7-17-2010 957 Cardoso Lane: A Quiet Center for Simple Happiness

For all the years that mattered I grew up with Cory Brinkman. I recall watching absolute shit music videos on his satellite television, reading EGM, and staying up until all hours of the morning. His house is a very simple happy area. Big field. Generous and friendly parents. The most affectionate and well behaved pets I have ever met. Extraordinary in a quiet way.

One of the first things I ever did with my digital camera was light painting with Cory and some other friends in his big field. Drawing stick figures. Chasing each other with flashlights. Not much concept behind it, but looking at the images afterward together was magic. Now it's tradition. Hanging out at Cory's house anywhere near darkness requires a tripod and remote out.

The dog is new. I had forgotten its name, Pepper, and had the startling realization that I felt worse about forgetting Peppers name than I would have about forgetting a humans name. Pepper is a water dog. Exercise for Pepper entails full tilt sprints after a tennis ball, down the big hill, directly into the pond. The impact is tremendous, resulting in 8-10 feet high, 15 foot long explosions of water. I got caught in the splash zone without realizing that could be a possibility, as I was on the other side of the pond.

Also, bees. Beekeeping for Dummies. Tom Brinkman decided to raise bees for the honey, which just goes to prove what I said about the Brinkman household being a quiet center for simple happiness.

7-9-2010 Nintendo, Beer, and Movies in Arcata; a Return to Form

Leaving Fort Bragg we opted to take Highway 1 north instead of Highway 20 back to Willits and the 101 North. There was some debate as to whether this saved us time, though this debate was rendered unimportant by the general superior scenery of Highway 1. Our ultimate destination was Arcata and we arrived without incident.

A strange sensation overtook me as I entered the house I had lived in for two years. A type of not quite nostalgia, or maybe confused deja vu. Regardless, things soon returned to normal; video games, endless movies, and beer. I'm not one to care about my reputation or worry to significantly about what I say, but there is some other type of comfort here, a truly high level of familiarity.

There is a playground in this neighborhood, little sister Julia insisted that we venture out. By the time we left the house, it was extremely late. Dark. Damn near impossible to focus. The trick I learned as a concert photographer of focusing on the shiny metal parts of drum kits and guitars was mostly useless, there wasn't enough light to cause such reflections off of the playground equipment. So I decided to increase my flash exposure compensation to it's maximum level and do some camera tossing.

06-25-2010 The New Old

This young girl was wandering around outside the Dance Palace at Point Reyes. The Flying Karazmov Brothers and The New Old Chautauqua had an incredible show there.

Some tow truck driver raised his crane into power lines directly outside the dance palace before the show, so the first half of the night was exclusively solar powered. It was rad.
















This is Kathleen.

She likes to wear over sized fruity hats.

It's kind of her thing.