Shannon started taking shots, because I don't. She passed out early, but we were able to steal (by steal I mean use tools and precision teamwork) a porch swing from a nearby cabin.

Friday came around and we headed to the Herr's Potato Chip Factory Tour in central PA on our way to visit Katie Piper (click the link on that page for the larger picture, it's SO worth it). We stopped at some outlet stores in Lancaster where I purchased a very stylish outfit from GAP. We had time to visit Intercourse, PA. I bought my parents some apple butter from here. We finally went to Katie's, also a Kappa, and hung out for the rest of the evening. After leaving Katie's the next afternoon, the rest of the time with Shannon was rather uneventful, but I'm super glad she came, we had fun!

Shoot This! - A 5-hour shoot on Sunday in Princeton at a private boarding school of the #1 football recruit for the Class of 2005. That's 5-hours of shooting. This kid was AWESOME. So patient, nice, respectful; just a great kid. He wants to be a neurosurgeon and has a 4.0. I think I'm going to write a thank you note to him and maybe his parents too. Some good pictures were the result. Tuesday I had another shoot in Philly. We shot in the gym first then went to the 'practice field' to do some stuff outside. By 'practice field' I mean over grown lot surrounded by barbed wire with a discarded washing machine. We had to go somewhere else...

Free Until Sunday - Al got back Sunday from Bora Bora but left again on Tuesday and will be back Sunday. Basically, I didn't work for SI at all in April. Boo that! I did seal up a cool deal that I'm excited about. I'm going to be going to Camp Woodward to be a Digital Photography Lab instructor for 4 weeks in August. I'm also going to be shooting while I'm there and working on stuff as well as teaching little Tony Hawk wannabes. I'm really excited for it. I'm also going to be gone for almost 3 weeks in June at the National Senior Olympic Games in Pittsburgh!

Olives - On a completely different note, I've been eating lots of olives lately. if you didn't know, my favorite food as listed in my baby book is 'Green Olives.' I eat 6 at lunch everyday. Not sure what the health benefits/risks are but I just love olives. My mom bought my (2) 36-ounce jars from Costco. The jars in the stores that you are most familiar with is approx. 7 ounces...

Ponderings - If when using a land line phone only the caller pays for the call, why do both the caller and recipient pay for all cell phone calls? It's not this way in Europe. I think we are being double charged and the companies are charging us twice and making twice as much money as they should be. However, it is my understanding that this is the reason telemarketers cannot call your cell, because you the receiver of the call have to pay for the call too. Would ridding this practice open the door to telemarketing calls on our cells?

Business Cards - Some of you may have seen my prototype business cards that will be made in the near future. I'd like to announce that there will be a hold on those due to the following reasons: Ryan needs to give me the fonts and some font guidance, I may be changing my cell phone # to a 215 area code, I don't feel like researching printing options. When I get them, I'll be giving them out like dollars at a strip club so stayed tuned.

More? I'd type more but I think I have carpel tunnel syndrome and my wrists hurt. Also I need something else to write about later in the week.

the bottom line: I'm on the verge of greatness, someone important just needs to realize this. Olive you all very much! Thanks for reading.