Back in the day I used to spend my Saturday mornings at swim meets watching Ashleigh, Maurie and Maddie and the rest of the team and talking blurry action shots. ¹ I even had a pool-themed layout for this weblog.

Although I clearly wasn’t destined to be a sports photographer, I loved going to those meets. They were more exciting to watch than the other sports I also tried to photograph (track, cross country, lacrosse, football) I got to hang around right next to the pool with the team and vaguely feel like I was part of a school-related activity.

All of this is to say that I thoroughly enjoyed watching Olympic swimming this week, the highlight being definitely Michael Phelps 8 gold medal quest. (Did you know he’s from Maryland? In an painfully sentimental way this makes me proud of my home state.) And I’d like to think that I appreciated it more because of all those Saturdays crouched on the floor at MAC and MLK in high school.

¹ At one of my first swim meets an angry parent yelled at me for interfering with light that goes off to mark the start of a race. The camera I was using at the time didn’t even have a flash, but I still felt horrible, and once I got a new camera with a built-in flash it took me months before I felt comfortable using it.

tags: home, photography, swimming

The 4th of July: America and Katie’s birthday!

We went to see fireworks in South Kingston. They were canceled in Providence.

We didn’t even get to the field where the event was officially held. As soon as we exited from the highway we saw people setting up folding chairs in parking lots and on the sidewalk. We found a grassy spot next to an intersection. Bonus: the Tim Horton’s right behind us had a bathroom open to the public, and doughnuts.

I failed to get any decent photos of the fireworks, so here are some from last year in DC:

tags: celebration, friends, photography

Internet is finally working again…

Ta-dah!

tags: brown, photography

Left to right, in each photo: Kingmax 1GB Super Stick, first generation SanDisk 1GB Cruzer micro, Kingston DataTraveler 1GB, SimpleTech 128MB ?? (given out free by Brown CIS during orientation three years ago)

Unimpressed with the Brown Bookstore’s selection of USB flash drive, I ordered a Kingmax Super Stick, which is literally as small as a piece of gum. I’m a little skeptical of its durability based on the negative reviews at Amazon, and its price (incredibly cheap!) but for now it’s exactly what I wanted. Now I can finally stop emailing drafts to my Gmail account or uploading files to a temporary folder on crumb, and just carry what I need with me.

Just in case I also got another slim flash drive, a first generation SanDisk Cruzer micro, because I like McComas’ so much. It’s not as small as the Super Stick but once you take the plastic skin off it is still very compact, and it seems a less apt to snap in half.

tags: photography, purchase

The sculpture made out of dead trees on the Quiet Green was destroyed by a dead tree this weekend.

tags: brown, photography

Prompted by the new Toyota Corolla Sleeping Badger commercial, badgers have become my new favorite animal. Specifically, the North American badger:

and the Ratel, or Honey Badger:

The honey badger reminded me of the bats that McComas worked with over the summer, Cynopterus brachyotis, which are also very cute:

tags: animals, photography