Dance After Dark Photography

Well, we’re back. New Orleans was great, though it was a bit too cloudy and wet for my tastes. I would have preferred bright, shiny days. As a result I didn’t take nearly as many photos as I had hoped, but I still managed to get some good pictures of the city (not to mention Aleta, who went with Charlie and I, and Christian, a young lady whom a friend convinced to model for me.)

We spent a good bit of time wandering around and exploring the shops along Magazine Street. M-Pyre is a hot little shop, and I’m glad we got the chance to check it out. Both Charlie and Aleta modeled some of their clothing, so you’ll see those shots soon on the M-Pyre website, which they just launched. It features a lot of their clothing, jewelry, etc. I hear Jake’s coffee is excellent, but I don’t think he’s got that up for sale on the site yet. *grin*

The French Quarter was nice. We stayed in a hotel right on the edge of the Quarter, so everything was within easy walking distance. I got to see more of the Quarter than Charlie and Aleta did because I went out sightseeing while Aleta was getting ready and Charlie was playing video games. Jake and Kim introduced us to a lot of people at Saturday’s sushi gathering, and now all of my co-workers are amused because we spent the weekend in New Orleans but managed to avoid Cajun and Creole food entirely. The best we did was beignets at Café du Monde.

I’m going to run off for now. I’ll post again when I’ve got pictures online.

Yeah, corny title. Sue me. *grin*

I’m getting all geared up for NOLA, literally. I mentioned in a previous journal that I broke the head of my tripod. It’ll still work, but I’m hesitant to entrust my camera to its dubious stability now. With that in mind, I bought myself a handy-dandy monopod, which is something I wanted anyway. Ain’t it grand when life gives you an excuse to do what you want?

The new tripod is pretty farking cool. I can’t pull up the info now, but it’s a monopod/tripod combo made by (I think) Hakuba. It telescopes to eye-level, so I won’t break my back trying to set up photos anymore, and it’s got two small pop-out legs to make a mini-tripod for tabletop use. It’s not the lightest piece of equipment, weighing in at about 2 lbs, but it’s only 10″ when folded up. I’ll have it on Tuesday, in plenty of time for the trip.

I also ordered a 24-80mm Nikkor AF lens. I’ll be much happier when that puppy arrives. The 70-300mm lens I have now is nice for long-range shots, which is what I wanted most at first, but I definitely need the ability to shoot in closer situations. I really want to have that option in NOLA. A lot of the shots I go for will be travel images, but I don’t want to have to shoot everything from a block away. Besides, I’m going to break my long-standing rule of not photographing cemeteries. It’s cliché, but who can turn down Metairie? I don’t think I’d be able to get enough distance there to use the longer lens.

So tonight I thought I’d be taking Super Jenn out for sushi, but as is turns out she took me. That was a very nice surprise. I’m used to being the one who buys dinner. (I’m not complaining about that. I normally insist.)

Sushi and saké… Much happiness. *grin* I’d had a very long, very rough day. I got up around 9:00 PM Wednesday and worked until 7:30 Thursday morning. Then I worked out with one of my co-workers, which took much longer than I’d intended. It was fun, but it set my schedule back considerably. Next I went out to Mikey World and Shawnaland (a.k.a. their place in Osteen) because I’ll be pig-sitting for about the next week. I needed to make sure I could get my car down the dirt road, and Mike wanted to go over business stuff. I’m looking forward to pig-sitting. It’ll be nice to have some quiet time.

I didn’t make it back in time for hospital visiting hours, so I couldn’t visit Grandma Holland. Got home around 2:30, and I couldn’t sleep. Just as I resigned myself to staying awake, I passed out. Jenn called at 5:30 or so to confirm dinner plans, and I went back to sleep for another hour before I got up to get ready.

All told, I think I got about three hours of sleep. I woke up a few times because of the neighbor’s lawn care service. Even with very little sleep, I’m content right now. Of course, Jenn and I polished off a good bit of saké. That helps, as did the deep-fried cheesecake with chocolate dipping sauce. Yae Sushi rocks, even if I did drive right past it the first time. Oops.

I’m amazed. I’m at a loss.

One of Kerry’s oft-quoted lines was “Every vote will count.” He had Edwards make a speech promising that every vote would be counted before the election was over. He said “We will fight for every vote. You deserve no less.” All night long, I insisted to my co-workers that the outcome of the election wasn’t final. It wasn’t definite. The margin of error still existed. We couldn’t know who the real winner was until all the votes had been counted.

This just floors me. I don’t understand why Kerry conceded the election. He’s currently off by two electoral votes, and although it looks like Bush would win Ohio’s 20 electoral votes there’s still a chance that other states which have only been *predicted* to go to Bush will turn out the other way. We don’t know for certain yet.

Damn.

Each state still has to count absentee and provisional ballots. Florida is not the only state in which the number of ballots not yet counted exceeds the number of votes needed to sway the election. The margin here is approximately 300,000, but other states hinge on half as much or less. Granted, a large number of absentee ballots will have been submitted by those in the military, and the military generally votes Republican. However, right now we don’t even have 100% of all normal votes across the nation tallied. There’s really no way to tell the true outcome of the election yet.

I may be wrong on the details, but I believe the national deadline for counting all absentee ballots is Nov. 12th. After that, they’ll probably still be haggling over provisional ballots - people whose registration is in question, ballots incorrectly cast, etc. That will be hashed out in the courts for weeks. The folks in the Electoral College don’t cast their votes until January 9th, so although the popular vote may (MAY!) be decided by then, the president-elect isn’t formally and legally declared until January.

What’s my point? It isn’t news yet! Normally I enjoy working overnight, but all everyone talked about all night long was the election. CNN (the only choice on the company television) had nothing but election coverage, and I assume it was the same for other news networks. Get over it, people. If you read between the lines, all they’re telling you are PROJECTED victories. We don’t know yet. We can’t know yet.

I think I want to move to Canada.