It’s baseball season 2012 and the Dodgers are back in full swing. All of baseball is back for a matter of fact. My local teams seem fresh too. The Marlins have rebranded while the Rays playing well and continuing what they ended last season with. I’m sure I’ll be visiting the Suns in downtown Jacksonville, who is the AA affiliate club for the Marlins. It’s spring; it’s warm; it’s also time to mow the yard.

I’ve had this photo of Dad and me for a while, but it’s importance has continued to increase inside of me lately. The more I look at it, the more important it is to me. The original was an old Polaroid print from about 1991 that’s been sitting around the house. So I finally immortalized the physical photograph and scanned it.

This photograph has more importance to me now that I have had a couple trips back to Dodger Stadium. The new fresh memories enhance and root the good times at this place back to my youth and my father. Now that I’ve been following this team for the past couple years with him, this photographs represents not only our youthful bond from when I was a boy, but our recent renaissance as well.

Here is a recent trip to Dodger Stadium. Dad was there revisiting his old playground; I was there for my third time in memory (fourth if you count the one in the photo); and Brittany attended with me on this trip as well. It was all my favorite people in one of my favorite places.

Horse tack has a sense of elegance, strength, and poise to it. It goes with the sport I suppose.

Between the leather, the cotton, and the horse hair, (and if you’ve ever been to a barn, the aroma in air) the experience of being around horses a full body experience. There’s so many textures, smells, and emotions to experience.

Saber is back and in a healthy condition after recovering from his injury. He is back to work trying to regain his athletic shape of years prior so he can begin jumping to his potential. Congrats to him and Brittany for getting through it all in one piece.

I haven’t worn watches much in the past, but it has become something I’m starting to enjoy lately. The styles have started to interest me but almost more importantly is their utility.

It’s easier and not rude to look at your wrist instead of pulling a phone out of your pocket.

I have noticed that a majority of the instances that I grab my phone is to simply look at the time; and I’m sure many other people have a similar pattern. The drawback to that is the way you can be perceived when you’re on your phone all the time – disconnected, isolated, and your attention is away from the present and those around you. Frankly, it’s a bit rude, especially when surrounded by people you know or even worse, when you’re at work and need to be a professional or a leader.

Since I’ve been wearing watches, the phone stays in my pocket, I’m more attentive or entertained with what’s around me, and can even tell the time a little bit quicker.

So, stop texting and smell the roses.

Maintain the Magic, people.

Much like it being the “The Happiest Place on Earth”, there has to be belief before there’s magic.

This cap represents quite a bit for me. It showcases the time spent at UNF studying and earning a degree, but more importantly, the change that took place inside of me in the process of doing so. I also felt like my portfolio was lacking some tabletop/product photographs, so I decided to do something in the studio to change that.

Most of that gushy stuff is found in my graduation post from almost a year ago. Wow, yeah, that long ago. But here has what has changed since then: not too much. For some reason, once I have felt like I’ve accomplished something of that magnitude, it feels like I’m done. For the months leading up to graduation, it was the final stretches towards the finish line where I could finally stop, rest, and feel accomplished. It’s been about 11 months since that’s happened but I don’t feel like anything major has progressed in my life or career. I’ve been way too comfortable with my past and have slowed my driving towards my future.

So what to do? Make more photographs. Write more and more often. Be active in the community. Attend workshops and conventions, and read more books. Advance my career.

Let’s get to work.

Why is there such a goofy photo of me on this blog? And with a beard? What happened? Project Storm: SURGE happened, but that has nothing to do with the beard. A photo booth also happened. So this goofy photo of me was taken at the photo booth that I set up at SURGE, brought to you by Storm Unity. So read on.

Storm Unity is one of the largest video game communities in Florida. This past weekend was Project Storm: SURGE brought together a fighting game community and a dance game (DDR, etc) community together in one location with tons of events taking place. TV’s and monitors lined the wall and arcade dance machines were playing music the whole weekend, with stomping to go along with it. When it’s all said and done, though, we all look back and reflect on the times spent in this community and the friends we’ve made.

Josh “Tyger” Campbell has been running these events for years since the days when dance games ruled the scene. About 60 people would gather at an arcade for a weekend to participate in tournaments. It’s been evolving and changing ever since, and now it’s upwards of 200+ participants and spectators, requiring larger and larger spaces and more organization.

These events and this community has been such a large part of my teen years and into my adulthood; and thanks to them I have friends all over Florida (and then some). I have been out of the loop for quite some time, but it was nice to almost fully participate in the festivities, and even bring something a little different to the table.

You can read more about Storm Unity, upcoming events, and more at the Storm Unity Blog.

Here we have two group photos from Saturday late afternoon when most of the people were in attendance. Everyone halted their tournaments and casual play to pretty literally piled in for these photos. You can see how big these events are getting.

(Yes, the group photos are available to purchase prints! Select your size from the drop-down menu, and Add to Cart. Then, just Checkout with PayPal. I’ll get the prints to you within 7-10 days, maybe sooner. You can view them larger by clicking the photo, which takes you to my Flickr page.)

Also, we tried something new this time around: a photo booth. It was something extra for the participants and spectators to do, as well as serve as a visual guestbook of the whole weekend. Everyone was invited to write, draw, or sign on the background itself, along with some stickers of the event’s logo. So, at the end of the weekend (and you can see it filled up in some of the later photos), we were left with a very large guest page where people left their marks.

Here’s a photo of me participating in the photo booth, along with Darrin (Nygma) and Ryan (T3ch), both of which are good friends that I have met through these events. Proof is in the pudding here. Do you like the beard? Yeah me too. It’s gone now though, so no sense in crying over it.

All of the photo booth photos can be found at this webpage. Any photos posted on this page are free for you to download, share, and post all around the interwebs. They’re yours and they’re a part of the community. Enjoy them. If you have any questions about them, feel free to contact me.

Some of the most interesting things around me almost get stepped on.

Even though The American Theme Park documentary has slowed down, I still keep my eyes open for interesting objects, people and actions, and keep an open mind while scouring the grounds. This was found near our hotel near some bushes. It’s discarded, but its point was likely made to it’s young intended audience. I can only imagine the back story to this. These are some of things that interest me the most – where you see a fragment of the story, but so much information can be gathered from it. Sibling rivalries, parents struggling to control their children, anger management problems, or even relationship problems; it’s possible. Written words can be so powerful.

What gets me: it looks like Mickey Mouse wrote it.

We took a short day trip to visit Saber while he recoups from his injury at The Sanctuary. While there, they had a young filly out in a paddock who was so delighted to see visitors. So, who couldn’t resist going over and meeting her?

While there, she kept pacing quickly back and forth, nearly rearing in excitement. She got pets and attempted her first bite of a carrot, but it didn’t quite work. When we walked away from her, she started bucking and stampeded around her small paddock.

Here’s a wispy warm photograph of her mane as she was pacing back and forth. It makes her seem so free spririted.

It starts in your head. If you start to think positively, you carry yourself positively. Then you begin to speak positively and eventually start acting and interacting positively with others. Soon enough, you begin to be known as an overall happy person and others start to be spirit-lifting around you. Good things happen from there.

Smile more. It’s contagious.

I posted of square composite of these chopsticks on January 1st, in celebration of Oshogatsu. This photograph was included in the composite, but it has a different feel when you see the full-size of this one.

I’m not much of a product photographer, but I feel like it can be something valuable to know. So here’s to that.