I know I haven’t posted in a long time, but this is just something that I had to pass along…

Help support the United States’ bid to bring the FIFA World Cup back to the US in either 2018 or 2022!

Greetings all… it’s cold and windy this morning in DC and I’ve been at work way too long. I know this post is coming after 1000am, but I’ve been here since 720am. So there!

1. Georgetown Cupcake opened their new flagship bakery on M Street yesterday and gave away free cupcakes all day. Of course, I missed the opportunity for my free sugary and buttery goodness. Fail.

2. Work has slowed down even more so than in previous posts. Really starting to worry about whether or not I’ll have a job shortly after the new year arrives. I wish people would just pay their damn bills!

3. Christmas is rapidly approaching and I have done absolutely ZERO shopping. Doh! I’m going to get on that within the next few days.

4. I’m determined to get a photo into the DCist Exposed Photography Show this year. Help me out within the next few days and vote for your top three photos here. If you don’t have a Flickr account, just leave a comment here and I’ll get it.

5. I’m looking forward to skiing. And Pepe’s… only two weeks away!

6. Nicole and I are now slowly working towards figuring out the music situation for our wedding reception. Oh, the choices! Band all night? DJ all night? Quartet for dinner, DJ for dancing? Going to be a fun January.

7. The fall season of our APA pool league ended recently, and unofficial results show that I may have won another MVP award for the season! If so, that means that I’ll be invited to play in another regional tournament with a chance to win some dough, so keep your fingers crossed.

8. Somewhat reluctantly, I’m trying a new frame shop. Artful Framing has been my go-to for years, but it’s just such a pain to get out to Takoma Park regularly during business hours. I’m giving Gary Taylor a shot now because, well, it’s about a block away from my apartment.

9. I’m happy the Red Sox, after deciding to essentially let Jason Bay walk away from the team, have decided to make some strong moves for improved defense and pitching. Now, we just need some more offense!

10. I’m knee deep in online gift shopping now. Wish me luck.

Today, ESPN kicked off Jimmy V Week, in honor of famed college basketball coach Jimmy Valvano. At the inaugural ESPY awards event in 1993, Jimmy V was awarded the very first Arthur Ashe Courage and Humanitarian Award and delivered his instantly famous “Don’t give up. Don’t ever give up.” speech (video below, transcript here). It’s an incredibly moving speech that will have you grinning ear to ear while fighting back tears (of both laughter and sorrow) at the same time. Enjoy!

Greetings all… heading out of the office soon and almost forgot, so I threw this together pretty quickly.

1. As you can see, I got some love from the Georgetown Starbucks this morning. Of course, I’ve been going there for nearly 5 years and I’ve ordered the same beverage every single time so they’ve got that down. Not too often though does my name end up on the cup. Bravo!

2. The Hall and Oates concert I saw at the 930 Club last week was good. Yeah, that’s all, just good. Daryl Hall seemed uninterested for most of the night, and he tried to do a bit too much with his aging vocal chords and ended up sounding awkward at times. Musically though, they’ve still got it.

3. I don’t know that I’ve mentioned it here, but I’m back bartending again on the weekends at Buffalo Billiards. Sunday is the only scheduled shift that I work and it’s been going great so far. This past weekend, I also covered a Saturday shift. Unfortunately, the NCAA and NFL football schedules did not provide much in the way of exciting football matchups and the Redskins Deadskins played Monday night, so both shifts over the weekend were very, very slow. Boo.

4. Speaking of Saturday, Nicole and I had a little date night after I got home from work. I showered quickly and we went around the corner to Buca di Beppo for some dinner (had a coupon that was expiring soon), and then we headed to Solly’s on U Street for a drink before a concert at the 930 Club again. This one was Federico Aubele, a smooth-voiced and slick-handed Argentinian guitarist. It’s mello music, but a good show.

5. We’ve been spending a lot of time looking at invitations on Etsy for some inspiration to give our designer. Actually, last night, I spent over three hours looking through about 1,000 different designs on the site. Yikes!

6. FotoWeekDC is coming up and one of the cool aspects of the event is that they provide “portfolio reviews” for photographers of all skill levels. I’d love to schedule one for myself, but it’s actually a bit pricey. I’m going to wait it out for about a week to see how my finances stand and if I’ve got the extra money, I’ll just have to hope that there are still some open slots.

7. I just started using Nicole’s digital camera last week, so hopefully the Flickr photostream will start moving again. I do have a backlog of photos to upload though, including I think three baseball games that I just have not been able to get to yet.

8. I think this coming Saturday, I may take a little photowalk down 17th Street NW. Nicole and I went to the Corcoran Gallery of Art a while back, via 17th Street from Farragut Square. My eye kept wandering on the walk home and I think I could spend a roll of film there. I’ll have to see how the weather pans out (current forecast: mild but rainy).

9. Ryan and Blythe gave Nicole and me a gift card to the Blue Duck Tavern, the restaurant and lounge at the Park Hyatt Washington, DC where we will be hosting our wedding festivities. In anticipation of the wedding date next year, we reserved a table for dinner on Friday, November 13 (wedding date, November 13, 2010). Definitely looking forward to that…

10. The Winter of Despair has begun. When does spring training start?

I’m not a very political person, but even I could tell from a mile away that this is going to have to be embarassing for the Grand Old Party. Wow.

The engagement photos are in… check out the blog post here on our photographers website!

Ugh… I’ve had quite a few ups and downs since my last post, now almost 6 weeks ago.

1. August was pretty damn busy for me with a lot of early mornings and late nights at work. Ironically, work has been quite slow this year and to boot, we’ve been having problems with a number of projects. Some of them are getting to me a bit personally so I’ve been a bit down on myself the last month or so, but things seem to be coming around a bit now and it looks like things might improve before the end of the year.

2. Late in August, Nicole and I made a short trip to Block Island to spend a long weekend with family. My brother and his wife rented a house and invited us all up for the week, though we could only make it Thursday through Sunday (slideshow of a few photos here.

3. Friday in BI was eventful to say the least. Early in the morning, my brother slipped down a flight of stairs while carrying one of his baby boys. They both tumbled and though my brother came away OK, his son was hurt and shaken pretty badly. Long story short, my nephew ended up with a broken buckled femur, but will be OK. He was a tropper to the max with a cast on for a whole month, but it came off about two weeks ago and now all is back to normal. Phew.

4. The first weekend of September, we hit the road again for an engagement party in the Philly area that Nicole’s mother threw for us. We lucked out with some great weather that allowed the party to stay outside and more importantly, keep the kids in the pool. Nicole and I got some great gifts and a good deal of money that we decided to use to start a joint bank account. We don’t plan to use the account regularly, so any money we get from wedding related things will go straight there to grow.

5. Baseball has ended (tear). I didn’t see nearly as many games this year as I wanted (15 total), but in the last two months of the season: Rockies @ Nationals; Brewers @ Nationals; Phillies @ Nationals; one, slash, two games against the Dodgers; and, a game from the final homestand against the Mets. As is always the case with the Nats, it’s been a good, bad, and ugly.

6. Hall & Oates are coming around to the 930 Club (yes, the 930 Club!) on October 21, a stop on their latest tour, “Up Close and Personal.” I surely did not hesitate to get a ticket, though because Nicole will be in class, it looks like I’ll be flying solo.

7. Had a rather unexpected visitor on the balcony at home a few weeks ago… a praying mantis! This guy actually hung out on the balcony for nearly two days before he left.

8. In some very exciting news, I bought a new camera lens. Found on eBay (with shipping, I spent less than $25.00!), I bought an old Asahi SMC Pentax-M 1:2 50mm prime lens. And. I. Love. It. The depth of field is incredible… the kind that I’ve never worked with with my kit or zoom lens. The first half-roll of photos with the new lens can be seen here.

9. And at the same time I was looking for a new lens, I’m thinking to myself that I’d love to have a new SLR body as well. Though my heart has always been with black and white film, I’m growing more and more comfortable with color now (as you’ll see in this archive). I figured it’d be nice to always have a camera with each type of film. So… I bought (also on eBay), a used Pentax ZX-M, the same as the current camera I’ve got. Unfortunately, I didn’t read fully the item description and purchased (again, for only like $25.00) a broken, as-is camera body that needs some work. Haven’t investigated it further yet, but details later.

10. My cousin made a weekend visit to the area from Boston two weeks ago. We all hung out at my brother’s house Saturday afternoon/evening and then went to the National Zoo on Sunday (a few photos with the new lens).

11. Following the National Zoo, Nicole and I broke from the crowd and spent a few hours walking around our hood during Adams Morgan Day Festival. The weather was absolutely beautiful and it gave me an opportunity to finish up a roll of film with the new lens!

12. Speaking of the animal kingdom and visitors… the blue heron that stops at the C and O Canal in Georgetown every year made another appearance last week.

13. At the end of the month, our wedding photographers, Robert and Kathleen, visited from Southern Connecticut to shoot an engagement session with us. Nicole and I spent a Saturday afternoon zipping around town scoping out potential locations that we might like to have pictures taken at, and though it gave us a good point to start from, we quickly diverted from the list once Rob and Kathleen got their eyes and imaginations working. Turns out, they’ve got a pretty good eye for this stuff. We are still waiting for the photos and their blog post, but rumor has it that those are coming soon!

14. The first few weeks of October have been uneventful, so briefly noted: Our friend Shannon is hosting an engagement party for our local friends in the Club Room at her apartment … I lost my little digital point-and-shoot camera about a week ago (boo!) when Nicole and I were out on Capitol Hill … Federico Aubele is playing the 930 Club later this month, and I’ll be there.

OK, so it’s become really, really difficult for me to hide my excitement at times the past few days. I know this is an old photo, but recent developments are too fantastic to go unmentioned and I don’t get to see Radiohead all too often.

The band are in the the process of finalizing a new album. Rumor had it that it was to be released sometime during the month of August, and though it’s incresingly likely that that will not happen, Radiohead are peeking interest across the intarwebs with teasers. As always, the band blog over at Dead Air Space is fueling most of the rumor mill, but there is one thing for certain: a new album is forthcoming, and at least one new track has been gifted early by the band.

Radiohead have finished recording “These Are My Twisted Words” and say that they are “pretty proud of it.” Via their blog post, you can visit the W.A.S.T.E. shop to consume a digital version of the new track for free.

The new track is reminiscent of some old-school grooves from Pink Floyd, mixed with shades of earlier Radiohead B-sides from the OK Computer/Kid A/Amnesiac days. Musically speaking, I’m immediately thrown back to “Fast Track,” from the “Pyramid Song” single and the Floyd’s “Interstellar Overdrive” (The Piper at the Gates of Dawn) or parts of “Shine on You Crazy Diamond (6-9)” (Wish You Were Here). It’s paced by a somewhat frenetic background of Phil’s drumwork, overlaid with a rising and falling soundscape of guitar work. The bass comes in to calm things down and call all to order for the vocals, followed by a smooth jam out to the end. All in all, a great piece of work.

My exceitement reached it’s highest point today when I happened across the band’s Sunday blog post. Graciously, they’ve provided a link to a YouTube video of a live recording of the new track, it’s first live performance ever at a festival in Austria. View the wonderful, wonderful video here. below (I felt dumb when I realized I could just embed the video!).

As promised, I’ve got some more pictures to share with you all now that I had finally gotten three rolls of film developed. They span all the way back to the fourth of July weekend and Boston, as well as a few from the Lincoln Memorial, the Third Church of Christ, Scientist building, and a group of daytime black and whites from Gravelly Point. A few of the sets on Flickr include some photos you may have already seen, but the film photos have now been added in. Check out some slideshows:

I’ll be one to admit, the Third Church of Christ, Scientist is much more difficult to photograph than I had anticipated. I’m sorry for the short set of photos from the Lincoln Memorial, but I’ll add to that over time. I’m really, really happy with the new black and white photos from Gravelly Point. And I’m still in love with the Kodak Ektar color negative film that I’ve been using lately.

Good morning, intarwebs. For better or worse (and there’s definitely a little bit of both today), there’s lots to talk about, so I’m just going to jump right in.

1. Nicole and I have continued to plow through the beginning steps of planning our wedding. Through last week, we’ve had the date, church, and reception location all locked down. Well as of yesterday, you can add the photographer(s) to the list of completed items. Nicole and I have decided to go with Robert and Kathleen Photographers, a husband-wife team from Fairfield County, Connecticut. Robert is an old acquaintance, a friend of a friend that I haven’t talked to in years. However, he’s been a friend on Facebook and I’ve been able to follow their progress over the years. They’ve got some great stuff in their portfolio and Nicole and I are definitely very excited to have them shoot both our engagement photos and our wedding next year!

2. A while back I had posted a list of locations throughout DC that I would like to set aside time to go photograph (find it here). Since Nicole and I returned from Boston early in July, I have indeed been able to find time to hit up some of those locations; three, in fact. Of course, I feel as though I’ve got to go back - I wanted better different lighting, different scenarios, etc. - but at least I’ve got some photos to start. I’ll be posting those to my Flickr page as soon as I’ve got the last roll developed.

3. Last week, I forgot to mention that I shot some video at the Depeche Mode concert. I’ve spliced together a number of clips into a montage and posted a video of the song “Stripped” (in full), both of which can be found on my Vimeo page.

4. One of the less exciting developments of the last week has been that the Red Sox have been playing ball like an inexperienced short-season Single-A summer league team. Absolutely pathetic. Some lowlights: consecutive shutouts at the hands of the Yankees (not to mention the 4 game sweep); 31 innings without scoring a run, including a 15 inning marathon Friday night; a fatigued bullpen’s inability to pitch effectively. The list goes on, but the point is that all of those things combined with and a six game losing streak amount to me being a very unhappy baseball fan.

5. And ironically, as the Red Sox fail, the Nationals prosper. Somehow, the stars aligned properly and over a span of 8 consecutive games, the Nationals failed to lose. In other words, the Nationals have an 8 game winning streak! What the ****? I mean, I know they are a professional baseball team comprised of some very talented ballplayers, but this has clearly exceeded everyone’s expectations. It is fun to see, though. Nicole and I and some friends went to Wednesday night’s game against the Florida Marlins, a 5-4 thriller in favor of the Nationals, win number 4 of the current streak (a slideshow of my photos are here).

6. My brother and his wife rented a house on Block Island for the last full week of August and have invited anyone from the family to join if they can make it. Nicole and I are headed up on Thursday the 27th, via a flight to TF Green Airport outside of Providence. The only difficulty we are having is somehow getting from the airport to Point Judith, RI to catch the ferry over to BI. I was expecting some sort of shuttle bus-type mass transit option, but of course there are none. Any suggestions out there? I’ve looked into chartering a flight from TF Green to BI on New England Airlines, but that will be prohibitively expensive. We’re looking for something in the $50-each-way area. Car rental is a possibiliity.

7. My pool team plays in the playoffs for the short summer session starting tonight. We had a really, really, crappy season so we’re playing in Tier 2, the lower level playoff bracket. Unfortunately, tier 2 champions can’t advance to regionals or Las Vegas Qualifiers, but if we play well tonight, we’d play in the final next week. And if we play well and win the final, we get more trophies. =]

8. I’ve just noticed that Pete’s Apizza now delivers. Though their established delivery area doesn’t encompass our apartment, they claim it to be “flexible.” Hmmmm.

9. And since I’ve been snooping around Pete’s site for a while, I’ve happened across something which, assuming it’s true, makes me a very, very happy man. From Pete’s page about their vision:

New York. Ah, New York. Frank Sinatra used to send a driver up to New Haven to get a pizza from Pepe’s whenever he was performing in New York City. New Haven style pizza is not New York style pizza, and it is not a derivative of New York style pizza.

Booyaa!

10. And since I’m on the subject of pizza… I’ve never been able to convince anyone other than a significant other to have pizza in New Haven. Ironically, though, I’ve never met anyone that didn’t love Pepe’s (my personal favorite). Well, my coworker Evan was recently telling me about a drive up to Vermont he’ll be making with friends this winter, so I touted Pepe’s for so long that it peeked his interest. He now plans to make his friends stop in New Haven for some slices of heaven when they pass through town. I can’t wait to hear what they all have to say.