Oliver's World

University

2011-08-22T13:16:00.000-07:00

I have been in college for 10 days now. It feels like an eternity though. My last life in Asheville seems like a dream now. My dorm and campus feel like home and I have not had much trouble adapting. College is fun and there is always someone to hang out with and something to do. My roommate, Zach is a great guy. We go to parties together, get food together, do work together, play video games together and many other things. But we don't hang around each other all the time and we are not completely dependent on each other.
I am still in awe of the resources the school has. State has a steam room, Microsoft surfaces, PS3s and 360s with large TVs, fencing, racket ball, super fast fiber-optic internet, pool tables, lounges everywhere, outdoor pools, volleyball courts, grills, and restaurants on campus, just to name a few.

Summer Playlist

2011-07-08T19:50:00.000-07:00

What is Oliver listening to this summer?

Here is a recent list of a few of my highest rated and most played songs

"First Contact" This American Life

2011-07-07T14:27:00.000-07:00

Hosted by kiwi6.com music upload.Download mp3 - Upload music.

I've had some freetime this summer to do things I wanted to do during school but never had time to do. One fo those things is to listen to the large list of This American Life podcasts. For those that don't know, This American Life is a podcast hosted by Ira Glass (really cool guy) that discusses a different theme every week. The podcasts (also a radio show) are always very captivating. Here is a clip I made from a episode called "First Contact," which is about firsts. By the way, if you have just read this, please play the clip I posted. It's great and amazingly funny. (for those of you who aren't too good with computers or just maybe things in general, click on the triangle to play the clip). PS: it's only a clip that i took from the episode. The clip runs about 15 minutes

My (short lived) Work at Vector Marketing

2011-06-24T19:19:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago I saw an ad on craigslist. It said I could make $13 an hour so I send a generic email with a copy of my resume. Not more than an hour after I sent the email, I got a call from a receptionist saying I could have an interview today, awesome. All I got from her was that I should dress professionally and the location. Before the interview I googled vector marketing but did not get much aside from the site aside from generic phrases that sound like the ones job people would throw out there like "Create your own success," "take a risk, set yourself apart," and "the income opportunity was exciting." But nothing explaining what the actual job entails. I wore a suit to the interview. When I arrived at the location, it was a cheap office building just off of Patton Ave. One thing I noticed was that it looked like it had just been rented out. There was a cheap table, a few cheap chairs, a few office rooms with not much in them, with the one notable item in the main office room being a 50in plasma TV (actually owned by the branch manager who brought it in but plans to use it for himself later).
So, I'm in the office (and yes, most of that was going through my mind at the time). I get an application that is pretty basic and begin to fill it out. Before I could finish, I was called into the interview with Mr. Chris Todd (yes thats what the receptionist referred to him as). Mr. Todd began to ask me some questions that were pretty simple like where my favorite place I travled was (since I put travel as an interest on my uncompleted application). After about three minutes of simple questions, I was told I made it to the 2nd part of the interview and I was put into a room with two other people. The next part of the interview was very intense for me at the time. I believed the job to be legit and took it seriously at the time. Mr. Todd pose questions to the group. He would ask the three of us questions and explain things. I ended up answering the majority of the questions he threw out to the group because I wanted the job. I believed that maybe only one of the three of us would get this great job.

Then, Mr. Todd breaks out knives. But wait - not just any knives, Cutco knives. These are in all honestly good quality kitchen knives. Mr. Todd had us try to cut rope with a regular knife and then with the cutco knife. The Cutco knife cut easier and had a better cut. Then he showed us scissors which he used to cut through a penny. It was pretty impressive. Through out the entire interview I thought it would be so cool to be a salesperson. After the 2nd interview, I went into the 3rd interview. He asked me about a few things he mentioned during the 2nd phase of the interview process then proceded to tell me I got the job. He shook my hand and I was very excited. I thought I had a job that paid $13 an hour.

The truth.... After two hours of interviewing, 16 hours over two days of training, and a fair amount of thought, I decided not to take the job. The "job" is not actually even a job. If hired, you are not a vector marketing employee, you are a "privite contractor" that just happens to do all your work for vector and vector happens to pay you $13 per appointment (or more if you sell enough to get the commission).

To clarify... Vector Marketing is a company that works for Cutco to sell their products. Cutco is a company that sells expensive, yet quality kitchen knives and other accessories.

Few things from the training... training involved sitting in a room for 8 hours a day listening to Mr. Todd talk. Mr. Todd liked to talk a lot about himself. He talked about clemson, visiting europe, facebook, his old boss, his paychecks (which be brought in) and many other personal things. The other bulk of the training consisted reading and re-reading the script. Yes, literally the whole job involves the following: call random people, ask if you can do a demonstration of the knives because you need to meet a fake quota (yes you make up something like "I need to do five more appointments by monday") so the person on the other end of the line feels like you really need to do the appintment, then you tell them they won't need to buy anything and you get paid regardless. If the person decides to schedule a time, you drive to their house, park on the street (it says to in the manuel), show them the knives and hope they buy something, if they don't you call Mr. todd and give the phone to the "customer" and he will give them a "special deal." Do that and you get $13. Other things that are literally in the manuel handbook thing are: knock, don't ring, firm handshake, play with kids and/or pets, ask for a glass of water ( you do this because it supposedly changes you from a salesperson to a personal guest in the person's house), make sure the customer starts the appointment, and the list goes on...

Why they suck... You don't actually make an hourly wage. You get paid per appointment but it can take you an hour to set up the appointment and an hour of driving (plus you pay for your own gas and car expenses). You don't actually use your own sales skills, you literally read a manuel to the person who you are trying to sell the knives to. You have to read that you are "new" and that you need to read word for word the manuel to sell the knives as part of "training" (it's not training, its the work). The real training is unpaid and before you can start work, you need to do about 20 hours of it. Vector essentially uses you (they ONLY hire recent high school graduates and college kids) to make more money and everyone that applies for the job gets it. You are required to attend a weekly meeting to discuss sales that is unpaid. You do work for vector but don't work for them, they just use the "private contractor" scheme to avoid paying payroll taxes.

PS: the picture of the guy in the orange clemson shirt is mr. Todd, the branch manager.

Yearbook

2011-06-24T09:30:00.000-07:00

For the last four years, my life has revolved around high school. Today, high school is a thing of the past. It has only been a few days, or a few weeks? (I really lost count of days and time in the summer). During my final days in that thing called high school, along with everyone, I as getting my yearbook signed by everyone I knew even remotely. I made the decision not to read anything anyone wrote during school and waited until today, June 24, to read what others wrote. Most people wrote about my photography in their notes to me. The other thing was just about everyone wrote something about college and NC State. A lot of people brought up how I've known them for 4 years or more. Here are a few things people said...
"you are quite the kid"
"swag, swag, swag"
"you've gotten into some really cool stuff in the last few years" (not 100% sure what this means/is referring to)

My favorite notes were ones about becoming peoples first friend at Asheville High School. Reading what others wrote makes me miss high school. When I entered as a freshman, the world of high school seemed so fascinating and exciting. There were the big seniors who seemed so big and though. But once I was a senior, high school just did not seem interesting anymore.

I will try to blog more this summer. I have another post coming soon about a job I almost had

The Setup

2011-05-26T19:12:00.000-07:00

Above is my computer setup ready for college time. All of this will be coming with me to NC State next year. I paid for everything except for the macbook pro, which was my early graduation present. The speakers are my most recent addition to my setup, so I'm currently infatuated with them. The sound quality is top notch and the design goes so well my macbook and monitor. The design is so good that it has a permanent seat in MoMA (The Museum of Modern Art) in New York and the sound is so good when I turn it up, the speakers will make me literally feel the music (and make my parents yell at my for having music too loud). Note: I haven't even turned up the speakers to full volume yet.

I would not have such an elaborate setup if I did not edit photos and videos and have a penchant for computer gaming. With my system, I edit photos and videos which required considerably more horsepower hardrive space and. The 2nd monitor is amazing for editing video multitasking. I typically (as shown in the photo) have itunes open in the bottom monitor (the 15in on my macbook pro) and the internet (or any other program) open on the top large monitor.

Samsung Monitor 24in - $260

Macbook Pro 15in - $2600

Magic Mouse - $65

2TB WD External Hardrive - $100

Soundstick III Speakers - $170

Computer Desk - $60

Love by Stolen Identity

2011-05-21T17:53:00.001-07:00

Awesome Architecture

2011-05-21T17:27:00.000-07:00

I love architecture. Check out some of the coolest pieces of architecture I found online. By the way they are all workplaces.

Gilt Groupe

2011-05-19T17:37:00.000-07:00

My friend Michael recently invited me into an "exclusive" group. I was put on the waiting list (though only for a few minutes), to be greeted by a really cool website. They sell luxury brand name clothing at discount prices (though usually far out of the budget ranges of us middle class folk). Here are two things that I really want. The first photo if of a cotton textured blazer for $499 (originally $1099). The second is a Wool Stripe Vest, but they are sold out. The price was $199 (origionally $460). Maybe if I get more photography work, I'll buy something. They do have t-shirts for as low as $25, but most stuff es muy muy caro (for those spanish speakers)

The Urban Speaker

2011-05-09T14:17:00.001-07:00

I thought this was pretty cool. I do believe it's some sort of art project. Heres how it works - you call the number and what you say is projected through the loud speaker. Only question is, where is the speaker located?

Subscribe To Blog

2011-04-27T20:19:00.000-07:00

Type your email into the box. Use it to get an email update when I post a new blog. Good news - I hate spam too and I post about 1 blog post every month or so. You will only receive an email when I post a new blog which is not frequently since I only write about blog-worthy stories.

I'm a Cyber Bully and Did Not Even Know It

2011-04-27T14:47:00.000-07:00

It's 11:11 AM. I am sitting in Current Affairs class watching Malcolm X when I receive an email on my iPod touch from a very flustered mother (I'm assuming) regarding photos I shot at a recent event called "Lights Out." The email reads as follows (copied and pasted directly)

"to		Oliversholder@gmail.com
date		Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 11:11 AM
subject		FB pic of Lights Out

hide details 11:11 AM (6 hours ago)

I was just looking at the pictures you took of Lights Out this past weekend and they are very nice pictures, but….

I’ve noticed that several pictures are tagged, which is nice for people except the one young lady who has been tagged as UGLY. My son is one of the people tagged in these photos, and I was impressed highly with the photography and the pics in general until I noticed this very distasteful tag for a young lady who probably thought she had just a much right to have fun at Lights Out as the other “skinny” girls. Well I guess you’ve made it very clear that she doesn’t . I don’t know if YOU have done the tagging or it was somebody else but YOU have allowed it to stay tagged that way, so you really should make sure your web site and face book page and any other advertising you decide to do includes the fact that if you take pictures of people who are not “conventionally attractive” they will be subject to ridicule and name calling. Or maybe you should just let people know straight up that you don’t like to photograph “fatties”. Why don’t you let people know what kind of photographer you really are. You know what, I’ll let them know. Everyone will know that unless you are a perfect size 2, don’t bother going to, calling or emailing OLIVER SHOLDER PHOTOGRAPHY, cause he don’t like taking pictures of people that aren’t pretty in everyones eyes. And if he happens to get a shot of someone over weight or not so pretty, they are left open to cyber bullying and ridicule. That’s the kinda business you wanna run, then be proud that you’re an ass.

I’m going to check these pics later in the day and if this nasty, bullying tag has not been removed, I’m going to email everyone I can think of about this local business that is biased and promotes cyber bullying. Oh and then I’m going to call The Asheville Citizen Times and WLOS. Cause cyber bullying is a hot topic, with the recent suicides attributed to name calling and bullying done on the internet. People would probably be interested to know OLIVER SHOLDER PHOTOGRAPHY promotes that kind of treatment of high school students.

REMOVE THIS NASTY TAG Or take responsibility for it."

Here is my response "I did not tag that photo, nor was I aware of it until now. I have literally thousands of photos online and it is challenging, if not impossible to monitor every single photo. I don't appreciate the demeanor of your email but I am glad you pointed out a very rude remark to me. If you told publications that lie that I tagged that photo maliciously or that I support cyber bullying, I have the full right to sue you for damaging my business. I will remove the tag when I get home at around 5 tonight. "

After I wrote my response email from my iPod during class, I told one of my friends who was at lights out about the whole incident in the Asheville High hall. To my dismay, he told me that he was the culprit, the one who tagged a photo of a girl as "Ugly." I went to lunch feeling slightly awkward. Then I received another email from the woman.

"I stated in my email that I did not know if you or someone else tagged the photo. Maybe you shouldn’t put “literally thousands” of photos online if you can’t keep up with them. And you can’t sue someone for just bringing the facts to the news media. FACT: you took the photo, FACT: you posted the photo, FACT: you allow others to tag the photos, FACT: you don’t monitor the tags for cyber bullying

And now a new fact…you are knowingly going to let this nasty tag stay online for the whole world to laugh at ALL DAY. Up until now, I thought maybe you just weren’t aware and you would take care of it if you knew, but thanks to your response I now have proof that you don’t care that this girl may be ridiculed for eight hours today by anyone who sees it before you get around to removing it. Oh and you DON’T appreciate my email? You would have rather I DID NOT let you know this was happening? Is that really your stance? You certainly aren’t saying you prefer not to be informed about this or are you saying you would rather not have to take the tag away?"

First off, this woman, Kim, decided randomly to change the color of the text in her email for some unknown reason. But more importantly, her logic is totally wrong. Looking back to the first email, she said "YOU have allowed it (the photo) to stay tagged that way, so you really should make sure your web site and face book page and any other advertising you decide to do includes the fact that if you take pictures of people who are not “conventionally attractive” they will be subject to ridicule and name calling. Or maybe you should just let people know straight up that you don’t like to photograph 'fatties'" It is wrong on so many levels to hold me responsible for what someone else tags on a random Facebook photo. As I stated I have thousands of photos online. Holding me responsible for that is like saying CNN supports cyber bullying because someone writes "Ugly" on a 2003 photo of a woman watching a Bush speech.

Secondly the woman stated, "thanks to your response I now have proof that you don’t care that this girl may be ridiculed for eight hours today by anyone who sees it before you get around to removing it." I was in school, where Facebook is blocked. In fact I should not have even been on my email during class to deal with the woman. And then she pins it on me that I am waiting a whole 8 hours like im trying to ruin this girls' life who was in the photo and tagged as ugly. This crazed woman who emailed me needs to realize understand this. Also she needs to understand the simple fact that I DID NOT tag the woman as "Ugly." The diction of the emails was probably the most disturbing part of the whole thing. She could have simply said, "someone tagged a woman as "Ugly" in one of your photos, can you please remove the tag." Instead, she had to go write a multi-paragraph email in which she calls me an ass.

As for this woman, I have never met her or talked with her before the email, but from googling the email adress, I found she is a research assistant for a "marketing and opinion research firm" which I believe is another word for one of those online companies that spam emails you with stuff you don't want.

In conclusion, the emails I received brought to my attention what was at most a rude remark. The remarks made by the woman that emailed me about the "ugly" tag were far worse and even more threatening and rude than the one she was complaining about. For the record, when someone is tagged in a photo on my photography page, I do not get a notification. Also the tag has since been removed.

100 Chicken McNuggets

2011-04-05T15:52:00.001-07:00

So, I'm at McDonalds for lunch. As I order, I see Alex with Zach and William. What happened next goes a little like this.

"sir, what would you like to order today"

"we need 100 Chicken McNugets"

"are you serious"

"we need 100 nuggets!"

The nuggets are to be split between three people. I'll let the photos tell the story

The Best of Netflix Instant

2011-01-28T14:05:00.000-08:00

The Crazies

Barry Munday

The Education of Charlie Banks

Signs

Brick

Donnie Darko

Good Will Hunting

Law Abiding Citizen

American Teen

The Pianist

Absence of Malice

Being John Malkovich

The Babysitters

Moon

Stand by Me

Jerry Maguire

An American Affair

Miracle at St. Anna

Forrest Gump

Full Metal Jacket

Spread

Eyes Wide Shut

Seven Years in Tibet

Cadillac Records

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas

Liberty Heights

Cashback

Unfortunately, Netflix is removing more and more movies from their list of instant stream movies. I do believe most of these still are available for instant streaming.

Flow Through Dedication

2011-01-15T18:49:00.001-08:00

In my humble opinion, one of the best things that can occur in one’s life is “flow.” Flow is a term I learned in my psychology class. Flow is defined as “the mental state of operation in which a person in an activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and success in the process of the activity.”

Flow is the best because you become focused on what you do and everything else in the world disappears.

Flow and dedication are synonymous. Here are some people who are really dedicated to what they are doing. Both happen to be in Haiti.

Survivors of Haiti who have lost limbs play soccer with gusto

Young boy operates a business in which he charges electronics, also in Haiti

Senior Status

2010-12-12T18:22:00.000-08:00

As Senior year has been coasting by, I haven't felt much like blogging recently and for good reason. Senior year different than all the other years. I have felt relaxed and all my classes are relatively easy. None challenge me although I don't mind them too much. Recently though, I have been feeling more disconnected than ever from my high school. Between the the looming of college, having a girlfriend at a different school, and the boringness of the 4th year at Asheville High, I feel detached from my school. I sit through my classes. I do alright. I spend two hours off campus for my ab tech class and lunch. I have so much down time in my classes (P.E most) that I have been able to drain my iPod Touch's entire battery in a school day.

Last Friday was the senior class picture. I was not there. I was sick. "What a shame" I thought at first. A few hours later, I was indifferent.

The Future of Technology

2010-11-15T16:27:00.001-08:00

After a conversation with my tech geek friend, Julien, I decided to write a blog with my insights into the world of technology… in the future!

My peers call my ideas radical, but I think they are right. Here are a few of the highlights in easy to understand bullet points (because I love simplicity).

- the demise of the desktop

- rise of mobile apps

- total integration of GPS apps

- more screens

Today almost everyone has a desktop computer. In coming years, I contend that the use of desktop computers will be almost entirely eliminated. Why? Because of tablets like the iPad and other smaller touch screen devices. As I’ve watched what technology stays around and what does not, I see that people love a touch interface. Desktop computers are simply not conducive to touch screens in a natural way that tablets are. In a macro view, mobile computing will overshadow the desktop market.

I don’t believe desktops will go away completely. In the future, I believe that professionals will need desktops for advanced tasks such as editing 3D video or designing videogames. I don’t, however, believe that the average consumer will need a desktop computer for any reason. In fact, today most average consumers don’t need all the extra horse power a desktop computer provides. If you gave them a 10 year old computer with 512mb of ram, windows xp, and a single core 1 Ghz processor, they would probably not complain of speed. The internet would not run much slower and to save a Microsoft Word document would take seconds if not less.

Funny thing: the specs of that 10 year old computer I mentioned above are almost the same specs (minus xp) of the iPhone 4 – a vastly popular product. Why? Because everyone loves to have all their devices in well… one single device. A phone, camera, newspaper reader, game machine, ruler, credit card terminal and much much more is packed into such a small device. The iPhones ten years in the future will be as powerful as a high end computer of today, just as the iPhone 4 is just as powerful as a high end desktop of 2000.

On people’s new mobile devise (most likely with phones and 4G/future internet services) will have a different way of accessing the internet – mobile apps. I am already seeing mobile apps come into fruition with apps such as Nytimes, facebook, and twitter for the iOS and Andriod platforms. All apps mentioned are also popular websites made into apps because that way the content is easier to consume and the interface is better optimized for a mobile device.

Integrated GPS will be on all devices in the future and will allow people to meet up on the go. Then there will just be more screens in general. What I mean is that there will be screens everywhere! I’m not talking about another 1984, but that they will be around to assist people. Perhaps your restaurant table will have a screen and tell you whats the special of the day, or maybe all desks made in the future will have large touch screens in them where students will do all their work.

Want a sneak peak into the future. Check out this phone by Mozilla – the Seabird 2D

How you can save $200,000 and go to MIT

2010-10-10T18:19:00.001-07:00

Today I was looking for a Youtube video to help me make sense of some math when I came across videos from MIT. MIT, one of the top Universities in the world has over 1000 videos online on Youtube from their classes. So technically you could watch every video from a certain course and watch enough courses to have a undergrad degree, or perhaps even a masters degree in math or physics. Really though, if you did some work and understood all of it, you’d be the same as a MIT grad exept you did not have to be accepted into the school with around 7% acceptance rate and $50,000 tuition.

Many of these videos are interesting, but only if you can understand them. I spend about an hour looking through and discovered some courses are extremely complicated and may require extensive previous knowledge of a subject to understand them. Here is a video most people can understand (it’s simple algebra… but in MIT)

The SAT… whats up with that

2010-10-09T13:10:00.001-07:00

After countless hours of preparation, the day finally came. I thought, I was totally ready, but I was not. At least not what happened after section 5. So here is the story:

Everything was going well. I had answered every single question in the first five sections. Section 5 was a writing section and I had finished it with about five minutes to spare so I decided to go to the bathroom before the next section. Bad idea! As I’m walking back in, I’m greeted by my proctor who pulls me aside to tell me with a very stolid look on his face that I was not supposed to leave the room during testing. He said he was going to have to file a report to the College Board and my scores could be canceled. In my head I was like “whaat! You would really cancel my scores because I took 30 god damn seconds to use the bathroom when I finished a section.” In addition to this, he said the they (the College Board) might have to do an investigation. What the hell would they investigate? I used the bathroom and there was no cheating going on… Anyway, I go back into the classroom and then we move onto the next section.

At this point in time, I was freaking out, thinking of every possible hypothetical scenario in my head. Since I’m applying to colleges early, they only would get one score from me which was not stellar. I was thinking I was wasting my time. Should I get up and leave? Now, this is during the SAT which requires a lot of focusing (especially for dull long piece on Homer and the accuracy of the Trojan War.” I could not focus to save my life. I kept looking over and seeing my proctor typing on his computer. I was just thinking of him filing a “report” about my leaving for the bathroom. On the reading I left about three black and in the math section that followed I left five black. I know my paranoia will adversely affect my scores.

After the break, I talked to my proctor and asked him if he thought it would be canceled and he said probably not. Then he left and when he came back, he said he talked to someone who told him I would not. What a relief. I was able to finish up the last few sections with ease. It’s funny: I prepared for every possible question on the SAT. I even committed to memory rare things like Permeation= N!/(N-R)! and Combination = (N!)/R!(N-R)! when… N=total things and R= the desired amount of things, and ways to find values in arcs, triangles, circles, 3d shapes and many more. I spent so many hours in preparation and I would kill me if they were spend in vein because of my disdain for SAT studying.

Anyway, the SAT is over and I don’t imagine I will need to take it again for any reason. Now, I just need to do this college applying from and then relax.

The Social Network

2010-10-03T14:44:00.001-07:00

Perhaps a copyright issue made the film not “Facebook,” but rather “The Social Network.” This name implies facebook is so huge that you can assume it’s Facebook and not any other social network just from the film’s name. Anyway, the film is great, just great. It’s so refreshing to see something made with smart people in mind. No, I’m not talking about all the Harvard students in the film, but of little Easter eggs. It’s just Fincher’s way of throwing a bone to those eagle eyed viewers.

This film is perhaps one of the best films of the 21st Century. The story is so well told and it’s such a good story (even though if you follow tech news you probably know the ending). What I found most interesting though is the underground Harvard final club/hacker scene. The fact that almost all of the film in shot contributes to the underground nature. Perhaps I can connect more to this because I have been wandering around that mystical Harvard campus in the dark. Also I found numerous connections between me and Zuckerberg. First, we both have blogs which we use to make fun of people, second, we both wear scandals with socks and run through snow with them and 3rd I don’t entirely see this, but someone said I look like him (not taken as compliment).

Speaking of Mark Zuckerberg, he is portrayed in the most negative light possible. Check out these two shots I dug up from the old Harvard days when he was not the world’s youngest billionaire. (in the movie, Jesse Eisenberg wears those same headphones and uses that same Sony laptop). Also the room is very accurate.

Fighting Jake

2010-10-02T17:00:00.001-07:00

Look at this bonehead. This is jake. He thinks he will go to Dartmouth and grow up to be a hotshot rich guy so he can argue for lower taxes and less regulation and the usual Republican rhetoric, and to say Obama sucks (or insert name of high ranking leader of Democratic party). Anyway, I was going to fight him before the game but it did not happen. Perhaps it was mutual, but it seemed like the wrong place and time to fight. I had two cameras strapped around me and to be honest, don’t really trust anyone with them. He was chillin. I was tired. Plus I can’t even recall why I wanted to fight him. I think fighting was one of those really brief phases in my life (by brief I mean it lasted 1 day). I guess the only good I got out of it was that it motivated me to lift weights for about an hour for like two or three days. And, I had gotten a bunch of Lil Wayne (thanks to erin) and felt really cool lifting weights and listening to some Wayne. Also it just happened to be that the day I wanted to get some new Lil Wayne was the day of his birthday and release of a new album.

Anyway, back to Jake. Jake is funny but he is a jerk. He thinks he is better than others but recently he has become better at hiding it. Jake likes to lie and spread rumors but he can also be insightful. He can ruin your reputation (or get erin to fight you during a tailgate) But anyway, I’m not here to bad mouth jake. I like him, even though he has screwed me over on multiple occasions. I think sometimes I am too forgiving and I should just not talk to jake again or the next bonehead that does something I don’t like.

Fighting Duvey

2010-09-27T18:21:00.001-07:00

Today I fought Duvey. We had been talking about it for years, since Biology. I can’t recall what set it off, but we just have been wanting to fight ever since. I guess Duvey thought I wasn’t man enough to actually go through with it. Well today after our professor for Psychology did not show up, I proved him wrong. We fought in the tenis courts with about 10 spectators. The picture below is a still photo taken from a video shot on a phone. It’s terrible quality, but if you can make it out, I am deflecting Duvey’s punch.

100 Strangers

2010-09-27T18:08:00.001-07:00

I have decided to take on a new project. It’s called “100 Strangers” and it’s awesome! The objective is simple: photograph 100 random people. I think it will be fun so invited a friend and will be downtown with my cameras shooting away. I debating between which of the two lenses I will bring out of these three – 17-70mm 70-200mm and 50mm. I really can’t decide. All of them are good and I’m torn between having a wide angle lens, having a telephoto lens and having the ability to blur the backrounds of the photos as much as the photo of the girl below (taken from the 100 strangers Flickr group). Atleast I get to take since I’m bring two DSLR bodies.

Speaking of having two cameras – I got a new piece of gear. It’s a harness (pictures below). It’s pretty sweet because now I can have both DSLRS very accessible to use on the fly. Both cameras remain exactly where I want them to be so I can take a shot with one and switch to the other in about a second. I don’t know if it will look extreme or anything to others but I like it. Sometimes photographers have to look bad to take good photos.

A Week for Fights

2010-09-22T18:12:00.001-07:00

Today I had a brief word with Mr. Comer’s replacement – the new vice principal. He’s a pretty cool dude. Today I thought of a fabulous idea; the school should teach the vice principals how to fight as well as self defense. Or perhaps, just perhaps, they should hire a ninja to be our new assistant principal (or is it vice principal?) Anyway, this week, just from where I was on campus at the time, there have been two incidents. The first was when a kid at my school cursed out and then almost beat up a guest speaker, discussing college. It started when the student admitted to having “possession charges” online if someone where to google his name. Then after being distrustful, the speaker walked off the stage to ask him to leave and he starts cursing out the guy. “F**k you you mother f*****! I’m doing to kill you. I’m going to beat your ass.” Things like that were said in a loud voice in front of 300 kids in my senior class. Then mr. vice principal invervenes and pulls the aroused student away. It looked like he got kicked and punched a few times during his attempt to remove the kid. Not to mention, this kid (who I’m purposely leaving unnamed) threw a chair and something else on his way out.

The second incident was today and was even captured on my iPod touch, though I refuse to disseminate the video (against the requests of many). It started about a minute after I stepped into the lunch room, coming from AB Tech. It was between two girls and they were really going at it. Mr. Vice principal came to the rescue again (mostly due to the fact he was standing right by where it was happening). Police on the campus rushes to the scene but the vice principal did all the real breaking up of the fight. The small picture is of a police officer and another guy restraining the girl on the ground attempting to handcuff her. The second is the ummm… the well… post fight remains.

PS: photos stolen from facebook

Real=surreal

2010-08-26T19:31:00.001-07:00

Sometimes things seam surreal. You loose track of time. Things are dream like. Take this seagull for example. It’s the real thing, but does it not seem fake – strung up and posed. It’s not.