Jamesville Balloon Festival

Last Friday Sara and I met up with some friends at the Jamesville Balloon Festival. We were excited because according to the website at 9pm all the hot air balloons would light up their fires and glow. Since most of us are photographers we thought it would be awesome. The night was gorgeous, one of those perfect early summer nights when it's not humid and it's pleasantly warm, but you wear a sweatshirt because there's just enough briskness in the air to make you feel alive. However, the balloonists decided not to get their glow on after all, so we just kind of walked around, buying cotton candy and frozen bananas and kettle corn and listening to some generic local rock band with the secret weapon of a kickin' harmonica solo. Even though we didn't get to see a ton of hot air balloons, it was still a good time out and about enjoying one of the many Central New York Summer festivals. I think we got the Polish Festival coming up this weekend. I better start saving my nickels for some Polish sausage.

The Liberty Bell Balloon. Sara found it.

Mary, Jamie, Elisha, and Wasim eating dinner.

Every Ballon needs to be deflated sometime.

Time to go home.

Golf before a wedding

Memorial Day weekend was a pretty busy weekend that included, but was not limited to, an improv show, helping paint a friend's house, and shooting the groom's side of a wedding, which involved golf in the morning and then getting ready for the big moment. I was not involved in shooting the actual wedding, which was fine because I don't really enjoy/am any good at shooting weddings. But I did have a lot of fun hanging out with the guys on the golf course and getting ready. Maybe I should hire myself out only for the bachelor parties/activities. I wonder if anyone does just that? Maybe I should just start. Okay, so if you want me to just shoot things prior to the real wedding, I'm your man.

(The groom is in red).

The father of the groom (on left) and groom and commentator

feeling the burn

a little rest before the evening's festivities

cheers!

Crazy Face Podcast

For a class I had last spring I produced three episodes of an audio podcast called the Crazy Face Podcast. My friend Drew Jordan and I did all the voice work and then I did the post-production editing stuff. I'm still not sure how I feel about the format of the show. I like the idea of random little segments, but I feel it needs something more. I'll start posting the episodes here and on facebook to see what you have to say about it. I wanted the podcast to be something people listened to while at work or while working on something or in the car or in an airplane or in the bathtub or secretly while in a library. Let me know what you think, even if you hate it. I hope to keep doing these and maybe build it into a website or something fancy. Rock and Roll.

Graduation!

About three weeks ago Sara and I traveled down to Blacksburg, Virginia for my brother Tim's graduation from Virginia Tech. It was nice to see my family and Sara's family since they live in that area. It was nice to spend some time in Blacksburg, where both Sara and I went for undergrad. A lot of things have changed, but it was still good ol' Blacksburg. It's always interesting going back to the town I spent four years in for college, because I'm reminded of a lot of things that were painful or awkward or sad. I'm also a different person now than I was back then, so it's sometimes weird seeing people who knew me a certain way. But now that four years have passed since I graduated from Virginia Tech I've come to more of an acceptance of who I've become and it doesn't bother me as much confronting those feelings from the past. For the first time since I graduated I was able to just enjoy Blacksburg for what is, a cool little college town in Southwest Virginia, and wasn't worried about facing past demons. It was a good trip and I'm proud of my little brother and wish him the best of luck in his future endeavors. Hopefully we'll still be friends.

Sister Hannah dancing after the ceremony

Kind of boring ceremony