Hommage à ma Photographie Crappy

Vol. 1 Issue 20
Having moved up in the world of computer efficiently, but down in the world of hard dive space- my new laptop has half the hard drive space as my old one- I’ve recently been going through my pictures and rearranging them on an external HD. This means looking at pictures, almost all of them actually, that I have not looked at in years. Most of them are disappointing. I mean, the content is great, but I always thought that I could have been a decent photographer if I’d have some better gear. I’ve witnessed much of the world’s most amazing scenery, yet I have only meager images to show for it.

I’ve only ever had, and still have only one camera. It’s a seven mega-pixel, waterproof Olympus from 2006. In its day it was quite a nice camera, supposedly, I mean it wasn’t cheap. I probably took about 7000 pictures with it. They say you should be able to get 10000 out of any decent point-and-shoot. I’m bored with the camera now so I doubt I’ll ever get to the 10000 mark, unless I go traveling again. Not likely. Unless I get a better camera, then I’m going to Indonesia.

The supposed best feature of it was that it had so many build in settings so that any schmoe could take a half-decent photo. There were (and still are) these night settings on the Olympus that were potentially useful, but since it was physically impossible to hold the camera still enough to get a shot that wasn’t blurry, only about one-in-twenty night shots would come out. I have so many blurry night shots of the Sydney Opera House it’s infuriating really. One could argue that for a photo of something as iconic as the Sydney Opera house you could just as easily download a professional photo, one of postcard quality, and stop whining. Who needs their own pictures of such things when we have Google Images?

To this argument I have no retort. I actually second it. I guess if I had some great photos of the Opera house I could argue that one’s own photos, when done well, have more meaning, represent a particular time and place in one’s life, maybe, since they are not done by a professional, but by an average schmoe, (that’s me or you, assuming “you” are not a professional photag) self-taken photos of icons are a testament to the opposition of the blatant commercialization of the still image. But I don’t have any good night photos of Sydney, so I can’t argue this. Too bad.

Still, most point-and-shoots I’ve played with don’t even allow the shutter speed to be set this slow, so there was potential for good shots with my Olympus, but I guess what I needed was not a potentially good camera, but an actual good camera. Yes, the fact that I did not, and still do not have a nice camera may seem sad, heart-wrenchingly tragic even, (yes, feel free to cry, I'll wait) but I’ve had my fair share of chances to get a nicer camera yet I did not. I blew it. I was always waiting, waiting, waiting. I wanted a D90 which has always been out of my price range. I could have gotten something else and probably, since I barely know anything about the techniques of photography, all the fancy features that the expensive camera had that the cheaper one did not would not have mattered. All I really needed was any cheap SLR camera body that allowed manual adjustment with a half-decent lens. Surely I could have somehow afforded this at some point RIGHT? I live in the first freakin world. Why, just because I’m wasn’t born with the natural inclinations to operate a 1200-dollar camera should I have no any camera at all (except the one I mentioned here like 5 times already)? Why God, Why??!!

So in honor of my crappy photography I’ve decided the next few blogs following this one are going to be travel blogs, retro travel blogs, done while I am not traveling. Most descriptions and such are already like 5 years old. Since I was too crappy a writer at the time to write about my experiences, which were sometimes themselves also very crappy, this is me also relieving my guilt about not having written crappily about the crappy experiences as they were (surprise) crappilly occurring. I may even make up stories about places I’ve never even been to! That’s right, I might even lie. Just kidding, I’d never lie, not to you, my noble, dedicated, comment-writing-addicted blog readers.

A few examples of my photographic skill: Two blurry pictures of the Sydney Opera House, and a bad picture of a Wombat. It's one of my favorite animals, just FYI, for birthdays etc.

Chicken Where Are You?

Vol. 1 Issue 19
You are walking down the street in Brooklyn and you run into a friend of yours, a stray black cat named Chicken. As you approach Chicken, Chicken runs away. Chicken doesn’t know that the two of you are friends. You never see Chicken again.

On a balcony above you see a very colorful bird sitting on the railing. You wonder what kind of bird it is. You decide to gain access to the apartment and ask the resident. You’re about to smash in the front door of the building with a rock when some other residents come and open the door with their key. They let you in. You are in the elevator with these two residents. They are speaking Dutch. They’re talking about a resident who is away on vacation. They mention the need to feed the bird on the railing. They say they will never feed the bird, ever. They laugh. They assume you don’t understand Dutch, but you do.

You think it’s an emergency. The bird is going to starve. You decide to feed the bird yourself. You violently kick down the door to the apartment where you think the bird is. It’s the wrong apartment. You break into two more apartments before finding the bird. When you get to the balcony you find the bird is a wooden ornament. You’re so embarrassed, and your distrust of the Dutch has been renewed.

Suddenly you realize that in some ancient South American Indian tribe mistaking an ornamental bird on a railing for a real bird is sacrilege, and can bring on a curse. You hate curses. Your only hope is to smash a fish tank, eat as much of the gravel inside as possible (within a 5 second time frame), and then jump into the ocean, a lake, or a pool.

Luckily, the apartment that you’ve broken into has a fish tank, which you promptly smash with a nearby 7 iron. You eat as much of the blue fish tank gravel as possible, but with no ocean, lake or pool to jump in, you are forced make a choice between allowing the curse to impose itself on you, or jump off the balcony. You decide to take your chances on the balcony. As you fly through the air from the 3^rd story towards the pavement, residents and passersby later claim you could be heard crying, “Chicken, where are you?!”

A year later, after intensive physical therapy, you are released from the hospital. You were seriously injured and now must walk with a cane. You have always liked canes. If anything, you think of this accident as a positive because now you can finally walk with a cane free of ridicule, and this in turn will allow you to get, and wear, a real top hat. It will match your cane. Eating the fish tank gravel turned out to be bad idea, but you will never admit it.

You later realize that jumping off the balcony was not a useful method for averting the curse because there was no ocean, lake or pool beneath it. You think about the fashionable top hat that you will be able to wear now as a result of the accident and see that the curse was really a blessing all along. You really want to find an older, battered, used top hat, one on which the top is peeling back. One like an old timey bum from London might wear. You feel this type of hats suits your personality. The impossibility of finding such a hat weights on you. You become depressed, but only for a short because then you realize that wearing a wooden barrel is in the same spirit as wearing a worn-out top hat, and so you decide that wearing a wooden barrel is what you are going to do.

the BAR exam (Part 2- Read Part 1 First)

Vol. 1 Issue 18

There were multiple teams that played several rounds a night at any given bar in town. After trivia had become so popular, the bar association became the official governing body for all official pub trivia matches in Twin Falls. You can perhaps understand why when I received the envelope from the Idaho Bar Association I was not surprised. It’s true that the Idaho Bar Association has a set of Doric columns as their logo used to suggest legal matters I guess, and yes, the lettering in their logo, Idaho Bar Association, is different than ours, Idaho bar association, but I’d had a few drinks by the time the mail arrived that day, and so I never noticed these details; this was the day, the day I believe was the beginning of my re-doing if you will.

Actually, no, this day a few months earlier was when it started…I saw a sign on a streetlamp - Bar Exam – this Friday. I removed it from the lamp and took it with me. I just so happened to be free that particular day and so I decided to attend the event. I signed up on-line as was required and paid the $100 registration fee. I assumed that there must be a sizable grand prize for the winner if they were charging such a hefty entrance fee.

I customarily would have only attended trivia events with my teammates, the social aspect of the activity being a very important one, but none of my teammates were available to attend this particular event due to its unusual time. ‘No matter,’ I thought, ‘there will surely be singles. We can form an ad hoc team right on the spot.’ You’d think for a $100 fee the organizers would’ve taken care of everything, but you’ll soon see this was not the case.

The first thing that I thought was a bit strange was that it took place at one PM. Most of these events take place at night. Also, it was unusual that it was being held on the university campus and not in a pub, the usual place for pub trivia, but what can I say, I’m a big fan so I decided to try out my skills in this unusual setting. I’ll admit, I was a little nervous.

Upon arriving at the university I found my way inside, and ahh, finally a familiar site, the bouncer. This curbed my anxieties for a moment.

When he asked me where I was going I showed him the advertisement from the lamppost: “I’m on my way to the Bar Exam.” He looked in his book and gave me directions to the Multi-Purpose Room. ‘A terrible name for a trivia room,’ I thought, and still think.

When I arrived at the Multi-Purpose Room I noticed right away that everything was off. The fluorescent lighting was not setting the proper mood. The room was an awful square-shape with no windows and it smelled strange. The long tables with chairs on only one side were spread too far apart from each other, a very ineffective setup for communicating with my fellow team members, not to mention socializing with other groups. I thought I’d at least order a drink. I looked around for the waitress but I couldn’t find her, nor could I even see the location of the bar. I guessed it must be in the back somewhere. I was starting to get nervous again.

This being a non-bar association event, this group was unfamiliar to me. I looked around for any fellow Twin Fallsians I might know, but alas, I knew no one. My tablemate was rather a young guy wearing a suit and tie. I thought, ‘What an exceptional young man, wearing such formal attire to a pub trivia event. This is exactly the type of young person our organization is looking to attract.’ When I leaned over to introduce myself and ask him if he was new, and on what trivia team he was on in town, he apprehensively shook my hand and asked, “What do you mean?” I repeated the question but he had already gone back to his notes; I was shocked- he seemed to be ignoring me. ‘Not a very social fellow’ I though, but I’d never blame a person for taking his or her practice too seriously. ‘Study away my boy, but you don’t stand a chance here,’ and so I left him alone for the moment.

There were about twenty other people in the room, all of them dressed quite formally, all of them were buried in their notes. No one was socializing and I still did not see the waitress. I didn’t see any semblance of teams, and I was having trouble meeting the other contestants, so I thought, ‘I guess this is going to be a solo round? No problem. I’m open to the challenge.’

Soon a man came to the front of the room. To each individual he passed out a large stack of writing paper, three sheets of exam questions, gave a few brief instructions and went back to his seat. At his point I figured there must be some mistake and so I was about to leave, but as soon as I got up the man said very sternly, “NO STANDING! You will be given a ten minute break the at halfway mark.”

Confused and slightly frightened I sat back down. ‘Where the heck am I?’ I thought. In my dazed state I picked up the exam questions and looked them over. What a coincidence- they were all law based. Not only was I my team’s law question expert, I am a Law and Order fanatic, having watched every episode inside-and-out, so when I saw the pages of law related questions in front of me I thought, ‘I paid my one hundred dollar fee, I’m already here, I might as well give this a shot.’ Even though I wasn’t having any fun, and there was no sign of a waitress or a bar anywhere, I stayed.

Since I had no idea that this was going to be a written round of trivia. I’d brought nothing to write with. I’d never heard of such a style and made a mental note to ask my teammates if any of them had ever it. I turned to my friend in the suit and asked to borrow a writing utensil when the man at the back roared “NO TALKING.” He ran over and told me if I caused one more disruption that I would be dismissed.

I eventually acquired a pen and spent the next five hours answering law questions. When I finished, I was flabbergasted to hear that I would not get my results right then, but in six to eight weeks! After all that I had been through, I didn’t even get to know if I’d won. I decided then and there I would never attend this type of trivia event again. Fast forward eight weeks and you would find me faced with the package from the Idaho Bar Association, and the surprise I felt when I opened it.

So I’ve put the pieces together the best I could. In retrospect I can see maybe how all this happened. What I should have done. Hindsight is always 20/20. Yeah, sure, now I have a bustling law practice, maybe even one of best in Twin Falls, but I no longer have time for pub trivia, or drinking six and seven nights a week.

I never should have left the university Bar Exam that day until I’d found out, because when I groggily opened that thick envelop a eight full weeks later and read “Congratulations, you have passed the Idaho State Bar Exam. You are now qualified to practice law in the State of Idaho,” I was still left wondering the most important question of all, it’s killing me to know, who the heck won?

the BAR exam (Part 1)

Vol. 1 Issue 17

THE bAR EXAM

I remember the day when I opened the thick envelope from the Idaho State Bar Association. I was sitting at the table in my apartment having just awoken; I’d stayed out late the night before and so it was already about noon. When the envelope was first delivered 2 or 3 days before I’d just left it sitting there. At first I thought nothing of it, I’d often received letters from the bar association. I do remember hoping there were some discounts or promotions for a few local watering holes inside, but as I soon eventually found out and so shall you, there were not. The envelope was from a very different kind of bar and contained no promotions or specials, whatsoever.

My situation is not intended to come across as funny, and I don’t appreciate those that have laughed when I’ve told them what has led to my current circumstances. It may seem like the opposite of a predicament, a reverse-tragedy even, but I assure you, this has turned into quite a serious situation.

I’ve thought about it a lot, and although I’m not quite one hundred percent certain, through retracing my behavior and my actions the following seem to be the chain of events that led me to this fantastical new career. I don’t know what part to tell first. I might as well start with my town.

Here in Twin Falls, Idaho, life isn’t exactly what most people would call exciting but, we Twin Fallsians, we like it this way. Open spaces, fresh air, award winning cheese, a massive Super Wal-Mart. You’d think: s “What more could you want, right?”

As groups of upstanding citizens some of us took to celebrating the glory of our town. We wanted to live life fully- To The Max. We wanted to get out there and engage with each other. We wanted to find the activity that defined Twin Falls’ passion, the glue that held the town together, and most importantly, we needed a motivation for getting together as a group six or seven times a week…well actually the frequency of our meetings was decided later, anyway…

Yes we realize that we could have formed a bowling team, gone rock-climbing, organized some cooking classes, volunteered to help out at one of the local soup kitchens or homeless shelters, started a book club, a knitting circle, or even a Bible study. Don’t think we didn’t realize our options. We chose willingly. Not so much for the purity of the activity itself, nor the wonderful intoxicating effects, but rather because we felt that one activity was good as another. Who is to judge the benefits of doing volunteer work over say, going to med school; training for a marathon over setting up a non-profit organization for runners with disabilities; helping the needy over spending every evening drinking at the bar. There is just no way to make a clear distinction, believe me, there isn’t, so we just chose a social activity at random. This social activity just so happened to be drinking, specifically, drinking in bars.

Coincidentally, we all met in the bar. Every one of us was seemed to be searching simultaneously for this perfect Twin Fallsian activity. The activity that could help us celebrate our beloved. Only later, after many a late night practicing our craft and discussing the situation in depth did we realize that we all had a common goal in mind, and so our community of upstanding citizens became official. We formed the Idaho bar association.

As the dedicated members of the bar association grew in number and commitment, it seemed so to did our maturity. Yelling, previously our most common pastime, was something we practiced frequently on each other and many a TV sports match. Eventually yelling gave way, and pub trivia became ingrained as our social centerpiece.

Yes, We know people all over Idaho drink. Drinking is hardly an original pastime, but here in Twin Falls we like to think ourselves original in that we drink and we’ll beat you a trivia six to seven nights a week. During my heyday with the association, this was two to three nights per week more than anywhere else in the whole state. As I tell this now sadly, I don’t have any of the association’s statistics, as my involvement has diminished to almost nil. Sigh.

In my heyday my pub trivia team had been one of the top teams in the circuit; we’d won the citywide tournament three times out of the last five. There were enough trivia lovers in town that we were all able to rent a bus to drive to Boise and represent Twin Falls in the state championships; even though only the city champs were the only ones that actually needed to go to Boise, everyone else still came along anyway just for the fun of it. Our dream was to go to the national pub trivia championships in America’s pub trivia capital, Salt Lake City. Although nationally, drinking as an activity is on a steady increase, sadly, trivia is not. It seems there just isn’t the enthusiasm there once was, and so the bus trip to Salt Lake has never happened.

You might wonder, why didn’t we drive ourselves? As the majority of our pastime was spent consuming large quantities of alcoholic beverages we’d never had a member in any condition to drive. The Idaho bar association condones only the most responsible, sober driving habits.

Why didn’t we take the Greyhound? For similar reasons. We’re drinkers, not criminals. Many of our members were uncomfortable simply breaking Greyhound’s NO DRINKING ONBOARD rule, and since going without a drink for the duration of the trip would have been an impossibility, so too was the Greyhound option.

Why didn’t we just fly? Well, here in Idaho we don’t believe in flying.

Listen to me going on about the association as if I were still a member. Those were the days.

If I’m making it seem that the addition of trivia as a pastime was a negative one, I’m not intending to. I mean, yelling was fun for a while, but trivia brought a real educational element to our activity. It was just the dynamic force we needed in the community during a dark time to rejuvenate the image of our craft. We really wanted to attract some younger people.