This week

Whoa! It's been going by way fast!

I started a project at work, sorting and cleaning the rejected hardware cabinet downstairs. I'd been thinking on and off for both my years of working here, how to fix it, and I just realized lately that it would work to organize it by reject number instead of the mish-mash it was before. It saves time like crazy!

Photography on Tuesday was amazing! The three hour class periods just fly by as if they're 50 minutes. We talked about pictures of the West, including the one about the meeting of the rails in Utah, which I pointed out they just put on the Utah quarter. The teacher dug in her purse and found one, right after I mentioned it. LOL! I love Carla! She's so much fun! We then talked about the beginnings of photography that could capture motion, and it was extremely interesting, with the first study being on horse's movement, and then a rather in depth one of human muscle movement. That got a little wild. They decided they needed to have everyone without clothes in order to fully understand muscle movement. Euuuuu.

Our assignment for the technical side of things was portraits, so I took pictures during lunch breaks of my family during the week. We processed the film on Thursday, and mine turned out just fine after several attempts to load it onto the reel in the dark room. LOL! Gosh it is harder than it sounded! It turned out great though. I got to "agitate" the fixer. In photography that means gently rolling the canister back and forth so it doesn't over-develop parts of the film. My teacher said he had students shaking them over their heads and one girl who smashed it down on the counter (which cracked the counter) in order to "tap" the bubbles off of the film. LOL!

Anyway, I had a ton of fun in classes this week because I love my teachers. They're both very funny and very good at what they do.

I also got my camping gear from eBay this week. I got a brand new ruck sack, pair of shelter halves (commonly referred to as a "pup tent") and sleeping bag for outrageously good prices, compared to surplus stores. They're also much cleaner than the stuff I used in ROTC, so I'm very pleased. :)

The plan is to go camping sometime, probably quite a while from now, as it's cold outside, and do some photography in the woods. It sounds like fun to me. I haven't been camping in quite a long time, and we used to do it so often when I was a little kid. Sigh.

Friday my sister and I went horseback riding again (my horse is doing great with all this exercise he's getting!) and after taking a lot of pictures at the outlook for this weeks "landscape" assignment, we went off on a trail we hadn't been on before until it started to get dark (6pm). On our way back it started getting really dark (6:20) and when we got back to our friend's house, it was way too dark for riding. But it was a lot of fun! And very exciting as well! (no Scott intended) What fun!

Today, after trying in vain to balance my checkbook (grrrr) I met my class partners at the UW to work on our presentation for Tuesday's class. We have to talk for around 10 minutes (piece of cake! [again, no Scott intended]) about a photographer of our choice, showing some of their pictures and talking about them. We decided to work on Robert Capa, the famous photojournalist from the Spanish Civil War and World War II. Believe it or not, it wasn't my suggestion! LOL!

So that is going along just swimmingly, so we'll be doing fine.

That's roughly all the highlights this week. Taking a class makes it hard to find time. Where did it all go? LOL

Jp