December 25, 2004
me and my niece
this morning i got to meet and hold my new niece, niamh (nev) montgomery, for the first time. she cried a bit at first, perhaps i wasn't holding her right or maybe my hands were cold (it's like 9 degrees outside) but then she settled down and before long had fallen asleep in my lap. she lay there for 30 minutes or so before "my turn" was over and grandma took over. so i'd have to say my first foray in to uncle-hood was quite a success! she's incredible though, she really is -- hard to put into words.
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after a very long travel day yesterday the first group of us arrived in pittsburgh. i missed my flight out of atlanta thanks to horrible traffic coming from chattanooga and spent the day wandering around atlanta, waiting for my rescheduled flight at 6pm. i did get to go to the high museum though and see their current exhibit on van gogh. its a pretty incredible collection - i'd recommend it for anyone in the area.
this morning we did sleep in, but the rest of the day has been taken up with helping jess and gel get the house situated. we've primed and painted and spackled and cleaned. a strange christmas i must admit, but i'll take it. it's good to be with family whether we're working or opening presents and it's nice for everyone to be able to put their hands to something in a helpful way.
December 23, 2004
northside lunch
this is one of my favorite little buildings over on the north shore of the river. its just down from the mudpie and clumpies over on frazier ave. i have to admit that i've only eaten there a couple of times, but its a cool little dive that seems to have withstood the general yuppification of that side of town. go in and you'll still find the original owners grillin' burgers and serving up budweisers in a homey little atmosphere. (its actually been years since i've visited -- i hope it's still the same inside...)
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once again, i apologize for the utter lack of photos this week. this may be a real low point in the life of loapher.com. with all the work i've been juggling i don't have much time to shoot or post really. hopefully this will change in the new year once i've wrapped up things at coptix, but i can't really say for sure. as i've mentioned before i'm contemplating changing the format of this photoblog and making it a little less regular. perhaps weekly postings or just occasionally posting a group of photos. honestly i'd rather focus on doing great photographs rather than just getting something online, which is how its felt of late. i'd also like to do more film photography which doesn't translate as well to daily postings (development time, etc, etc). so, we'll see. i am open to suggestions if anyone has thoughts on it.
i'm leaving tomorrow morning for pittsburgh. i'll be spending the holidays with the rest of my family at my brother's house in coraopolis. i'm looking forward to spending christmas somewhere new and also meeting my new niece, niamh montgomery. then next wednesday i'm flying over to new york city for new years with the kirbys, thomases and other denizens of NYC. maybe seeing a luna at the southpaw?
speaking of music, if you haven't come across the sufjan stevens christmas albums, you need to. josiah is hosting them on his blog and there's an explanation of them here. i've been looking for good xmas tunes this year and these have really hit the nail on the head. enjoy...
December 17, 2004
knutson and kiddo
more from the backlog, from the wayyy backlog. this actually taken almost exactly one year ago since it was at the green/kring wedding. joel knutson here with kiddo josiah. once again, i miss film. i think i'll pick up the old manual camera this holiday season and run a few rolls of good old Tri-X 400 through it. with all this extra work i'm doing i ought to be able to cover the costs of developing a few rolls...
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i cannot believe its already december 17th. i haven't bought a single christmas present yet, which unfortunately means that i won't be able to do much, if any, of my shopping online. argh... which means running around buying presents in the evenings and on weekends. actually i suppose that means this weekend seeing as next weekend is xmas. yeesh, i do this every year...
December 15, 2004
old ymca
some of you current or ex-chattanoogans will probably recognize this doorway. it's the men's entrance (obviously) to the old YMCA on mitchell street. the funny part is that about 10 yards to the left is the "boy's" entrance which is a bit smaller and less imposing. as you might expect, there's no women's or girl's entrance.
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mesh is finally getting some national coverage for his mad writing skillz... check out his piece in the latest issue of the simon.
oh, and if you liked that magneta lane mp3 last week, there's another one over on music for robots.
December 14, 2004
relaxin' jackson
roommate brent relaxing on the couch at carrie (sp?) galpin's house over thanksgiving break. as you can tell, i haven't been shooting much lately. sorry for the total lack of posts the last few days. hopefully i'll find some time to get out and shoot some in the next few days.
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check out the additions to the 'fellow bloggers' section - subcurrents and way post-natal.
December 09, 2004
josiah loves masks
if any of you don't currently read josiahQ's blog, you should at least check out his weekly "sunday school recap" posts. he teaches sunday school to 3 of the toddlers at cornerstone and from the way he describes it, it must be a riot every week. in this week's post he mentions little josiah williams fascination with masks and i remembered this very relevant picture from a couple weeks ago.
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December 08, 2004
another sunrise
another early morning drive down the mountain and another beautiful sunrise. this time i actually got out of the car to shoot photos but unfortunately still didn't quite get what i wanted. the photo that i want to capture at some point is the occasional clouds resting in the valley. sometimes it blankets the whole city and other times its just here and there. the hard part is the only spot you can see it from doesn't really have a place to stop the car without risking being rear-ended. well, at least here you can see the rock city christmas star over on the right...
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the last couple days have been quite busy. my new "boss" has just arrived from the UK and i expect we'll be ramping things up a bit here. its nice to finally have another "techie" around the office.
December 03, 2004
jim and son
i came across this image yesterday when i was digging around looking for something else and it caught my attention so i thought i'd share it. this is from august of 2003 at chris wildeman's wedding - a rare moment of father and son together, both with smiles on their faces. photos like this remind me how much i miss shooting real black and white film (and remind me how much i miss the wildebeast) - you just can't get this on a digital yet (well, at least i can't...).
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well, well - look at me. 5 photos in a row, just like the old days, and free-friday-mp3 to boot. found The Constant Lover a couple days ago on music-for-robots and have been enjoying it ever since. they're called Magneta Lane and they're a bit of a female Strokes sound...
December 02, 2004
munchkins
isabelle doe (famed cat torturer) and josiah williams from the cornerstone thanksgiving meal. it's hard to take a bad shot of these two, they just love the camera. for those of you who read josiah's blog, these are two that he has such great adventures with in sunday school.
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work, work, work...
December 01, 2004
killing my car
today's photos isn't particularly exciting, but at least its got an interesting story. this is the back right wheel from my (beloved) passat. as you can see, its not attached to the car here because it's a little lopsided after i cut a big gash in the sidewall while house hunting last week. the funny part is i spent a large part of the afternoon on a jeep trail in st.elmo (seemed like a good idea at the time) bottoming out and generally trying to avoid getting stuck in mudbogs. after an hour of so of this i was forced to retrace my steps because of a fallen tree in the path. the passat performed admirably throughout and nearly got me home safely. however, just before arriving home i swung through another neighborhood, grazed the back tire on a low rock wall, and immediately split open the sidewall of one of my brand new tires. argh... that car must hate me.