Still Life with Cranston Ritchie

Computer died...

2012-01-16T14:41:00.003-06:00

It's a funny story if you think squeezing a big brown cat and having shit spray out is funny... Uh anyway, doing some blogging is on the list of things to do. However, I'm limited to only the work computer which is not real practical with the current time constraints. That said, I'll be back when I get a new box or get mine fixed. I'll fill you in on the cat story then. It's kind of like the scene in Pulp Fiction when that pistol goes off in Vincent Vega's hand and... well you know the rest. Until then, keep your booger hook off the bang switch.

So Matt says "Maybe a list is what I need..."

2012-01-13T12:25:00.000-06:00

We find Matt and Surly having a friendly conversation in the virtual garage that is Matt's brain. Matt has been trying to think of a way to fulfill his creative needs and also simplify his life. Surly is attempting to keep Matt from chasing his tail and making the same old mistakes. Let's have a listen, shall we?

Surly - BWAAAAAAAHAAAAAAAHAAAAAAAAA..... yeah, right. A fuckin list. Then what are you gonna do with the list? Toss it on the dresser amongst the Chipotle receipts and memory cards and forget about it. Yeah, that's about right. A fuckin list...you crack me up.
Matt -Naw, naw...bear with me. Not just jot it down on paper and forget about it. Put some real thought into it and just try to stick to the list. Keep it simple, you know?
Surly - You're fuckin simple.
Matt - Fuck you, you know what I mean.
Surly - Yeah, I know. So what then? Milk, bread, eggs...that sort of shit?
Matt - I've got too much shit, right? I mean, too much clutter and not enough substance. I've got three motorcycles here that don't run and one that I don't have time to ride. Maybe I could start there. Limit it to two bikes, shit maybe even one. Then carefully consider what the bike should be. I've got the SV and maye the other bike should be a Dual-sport, say an XR650 or KLX650. Then, if I run across some piece of shit Honda for three-hundred bucks I can remind myself that it's not on the list.
Surly - O.K., I get that. Then what about a Harley? You know you want some piece of shit project Sportster that you'll never finish.
Matt - All that shit can be worked out. That's why you have a list. Put a little thought into it, you know? Yeah, I want something cool and old but I also want practical and reliable. Just gotta keep it to a minimum and have it fit into the plan. And no basket cases. Fuck that. I don't have time for that. Maybe when the kids are grown I can rethink that.
Surly - So what else?
Matt - Well, the stuff I'd like to have but have been complaining about not being able to afford or the "Someday I'll have one of those" type deals.
Surly - What about em?
Matt - Write em down, then look at what's important. Here's one, I have a lathe but it's not wired. Get a plan together to make that happen. Sell off some of the shit I'm tripping over and use that money to buy the supplies.
Surly - You start writing all that shit down and your little pin head will blow the fuck up.
Matt - Blow me....All I'm saying is I've got too much shit and a guy has to have a fucking plan so's he can stay focused on what's important.
Surly - O.K. I get it. Eyes on the prize, yeah?
Matt - You're such a dick. Let's go get a taco.

Here's an unrelated photo of the dragbike my Dad built sitting the yard of my boyhood home. Good shit there. Incidentally, I hit that tree with my Ninety-Eight once. Caved in the rear passenger door. Tree didn't flinch.

Renzo Effin' Pasolini

2012-01-03T12:28:00.004-06:00

I will begin blogging again shortly. Until then enjoy this picture of Mr. Pasolini.

Photo nicked from LeContainer

A pair of zircon encrusted tweezers.

2011-11-19T18:17:00.001-06:00

I never thought that this point in my life would be like it is. I'm not complaining. Well, not right now to you, dear Reader. Working lots of hours on a challenging project, training a couple of little boys to be men, trying to stay in shape, and just generally trying not to go koo-koo bananas is quite harrowing work. Never mind the marriage and the other family stuff. It's starting to get close to the end of the year and the reflections that come with all of that. I've been learning about things this year that I hadn't thought of in the past. Probably a post or two in that content if I try hard. Really, I just wanted to say I'm still here and will continue blogging but I just have to focus on higher priorities right now. Keep checking in, I'm not going away. "Steady by jerks" as Joey B. used to say.

I'm considering selling my two motorcycle projects, Gymi or Red if you guys are interested or know anyone hit me up. 75' CB400f and 66' HD Sprint 250. At least I think it's a 66, I'll have to look.

On the facial hair front, I had decided to let my hair and beard grow for the winter. I'm balding, or already bald or what ever you call it. A little hair does grow up there however. I thought I'd give it one last chance to see if I could eek out a proper haircut and not look like a blond George Costanza (not that there's anything wrong with that). Coincidentally, two friends from work decided to have a beard off. That is to day, see who could go the longest without trimming their beard. Loser has to wear a mustache for a full work day. Big deal, right? I figured I'd get in on this. It's not that big of a deal to walk around a machine shop looking like Ted Kaczynski. Unless you figure in talking to the women in the office who you need to help you with shipping and accounts payable. I'm pretty sure I was creeping them out. It's a good thing I'm one charismatic mother fucker. Another consideration is the vendors I have to meet with occasionally. Of course, I need to talk to the owners from time to time. And the plant manager. Head of Engineering. My department head. Hmmm... Probably not all that professional considering some of the big projects going on. The kicker was the wife mentioned that I looked crappy. She never mentions that. Like never. Of course looking in the mirror was no picnic. So after some deliberation about what style of 'stache I was going to sport, it hit me.

Yeah, that'll work. So after my run this morning I broke out my new Wahl balding clippers and went to town. Just for kicks I left the beard and just shaved my head. Captain Spaulding. Not a good look, sorry Sid.
Actually now that I have the Zappa stache, it's kind of growing on me. Pun only sort of intended.

I lost six pounds of hair, and about twenty years off the way I look. In the immortal words of Prince... "Sexy mother fucker". (that link is decidedly NSFW) Perhaps I'm over stating it. Let your conscience be your guide. Anywhooo...I got rid of the homeless look and now I've got a Mr. Clean meets Sam Elliot thing going on. All this self deprecating has me exhausted. Have a nice Thanksgiving. Now I'm gong to go get a cup of coffee...and give my foot a push...just me and the pigmy pony over by the dental floss bush.

A little Friday music to tighten up wit'

2011-10-21T12:10:00.000-05:00

I've heard this song a million times and I've always loved it. Never saw this video until today. Pretty funny. The dichotomy between the mellowed out white guys in psychedelic shirts and the black dudes in the matching suits says a lot about the times. The drummer looks like he's fourteen. The dance moves those cats are doin' are pretty comical. It gets a little wobbly for at one point but hang in there as it only lasts a second or two. I could listen to this song all day. Enjoy.

Guest post with three time Vezina Trophy winner Tony Esposito!

2011-10-17T12:27:00.003-05:00

O.k. Tony O is not really guest posting but I got a really cool Esposito Jersey for my birthday and I wanted to brag. Thanks Dad. Also, in this picture Tony looks just like my uncle Kenny.

It's the 80's all over again

2011-09-23T12:23:00.001-05:00

I mean that in a good way. This is exactly the kind of racing I remember from my adolescence. Freddy Spencer, Eddie Lawson, Wes Cooley. The names are different but the racing sure looks similar. Lots of victory wheelies too. I thought that shit was long gone. Good stuff here.

Henry, Norm, and I

2011-09-22T18:41:00.001-05:00


My lens shade signed by Henry Diltz

My friend Norman and I had the great pleasure of going to hear a talk by the photographer Henry Diltz. There is an exhibit of Henry's work currently going on at the university. Henry has had quite the career. He did a slide show of images from early on. It was very cool to see the images that I'd seen over and over but even cooler to hear the stories and see the out takes from shoots. If you don't know, Henry did the photos for the Doors album Morrison Hotel. He showed pics from that day of the band inside the Hard Rock Cafe. Jim and the boys hanging out in this nasty bar with deer hanging on the walls and all the local drunks. I found the pics here if you'd like a peek. Henry was friends with Steven Stills before becoming a photographer and he became friends with quite a few emerging musicians as a result. I can't do his story justice and I'm sure it's all over the internet anyhow. After the talk we walked over to the gallery; the talk was in a nearby lecture hall. They had some horrible looking blue shit to drink and cookies but I had been clutching my Deja Vu album cover for the last hour and I was totally geeking out. I hopped right in and Mr. Diltz was more than happy to sign the inside of the gatefold for me. The cover photo on that album was done by another photographer but Henry did the inside shots. I also had him sign my lens shade which he said was a first for him. Norman shot about 60 photos of me and Henry while he was signing the stuff. I had been looking forward to this for a while and I was not disappointed. You know that picture of Jimi Hendrix from Woodstock with the white fringe jacket? Henry. Janis Joplin. Henry. George Harrison and Bob Dylan at The concert for Bangladesh. Yeah...Henry. I'm quite grateful that I got to meet Henry, hear him tells some great stories and experience it all with my buddy Norm. Rock on.

I started another blog

2011-09-20T09:40:00.000-05:00

I started another blog to track my fitness. I've got about a minute here at work before the bell rings so no time to elaborate. Check it out. http://surlyfitness.blogspot.com/

Furniture.

2011-09-12T12:27:00.000-05:00

I want to design and build custom, one-off, modern furniture. Just sayin.

Who am I?

2011-08-16T12:16:00.000-05:00

Photo by Michael Schmidt used without permission.

This question is not posed to you, my dear readers, but to me. I am a draftsman, a designer. This is my vocation. I was trained as a machinist but was making prints long before I was making chips. Anyone who reads this blog knows my two main hobbies are motorcycles and photography. I checked in on the blog of Michael Schmidt (not always safe for work) today as I do regularly. Michael is a fashion photographer as his vocation. He clearly loves motorcycling and does some bike related work. The photo above is a reflection of that. This picture really speaks to me. Arguably, good photographs, or at least saleable photographs, should appeal to the viewer without the benefit of context. This is not a critique of the photo or Mr. Schmidt as I am a fan of both. This picture reminds me of me. It reminds me of me because of the context of my life. Drafting, motorcycles, photography. I've been struggling with who I am and the choices I've made for a long time. Learning to draw the line between who I am and who I want to be is getting a little easier. Of course, who I want to be is somewhat elusive. I don't think I'm alone there. The photo above is not a picture of who I want to be but certainly indicates what I'm about. Manual drafting, out of print books, photos shot on film. All on a digital weblog in the here and now that is 2011.

Tour of Indiana

2011-08-10T21:59:00.000-05:00

Two weeks ago my Uncle and I were going to ride up to Michigan to meet Gymi. We've had a bit of an internet friendship for a while now. For anyone who did not know I did a bit of writing for a motorcycling blog that Gymi was in charge of, as did Unk. We were finally going to meet face to face. Well that feel through and since my Uncle already had the time off we decided we would go on with the trip but reserve Michigan for another time. My guess is it will still be there the next time we need it. I decided I would ride down to Peru, Indiana and if there was time check out the circus museum and Cole Porter's ~~methlab~~ boyhood home. From there we would play it by ear. It was raining when I left. No big deal. Until about an hour in I got into some real nastiness and had to take shelter in a gas station to wait it out. Soaked. I was not so much worried about the rain as grateful the wind did not blow me off the highway. After the rain, and wind, let up I got back on the road. The rest of the trip was pretty decent. I met Unk in Peru. We were wet so there was not much point in sightseeing so we just headed south and stayed at his place. The Queen washed and dried my clothes for me and we went out and saw Duke Tomatoe. Nice coincidence, that. The next day we went through southern Indiana by way of French Lick and on over to Terre Haute. We sat down and ate like we had two butt-holes and hit the rack. The next morning we did some quality loitering at the local Marathon station. Drank coffee, avoided a schizophrenic, spoke ill of the dead; you know, all the stuff you normally do on a Sunday morning in Terre Haute. We headed Northeast and found a strategic parting location where we went our separate ways. I headed North and had a very nice ride home. By then my boots had dried and it wasn't 100 degrees any more. 660ish miles around the state. (The stupid Blogger photo uploader is pissin me off so the pictures are in random order. Not that it really matters.)

The sign is really more of a guideline than a rule.

Gotta love an ironic sign.

West Baden Springs Hotel. Fuggin' amazing.

Mulch Outlet. Less amazing.

Improvised roadside repair. My shit wouldn't start, loose battery cable. No sweat. Well, there was sweat as it was one hundred goddamned degrees but we took care of it anyway.


French Lick train station. I'm a sucker for all things train.

Tobacco and firearms. Two out of three ain't bad.

Like I said, 100 deg.


I don't even know what to say about this except for we got a serious case of the giggles.

The West Baden Springs Hotel from the motorcycle parking lot.

Beautiful downtown Linden. That green shirt was pretty ripe by this point.

The longest covered bridge in....aww who gives a shit.

You would if you drank this stuff. Evidently, it made you poop.

Made it back.

2011-08-08T12:19:00.000-05:00

I made the trip to Milwaukee and back for the Rockerbox fest. Good time. Nice little show. Look for a post on that and the trip around the state. Oh, and Gymi I'll get that picture to you....

Back and gone again

2011-08-05T22:43:00.000-05:00

I made it from Valparaiso to Peru and I managed to fit Brazil in there as well. Of course these are not only in South America but Indiana as well. I'll do a post on that trip but not until I get back from Milwaukee for the Rockerbox Festival.

See ya!

Off to Peru.

2011-07-28T12:26:00.000-05:00

See you next week.

Shouldn't we all...

2011-07-15T12:16:00.000-05:00

Have a weekend.

What I did on my summer vacation

2011-07-06T21:27:00.141-05:00

I took a week off from work to do what most Americans do in the summer. Have sinus surgery, of course! I was hoping that the recovery would be short and sweet so I could spend some time with the family and ride the scooter. As luck would have it, that's exactly what went down. I had the nose Roto-Rootered on Monday. I am so glad I can breathe now! We took the kids to the park on Tuesday and a guy there gave us some passes to a local railroad garden.

This place was pretty amazing. All the plants are live miniature plants. Real stones.

This is "G" gage for you rail nerds.

Giant six-year-old for scale.

Thursday Morning I got up early and had my coffee in the garage watching the sun heat up. I headed South on the S-Wee bound for Grumpy Unk's place in the stix. The big slab turned into a parking lot about an hour into the trip. Fearing I'd run out of gas, I turned around and went back to the last exit. I got gas, bought a map and took the scenic route. Straight down on the highway in the cage, this is a three, three and a half hour trip. I got there about six and a half hours after leaving my house. One of my stops was in a little town I like called Greencastle. It's a cool little town with a German WWII buzz bomb in front of the court house. I parked in front of a little pawn shop. I took a stroll around the shop and clearly the cat ruled the place. As I left, the cat came out and posed for a picture. He then turned around and went back inside.

There was a bird too. I don't care much for birds you can't eat.

Six hours in the saddle of the S-Wee is a bit much for my skinny ass and the torture device that is the stock Suzuki seat. I will be remedying that soon. I actually think I found a reasonable solution, too. None of that $500 replacement business either. I digress, as usual.

I was welcomed with open arms and home made pie at the Grumpy Unk Compound. Life is good. I hung out and did nothing. Well, I checked out the local wildlife...

The next day I got up and had pie for breakfast. My Mother's pies notwithstanding, The Queen makes a good pie. The Queen, for those keeping score, is my grumpy uncle's child bride. She gets my jokes. Only a few people gets my jokes.

The Queen split for Da Region and me and the Unk went off to do manly things. Such as, riding motorcycles.

I should have taken more pics on the ride but I didn't. I would have liked to have taken a picture of the giant micrometer headstone I saw, or the hillbilly woman beating her daughter, or the girl in the really nice Suzuki Samurai. No really, it was probably the nicest Suzuki Samurai still in existence. The hot blond in short cutoffs in a lifted 4X4 on a hot summer afternoon exemplifies rural Indiana in the summer. I know, I married one. We made it to Madison for the big Canada Day regatta. Me and Unk rode down the main drag waving to the locals setting up their chairs for the big parade. Awful nice of those folks to throw us a parade like that. I'm not even Canadian. After about 150 miles of slow moving scenery we decided to fix a hole in Unk's truck tire. Like I said, manly stuff. Then we went and had the best cheeseburger I think I've ever eaten. I then almost hit the same skunk twice. I'm glad my nose is working but I still don't want to hit one of those bastards. After a little visiting, we headed home to find my cousin Dog Boy and his girl hanging out and we pitched ourselves an impromptu hootenany.

I finally hit the rack around 3ish. After an interesting night of sort-of sleeping, Dog Boy made us some killer farm fresh eggs.

It was then time for the ride home. I donned my specialized riding gear and headed north.

I hit the slab and blasted home in about 3 hours. Not all that fun. The wind was blowing and my ass was hurtin' but hey I just summoned my inner viking and rode on. Sunday we went to a family thing and checked out more local wildlife.

The next day was Independence Day! After a bit of a false start, we went to the parade...

My view for most of the parade.

And later met the Queen at the big fireworks show. It was almost as cool as the guy who got arrested right in front of us. Not sure why.

And that is how I spent my summer vacation. Probably the best one I've had in a few years. Rock on.

A little teaser

2011-07-03T10:01:00.000-05:00

Scene from the GrumpyUnk motor pool.

I'm on Vacation this week. Well, one third recovery and one half vacation. Full update in a few days after all the coolness has ended. Stay tuned.

Happy Father's Day

2011-06-19T04:17:00.001-05:00

My Old Man never had this kind of fashion sense. I had one of those tiger shirts, however.

Have a blast.

This was a pre-scheduled post that did not post. I can never get them to work correctly.

Bull in the stall

2011-06-16T21:12:00.000-05:00

I can actually walk through the garage.

Ironhead

2011-06-15T16:52:00.065-05:00

I guess if you look at pictures of enough H-Ds, eventually you'll want one. I'm there. Crap, how did I let this happen? Now, like all my motorcycling pipe dreams this will probably never come to fruition but here's what I've been thinking. And when I say thinking I mean morning, noon, and night. I can't shake this. There is a remote possibility that I could wind up with this:

The how's and why's of this are not appropriate to discuss here but if the planets align, it could be mine for a fair price. 1969 XLH. I've no clue as to how it would run or the state of the internals. It could be put back to stock fairly easily. I'm thinking, given my 'druthers, that I'd like to have something more like...

The three above pics were snatched from the web.

If these pics belong to you hit me up and I'll give credit or remove them.

...KR flat tracker style. I'm sure my Dad would never notice the Ceriani front end had gone missing from his parts stash. If I didn't get too picky about things I'm sure it wouldn't cost all that much. Throw away all the stuff that doesn't make it go or stop. Bolt on hardtail (sorry Chief), set of dirt track bars, Bates style seat and a P pad. I'm sure my neighbors will just love the straight pipes waking them up at 5:30 as I leave for work.
I don't love all choppers per se but It's the handbuilt aspect of it. Certain styles of chopper I absolutely love and others I wouldn't even notice if I was standing in a field full of them. That said you'll probably never see me owning a chopper. I sure love looking at pictures of them, though. I've always associated motorcycles with racebikes. Sitting on something that has forward controls or bars with grips at odd angles is just so foreign to me I'd never be comfortable. It would need to have the foundation of a racebike. When thinking about the Sportster above, "what would this bike look like with my stamp on it?". XR750 replica street trackers abound and could get pricey. They look too specific. Also, I think if I was gonna build that style bike I'd do it with a Jap bike. I don't know why. Maybe because I know where I can score an SR500 on the cheap... I know ironheads are evil. There's a real good reason most guys run the new stuff. I think I just need to get it out of my system. There's only one way to do that.

Been a lot going on...

2011-06-06T22:55:00.000-05:00

...mostly in my head. I did buy another camera. I like it.

Spot the Bob!

2011-05-23T12:26:00.000-05:00

Happy Birthday Mr. Zimmerman, wherever you are.

"You'd better learn to swim or you'll sink like a stone - cause the times they are a changing"

Another quick one.

2011-05-18T14:40:00.002-05:00

Watch for Dave Aldana crashing...

Rooster from SIDEBURN on Vimeo.

I will not use "Spin me right round baby" as a post title.

2011-05-07T21:46:00.000-05:00

My newest acquisition. It was either this or a hole in the head. Actually, the ENT says I broke a blood vessel in my head and my ear is full of blood. If the antibiotics don't clear it up he'll put in a tube. That would be a hole in my head. So technically, I need the hole in my head more than the lathe. I got the lathe so the hole is next on the list. Until then, I'll just turn up the radio. I am pretty psyched about the lathe. Not sure what I'll do with it but I'm thinking a new paint job and some pinstripes.

Tennessee

2011-05-05T12:30:00.000-05:00

Indiana from 27,000 ft.

The Ryman

Ernest Tubb's Record shop.

Lunch

The "Real" Bill Monroe

The good news is I get to go to the ENT now so I can have him relieve the pressure in my head. I forgot that the high flyin' and sinus issues don't really go hand in hand. Felt like I got ear-banged with an ice pick. Still can't hear. Later.

Feeling much more sane lately.

2011-05-03T12:30:00.000-05:00

Which for me means: I'm acting all goofy, telling people I love to go fuck themselves (in an endearing manner I assure you), and most importantly, quite creative and inspired. Mostly it's the weather. I'm really starting to get why folks move away from winter. Anyway, despite the fact that my grass is growing an inch an hour and I blew up my lawnmower I'm feelin pretty good. Not good enough to make time to create real blog posts, mind you but I don't think my wife needs to wield the Louisville Slugger just yet. That and I'm going to Nashville tomorrow. For work, but I may get to go to the Ernest Tubb record shop just the same.

and the real deal...

Coming Soon...ish

2011-04-24T09:13:00.000-05:00

Headstock on the left, tailstock on the right.

What's with all the video?

2011-04-14T20:47:00.003-05:00

This piece was done by Henrik Hansen. In a complimentary way it has a very Wes Anderson feel to it. If I may use the man as an adjective. Many of the videos I have seen of late have that look. Perhaps Wes stole it; I don't profess to be the expert. Certainly the Futura typeface is right in there but I think there is a bit of a 60's documentary thing happening with a generous helping of Gen-X styled creativity.
The bit at the 1:10 mark is...I don't think there is a word for it in English. It has a quality that is what I want to have as my essence. Yeah, that's right. There is visual imagery, nice light, a simple mechanical operation. Ratchet, boot, energy transfer. Life. Those four blue flames against the leg. Kill me now, it won't get any better than that. Wait...maybe if I can create something with that quality. That's my heroin. The carrot on a string. Photography and motorcycles coming together in a perfect storm of blue flames and hand beat 2002 aluminum sheet. It makes my mind clear if just for a split second. Thank you Henrik. Thank you Shinya.

Yes, Please.

2011-04-13T12:21:00.002-05:00

Closer To The Edge Trailer from Moto Rivista on Vimeo.

The American Dream

2011-04-11T12:15:00.001-05:00

Garage Company for Born Free 3 from Michael Schmidt on Vimeo.

EDIT: I turned off the autostart...I think.

Pretty cool short video showing some rad bikes. Have a look. Don't you wish your Garage looked like his? I do.

This video was done by Michael Schmidt whose photography I admire very much, but not always safe for work.

Joe's Garage

2011-03-27T07:58:00.019-05:00

I spent a little time in my buddy Joe's garage with him a while back. He was doing a little work on an old Yamaha while we chatted and I took pictures. More pictures and the rest of the story after the jump...
I met Joe in high school. We had similar interests in motorcycles, cars, and music. We've had our ups and downs over the years but he still lets me come around and sit at his kitchen table and ramble on. He listens as though I'm not full of shit and sometimes that's all you need. Joe still works on bikes and rides as much as he can. He's got some cool rolling stock, and I didn't even photograph the nice bikes.

Self Portrait

It's good to have a friend like Joe.
His wife is a fine photographer also.

Smokescreen

2011-03-19T22:03:00.000-05:00

I borrowed some lights from a friend to play around with. I'm really loving what you can do with more power when it comes to lights. Speaking of power, this weeks assignment topic for my Project52 photo is power.Big block muscle cars certainly exude power. This has been the most fun of all my assignments from this project.

Here's the aftermath...

John probably burned up $20.00 worth of tire just for this picture. The cloud was quite impressive. Thanks John. I also had the opportunity to shoot a nice '63 Catalina. I'll show you that later.

I'm talking bout my generation.

2011-03-16T22:38:00.000-05:00

Vans 4Q Sk8-Mid Lmtd from Utility Board Supply on Vimeo.

I used to skate. I read Thrasher and TWS. I had a BMX phase as well. The motorcycle thing was always going on but there were a few years there where I skated a lot. I still have my board and my bike. I'm 39. The guy in the video is Max Schaaf. He's 'bout the same age. He's a pro skater and chopper builder. He was in Thrasher and TWS as well as a bunch of bike mags. What am I getting at? I don't know. This video is kind of neat and I think says an enormous amount about my generation. Or at least one slice of it. There's quite a bit of my Dad's generation floating around in that video but filtered through the eyes of a big kid who's 38 going on 17.Not a bad looking shoe but probably a little too much $. I'm sure every inch of that scoot looks exactly the way he want's it to. Sounds like it runs well.

Joe Morello 1928-2011

2011-03-13T17:40:00.002-05:00

Rest in Peace Joe. Tell Max I said Hi.
To any of you musicians, what time signature is this?
I could practice for the rest of my life and never be able to lay that shit down. I actually got tears in my eyes watching this. You think John Bonham invented playing with his hands? If you've never heard of Joe this might jog your memory...

You asked for it....

2011-03-12T12:22:00.000-06:00

Ladies and Gentlemen, it is my esteemed honor to present to you at this time, by popular demand...

Rabbit Helmets

Go here and look at this...

2011-03-11T12:21:00.000-06:00

http://motorcyclephotooftheday.com/2011/03/10/the-brand-new-american-made-motus-mst-sport-tourer/#comments

Just a quick repost. Pretty neat. Say a prayer for my moustache, I have another head cold. This shit would kill a normal man. More posts to come, this virus is kicking my ass.

Six Years?

2011-03-08T12:30:00.000-06:00

I missed it by a few days but back on SMarch 5th Still Life with Cranston Ritchie was six years old. Thanks to my 5 loyal readers. Dad, Unk, Gymi, TVI, and Red. Oh and thanks to anyone else who might accidentally wind up here and stay for a nanosecond. Love ya.

Green Flake

2011-03-07T05:07:00.001-06:00

Image by Gary Griffin, used with permission

I had an entire post written about the inherent coolness of green metal flake, or sparkle if you will. I think this photo illustrates my point better than I could ever write. When it comes to custom bikes, you could do worse than a paint job like this. This would also be the appropriate use of green metalflake grips for you negative commentors. I'm pretty sure that when the time comes to paint my Sprint it will look something like this. Bike built by John Collins of Houston, TX and photographed by Gary Griffin.

New links

2011-03-05T08:40:00.000-06:00

I added a few new links to the photography section. They happen to be folks who photograph motorcycles.

Twenty Five Degrees...

2011-03-03T18:29:00.000-06:00

...was the ambient temp on my ride in today. It was about 40° on the way home when I shot the pics. I'm about the furthest thing from an early riser there is so there was no time for photography on the way in. My fingers would have been too cold for camera manipulation anyway. Methinks heated grips are in order if this is going to be a regularity. That and a balaclava, but Mom's working on that. I had trouble figuring out where to put the thermos as well. If I had any cash in the coffers, I'd be adding some commuting/touring farkle right about now.

Hard bags, heated grips, and a taller windscreen are all this really needs for me. If I was to ride for longer stretches a different seat would be a necessity. But for now I'll stick to what I find in my tool box. I stuck a little thermometer on the dash just for grins. It bounces about ten degrees when the bike is running but for days like today it's novel. It looks like it belongs on the side of a barn. Not very sporty. That odometer is just embarrassing for a five year old scoot. Only one way to fix that.

Gotta remember how to set the clock....

I thought I was the first to ride in to work this year but I got beat by a guy old enough to be my dad and recovering from a gunshot wound to the hand. Seriously. He didn't ride today but interestingly, he called me a psychopath for riding today. Twice. A little pain to know your alive keeps the cubicle at bay...for a while. 50° tomorrow but rainy. I don't have proper rain gear so I'm gonna keep on truckin', but maybe it'll wash some of the gravel and salt away.

Now That's what I'm talking about.

2011-02-23T21:39:00.000-06:00

My favorite racebike, color scheme, rider, and number in no particular order.

Look at all the groovy details on that thing. Fox shox, gold mag wheels (Lester's?), number plates straight from Ed's dirt track days, Lockheed brakes. The stock seat cut down so his tiny ass could actually touch the ground. Braced swingarm, covers modified for ground clearance, oil cooler, steering damper. Those forks were a huge diameter for that time. Check out that tach. Better yet, how about the knee slider made out of 200mph tape? That shit was the shit. I got to meet Ed at Road America around this time. He was sitting in his pit in a director's chair in his leathers. The old man handed me a pen and a program and gave me a push. I remember that like it was yesterday. Thanks Dad. Don't lose that autograph, by the way if you're reading this.

If somehow I could only see motorcycles looking a certain way (you know like guys that hang around Harley dealerships all fucking weekend), they would all look like this. Pole growing out of Ed's head and that Chris Hillman looking dude creepin' me out notwithstanding.

Stolen pic stolen from Slideblog

Just a quickie

2011-02-18T21:31:00.000-06:00

I did a little metalwork today on the throttle and I can now bolt it on. I ran out of time at lunch to do the clutch side but I got started. After I get the switchgear sorted, it will be on to brakes and/or carbs. I have to have a block of time set aside for the carbs. I only get about 20 second spurts before I have to break up a fight or make chicken nuggets or wipe an ass. And when I get home from work there's all the stuff that goes on with my kids... You'd better let that one sink in a little. O.K., better now? Let's move on, shall we? I shuffled the links in the blogroll a little, killed a few and added two. There are a million blogs out there about motorcycles. The ones about sportbikes and cruisers are all full of words and reviews and blah, blah, blah. The chopper blogs have pictures of guys making shit. Riding and making shit is what motorcycling is to me. Although, I'm glad to see Erik Buell is building bikes again. I know business is business but it seemed shitty what happened between him and The Motor Company. I digress. Check out The Zen of Neato but be warned some of the content is NOT always SFW. The Sideburn blog is in the same vein but centers around flat track racing mostly in the U.K. It's making me want to find an SX650. I know where there is an SR500 I could have for almost nothing... Yeah, right. Anyway, Cool blogs that have a ton of links to plenty of other chopper sites. I really like to see folks using their heads, hearts, and hands to build something special. That and green metalflake shit. I don't want to ride them, it's just that the internet is a visual medium and I love looking at them. O.K., I kind of want to ride them too. I know where there is a 69 Sportster...

CB400F Phase One

2011-02-17T22:33:00.001-06:00

The idea with this bike is a 70's club racer style. Back before the Superbikes existed, stock looking Japanese fours had big oil coolers, black headers, gold mag wheels and contingency decals on their stock bodywork. Outfits like Moriwaki, Yoshimura, and Race Crafters were building these bikes for guys like Reg Pridmore

and Wayne Gardner. When someone says Superbike this is what I think of. Actually, I think of bikes from slightly later, around 1980 but since this bike is a 75' just play along o.k.? So I realize that if I poured a boat load of money at this thing I would have a bike that was not reliable, slower than a used clapped out 600, uncomfortable, and will not handle or brake well. O.k. for the sake of this project, forget the comfort thing. So what I want this to be is my version of late 70's cool and keep things realistic. I've blogged before about Kaz Yashima and his 400. This will be sort of an homage to that bike. Eventually. For now I've got to get it papered and running. One of the issues I have with these things are the carbs and the damn airbox. Cleaning and rebuilding these tiny sludge piles notwithstanding, getting them on and off with the 30 year old rubber boots is a motherfucker; If I may be so bold. I hated it on the 550 and I'm sure it won't be a joy on this bike. I think I'd like to build a custom aluminum airbox with a modern (read: you can actually go to a store and buy one) air filter element that has some sort of interface with the carbs that is user friendly. I should be able to get the carbs on and off with out looking like I lost a fight with a rabid house cat. Pod filters...I'm just not gonna go there. The issue with a new airbox is the battery. This bike is tiny. The area in the frame where the airbox lives shares space with the battery. If I had that Laverda SFC seat I could remount the battery and electrics and have room for a spiffy new airbox. Great, but that's a bit much for phase one. The seat's a bit pricey, does not include upholstery and would require quite a bit of wiring. My plan is a complete rewire but that's also for a later day. Don't get me wrong, the seat price is fair but not in the current budget. Budget and safety are the number one factors at this point. The front brakes are a mess. Luckily, I can get all the parts I need to rebuild the entire system. That will be the biggest expense along with tires. I don't have too many choices for tires considering the rim sizes. I need 90/90-18 up front and 100/90-18 in the rear. Looks like I get AM26 Avons or some slip and slide Asian tires. Carb parts for the 550 were fairly expensive too but they had weird carbs. I had about $125 just in parts to rebuild those. All these S.O.H.C Hondas have leaky heads so the top end gaskets will need to be replaced but we'll see about that after I hear her run. So, I'm in for more than I paid for the bike just to make it go round the block but any asshole can buy a shiny bike, right? It takes a special asshole like me to spend more money and waste a bunch of time. I'm just being my old wise-ass self here, it actually feels really good to have dirt under my fingernails and blogging about motorcycles.

Preserve the old parts?

I have always been of the opinion that when building a custom you should save the stock parts. Ask anyone restoring a KZ900 how hard it is to find a nice seat. While I'm not planning on cutting up the seat on this bike, I do have an issue with some other parts. The switchgear was pinned to the handlebars and the wiring was routed through them. Not a big deal but with the Ace bars it ain't gonna happen. I could do a little grinding and make some clearance for the wires and have them outside the bars but do I want to molest the original parts? I could just swap out parts with some other old Jap bike that does not have this issue. The clutch side perch has a pin to keep the whole thing from rotating. I would have to grind that thing off if I kept it. I don't know, it's not like I'm taking a Sawzall to the stock pipes or anything. They are just sun-faded old parts with crappy wires. Real race bikes are not pretty. I've seen road race bikes that did not have paint just to save weight. They have rubber on them from the slicks wearing, oil on them from blowby. Safety wire. This bike will not be pretty. Ever. I just want it to work well. Fuck it, I'm grinding the stock shit. Stay tuned.

Happy Valentines Day

2011-02-14T09:35:00.003-06:00

I mentioned that I've started a different picture of the week. The assignment for the 14th is "chocolate". This was actually my alternate entry but I like it a lot. I'm not sure I'll post every one of my Project 52 pics here but expect one from time to time. They will all be in my Flickr stream over on the left so please click over there and have a look. There should be more and more there as time goes on. Never met a brownie I didn't like. Give your sweetie a squeeze for me.

I've got my work cut out for me

2011-02-13T21:23:00.000-06:00

Notice that pile of dirt back there? The float needles over there? This stuff was all in a little plastic bin when I got the bike. I'm surprised more stuff is not missing. Those jets are a joke. Whatever those spring things are, I'm missing one. Sigh. Sorting parts for the epic carb rebuild. This one's gonna be fun.

New Sensations

2011-02-03T21:01:00.000-06:00

Funk notwithstanding, I've been thinking about what this year will bring. Also, what I will be bringing to this year. Yeah, New Year's resolutions. Am I a month late? I'm probably 15 years late on some of this stuff so I'm not going to get too worried about 30 days, give or take. Last year I wanted to make some cool stuff and I didn't pull that off so that goes on this years list. There's some stuff that needs to be done to my house. I'll get that done too, or the house might fall off it's foundation. No pressure there. Aside from all the daily stuff of life, I'm pretty much thinking about photography or motorcycles all the time. It occurred to me that I could take pictures of motorcycles. What a concept eh? Expect to see some more bikes here this year. While we are on that topic, I'm going to work on getting the 400 running. I need to get the paperwork sorted but it shouldn't take too much to get her ride-able. I'm thinking Thanksgiving is a reasonable goal. We'll see how that pans out but I'd really like to ride that thing.
Seriously though, I'm working on focusing my photographic endeavors a bit. No pun intended. I'm taking steps to improve my photography in all it's aspects. I'm going to do some types of stuff a bit less and really try to do some others much more. I've never had a portfolio as such. That's the big one for me this year. I'm going to put together a solid portfolio. Even if I don't do anything with it. I've made a few tweaks to my website already and I'd like that to reflect what I do and want to do better. I had started the picture of the week a while back and I wasn't happy with the quality of the images. What's the point of tossing up a crappy pic every week? Posting for the sake of posting is pointless, or as everyone else calls it, Facebook. I have started a new project that is really more what I was looking for anyway. I wanted more of a challenging assignment type project. I happened upon just that and I love it. I think it is going to be very hard but should teach me many of the things I am looking to learn. There are many folks working on the same thing so there is a bit of friendly competition and encouragement. Good things are going to come from that project, more later.
I need a bit of follow through as well. I shot some images of Jimmy Holmes and I only posted two of the series. Seriously not fair to have someone take time out of their schedule for a photo shoot and not give them any images.
The big one here is working on getting out of my comfort zone to do the things I've wanted to for years but have been afraid to. There's lot's of hard work ahead and I'm excited about that. Stay tuned. Rock on.

Blizzard Update

2011-02-01T21:10:00.000-06:00

This ones for my Uncle who won't see this on Facebook

This shit is inside my garage. I've never had snow come in that door. I put seals on the door about a minute after I moved in. There's more snow and blowin' here than a long weekend at Charlie Sheen's crib.

IT'S BLIZZARDING....

2011-02-01T12:41:00.001-06:00

That's a bit of an inside joke between me and a few of my former coworkers. I worked with a real nice lady at my last job who had to drive through the snow belt in this part of the country. One fine wintery morning she arrived a minute or two late and the first thing out of her mouth was "It's blizzarding!" in her high-pitched, of course I'll bake you a pie sort of voice. Ever since then, when there is a big storm I get or send an email with that phrase writ large in the body. Good times. Yeah, I guess you had to be there. The point here is we are saddling up to ride out a big ol' storm. As long as the power stays on at home I've got another post to finish. Stay safe and stay tuned.

And a little Blizzard of Oz for my Mom...

Now I'm off to buy seven snow shovels and all the maple nut goodies at Menards. I hope I'm not too late.

Funk

2011-01-27T12:23:00.001-06:00

I've been in one, that is. I've pretty much made up my mind not to use this blog to bitch and moan. Suffice to say...well I'll let my friend John say it. This pretty much sums it up.

That's the Way that the World Goes 'Round
© John Prine

I know a guy that's got a lot to lose.
He's a pretty nice fellow but he's kind of confused.
He's got muscles in his head that ain't never been used.
Thinks he own half of this town.
Starts drinking heavy, gets a big red nose.
Beats his old lady with a rubber hose,
then he takes her out to dinner and buys her new clothes.
That's the way that the world goes 'round.
That's the way that the world goes 'round.
You're up one day and the next you're down.
It's half an inch of water and you think you're gonna drown.
That's the way that the world goes 'round.
I was sitting in the bathtub counting my toes,
when the radiator broke, water all froze.
I got stuck in the ice without my clothes,
naked as the eyes of a clown.
I was crying ice cubes hoping I'd croak,
when the sun come through the window, the ice all broke.
I stood up and laughed thought it was a joke
That's the way that the world goes 'round.

Photo ©Cooper Mengel 2010

Fuckin' artists...

Things sort of got away from me...

2011-01-15T21:15:00.000-06:00

I'm still here. Got a few posts in my brain just haven't been near the computer at home. Stay tuned...

Happy New Year

2011-01-01T17:54:00.000-06:00

It's the first of the year again. I hope you are all doing well after the big party or staying home with the kids. We went the party route and the kids were with Grandma. I good time was had by all. The party we went to had an ugly sweater theme so that made for some embarrassing photos of me and my friends. I've been thinking about last New Years Resolution. I was going to try to make a few bucks with the camera. Mission accomplished. The other was make two cool things. Other than photographs, I didn't make much of anything tangible this year. Today I was reflecting on how much photography gear I have and how few photographs I have displayed in the house. All the gear in the world does not make one a photographer. I guess that's just an observation because I've done more with photography this year than most any other year. I bought my DSLR last December and I'm on to my second camera body now. Quite a bit has changed in a year and I am so grateful for the opportunities I've had in 2010 and I'm looking forward to 2011. I learned quite a bit this past year as well. I hope I can continue to learn and keep working. The more I learn, the more I find out how much I don't know. That's pretty humbling but humble is a pretty good trait I think. As for the blog here, I'm not all that sure what is going to change if anything. I would like to thank all the folks that read my blog. I know I don't have that many readers but I'm certainly greateful for each of you that do. Thanks. Have a great 2011 and stop by often. Rock on.

Picture of the week 12/20/10 Merry Christmas

2010-12-26T11:43:00.000-06:00

I hope you all had a great day!

On being an adult - Part Two, Self Confidence

2010-12-21T16:39:00.001-06:00

I became a parent later than what seems normal. Being normal was never a priority; putting off parenthood however, was more a decision made from a cynical standpoint rather than a contrarian one. I had pretty much made up my mind that I wasn't the guy to be put in charge of raising children. Of course no one is prepared for parenthood but this is one of the things you learn. Having the job of turning two little shit machines into responsible, upstanding men is probably a job better done at this point in my life than when I was twenty. This is a bit paradoxical. Did the boys cause me to settle down and become responsible or am I older and more contemplative causing me to take a better look at my responsibilities? I could wax philosophical about this but the truth is I was scared to do something different and scared of failure.

Self Confidence

I have no biological siblings. I've got some great friends that I consider my brothers and sisters but at home there was just me. I'm not sure the impact that had on my confidence but I didn't have to fight for the extra roll at dinner. I got the toys for Christmas. My stuff was my stuff. It wasn't until I was 33 that I had some other person taking and breaking my stuff. This is certainly a selfish point of view that my poor wife had to take the brunt of until I wised up. So how does my selfishness relate to my lack of self confidence? When someone bullied me, I had no point of reference. " I'm taking your lunch money, what are you going to do about it?" My answer would be to avoid the bully, and go hungry or charm someone else into buying me lunch. This is a hypothetical situation, no one ever took my lunch money but it gets the point across. Having the self confidence to tell the guy to "shut the hell up, I'm keeping my money" would have been confrontational in the short term but probably served me well in the long term. Instead I rarely made new friends, and was generally slow to trust people. Like everyone, my experiences have influenced who I am. A few years back my New Year's Resolution was to have more resolve. I try to be aware of what's going on in my life and make my decisions deliberate. A couple of years ago I was offered a position in my company. To the company it was a no brainer. They didn't offer this to just anyone and I'd be a fool not to take it. They explained that there were a few caveats to this. Suffice to say the management was aware of some people with less than positive attitudes that I would have to work with. They knew that I could get along with people and not have arguments. This comes from avoiding confrontation but also allows me to get trod upon. Being afraid of failure and confrontation, I was pretty worried about taking this position. Being the provider for my family I would be a fool not to take it. I spent the last year and a half keeping my head down and just listening to what everyone had to say. In the meantime, I was doing the job well and (I hope) earning a little respect from my co-workers. I was also working on improving myself through reading and trying to stay focused on making good decisions rather than just going through the motions. Knowing that I'm doing something and making the effort to set an example is building that self confidence.

It ain't easy

Nothing worth doing is easy. Or if it is easy it comes with big responsibility which brings us back to not easy. Maybe the hard part is knowing you might fail. At least if you fail you can learn from that experience and try again later. It's the successes that build the confidence. I don't always win. Anyone who has seen me play a sport that involves a ball will tell you that. But I know now that had I been more confident (and more resolute) in the past I would probably been farther along now. My kids would be in high school and I'd have more money in the bank etc... Or maybe I would have been hit by a bus.

So I guess I'm an adult

That's what I've been thinking lately as far as being an adult is concerned. I wish I'd had more confidence growing up and even now I'm no Teddy Roosevelt. I do have the opportunity and presence of mind to help instill some in my boys. I'd love to wrap this up with some sage advice about how you can be more confident but this is an essay, not a treatise. So until the next installment of On Being an Adult... Confidence, have some.

Picture of the week 12/13/10 Snow Day - or Cobra Commander Shovels

2010-12-13T08:58:00.000-06:00

We got slammed with a winter storm. I went out last night to see where the garbage cans had blown off to. There has not been too much snow but crazy winds and considerable drifting. My boss called at 4 this morning to let me know the plant will be shut down today; school is closed for the kids as well. After tying on the scarf I looked in the mirror and I noticed a resemblance to the Cobra Commander from the G.I. Joe animated series of the 80's. Having the day off has given me the opportunity to catch up on the blog so check out the last two or three posts as they were late too. Depending on my state of mind I may actually have another post rolling around in my head.

Picture of the week 12/06/10 Boxer

2010-12-13T08:41:00.000-06:00

I had the opportunity to make it down to the DeMotte Boxing Club last week for a photo shoot. Coach Jimmy, who is the founder of the gym, was gracious enough to give me some of his time to work on my skills. The Coach has a big fight coming up this Friday and is looking lean and mean.

Picture of the week 11/29/10 Christmas Train Redux

2010-12-13T08:30:00.000-06:00

I used to have a similar photo that I shot on black and white film a few years ago. I did have a scan of it but it seems to have disappeared. Now that the tree is up I thought I'd recreate it with a twist.

I didn't forget...

2010-12-06T17:05:00.000-06:00

I lost my connection last night about the same time I started coming down with something. After I feel better I'll be back with my picture of last week and hopefully one for this week. Thanks for checking in. Take a stroll on over to Shop Teacher Bob's blog and have a look at his trials bike. Starting to look like a motorcycle.

Picture of the week 11/22/10 Lego Man - an exercise in bokeh

2010-11-28T21:15:00.000-06:00

The way lights blur in a background when a large aperture is used is called bokeh. If you maximize the effect with a mask on the lens, instead of circles or hexagons you will get the shape of the mask. My kids are really into Legos so I thought I'd give Lego man a shot. It worked fairly well. The plan was to get a portrait of one of the boys with the X-mas bush in the background using the Lego man bokeh mask. Getting him (the boy and the Lego man) to hold still was challenging. I had one cool one but it was out of focus. Even this one is not all that sharp but it was a busy weekend. I would like to try this again with the boys. It's sort of like using a fisheye lens, in that it's not something you'd use every day but it's kind of cool.

Picture of the week 11/15/10 Glass, Brass, and Chrome

2010-11-21T22:53:00.000-06:00

My first SLR was a Konica Autoreflex. My father-in-law had one and I used it and liked it alot. When I decided to buy my own SLR I ran across a nice one at Eddie's. Eddies' was a little camera shop along side a flea market that stayed open when the flea market wasn't. I used to go there on cold Saturdays and deal with Eddie. Sometimes I'd get a better deal on days like that because I'd be the only one who came in and he'd rather make a lousy sale than no sale. Eddie's is long gone but the Konica is still in the family. The Konica's mirror is more left of center than most and being left-eyed it suited me. After Konica announced they were no longer going to make camera's I figured I'd better move to Nikon. Why Nikon? Because it is the professional's choice, of course. As I understand it, there was a time early on that if you were a professional photographer and used an SLR it was a Nikon. Period. Today that is not the case and there are plenty of arguments about Canon vs. Nikon. I own a Canon rangefinder and it is a wonderful camera. I own five Nikon SLR's.
I wound up with the collection above piece by piece. Flea markets, ebay, camera stores... when I had time and money I'd spend time collecting stuff I found on the cheap. The Nikkormat was Nikon's entry level line. They are built like tanks, actually, but had less features than the F cameras. You can see they had no hot shoe for a flash but they had two pc sync's (bulb and electronic flash) and you could get an accessory cold shoe. The shutter makes a neat little crunch sound right before the shutter actually fires. It's a specific Nikkormat thing. That groovy case has a metal plate in the bottom with the same lens mounting that the camera bodies have. You mount the lenses, in this case three spares, to that plate to keep them organized. Pretty cool system but the case loaded with a body and lenses is pretty heavy. The photo didn't take too long to do but I'm very happy with it. It has a very 70's magazine ad sort of look to it. This stuff is going on ebay as I have just too much stuff.

Hot time at a wedding reception

2010-11-16T17:23:00.002-06:00

That title is pretty awful, I apologize. I was helping out at a wedding a couple of weeks ago. We went to the reception hall which happened to be at a country club. We scoped out the location and then my friend decided to go to Ron's to get some fries. After about a half an hour side trip we come back to the CC and there are fire trucks and police cars and a crowd. It turns out that the valet parked this lady's car and while running back it exploded. The fire was pretty much contained to the engine compartment and no one was injured. My buddy saw me eyeing the seen while we were trying to load our gear in to the reception. "Go photograph it, you know you want to" So I ran over and got this. The cop standing there asked me if the pictures were going to make the wedding album. I should have sold this to the newspaper.

Picture of the week 11/08/10 A deal's a deal

2010-11-14T22:22:00.000-06:00

Another busy week. Today I spent the day working on a project around the house that I've needed to do for a while. Throughout the day I was thinking of things I could do for my pic of the week. Well, the day came and went and I didn't take the time to create a picture for the project. I had decided to just make an excuse and play catch up next week. I was laying in bed and decided a deal's a deal and I know I've taken some pictures this week. So here ya go. This was the sunrise from Saturday morning. Yeah, I actually was out of the house before sunrise on the weekend and had the foresight to bring a camera. Sunrises/sunsets are wonderful things to behold when they happen but photos of them are pretty weak. So I've done four Pictures of the Week and I've apologized for two of them. Sigh. At least they were on time. I've got 48 more chances to step it up. Thanks for checking in.

DeMotte Boxing Club photos

2010-11-13T08:45:00.000-06:00

If you are here looking for the photo's from last nights Silver Gloves Fundraiser I will get them up as soon as all the photo releases are signed and on file at the DeMotte Boxing Club. I will not post photos of minors without parents permission. As my relationship with the Club continues I will be refining the process of making the photos available as smooth as possible. Thanks for all the kind words and thanks to Coach Jimmy, Renee, Chris Guzman and all the the others who helped out last night. It was a great event and I look forward to seeing you all again. Thanks!

One other thing I'd like to mention - I made a small change with the domain www.surlycamera.com
This address used to come here to the blog and now it goes right to the main gallery page. The blog is still surlycamera.blogspot.com My business cards have www.surlycamera.com on them and if folks have a business card they are looking for the images so that takes them there first. There is a link to the blog from there, of course. I hope this does not cause any confusion.

Thank you for your service and sacrifice Veterans.

2010-11-11T12:35:00.000-06:00

We can say what we like. We can vote. We can worship how we please. We have choices. Because guys like my Grandfather walked his ass across Europe with an M1 while people shot at him. Because guys like my friend Matt were getting damn near killed by IED's in Hum-vee's in the desert. Because guys like Uncle Pete and my friend's Larry and Steve froze their asses off in Korea. My buddy Mike's dad took some shrapnel in his ass in Viet Nam so we can update our facebook statuses. This list goes on and on. Thank you.

So you want to be a writer?

2010-11-09T18:07:00.001-06:00

so you want to be a writer?
by Charles Bukowski

if it doesn’t come bursting out of you
in spite of everything,
don’t do it.
unless it comes unasked out of your
heart and your mind and your mouth
and your gut,
don’t do it.
if you have to sit for hours
staring at your computer screen
or hunched over your
typewriter
searching for words,
don’t do it.
if you’re doing it for money or
fame,
don’t do it.
if you’re doing it because you want
women in your bed,
don’t do it.
if you have to sit there and
rewrite it again and again,
don’t do it.
if it’s hard work just thinking about doing it,
don’t do it.
if you’re trying to write like somebody
else,
forget about it.

if you have to wait for it to roar out of
you,
then wait patiently.
if it never does roar out of you,
do something else.

if you first have to read it to your wife
or your girlfriend or your boyfriend
or your parents or to anybody at all,
you’re not ready.

don’t be like so many writers,
don’t be like so many thousands of
people who call themselves writers,
don’t be dull and boring and
pretentious, don’t be consumed with self-
love.
the libraries of the world have
yawned themselves to
sleep
over your kind.
don’t add to that.
don’t do it.
unless it comes out of
your soul like a rocket,
unless being still would
drive you to madness or
suicide or murder,
don’t do it.
unless the sun inside you is
burning your gut,
don’t do it.

when it is truly time,
and if you have been chosen,
it will do it by
itself and it will keep on doing it
until you die or it dies in you.

there is no other way.

and there never was.

Reblogged from: Here

Picture of the week 11/01/10

2010-11-07T20:45:00.000-06:00

I've been wanting to do a frazzled mommy pic for a while. We had to really work at getting the kitchen that messed up. The maid was beside herself. Of course, the kids were also at a loss. They've never been annoying a day in their lives. Getting the wife to have that look on her face was a chore as well. Seriously, I asked the kids to jump up and down and they obliged and the wife was actually smiling at how cute they were. I must admit I sort of phoned this one in as it took all of five minutes to set up the lights, take the pic and tear down the lights and put it all away. Hey, if we can't get the dishes done how the hell can I put together a giant production just to take one picture? I don't want to cop out on this project so I'm dedicated to getting a pic a week but a quick one that's whipped together in 5 is better than no pic for this type of exercise. I learn from each picture taking experience so at least I got the camera out of the bag. I have some other posts rolling around in my head so check back, there may be another this week if I can find five min.

Picture of the week 10/25/10 Happy Halloween

2010-10-30T21:51:00.000-05:00

I wasn't sure what to do for the pic of the week and after carving all these pumpkins it was sort of a no-brainer. Yeah, maybe a bit of a cop-out but there are only so many hours in a week. What I tried to do here is not have an all black background with just the glow from the o'lanterns. I wanted to have a little light on the rest of the scene to balance things. Also, I needed to have a little light on the big guy to show that his nose was formerly the stem. I have two Adirondack chairs sitting on the porch and I remembered the Joe McNally technique of shooting a flash through things to add some drama. I put the flash on one chair and shot through the other. I had to move it around and play with flash power a bit to get it right. I also used a gridded snoot because I was getting some spill on the leaves and the whole thing lost it's scary, flashlight-through-the-cemetery-fence vibe. As for the pumpkins themselves I did the "skull" on the right...uninspired. I did the big scary one with the direction of my five-year-old. The next one, well...I think that's pretty cool. The Boy wanted to do his own carving so I gave him a marker and told him to draw what he wanted. That is what he came up with. It's a spaceship. Yes, totally obvious to you I'm sure but I had to ask. That kid is super weird sometimes and I'm so proud of that. I love that bizarre, rectangle-dot thing he has going on. We used a drill for the dots and the wife was inspired to do the one on the right. First time for the Boy and the wife using a drill. If you have not tried drilling into a pumpkin with a spade bit there is something very satisfying about it. I hope you like the photo. Be careful out there tonight. Rock on.

Picture of the week 10/18/10

2010-10-21T22:11:00.000-05:00

I am still playing it by ear as to what each week will bring and I think that's going to be the future of the project. For this week my picture is a tribute to one of my friends. He loves potatoes. To a fault. I was kidding around and told him I was going to start calling him Mr. Potato Head. I spent a day with him and he ate potatoes with or as every meal that day. Within a day or so it hit me that this could be my first photo of the week. No clue what next week will bring or what day it will happen but for the record I am calling Sunday night at midnight the end of any given week. At least I've got one rule and I've got one consecutive week done. I hope you like it. Feel free to critique the photos and leave suggestions for upcoming photos of the week. Rock on.

Couldn't have come at a better time.

2010-10-20T12:30:00.000-05:00

I've been having a shitty couple of days due to some stuff I've got no control over. Nothing anyone should worry about, I'm fine, just some aggravating B.S. The stuff of life. One thing that I've really been wanting (needing?) lately is a place I can go and be alone and do some creative work. I don't have much time to expound on this but it seems I'm not the only one who thinks this is a good idea. I don't want to get away because I don't love or want to be around friends and family. I just need to listen to the voices in my head and sort out the shit etc... I came across this at lunch and I realize this is a common thread with creative folks. Clock is ticking for me so go here and read this, you will be glad you did. There are two links there, the second one is a little more for the general public. Start there. Thanks. Rock on.

Picture of the week

2010-10-18T20:44:00.000-05:00

I haven't hammered out all the details of the project, but I figured out what my picture this week will be. It has to do with potatoes. I'll be busy on the weekend, so I'll have it up by Friday.

Unofficially Official - A new project

2010-10-12T20:44:00.000-05:00

In an effort to move my photography skills forward I'm going to do a picture each week as a self-assignment. The only real way to get better at anything is to do it. I need something to force me to do this because my life is pretty hectic at times and it's too easy to sit on my butt in my off time. That's kind of a funny statement considering I have only about two hours a day that I can do anything for myself. Actually, it's more like 120 non-consecutive minutes scattered about the day. There are plenty of weekly photo groups on Flickr and elsewhere I'm sure, but I think I'm just going to do this myself. The ideas I've seen don't really seem to be what I'm looking for. I need to do a little research but I'm commited to ~~starting~~ completing this. Once I get my plan figured out I will post my start date. If you have an idea of something you'd like to see leave a comment.

Chicago 8/30/10

2010-10-03T08:22:00.002-05:00

I mentioned in my last post a trip to Chicago where we did some street photography. I finally made some time to get the photos up here. This first one was taken with my fisheye lens that was stolen that day.
More photos after the jump...

Where'd the week go?

2010-09-29T12:30:00.000-05:00

I've said before I've been trying to do at least a post a week so I checked to see when the last post was. Oops, I didn't realize how long it had been. Just dealing with day to day stuff got in the way. Posting from work makes it a bit tough to do what I'd like as I've got some pictures to show but they are there and I am here. It's also tough to share a computer with three other folks who find it very necessary to view excavator and Lego Star Wars videos on YouTube.
A few weeks ago I went to Chicago for the day with a couple of friends to do some photography. Just for fun. The weather was nice, we could take pictures and hang out and not worry about "getting the shot" or any of that. We had a great day and were winding up at North Ave. Beach shooting the people there and the lake and getting ready to go home when I found out we had been ripped off. That sucked. My bag and my buddies bag had been snatched. Luckily we had the cameras with us but all the other stuff was gone. It could have been much worse but all in all the experience was pretty shitty. My friend was actually concerned that the event would turn me sour on photography and making trips to Chicago. I hadn't even thought about it at the time but perhaps it would have. I think in hindsight he did a good job of keeping the negativity of the event at bay. Thanks man. The Chicago PD were pretty easy to deal with and my insurance folks have been alright as well. I tend to get freaked out and assume the worst-case scenario but I was told I'll be getting reimbursed real soon. Whew. I didn't have all that much stuff but I tell you it can add up quick. If you are the kind of guy who carries a bunch of crap around (EDC) add up what it would cost to replace all that. It's staggering. Ladies, do the same with your purse and you'll see what I mean. Of course the case could be made for minimizing and leaving the junk at home but that's another conversation. I lost lenses, which pretty much makes an SLR useless. I'm not going to be able to go out and replace my gear with the latest and greatest stuff. I must admit, however, I like buying stuff and this gives me the opportunity to make a more advised buying decision than I may have the first time around. I will post the pics from my trip to Chicago soon. Actually, I think the photos from Milwaukee were better but ya'll can take a look and decide. Thanks for reading. Rock on.

Life's a garden...dig it!

2010-09-16T22:34:00.091-05:00

We built a little raised bed garden last year for this years growing season. This is our first garden but our families have had gardens in the past so it's something we are used to. I wanted the kids to understand where the vegetables they refuse to eat come from. Last year we did a few maters and jalapenos...
...in containers and that worked fairly well, but there is only so much you can do. I got some free landscape blocks from my sister-in-law and built this little beauty right here. My yard has no topsoil. The lawn grows right on the clay. Some things grow well in clay but for a garden that I'm working by hand I wanted a little better soil. I traded in some scrap I'd been scrounging for the dirt money and all in all it's been almost free. I started from seeds they only cost me (literally) a few bucks. The only real outlay in cash was for the fence. You see I have neighbors just past the garden and if I missed or had a ricochet they would be upset. So rather than shoot the rabbits, I put up a fence.

It worked pretty good, too. The only critters I had to invade the garden were of the bacterial size. You see my corn turned to Huitlocoche. In Mexico, Huitlocoche is a delicacy. In my backyard it is mold, and nasty, and I pulled it all up. It's called corn smut. You can read all about it but it makes me gag thinking about it.

I did photograph it, however. The kernels get enlarged and turn grey. They fry the stuff up and eat it on tortillas. Sort of like mushrooms. Yeah....anyway I planted from tall to short to maximize the sun exposure which was not a bad deal. It goes corn, maters, five kinds of hot peppers, bell peppers, carrots, and onions. I planted some cilantro in a pot out there but it went to seed and I couldn't save it after that. The big problem I had was trying to cram too much into that little space. It took forever to get any yield. The other issue is that nice topsoil sitting on the clay. The carrots pretty much stopped when they hit that concrete-like clay. It was a nice experience and I didn't even mind all the weeding. I am going to either expand this one or build a second one for next year. I need to do a little reading on soil types and what have you. It was a good deal and even though the kids wouldn't eat anything I think they learned a little bit.

The wife wanted to do some canning this year and got all geared up. I had a nice bunch of jalapenos come in all at the same time so I decided to pickle some carrots, onions, and jalapenos which I did. Zanahorias en Escabeche. This gave us our first foray into canning as well. I have not tried the carrots yet as I want to let them steep a bit. My Mom saved our butts on the canning. We had no clue and were missing part of the gear. She stopped by with the missing pieces, her expertise, and moral support. Thanks Mom. That too will make next year go better.

We chose some Burpee mixed color carrots when we (my son) picked out seeds. They all are pretty much just carrots except for the white ones. They don't have much flavor and are a bit woody. The yellow and orange ones taste great and the purple ones look cool. The odd thing is, the purple is only on the surface. It pretty much comes off when you scrub the dirt off. They are just orange on the inside and taste like...well, they taste like carrots. They seem to grow bigger then the rest too. I got some monsters.

I've got a million maters that are still coming in. Not real big but tasty. The onions are the same deal. I got alot of em but they are all small. The bell peppers are good and I've got five kinds of hot peppers. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with all the peppers. I'll eat the jalapenos and the Hungarian wax peppers but I've got little use for large hot cherry and cayenne. Anyway, that's the garden post. I had a nice time with the kids doing it and look forward to next years crop. I'll probably get into some viney stuff next year. We'll see.

I really want this shirt...

2010-09-16T14:49:00.000-05:00

Photo taken from here:

...and one in kelly as well please.

Let's play - What's in the Couch!

2010-09-14T22:50:00.000-05:00

Welcome to the latest installment of (studio audience, in unison) WHAT'S IN THE COUCH? As anyone with kids of a certain age knows they like to remove the cushions from the couch. For the nanosecond of the day that they are on the couch, anything that comes near it is susceptible to being drawn in to the black hole of the living room. I was putting the cushions back on and I found...

..A small bowl, some Kix, The Remote, some 3/4 CPVC, and a small boy. The pretzel does not count because technically he found and ate it before I had a chance to log it. This, my dear readers, is why we can't have nice things.

Yeah, it was a trick question. You all guessed Legos and Cheerios didn't you?

A little more Milwaukee

2010-09-09T20:57:00.000-05:00

Greetings from Milwaukee

2010-09-08T18:12:00.000-05:00

I'm in Milwaukee for some work stuff. Normally I like to travel for work but this is the third time I've been here and I'd much rather travel with someone. The class content is good but otherwise I'm bored. I'd go walk around and take some more pics but I feel like a touristy target. I did, however, go to a nasty old book store with three stories of shit everywhere. It's an awesome fire trap of a place and I'm pretty sure someone lives in the stacks. I would not hesitate to say there is aver a million books in there. My Dad is probably thinking that it's his kind of place. It was really my kind of place but like I said I was sort of dressed like a target so I didn't spend much time there. This is the kind of place my wife hates to see when we are on vacation. I can go in a spend four hours and she is bored to tears. At any rate, I got an old LIFE book with interpretations of the photos by John Loengard. The prices were fairly high considering the place was a dump. Gotta go call the wife and I'm getting hungry...later.

Short hiatus

2010-09-07T15:52:00.000-05:00

Going out of town for some more training so I may not post until next week. But I may. It depends on hardware and gumpshion. Sounds like you had just better check back from time to time then doesn't it? Oh, and I've decided since I'm not getting the black Rolex for my birthday I want (in addition to the LL Bean cardigan) a Holgaroid. Instant gratification. As a matter of course, they cost way more money than they are worth. Maybe I should just get some film for my SX-70. Well, look at that. That was almost a real post, stream of consciousness style.

How about a forgotten four-year old post? Congrats John and Julie

2010-09-05T16:05:00.001-05:00

This is so strange. I was going through my old post drafts and I found this post wishing John and Julie well after having photographed their wedding. This was in July OF TWO THOUSAND SIX! How I forgot to post this I don't know. The couple have not even lived in this state for a few years. I was fortunate enough to see them a few weeks ago as they were in town. Congrats John and Julie on your fourth wedding anniversary about two months late. I'm glad I didn't wait four years to give them the prints.

I had the opportunity to attend one of the most interesting weddings ever on Sat. My buddy John and his wonderful betrothed tied the knot. I swore I would never shoot another wedding but for John and Julie I gladly made an exception. John, Julie and thier friends live a bit of an outsider lifestyle. One that I have been very fortunate to have been a part of during my life. These are some of the most creative, free-thinking, interesting people you'd ever want to meet and they all seemed to come out of the woodwork for John and Julie's wedding at my Uncle Stick's house.

Style and Respect - a rebuttal

2010-08-31T23:51:00.000-05:00

One of the regrettable things about writing, or beginning writing, is not making your point clear. There are times when I write a post two or three times and I'm not sure if it will convey my thoughts accurately. Since this is not a novel I won't be getting carried away with draft after draft to hone a post into a masterpiece. I'll make a few edits sure, but I'm either o.k. with it or I delete it. The last post was certainly one of the tougher ones. I wrote that last post and later I realized there might be some things left out or maybe I would not get my point nailed down but I really just wanted to say "I'm not fifteen anymore and I should not dress as though I am". After a few false starts I just went with it and I think it came out alright. With one possible exception. I seemed to have sparked something in TVI. TVI is my Dad's cousin and a regular reader and I have quite a bit of respect for him even if I don't know what TVI means or why he uses all capital letters when he types. (Just kidding, dude). TVI left a comment to the tune of him not being too concerned about what people think of the way he dresses. My reply was that I agreed, and that I too don't really care about what others think but dressing well is a sign of respect. He turned that into a nicely written post on his blog. I like what he had to say. Respect should be earned in most cases but there is a matter of context and I think that's where I went wrong. First, I failed to mention that my dressing better is for me. Not the folks around me. The point is not to look better than you, it's to look better than I did. I would hope that all the folks on People of Wal-Mart would chose to do the same but I can't spend my time worrying about them. I also have no intention of belittling anyone. Second, on the issue of respect there are appropriate things to wear to certain events. You don't wear a Metallica t-shirt and dirty jeans to Grandma's funeral. It's disrespectful to dear old Granny and the gravity of the event. I go to a lot of weddings. The bride and groom went to a lot of work to plan the day and make it special. They are wearing the best clothes they can afford for that day. Have a little respect for them, the Church, and the families and put on a tie. I don't expect you to respect me for wearing a tie. It's the other way around. That's about as close as I am going to get to ranting here folks because as I said, I am pushing the boundaries of being hypocritical. I didn't want to have two blog posts about the way I dress. I just wanted to make a point about me growing up and attempting to act like an adult. I feel not wearing flip-flops to the White House is part of that. The next post is going to be about carrots. No controversy, just vegetables.

On being an adult , Part one - It's style, not fashion mind you, but style.

2010-08-27T21:56:00.003-05:00

There's about ten things wrong with this photo and I should have changed my shoes.

It's really only come to my attention that I am an adult sometime in the last nine or ten months. I know when my twenty first birthday was, I think I was at a Rush concert. That was sixteen years ago, give or take. I could go on and on about all the adult sort of things that have gone on in my life. The point is...
there was never any event that took place that signified a shift from whatever stage of life I was in to adulthood. Until now. Or the last nine or ten months or so. I'm still not sure what went on other than the culmination of everything. I may expound on this later but since the ship has sailed and I'm an adult whether I like it or not it's time to start acting like one. Not only have I come to the realization that I am an adult I have been trying to figure out why I'm not happy with the way I dress. Wow, just writing that down I feel guilty. I know, I know, we can all argue back and forth about the issue with aesthetics and it's importance in real life and all that. I'm fully aware that folks in New Orleans still don't have homes, ~~there is a war~~ there are always many wars going on, and Haiti will be pretty much fucked for a very long time. I'm not so self absorbed that I'm going to write a blog post about clothes and pretend that stuff does not exist. I'd like to say I don't have to justify my vanity with a disclaimer but I just did now didn't I? Some time ago I ran across the blog The Sartorialist. I 'm not sure what it was about it but I liked it enough to check on it on a regular basis. It must have been the photography, which is not earth shattering, but it really serves the content of the blog well. I like it enough to have a link here. The Sartorialist is definitely fashion oriented. I am not concerned in any significant way with fashion. I am now, and at least passively, have always been interested in style. I am writing here about style as it applies to my way of dressing. In my case I am making an effort to not dress like a teenager. That's pretty much it for now. It can be easier said than done but after a few trips to the thrift stores and a few well spent dollars at my local Target, I'm on my way. I will not offer advice here on what someone should wear. I used to own a T-shirt that said "Elvis had a stinky butt" so it will be awhile before I am allowed to offer advice. Baby steps... If you are a man and looking for advice go over to Putthison. If you are put off by that, you are either a lost cause, or a fashion victim. Those guys really seem to hit the nail on the head. After checking out a few style guides from the library I figured out what to buy. That helps when shopping. It's really simple, actually. It has a lot to do with restraint,a little to do with knowledge, very much about fit, and not so much about money. I have been shopping thrift stores since I had a driver's license. Now, armed with a little knowledge, I can go in and snag some quality gear for a few bucks and have cash left over for the camera fund. This is a good thing. A decent shirt here, a sport coat there, and on Date Night I'll be the best dressed guy with a sucker stick stuck to the back of my pants from the two year-old. Seriously speaking, finding a personal style is going to be a work in progress but I'm looking forward to it. I work in an office, in a machine shop. The chance of me getting very dirty exists every day. I also have meetings with vendors and actual engineers not just Ravioli and Dessert Engineers such as myself. I have to wear safety shoes, and can't wear a tie. Hell, the owners of the company don't wear ties. If I was to show up in a sport coat or odd jacket I would be fielding questions about who died all day. I am sort of forming a plan and fortunately I don't have to do this overnight. If done right no one will notice me anyway. That's sort of the point, just to look good but not stand out. I'm not shooting for dandy. Although I must admit I do admire the ability to pull off a look. I saw a guy in a department store one time wearing a fur jacket. No fucking way, on any day of my life will I ever be able to pull that off. He loked great. I can't explain it. Fur jackets are stupid and this dude was just killing it. Well done. Before this becomes the longest strangest post I have ever penned I had better wrap it up. I have been reading "1001 rules for my unborn son" by Walker Lemond. I'm really enjoying it and taking some of these rules to heart. One is: Always keep a recent photograph of yourself on file in case of emergencies or unexpected notoriety. Indeed. I will be referring to this book as I continue my posts, I'm sure. That's about enough for now. If you see the odd photo here of a piece of clothing take a look, it might be something more than meets the eye.
UPDATE: It occurred to me that I may get the "I'm just a jeans and t-shirt kind of guy" sort of replies. Yes, I am too. I am just moving over to plain, solid color t-shirts that fit well. I do not wear a blue blazer on a daily basis; I wear it to portrait sittings in my front yard while being devoured by mosquitoes that I hope are not carrying the West Nile Virus. Have a great weekend.

In response to the commentors

2010-08-18T22:03:00.000-05:00

aircraft magnetos

Firstly, thanks for the comments. When folks leave comments it...
...gives me an idea of what works and what does not work. Don't hesitate to leave a comment if you have something to say. Oh, and welcome Jszee... Now a clarification. Some of this is redundant so bear with me as I put things in context. I had a personal blog, it evolved into a blog about motorcycles which, through my association with another motorcycling blog that no longer exists, gained me a reader or two. I also had personal posts in there about some interesting projects. I started another blog that I subsequently killed. Then my personal life changed. I changed jobs, I moved to a new (old) house, and I had two kids. Technically the Wife had the kids, I just help raise them and add the odd consult on the transformation from boys into men. As their time allows of course, no need to rush things. All those changes combined with the time it takes to do any of them with any degree of competence takes some time. The blog then took a bit of a turn when I decided to focus on photography, no pun intended. I thought if I want people to take me and my work seriously the blog should just be about photography. Clearly I love photography, but that really sucked the life out of the blog. Mostly the serious part. In the last year I've come to the realization that I am an adult. I'm not sure when it happened, sort of just sneaked up on me. So, like it or not I'm an adult. I guess I'd better stick with the like it part because there ain't no going back. Also, I've got two small humans that need someone to teach them how to be men. I can't leave that to anyone else, can I? (He said rhetorically, and parenthetically) So what to do with the blog?If I just write what I feel, people seem to show up and read and leave a comment once in a while. Sometimes in English. That's a good thing, I believe. I would like people to see my photography and flip over it and want to loan me their Ducati or send me a voucher for a pair of bespoke shoes (that's another post...). Well, quite honestly I don't have any stunning photography to show. I've got a few good pictures. My Mom likes 'em. So it's not like clients are beating a path to my door to hire me to take photos for them and that's okay. I just need to keep working, getting better and in the mean time I'll keep writing what I feel and what folks seem to like. I've got a few ideas to make the blog better. Not just post topics but things here and there. I'm still going to use my photographs to illustrate the blog and I have another blog domain I could use if I need one for photos only or my portfolio etc... For those of you who have stuck around, thanks for sticking around. For the new folks thanks for showing up. To wrap this whole thing up, from what I read in the comments combined with a few original thoughts I have had rolling around in my head I think I have found the direction I need to go. At least for now. It's a give and take thing here folks, thanks for the input. More to come.

Not quite sure

2010-08-16T12:30:00.000-05:00

My friend Mike is back at blogging. Take a minute and go take a look at what Mike has going on. He's a good friend and everyone that blogs wants people to read thier stuff. I was trying to find his old blog by searching my blog for his old web moniker. I couldn't find it because he deleted it but never mind all that. I was reading some of my old posts and I realized that they were much better than the new stuff. I used to post pictures of cool bikes I found and just riff on whatever was going on in my life or just talk motorcycles. I actually had a few readers and what I wrote was well...me. I'm an irreverent wise ass. I think so anyhow, and I've been trying to stay away from the wise ass stuff. I wanted to focus more on the photography but there are 47 million photo blogs out there and that's not me. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to be doing that but I've never really been comfortable doing exactly what anyone else is doing. I guess I need to "stop thinking about fitting into a mold and think about blowing the mold to pieces". Yep, I totally stole that quote. It fits. This brings me to the Not Quite Sure post title. I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do with this blog. Consider it a work in progress but please check back because I am trying to post at least once a week. Not once weakly. Maybe if I think it's too stale I'll take some time off and reconfigure. As I said, not quite sure. I can do better. PLEASE leave a comment. If you have been reading and think I've gone downhill say so, do you miss the motorcycle content? Miss the garagemobile type stuff? Let me know. There's the bell, gotta go...

Portraits

2010-08-16T08:00:00.003-05:00

I did a quick couple of portraits of my father for a contest he is entering.

A little more about pushing that rock up the hill

2010-08-10T22:34:00.000-05:00

Someone who is quite close to me was venting about wanting a new job. Another place to set his lunch bucket is what he said in the email, I believe. The reason for leaving would be a moral issue. The chuckleheads he works for do things that are just not fair. If someone has to leave a job because the people around them are buffoons who do immoral things then so be it. Although in this case the employer is probably more amoral than immoral due to their being oblivious about how the choices they make effect those around them. I digress. I would not fault anyone for leaving due to those reasons. The thing that got me thinking was leaving a job that puts food on your table and covers your insurance etc... Yes, it's not the end of the world and most people would find a new job while working the current crappy one. That was the synaptic jumping off point for me, as it were. I started to draft a response. I was thinking about some of the blog posts I've read about believing in yourself, working your butt off, and learning your craft to be the successful (insert vocation here) that you can be. This person is quite talented at a couple of things. The thing he gets paid to do that he might consider leaving, and at least one other thing. The other thing, in my mind, is what I was going to recommend he work on. I then started to list the things he should do. If I were you I would... I stopped. I realized that all the things I was going to suggest are things I need to do. Work on getting a nice space to work in, clean up the clutter. Focus on the things you really want to do. In your free time hone your craft, keep working on it, then when you quit you'll have those marketable skills to be able to put food on the table and pay the insurance premiums. Hopefully. This guy I am talking about doesn't need to hear that. He damn sure doesn't need to hear it from me. I was basically giving myself advice. I'm glad I had the presence of mind to realize this before I hit send. It's kind of funny actually.
I ran a cross an old blog post today (yeah, I read a lot of blogs) about the two things it takes to be successful. Be undeniably good, and dedicate 10,000hrs to your craft. There you have it. Two simple things. Well, easier said than done of course, but this is exactly the type of thing I was trying to explain to the person in the email. An epiphany of sorts, I suppose. I have the answer I just need to keep pushing the rock up the hill. Ten thousand hours is a lot of time but if I had started ten years ago where would I be now? Perhaps, I'd be undeniably good. Every day I find a new little bit of wisdom that helps make the future seem a bit more workable for me. Of course every other day I think I should just live in a box behind Wal-Mart and huff gold paint. That's just the rock rolling down the hill. Time to start pushing again.

More Airplanes - different event

2010-07-28T21:09:00.001-05:00

I took the family to see some of the WWII aircraft of the Collings Foundation's Wings of Freedom Tour. I got a brief chance to see it last year so I wanted to take full advantage of the opportunity this year.

Well I say full advantage but I'm not quite flush enough for a $2200 ride in Betty Jane, the TP-51C. (There are less expensive options and I would certainly recommend doing it even though I have not...yet.) I did walk around and inside the B-17 and the B-24. Anyone who knows me well knows I love machines; these things are pretty much the Holy Grail of machines. The inside of a WWII bomber is all business. There is no extra seating. For the waist gunners, there is no seating. The cat walk through the bomb bay is about seven inches wide. The supports coming up from the catwalk would not allow my thirty two inch waist to fit through without turning sideways. The catwalk was about three feet above the tarmac and my five year-old was pretty freaked out walking across it. I couldn't even begin to imagine what it was like being a seventeen year-old recruit working in one of those things at thirty-five thousand feet freezing your ass off with bullets whizzing at you at a loping 150mph. It's pretty amazing stuff. I'm honored to be able to have seen these things. I hope you enjoy the photos.

My birthday is October 17th

2010-07-22T11:38:00.000-05:00

In case you are into planning ahead....

Gary Air Show 2010

2010-07-20T22:32:00.000-05:00

The Thunderbirds didn't even run into each other this year.

Here are a few of the decent shots from the air show. I'm no Moose Peterson, but I had fun and I love airplanes. This is a challenging thing to do. I really enjoyed photographing this event. I got some dust on my sensor so I had to spot the crap out of these. I also didn't really have enough lens for this type of thing. These images are all cropped. I bought a new lens for this show and I'm glad I did. I got a lot of bang for the buck for a $150 lens. I used it at the wedding last weekend as well. The weather was interesting, the sky changed about every five minutes. I would get a nice set of clouds with a blurry airplane or a nice sharp airplane and a bunch of haze! The smoke from the prop planes didn't help. While the F-16 and F-18 were bad ass and the Thunderbirds are always cool I really dug the T-6 Texans and those groovy Russian trainers (Yak-11 maybe?). You gotta love that grey camo with the red accents. Enjoy the pics, leave a comment. Rock on. Pics after the jump...

I got nothin...

2010-07-14T21:23:00.002-05:00

Well, I've got a lot of content. I just don't have any time to post yet this week. I'm trying real hard to get at least one post a week. I have a bout a million shots of the Gary Air Show but I just have been too busy being Dad and running around doing errands. Don't worry, I'm on it. Rock on.

Serendipity

2010-07-12T09:40:00.000-05:00

Something really cool just happened. My friend John just walked in and handed my a copy of American Motorcyclist with Malcolm Smith on the cover. Signed by Malcolm Smith. "Hell you named your kid after him, I figured you needed this..." I might cry...

Happy Independence Day

2010-07-04T23:33:00.000-05:00

I went to high school with the cop on the bike. I totally framed the shot to obscure his face to protect his secret identity. Yeah, that's what I did.

I took the family to the Independence Day parade in my old hometown today. The kids had a blast and I took a bunch of pics. Then we came home and had some baked taco stuff the wife makes. It looked really nice in the early evening light. It tasted even better. These pictures remind me that even with Blackberries and Twitter and Facebook there still are nice little small towns with nice people. I used to hate captioning photos but I seem to have an odd fascination with it on the blog. My old black and white "fine art" stuff used to all say untitled. I don't know, I guess here I can use it to interject a little humor. I hope ya'll had a great day and took the time to remember what the day is all about.

Tandem hotties

Hot pizza (it was about 95 deg. today)

Student built remote control robot

The Man With No Eyes

Not all tractors are green

The lovely Mrs. Surly

Some Republicans

Obligatory old truck

Mosquito bitten towhead

Tubamaba

Lots of reenactors this year.

This guy gets my award for "Best use of a Shemagh"

This is a guy in a red shirt, a "monster" Caprice that is shooting water at us, and a giant inflatable cowboy that all seemed to have no connection to each other whatsoever. Probably my favorite pic of the day. Sort of Garry Winogrand-esqe.

Dinner.

'Night everybody.

New Year's Resolutions, how are your's coming along?

2010-07-02T12:11:00.001-05:00

First I want to say thanks for the comments on my last post. Like I said in that post, there's no need to feel sorry for me. It was more of an essay on the struggle we all face as humans and how it applies to me in this time of my life. The weather has made a nice turn and it's supposed to me dry all week and not oppressively hot. I've been riding the bike to work and that's always a nice brain scrubber. With the way my head works, riding the bike forces me to focus on the riding and not all the BS. So I've got that going for me, which is nice.
Moving on, I realized this week that I have accomplished one of the two things I blogged about as my New Year's Resolutions. Make money from photography. While selling a few prints through my website did make me roughly 3 dollars it hardly offsets the cost of the website. I did however garner a few shekels by assisting at weddings. I did the math and I'm just a tick over minimum wage for the gigs I did. The knowledge gained had immense value. A wise man told me you pay for your education one way or the other. I'm starting to enjoy the experience of shooting at weddings. I never thought that would happen. I figured it would suck but I need the experience and skills and few extra bucks cant hurt. I shot that picture of my boy last night doing his best Billy Idol. He doesn't even know who Billy Idol is but I think he did a good job of channeling him. Needs a little work on the sneer. Have a great Independence Day. Don't blow anything off except maybe mowing the lawn. Rock on.

Working really hard at being sort of o.k. or The Trouble with Sisyphus

2010-06-22T23:10:00.000-05:00

I've been thinking about this post for quite some time and some recent events sparked all the right synapses to get me to write it all down. I apologize for all the name dropping but for those of you not into photography, I suppose the names help the context. The days leading up to this past weekend were not all that great. Though there were a few good moments, all the bad stuff seemed to culminate on Father's day. I had a bad day Sunday. Now, don't go feeling sorry for me. I am my own worst enemy. Dealing with this is getting easier, but I have had a habit of letting one little (and I mean little) issue derail a perfectly good day. I had thought of writing a post about just how horrible my day was in a humorous, self-deprecating way, but I didn't think I could pull it off. I would have either sounded like a HUGE baby (probably pretty close to the truth) or it would have been weird and not so funny. Suffice to say, some actual stuff happened that kind of sucked but mostly I just dwelled on how I was letting my day suck. See, there is the big baby part. What does all this have to do with photography? Hit the jump...

Anyone who does something creative has moments of insecurity. I know I certainly do. I have had times when I said F$%& it, I'm done with all this and nobody wants to see this crap anyway. Only until recently did I realize I'm not the only one who has that feeling. I've become a fan of Zack Arias of late. He's a photographer. He's a photographer but I'm not so much a fan of his work as I am a fan of the man. (His work is outstanding but not so much the point here, on the off chance he might actually read this) I've never met Zack. The things he's written and more importantly, the videos he's made have hit me like a ton of bricks. You may not get it the way I got it, but I feel my life is better for having had this experience.

Take the ten minutes and watch the entire video. Seriously.

I know I don't have many readers of this blog. If I do the best I can and put out something I believe in, the readers will come or more importantly maybe someone will get something out of this. This blog started out mostly as a creative outlet and morphed into a motorcycle blog. While it's killing me that I don't have much motorcycle content anymore I know Gymi still checks in from time to time. And the name of the blog was always a reference to a photograph. Way back when I started this I did this for me hoping someone would get something from it. Perhaps through just sticking to it, I will get better and maybe I'll that impact on someone the way Zack Arias (and others) has on me.
It's probably not the best marketing tool to tell ya'll that my photography sucks. Compared to someone like Chase Jarvis, my work does suck but I have to use that knowledge as fuel for my creative fire, so to speak. Chase Jarvis didn't wake up one morning with a gazillion dollars in his bank account and go pick up a D3X and go make stunning photographs. His work probably sucked too. Just like mine. The difference is he kept going and made it better and fought through all the negativity, internal and external. I've never read anything by Mr. Jarvis that referred to his work sucking but I'm sure there was a time.
It's not just the lack of confidence either. Even if you are good at what you do, you can't just sit around and wait for things to happen. David Hobby of the blog Strobist, in one of his posts, said "Never was anything more clearly apparent to me: Even if you are talented, it is the hard work that pushes you to the next level. Every day.". Jeremy Cowart had a guest post on Scott Kelby's blog detailing all the luck he created for himself. The harder you work the luckier you get. Guys like this are driven. I've never been driven. But now I'm driven to be driven. Whatever the hell that means. I've been sort of O.K. at a lot of different things. I'm tired of that and I'm striving to be good. I think good will be a damn nice starting point to being exceptional and then whatever lives beyond that.
I have a friend who told me what I believe is going to be the most important thing I will ever learn about photography. She said,"If you want to learn photography, learn people." I knew when I heard that it was going to stick with me always. At least I hope it will. I've made some interesting friends and contacts lately through photography. Maybe when my photography starts to actually generate a few bucks some of these will pay off in dollars. So far they have payed off in much more important ways. My friend Norman has become my employer of sorts. I met someone through the DeMotte Boxing Club who turned me on to a film maker. Learning to deal with people has helped me to learn to deal with myself a little better. I know that I'm going to impact these folks in some way and it's up to me to make it positive. I need to remember that my work is going to get better because I'm going to keep pushing to make it that way. One day that sucks is just that, one day.

Random flower

I have bad days. You have bad days. When I'm having a bad day I still have a home. No one is shooting at me. I don't need to use the word insurgents in daily conversation. On the good days I have to remember to keep pushing that rock up the hill. I'm not Sisyphus, things will improve if I work hard. Thank you to all of you who have worked your ass off to accomplish something. It took me 37 years but I think I'm finally learning something.

Wedding - Gary, Indiana

2010-06-14T21:35:00.000-05:00

The Church

I've been working as an assistant to a friend who does weddings. I took a few shots when I had some down time.

The Hall

Leon's Triathlon Returns

2010-06-07T22:04:00.001-05:00

After fifteen years away Leon Wolek brought his Triathlon back to Hammond Indiana's Wolf Lake Park. On Sunday I was fortunate to be able to take photos of the athletes competing in Leon's "World's Fastest"Triathlon. More after the jump...

Leon

I have posted all my photos from the event in the galleries, click HERE.

I know Leon and it is clear that he cares quite a bit for this race and even more for the competitors. I watched as Leon stood at the finish line and personally thanked and congratulated every one who crossed the finish line. There were a few guys who I believe were Patriot Guard Riders volunteering.

Moron

One of these guys named Mike offered to take me on the course on the back of his bike to take pics. I jumped at that! Thanks Mike! I believe it was Dave (?) who loaned me his spare helmet for the ride. Please, if I got his name wrong let me know and I'll correct it. So cool of these guys to do that.

It was interesting to see all the people of different stripes competing. From folks that were professional athletes to people who looked...well, as my buddy Gordon put it "midwestern". I saw a young man who I believe was fourteen years old and a man who was seventy-two.

Before you say anything, this guy is 72! He won for oldest male competitor, and won a kick ass door prize.

I believe the oldest woman was sixty-one. It takes a lot of determination to compete in an event like this. Thanks to all involved for the great opportunity. I look forward to more interesting challenges and working with these folks in the future.

Remember that movie Tron?

Some expensive rolling stock

Overall race winner

Competitors exiting Hammond Indiana's almost corpse-free Wolf Lake

Blogger was not working for most of yesterday, and a good portion of today. Thanks for your patience if you had been looking for Triathlon stuff and just got zombies.

A little more zombie action

2010-06-04T22:40:00.002-05:00

Makeup pre-shoot

I posted all the zombie photos in the galleries for those of you who are interested. All in all, I think they look pretty good. The film maker seemed happy and we may be working together again in the future. Hit the jump.

Hot thespian action

This is an independent film by a local guy named Cameron Scott. The process is an interesting one, making movies. A whole lot of hurry up and wait. There were some very cool people there, including these actors above Jessica Cameron and Larry Laverty.

Zombies get bored when they are not trying to eat you.

Many of the zombies and special FX folks were locals. Like all photo shoots I learned a little something about my craft. I'm sort of just rambling here. I haven't had much sleep this week so I'll let the pictures do the talking.

I love the look on Shannon's face, here.

Larry looking ....meniacal

Better get those ropes loose

I think that's Sam top center. He makes for a great looking zombie. Scary.

Jason, Carol? and Keith at the craft services table

I got a little carried away with the contrast slider.

I like it. This is my Twitter background by the way. ~~If anyone knows how to contact this particular zombie let me know. Send me an email or contact me on Facebook.~~ Update: Nevermind, I found her.

So to wrap up - shooting pics on the set of Cameron Scott's Post Mortem America 2021 was a blast and I met some cool people. I got some great shots and I can't wait to see more zombies. Thanks.

BTW, these are low res versions of the pics. I would love it if you went over to the galleries and took a look at the high res, harder to steal versions. I would really like it if you bought a few. Thanks for your support.

Status update

2010-06-02T12:30:00.000-05:00

While shooting Zombies on Saturday, I was giving out my contact info and almost everyone I handed the card to asked "Are you on Facebook?". Sigh... After about the fifth "no, I'm not" I decided I'd better take the plunge. So I'm now Matt Mengel on Facebook. As opposed to, Matt Mengel in real life which is much scarier. Anyhow, there I am.
I took the day off work yesterday to get some things done. I didn't get much done other than 1) Exactly what my wife asked me to do and 2) Take a self portrait for my Facebook profile. What a nerd.

Could I have smiled any bigger? Well, it's not all that bad. I'm fairly proud of it considering I'm just getting started in portraiture. It's a lot better than those out of focus pictures of peoples dogs that are on most profiles. Gotta go.

Guess what I did today

2010-05-29T22:51:00.000-05:00

I hung out with some of the finest, flesh eating undead you'll ever want to ~~headshoot~~ meet. I'm exhausted and not really sure what I can post just yet until I talk to the film maker. Until then...

Keep your eyes peeled...or they will peel them for you.

Coach

2010-05-26T16:40:00.000-05:00

I'm coming down from some anesthesia so if I promise to pick anyone up from the airport or loan you some cash don't believe it. I went down to the boxing club for some test shooting last week and I got a head start on my lighting set up. I did two arrangements with the lights and I'm pretty happy with this one. All my gear worked with one minor snag so that was a success also. The pugilist in the photo above is one of the coaches at the gym who was kind enough to model for me as I was setting up. He is also a craftsman, and my father. Thanks Chief. That's all for today. I'd love to wax poetic about this but I have to make dinner. I mean, it was outpatient surgery why should I not have to work? Rock on.