Hmmmm

(Photo by Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images)

This is a little bit different than my usual, but it's a football topic this time. I'm a huge Detroit Lion fan and I'm starting to wonder when they are going to start getting the credit they deserve. What am I griping about you may wonder? It is the Lions after all! Yes, I know they still aren't great. But they have now won 5 games. When you read the reviews about them though, they act like it was because the other team did not play well, or seem to almost pass it off as luck. When they show the highlights of the game, they breeze through them with hardly any details at all. This wouldn't be a big deal except the other teams seem to get a lot more attention.

Now we have this mini stink going on about the score of the Pats and Skins game. Really, who cares if they were running up the score. My real gripe though is this was not an issue when the Eagles blew the Lions out a few weeks ago. Sure, the Lions scored more points than 7 but it was the Eagles led by more than 30 points and kept their first string in. So why the double standard there? Must be a slow news week....

The trouble with Dumbledore's Homosexuality

J.K. Rowling dropped a bombshell on Oct. 19^th that Albus Dumbledore was gay. Not the happy go lucky type gay, the homosexual type gay. While this in itself is not a big deal, the manner in which it was told is. First, since she was not specific in her books about it readers had already formed their own opinions about Dumbledore and his private life. Now she is filling in the blanks our imagination is supposed to fill in.

From the fact she claims the clues were there in the books, mainly the final in the series, should we go on to further deduce that was he not only gay, but a boy lover as well? Lets examine this theory a little. What if we were to make further deductions from the story that make him a much more evil character.

1. M. Jackson created Neverland Ranch and always wanted to have young boys around.
2. Most child sex offenders live near schools or parks so they have access to children.

Dumbledore was first a teacher, then the headmaster at Hogwarts. He refused the nomination several times to be the Minister of Magic, an office of highest power. He claims it was because he was power hungry and not to be trusted. Could the truth be that he did not want to remove himself from children? Or is it because being gay, he liked being referred to as "headmaster"?

His first "love" happened when he was younger, and ended very badly. Could this have scarred him to the point where he could only find attraction to young boys?

Males of every species have certain needs that need to....ahem...be taken care of. If he had no other adult lover in his life as we are led to believe, how many Hogwart's students became victims of unwanted attention from the powerful "affectionate" headmaster?

He often watched Harry, and kept him close whenever possible. In the last book, they took some private trips for two together, and spent lots of after hours time in his study!

What dark secrets did Rita Skeeter really write about in her book? Did she discover the horrible truth about a child predator within Hogwart's walls?

So if we were to deduce that Dumbledore was gay from the subtle clues J.K. left, are we to further deduce that not only was he gay, but liked them a little young as well?

The California Fires

OK, so fires are burning up the forests in Cali. Not cool as many people are losing everything. Why is this disaster different than the Katrina one? Easy, the people in Cali actually listen to the evacuation order so not many have been injured or died. Also, the community has pulled together and rather than take a bail me out government liberal attitude, they are taking action for themselves.

To hear the politics behind this is maddening. Why is something as mundane as forest fires suddenly being politicized? It's ridiculous to say some of the things that are being said. Here are the top hits:

1. Cause of fire is global warming. Stated on the Senate floor then denied 6 minutes later by Harry Reed. How can you deny something you said 6 minutes prior??? Did he forget already?

2. The National Guard can't help because most of them are in Iraq.

What? How could they help anyway? The fires are moving so fast if they tried to stand in front of it to fight it they would become crispy critters. Not to mention how they pulled 800 troops from border patrol for no apparent reason.

I'm just glad to see people are catching on to the tactics of the libs and the drive by media. Now we just need to start standing up to them so they fade away.

As for global warming.....c'mon......really??? Everything that is happening now weather wise has happened in the past. And for those who say the oceans are going to rise 20+ feet when the polar ice caps melt....

The ice caps are floating in the ocean. A solid object in liquid will displace the same amount of water as if that solid became liquid.

To dumb it down for you that want to believe the hype. Fill a glass with ice and water. Mark the water level on the outside of the glass. The water is the oceans, and the ice is the polar ice caps. Let the ice melt, "global warming"......look at the level of the water......gasp! It didn't move!

Old but Funny

I love this.

My Mom

I took this picture before my little brother left for Army Basic Training. This was just before my Dad, Me, and my two younger Brothers went up north for a weekend of fishing. Mom wanted to go I think, but elected to stay home so the guys could have a weekend together.

Thursday Rants

Dear China,

Do you really think the average American cares that you are "furious" about us giving an award to the Dalai Lama? Your country is one of the worst in the world when it comes to human rights, so do you think your opinion matters?

Stop trade with us, who is it going to hurt more. The trade agreements are so lopsided in your favor that other than having to find new products to buy to replace those that come from China I don't see a problem. Besides, do we really want to have good relations with a country that uses child labor and harmful lead paint in children's toys?


Dear Maine,

Congrats on helping your children become whores. I'm so proud of the liberal movement. What an achievement. The day I consent to my 11 year old girl getting birth control from school without me being notified is the day I die.

Who in their right mind allows their 11 year old to be in a position that she/he can have sex? What kind of parent are you? How can this activity go on in schools? What are the teachers doing? If they can get away with sex on school grounds during school, what else are they doing?

Rather than spend money for pills and condoms, hire more staff to prevent the behavior. Have a counselor the CHILD can talk to about wanting to have sex, so he/she can talk her out of it.

Passing these items out does not decrease teen pregnancy. It increases promiscuity, which increases the risk of not only pregnancy, but disease. We should be preserving our children's innocence, not promoting rampant sexual behavior by kids.

My rant of the day

Many things are bugging me about American society lately.

1. Social health care: If it was so great, Canadians would not be going to New York to see a doc. Who wants to wait up to three years for an initial consultation? Look to the Netherlands that have had a social health care system in place longer than anyone. Genocide and patricide are the norm, so don't say it won't happen here.

2. Liberals. Yes, liberals. Basically everything about them, from their twisted view points to the need to make everyone PC. Freedom of speech means freedom of speech. It might be mean, it might offend, but it is free speech. Hate Speech???? Get out of here. It is little more than something the liberal front hates, and now its against the law......

3. Making Facebook/Myspace secure: What? Since when should it be a business owners responsibility to ensure that children are not doing something they aren't supposed to? Shouldn't it be the parents that make these things more secure by monitoring what it is their kids are doing and who they are talking to online?

4. People that don't understand the terrorists HATE you. Your not Muslim, your not Islamic. You suck. You are a blasphemy and must either convert or die. If we leave Iraq, they won't stay over there, they will follow us here. I would rather the war be on foreign soil rather than in my backyard. WAKE UP SHEEPLE, quit believing the hype and realize that you can not talk things over with religious zealots. They hate you and everything about our country. Osama himself said he will not stop until we give up democracy and embrace Islam. Get a clue already.

OK, I'm done ranting for now. Sorry about that.

Just another shot

Well, its another Monday. It got a little warmer today, but the rain still persists. Here is another shot from my last shoot. The buildings are a little crooked, next time I will have to remember to bring my level along.

Photo for the DEA

I got a phone call last week and the guy wondered if I could do a night time skyline shot and put their logo on it as a going away present. As the conversation went on I was told that they were actually the DEA. As guys rotate out of the city they thought it would be cool to have a photo with their badge in it matted and framed.

Well, after I took some shots I was told they were going with a photo that an agent there had because it was free. It's to bad though, because he sent me the shot they were using and it does not have enough resolution to print at the size they intend to print it at.

Here is my vision of what it should be. I liked the gritty feel of this photo. I think it tells the story of what it is the DEA does, and how they do it without the general public even being aware of it. Until now, I did not even know we had a unit here in GR.

The tech stuff:

D200
18-70mm lens @ 18mm
F11
20 second exposure
Shot on tripod with M36 cable release

How Things Change

I have been neglecting my blogging for quite awhile now. My career has changed dramatically from my last post. I went through a dry period and watched my funds slowly shrink. I started seeing the need to take a "real" job and lucky for me I had a buddy that was going to help me get work as a dock worker for a sizable trucking company. The pay was decent and the hours would have worked well for me. After passing the drug test, getting hired, and filling out my W2's I was stuck waiting for a start date.

One afternoon my phone rings and its a fella asking if I was still interested in the graphic design job that I had applied for over a month prior. Because I was applying all over the country I asked him to fill me in on what company they were, and the job description. As soon as he started telling me about it I remembered it as being one of the jobs I really wanted. He asked if I could come in for an interview that afternoon. To make a longer story short, I went in and kicked ass. He liked me and my work, and after a phone call that evening to lock in my salary I started working the very next day. The trucking company called me two days later with a start date, but of course I had to turn them down. I guess it was lucky they strung me along for three weeks or I might not have gotten the call for the design job that I really wanted.

So now I'm the "Creative Services Coordinator" for Progressive Distribution. We run catalog and ecommerce sites for big companies so they don't have to. We take care of everything from customer service to shipping out the product. I am responsible for all the site updates, email blasts, any graphic design work needed, and the new product photography. So I get to do the three things I enjoy everyday.

Some of the clients I work with are goldsgear.com, sourceperrier.com and our newest client is going to be Tracy Reese. Work on her site will be starting next week, and I'm looking forward to it.