crabs and squeeze cheese

spent most of today learning how to edit web pages (great big ol' thanks to matt for helping me learn this junk). it's pretty interesting stuff (according to me). so, if you get a minute, go check out www.voiceofthewetlands.com and visit the VOW fest area and let me know what you think of my header (banner thing at the top)... and check out the rest of the site while you're there. i'll be updating it quite a bit in the next two months, so keep checking back.

oh, and clear your schedules for the weekend of october 12-14... that's the voice of the wetlands festival. and you'll be spending that weekend of your life at southdown plantation.. with me :)

yesterday we spent the day out on island rd. near pointe-aux-chenes ("pawn-a cha'n" for you non-louisiana folk. you actually don't say the "n" at the end, but that's the only way i could write it so you would say the "a" part right). we didn't do so hot in the "look how many crabs we caught" department. we ended up with 21 crabs, but it wasn't nearly enough to feed everyone. but like i said... heck, it was plenty enough for the four people who caught them. (that's right dad... i'm not counting you. what with your videotaping and sitting on your hiney and all). i actually like crabbing a whole lot more than i like fishing.... i'm a little impatient, and throwing 20 lines out and checking one every minute and a half or so is ALOT better than waiting with just the one line for a fish. plus i had chee-tos. so that rocked.

here's some photos of each of us and our first crabs of the day:

me


brandi


taylor (notice dad in the back)


val




and here's brandi and val recovering from almost losing a crab





me and taylor (the heat was making us a tad delerious)





taylor learned an important lesson on this trip: crabs think fingers taste like chicken




if you'd like to see more of these photos, check out my myspace page.

and i believe a little congratulations is in order for mr. matt stamey.. or stampley.. depending on your preference, i guess. he had his gallery opening of his photos from hurricane katrina at the waterlife museum on friday night. (to be said like the french guy in monty python) it was verry niice. they even had squeeze cheese.... see:



so i'm changing that phrase from "it ain't over 'till the fat lady sings" to.. "it ain't over 'till the squeeze cheese is gone"

here's a few more photos from his gallery opening (p.s. the gallery will be up for a few weeks, so stop by sometime)












the gallery has photos of his "faces of katrina" project which is portraits of evacuees who ended up in houma, as well as photos from the katrina evacuation and damage from the storm. so, congrats to matt on his gallery...

and to me for getting dvr (well, technically it won't be until tomorrow, but still... congrats are in order, i think).

this ain't your grandma's washboard

alright, so since no one showed up with a corkscrew, i had to get creative (well, that and i forgot to pick one up at walmart, again). so i took my battery drill and a screw with reasonably wide threads, snatched up a pair of pliers, and *voila*... (insert that "pop" noise you make with your finger and your cheek, here).











now my bottle's open and i've got a pretty cool ornament for my christmas tree. (i'm always looking for neat things to hang on my tree).

so, yeah... corkscrew schmorkscrew. i just saved myself ten bucks. ha.
and i've decided... money spent on a case of coke is better than on a bottle of wine... no matter how little you pay for it.

in other news...
this weekend my parents are celebrating their 30th wedding anniversary (well, technically tomorrow). they kicked it off in style, with dinner at big al's followed by drinks at the jolly inn (and the rest will be spent at the beau rivage casino resort in biloxi- fyi).

well, i was kind of leery about going to the jolly inn.. not thinking it would be very interesting, but... alas.. indeed it was. folks dancing, accordians and fiddles playing, drunkards drunking,.. and washboards being used for other uses than their intended purpose. i'm guessing somewhere along the lines, after people decided that the washboard could be used for making sounds (not necessarily music, mind you- i've heard what they're capable of)... someone decided that it was just entirely too much work to have to hold it up. so, he sat down, had a little conversation with himself and said "self... this is just too much work. hows about i make some washboard overalls so i can just strum on my chest without having to hold that thing up all the time"... "naaah.. that would be too much.. a little too much stress on the nether regions".. "oh, yeah... i agree.. let's just make it a chest plate type thing then.. and make it hook over the shoulders, kind of like a bib, but not so much'"... "why, self, that sounds like a superb idea" (i like his use of the word "superb".. i thought that was a nice touch).

and so, now one can play the washboard with great ease... if you like all that "zipp" "ziippp" noise it makes... geeezzz... that creeps me out. anyway.. so, moms and pops, and our cousin diane took to the washboard stack at the jolly inn and tried their hand at it. and after i grabbed a few photos, i gave it a whirl also. and for what it was, i have to say.. i'm pretty freaking good. (feel free to be jealous.. it's an understandable emotion when it comes to my musical talents).

this is the jolly inn (where all the jolly takes place)..





here's mom and dad and cousin diane jammin out on the washboard vests (yes, that is what i will continue to call them)





here's me and dad jammin out "zydeco jam session".. haha.





and here's a group of random people.. (and diane again- she's not shy)





people dancing stuff that i can't do.. and frankly, they're not defensive dancers.. nono. they'll plow right over your behind, and without shame too. (crazy people)




and here's me and dustin's "rockstar" poses out in the parking lot. (we put the "cool" in coolpop- and YES that is a vest i am wearing.. and i will continue to wear it in the summer and the winter and the fall and the spring and in jamaica if i ever go.. because darn it i paid 47 cents for it, and i'm gonna get my money's worth)









thanks, i'll be here all week.

saints, toilet paper, and birthday cake

well, today was insane.

i planned on taking the day off to help dad out with some birthday plans for my mom's birthday today, but i had two assignments and a lunch date to smush in there... and, so, i was running around like a crazy person. for my second assignment i had to drive out to des allemands to photograph this chick who is CRAZY about the saints. seriously.. i've never seen anything like it. i thought i've met sports nuts before in my day, but nono. nothing compared to this chick. nothing. she could rattle off player stats, who got traded when and to what team, what year they were drafted, what teams the coaches played for, their mommas' maiden names, pediatricians names, their fanta flavor preferences... holy. fricking. cow. it was insane. super interesting though.

here's a couple of shots from that assignment (and, yes... that is, indeed, saints toilet paper)









then i went to my mom's for her 60th birthday bash. woohooh! yay for cake.

this is a shot of her, my godchild lauren, and taylor trying to put out the forest fire...





it was fun, especially since i got to visit with my great uncle felix... "uncle p". he's my favorite uncle, and one of the funniest people i know. i love it when i can call someone "old fart" and he replies with "hey, who invited this monkey?". so fun. at one point, we were letting him listen to southpark and family guy clips. i thought he was going to pee his pants.

for this photo, i told him to give me his best "mcelroy" face, and this is what he gave....






and my brother garrett brought over the newest member of the mcelroy family... "buster". he's a 6 week old boston terrier. and his breath smells like puppy. i think instead of spearmint or peppermint flavored mints.. they should make "puppy breath" mints. that would be awesome.

here's a couple pictures i snagged of buster (one of them i just really like because dustin looks funny)












after the party, taylor decided it was time to attempt rollerblading. she's about as good at rollerblading as i am at peeing standing up.
here's a shot of her just after taking a spill near a neighbor's house.






on another note...
earlier in the day me and dustin went pick up a bottle of wine for mom as a gift... and while we were there, we decided to each get our own bottle of wine. and, although i always said that if i ever bought a bottle of wine, i'd get one with the coolest looking bottle.... i lied. while we were shopping, dustin said "hey, this one's good.. and it's really cheap too"... well, whatta ya know. i'm a cheap kind of girl. so we each got one. now, this is the first time i've ever gotten a bottle of wine, so, frankly, i haven't a clue what to do with it. i wonder if it's considered poor form to drink it from a mardi gras cup.





so, here's my problem. i don't have a corkscrew. i ALMOST had one, but dustin said "you can find a better one than that"... well... stupid me decided that he was probably right, even though i knew that it wasn't likely that i was going to go anywhere else to get one... and now i'm stuck with a bottle of wine that i CAN'T OPEN. geez. so, if anyone would like to drive their corkscrew over to my house, i'll let you have some of my "probably costs less than the bottle it's in" wine. so, come on.

i'll just be sitting here holding my empty mardi gras cup in my hand, watching tv, not going to work,... until you get here with your corkscrew. and i'll just blame you for not being able to go to work.

sweet. drive careful.

that girl's a dome fool

so yesterday afternoon i drove out to new orleans so i could take a good photo of the superdome for a project i'm working on.... probably not the smartest idea in the world. especially by myself. let's just say that it's not just zippers and bucktoothed penguins that freak me out... walking around new orleans alone kinda freaks me out too. and.. AND... here's a little tidbit of information for you lovely people. if you want to take a decent picture of something that's the size of roseanne bar (ergo- the superdome).. the best location to do that is not standing right next to it. so what i thought was going to be a ten minute project turned out to take over an hour.

i drove around town for a while looking for a good parking spot and trying to eye maybe a hotel where i could get up high and get a clear shot of the big easy's belly button. it was pretty cool though.. i got to try out the satellite on my new phone. didn't help much though. still kinda cool.

after a while, i found a decent enough spot to park, and walked right up to the lobby of one of the ginormous buildings next to the dome, and the security guard came ask me if i was there for the road home program... um.... not really, but thanks. so, that was kind of wierd. i explained to the lady what i was trying to do, and she was like "um.. no, i don't know what you can do, but i do know that you can't take photos on this building's property".. um.. ok. good to know. i must have ran over those invisible warning signs on my way in... unless that's just information i was supposed to be born with. like the chemical formula for polyester- you're just supposed to know.

anyway.. then i started asking her about the other buildings around... and was like "what about that one.. you think that one is open?"... (the building was only about a block away).. and she was all like "no, but you were gonna go waaay over there??"

well, duh.

so, eventually i did get a decent enough shot, but i had to walk clear around the dome and climb 12 half-flights of stairs (so like 6 real flights) in a VERY very abandoned parking garage. (not cool). it sure is a good thing my camera weighs as much as a computer monitor, ... in the event i would have had to whack somebody with it.

anyway... here is my "betyounevergotasuperdomephotowithnocarsinit" photo...





and speaking of spam...

i've got a little job for you fine folks. seems that the word on the street.. well, at least my street.. okay, well, maybe just the word around my living room is that when i take self portraits (alot), that i tend to make the same rotation of faces each time (alot). so, as i was going through the self portraits i took yesterday evening (again,.. alot)... i noticed that there were, indeed, a variety of facial mishaps. so, i'm curious to see what others think is my best self portrait face. and maybe, just maybe (or maybe not even), the next time i stop to take a self portrait, i just may save some time by just doing the one face. and not the whole bushel of faces. but, if i had to guess, i am willing to bet things will continue just as they always have, but ...

i'm still curious.

so, here you go. me. and the dome. in overtime.

#1:



#2:



#3:



#4:



#5:



#6:



#7:



had enough of me yet??? no? well, aren't you in for a treat.

i finally put up some of my photos up on the web. you can check them out here:
4th of july gallery

these are some pictures from my trip to portland, oregon in early june for "geekfest". which, is basically just a gathering of photographers from around the country, where we get to meet other photographers, listen to awesome speakers, and can carry around our cameras 24/7 and bust them out whenever necessary, and not feel awkward about it- like we do when we're around "normal'' people (for example, you).
portland #1 gallery
portland #2 gallery
portland #3 gallery

i've got more portland photos to put up, but i'll send those in another blog. let's just hope i can get around to blogging before we lose another planet.

((laughing uncontrollably))... sorry, just had to share this little bit of late-breaking news- i just saw on jimmy kimmel where a couple was being interviewed by a reporter because somebody stole their pool while they were sleeping.

their pool!!! that's crazy. haha. too funny.

g'night all :)