external monologue

lang over st.elmo

coptix reached a new high in company morale yesterday. things may be hectic around here with all the new business, and yes, the dishes are piling up in the kitchen, but all i can say is beer covers a multitude of sins. that's right, at yesterday's company meeting, coptix picked up the tab which included a round of sierra nevada pale ales for all takers. now if that doesn't set you up for an afternoon of success, i don't know what does.

afterwards, lang and i chatted on the curb for a minute, while he smoked a digestive. you can see some of the recent growth in st.elmo behind him. the old civil war museum has become office space along with the new starrgate cybercafe.

weekend plans... for all interested, isaac and the totten brothers are playing a show for the grand re-opening of the vineyard. they're trying to give rhythm-and-brews a run for the money and, well, i'm all for that. so come on out if you can and support the guys...

"and there was light..."

okay, so this may not be the most interesting photo you've ever seen here at loapher, but it definitely captures the highlight of my day yesterday (pun intended). we have lights in our kitchen! many of you reading this probably have never been to my house, so this may seem strange to you, but since we moved in we've been functioning with a single floor-lamp sitting on the counter in the kitchen as our only source of light. while it may have given a cozy feel to the kitchen, it didn't do much for finding things in drawers and reading cookbooks. isaac did an incredible job yesterday of installing six recessed lights in the ceiling, along with two smaller lamps above the sink. the dimmer is still in the works, so for now its very bright, but i expect that it will have a significant effect on working in the kitchen.

we had our third st.elmo-small-group meeting last night, which went very well. there are still new people showing up each week, and getting to know one another. (if you're in the area, feel free to join us.) we've tentatively decided to work through bonhoeffer's life together, reading a little each week and discussing. its a book that i've been wanting to read for quite some time and seems particularly appropriate for a group of believers gathering together.

and good news for coffee drinkers... thanks to beck for that link. oh, and the spring film series list is up and its impressive -- check back for future AMIFA outings.

the moon at noon

argh... i'm getting very tired of these blog targeted spam bots. i'm sure there's more that could be done to keep them out, but i just haven't had the time to research or do any programming.

anyhow... yesterday i ate lunch at the China Moon over on brainerd road with josiah and mesh -- taking part in something that is jokingly called "the moon at noon." i'm not sure i really got the reference though - something about a group of RPers who used to meet occasionally for chinese food. either way, the experience was pretty entertaining. nothing like an enormous crowd of southerners chowing down on a neverending buffet of chinese food. hmm... buffets kinda give me the creeps though. not really sure why - i guess i always wonder how high the quality of the food can be when they're cranking it out in such large batches, and basically giving it away. and then every now and then you hit that chunk of something a little too rubbery in your general tso's chicken and you have to wonder if they're not just chopping up the entire chicken and throwing it in the deep fryer...

my 15 minutes?

well, we did it. start your watches now, cause here comes my 15 minutes of fame. JosiahQ and i are both mentioned today in the chattanooga times free press in a story about local blogs: hence, the photo of the day. there's a text version here, but unfortunately, because they don't actually let people read the paper online in any simplified format, you'll probably have to pick up a hard copy at your local newspaper box. but, its well worth it for the two sentences about yours truly, and the somewhat unsettling photo of JosiahQ...

today's photo, even though it goes well with the story in the paper, also fits with my new plan to document chattanooga's skyline here. the old times free press building has always been one of my favorite downtown sights, especially late at night when the printing room is all lit up.

in other news... i'm still sick, but i'm also at work. my voice is slowly coming back. its at the point where its husky, but not quite sexy in a tom-waits-kind-of-way. oh, and for any of you who were following the discussion on homelessness here recently, you should check out the latest comment by jerah. she's been in the trenches, and has some insightful things to say.

photoday

sean and i spent most of the day on saturday driving around the backwoods of eastern tennessee and north georgia. we came across some interesting folks and an unending supply of picturesque settings. this photo is one of many that i shot at a antique/junk shop we visited on the side of the road, just outside of chatsworth. we spent nearly 2 hours just wandering around this place collecting images. unfortunately most of the items for sale were out of our price range, but i think i got some fantastic photographs. the variety of textures on the items lying around the yard is truly amazing. i think i could do an extensive series just on these textures.

in other news...
a friend of mine mentioned to me a lecture taking place at UTC tonight. he's a writer and theologian named Dr. Frederick Buechner who apparently has something of a cult following. if you're interested, its at 7:30 on UTC campus, though I'm not quite sure where -- maybe at the faculty club. more info can be found here. i'll update if i find out more.

ah ha... more buechner info, thanks to beck: http://www.utc.edu/homenews/buechner.html

uh oh... bad news. i just got an email from the contact person for the buechner event:
I'm sorry but the event has been cancelled. Fred Buechner is stranded in
North Carolina. We'll let you know as soon as we have the event rescheduled.
Thanks for your interest...

don't pick a fight

chet blalock refers to his teaching style as "reality based training." that is, in a real altercation, tai-chi isn't going to get you far, but knowing the sleeper hold just might get you home alive. as you can see, things were perhaps getting a little too realistic last night at Blalock's International Martial Arts and Boxing Academy. we're doing a profile on this guy for, you guessed it, the pulse. last night mesh and i spent a good hour watching him train and discussing the finer points of brasilian jiu-jitsu (sp?). evidently this guy is somewhat famous, and trains with one of the top guys in UFC, allan goes. an interesting evening to say the least. chet wants aaron and me to come back for some lessons...

this weekend looks to be somewhat relaxing. i'm running down to atlanta this afternoon to drop morris off at the airport, and hopefully grab a bite with brother tim. sean and i are hoping to go get a little lost tomorrow in the hinterlands of eastern tennessee and take a few photographs. its been a while since i've gone traveling with the specific intent of taking pictures, so i'm looking forward to it.

shooting for the view

no, this isn't the elementary school that i went to growing up, though i've been known to take pictures of things like that. yesterday i shot a story for the covenant college View, the school's quarterly alumni magazine. the story focused on a woman who teaches as a "parapro." (i'm not really quite sure what that means, but here's a link that seems related.) some of you have probably driven by this sign quite often as its on the way to john simpson's house. its that big school on your left as you go down brows ferry road. anyhow, it was a neat opportunity to get to work with/for covenant as an alumnus. the photos should be in the spring issue of the view (march?).

downtown chatt-town

i don't have much time to write this morning - a handful of meetings today - but i do want to say that i appreciate everyone's sentiments regarding panhandlers and the like. its still a troublesome issue to me, but it is good to know that (most) everyone else feels a similar tension.

this is a skyline shot of the read house in downtown chattanooga (another panhander favorite, by the way). i'm always struck driving downtown at how beautiful a skyline we have here. small, but very classy. i think at some point i'd like to do a series of pictures on the various rooflines that make up the downtown panorama, though i'm sure its been done before.

more weekend recap

my goodness its cold outside this morning. must have been down in the single digits up on the mountain this morning - well, with the windchill factor. last night as i was leaving greyfriars coffee shop i was accosted by a (supposed) homeless person wanting money for the salvation army. while i've become quite suspicious of these characters, i'm still a sucker for a convincing story -- and i think i was fraudulently taken for another $10 last night. part of me wonders how much it matters, and thinks that perhaps its the thought the counts, but the rest of me knows that there is more i could be doing in general that would help both me and the homeless people (actual or not) in these situations. but it is quite frustrating nonetheless...

andrew bird whales away on his violin here. as i said before, an outstanding performance on saturday night. i highly recommend his new CD, unless you want to wait til the end of the summer for his next one. also, check out this site too if you have a minute - its print work made by some of andrew's friends.

chattacon

argghh... getting a very late start today, as you can probably tell -- and, as predicted, it was quite a busy weekend. filling my weekends with pulse work has made them a little less relaxing, but definitely more productive. not sure how long i can juggle all this though.

chattacon was, well, hard to put into words. today's photo is of princess margaret, daughter of queen catherine, a family we met at the weekend of festivities. the general concensus among us outsiders at the event went something like, "the family that 'cons' together, stays together." there's so much to say about this event that i can't really fit it into my abbreviated blog style. i will say though, that what struck me more than anything was how friendly everyone was. dressed as they are (witches, ghouls, etc) this friendliness comes as something of a pleasant surprise. i don't know -- read mesh's article on wednesday. i'm sure that it will capture the spirit of it all much more accurately than my fumblings.

oh, and the andrew bird show was outstanding. photos from that tomorrow, if i can find my digicam.

zingmeal

so another week has come and gone. trying to have photos for every weekday here on loapher has made me keenly aware of which days are photo days, and which aren't. not that i don't enjoy all this picture-taking-and-posting, but it has created a bit of momentum that i don't want to break. so, i always tend to breathe a sign of relief when friday rolls around and i'm successfully posting my fifth picture of the week. today's photo is a cooks-eye-view from the house dinner feast i cooked last night: three recipes from the new zingerman's guide to good eating.

the weekend looks to be another busy one. i think mesh and i maybe covering chattacon on saturday for the pulse, which should be, well, interesting to say the least. i must admit that i've always secretly wanted to attend one of these gatherings, though probably more as a voyeur than anything else, and reporting on it will certainly provide that opportunity.

also, don't forget about the andrew bird show on saturday. i spoke with my little bro tim last night who just caught him in atlanta, and he and ari give the one-man performance two thumbs up.

indienooga

once again, i'm without an image from yesterday, although the camera is finally all charged up and ready to go. this photo is the image that was used for the pulse cover story. i think it may be the first image from an actual film camera that i've used here on the photo diary. you'll notice that its a somewhat wider format and, at least to my eye, it seems to be of much higher quality. i've been shooting digital so much that i sometimes forget how much faster and higher quality all my nikon lenses are than the plasticky little lens on my little olympus digicam. (for my fellow photonuts, this was shot with my N80 with my brand spankin' new 24mm wide-angle lens.) okay, enough photo-blathering.

umm... what else. mesh, brent and i had a stirring discussion about current day journalism last night. i don't think i had realized exactly why i found the local paper so frustrating, but as it turns out, chattanooga is hindered by no longer being a two paper town. the monopoly of the one paper makes for "responsible, yet uninteresting" reading, as mesh put it. all of which makes me even more excited about the opportunities we have at pulse to be a foil for other local publications.

new york minute

the batteries in my digicam have been dead for the past few days so i don't have any current pictures. thankfully i found my rechargeables this morning, but for now i'm pulling something out of the backlog. this is one of my favorite pictures from the road trip i took up to new york over new years. nathaniel davis on the left, jeffrey baus (yes, younger brother of gregory) on the right. this photo reminds me of the cover of some 70s rock album, maybe an old dylan record (freewheelin'?).

so it appears that mesh and i did get the cover piece for the latest issue of pulse. i must say, i think it looks pretty great, especially with some of the framing the art director made to my photos. last night there was a "creative" meeting to discuss future direction, and story ideas. i think the paper is still trying to figure out exactly which direction to go, but next few months look like they'll be packed with good stories -- pick one up if you get a chance.

a football field of pot

i've always known that hops were a member of the hemp family (Cannabaceae), but this is taking things a bit too far... this story is the funniest thing i've heard on NPR in a long time. ontario police discovered 30,000 marijuana plants in an old molson brewery, along with living quarters for up to 50 people. molson, of course, is denying any connection to the cannabis growing venture.

today's photo is another one from dear sister arianna. (as i had hoped, the arrival of digicams for montgomery siblings just may translate into more photoblogs.) i forgot to mention yesterday that the high-point of sunday's ensemble party (at least in my opinion) was a stirring game of "pin the tail on andy." unfortunately the game was short lived due to ben horner's perfect placement -- but the backdrop does make for a nice portrait i must say.

local music scene: andrew bird (originally of squirrel nut zippers) will be playing the barking legs theatre on saturday night. if the songs i've heard off his new album, weather systems, are any indicator, it should be a great show.

spring cleaning

okay, so its not quite spring, and they weren't exactly cleaning the house so much as tearing out the old ceilings, but they did appear to be working very hard. saturday afternoon, lang and charity, coerced, er convinced, a handful of friends to come over for a workday at their new house. little did they know they'd be wearing goggles and respirators, and look more like coal miners than window cleaners by the end of the day. isaac lays a big, wet kiss on lang's cheek in this photo -- i love the black mark on lang's teeth. (what is that? asbestos? coal dust?)

aside from the adventures-in-demolition (which i merely photographed), it was a fairly laid-back weekend. mesh and i wrapped another story for pulse, which (fingers crossed) may be our first cover piece. look for it on wednesday. oh, and tim and ari made it up last night for an ensemble-party at kiko's house, celebrating ryan dixon's, grace alexander's and my birthday, along with a 'bon-voyage' to ben horner (he's going to l'abri).

the baus man

as promised, i give you gregory baus (pronounced bous'). once known simply as greg baus (pronounced boss') in long passed covenant days, the name was recently lengthened and repronunciated (is that a word?) to give it a more mature and famous-theologian-sounding feel. at least, that's my theory. perhaps greg will chime in here before long.

i've known greg, er gregory, since 1996 when i met him at a christmas party, where i was fascinated by his handrolled drum cigarettes. being the youngster i was at the time i hardly felt i could keep up with his theological diatribes and invectives against covenant college. over the years however i've grown to appreciate his strongly held opinions and now, upon meeting, we generally keep up a lively dialogue of our own - anything from blogging to theology, the ridiculous to the sublime.

some links to learn more of old gregory:
- his current blog
- his old blog
- a painting of him
- his contributions to numerous yahoo groups
...enjoy.

in other news:
there's an interesting, and somewhat critical, article about the new show devoted to controversial photographer diane arbus beginning at NYU this week - "Arbus was the classic hunter-photographer shooting her fragile prey; her targets were rarefied specimens, exceptional cases; her mission was a clinical typology of difference. An element of violence was implicit."

birthday recap

well, my birthday came off without a hitch (not that it could have gone otherwise i suppose). i received many phonecalls from brothers and parents (so new years resolution #4 is going well thus far), and emails from friends all around. i wanted to say thanks to everyone who commented on it - your kind words are greatly appreciated at the advent of this new stage in my life.

a few things i wanted to reply to:
- greg, your day is coming
- yes, ari (my sister-in-law, and quite the photographer in my opinion) did shoot the photo of me; you may have noticed that i took the signature off this time
- john, happy birthday right back at you
- jack, the new jairus album is in the works. chris told me last night that he just sent it off to the manufacturers. this one's gonna be nice - shrink wrapped with the little sticker at the top and everything

today's photo is of my good friends lang and charity - taken last night in their "new" house. as you can see its still has a long way to go before its, well, livable, but i must congratulate them on owning their first home - a step i still feel far from taking.

27

today is my birthday, and it being my 27th, i'm entering a new period of my life - late twenties. i have to admit i tend to be a bit preoccupied around this time each year. between the start of a new year, and the celebration of my birth, it certainly makes one reflect on the past year - how things have changed, how they haven't, new goals, and recent accomplishments. perhaps i'll begin to leave the quarterlife crisis behind me? i won't burden you with the details, but you'll understand if i'm a bit more introspective than usual, for the time being.

the picture, which some of you may have seen on here before, is of me. i like its pensive pose, although, its hardly current. judging by the weather today in chattanooga (8°F, with the windchill), i wouldn't last long caught outside without a shirt for more than a few minutes.

bringing morris home

morris and mesh wolfed down a late night meal at waffle house on the way home from the atlanta airport last night. morris is finally back from new york, a mere 5 hours before he was due in at the office at mccallie. that kid really knows how to vacation...

well, i'm back. and its a whole new year. i wish i had something more profound to say. i keep thinking of things i'd like to try to accomplish this year or do differently, and i should probably take a minute and jot them out. a few of my new year's pseudo-resolutions, for those of you interested.

1. purchase 5 beatles albums before buying any other music (abbey road is already in the mail)
2. get my photography portfolio together and...
3. apply to grad school programs?
4. keep in touch with my family better (maybe weekly phone calls?)
5. start running again (morris is on board for this one too thankfully)
...

any suggestions?

oh, and maybe i'll try to keep you more informed of what i'm consuming in the way of books in addition to music this year. for starters, i just read nick hornby's how to be good and am almost finished with blood meridian by cormac mccarthy (i know jes, i should have finished it months ago!) -- and just ordered 2 new books from amazon (what happend to my rule about no new books?):

knowing with the heart by roy clouser (rec'd by greg baus)
For the Life of the World: Sacraments and Orthodoxy by Alexander Schmemann (rec'd by ryan dixon)