7-21-2010 A Time for Jobs, Dogs, and Malign Plant Life

New job new job. In a photography studio. That makes sense right? Seems great. Better than that real estate gig I've been trying to get off the ground. Funky little studio tucked into a shopping center down in Roseville. Assisting the owner tomorrow during a photoshoot with a one year old babychild today.

Looking at a map of Roseville to get my bearings before plunging into the madness put me in mind of Kevin Flanagan, as his house and the city of roses aren't all that far apart. Called him and dropped by. These were all taken on his property. I've decided to work on the "hungry nature," project wherever I am, as nature is most places. Bet I could work on this project anywhere in the world. Quite a thought really.

Kevin is a complicated man. There he is, sitting in his bus. He repairs/makes/creates/rigs many things in his yard and workshop there. My mom calls him "quite the renaissance man," as a cute way to describe someone who never quite has enough time or material to realize his many ideas and dreams. Seems to be a good state of mind. Dog's name was Regan, Josh's dog. I was trying to take a picture of a bird scratching for bugs, but Regan's spittle served nicely as a substitute. Nice enough after she was stuck in the back of the truck with me on the way to pizza & other soul nourishing items (beer for all, cigarettes for Josh).

6-29-2010 Frank, Hank, and the Search for Water

We spent some time today looking for the pipe that brings water to our house from a canal. It is an interesting prospect, the one thing we need above all else is piped underground some 500 feet to our house from a simple cement ditch that again is sourced from somewhere far away. The two men pictured in the driveway are my father Michael (left) and our neighbor Carl, our pipe runs through his property and Michael is convinced we have a leak, so Carl was showing us around in an attempt to find the leak.

























The dogs name is Hank. It is a perfect name for such a huge lummox child dog. See that thing he is chewing on? It's a fence. I'm smitten. Such is my sentiment for every dog I've ever met.











The other man in the pictures is our direct neighbor Frank Herrera. He is either first generation or immigrated from Mexico. Frank worked for Union Pacific as some type of machinist for thirty years. They transferred him all the way to Denver a few years before he would be eligible for retirement, but they couldn't shake him. He called their bluff and they transferred him back quickly. Now he spends his days driving to various dumps and scrapyards, buying more stuff for projects around his house. He built a fence in the middle of his asphalt driveway, just to use the parts and for something to do. Some people never truly retire.