Oct 31, 2009

It was rainy but I took a chance in the morning and went up to Forbidden Drive outside of Philly and it had just stopped raining when I got there. I took my camera and headed out on the trail.

I needed to find photos for "structure" but I also wanted to get the leaves while they were still colorful.

There were a lot of colors around the woods and it was a decent hike on mostly flat area.

I found some really good areas after I climbed down some rocks to the river. The leaves were falling off the trees as I was shooting.

After I came home from Philly I hung out at home for a while. Ryan came over and we went for a walk while he was still in his zombie Halloween costume. He wanted to do some average things in it so he bought milk earlier. That was pretty much my night. I didn't do anything else besides almost going to the bar but not leaving at all.

Oct 30, 2009

I slept in after being up late last night and went in to Lakeside for a half day. We watched a Goosebumps movie in the last class. It's funny because I had seen it before a long time ago and I still remembered a lot of it.

I went over to Parvin a little after work and went for a run. It was a great temperature for running. They were setting up for the haunted walk as well so I got some interesting scenery.

After I showered, I met Mich at Saigon for some Viet food. I got a vegetable curry dish over rice. It seemed more like an Indian dish but I liked it.

I went up to Rowan After Hours and watched a little bit of the Rocky Horror showing before Joanna and I decided we should play trivia instead.

Trivia was a lot of fun. There were four rounds with prizes at the end of each. We tied the first and fourth rounds and I won them for us in an equally close game of rock, paper, scissors! The final round was a wager round and we managed to win that one too! Some of the questions were hard but we were just too good.

We ended up with fifty dollars to Olive Garden, fifty for Barnes and Noble and thirty to Wendy's which we traded someone for another twenty five for Olive Garden! We did pretty well for a two person team.

We went to the game room and played skee ball for a little bit before we went to the board games and played Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader. It turns out that I am but Joanna is a fifth grader..

It was a pretty great night and we won some awesome prizes.

Oct 29, 2009

I didn't work but I didn't want to do nothing and I felt like exercising so I went to the gym and did a lot of running and then some weights. I need to do this more often.

I came up to Rowan and Mich showed me a spot nearby where there was a nice lake with some fall colors surrounding it.

I kinda liked the other side better where there was a stream and this sign that I really liked.

I came back to Rowan and took Joanna to Shop Rite to get foods for her gallery opening and then I had her drop me off at my class so I could go fail my test. Surprisingly, I don't think I failed but that doesn't mean I really knew anything. It doesn't help that it's in another language.

After not failing I walked to the High Street Gallery for Joanna's opening. Her dress matches the camera strap, almost like it was planned.. This is the big piece.

She and Eric had similar photos on display; she used shadows and he used close-up shots of mechanical objects and other things of that nature. There were some really good shots up, like the closest one here that uses the shadows cast through window blinds on a bulletin board.

Quite a few people ended up stopping by. We hung out, had some hummus and pita with apple cider and mingled. The two hours went by pretty quickly and we left for more activities.

We went to Rowan After Hours at the Student Center where I got a wax hand made by first putting my hand in extremely cold ice water then really hot wax. It was something. It hurt but the finished product was pretty cool and my hand felt really nice.

I painted a pumpkin to look like a penguin. I went over the pink part with white once we got some white paint at the table I was at. It's kind of funny looking but it's a pumpguin, what do you expect?

This was my favorite costume that I saw of the night. He lost the costume contest to a girl in a pirate costume. Get over pirates, already! Come on, look at all the detail in his costume! He clearly spent some time on that.

Finally, we got word that Ace Enders was about to play upstairs so I went up to see his set. There was a decent crowd there that knew his stuff.

He played a lot of his solo stuff that I don't know that well but he also played some I Can Make a Mess.. songs and Jeff Kummer joined him on drums to play "I Want to Hear You Sad"!

After a few more solo songs, Jeff came back out and they played "Ever So Sweet" and "Something That Produces Results." It was an awesome set and very surprising that he played several Early November songs. It was a lot of fun.

Joanna got to take a break from working just in time to miss all of the Early November songs. We got to use the photo booth though. I don't know why it's fun getting an instant strip of pictures of yourself but it is.

After we went to the cereal bar and I had some Cocoa Puff with milk and Joanna had some mix of Frosted Flakes and Lucky Charms with water.... yeah... she went back to work and I came home. It was a fun night.

Oct 28, 2009

I had a job as a French teacher at Lakeside but when I got there they had switched me with gym class. I never actually accept the gym classes because there isn't much I can do in a gym class and the kids are encouraged to be loud and obnoxious which is what I try to stop them from doing most of the time. It's just not my thing. That said, it wasn't the worst.

I went up to Photo after work and we worked in the studio again. I got to be the test photographer. I learned how to sync my camera setting with the strobe flash we were using to keep things like this from happening.

I got to be the model for a few minutes as well. I'm fine with being on either side of the camera.

I started getting much better by the end of class. I would like to just have some time in there with someone to figure it out on my own. I think that's the best way for me to learn.

After class we had a picnic in one of the other rooms in Westby. We had grapes, cookies, cheese, hummus and chips. And Capri Sun of course.

Katie, Mich, Alex and I hung out in there between classes trying to relax a bit from all the midterm tension. It would have been fun to stay longer but we had to move along,

We watched 42nd Street in my film class. It was a pretty good film. I'm glad we have moved to "talkies" and are done with silent films and subtitles. We didn't get our tests back, unfortunately. I want to know how I did.

After class, I played some games at Ryan's house for a while and went for a walk. I am not good at hockey games.

Oct 27, 2009

No job again today but Ryan and I did get to start our challenge. We went to the gym and competed at push-ups, rowing, pull-ups, sit-ups and a mile run. There's no prize besides just winning. After doing a few more non-challenge exercises we left the gym. I came home and watched AI for my Philosophy class and did the questions. I was not ready for Russian at all so I didn't go. It turned out we moved ahead in Philosophy and I watched last week's movie. Doing good.

Class got done early so I got to Quizzo by round two. We were doing really well for a while but somehow we ended up in third place out of five, even with all that hard thinking. The veggie burger was good though.. even though it wasn't the one.

I went shopping at Wal-Mart for groceries after the game. I did not buy this cereal but I really liked the package. I did get waffles though.

What an exciting day... I was totally unprepared for two classes, realized I can't do push-ups (I already knew, but I proved it,) and lost our title at Quizzo. What will next week bring?

Oct 26, 2009

I enjoyed sleeping in after getting home late from New York last night. I got my images ready for class and then went to hand them in. After our critique, if you can call it that, we went to the studio to possibly learn some things about lighting.

As you can clearly see from this great photo, I went to get sushi with Mich after our excruciatingly long class. That's the problem with getting out early all the time, it seems way longer when you have to stay the whole class. I went to my Logic class a little late but I didn't miss anything.

I came home and tried to study for Russian a little bit, I don't think it helped.

Oct 25, 2009

I needed to take some photos for my assignment in the morning so I lit some candles and put them on my pumpkin pie. I was going for the idea of remembering birthdays but only having a fuzzy view of what happened since you were focused on the cake, blowing out the candles so you could open your presents.

I met Katie and Chuck at Kawa for sushi lunch. Their rolls are really big and really good. Nicely presented also. Sushi is always a good choice.

After lunch, Chuck and I left, picked up Joanna at Rowan and made our way to the PATH station in Jersey City. I took the wrong exit so I had to try to find a new way and then ended up getting back on the Turnpike to take the right exit after all. We got there and hopped aboard a train. Actually we had to wait and it seemed even longer because I had to use the bathroom.

When we got to Manhattan, we found the nearest restrooms and then debated subway options only to walk all the way to the Bowery Ballroom anyway. It wasn't really that far. Once we knew where we were going, we walked down the road and Joanna chose a street to walk down that turned out to be the best. We ate at Gatsby's, a bar/restaurant with the best veggie burger I've ever had. It was made in-house with couscous and other secret ingredients. Delicious.

We saw this place on the way down the street and knew we had to save room for it.

It's a brilliant idea, it's all rice pudding, all the time. It's like Cold Stone with rice pudding. They had about twenty different flavors. The design of the place was great too, very modern with really funny quotes all over the place, like the one pictured above the bowls: "Eat all you want, you're already fat!"

We went cost-effective and split the "double" size with two flavors. The season pumpkin and almond. The pumpkin tasted just like pumpkin pie filling. The almond was amazingly good. I want more.

We hung out in there for a while, making Chuck wonder how long it could take two people to finish some rice pudding. Maybe it was because of the pictures... Sorry, Chuckles.

We went back to the Bowery Ballroom after eating and found our way through the maze and up to the main stage area. It was a really nice looking place. We found a "private" area upstairs. It was a little room with seats around the outside with a curtain as a door.

We hung out there for the first band, it was pretty comfortable. I took some photos out the window to hopefully use for class. Omari and his friend, Tim, showed up and hung out in there with us for a while as well.

Soon, it was time for Far. Their first tour since they got back together. They played a good set and I was surprised at how much I knew. It was really awesome to see Jonah playing some loud, angry music. I love his acoustic stuff as well but it was just a cool change.

Geoff came out to sing with them during "Mother Mary." They all looked like they were having a lot of fun and everyone in the crowd loved it as well.

It wasn't long before Thursday took the stage opening with their intro from Full Collapse and right into "Understanding.." to start off the full-album show. I was right up front for the first couple of songs but then I resumed my position a little farther back.

They played through the entire album, some songs that they hadn't played in many years according to them. And it turns out they hate the song "Wind Up." Everyone else loved it though and even Geoff said that it was fun to play.

After they left the stage once the album was over they came back out to play an encore of six songs. They played some newer songs and Jet Black New Year, of course.

They closed with "War All The Time", which I haven't heard them play in a really long time. I wish I saw that full album show. Maybe they'll do it again some time.

We walked back to the train and looked at the pictures I got. It was a pretty quick drive back home and then time for sleep and not taking a job for the morning.